D&D 5E New Unearthed Arcana: Heroes of Krynn Revisited

WotC's Jeremy Crawford has announced a new Unearthed Arcana article today with redesigns from the prior Heroes of Krynn UA based on feedback, and in the following video he discusses that feedback and what's in the article:

• New iteration of Kender based on feedback survey, due to mixed response. This time is a back to basics, aiming to capture 1E AD&D fearlessness, curiosity and taunting skills. Delve into their origins from Gnomes in deep history.
• Kender are no longer fey creatures who grab objects from the Feywild
• Tweaked Feats from prior article
• Tweaked Backgrounds from prior article
• Brand new rule giving a list of free Feats for ANY Background
• Free Feat rule for Level 4 for all characters that doesn't take the ASI away, based on a curated list
• Reveals that in the Adventure, healing magic is already back.

Heroes of Krynn Revisited | Unearthed Arcana | Dungeons & Dragons

Explore updated character options from the Dragonlance setting! This playtest document presents revised races, subclasses, backgrounds, and feats.

dnd.wizards.com

 

[Dire Bare]

I have a suspicion that the books will provide enough background info that if there are any good Black Robes, they're vanishingly rare. And I'm sure that there's been more than a few players who've played good Black Robe mages (or evil White Robe mages) in order to be "different."

On the one hand . . . Krynn wears its good-neutrality-evil axis on its sleeve.

On the other hand . . . the novels already have several examples of more nuanced characters that defy alignment stereotypes, some of those characters being Wizards of High Sorcery and Knights of Solamnia.

Alignment is a relic and a straightjacket. I'm perfectly fine with not having alignment restrictions on the High Sorcery and Solamnia backgrounds.

 

[Scribe]

and a straightjacket.

It literally, factually, is not. lol

 

[Juomari Veren]

O, they said the Moon Sorcerer was extremely popular, and didn't need any adjustments based on feedback. The Kender feature was pretty unpopular, apparently.

That breaks my heart in two. I've never hated a UA feature more than that Moon Sorcerer. The tables were too thick, the paragraphs were overwhelmingly populous, it was a nightmare before they even added formatting and visual polish to it! And that poor pre-revision Kender, I don't know how anybody could hate a feature that finally moves the troubled history of Kender being kleptomaniacs into an actually flexible and non-problematic realm. Methinks my shelf might fare better without this book on it after reading that.

 

[Faolyn]

How many UAs have had a revision?

The Mystic.

 

[Juomari Veren]

On the one hand . . . Krynn wears its good-neutrality-evil axis on its sleeve.

On the other hand . . . the novels already have several examples of more nuanced characters that defy alignment stereotypes, some of those characters being Wizards of High Sorcery and Knights of Solamnia.

Alignment is a relic and a straightjacket. I'm perfectly fine with not having alignment restrictions on the High Sorcery and Solamnia backgrounds.

The amount of knowledge I have on Dragonlance could fill a thimble, but didn't Raistlin bounce around robe colors on occasion? I'd argue that someone who can turn one way and then redeem themselves another fits the mold of "good black robe and evil white robe". I have no strong feelings of alignment but I do think that it's best in its current iteration as a guideline for characterization that you can lean into if your table needs it.

The Mystic.

That wasn't a revision, that was stone-cold murder. 5e Psionics got sent to a farm upstate and whatever they gave us in Tasha's is just sad from an innovation standpoint. Plus, those subclasses are so good that they kinda invalidated all the ones that don't have as deep a pool of resources as 12 dice a day.

 

[Weiley31]

I am fine with each background getting a free feat at 1st and 4th level. It's just that this implementation is kind of bad at modeling membership in an organization like in the KoS and MoHS. It's fine if you start out wanting to be a part of the organization at 1st level, but it's bad if you want to join beyond that.

Sturm Brightblade, the prototypical KoS of the fiction, did not become a Knight until 10th level.

What about renegade mages who join the conclave only after leveling for a while (and possibly being hunted and forced to join)?

These characters don't get any of the mechanical benefits afforded by the feat chains.

Treat them as Faction rewards in those kinds of scenarios.

 

[Juomari Veren]

Treat them as Faction rewards in those kinds of scenarios.

God, that's so smart. I'm just gonna rip those background pages out and re-bind the book with a homebrew renown chart for each order. I don't know how I didn't think of that, especially as someone who shills hard for Ravnica and Theros.

 

[Maxperson]

It looks like they've removed the alignment prerequisites from the Initiate/Adept feats, but kept the alignment-based spells for the Divinely Favored feat- so a nice compromise that will annoy everyone.

Now you too can be a LG black robed Krynn Wizard.

 

[Greg Benage]

The amount of knowledge I have on Dragonlance could fill a thimble, but didn't Raistlin bounce around robe colors on occasion? I'd argue that someone who can turn one way and then redeem themselves another fits the mold of "good black robe and evil white robe".

He went red (neutral) to black (evil)...but as i recall the order, or whatever, didn't approve the switch so he was an "outlaw."

 

[Scribe]

The amount of knowledge I have on Dragonlance could fill a thimble, but didn't Raistlin bounce around robe colors on occasion?

He went from Red to Black, and it made total sense.