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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dnd.wizards.com

 

[This Effin’ GM]

I wonder if Goodman will ever be able to do another OAR. I believe Mike Mearls was the connective tissue between Goodman and WotC... and well, I don't want to say anything more about Mearls.

Man I hope thats not the case, I love OAR

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I wonder if Goodman will ever be able to do another OAR. I believe Mike Mearls was the connective tissue between Goodman and WotC... and well, I don't want to say anything more about Mearls.

He is still alive and well and working for WotC. He even does public appearances again and does not get heckled.

 

[Weiley31]

I wonder if Goodman will ever be able to do another OAR. I believe Mike Mearls was the connective tissue between Goodman and WotC... and well, I don't want to say anything more about Mearls.

Man I hope thats not the case, I love OAR

Last time I checked, there's no issue with OAR stopping? I mean, the last one they did was the massive Temple of Elemental Evil slipcase set. And the next one they are doing is Dark Tower.

 

[This Effin’ GM]

Last time I checked, there's no issue with OAR stopping? I mean, the last one they did was the massive Temple of Elemental Evil slipcase set. And the next one they are doing is Dark Tower.

Dark tower was done for free rpg day I think

 

[Mecheon]

WotC increasingly botches lore consistency, it's a huge problem.

While I do understand the lore side, you also gotta understand, a lot of this was written absolute ages ago in a completely different context to people playing the game today.

In the years since, Kender have been, 100%, hated. Disliked. Considered one of the worst parts of the game. This isn't an isolated opinion held only by a few, the specter of the Kender Player who uses the race to annoy everyone and make the game a living hell is well known at this point. The very mention of Kender has brought spite and ridicule for years. There's a reason it didn't last past the playtest initially, and that was the overwhelming negative feedback that they were looking to bring Kender back. Not anything with the race itself, the sheer fact that Kender were even considered to be coming back? That alone was so negative they were dropped from the game.

So, you as WotC, have two options

1: Keep to the pre-existing lore. The pre-existing lore people have admitted they dislike. The pre-existing lore that falls apart whenever you apply logical worldbuilding (Seriously, the way they act as-is, Kender would be basically KOS for any struggling community because you don't want the rampart kleptomaniacs around anywhere where supplies going missing is trouble). Throw your hands up at making a consistant world and just go "Well, that's what someone wrote 40 years ago, before a vast majority of the players of the game were even born". Bring in something so hated, so maligned, that the only people who would be happy are the lore nerds, who are going to be unhappy with any attempt to update the setting anyway (And, let's be honest, Dragonlance absolutely NEEDS updates. You release that thing as is in this day and age and its gonna get torn to shreds in a Youtube essay. Hell, I might even do it for fun one day)
2: Change it. Keep the intention, but change it in a way its less obnoxious. Keep the broad enough strokes its recognisable, but meld it. And, hey, they've got pretty heavy fey intentions. Their whole "Eternal childhood, not understanding stealing is bad" fits right in with some sort of fairy-tale mindset that would, in any other story, just have these portrayed as some earthly fairy

And y'know what? They chose 2 and, from my wanders through the 'net, folks seem to actually like it. Seem to actually like Kender simply due to this change

 

[Weiley31]

Dark tower was done for free rpg day I think

Goodman Games Announces Dark Tower for 5E and DCC|Goodman Games

goodman-games.com

 

[This Effin’ GM]

Goodman Games Announces Dark Tower for 5E and DCC|Goodman Games

goodman-games.com

Oooooh the free rpg. Day item tied IN to the dark tower, it wasn’t the dark tower

 

[Mezuka]

"D&D Next Playtest 2013 wrote:
Kender Pockets: Kender constantly pick things up and pocket them, and then often forget about them. If you find yourself in need of a piece of nonmagical equipment, there is a 25 percent chance you have it. Roll a d4. If you roll a 4, you find the item in your pocket, pack, or pouch. If you roll anything else, you don’t have such an item on you, and you can’t search again for the same item until you’ve spent at least one day in a town or city. Rummaging through your pouches, pack, and pockets in this way takes 1 minute."

 

[Azzy]

Eh,

It's not that far off from Keith Baker's "In MY Eberron" and Ed Greenwood's "In MY Forgotten Realms"… It's just that they the creators have their own vision of the settings than the copyright holders. That's NORMAL.

Yup. It's also not the first issue that W&H have had. Be it game decisions by TSR/WotC (like folding Krynn into the Great Wheel or sucking Soth into Ravenloft) or the choices of other authors (It seems like W&H pointedly killed off the Heroes of the Lance to try to stop other authors would from using them).

 

[Scribe]

"D&D Next Playtest 2013 wrote:
Kender Pockets: Kender constantly pick things up and pocket them, and then often forget about them. If you find yourself in need of a piece of nonmagical equipment, there is a 25 percent chance you have it. Roll a d4. If you roll a 4, you find the item in your pocket, pack, or pouch. If you roll anything else, you don’t have such an item on you, and you can’t search again for the same item until you’ve spent at least one day in a town or city. Rummaging through your pouches, pack, and pockets in this way takes 1 minute."

All it needed to be. Oh well.