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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[TwoSix]

what square pegs were forced for Strixhaven?

I'll be honest, even as a reboot fan and MtG setting fan in general, I do think trying to use the existing D&D magic system instead of making 5 new caster classes is a bit painful.

I get why they did it, but it's still not the best.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think you're forgetting that there's also a portion of the fanbase (i.e. me) that is both familiar with the old material AND finds modern changes to the settings to be for the better. It's not simply an "old fan" vs "new fan" dichotomy.

Fundamentally, I LIKE reboots; they give you the feeling of familiarity and the thrill of the novel in one package.

Oh, I know there are people like you; many have contributed to this thread. I also believe that WotC has far more interest in pleasing fans who got into the game post-2014 than anyone else. A new setting would cater to those people, and avoid angry fans of older settings complaining about what they've done to the classic stuff in the 21st century. It would reduce controversy, which i believe is also something they want to do. And a new setting might very well appeal to older fans on its own merits (you never know).

Release the older settings to DMs Guild, and make new settings to forge ahead. Maybe one of the Guild creators will make that "reboot" you said you like. In fact, I'd say in that circumstance it's pretty likely.

 

[Maxperson]

Feats
And now we get to the other MtG mechanic, feat trees. I don’t like them. Unless you get a feat for free (and not all of these starter feats are free) you are looking at waiting until level 8 to realize your character, at the cost of two ASIs. While trailing by 1 on all your main class rolls is workable, trailing by 2 is just not fun. And that’s ignoring the actual power of the feats.

You don't trail behind anything, though. The game is balanced around 14-16 in your stat. Pushing for that extra +1 or +2 puts gives you a bit of an increase and makes an already easy game a bit easier. Well, so do those feats. They also give you a bit of an increase and make an already easy game a bit easier. It's 6 in one, half dozen in the other.

If you prefer plusses, take those. If you're like me and would rather take an increase that is fun, take feats.

 

[TwoSix]

Oh, I know there are people like you; many have contributed to this thread. I also believe that WotC has far more interest in pleasing fans who got into the game post-2014 than anyone else. A new setting would cater to those people, and avoid angry fans of older settings complaining about what they've done to the classic stuff in the 21st century. It would reduce controversy, which i believe is also something they want to do. And a new setting might very well appeal to older fans on its own merits (you never know).

Release the older settings to DMs Guild, and make new settings to forge ahead. Maybe one of the Guild creators will make that "reboot" you said you like. In fact, I'd say in that circumstance it's pretty likely.

New settings would be great, too.

 

[This Effin’ GM]

I also believe that WotC has far more interest in pleasing fans who got into the game post-2014 than anyone else.

Rise of Tiamat, Baldurs Gate, Tomb of Annihilation, princes of the apocalypse, storm kings thunder, curse of Strahd, dungeon of the mad mage: all attempts to appeal to more established players. Even their new adventures are chock full of Easter eggs and references to npcs and places and events that only players who have knowledge of former editions will really be able to get something out of.

Release the older settings to DMs Guild

They have. They do on a weekly basis, they reprint things that were for years only able to be purchased online for insane prices and now we can get them for a very reasonable price. Domains of Dread reprint is sitting on my shelf now and Red Hand of Doom, and Planescape are on their way to me in the mail as I type this.

WotC could have very easily just killed those previous IPs. Just completely dropped them, no reprints, no anything. But they have set up a structure that ensures everyone can get something, old new and people who enjoy a mix.

 

[TwoSix]

You don't trail behind anything, though. The game is balanced around 14-16 in your stat. Pushing for that extra +1 or +2 puts gives you a bit of an increase and makes an already easy game a bit easier. Well, so do those feats. They also give you a bit of an increase and make an already easy game a bit easier. It's 6 in one, half dozen in the other.

If you prefer plusses, take those. If you're like me and would rather take an increase that is fun, take feats.

As someone who likes feats and dislikes ASIs, but recognizes that ASIs are generally "better" from a math perspective, the solution I've come to prefer is simply higher starting stats. Let someone start with a 18-20 in their main stat after racial adjustments, and people naturally gravitate to feats.

As you said, it makes an already easy low-level game easier, but that's trivial to manage.

 

[RoughCoronet0]

Is it bad that we just got this UA and I’m already wondering what’s next. Are we going to get more UA for Dragonlance, such as more subclasses and races? Or are we going to get another UA that is connected to whatever book the Travelers of the Multiverse UA was for.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Is it bad that we just got this UA and I’m already wondering what’s next. Are we going to get more UA for Dragonlance, such as more subclasses and races? Or are we going to get another UA that is connected to whatever book the Travelers of the Multiverse UA was for.

honestly same, I love the buzz and the fuss it is delectable.
please bring us psionic even if only for the discussions as they will be glorious.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Rise of Tiamat, Baldurs Gate, Tomb of Annihilation, princes of the apocalypse, storm kings thunder, curse of Strahd, dungeon of the mad mage: all attempts to appeal to more established players. Even their new adventures are chock full of Easter eggs and references to npcs and places and events that only players who have knowledge of former editions will really be able to get something out of.





They have. They do on a weekly basis, they reprint things that were for years only able to be purchased online for insane prices and now we can get them for a very reasonable price. Domains of Dread reprint is sitting on my shelf now and Red Hand of Doom, and Planescape are on their way to me in the mail as I type this.

WotC could have very easily just killed those previous IPs. Just completely dropped them, no reprints, no anything. But they have set up a structure that ensures everyone can get something, old new and people who enjoy a mix.

WotC has changed their philosophy in the last 3-4 years, and has been marketing very hard to new players. Many of the designers are old fans, so I'm not surprised they like to throw in old references, but it seems clear their target demographic has changed relatively recently.

And I didn't mean releasing old product as pdf; they've been doing that for a while and I'm appreciative of it. I meant releasing settings to the Guild so independent creators can produce their own 5e products utilizing the IP from those settings. Only a handful of those have been released.

 

[Maxperson]

As someone who likes feats and dislikes ASIs, but recognizes that ASIs are generally "better" from a math perspective, the solution I've come to prefer is simply higher starting stats. Let someone start with a 18-20 in their main stat after racial adjustments, and people naturally gravitate to feats.

As you said, it makes an already easy low-level game easier, but that's trivial to manage.

Even the math isn't that spectacular. It sounds great on paper. "You get a 10% or 20%(I forget the percentage) increase in damage!!!!" Then you realize, or at least some realize, that when you're hitting for a d8+5 damage that 20% only amounts to an extra 1 point or so of damage on average. It's like when the news tells you that eating X food triples your chances of a heart attack, where your chances were .0000001 before.

It wouldn't matter if the feat did absolutely no extra damage in combat. The fun from the feat is still worth more than a point or two extra on a hit.

Edit: We also roll stats, so the starting stat is often higher to begin with. I realized early that high stats don't really matter in 5e and I have to challenge the group in other ways.