First Published 22 November 2016 | Last Updated 7 February 2020

Unearthed Arcana have existed in many guises and configurations since the early days of the game, nearly 40 years ago. They are usually rules extensions of various types, but with the 5th edition of the game it was decided to use the UA slightly differently.

3rd and 4th edition loaded the shelves with so many books containing so many character variations and alternate rules that not only did the general public eventually cry overload, they also (more importantly) complained that many of the variations were not properly balanced when used in the game. To combat this problem in 5th edition, every month (sometimes even weekly), the D&D team issue a beta test straight to Unearthed Arcana that the general public can use in their games and provide feedback on. Once the public have given their seal of approval, these variants will then eventually make their way into official published content.

Examples of the sorts of variations we have seen published are -

• New Barbarian Primal Paths
• New Bard Colleges
• Tiefling Variants
• Options to make quick characters
• New fighting styles
• New Ranger Archetypes

There are plenty more available, so have a look at the D&D website to see if any are useful to you. All of The Forgotten Realms themed ones can be used in our game, should a fitting scenario arise, but they will obviously be at my discretion as there are some odd combos here.