Post originally by Bhikku at 2003-08-05 12:13:35
Converted from Phorums BB System

Having played some Palladium Fantasy (1st and 2nd edition), I can offer a bit of feedback (although my books are packed away now, so i can't double-check them). The various Witches, as well as access to Energy Mage feats, can provide element-flavored magic that should make players fond of warloks feel pretty much at home. Magisters fill in the essential "can do anything wizardly" slot that many of us crave, with a lot of options for modifying style and spell availability thanks to the assorted feats. The combat-classes provide, I think, more diversity and cooler flavor than Palladium's did (i always felt those combat classes to be the least interesting part of that game), and the selection of magical types is different from but comperable to what Palladium offered. One element that struck me as very familiar was the Runethane - fans of diabolists will probably adapt quickly to this class, though different players will of course have different favorites where this comes in.

The selection of races (each with what you might call a brief, built-in RCC) has diversity, options, and flavor that I would say compares favorably with Palladium's spin on the usual fantasy fall-backs. AU's races have history and relations built in at a level not far off from what you may be used to. This appeals to me largely because i'm a bit tired of the "same old, same old"ness of elves, dwarves, etc. I'm still quite fond of elves, mind you, but i like seeing something different show up. It would be no real trouble to plug in races from other resources, particularly those without any ECLs - in fact, the Montecook.com messageboards have a thread on developing racial levels for the PHB races.

Different players' mileage is going to vary, thats a given; but i started to find out about this book while I was designing a campaign in which i intended to do radical things with the core races and select an unusual array of classes (including variants from the Malhavoc books and new classes from Oriental Adventures and so forth); i've found that Arcana Unearthed has already done practically everything I could want, saving me a lot of time and worry. You may get different results, depending on what you're used to; converting a campaign from Palladium to AU won't be simple and straightforward, but if you were to switch campaigns from one to the other, I think you would not find yourself lacking.