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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[Henadic Theologian]

Did any of you see the movie Love Potion Number 9 (somewhat based the song of the same name)?

Love Potion Number 8 is the pervy one, definately enchantment, but love potion number 9 is divination, it's doesn't make anyone fall in love with you, it merely removes the obstacles obscuring love, revealing romantic truth, and if they don't love you, they end up hating you.

Honestly being an Enchanter Wizard has got to be arkward, you specialize mind control magic, most folks are going to look at and the necromancer as creepy wizards. Illusions are the fun ones everyone invites to parties. Diviners are the ones who everyone wants to be on the right side of. Evokers & Warmages are likely seen as military wizards, magical soldiers. Transmuters the plastic surgeons of D&D. Abjuration wizards would probably be the most respected in the community, I mean they specialized in defending themselves and others. Conjurers it's tougher to pigeon hole, it depends on what they conjure up.

 

[Hussar]

Now, all this aside, I have a question about the actual rules presented.

As a 5th level Lunar Wizard, you gain access to the Death Ward spell. But, the spell is a 4th level spell. Does that mean it becomes a 3rd level spell for Lunar Sorcerers or it stays 4th level and you can only cast it 1/day if you are in Full Moon mode and doesn't really become a "spell known" until 7th level?

 

[Vael]

Now, all this aside, I have a question about the actual rules presented.

As a 5th level Lunar Wizard, you gain access to the Death Ward spell. But, the spell is a 4th level spell. Does that mean it becomes a 3rd level spell for Lunar Sorcerers or it stays 4th level and you can only cast it 1/day if you are in Full Moon mode and doesn't really become a "spell known" until 7th level?

My guess is that it's a mistake and will be replaced with a different 3rd level spell, possibly a new spell slotted for the book.

 

[James Gasik]

While it is possible to get a spell at a different level than others get it, I'm pretty sure 5e tries to avoid that when possible.

 

[Hussar]

Yeah. That’s what we figured. At the moment we’re just going to let it be a 3rd level spell. See how it goes.

 

[Yaarel]

The slot levels of the Players Handbook spell list need substantial reranking.

There are many spells that are subpar compared to other spells in the same slot level. But these would become competitive and appealing at a lower slot compared to other spells in the lower slot levels.

My hope for 50e is every spell deserves to be in the slot that it is in.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Stopping a person from committing suicide, sure. Casually taking over your child's mind to make them eat their veggies? Not so much. I would absolutely not call that either mundane or a morally good use of enchantment magic.

I personally do think that it's not morally good, but it also isn't at all as some of the more extreme examples of abusing Enchantment magic.

Sure, but you have to be very careful with Dominate. It would be easy to force an innocent person to confess guilt with that spell.

Agreed. But I specifically meant a best-case scenario where the magic is used properly.

Just for the sake of argument, what if someone is normally incapable of feeling emotion and the love potion could allow them to experience love? Or if someone wanted to drink it for whatever reason?

In the first case, wouldn't it just be easier to find a different magical way to experience emotions than specifically a love potion?

Drinking it on your own is probably fine, so long as it's not one of the super extreme ones that would make you act in a way that could harm others.

 

[Hussar]

I personally do think that it's not morally good, but it also isn't at all as some of the more extreme examples of abusing Enchantment magic.

Agreed. But I specifically meant a best-case scenario where the magic is used properly.

In the first case, wouldn't it just be easier to find a different magical way to experience emotions than specifically a love potion?

Drinking it on your own is probably fine, so long as it's not one of the super extreme ones that would make you act in a way that could harm others.

Heh, let's be honest here, we tend to ignore the more icky implications of enchantment magic, simply because most groups don't do it. Plus because enchantment is so often save or nothing, it tends not to get used all that often.

Something like Hypnotic Pattern? Sure, it's just a stunning spell. On it's own, it's not really morally anything. But Charms and more direct mind control? That's getting into REALLY ICKY territory very fast if you start to think about it.

Then again, as soon as you start to think about it, it becomes really obvious that any spell caster is basically the evilest person in the world. The moral implications of virtually any spell are rarely a good thing. There's a reason we don't burn people to death, and poison gas is a war crime.

This gets to be a really nasty rabbit hole as soon as you open it up.

 

[James Gasik]

Yeah we were talking about Animate Dead in another thread, and debating why it's somehow more evil than other spells, so a lot of these arguments came up there.

TLDR: all spells can be abused if used in the wrong way, but Animate Dead is super special evil because...WotC says so.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Heh, let's be honest here, we tend to ignore the more icky implications of enchantment magic, simply because most groups don't do it. Plus because enchantment is so often save or nothing, it tends not to get used all that often.

Something like Hypnotic Pattern? Sure, it's just a stunning spell. On it's own, it's not really morally anything. But Charms and more direct mind control? That's getting into REALLY ICKY territory very fast if you start to think about it.

Then again, as soon as you start to think about it, it becomes really obvious that any spell caster is basically the evilest person in the world. The moral implications of virtually any spell are rarely a good thing. There's a reason we don't burn people to death, and poison gas is a war crime.

This gets to be a really nasty rabbit hole as soon as you open it up.

Agreed. Like I said before, literally any spell or school of magic can be used in awful ways. You can blow up hospitals with Fireball, drown people in stone with Transmute Rock (Mud to Stone), summon a demon that breaks free and murders an entire village with multiple Conjuration spells, permanently turn an innocent person into literally any object you want with True Polymorph, learn the deepest, darkest, most embarrassing secrets of anyone with Detect Thoughts, randomly duplicate people without their consent with Simulacrum, murder someone and assume their identity with Disguise Self/Alter Self, reprogram the brain of someone to force them to believe that they're your slave/lover/friend with Modify Memory, and scam enough people with Illusion magic that you end up completely destroying the local economy.

Literally all types of magic can be misused, and basically all types can be used for good. Some are inherently more problematic/morally dark (Enchantment, Illusion, Necromancy) than others (Transmutation, Healing/Resurrection Magic, Abjuration), but literally every type of magic can be used for good or evil.

It's when things get more specific that the problems start to happen. Love Potions are just inherently way more of a problem that basically any other type of magic in D&D, due to their very common rape-y implications/usages in fantasy media.