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

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I have got a new idea about a dark domain based in Dragonlance. The curse of the dark lord is the domain mainly populated by kenders, gullys and goblins(+goblyns), and these survive all the tries of genocide.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Eh, that's kind of an issue with self-reported anecdotes. You don't hear about the kender that aren't a problem.

um the same way you don't hear on the news everyday about airplanes landing... we DON'T need to fix for ones that land. However if we hear reputedly that 1 type or build of plane crashes MORE then others... we should fix that, even if it isn't 100% of that brand/type/build that does...

I wouldn't mind an opt-in thing that cuts both ways. Swap one item for another of similar value, but once in the same session the DM gets to do do the same. So you pull some antivenom out of your hat but then maybe your grappling hook was swapped for a kazoo. Give em inspiration if they use it instead!

as long as the flavor text isn't "Whole race can't understand they are theives, and they lie to avoid being called theives, and everyone loves tthem"

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Folks, why are you rehashing this?

Kender handling is gone. `Poof, it doesn't exist anymore. You won this fight. The whole notion of not understanding property has been stripped from the description of Kender and there is nothing whatsoever to replace it. Handling is an artifact of the past and is no longer part of Kender.

becuse if those of us with a problem don't keep pushing through this playtest, they MAY see it as "oh, more people want it back"
it is the reverse of a 'playtest' if we just say "Oh wont say anything now"

They removed it for all the really excellent reasons that have been listed here - it's offensive, ableist, caused problems at some tables, and so on. It's gone.

it isn't gone yet... and people are argueing (like just a post or two before you) to bring it back

And, when they tried to replace it with a new idea, that got shot down in flames as well. Too big of a change.

So, WotC scorch earthed. The whole concept of borrowing, sharing, generosity, and whatnot is expunged from the description of kender. Kender are now standard PHB halflings with a variant ability - taunt instead of lucky.

You really don't have to keep going on about this. It's not an issue anymore. Take a victory lap, you won this.

no one won until the book is printed

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I do wonder how much this has a bearing on ones view.

Novels defined Kender for me, and my reading is the same as yours.

I loved the one Kender I read about in the Novels... I have seen 2 dozen played in games... I can count 3 that DiDn't cause issues... and in 2 of the 3 cases the players didn't follow the fluff fully.

 

[Raunalyn]

Once again for some reason I still find myself amazed at peoples ability to view something in the worse light possible. At times I cannot help but think some are wishing for there to be an issue to "fight". Aside from this my view is to focus on the curiosity and let the outlet of said curiosity be an individual thing.

This!

 

[Raunalyn]

I have got a new idea about a dark domain based in Dragonlance. The curse of the dark lord is the domain mainly populated by kenders, gullys and goblins(+goblyns), and these survive all the tries of genocide.

Oh, Sithicus was worse. They had Vampire Kender. Truly and absolutely terrifying.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Oh, Sithicus was worse. They had Vampire Kender. Truly and absolutely terrifying.

That does seem like something that, whether you loved or hated Kender, is pretty much "your worst nightmare". Don't Look Now meets the little girl from Interview With The Vampire (or "Let the Right One In", for that matter) meets The Joker.

 

[Raunalyn]

That does seem like something that, whether you loved or hated Kender, is pretty much "your worst nightmare". Don't Look Now meets the little girl from Interview With The Vampire (or "Let the Right One In", for that matter) meets The Joker.

Seriously, they were actually one of the most terrifying creatures from Sithicus for me. Little silent assassins who would only make a sound when they were ready to attack...they would release this hideous giggle that acted like a Symbol of Insanity, and then they would attack...their claws would drain your Dexterity.

Like I said...terrifying. Soth didn't like Kender either, and this was his solution.

 

[Remathilis]

See, here's the thing.

I LIKE Kender. I do. For all that I'm pretty vocal criticizing what they did at the table, I do understand why they were popular. At the time, they were very different and original. D&D never had anything like Kender before. The issues with kender were more to do with the flavor of how they were presented - the whole handling thing and the "easily bored" thing were often interpreted as tacit permission to players to be asshats.

I'm not saying that the way the race was written mandated that. It didn't. But, that's often how it was interpreted and kender became a problem for a lot of tables, with all sorts of horror stories and then pretty much blanket banned.

But the concept is really cool.

So here is where WotC's new notion of races being limited in fluff is going to bite them in the butt. For all the strange origin stories and deep dives into the lore, kender were only ever halflings+ with a complete reversal of the normal hobbit looks and personality traits. Obviously, they can't make kender be mechanically better than halflings and the new mantra for races is to be vague in terms of looks and culture, so the two things that made them different ARE gone.

I liked the magical pockets and fey origin. I could see them being refluffed as Puck-like fey or leprechauns in non DL settings. But I also get that kender are just the halflings of Krynn and if that's what people want, that's what they'll get. I'm just content that WotC has taken some steps to mitigate the Griefer aspects of the race and make them work in a party. If that makes the Venn diagram between 5e kender and 5e halflings almost a perfect circle, I'd rather that than what kender were defined as previously.

Tl;dr: I'd have preferred fey tricksters, but if the community consensus is "halflings by another name", that's still better than the abominations they were previously.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But I also get that kender are just the halflings of Krynn and if that's what people want, that's what they'll get.

To be fair, D&D has a fairly large number of "conceptually and functionally redundant" races/subraces from a cross-setting perspective (beaten only I think by RIFTS), so adding another to the pile is probably fine.