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

 

[Hussar]

But the modern D&D is halfling is in effect a kender, so having a separate kender lineage in 5e is pointless. I guess making them different from current halflings was the reason for making them fey. I think my feedback will be: this is a waste of space, just say mechanically kender are halflings.

Well, again, it depends on what you're trying to do. I think the whole fey wild connection was the attempt to give them something like the old Handling element without the kleptomania. So, they give them a quasi-magical ability, a kinda sorta magical background to explain why they have this kinda sort magical ability, meaning they don't actually have to say where the stuff in their pockets come from, and you're off to the races.

Additionally, you kinda had a very tenuous thread in that kender are born from gnomes originally and in 5e gnomes have a much stronger tie to fairy and faewild. So, there is some logic behind making a race born from a faerie race after said faerie race was mutated by a massive injection of chaos magic into a kind of faerie.

Now, since they've apparently just decided that handling isn't all that important, you no longer need the magical stuff, so, yeah, they've basically just halflings with taunt instead of lucky.

See, this is where I do disagree that this version of kender is more like the original, because, to me, handling was a major part of the race. While I know there were all sorts of problems with it, it at least tried to be original and distinct. Kender handling and kender impetuousness were, to me, two pretty defining traits of kender. Taunt is just another combat ability to me. It's not really making kender stand out in a sea of races that all have combat abilities.

Again, though, I totally get why they are punting on both handling and impetuousness. Too many problems and the potential solution just didn't get enough traction. Fair enough. They tried, they got the feedback and they made changes. That's how the process works.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

So I have gone back and reread the Solamnia feats and the manoeuvres are in a comma delimited list with a final or, so does one only learn one manoeuvre per feat? Am I reading that correctly?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

So I have gone back and reread the Solamnia feats and the manoeuvres are in a comma delimited list with a final or, so does one only learn one manoeuvre per feat? Am I reading that correctly?

You can only have one per feat at a time, but you can change which one after a long rest.

A careful reading of the text indicates that the superiority dice from these feats cannot be used with manoeuvres you know from elsewhere, such as Battlemaster. They are a separate pool.

 

[Ath-kethin]

Again, though, I totally get why they are punting on both handling and impetuousness. Too many problems and the potential solution just didn't get enough traction. Fair enough. They tried, they got the feedback and they made changes. That's how the process works.

I think one of the major issues is that many people can't see the difference between "no concept of personal property" and "kleptomania." It's a perception problem that's been present since the kender first appeared, both in-world and IRL.

 

[Li Shenron]

A GOOD Black Robe?? Come on Wizards....

Absolutely, because 5e is the "freedom edition" where you can be anything from a CE murderous paladin of the god of peace, to a lovely goody-good devil/demon necromancer.

Except of course, you still will not pick up a metal shield if you're a Druid.

/pet peeve rant off

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Absolutely, because 5e is the "freedom edition" where you can be anything from a CE murderous paladin of the god of peace, to a lovely goody-good devil/demon necromancer.

Except of course, you still will not pick up a metal shield if you're a Druid.

/pet peeve rant off

Maybe Dragonlance should deal with it in the same way. If a good-aligned character wears black they explode.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think one of the major issues is that many people can't see the difference between "no concept of personal property" and "kleptomania." It's a perception problem that's been present since the kender first appeared, both in-world and IRL.

It doesn't help that actual D&D writers have described it as kleptomania. I'd be extremely unsurprised if Hickman/Weis had too. Though obviously it has no real relationship to the real-world mental health issue of kleptomania (which is almost the opposite of "no concept of personal property", but that's a whole other discussion).

It also doesn't help that in the literary depictions of it, it doesn't match up well with either "no concept of personal property" or "kleptomania". "Relentless trolling" seems a better description of a lot of Kender behaviour in the books.

 

[DarkCrisis]

It doesn't help that actual D&D writers have described it as kleptomania. I'd be extremely unsurprised if Hickman/Weis had too. Though obviously it has no real relationship to the real-world mental health issue of kleptomania (which is almost the opposite of "no concept of personal property", but that's a whole other discussion).

It also doesn't help that in the literary depictions of it, it doesn't match up well with either "no concept of personal property" or "kleptomania". "Relentless trolling" seems a better description of a lot of Kender behaviour in the books.

Trolling would imply malice.

It’s players that play bad Kender (and DMs that allow it). The race as shown in the novels are fine.

 

[Raunalyn]

Well, except that they no longer have no understanding of personal property, no more "borrowing" and actively pursue being professional thieves.

But, sure, no different I guess?

If your idea of a kender is just a halfling with taunt, then, yup, these fit the bill perfectly. And, frankly, since this removes the problematic elements of the race - which were never mechanical in nature anyway- it's a win all the way around.

Huh...isn't that what people had a problem with before? This version, mechanically, is no different than their 1st/2nd edition incarnations.

So, it's bad/wrong to remove problematic language, but good/fun to add an ability that was never in any of the lore and completely throws out the origin of the species. Got it...

 

[UngainlyTitan]

You can only have one per feat at a time, but you can change which one after a long rest.

A careful reading of the text indicates that the superiority dice from these feats cannot be used with manoeuvres you know from elsewhere, such as Battlemaster. They are a separate pool.

That is not what I was asking For example the Squire of Solamnia feat says
"Squire Maneuvers. You learn the Lunging Attack, Precision Attack, or Pushing Attack maneuver from the Battle Master subclass of the fighter in the Player’s Handbook (choose the maneuver when you gain this feat)"

Does that mean that you have only one maneuver: like "Lunging Attack" only. That is the way I read it.
Because it seems you get quite a few superiority dice to spend on one maneuver in contrast to Martial Adept where you 2 maneuvers and only one superiority dice to spend.

For that matter how does this interact with Martial Adept, which implies that the superiority dice gained is added to an existing dice poor of superiority dice, if one has such a pool.