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]

Deciding to make Feats a part of Backgrounds by default as part of an Anniversary Edition would start to meet my definition of a major enough change to break compatibility and create a jumping off point. So I hope they don't do that as part of the core and restrict these experiments to setting specific stuff or optional side books.

I really don't see it that way: simple advise such as "give a 5E PC a free Feat" should fix it, and Theros or Strixhaven PCs wouldn't steamroll an existing Campaign book.

 

[JEB]

I really don't see it that way: simple advise such as "give a 5E PC a free Feat" should fix it, and Theros or Strixhaven PCs wouldn't steamroll an existing Campaign book.

It's a problem if you don't want feats in your campaign, and preferred a version of the game that didn't balance character design around them. It creates a potential power imbalance between 2014 and 2024 options, as well. (Theros PCs in particular are absolutely stronger than core 5E characters, by design.)

 

[Parmandur]

It's a problem if you don't want feats in your campaign, and preferred a version of the game that didn't balance character design around them. It creates a potential power imbalance between 2014 and 2024 options, as well. (Theros PCs in particular are absolutely stronger than core 5E characters, by design.)

You can get a Feat at 1st Level and still not have Feats in the game past that. Theros PCs are one Feat more powerful than 2014 PHB PCs...but so are Ravenloft, Strixhaven, and Dragonlance PCs. A pattern emerges.

 

[JEB]

You can get a Feat at 1st Level and still not have Feats in the game past that.

That's not how the Dragonlance UA backgrounds and feats are designed, though - you get a feat at level 1 and are expected to pick up more in the chain beyond that. The assumption of these new UA rules is that feats are not optional.

Theros PCs are one Feat more powerful than 2014 PHB PCs...but so are Ravenloft, Strixhaven, and Dragonlance PCs. A pattern emerges.

Indeed.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

The only way 2024 won't be treated as a jumping-off point by some fans is if they don't do the revision at all, and we know they're going to. And even casual players will recognize that it's a replacement, compatible or not, because the major player-facing options will be getting changed (races for certain, and likely classes, and maybe backgrounds). I'd be very surprised if they don't also change the trade dress (every other edition had done so by this point in their respective lifespans, even without changing the core rules).

They may be able to minimize the split, but I don't think it can be avoided.

The older setting books and adventures will likely only minimium effected.

 

[Parmandur]

The older setting books and adventures will likely only minimium effected.

Yeah, the PC options are not major components of the books, and the monster stat blocks will probably still work fine, if what they are laying down now is nay indication. The Adventure generation material is edition and system agnostic, for the most part.

 

[Hussar]

Heh. I started 5e with Primeval Thule. In PT, you had backgrounds that were stronger than standard by design.

So to me, this is his WotC playing catch up to an idea that’s been used at my table for years.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It's a problem if you don't want feats in your campaign, and preferred a version of the game that didn't balance character design around them. It creates a potential power imbalance between 2014 and 2024 options, as well. (Theros PCs in particular are absolutely stronger than core 5E characters, by design.)

Actually, 5e has always had Supernatural Gifts, which could be used to grant PCs feats and similar permanent abilities earned through adventuring rather than by levelling.

So PCs with one or more extra feats have always been possible in 5e.

 

[James Gasik]

Yeah, Boons and other alternative rewards are kind of underused in the game.

 

[JEB]

Actually, 5e has always had Supernatural Gifts, which could be used to grant PCs feats and similar permanent abilities earned through adventuring rather than by levelling.

So PCs with one or more extra feats have always been possible in 5e.

Supernatural Gifts in the DMG don't include feats as written; instead, they are typically described as mimicking the properties of magical items. Nothing says you couldn't just make a feat into a Supernatural Gift, of course, but that would be a homebrew choice.

Perhaps you mean Epic Boons, which do explicitly include feats as an alternative to the listed options? But those are only available to PCs over level 20, not at level 1.

Or maybe you're thinking of the Supernatural Gifts from Theros, which do work the way you describe. But (so far) those are only officially available to Theros characters.