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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[Charlaquin]

I can't do a deep dive right now, so I will just point out feat chains already exist in 5e, thanks to the Strixhaven book with it's Strixhaven Initiate and Strixhaven Mascot feats.

Wow, they sure did include a lot of paradigm-changing stuff in an M:tG crossover book, didn’t they?

 

[UngainlyTitan]

or it end up the major point of 6e.

I really doubt it. I know that any argument I present will not convince you, so I am not really arguing with you, just using your comment as a jumping off point. I think that lore is constraining, not in individual cases but across the broad mass of potential customers.
No matter how wonderfully put together and evocative a world is build there will be people for whom aspect of that lore are show stoppers and they will not buy that product.
If the product is seen as necessary or foundational then it becomes a barrier to entry as a D&D player and DM.
Wizards will do anything to avoid that. So fairly bland and lowest common denominator lore.

may be if D&D becomes a declining market again we will see a return to lore and world building but no the way things are now.

 

[Micah Sweet]

On another note, these backgrounds are obviously much stronger than anything pre-Strixhaven, with the addition of the feat. They have to be implementing a new level 1 feat rule, perhaps with a specific feat associated with each background. I've been thinking along those same lines for a while now.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I really doubt it. I know that any argument I present will not convince you, so I am not really arguing with you, just using your comment as a jumping off point. I think that lore is constraining, not in individual cases but across the broad mass of potential customers.
No matter how wonderfully put together and evocative a world is build there will be people for whom aspect of that lore are show stoppers and they will not buy that product.
If the product is seen as necessary or foundational then it becomes a barrier to entry as a D&D player and DM.
Wizards will do anything to avoid that. So fairly bland and lowest common denominator lore.

may be if D&D becomes a declining market again we will see a return to lore and world building but no the way things are now.

WotC's status as fairly bland and lowest common denominator is nothing new.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I really doubt it. I know that any argument I present will not convince you, so I am not really arguing with you, just using your comment as a jumping off point. I think that lore is constraining, not in individual cases but across the broad mass of potential customers.
No matter how wonderfully put together and evocative a world is build there will be people for whom aspect of that lore are show stoppers and they will not buy that product.
If the product is seen as necessary or foundational then it becomes a barrier to entry as a D&D player and DM.
Wizards will do anything to avoid that. So fairly bland and lowest common denominator lore.

may be if D&D becomes a declining market again we will see a return to lore and world building but no the way things are now.

it was an offhand statement, think banter less hill I want to fight on

 

[Parmandur]

Oh, didn’t realize that was a thing in Strixhaven as well. Yeah, in that case I’d bet that’s going to be the standard moving forward, and that the revised rules will add feats to the core backgrounds as well. Works for me!

Oh, yeah, exactly the same. Each of the five magical Colleges gets a variation Magical Initiate as part of their Background, with a choice of 2 cantrips and a 1st Level spell (with a free cast), all of which count as Class Spells using the desired casting Ability. They can then get a Feat for their College giving a Super Familiar with special abilities. The options in Strixhaven for Spells are as follows:

College	Cantrip Choices	1st-Level Spell
Lorehold	Light, Sacred Flame, Thaumaturgy	From Cleric or Wizard spell lists
Prismari	Fire Bolt, Prestidigitation, Ray of Frost	From Bard or Sorcerer spell lists
Quandrix	Druidcraft, Guidance, Mage Hand	From Druid or Wizard spell lists
Silverquill	Sacred Flame, Thaumaturgy, Vicious Mockery	From Bard or Cleric spell lists
Witherbloom	Chill Touch, Druidcraft, Spare the Dying	From Druid or Wizard spell lists

All in all, very similar to what we see for Dragonlance here.

 

[mach1.9pants]

This makes we want to re read the first two trilogies, take notes on anything that could be gameplay related, and build DL on a 5e chassis. Even the original DL rules didn't actually reflect the books (along with having Knights of Solamnia thousands of years before Solamnia). These rules really mutes stuff that makes the world unique. I'm happy divinely cursed kender, I'm really not happy with 6 trinkets that disappear in an hour.
When your first fantasy book you ever read, after LotR, was this series, a bland mush is unwelcome, especially when you see the awesome dedication to lore that The One Ring has.
I do like the sorcerer rules, in and of themselves.

 

[Charlaquin]

A perfectly legitimate thing to complain about.

Sure, just not very compelling to folks who don’t already agree. I saw comments to the tune of “I’m going to show this to people when they ask why I don’t like the recent lore changes!” and expected something new and illuminating on the subject, but it seems to me to just be more of the same arguments.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This makes we want to re read the first two trilogies, take notes on anything that could be gameplay related, and build DL on a 5e chassis. Even the original DL rules didn't actually reflect the books (along with having Knights of Solamnia thousands of years before Solamnia). These rules really mutes stuff that makes the world unique. I'm happy divinely cursed kender, I'm really not happy with 6 trinkets that disappear in an hour.
When your first fantasy book you ever read, after LotR, was this series, a bland mush is unwelcome, especially when you see the awesome dedication to lore that The One Ring has.
I do like the sorcerer rules, in and of themselves.

DL was also my first foray into fantasy fiction post-LotR. I feel you.

 

[HammerMan]

This is why I have always been in favor of just opening up the old settings to the DMs Guild, and leave it at that. People can make what they want, and the market will determine what's most successful.

why would we WANT the market to decide if racist boarderline nazi propaganda is successful? would we just rather remove that?