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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[Micah Sweet]

By describing the actualities of the group and their activities instead of generalizing?

Like, that army is decimating that village instead of 'everyone in that army is a kleptomaniac'.

What if the army has a policy or custom of looting the defeated?

 

[JEB]

Can you guys just not be happy anymore?

Folks are allowed to complain about things they don't like. Even things you like. If you want more positivity, you could achieve more by emphasizing what you like about the changes, and ignoring the folks who don't like the changes.

Keep in mind, BTW, that past complaints are what got these changes you like...

 

[Vaalingrade]

What if the army has a policy or custom of looting the defeated?

Then I don't think we're dealing with the same definition of 'kleptomaniac'.

It doesn't just mean player character.

 

[James Gasik]

Thanks guys, I now have this mental image of an army of Kender descending on a town and putting everything that isn't nailed down into their pockets. And a few things that are...

"Oh look, a bathtub! It must have fallen into my pocket on accident!"

 

[Hussar]

See, I really like the idea that draconians fought to become their own race and chart their own destiny. It's the one thing post Legends that I liked the most. Of course, it predates dragonborn as a PH race, so we'll have to slot them in. With a timeskip, dragonborn can be an offshoot of the draconians, or the result of different breeds of draconian "coming together", or even a normalization of the species by the gods.

Funny how "changes" can be good or bad. To me, draconians are at best tragic. But, mostly they're just demons. They might be interesting, they might be great to use, but, at the end of the day, we don't need to make them anything other than what they are - demons. And the whole "well if we use this horrible ritual on evil dragon eggs, you get good draconians" is just mind bogglingly stupid. No, what you get is EVEN WORSE draconians. Alignment is not polarity of a battery. It cheapens the whole thing.

But, OTOH, I know I'm going to lose this battle even before I start. Draconians are going to be meshed with Dragonborn and I know that's coming.

So, the difference here is that, by and large, I'll simply go with it. What I won't do is spend the next two years repeatedly bitching about it on every single Dragonlance thread that comes up.

Unfortunately, it appears that simply accepting change and moving on isn't something a lot of folks are willing to do.

 

[JEB]

Draconians are going to be meshed with Dragonborn and I know that's coming.

FWIW, that change has long been foretold - it's all the way back in the 2014 PHB.

 

[darjr]

FWIW, that change has long been foretold - it's all the way back in the 2014 PHB.

Huh.

It does kinda fascinate me how much the original books and next play test hinted at. How much they already had planned in some way.

Or is it more they go back to the source and do something that makes it seem to fit later?

 

[JEB]

Huh.

It does kinda fascinate me how much the original books and next play test hinted at. How much they already had planned in some way.

Or is it more they go back to the source and do something that makes it seem to fit later?

Yeah, if you look at the original core rulebooks for setting material (as I did just before the full 5E canon policy came out), there seemed to be much more of an emphasis on the range of classic settings (except Nentir Vale, sorry 4E folks). Tika Waylan was even one of the sample characters in the backgrounds chapter. And the Next playtest had kender and warforged, while Krynn-style minotaurs and Eberron material also appeared in very early UAs. One wonders if there were originally plans to go multiversal much earlier, before they decided it was better to stick close to the Realms.

 

[darjr]

At this point I’m not sure much of their plans have changed. I think the realms was always meant to be the mainstay.

I mean last ok at the multiverse stuff strewn through out a lot of the early stuff.

 

[Older Beholder]

One thing I really like about this UA is the way they make use of backgrounds.
By making the Knights of Solamnia a background instead of a sub-class it really opens things up and leaves a lot of room for player creativity in character creation.

The suggested bard option for example is a really interesting take.
Also, it means you can have a disgraced knight that is now a rogue (just as an example) without needing to multi-class.

Of course they may not actually go this way if a book is released.