Dragonlance What do you think of the Kender?

[Demetrios1453]

Kender rogue stares quizzically at a hoopak with no clue what it is

Yeah, that's an immediate house rule. Simply saying that kender rogues have proficiency with it is more of a class thing than racial.

 

[Neonchameleon]

What do you think? I think it's OK but it's a bit watered down. I don't know what the right solution for the 'kleptomania' thing was, but I'm not sure cutting it out altogether would have been my choice.

There were only three options on the table:

1. Water it down
2. Give it another identity entirely
3. Take off and nuke Kendermore from orbit; it's the only way to be sure.

And I'm pretty sure they weren't going to nuke Kendermore however much cheering there would be from anyone who'd suffered the misfortune to see someone play a Kender as you were directed to play the worst race in D&D history. Meanwhile option two was tried in Unearthed Arcana and a significant number of people objected to the Fey Kender who could magically pull things out of their bags.

So with original Kender being widely reviled by most of those who cared and the main strong alternative they offered being objected to by many water was tthey decided water wasn't a bad choice. And 5e is about not bad choices.

 

[jasper]

So no darkvision. And still an insulting little kid. But they lost the greedy what is your pockets is in my pockets now thing. So, it is now a race I would not shoot on sight.

 

[AnotherGuy]

So no darkvision. And still an insulting little kid. But they lost the greedy what is your pockets is in my pockets now thing. So, it is now a race I would not shoot on sight.

So you admit it. You're a racist!

 

[Shadowdweller00]

Kender are a blight upon the world of gaming. The most noxious and heinous character idea ever created - in part because they're just short of being so actively obscene or cringe as to be self-censoring. Oh wait, you meant this incarnation of the kender? Sorry, haven't had a chance to notice over the genocide.

 

[Faolyn]

The change to Fearless was unnecessary, IMO. I don't know why WotC is so afraid of giving characters actual immunities. Also, I'm amused by all the "usable x times per day" abilities returning in 5e, after being soundly rejected in previous editions ("why can my character only perform his Vorpal Tornado attack once per day?").

Every time a race or archetype came up with immunity rather than resistance, reddit would go wild saying it was OP. So many people said yuan-ti purebloods were insta-banned at their table for their immunity to poison and the poisoned condition. So I'd guess WotC is listening to them.

 

[humble minion]

I kinda wish the taunt ability had been a racial feat, but WotC doesn’t seem to be doing those any more.

 

[Retreater]

How do they compare to gully dwarves (the best thing to come out of Dragonlance.)

 

[James Gasik]

Every time a race or archetype came up with immunity rather than resistance, reddit would go wild saying it was OP. So many people said yuan-ti purebloods were insta-banned at their table for their immunity to poison and the poisoned condition. So I'd guess WotC is listening to them.

Immunity to the Poisoned condition does come up a lot, because WotC likes to use it for things that don't have anything to do with poison (like the Stench of Troglodytes), and was the real value of the Yuan-Ti, as poison damage itself seems fairly uncommon, and enough DM's argued about what magic resistance actually worked on that it wasn't nearly as good as one might suppose.

But honestly, I don't really see how, in a game with all kinds of different types of damage and negative effects, how a race being immune to one thing is really a problem. I much prefer that over conditional modifiers that may or may not actually come up in game. But it seems that WotC would rather immunities come from class abilities than race.

There is something to be said about racial abilities that are made redundant by class abilities, thus making people want to avoid certain race/class combinations, I suppose, but we already have that with Halflings and Kender with Paladins, or Goblin Rogues.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

Immunity to the Poisoned condition does come up a lot, because WotC likes to use it for things that don't have anything to do with poison (like the Stench of Troglodytes), and was the real value of the Yuan-Ti, as poison damage itself seems fairly uncommon, and enough DM's argued about what magic resistance actually worked on that it wasn't nearly as good as one might suppose.

Poison damage is the most common energy type, barring large numbers of NPC mages. Or at least most common per enemy type.