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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[LuisCarlos17f]

Magic is powerful, but too rare and expensive to craft a dozen of magic catapults. And low level spellcasters could use rituals with help of lot of followers to create powerful anti-magic defense barriers. Clerics don't allow arcane spellcasters to bee too powerful or influential, and deities don't allow other cults to gain too much control over the rest of the society. Dragons, faes and giants don't want ordinary humanoids to become too dangerous.

If WotC is playtesting some real-time-strategy videogame based in d20 system they will notice magic items are too expensive to be spent in the battlefield. With that money you could hire more mercenaries. And the possible "musou" effect. Do you know those Japanese videogames where a "one-man-army" with melee weapons can defeat dozens of squads? And if we talk about building walls and towers for siege, then "Turn off and let's go away" (= there is nothing more to be done).

* Have you thought anytime if D&D dragons could become the rulers of a world as Westeros (Game of Thrones), and the noble houses would be giants, dragon, faes and other creatures bloodlines, mixed with humans (and then John Snow and Daenerys Targaryen would be secretly spellcales, and Tyrion Lannister a feytouched).

 

[James Gasik]

As it was in the days before the internet, I have no idea what the general reaction to firearms in the Realms was in 2e, but I know Ed Greenwood has a love for early firearms- he wrote at least one article on the subject in Dragon.

But in all the time I played, I had one guy who used an Arquebus, using a Kit out of the Complete Dwarves Handbook. He ran out of smoke powder and was annoyed that he couldn't just buy more.

Well maybe he should have been allowed to, but at the time, I saw it was listed as treasure in the magic items section, so I assumed it was hard to come by. A mistake on my part, how could I expect someone to play a character based on a concept and then be like "well you can use your gun if the magic item tables are kind"?

 

[Mind of tempest]

Considering how well something like the Spellplague or various other RSE have occurred in settings, could you imagine the reaction to gunpowder? People still lose their minds over adding dragonborn to Forgotten Realms and that barely causes a ripple. The odds that WotC will ever even consider adding gunpowder are spectacularly small.

why not just have a setting with guns separate from the other settings?

 

[James Gasik]

That's most likely what would happen.

And of course, LuisCarlos, if you think about all the highly intelligent monsters out there, especially those that have the ability to charm or blend in with humanoid races, the question becomes "why aren't these creatures really in charge?".

 

[Mind of tempest]

That's most likely what would happen.

And of course, LuisCarlos, if you think about all the highly intelligent monsters out there, especially those that have the ability to charm or blend in with humanoid races, the question becomes "why aren't these creatures really in charge?".

I hear doppelgangers are flat out too lazy to rule the world just wanting to be idle rich otherwise, no one knows it would work great for a setting.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Let's remember the deities wouldn't allow damages against their believers. And sentient creatures would notice it is better to be the hidden puppeteer while are proxy puppets would suffer the Damocle's sword over their heads. Deities could allow this if it is enough subtile and not forced.

Döppelgangers can read thoughts, that means the game of thrones is full with psycopaths and narcissist, and the prestige is an ilusion when you are adulated but really they despise you. If they can, they would rather to live as bohemians, far from the intrigues in the palace. And if they can marry a "changeling" (doppeltouched) then it is like enjoy an harem. Wouldn't be detected? With a strategy of low profile, and tolerated if they don't hurt anybody. Maybe they are happy with a rural state, a good advicer and loyal servants, or they would enojy intritrating amon a high society party, or a visit to the opera, and reading minds to discover secrets about gossip can write with pseunonimes satritical novels.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You're right that an arquebus isn't an issue. But, players being so very pragmatic are going to realize pretty quickly that a small barrel full of gunpowder and nails kills a dragon. There are so many problems that become much easier when you can blow stuff up.

Would make defending castles a LOT easier though. Hey, Mr. Dragon, let's see what happens when I open up a battery of bombards on your ass. Or load grape shot into my cannon.

It wasn't just small arms that ended the age of armor. It was the big stuff that made ENORMOUS differences. You like a castle in your D&D right? Guess what, within a century or so of having gunpowder weapons, the fantasy style castle disappears.

And, let's not forget, sure, we can have adamantine armor. Why not magical bullets? Or, adamantine bullets for that matter.

Imagine how devastating something like Animate Object gets when you have gunpowder artillery.

The point being, it's not quite as cut and dried as people make it out to be. It really isn't hand held firearms that makes the big, sweeping setting changes. It's the big stuff. Cannons mean no more castles pretty quickly. Bombards and grenades have a massive impact on combat. Sure, the massed musket forces come eventually, but, that's centuries after gunpowder has already massively changed the world.

But without cannons, you can't properly use the Age of Sail, and nautical stuff was just cooler then.

 

[Weiley31]

You know, with the Lunar Sorcerer subclass, having a Lunar Sorcerer Haregon or even a Grey Wolf (refluffed Dog PC from Animal Adventures) Lunar Sorcerer would be incredibly on point theme wise.

 

[James Gasik]

Are deities really that involved, LuisCarlos? I think that depends on the setting. Usually when they are depicted in D&D novels, they don't see to react to problems until they are brought to their attention by events, then they have to scramble to fix things (Moonshaes Trilogy, Dragonlance, the books about Mystra and Cyric, etc.).

But yeah, just imagine the problems your average succubus could cause by impersonating a noblewoman (known in Warcraft circles as a "Katrana Prestor").

 

[Maxperson]

As it was in the days before the internet, I have no idea what the general reaction to firearms in the Realms was in 2e, but I know Ed Greenwood has a love for early firearms- he wrote at least one article on the subject in Dragon.

This is purely anecdotal, but nobody in any of my groups liked firearms in 1e or 2e, and we played the Realms.