What is UA?

[Trandir]

Well I've seen a couple of 5e Uneathed Arcana and I don't hunderstand what are they, not exactly at least.

Can someone explain this to me?

[Zhorn]

Ideas that the WotC team have and want to get playtest responses on. If things work out and resonate well with the community, they'll pop up in a book somewhere down the line, usually with a fair bit more polish than how they appeared in the UA.

[Arkhios]

"You can think of the material presented in this series as similar to the first wave of the fifth edition playtest. These game mechanics are in draft form, usable in your campaign but not fully tempered by playtests and design iterations. They are highly volatile and might be unstable; if you use them, be ready to rule on any issues that come up. They’re written in pencil, not ink.

The material presented in Unearthed Arcana will range from mechanics that we expect one day to publish in a supplement to house rules from our home campaigns that we want to share, from core system options such as mass combat to setting-specific material such as the Eberron update included in this article. Once it’s out there, you can expect us to check in with you to see how it’s working out and what we can do to improve it."




link to the first 5th edition Unearthed Arcana, found on the Official D&D website (https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/unearthed-arcana-eberron).

It used to/was supposed to be a monthly series of unfinished playtest articles, but the period gradually changed several times. Now it just comes up sporadically when they feel like they have something to share, without a further notice (more or less).

Before 5th edition, I think Unearthed Arcana was last used in 3rd edition (or at least I don't recall if 4th edition used it for anything), where it was a book that compiled variant rules used by the designers and some popular house rules from the community and designers.

[Knaight]

Think of them as essentially analogous to an alpha/beta in a video game - it's unfinished material released early for testing by the broader community.

[Sariel Vailo]

Speaking of that monk weapons things, on the new UA I enjoy

[Arkhios]

Speaking of that monk weapons things, on the new UA I enjoy

...I've been wondering the whole day: how is this relevant to the OP's question?

[Sigreid]

I'd phrase it as putting out to the player base "we've been kicking around these ideas. What do you think? Any of this worth pursuing?"