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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[Parmandur]

Okay I was pretty sure the sentence I wrote included the words "or more limited". Looking at both my post above and your quote of it, I indeed read the words "or more limited".

So, now I just have to wonder, in what world are restrictions "on what options are open" not limitations?

The point is that they are in no way weaker; 2 Cantrips, and a first level Spell that can be used once a long rest. Indeed, there are fewer restrictions in other directions: the new Spells get added to the PC's Class Spells, and can use whatever casting ability desired. As Feats, they are equivalent to any from the PHB.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

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.

I prefer to just give a +1 and a feat at ASI levels.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Shows what you know about the lore.

For one, as anyone should, there should be lore consistency with D&D. And there hasn't been since after 3e.

You think that setting-lore-inconsistency is something that Wizards of the Coast invented for D&D? That is just laughably wrong. How many retcons and world-changing events happened to official D&D settings while TSR was in charge? There was the Time of Troubles for the Forgotten Realms, the Prism Pentad for Dark Sun, and the various different eras and versions of the Dragonlance setting all before TSR was bought by WotC. Lore retcons and inconsistencies within D&D settings have been around waaaaay earlier than D&D 3e.

If anything, Wizards of the Coast inherited a mess of lore-inconsistencies and revisions that they had to sort through and choose to do their own take/versions on.

WotC doesn't need to shove core aspects of the generic game into every single world. I thought each setting was supposed to be different?

They are. They still are. Have you bought any recently published setting books? The settings are absolutely different. Strixhaven is completely different from Theros, which is completely different from Eberron, which is completely different from Ravenloft, which is completely different from Exandria, which is completely different from Ravnica. Sharing a few common aspects between most/a few settings is absolutely nothing new to D&D, and is something that's been a part of the hobby since it began. Ever since the game was released, there have always been base assumptions about the races/monsters that will be included there. Most settings in TSR-era D&D included Dwarves, Elves, Halflings, and Humans, and often also included Goblinoids, Orcs, Kobolds, Gnolls, and all of the same classes. Mystara, Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, and Dragonlance all had Dwarves, Elves, Halflings (well, Kender for Dragonlance, but they are basically the same thing), and Humans. Out of those five settings, only Dragonlance and Dark Sun don't Goblinoids, Orcs, and Gnolls.

Each setting can absolutely be very different from each other while also sharing common elements. Dark Sun is absolutely different from Eberron and Mystara, even if they all share similar races.

How does force-feeding Feywild material onto a race that has had dozens of novels dedicated to portraying their origin and lifestyle a good thing people are supposed to just accept? I find it illogical to mess with what was never broken or wrong. It's like someone taking your pepperoni pizza the way you like it and just pouring tobasco sauce all over it for no reason other than "It's what we believe will sell better to the new customers and not old customers like you."

Again, blame TSR for this. A shared multiverse has been a thing in D&D since AD&D, with the introduction of the Planescape and Spelljammer settings. Connecting the Feywild to the a lot of D&D settings is no more outrageous than giving every D&D world a Crystal Sphere and the Great Wheel Cosmology.

They were magical in origin only, other than that they're not really fey and never had a connection to them. They're simply kleptos which explains why they had random items on them. Nothing magical about it. Nothing Fey about it. But now they're literally "pulling rabbits out of hats" is ridiculous and a travesty to the fans of the setting. Even the Taunt is supernatural!? Really? It's not because they've spent centuries perfecting the art instead?

"There was nothing magical about them" and "they had magical origins" are contradictory statements. Also, getting rid of the main thing that made many DMs and players hate the race (genetically-enforced kleptomania) is overall a beneficial thing to the setting and game as a whole.

What I can't fathom is the logic that WotC needs to rearrange the lore on things that don't need changes to begin with. I say 99% of the edition war issues is because of them creating divisiveness amongst the base by messing with things in D&D that shouldn't be messed with. Improved upon, yes. Retcon? No.

Here's the thing, you're saying that retconning something is inherently bad. I fundamentally disagree with this. If Gully Dwarves get retconned out of existence, I think that would absolutely be a good thing. They're chock full of ableist and bigoted stereotypes of mentally disabled peoples, and definitely should not be published in this day and age. Getting rid of them would be a retcon, yes, but retcons are not fundamentally bad things. Retcons are tools. They can be misused, yes, just like every other tool in existence, but their usage does not inherently imply that the people doing the retcon are messing something up.

