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]

Did you forget Keith Baker's name or is he your Scottish Play Beetlejuice Candyman?

I was in the middle of something and didn’t want to muck it up. Have you seen my typing?

 

[Marandahir]

I was in the middle of something and didn’t want to muck it up. Have you seen my typing?

No worries. Sorry, was mostly responding in a jokey way because it seemed like a suspiciously specific omission that it just left me open to suspicious speculation of the specific circumstances.

 

[This Effin’ GM]

No worries. Sorry, was mostly responding in a jokey way because it seemed like a suspiciously specific omission that it just left me open to suspicious speculation of the specific circumstances.

Darjr is lying to you. He has been waging a one man war against Keith Baker for over a decade.

we get it man, you aren’t good at Gloom. Drop it already.

 

[Faolyn]

As to folks who hate kender in parties (and for those who are speaking from experience, not theory), was it because the gamer used the justification "I'm just playing my character" to be an ass to the rest of the party? I had a couple great gamers who enriched our sessions playing kender over the years.

Except (and yes, I used to play with a guy who always played kender, and when he couldn't, he played halflings), the kender obnoxiousness is built into the race. It's not like someone who decided that they're a thief, therefore they must steal from the party or otherwise be treacherous. Obnoxiousness is built into their race from the get-go. They will steal anything that's not nailed down and may very well carry a crowbar to get the stuff that is nailed down. ("Anything that could conceivably hold a kender's attention for longer than two seconds and that can be quickly hidden on a kender's person will almost certainly be taken.") Then they lie about how they got the object (although the Dragon article indicates that they may legitimately not remember that they stole something even a minute ago--yay, ADHD, the race). They will heap verbal abuse on their enemies. They will refuse to follow orders (strangely, their MC entry says that they're often lawful or chaotic neutral--lawful?!?) and may use their taunt ability on people who try to get them to do things. Yet they are somehow too innocent to know that this stuff is bad or unpleasant to others, and yet, in 1e and 2e, could have quite high Intelligence (max 18) and Wisdom (max 16) scores.

So sure, probably most people who played kender were annoying when they did so, but the race was built to be annoying.
Honestly, I have to think that your kender-playing friends were good gamers who probably wanted to have a cohesive party, but they didn't play kender the way they were written.

Their description is filled with contradictions and even as a created race they make no sense. Their original intent as "savage, warrior children, ever curious, ever alert" who were "thinner, more wiry, and more cunning and streetwise" than halflings would have been much better. Even if it feels very ElfQuest-y to me.

 

[darjr]

Darjr is lying to you. He has been waging a one man war against Keith Baker for over a decade.

we get it man, you aren’t good at Gloom. Drop it already.

Oooohhhh!

Now he’s going to find out!

 

[This Effin’ GM]

Oooohhhh!

Now he’s going to find out!

I told you before in this thread. Snitches get stitches…::from the Hellcow himself

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Except (and yes, I used to play with a guy who always played kender, and when he couldn't, he played halflings), the kender obnoxiousness is built into the race. It's not like someone who decided that they're a thief, therefore they must steal from the party or otherwise be treacherous. Obnoxiousness is built into their race from the get-go. They will steal anything that's not nailed down and may very well carry a crowbar to get the stuff that is nailed down. ("Anything that could conceivably hold a kender's attention for longer than two seconds and that can be quickly hidden on a kender's person will almost certainly be taken.") Then they lie about how they got the object (although the Dragon article indicates that they may legitimately not remember that they stole something even a minute ago--yay, ADHD, the race). They will heap verbal abuse on their enemies. They will refuse to follow orders (strangely, their MC entry says that they're often lawful or chaotic neutral--lawful?!?) and may use their taunt ability on people who try to get them to do things. Yet they are somehow too innocent to know that this stuff is bad or unpleasant to others, and yet, in 1e and 2e, could have quite high Intelligence (max 18) and Wisdom (max 16) scores.

So sure, probably most people who played kender were annoying when they did so, but the race was built to be annoying.
Honestly, I have to think that your kender-playing friends were good gamers who probably wanted to have a cohesive party, but they didn't play kender the way they were written.

Their description is filled with contradictions and even as a created race they make no sense. Their original intent as "savage, warrior children, ever curious, ever alert" who were "thinner, more wiry, and more cunning and streetwise" than halflings would have been much better. Even if it feels very ElfQuest-y to me.

Do you not think it's more likely that the player wanted to be obnoxious, and kender was just an excuse?

But anyway, it's enough that players use them as an excuse to grief.

 

[Marandahir]

So I sort of sussed some of the source of the suspiciously specific circumstances, sirs?

 

[Faolyn]

Keith Baker's also said, several times, that D&D as a game system doesn't quite fit with how he imagines Eberron. So, who knows.

At one point he indicated that not having everything in the setting "was never in the cards," so I think he really didn't want to include a lot of the standard D&D races, monsters, and other things in there. And I've heard he wanted the timeline to be shorter, like the demon lords or whatever they're called had been imprisoned only a few thousand years ago, not a million years.

 

[Alzrius]

You left out the most important one, the one that makes it an issue at all:

4) Is a trait that in reality is applied to one particular ethnic group.

That's the entire point.

I disagree, both about that being important and about that being an issue at all. Every negative stereotype has been applied to some group at some point in time.

Every. Single. One.

At this point, any negative trait that's applied on a group basis in fiction is a Rorschach test, and there's always going to be some historical application of it that corresponds to an ugly point or real-world history somewhere. To say that merits discarding those traits from any use of fiction is overbroad in the extreme, and causes us to lose valuable grist for the narrative mill.

The potential for offense is everywhere, in everything, and as such is therefore not unto itself enough reason to avoid something simply because of how someone might react.

Your comparison to Bael Turath therefore isn't on point, because I'm not aware of any ethnic group in reality which is widely held to have made an actual pact with the devil in the past.

I'm going to assume that you're speaking from ignorance with regard to this, and so won't hold that rather insensitive comment against you.