Arcana Unearthed: A Variant Player's Handbook

by Monte Cook, Sue Weinlein Cook (Editor)

Introduction
Chapter 1 - Abilities
Chapter 2 - Races
Chapter 3 - Classes
Chapter 4 - Skills
Chapter 5 - Feats and Talents
Chapter 6 - Equipment
Chapter 7 - Playing the Game
Chapter 8 - Magic
Chapter 9 - Spells
Appendix (Index)

Intended as a full (drop-in) replacement for D&D 3.x PHB; published under the Open Game License.

Genres: Role Playing Games, Gaming, Fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons

254 pages, Hardcover

First published July 26, 2003

About the author

The game designer
Monte Cook started working professionally in the game industry in 1988. In the employ of Iron Crown Enterprises, he worked with the Rolemaster and Champions games as an editor, developer, and designer. In 1994, Monte came to TSR, Inc., as a game designer and wrote for the Planescape and core D&D lines. When that company was purchased by Wizards of the Coast, he moved to the Seattle area and eventually became a senior game designer. At Wizards, he wrote the 3rd Edition Dungeon Master's Guide and served as codesigner of the new edition of the Dungeons & Dragons game. In 2001, he left Wizards to start his own design studio, Malhavoc Press, with his wife Sue. Although in his career he has worked on over 100 game titles, some of his other credits include Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, The Book of Eldritch Might series, the d20 Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying Game, The Book of Vile Darkness, Monte Cook’s Arcana Evolved, Ptolus, Monte Cook's World of Darkness, and Dungeonaday.com. He was a longtime author of the Dungeoncraft column in Dungeon Magazine. In recent years, Monte has been recognized many times by game fans in the ENnies Awards, the Pen & Paper fan awards, the Nigel D. Findley Memorial Award, the Origins Awards, and more.

The author
A graduate of the 1999 Clarion West writer's workshop, Monte has published two novels, The Glass Prison and Of Aged Angels. Also, he has published the short stories "Born in Secrets" (in the magazine Amazing Stories), "The Rose Window" (in the anthology Realms of Mystery), and "A Narrowed Gaze" (in the anthology Realms of the Arcane). His stories have appeared in the Malhavoc Press anthologies Children of the Rune and The Dragons' Return, and his comic book writing can be found in the Ptolus: City by the Spire series from DBPro/Marvel. His fantasy fiction series, "Saga of the Blade," appeared in Game Trade Magazine from 2005–2006.

The geek
In his spare time, Monte runs games, plays with his dog, watches DVDs, builds vast dioramas out of LEGO building bricks, paints miniatures, and reads a lot of comics.

Reviews

[Juno Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Put some respect on this name.

[Caleb Wachter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book does everything I want a variant supplement to do: it keeps me coming back over, and over, and over again to peruse its contents.

The assortment of alternate rules are beyond robust; I've never even considered employing them all, but the scope and scale of each new offshoot is within the parameters established by its fellows, which is a very tricky thing to accomplish when designing a system like this. I suppose that's why Monte Cook is the master ;)

I absolutely recommend this volume for anyone looking to take things in a little different direction without requiring overmuch review to ensure game balance is maintained. The author's done all the work for you in that department, and it's a fantastic addition to any D&D library.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

The good: The races aren't standard Tolkien fare, and the work done on the caster classes is pretty interesting. The bad: The setting takes itself way too seriously, and the martial classes are boring. Also, it includes a swashbuckler-equivalent at launch; that's supposed to be saved for the eventual feature bloat that takes a system down. ;)

All in all interesting, and I might consider replacing standard magic classes with these if I go back to the 3.X ruleset, but I doubt I'd ever dive in completely.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is second only to Arcana Evolved. I haven't read that all the way through, so I can't rate it. Needless to say, I prefer this system over D&D. It's great, even if you don't like the default setting, the classes transfer over to most fantasy games easily. It just feels a lot cleaner, more streamlined than 3rd edition D&D.

[Abraham Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

nice alternative dnd 3.0 dook!