Dragonlance DRAGONLANCE LIVES! Unearthed Arcana Explores Heroes of Krynn!

The latest Unearthed Arcana has arrived and the 6-page document contains rules for kender, lunar magic, Knights of Solamnia, and Mages of High Sorcery.

In today’s Unearthed Arcana, we explore character options from the Dragonlance setting. This playtest document presents the kender race, the Lunar Magic sorcerer subclass, the Knight of Solamnia and Mage of High Sorcery backgrounds, and a collection of new feats, all for use in Dungeons & Dragons.

Kender have a (surprisingly magical) ability to pull things out of a bag, and a supernatural taunt feature. This magical ability appears to replace the older 'kleptomania' description -- "Unknown to most mortals, a magical phenomenon surrounds a kender. Spurred by their curiosity and love for trinkets, curios, and keepsakes, a kender’s pouches or pockets will be magically filled with these objects. No one knows where these objects come from, not even the kender. This has led many kender to be mislabeled as thieves when they fish these items out of their pockets."

Lunar Magic is a sorcerer subclass which draws power from the moon(s); there are notes for using it in Eberron.

Also included are feats such as Adepts of the Black, White, and Red Robes, and Knights of the Sword, Rose, and Crown.

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[This Effin’ GM]

I like most of it. Maybe I read to fast, but the spell feats look worse than magic initiate?

Cross class spell access and ability to choose the ability give them some versatility lacking in magical initiate

 

[cbwjm]

Anyone notice red mages are divination specialists now? That’s interesting. Evocation is now the universal?

Hey yeah, the order focused on illusions is now the order focused on the pursuit of truth. I kind of feel like the designers are now changing things just for the sake of it.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Yea. But that spell and backgrounds were meant for that campaign, not to be pulled out and used universally.

The background and MOST of the feats in this are specifically for Dragonlance. Both Dragonlance and Strixhaven feats aren't broken & can be

Boo. You can't package nonsense and sell nostalgia under the label Dragonlance, no more than you can call a desert Dark Sun but remove cannibalism, slavery, and psionics. It's something else by then. I'm pretty critical because DL (1) was my starting fantasy book reading, (2) my first major gaming world, and (3) a beloved classic I am currently working on revisiting for 5E.

Someone asked what distinguished DL earlier, and to be concise as I can, it was the first D&D setting that had subtypes for dwarves and elves, the first to really link together a narrative story history, and the first to install a story-based adventure path rather than what had previously been sandbox modules for DMs to plug and play. The marketing campaign also set a model for success that had never been done or tried. Project Overlord. Pretty good stuff. Now, onto the bad stuff.

BOO

Kender. First, I think they're a terribly misunderstood gaming race that has been reduced to its worst stereotype by bad writing. Sourcebooks make kender much more complex and meaningful, but those have been lost to time in favor of 1 paragraph descriptors. Sigh. That said, the criticism.

Fey-what??? So kender are now magical Fey beings that create reality out of nothing from any container they carry. Did anyone actually read any of the original setting when coming up with this? If they weren't created by the Graygem of Gargath, then they aren't kender. They're something else you're dressing up with nostalgia and calling kender.

And home run on the kender physical description: "...look like humans with pointed ears and diverse appearances." Pure bleeping poetry.

My solution for kender pockets? Make it a roleplay feature originating from the influence of the chaos stone that created them. Sometimes you unconsciously put something really unique and cool looking in your pouch for later. The roleplay feature allows the DM or even the player to create stories of what and why things are in the pocket that should add to the story. Anyone roleplaying a klepto who steals from the party isn't really getting what a kender actually is. In any event, none of this "you pull a crowbar out of a pouch that only fits 1/5 of a cubic foot" nonsense.

Double BOO

Gold pieces on Krynn? You're whittling away at what makes the setting unique and turning slowly into Forgotten Realms with 3 moons.

Yay.

Lunar Sorcerer. Looks cool. I don't know how moon phases work on a setting with 3 moons that operate on 3 different cycles, but that can be worked on.

Not Bad

Knights as a background with "I joined for the free meals, but their lessons grew on me over time" is terrible. Feat of Squire is freely given but has a pre-requisite of squireship? At 4th level, I can basically skip the hierarchy of the Knights and go straight to the top with Rose. Sarcastically cool. Working through the ranks is boring. That all said, it's an elegantly simple solution to making Knights of Solamnia mean something more than an organization by offering benefits. I wouldn't want my advancement, however, to be tied to taking a Feat.

Wizards. Similar feeling of a simple solution to a complex conversion. I never liked the idea "white robes are always abjurers" as the robes are a philosophy of how magic should be used, but it does tie into original mechanics and I've been busting their chops on keeping things specially tied to the setting. So, a plus, though it's a hard sell to turn down +2 INT at 4th level in favor of a Feat.

