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

 

[Scribe]

I stopped reading Dragonlance before this happened. What was the reason behind his decision?

I'm 80% positive, there was a war going on between Good and Evil, but Chaos had returned, for Dragon's of a Summer Flame, and Paladin, being the Good God that he is, did not wish to see the planet destroyed, and so 'allowed' the forces of Takhisis (she had her own Knighthood this time, it was leaning into the 90's edge dark age of comics...) to become ascendant, so that they could all stand against Chaos.

Because when push comes to shove, its really Order vs Chaos when Chaos means the obliteration of the planet.

 

[Maxperson]

And this is where alignment becomes a straightjacket, particularly when you have racial alignments. Oh, it's an orc, it must be one of the baddies because that's what its alignment is. Nope, can't use them as allies; they're baddies. Oh, it's a gold dragon, it has to be an ally.

Good ally orcs and evil gold dragons have been part of the game since 1e. No race is every 100% an alignment. If you was a PC want to assume orcs are evil and kill them, you can do that.

Alignment has literally never in its entire history, been a straightjacket.

Can the game take away a DM tool because it has caused countless arguments over literal decades and is often not used properly even within the game itself?

And quite literally, the decades of arguments are irrelevant. 5e removed the mechanical teeth of alignment, so no alignment argument prior to 5e is appropriate to bring up. Further, any alignment argument after 5e was released that involves either the player or DM abusing the alignment tool is also inappropriate to bring up, as that is not an alignment issue.

 

[Maxperson]

I'm 80% positive, there was a war going on between Good and Evil, but Chaos had returned, for Dragon's of a Summer Flame, and Paladin, being the Good God that he is, did not wish to see the planet destroyed, and so 'allowed' the forces of Takhisis (she had her own Knighthood this time, it was leaning into the 90's edge dark age of comics...) to become ascendant, so that they could all stand against Chaos.

Because when push comes to shove, its really Order vs Chaos when Chaos means the obliteration of the planet.

That makes sense. It's a good reason for him to let evil win.

 

[Scribe]

That makes sense. It's a good reason for him to let evil win.

Yes, its the long game, selfless (vs selfish Takhisis who would rather have seen it all destroyed) way that a Good God would act, imo.

 

[Weiley31]

That makes sense. It's a good reason for him to let evil win.

Yes, its the long game, selfless (vs selfish Takhisis who would rather have seen it all destroyed) way that a Good God would act, imo.

Sometimes, ya just gotta play the long game.

 

[Maxperson]

Yes, its the long game, selfless (vs selfish Takhisis who would rather have seen it all destroyed) way that a Good God would act, imo.

Yep, and allows for the chance to overthrow the evil later. Everyone dead is just plain bad for all time.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I am perfectly fine with good, evil, and neutral forces being around. But I don’t think groups like the mages of High Sorcery should be defined by it. It’s fine for the groups to have members of certain alignments above all else in the groups, but they should not be identifying as those alignments. Which why I think the UAs terms work best.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

You also have to consider that there are wizards of all alignments on Krynn, and if any of them, including the Good ones, tried to put a system in place that would benefit only themselves, the others would band together and wipe them out. Doing so would also threaten the practice of magic on Krynn in general, which ALL the wizards care about more than Good or Evil. A compromise had to be made, and like all compromises, no one was completely happy with it.

this compromise didn't include the unalgined non robed mages....

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Too much good cholesterol will give you Parkinsons. Too much Water will either drown you or make you pee out all the minerals/nutrients in your body. Or Dilute your sodium levels which is all sorts bad.

those are too much of physical things... not too many people being good.

 

[Maxperson]

this compromise didn't include the unalgined non robed mages....

Those were the ones who caused all the destruction and problems in the first place. They were the reason the others banded together and set up the rules.