D&D 5E New Unearthed Arcana: Heroes of Krynn Revisited

WotC's Jeremy Crawford has announced a new Unearthed Arcana article today with redesigns from the prior Heroes of Krynn UA based on feedback, and in the following video he discusses that feedback and what's in the article:

• New iteration of Kender based on feedback survey, due to mixed response. This time is a back to basics, aiming to capture 1E AD&D fearlessness, curiosity and taunting skills. Delve into their origins from Gnomes in deep history.
• Kender are no longer fey creatures who grab objects from the Feywild
• Tweaked Feats from prior article
• Tweaked Backgrounds from prior article
• Brand new rule giving a list of free Feats for ANY Background
• Free Feat rule for Level 4 for all characters that doesn't take the ASI away, based on a curated list
• Reveals that in the Adventure, healing magic is already back.

Heroes of Krynn Revisited | Unearthed Arcana | Dungeons & Dragons

Explore updated character options from the Dragonlance setting! This playtest document presents revised races, subclasses, backgrounds, and feats.

dnd.wizards.com

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

Or else they work with others to make things better.

Yes, surely a group of people under the guidance of a charismatic leader with a vision to make the world a better place could never commit acts of unspeakable evil in the pursuit of a greater good. That has certainly never happened before, in our world or any other.

 

[Scribe]

I'm making it difficult?

A shoplifter.

Yes. You'd be called a thief.

 

[Maxperson]

Yes, surely a group of people under the guidance of a charismatic leader with a vision to make the world a better place could never commit acts of unspeakable evil in the pursuit of a greater good. That has certainly never happened before, in our world or any other.

The order isn't that.............................structured They just care that you are making the world a better place and upholding the standards of the good of good magic. Can't do that if you're evil.

So while yes, those sorts of things are possible where you have a strong leader with a bunch of subordinates, it wouldn't work that way in the towers.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Or else they work with others to make things better.

This is the thing: a ton of personality traits can be used for good or evil depending on the context. Do you love your family/friends more than anything in the world? That's normally an admirable quality. But what if someone loves their family/friends so much that they would be literally willing to sacrifice the world to save their lives? Not so admirable.

Do you want to make the world a better place? Okay, great. Better for who? Who says that your version of a better world would actually make it a better place?

Are you extremely driven and focused on your goals? That's good, right? Well, not if you happen to push away your friends and family while hyperfocusing on a specific part of your life (your job, your hobbies, etc).

Are you incredibly selfish? Okay, that's normally bad. But what if your selfishness drives you to save the world because you're one of the idiots that happens to live on it? That's an admirable quality. You did a good thing, even if your intentions were bad.

Personality traits don't exist in a vacuum and are typically not universally good or bad. Plenty of personality traits that we think are good/admirable/heroic could actually be extremely bad for someone to have in a ton of different circumstances. Plenty of personality traits that we think are bad/unheroic can be really good in specific circumstances.

A well-intentioned White Robe Mage could definitely be, in their actions, a bad person. The inverse applies to Black Robe Mages. Your actions determine your alignment, not your mindset. If you do evil things (murder children), it doesn't matter if you had good intentions, you're still an evil person. And vice versa.

 

[hbarsquared]

I miss Kender Ace. Could have been tweaked, but it was a fun little race-defining feature.

Taunt is fine, and there are obviously mechanical benefits to skill proficiency and frightened immunity, but that's also boring. Much prefer the first try.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Yes. You'd be called a thief.

If you wanted a non-specific answer, you should have asked a non-specific question. I assumed that you wanted a specific answer based on the fairly-specific question.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No. Never played it. But the DMs that I would probably end up playing that character with would probably not allow the UA version of a race that was replaced with a different version.

That's a real bummer. I sympathize.

 

[Maxperson]

This is the thing: a ton of personality traits can be used for good or evil depending on the context. Do you love your family/friends more than anything in the world? That's normally an admirable quality. But what if someone loves their family/friends so much that they would be literally willing to sacrifice the world to save their lives? Not so admirable.

Do you want to make the world a better place? Okay, great. Better for who? Who says that your version of a better world would actually make it a better place?

Are you extremely driven and focused on your goals? That's good, right? Well, not if you happen to push away your friends and family while hyperfocusing on a specific part of your life (your job, your hobbies, etc).

Are you incredibly selfish? Okay, that's normally bad. But what if your selfishness drives you to save the world because you're one of the idiots that happens to live on it? That's an admirable quality. You did a good thing, even if your intentions were bad.

Personality traits don't exist in a vacuum and are typically not universally good or bad. Plenty of personality traits that we think are good/admirable/heroic could actually be extremely bad for someone to have in a ton of different circumstances. Plenty of personality traits that we think are bad/unheroic can be really good in specific circumstances.

I understand this and pretty much ignore alignment completely in favor of traits and personality when I play. I also don't really care what the PCs put down on their sheets. However...

A well-intentioned White Robe Mage could definitely be, in their actions, a bad person. The inverse applies to Black Robe Mages. Your actions determine your alignment, not your mindset. If you do evil things (murder children), it doesn't matter if you had good intentions, you're still an evil person. And vice versa.

...this is true, but after a few such evil acts such a white robed wizard would be booted from the club and would be a renegade if he didn't join the black robes. Same with the reverse and a black robed wizard being a good guy.

 

[Hussar]

Heh, a bit of irony.

People absolutely lose their poop if you suggest that D&D is all about combat.

Yet, when we get anything that isn't directly combat related, it's 100% wrong and must be excised until we are left with something that only relates to combat. Then it's fine.

The new kender write-up has nothing outside of combat. Well, a bonus skill I suppose. That's about it. The main Kender abilities - immune to fear and taunt are only going to be used in combat.

And apparently, that's better than giving the race a ribbon ability to pull out small trinkets or items (regardless of the explanation) during play. Something that could come up all the time and really make a point of defining a character at the table. But, no, instead, we're only allowed to have combat stuff and everything else is left on the cutting room floor.

Definitely get what we pay for no? But, no, absolutely not. D&D is not about combat. How could anyone ever come to that conclusion? It's all about role play and character and setting. It's just that nothing that we put in the books ever actually has anything to do with role play, character or setting.

 

[Greg Benage]

It seemed like kind of missed opportunity, too, not to include the non-combat maneuvers (Commanding Presence/Tactical Assessment), but I guess they don't want to pull in non-core books for something like this?