It also doesn't solve renegades who opt out of the Towers for the lure of forbidden magic. The Towers give you cool abilities and access to the world's stockpile of spells, so it might behoove one to explain why a wizard would turn that all down. In the novels, renegades did things with magic that were terrifically powered and considered forbidden, such as creating Dreadwolves and unleashing what might be seen as wild sorcerery.

I suspect the gold coins were for general Kender from any world and DL will still use steel coins, I'm not expecting any major reference in general to the Feywild in the book as well, I mean I think DL will have one, just that it won't be touched upon much if at all outside of the single Kender reference.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Hey yeah, the order focused on illusions is now the order focused on the pursuit of truth. I kind of feel like the designers are now changing things just for the sake of it.

It's not too late to change that.

 

[This Effin’ GM]

Hey yeah, the order focused on illusions is now the order focused on the pursuit of truth. I kind of feel like the designers are now changing things just for the sake of it.

Throwing this out there, but you try telling a white mage “no fireballs are for red mages put it back”

I tried.

 

[Dire Bare]

Just getting into this . . . .

My first impression is YAY! We're getting an updated Dragonlance!

My next impression is that I don't like the way the kender is handled. I DO think that the kender's traditional kleptomania as an inherited or cultural trait needs to die in a fire, but I don't like the solution here.

Kender were problematic from Day 1 back in the AD&D days, it's going to be tough to update them, keep them recognizable, make them flexible PC options, and jettison the problematic elements of the race. Kudos to WotC for trying, but I don't think they've hit the mark here.

Krynn does have fey, but the feywild (or Faerie) hasn't been an important part of the setting. So, explaining away part of their nature as being connected to the feywild I don't care for. I also don't care for the explanation behind any of the kender traits listed.

Kender "handling" (or thieving or kleptomania). I think the solution here is to treat kender like they are NOT all idiot children. Allow their culture to NOT have the concept of personal property, which causes issues with other cultures, but . . . kender can be intelligent enough to understand that OTHERS do value personal property, and not be constantly "handling" everybody else's stuff. Some kender handle and scoff at the big folk's upset, others learn to respect the ways of others and keep their hands to themselves when not in Kenderhome. The "Kender Ace" mechanic here I'm actually fine with, just don't try to make it magical. Kender pick up all sorts of random stuff, sometimes "handled", sometimes just found.

Kender traditionally aren't so much brave, as they lack fear. This I would be okay with as a racial trait, if described better. It's a pyschological lack of a fear impulse, not really bravery. Kender can certainly be brave, their just not more inclined towards it. EDIT: Maybe have them be resistant to magical fear, I'm not sure.

I also don't really like "Taunt" as a supernatural ability. This stems back from the depiction of kender as child-like, being able to infuriate others with the child-like taunting. Personally, I'd jettison this idea entirely. Or maybe make it an optional feat that gives a bonus to a skill check. It's something learned, not something inherent.

I haven't had much of a chance to look at the rest of the document yet . . . .

 

[Gadget]

Well, that was an interesting take. I have not dug through all the responses, but I'm not really into Kender (I have always thought of them as innocents, rather like children, as their name is close to the German word for children). I agree they can be irritating at the table, but amusing comic relief in the stories.

I like the Moon Magic, and would hope their would be Moon subclasses for Wizard, Warlock, & possibly Bard in the Setting book though. If they must make the setting a generic and lowest common denominator as possible that is. I'm not sure about the feats, as feats were a major mechanical balance headache in the previous two editions (whether they were 'taxes' to do something, or 'chains' to suck up all your resources to do something else), but these are very closely tie with the lore and background.

I was hoping 5.e/Anniversary Edition would lean more towards class abilities like martial maneuvers, eldritch invocations, meta-magic, etc; or super generic like Keen Mind or Skilled.

Back to Moon Magic, I had thought that Black Robes favored Necromancy and Enchantment, with Red using Illusion and Transmutation, and White Abjuration & Divination (or was the Evocation?). Am I misremembering?

 

[Jer]

They tried this with the Kender that were affected by dragonfear during the age of something or other. Kender with sour attitudes, severe ptsd, and metal claw finger gloves.

I wouldn't call that "removing their obnoxious behavior patterns" - I'd call that "replacing one obnoxious behavior pattern with a different one."

Very much like Marvel turning Speedball into Penance due to ptsd and survivor's guilt. Just - not a good idea.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Cross class spell access and ability to choose the ability give them some versatility lacking in magical initiate

I wouldn’t say any of that is enough to lose a spell over.

 

[This Effin’ GM]

Ope I just looked it up. Evo was on 3e a universal one, I had misremembered. Divination was white but is now red. Everything got shaken up