June 2015's Unearthed Arcana is here!
1: Players roll everything (ex. their defense against attacks, rather than DM rolling monster attacks).
Don't see the appeal here, players take long enough to take their turns as is, I wouldn't want them to take over rolls which the DM makes.
2: Vitality.
Looks like a way for players to die when they otherwise wouldn't by adding some silly math. Not for me.
3: Custom Alignments.
Instead of Good and Evil, you can have Herbivore and Carnivore as an axis, and replace Law and Chaos with Optimist and Pessimist. I generally ignore alignment, so I have no need for variant rules for it.
Spoilered since I don't want to bias anyone else's first impressions.
It was a rather useless article, to me, and annoyed that we will have to wait another month for the possibility of something better. I personally think rolling your AC and save "attack" would just make combat take longer than it does. And one of the good things about 5th edition combats is how short they are compared to 3rd, 4th, and Pathfinder.
Vitality has never seemed needed at all for D&D, and this just seems like too much.
As for the alignment portion... I have no problem with the good/evil/law/chaos alignments, and see no need for something completely different. Remove it all together? I doubt I would play that game, but go ahead.
That sums up my thoughts on this month's UA.
Yeah, it's a big disappointment.
And given how module the classes are, you'd think they could give us at least a few variations each month. Especially for the classes with only a couple official archetypes, like the barbarian, druid, ranger, and sorcerer. At least we got that Stormborn bloodline last month.
How about a gunslinger combat style for fighters, rangers, and paladins?
What would you want guns to be like in 5e? I think crossbows could be reflavored to guns just fine.
They have musketeer guns, modern guns, and laser guns in Chapter 9 of the DMG.
But if they didn't have those rules, I would want them to have Advantage on attack rolls within short range and no Disadvantage within long range, but balance it with a slower re-load time (as an action or maybe even 1d4 actions or 1d8-Dex mod actions or something like that). But that might be unbalanced with Rogue sneak attacks. But it's so easy to sneak attack now, maybe not as unbalancing as I think....
Or maybe the combat style can convert DMG rules to Advantage at short/no Disadvantage at long range?
Sounds like an accuracy adjustment in a different manner from the Archery combat style (though perhaps better if you don't have a good way to generate advantage in the party, and worse if you do).
I was trying to simulate hitting Touch AC....
Mm, I don't think that's a part of firearms I'd want in 5e. Especially since rays don't get advantage against opponents simply because they used to target Touch.
But at the moment I don't really know what I'd want out of another ranged style that isn't covered by feats like Sharpshooter and Crossbow Expert.
Yeah. I know. I GMed for a gunslinger, and it was OK. It was pretty consistent damage, but pretty low damage, if not insignificant damage.
Since there is no touch AC, I think advantage on attack rolls is a pretty good representation of a similar ease of hitting with a gun.