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]

And big heads! Disturbingly big . . .

Part of the charm.

 

[James Gasik]

Now later, Dragonlance became more experimental. The Fifth Age was definitely NOT AD&D.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Wait a second.

Let’s look at it another way. How closely to the AD&D rules does the fiction cleave?

The fiction isn’t in my mind, so I truly don’t know, at the moment. But even though it was written with the idea it was going to be part of a D&D multimedia product, I’d bet that M&W dispensed with any D&Disms if it conflicted with the story.

Am I wrong?

The authors are on record saying there were a number of D&Disms they had to make sure were in the story, actually.

 

[Micah Sweet]

A

That’s another issue with the adaptation @darjr. By DL do you mean the modules or the fiction? And by fiction, which do you mean?

The early DL stuff stuck very close to the rules. Setting elements, world building etc. all were pretty kosher. Your magic users were clearly mu’s and whatnot.

Later on, things broaden quite a bit more.

But at its heart I’d say it very much did cleave pretty close to adnd rules. Only humans and elves could be wizards for example. All of the characters follow adnd rules. Gil thanks is the only multi class I can think of. No one has a race/class combo that didn’t work.

At least in the oringinal trilogy, I’d say it follows prett closely.

And Gilthanas was essentially what would be in Basic the Elf race-as-class. That's an idea I wish we could bring back.

 

[Scars Unseen]

Tinker gnomes specifically didn't make things that work. Like, if something they made functioned properly, then the gnome who made it was clearly insane.

They're another one of the "funny" races that need to be fixed. Fortunately, it's a much easier fix for them.

I'd rather they not "fix" the races (other than the gully dwarves, and mostly I'd "fix" them by ignoring their existence) but rather use their quirks as an excuse to experiment. They're already halfway there with their kender write-up. The way that the deviations from D&D norms work in Dragonlance would be a good opportunity to introduce flavorful narrative or semi-narrative elements into the game (as opposed to Inspiration, which is about as bland an attempt as I can imagine). Make the whole "kender ace" thing a narrative function instead of a magical one. Give the gnomes something similar to cyphers from Numenera (but reconfigured to fit tinkers' tendency toward unintended side effects). And for people that aren't interested in that, just have a sidebar saying what race to sub in if you want to avoid it (or just make those elements completely optional to begin with).

I mean does it matter if it is magic or non magic... it's making devices that work useing the D&D mechanics

I'd say that making attempts to match the mechanics to the fiction would be worthwhile, yes.

But saying everything is part of the natural world despite no explanation of how they came to be part of the natural world is energetic and creative?

Why is it that it’s only stuff people don’t like that is lazy and uncreative?

I don't think the problem is that people don't like it, but why. Change isn't more innovative than stasis if the reason for the change is to induct a previous work into your own stasis. WotC aren't trying to find creative ways to reinterpret old lore. They're just changing it to match the lore they're already imposing on everything else. From your previous reply to one of my posts, I'm sure you get that.

I would be all for a reexamination of old lore that finds ways to reconcile new mechanical assumptions with existing text, but that's not what they're doing. They're just applying the same "nothing we didn't write ourselves is canon" brush that they did to the Forgotten Realms and slapping metasetting jargon on top.

Now later, Dragonlance became more experimental. The Fifth Age was definitely NOT AD&D.

Yeah, 5th Age was explicitly not any form of D&D at all, but rather was published in the diceless SAGA system.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

If some racial traits are too "magic" then they should be replaced with optional racial traits.

It would be macabre humor an horror story set in Sithicus where the final girl was the kender.

What would be the teological and cultural impact of the warlocks for the age of the despair? Would be allowed divine-spellcasters without link with any deity?

Are the fire dragons created by Chaos really living beings ( and they could breed or even to produce half-dragons) or only elementals with dragon shapes? The efreets from Sirrion(planet in the Krynnspace) would want to use them as war beasts, or creating a transgenic subrace. If the timeline is reserted they shouldn't appear because the chaos war never happened, or not yet.

Zeboim, the evil sea goddess could be useful to create Lovecraftian cults, even with deep-ones or like this.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Gil thanks is the only multi class I can think of.

Wasn't frying-pan girl a fighter/rogue?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Shhhh. Careful. Lots of people don’t know that DnD halflings haven’t had hairy feet since WotC started publishing DnD.

Hmm, Pathfinder halflings seem to have hairy feet, or at least there is lots of artwork that does. How are Paizo getting away with it?

 

[Maxperson]

Wasn't frying-pan girl a fighter/rogue?

Pure fighter I think.

Edit: It looks like she dual classed. This is from the 1e modules.

Tika Waylan
(Pan-Wielder). Human; F4
(former T3); AL NG; S14, I9, Wl6, Dl2,
C13, Ch10; MV 12”; hp 22; AC 8

 

[Maggan]

Hmm, Pathfinder halflings seem to have hairy feet, or at least there is lots of artwork that does. How are Paizo getting away with it?

Might be that Dungeons & Dragons have so much bigger recognition that it attracts more attention and potential litigation.