Dragonlance Dragonlance adaptation to D&D 5th Edition

I have just uploaded Dragonlance adaptation to D&D 5th Edition to the downloads area.

A Dragonlance adaptation to the 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons.
For a good understanding of this document´s content, you should have at least the Dungeon and Dragons Basic Rules and one of the many Dragonlance campaign setting books. We used the 3rd edition Dragonlance Campaign Setting as a general reference to write it.


You can find the file here in the downloads section. Please use this thread for comments.

Feel free to read it, use it and, if you want, comment here what you think.


EDIT: Current version: 2.3

shouldn't the Death Throes' DC follow the standard 8 + proficiency bonus + relevant ability modifier?

Also, why not just use the Duergar PC sub-race from Mordenkainen's and SCAG for the Daergar and Zhakar?

Finally, I always got the impression that the Theiwar were less based upon the dwarves . . . and more on the Derro.
They also need some kind of innate spellcasting at the very least, and I would argue that they should be a Charisma sub-class too, since they had a reputation as being deceitful and manipulative.

Thanks for reading and to make time to comment Bitbrain. I´ll go part by part:

Bitbrain said:

shouldn't the Death Throes' DC follow the standard 8 + proficiency bonus + relevant ability modifier?

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Yes, we considered it and finally established a fixed number looking for a faster pace in play (after all the magnitude´s Death Throes explosions not depends of any of the draconian character´s abilities, but a different threat). Considering the draconians are monsters AND PC races, we tried to maintain coherence between both. But definitely we are revising that.

Bitbrain said:

Also, why not just use the Duergar PC sub-race from Mordenkainen's and SCAG for the Daergar and Zhakar?

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In the first version of the Guide it was like you say. But revising the 3e Dragonlance Campaign Setting and Races of Ansalon we realized that the Duergar and the Daergar and Zhakar has little (or nothing) in common. With that books in mind we created a more accurate to Dragonlance version of the Dark Dwarves.

Bitbrain said:

Finally, I always got the impression that the Theiwar were less based upon the dwarves . . . and more on the Derro.
They also need some kind of innate spellcasting at the very least, and I would argue that they should be a Charisma sub-class too, since they had a reputation as being deceitful and manipulative.

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You are right. We unificated all the Dark Dwarves clans in one subrace using, like I say above, the 3e Dragonlance Campaign Setting and the Races of Ansalon books as guides, but it is really a good idea to make an optional Theiwar subrace.

When 5e first game out, I updated Draconians to 5e for my game and posted them in the Downloads section as well. A couple of your Draconians are very similar to mine.

Good to see someone is interested as well. I do like that you made them into playable races as well; I never got that far into it.

Nice work; I particularly like Mystic as a background, though I could see a case being made for the Favored Soul.

A few suggestions:

On Page 4 (of the PDF) in your Languages sidebar, you refer readers to an out of print 3.5e sourcebook. Since it is unlikely that everyone has access to this book, I would remove the reference.

On page 6 (of the PDF) I'd take another look at your wording for the kender's Taunt ability. I feel it could be clearer.

In several places: 5e graphic standards have spell names as lowercase and italicized. In your document, spell names are capitalized and not italic.

On page 9 (of the PDF) under dragonarmies, it would be more helpful to list them as "formally dissolved in AC XXX" instaed of just "actually dissolved."

Again, nice work.

Might I make a suggestion regarding Moon Magic?

Instead of increasing the DC of the caster's spells, allow them to cast those spells as if they were of a higher caster level. That, or allow the casters to count as a level higher (like they were in previous editions). While this doesn't allow them access to new spells when they are of a higher level, it will allow them to access to more spells and the ability to cast one of their known spells at a higher spell level.

Just a thought.

Cool! I'm running a Dragonlance 5E campaign myself (set 300 years after DoSF). I just ignored the whole Age of Mortals/War of Souls timeline and branched off from DoSF.

I’ll admit my approach was just to reskin or only lightly touch up the available 5E races and classes as much as possible. Phaethons (for instance) are just winged tieflings (per SCAG) with a few rules for their wings being made of fire (dim light, combust materials, etc.). Kender are just halflings, Tinker Gnomes are just rock gnomes, etc. Bakali are lizardmen from VGM. The recent UA rules for centaurs and minotaurs can be used as-is. PC draconians are the “natural born” descendants of the original dragonians and just use the 5E dragonborn stats. The death throes rules of “the firstborn draconians” make for good monsters but bad player characters IMO. It’s pretty obvious from all the Dragonlance references throughout the 5E books that 5E was designed with this approach in mind.

Part of why I took this approach was laziness, but another part was that with the disappearance of the Greygem at the end of DoSF, it seemed reasonable that the madness of the gnomes, dwarves, gully dwarves, and kender would leave them, and you’d be left with the more toned down versions you find in the 5E PHB. Which make for more playable and less disruptive PCs, to be perfectly honest.

Since I was making my own timeline though, and not attempting to publish a “faithful conversion”, I also wrote up how the War of Chaos and Takhisis’ repeated piercing of the Gray between Krynn and the Abyss resulted in sorcerers and warlocks making an appearance. Those are the only classes that really needed an explanation for appearing on Krynn.

Fun! I started converting the Heroes of the Lance, which is far easier in 5e than it was in 4e. They transfer over ok with their original stats, although picking the right sub-classes and feats is fun. Tika even got a write up as a fighter with her thieves' abilities being covered off with her background in 5e.

Raunalyn said:

When 5e first game out, I updated Draconians to 5e for my game and posted them in the Downloads section as well. A couple of your Draconians are very similar to mine.

Good to see someone is interested as well. I do like that you made them into playable races as well; I never got that far into it.

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Great! We used the 2e and 3e draconians as reference to make them as monsters and from there it was not difficult to think them as a race. I hope you can use our material to complement yours.

Ath-kethin said:

Nice work; I particularly like Mystic as a background, though I could see a case being made for the Favored Soul.

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Thanks. We want to enhace the core book as the only book you need to play Dragonlance. But I think the Favored Soul is a perfect match for a Krynn Mystic too.

Ath-kethin said:

On Page 4 (of the PDF) in your Languages sidebar, you refer readers to an out of print 3.5e sourcebook. Since it is unlikely that everyone has access to this book, I would remove the reference.

On page 6 (of the PDF) I'd take another look at your wording for the kender's Taunt ability. I feel it could be clearer.

- I actually really love your take on kender overall. The Pitiable trait for afflicted kender is just so sad. Well done! You may, however, want to spend a bit of text explaining the difference between True and Afflicted kender, for readers who are not as familiar with the setting and its lore.​

In several places: 5e graphic standards have spell names as lowercase and italicized. In your document, spell names are capitalized and not italic.

On page 9 (of the PDF) under dragonarmies, it would be more helpful to list them as "formally dissolved in AC XXX" instaed of just "actually dissolved."

Again, nice work.

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Thanks a lot for the suggestion, all are welcome and I will try to incorporate in the next version of the document.
About the difference between True and Afflicted kender I think you are right, and when we write the guide we added a little description in the "subrace" entry, but we didn´t to extend a lot more thinking in possible legal issues.
It´s great you liked the Kenders!