WotC Dragonlance: Everything You Need For Shadow of the Dragon Queen

WotC has shared a video explaining the Dragonlance setting, and what to expect when it is released in December.

World at War: Introduces war as a genre of play to fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons.

Dragonlance: Introduces the Dragonlance setting with a focus on the War of the Lance and an overview of what players and DMs need to run adventures during this world spanning conflict.

Heroes of War: Provides character creation rules highlighting core elements of the Dragonlance setting, including the kender race and new backgrounds for the Knight of Solamnia and Mage of High Sorcery magic-users. Also introduces the Lunar Sorcery sorcerer subclass with new spells that bind your character to Krynn's three mystical moons and imbues you with lunar magic.

Villains: Pits heroes against the infamous death knight Lord Soth and his army of draconians.

Notes --

• 224 page hardcover adventure
• D&D's setting for war
• Set in eastern Solamnia
• War is represented by context -- it's not goblins attacking the village, but evil forces; refugees, rumours
• You can play anything from D&D - clerics included, although many classic D&D elements have been forgotten
• Introductory scenarios bring you up to speed on the world so no prior research needed

 

[Erdric Dragin]

Curious how they'll handle adding in classes to the setting that didn't exist before, at least as far as I'm aware:

Artificer
Bard
Druid
Monk
Paladin
Ranger
Sorcerer
Warlock

Far as I know, none of these classes had a prominent NPC that I can recall. Friend of mine said one of the novels did have a Monk from a far off land. I can see these classes coming from "Beyond Ansalon" continent. It was always "Wizard" when it came to magic, not sure where Sorcerers fit in. Are they just treated the same albeit different methods of using arcane magic? Same with Warlock, which I'm guessing would probably be those outcast kind of magic users.

Were there any Druids? I can't recall. I've read a lot of Dragonlance novels back then and the only classes I ever saw represented were Barbarian, Fighter, Cleric, Thief (Rogue), and Wizard. Heck I don't even know if Psionics exist in Krynn.

 

[Tonguez]

I think the "war" theme is gonna end up being one of those ideas that gets over-pushed and over-hyped in marketing, and in the adventure itself the war will be completely in the background with no player-facing way to mechanically engage with it. (Not that I'd really want to, anyway.)

it sounds to me that the micro-adventures will be used as Unit-based scenarios, where the PCs come up against part of the Takhasis invasion force and do stuff.

Having guidelines on how to use War as a tactical backdrop would be welcome. I'd love to see Unit Command Feats that allow a player to deploy a shieldwall or a cavalry charge as an action, but still let them go and do their own Champion v Monster fights in the midst of the battle

 

[Ath'kethin]

Curious how they'll handle adding in classes to the setting that didn't exist before, at least as far as I'm aware:

Artificer
Bard
Druid
Monk
Paladin
Ranger
Sorcerer
Warlock

Far as I know, none of these classes had a prominent NPC that I can recall. Friend of mine said one of the novels did have a Monk from a far off land. I can see these classes coming from "Beyond Ansalon" continent. It was always "Wizard" when it came to magic, not sure where Sorcerers fit in. Are they just treated the same albeit different methods of using arcane magic? Same with Warlock, which I'm guessing would probably be those outcast kind of magic users.

Were there any Druids? I can't recall. I've read a lot of Dragonlance novels back then and the only classes I ever saw represented were Barbarian, Fighter, Cleric, Thief (Rogue), and Wizard. Heck I don't even know if Psionics exist in Krynn.

Once upon a time, there were explicitly no bards, druids, or paladins in Krynn. Sorcerers were introduced to Dragonlance after the Chaos War/Second Cataclysm/3rd Edition.

Warlocks are such a great concept for a character that they can work around in most any situation.

 

[Reynard]

I think the "war" theme is gonna end up being one of those ideas that gets over-pushed and over-hyped in marketing, and in the adventure itself the war will be completely in the background with no player-facing way to mechanically engage with it. (Not that I'd really want to, anyway.)

Like a "heist" perhaps?

I trust WotC to do something daring or groundbreaking mechanically exactly not at all.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Not much in the video except the micro-adventure concept, which I mean, I guess is fine, but I'm not sure I (or many DMs) would entirely approve of "make up whatever PCs you want with absolutely zero reference to or knowledge of the setting", as a general principle.

Kind of makes settings pointless if they're all so kitchen-sink that you can just make up whatever.

Precisely. This is why I see it as a transparent nostalgia grab because they're afraid people won't buy an original setting.

 

[Delazar]

Curious how they'll handle adding in classes to the setting that didn't exist before, at least as far as I'm aware:

Artificer
Bard
Druid
Monk
Paladin
Ranger
Sorcerer
Warlock

Far as I know, none of these classes had a prominent NPC that I can recall. Friend of mine said one of the novels did have a Monk from a far off land. I can see these classes coming from "Beyond Ansalon" continent. It was always "Wizard" when it came to magic, not sure where Sorcerers fit in. Are they just treated the same albeit different methods of using arcane magic? Same with Warlock, which I'm guessing would probably be those outcast kind of magic users.

Were there any Druids? I can't recall. I've read a lot of Dragonlance novels back then and the only classes I ever saw represented were Barbarian, Fighter, Cleric, Thief (Rogue), and Wizard. Heck I don't even know if Psionics exist in Krynn.

Riverwind was a Ranger, Monks were specialty priests of the god Majere, several knights of Solamnia were statted as Paladins, and I remember a Druid in the classic adventures, some guy in stasis for some centuries. Also, druids could easily be priests of the pantheon’s nature deities. All arcanists (warlocks, sorcerers, maybe even bards and artificers) will be some sort of esoteric school within the High Sorcery.

 

[humble minion]

honestly, I care very little I wonder if this will be better contentwise than spell jammer?

224 pages vs 192 for Spelljammer.

Better, but not by very much. For comparison, Curse of Strahd was 256 pages (without the player-facing material that SJ had or DL will) and Rising from the Last War was 320.

Another very content-light release it seems.

 

[Velderan]

Precisely. This is why I see it as a transparent nostalgia grab because they're afraid people won't buy an original setting.

Old sales data from the TSR days certainly supports that fragmenting your audience isn't exactly a winning sales strategy so I get their hesitation. We'll see long-term if luring in older fans with member-berries then delivering a half-baked product is a better strategy.

 

[Tonguez]

Once upon a time, there were explicitly no bards, druids, or paladins in Krynn. Sorcerers were introduced to Dragonlance after the Chaos War/Second Cataclysm/3rd Edition.

Warlocks are such a great concept for a character that they can work around in most any situation.

I thought the original Dragonlance module called out Druids as being aliens from beyond Krynn, later on they were all declared to be Clerics of Chislev
Paladin = Knights of Solamnia - hopefully thats the default

 

[MonsterEnvy]

This just seems like the sort of big-picture stuff that frankly I think is well beyond the logistical capabilities and focus and general coordination/editorial chops of WotC's designers based on recent offerings. But I would be happy to be proven wrong here.

They couldn't even follow their own travel times in Chapter One of Rime of the Frostmaiden when designing Chapter Four of the same book.

There is a level of "right hand knowing what the left hand is doing" required to actually integrate this that I'm not saying is impossible, but it would surprise me to see them actually successfully do it.

Why. It seems the adventure is just going to say at certain points you can use the companion board game to resolve the huge battle, but say if you don't have it then it will offer a quick way to do so.

Don't understand your doubt. (Also they followed their own travel times in Frostmaiden)