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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[darjr]

The immune to fear thing….

I dint think in fiction “immune to fear” necessarily means it must be represented by D&D mechanics immune to the frightened condition.

 

[Marandahir]

This is admittedly the part that grinds my gears. If others like it, I applaud them.

I believe when Eberron was first released, Ravenloft was part of the Deep Etherial*. I actually really like the idea of the Cyre 1313 domain, but explicit connections between the Mournland and the Domains of Dread are a new thing, so far as I know.

*I have a vague recollection of it being resituated in the Demiplane of Shadow for awhile in 3e, but I could be wrong.

Domains of Dread were in the Shadowfell in 4e, and Cyre 1313 was a Domain of Dread in 4e too, to my recollection.

Ravenloft in the Deep Ethereal predated the developments of the Plane of Shadow's prominent role in the setting, which made much more sense for the story of Ravenloft (shared gothic horror vibes). The only real purpose of the connection was the Mists stuff. And as 5e has stated, the Deep Ethereal is a road into the Shadowfell, the Feywild, and the Inner Planes (or more specifically, the Elemental Chaos churning at their heart). It's a foggy bottom mess of a place, but we like it like that down there.

 

[Umbran]

Why is anyone obliged to justify their reasons for disliking a change to you, or anyone else?

Nobody is obliged to justify. On the other hand, these are discussion boards. If you're going to state your dislike, it is okay for folks to assume you're going to, you know, discuss your dislike.

Okay. Proves my point, then.

The above said, maybe when folks say they don't want to engage with you, you should just let them, rather than claim victory, hm? I mean, the point was to learn things, not to "win", right?

 

[Kobold Stew]

For me, the real issue comes with the feat chains, and giving a feat as part of backgrounds.
Feat-chains by themselves are potentially viable -- and in a sense exist already:

moderately armored -- medium armor master
modertaely armored -- shield master

are both "chains", though it is trivial with class choice to bypass the first part of the chain.

By giving a feat as part of a background feature, this is really just shutting off options to most players without a certain background by four levels. The second-in-sequence feats additionally have a prerequiste of levels, which is not true of any other feat.

(This I presume, is to prevent Variant humans from starting as knights in their first level), with a background a d feat choice.) The whole thing just smacks of making exceptions to a structure that is for the most part balanced:
-- intro feat chains
-- intro mechanical abilities (including a feat) in background features
-- intro spell effects via a feat up to 5 levels early (level 5 commune at character level 4), countered by
-- intro recovery on 1d4 long rests (any cycle longer than "per long rest")

That's four exceptions (at least). Whether or not it is balanced, it just feels like bad game design.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Tabaxi are my bane. Always annoyingly problematic. Always.

Studio Ghibli has the Cat Bus and D&D has the Tabaxi Taxi.

 

[ersatzphil]

Cyre 1313 was a Domain of Dread in 4e too, to my recollection.

I don't believe Ravenloft was supported in 4e, aside from a single article in Dragon #416.

I can't seem to lay my hand on it just now, but I remember seeing something written by one of the Wizards people who worked on the nuts and bolts of acquiring TSR - they said something along the lines of, "We hear you. No more Ravenloft". I kind of suspect that the relative success of it in 5e came as a surprise to them.

Edit: Found it: Aquiring TSR
"We listened when customers told us that they didn't want the confusing, jargon filled world of Planescape. We listened when people told us that the Ravenloft concept was overshadowed by the products of a competitor."

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Out of curiosity, why aren't folks allowed to dislike the change because they liked the old version better? It's not like the options are limited to "change always good" and "change always bad."

That depends on what they are defending. Is is something that makes them look like a racist, homophobic, sexist or is it neutral and not connected to the real world? In the case of the Kender, either the person just does not understand the horrible stereotypes they are partly based on, or they do understand and see nothing wrong with that or believe those real-life stereotypes.

 

[JEB]

I don't believe Ravenloft was supported in 4e, aside from a single article in Dragon #416.

Looks like multiple articles, according to Mistipedia.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

The immune to fear thing….

I dint think in fiction “immune to fear” necessarily means it must be represented by D&D mechanics immune to the frightened condition.

Yeah, kender are not brave or immune to fear, they are foolhardy. They just don't understand they are supposed to be afraid. There is actually a real-world thing, where some people just do not have fear responses, but are not exactly brave.

 

[JEB]

That depends on what they are defending. Is is something that makes them look like a racist, homophobic, sexist or is it neutral and not connected to the real world? In the case of the Kender, either the person just does not understand the horrible stereotypes they are partly based on, or they do understand and see nothing wrong with that or believe those real-life stereotypes.

Or the person disagrees with the premise that the kender are a concept rooted in bigotry.