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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dnd.wizards.com

 

[Remathilis]

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

Then they're PCs.

I don't disagree, but you also have to be able to generalize in writing, or you can't discuss any group larger than one. As long as it is made clear (preferably early in the document) that a person might vary greatly from their cultural norms, it should be ok to discuss a culture with traits that would be considered negative by many.

Agreed. It's one thing to say all orcs are evil and maybe all draconians are purposely corrupted to be evil, but we're getting to a point where we have to question if the Daleks or the First Order is actually evil. It feels like trying to describe a car and saying it's "blue" and someone pointing out that the tires aren't blue, the engine inside isn't blue, and the interior lights aren't blue so therefore how can you describe the car as blue?

Dragonlance, from my experience as limited as it was, was very much a black and white setting, with gray being its own third faction. I am curious to see how WotC threads the needle between a setting of such stark contrast with the current desire to have everything be morally relative.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

We shouldn't forget the option of mechanical crossbows reloading itself by means of a steampunk motor or some artifical muscle. In the real life the pistol-shrimp can be very powerful.

Pistol Shrimp: The Fastest Gun in the Sea

The pistol shrimp is feared in the ocean for its ability to hit a prey with air bubbles that travel 82 feet per second, pop at 218 decibels and deliver 8,000 degrees Fahrenheit of heat.

animals.howstuffworks.com

And with alchemy spider silk could be used to craft bulletproof breastplates.

Spider Silk is Now Being Used to Make Body Armor

Body armor made from spider silk is in serious development and it is not as farfetched as it may seem. A decade from now, the military may be ordering this […]

www.bodyarmornews.com

Other point is PCs could be helped by squires or other allies to reload guns or crossbows.

And it is not only the firearms from steampunk settings by 3PPs but also by WotC itself when d20 Past was published.

 

[James Gasik]

There was this comic many moons ago, Empire Lanes, where some D&D style heroes ended up transported to modern day Chicago. The Paladin took a shotgun blast to the chest, but was ok because they had magic plate armor. In previous editions, magic armor was much harder to break, so I would argue that would lend itself to being bullet resistant.

And if not, materials like adamantine surely would. So early firearms would affect the world, but not completely turn D&D on it's head, I would think. Furthermore, these weapons would be expensive and not just everyone has the knowledge to produce smoke powder, so that would keep them out of the hands of most bad guys.

I see it more like The Road Warrior, where most people are using primitive weapons, but the main villain, Lord Humongous, has a prized .44 revolver to use in the final battle.

 

[Azzy]

Well because they basically replace every weapon.

They only do that if the stats for guns make other weapons obsolete—which should never be the case in a game where they are meant to be optional.

 

[Scars Unseen]

Dragonlance, from my experience as limited as it was, was very much a black and white setting, with gray being its own third faction.

Interestingly, it was really more of a black and grey and grey calling itself white setting. Most of the good guys being self-centered dicks was kind of a big element in the original trilogy, and in the second trilogy, the priestess in the party was an arrogant snob.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

IMO firearms needn’t interfere with sword fighting and shield walls.

It isn’t hard to imagine better general materials science in a world where swords don’t have any inherent risk of breaking, and where you got that chainmail from doesn’t determine how protective it is, and crossbows take about 2-4 seconds to reload, at most, and hand crossbows are about as deadly at close range as a short bow.

 

[James Gasik]

Not to mention early firearms can have terrible accuracy! In the late 18th century, rifles had a maximum range of about 80-100 yards (100 is pushing it), and at maximum range it had a lateral error of THREE FEET. Enemy rifleman had to line up pretty darned close to the enemy in battle.

Not to mention misfires or fouling the chamber, or your powder getting wet...

 

[Micah Sweet]

Not to mention early firearms can have terrible accuracy! In the late 18th century, rifles had a maximum range of about 80-100 yards (100 is pushing it), and at maximum range it had a lateral error of THREE FEET. Enemy rifleman had to line up pretty darned close to the enemy in battle.

Not to mention misfires or fouling the chamber, or your powder getting wet...

See though, that's part of the problem too. Guns often end up borderline useless because people get hung up on historical accuracy (hypocritical, because the same rules don't apply to other weapons).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Not to mention early firearms can have terrible accuracy! In the late 18th century, rifles had a maximum range of about 80-100 yards (100 is pushing it), and at maximum range it had a lateral error of THREE FEET. Enemy rifleman had to line up pretty darned close to the enemy in battle.

Not to mention misfires or fouling the chamber, or your powder getting wet...

Sure, though I will say that I don’t especially want to model that in a D&D style game.

 

[James Gasik]

And that's fair, I wouldn't want to use guns if all those penalties were in effect. I mean, Pathfinder's firearms are so bad that no one but a Gunslinger would use them, because they have special class abilities to get around those limitations.

But even then, guns won't be replacing a Warlock's Eldritch Blast!