Something can be improved upon by a retcon. Obviously not all retcons are good, but they're not all bad, either. Especially if there is something wrong with the source material (which Dragonlance is full of).

I'm no Dark Sun fan, but ask a Dark Sun fan how they would feel if their setting got Feywild material suddenly shoved in Athas by WotC if they ever brought it back.

4e already had Dark Sun with the Feywild. And from what I've seen in this thread, it's actually pretty popular, being an interesting take on the plane of existence in the setting.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The point is that they are in no way weaker; 2 Cantrips, and a first level Spell that can be used once a long rest. Indeed, there are fewer restrictions in other directions: the new Spells get added to the PC's Class Spells, and can use whatever casting ability desired. As Feats, they are equivalent to any from the PHB.

It’s 1 cantrip in the new feats, not two. They’re less good than Magic Initiate, much less newer spell granting feats.

 

[Parmandur]

It’s 1 cantrip in the new feats, not two. They’re less good than Magic Initiate, much less newer spell granting feats.

I was talking about the Strixhaven College Feats, sorry for the crosstalk. They have the same Spell expansion as Magic Initiate, but you can get Cleric Spells that use Charism or Intelligence as the key ability.

The cantrip missing here is odd, and it shall be brought up in my feedback.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I was talking about the Strixhaven College Feats, sorry for the crosstalk. They have the same Spell expansion as Magic Initiate, but you can get Cleric Spells that use Charism or Intelligence as the key ability.

The cantrip missing here is odd, and it shall be brought up in my feedback.

Ah ok that makes sense. Yeah, I love the strixhaven feats.

 

[Faolyn]

Agreed. I don't even care for the Dragonlance books and am hardly a fan of Kender, but the distinct element of their identity I do appreciate (in theory), and would actually find an interesting rather than an annoying roleplaying element, is them simply being biologically incapable of fear.

But then I just dislike fear effects, because I often play characters where they feel like an inauthentic imposition on the personality of my character when they take hold. Perhaps I just need to rp more in line with my stats, but I don't feel like I should have to have to be wise to be foolhardy. Having the occasional high-level, truly otherworldly enemy have some sort of explicitly magic mystical evil eye that pierces the heart of the bravest man is one thing, but the idea that my Warrior is likely to get disadvantage and movement issues because he sees a Dragon no matter how many dragons he fights and no matter how consistently he puts honor and glory above self-preservation in every other part of his adventuring career just doesn't compute.

Most fear effects (including dragonfear) are magical or supernatural in nature, which is why you can't get "used" to the causes in the same way you can get used to a mundane thing that causes you fear. There's a reason why fear and charm are linked together so often--they're two sides of the same mind-altering coin.

 

[see]

The point is that they are in no way weaker

And "weaker or more limited" means either, not necessarily both.

Anyway, going on to your "the point", the fact that the Heroes of Krynn UA background-feats are explicitly weaker by dropping one cantrip is evidence that there isn't a WotC plan to make full-blown feats a part of backgrounds. Even with the way WotC generally favors UA elements to be too strong over too weak (so the published versions dial back rather than dial up), they've gone ahead and already made these unambiguously weaker than the un-UAed background-feats they substituted for the rejected Strixhaven subclasses.

 

[Faolyn]

Even the Taunt is supernatural!? Really? It's not because they've spent centuries perfecting the art instead?

I always assumed it was, since it was the only way that I could justify an "innocent, childlike race" being able to say things that the Dragon article All About the Kender describes as "the most stinging insults that can be imagined," and which are so cruel as to cause murderous rage in the target of the abuse.

(Also, both that article, which is for 1e, and the 2e Monstrous Compendium for Dragonlance say that you save vs. spell against a kender's taunt, which implied its magical nature.)

 

[Parmandur]

And "weaker or more limited" means either, not necessarily both.

Anyway, going on to your "the point", the fact that the Heroes of Krynn UA background-feats are explicitly weaker by dropping one cantrip is evidence that there isn't a WotC plan to make full-blown feats a part of backgrounds. Even with the way WotC generally favors UA elements to be too strong over too weak (so the published versions dial back rather than dial up), they've gone ahead and already made these unambiguously weaker than the un-UAed background-feats they substituted for the rejected Strixhaven subclasses.

Or they had a typo, that's not unheard of in UA: this same document can't keep the name of the High Sorcery Initiate Feat straight