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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[Tales and Chronicles]

I don't know about that. Raistlin as written had incredible force of personality and willpower. I could see Charisma being very important to him. That being said, I agree he was a wizard with an interesting backstory, not a warlock.

If I was to stat up Raistin at the start of the adventure, I'd probably go with a Scribe wizard (the ghostly mind inhabiting the spellbook would be Fistandantilus' spirit) of 3 level with the Wizard of High Magic background, and the Echoing Soul (dark gift from VRGtR) as Heroic Gift. With a stat array of 10, 12, 8, 16,14,15 once everything is included, I think its pretty spot on for a quick 5e equivalent.

At high level I'd probably take some of the ''time magic'' spells from Wildemount, since time shenanigans are a big part of the setting.

 

[Fifth Element]

Some aspects of races in dragonlance are similar to stereotypes. And so? Everything is similar to something. They are called TROPES.

Here your argument rests on the idea that a trope is a trope is a trope. But if the trope is based on a harmful, racist stereotype, that's not at all the same thing as a harmless one. A scientist trope is not the same as a kleptomaniac race trope, because a scientist reflects what an individual person chooses to do. It does not reflect the negative portrayal of an entire race of people by outsiders.

That's a massive difference. Yes, there are tropes, always have been tropes and always will be tropes. That does not mean all tropes are equivalent. The racist ones should be jettisoned forthwith.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Couldn't he have been a Pact of the Tome Warlock with some Wizard-spell granting feats?

An Int/Cha tome warlock with the Undying Patron and most of the ''sight'' invocations could probably make a good Raistlin. I'd still favor Wizard, but it could be done.

 

[Fifth Element]

Can we please stop comparing Kender with Romani.

When it stops being apt, sure. The fact that you don't personally care doesn't mean WotC shouldn't care.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Couldn't he have been a Pact of the Tome Warlock with some Wizard-spell granting feats?

You could make him that way, and it would work. But the man clearly trained as a wizard. The only sticking point is the pact with Fistandantilus, which he eventually took control of anyway.

 

[Fifth Element]

So if I say that your messages sounds like something awful to me, then you'll consider to remove it? Where is the threshold and who are eligible to set it?

If you can explain why it sounds awful to you, and I find that argument convincing, and I'm the one making decisions about what goes in the game, then yes I'd consider removing it. Wouldn't you?

 

[Alzrius]

When it stops being apt, sure.

I think the issue is that there's a very broad net that's being cast in terms of making the association. Namely these three elements:

1) A hereditary condition placed on a group

2) from a god or similar entity

3) which is negative in what it conveys

The problem is that this covers a lot of fantasy tropes, and for that matter can be applied to a lot of racist rhetoric used in the real world. I'm pretty sure that, by that measure, the Bael Turath tieflings of 4E could be compared to Romani, or African-Americans, or almost any other group who's had charges of "God hates them" thrown at them. Discarding this because of parallels that are potentially upsetting seems to run face first into "baby with the bathwater" problems.

 

[Weiley31]

Okay, but if it weren't magical what would the save be in those editions?
Petrification or Polymorph? Paralyzation, Poison or Magic? Rod, Staff or Wand? Breath Weapon?

Item Save. Or whatever it was when ya had to worry about a Dragon breathing it's bad breath on you and you had to roll for your magic weapons or what not to survive.

 

[Micah Sweet]

A friend of mine has an interesting take on Kender Pockets. Remove the magical connotation, including the obvious glimmer quality of the items, and describe as stuff the character unconsciously "picked up" over the course of their adventures. That way, the player is not told to steal (which is not how it's depicted in the novels anyway), but it is still represented as real items that are retroactively assumed to have been "lying around".

 

[This Effin’ GM]

A friend of mine has an interesting take on Kender Pockets. Remove the magical connotation, including the obvious glimmer quality of the items, and describe as stuff the character unconsciously "picked up" over the course of their adventures. That way, the player is not told to steal (which is not how it's depicted in the novels anyway), but it is still represented as real items that are retroactively assumed to have been "lying around".

Oh yeah that was instantly my plan for running it. Like WotC can say it’s magic and feywild and that’s totally fine, but every kender I would play would be all “this is my uncle trapspringers” and ignore that etched into it are the words “property of Astinus”