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

 

[Hussar]

I can't help what people believe. I can just say what I think.

No, hey, I'm with you on this. But, history has shown that people are very, very particular about what classes mean and how they are presented. A ranger MUST be a certain way. A fighter MUST be a certain way. Calling something a knight means that it must be represented by the fighter class. So on and so forth.

 

[AnotherGuy]

No, hey, I'm with you on this. But, history has shown that people are very, very particular about what classes mean and how they are presented. A ranger MUST be a certain way. A fighter MUST be a certain way. Calling something a knight means that it must be represented by the fighter class. So on and so forth.

I would have thought warlord to be the obvious choice...

 

[bedir than]

A setting doesn't matter because of the trivia. No one cares about trivia in the real world, let alone in fiction.

What matters in settings are there story themes and literary archetypes covered.

Yes, they appear to be abandoning trivia. This will be very bad for anyone who was the dragonlance specialist at pub trivia.

The story themes don't seem to have changed, which will be very good for GenX and older gamers who want to play the game setting we played in our youth.

 

[Ath'kethin]

Dupe post.

 

[Ath'kethin]

Knight Clerists of the Order of the Sword are an order of battle clerics devoted to Kiri-Jolith. They have been in the setting from the very start.

Nobody said otherwise. My point was simply that, in the novels, the game effects of that class - specifically their spellcasting, is never addressed or even mentioned.

 

[Ath'kethin]

Maybe not in the novels, but, Knights of the Sword were spell casters in the Dragonlance Adventures book. They got clerical spells all the way up to 7th (max cleric) level.

Which kinda brings me around to the point about setting canon and whatnot.

Believe it or not, I'm actually quite sympathetic to the idea of keeping Dragonlance concepts in the game. If I had my druthers, I'd run a DL campaign that was strongly based on the original modules and the original limitations of the setting.

But, I have come to the realization that there are two problems with that.

1. No one will play with me if I do that. Most people aren't big Dragonlance nerds and they simply don't care. To them, Dragonlance is just that setting with lots of dragons. The details, if they even knew them at any point in the past, are long forgotten and they don't care. So, me trying to run the campaign based on what I feel Dragonlance should look like is only servicing me. The players, by and large, and I think the larger majority of D&D gamers, simply could not give a rat's petoot about what came before.

2. By WotC simply pushing everything off to the table, they avoid all the back and forth with all the misinformation about the setting. What people see as Dragonlance varies HUGELY. Is DL just the original modules? The novels? The novels+modules? What about the later stuff? The 3e stuff that was extremely well written but also written for people who were already deeply into the lore of the setting? On and on.

They touch on that in the video. If the setting truly is for "everyone" then you simply cannot expect people who have zero context and no interest either, in forty year old modules to go out and read them just so they can understand the setting. That's not going to happen.

Given that my point was the disconnect between what the rulebooks have said characters could do and what the novels actually described them doing, I appreciate you expounding on that very idea.

 

[bedir than]

Nobody said otherwise. My point was simply that, in the novels, the game effects of that class - specifically their spellcasting, is never addressed or even mentioned.

But the 1e Paladin doesn't get spellcasting in the space of the main novels

 

[Maxperson]

People seem to forget that early on the were rules were in flux. For example, early on druids appeared, and then they were ruled out by the hardback setting book.

If there are two conflicting rules statements about the class, it would fall to the DM to decide which is true. Also, Dragonlance Adventures where I got those rules from is a 1e hardback setting book, so I'm not sure what other book you are referring to.

 

[Maxperson]

Knight Clerists of the Order of the Sword are an order of battle clerics devoted to Kiri-Jolith. They have been in the setting from the very start.

@Ath-kethin said in the core novels and he is correct. They may have been in the setting from the start, but the setting did not start at the beginning, but rather started after the war. During the time period covered by the war there were no clerics until Goldmoon became the first one and then gave the discs to what's his name(blanking on his name) who became the first cleric of Paladine. As clerics became more prevalent, the Order of the Sword would have become battle clerics.

 

[darjr]

Here’s one of those pieces without the text