Forgotten Realms Wiki
Register
Advertisement
Forgotten Realms Wiki

Unearthed Arcana is a 1st-edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons accessory.

"...All the new discoveries, plus a wealth of just uncovered secrets, between one pair of covers." This, the latest of the AD&D game books, further defines and describes the game system. Inside are new spells, character classes, magic items, weapons, and much more for both players and Dungeon Masters.

Description[]

Unearthed Arcana was written by Gary Gygax with design and editing contributions by Jeff Grubb and Kim Mohan, respectively, and published by TSR in 1985.

Unearthed Arcana was divided into two sections: one for players and one for the Dungeon Master. The book provided new races, classes, and other expansion material. The book gives details on using "subraces" of the standard races, such as dark elves (drow), and deep gnomes (svirfneblin), for use as player characters and non-player characters.

The book includes new weapons, and revised information on character level maximums for non-human player characters. Unearthed Arcana details the weapon specialization rules, in which a fighter or ranger "can adopt a weapon as a special arm, and receive bonuses in its use". The book also describes the comeliness attribute, and contains new spells. The DM's section covers suggestions for handling player characters, social class and rank tables, many new magic items, weaponless combat rules, and nonhuman deities.

Unearthed Arcana includes the barbarian, cavalier, and thief-acrobat character classes, and also includes expansions and revisions of the druid and ranger classes.

Gygax reportedly produced the book to raise money as TSR was deeply in debt at the time. He announced in the March 1985 issue of Dragon magazine that Unearthed Arcana would be released in the summer of that year. He proposed the book as "an interim volume to expand the Dungeon Masters Guide and Players Handbook", as the information was spread out in several places and difficult to keep track of.

Contents[]

  • Character Abilities (Comeliness)
  • Character Races
    • Dwarves
    • Elves
    • Gnomes
    • Half-elves
    • Halflings
    • Half-orcs
    • Humans
  • Character Classes
    • Cavalier
      • Paladin
    • Druid
    • Fighter
      • Barbarian
      • Ranger
    • Thief
      • Thief-Acrobat
  • Money (for cavaliers)
  • Equipping The Character
  • Armor
  • Weapons
  • Character Spells
    • Spell Tables
    • Cleric Spells
    • Druid Spells
    • Magic-User Spells (Cantrips)
    • Magic-User Spells
    • Illusionist Spells (Cantrips)
    • Illusionist Spells

Gallery[]

Appendix[]

See Also[]

Advertisement