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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[Hussar]

To be fair though. Pointing to a single exception and then extrapolating from there is more often than not just pedantic nonsense.

 

[see]

The backgrounds look like class write-ups that's all.

They're in the tradition of the Strixhaven backgrounds, which were developed as an alternative to an effort to create multiple-class subclasses.

I personally think reviving the prestige class idea would work better than background-with-feat-and-feat-chain, but it's an approach.

Plus I was trying to work out why the Squire of Solamnia feat was really bad, and under the current rules most appealing to those characters that don't get medium armour and martial weapons - like say Wizards.

Because it's primarily a background feature, not a real feat.

If you take the Knight of Solamnia background, by the background you've trained to fight as a knight. To be consistent with that, you have to have learned to use martial weapons and decent armor. So then the design choices are 1) only allow classes that can use knightly weapons and armor to take the background, or 2) include martial weapons and medium armor with the background, so that whatever class the character has, they have abilities consistent with being trained as a knight.

The fact that it's officially a feat then makes it possible for a PC who started with a different background to become a Squire of Solamnia in play and thus qualify for the Knight of [Whichever] feats, while still mostly reserving the feats for people from the background.

 

[Eubani]

Let me change track. What would a curious/collector Kender non magical non thief unless by individual choice, that does not create extra work at the table look like? Also the Feywild is overused these days and doesn't fit DL.

 

[Mind of tempest]

They're in the tradition of the Strixhaven backgrounds, which were developed as an alternative to an effort to create multiple-class subclasses.

I personally think reviving the prestige class idea would work better than background-with-feat-and-feat-chain, but it's an approach.


Because it's primarily a background feature, not a real feat.

If you take the Knight of Solamnia background, by the background you've trained to fight as a knight. To be consistent with that, you have to have learned to use martial weapons and decent armor. So then the design choices are 1) only allow classes that can use knightly weapons and armor to take the background, or 2) include martial weapons and medium armor with the background, so that whatever class the character has, they have abilities consistent with being trained as a knight.

The fact that it's officially a feat then makes it possible for a PC who started with a different background to become a Squire of Solamnia in play and thus qualify for the Knight of [Whichever] feats, while still mostly reserving the feats for people from the background.

I think the solamnia background need to benefit martial classes more

 

[humble minion]

They're in the tradition of the Strixhaven backgrounds, which were developed as an alternative to an effort to create multiple-class subclasses.

I personally think reviving the prestige class idea would work better than background-with-feat-and-feat-chain, but it's an approach.


Because it's primarily a background feature, not a real feat.

If you take the Knight of Solamnia background, by the background you've trained to fight as a knight. To be consistent with that, you have to have learned to use martial weapons and decent armor. So then the design choices are 1) only allow classes that can use knightly weapons and armor to take the background, or 2) include martial weapons and medium armor with the background, so that whatever class the character has, they have abilities consistent with being trained as a knight.

The fact that it's officially a feat then makes it possible for a PC who started with a different background to become a Squire of Solamnia in play and thus qualify for the Knight of [Whichever] feats, while still mostly reserving the feats for people from the background.

This is of course all very true, but remember that the Squire feat is actually much better than the PHB feats like Lightly Armoured which only grant proficiency in one category of armour.

which as you say, makes it a much more attractive option for spellcasters than for fighters, paladins etc who you’d expect to be the most common classes among the solamnic knights.

Agree that having this feat/background as a prerequisite for the higher ranks of knighthood is not the best design choice. There’s got to be a better way to do it that actually focuses on martial characters.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think the solamnia background need to benefit martial classes more

I agree. Whist the point See makes is clearly the design intent, it doesn't take into account how players actually behave. Generally, they will select the background that gives them the most mechanical benefit, then write a backstory to justify it. Whilst I can see a few fighters picking up the squire feat merely to qualify for the next tier feet, I can see a lot more rogues, wizards and sorcerers picking it up for the weapons and armour proficiencies, then writing "used to be a squire, but dropped out" as their backstory.

 

[Scars Unseen]

Let me change track. What would a curious/collector Kender non magical non thief unless by individual choice, that does not create extra work at the table look like?

I'd make it semi-narrative in nature. Largely, it'd be similar to the UA article, but instead of being purely random, I'd word it as the kender pulling out an item relevant to the situation (with perhaps a chance as to whether it's detrimental instead of helpful). Whatever the item is, it wouldn't go into the character's inventory after it's no longer in play, not because of magic, but because the kender's curiosity with such items is fleeting, and they lose track of most findings as quickly as they acquire new ones.

Personally, I'd go further with the narrative angle and allow for DM prompted complications, but I'm also not as against the whole compulsive "borrowing" angle either as long as it is something that can be used to enhance the game rather than embolden bad player behavior.

 

[Eubani]

Should the Squire feat be changed to be more of a choice by Martial characters? I believe so as nearly all the knights including squires were martial in flavor. Maybe keep the medium armour proficiency but gain a separate bonus if you are already proficient.

 

[Hussar]

Let me change track. What would a curious/collector Kender non magical non thief unless by individual choice, that does not create extra work at the table look like? Also the Feywild is overused these days and doesn't fit DL.

I’ve seen this a couple of times. What is the problem with fry wild in DL?

The books frequently had fae in them - dryads, unicorns (which were fae at the time) and lots of others. Fae show up in the modules all over the place.

So what’s the problem here,

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I think the solamnia background need to benefit martial classes more

Have it give some benefit to mounted combat.