Is anyone excited for this release? If so, is anyone planning to make changes to make it feel more like the older editions of DL? (i.e. - Reinstituting the restrictions for entry into the Knights of Solamnia, making a Handler rogue archetype or Tinker arcane tradition)
I'm super pumped for this campaign. I'm running it for my cousins who I introduced to D&D with Dragonlance when they were 14 and 11 respectively. I plan to play it more old school with some race and class restrictions per the AD&D 2e and D&D 3.5 settings. Since I was never a huge fan of post Chaos War DL up to the War of Souls, sorcerers are allowed, and the divine soul sorcerer can stand in for the Mystic. My high school AD&D 2e campaign had a psionicist, so I'm allowing the psychic classes: aberrant mind sorcerer, soul knife rogue, and psi-knight fighter. That's about it for now. I'll add more tweaks I'm using as I think of them.
For me, the artificer is sufficient as a class for tinker gnomes. The kender don't really need a dedicated Handler subclass since their handling is more of a feature of their race than a class from what I've read. As for the Orders of the Knights of Solamnia, I think they can just be a faction with all branches on equal footing. I've avoided reading or watching too much about the rules updates but I like what I've seen so far.
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Nice! Well, luckily, this takes place in the War of the Lance, so if you don't want to deal with post Chaos War or War of Souls, you don't need to! I like the way that the book has been set up so far. I am going to tweak the locations a bit to use my old village of Stonybrook instead of Vogler and change out some of the npcs from an old campaign.
As for the Tinker, I just don't like the Artificer. Might work for a mad gnome, but I just don't really like the class. (It is fine for Eberron, but doesn't fit for me anywhere else but homebrew worlds that are designed for it.) I agree about the Handler, it should more be how one plays the Kender.
I like the Knights of Solamnia Background and Feats. I am planning to make them a Faction that you can join the faction and gain the feats after the appropriate training. The only thing I will add back in is the quest requirement (which can be fulfilled within the bounds of the adventure.)
I am going to have a session 0 in two weeks!
I picked this up today, not had a chance to read it yet.
I loved the original Dragonlance trilogy, but it's been 20 years since I read them, and apparently this book does its own thing anyway.
Looking forward to reading your adventure write-ups.
I've worked on a 5e Dragonlance setting of my own, and have had trouble figuring out how bards work. They can cast both arcane and divine magic. My idea was that before the gods returned they could still work, but could not cast healing magic. After the return they had to follow an appropriate deity such as Branchala as a type of artistic priest. If not, they have to take the Test of High Sorcery, and won't gain the benefit of healing magic. I haven't read the new adventure yet, so I don't know if they address this.
What I did is that I made it that healing magic only provided temp hp before the gods returned.
Interesting solution. I find that the same situation happens with the artificer and celestial patron warlock, but the bard is most likely to be allowed by a wider range of DMs. I have never run a game during the War of the Lance because all of my players backnin high school had read the Chronicles. My game was set 25 years after Legends trilogy, so we didn't have to worry about the lack of divine magic.
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If I have one complaint, it's that the adventure doesn't mention many race options or how to incorporate classes that aren't typically Dragonlance. Even half-elves are only mentioned in one sentence in the Elf entry. My group is sticking to more "classic fantasy" options to keep the feel more old-school. We have a half-elf Red Robe wizard (tradition to be decided) and a human hunter ranger. The third will probably be a fighter of some type.
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I'm not really sold on the portal or spelljamming ship being the open door for any race to appear in the world. What connection would they have to make them want to fight for the people of Krynn? Do any of your players want to play a race or class that doesn't fit the setting?
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That is the importance of the Session 0. I do not believe in letting people play whatever they want. If they want to play something that doesn't fit (or a disruptive/joke character, I usually ask the player to keep that idea for another campaign.
I will make it clear that the theme of Evil feeds on its own is underlying to all Dragonlance. (At least it was, and will be for my games.)
My cousin group's "session zeroes" usually take place over text in the weeks leading up to the beginning of an adventure due to the infrequency of our game time. However, I get that it's important to put expectations out there. I don't have any issues with this group. So far we have a female half-elf divination wizard working toward Red Robe, a male human hunter ranger, and a male fighter or cleric of some type working toward Knight of Solamnia. I'll have a DMPC of some sort to fill the class gap.
UPDATE: I have switched to PF2e as of the 2nd session.
The OGL controversy?
Been souring on 5e for a while, the OGL mess is just the straw...
Understandable.
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My weekly group and my group for SotDQ will remain 5e until the whole mess shakes out. My weekly Iron Gods group converted to 5e from PF1e and will not be going back or converting to anything else. To us 5e isn't the issue, its WotC leadership. We have tons of stuff to play until things settle down.
That said, my SotDQ party is shaping up. We have a human psi-warrior fighter/Knight of Solamnia hopeful named Ben Gregor, a human hunter ranger, a human life domain cleric of either Mishakal or Branchala, a half-elf diviner wizard/Red Robe initiate, and a minotaur rogue with a subclass to be determined. I need to figure out how to best run the preludes. The wizard will be solo, the fighter and rogue will be together, and the cleric and ranger will be together. Has anyone started their campaign yet?
UPDATE: I have switched to PF2e as of the 2nd session.
So are you converting Shadow of the Dragon Queen to PF2e, or switching campaigns entirely? I would still be interested in your conversion process even though I don't know PF2e. I'm sure that will change in the coming months as one of my groups seems to be OK with learning it.
I will be converting or reskinning into Dragonlance. I am not sticking super close to the SotDQ anyway, so it is just a matter of finding things relatively close to what I need for the trappings of DL.
I will be interested in how you are converting the Wizards of High Sorcery?
I didn't need to, because no one wanted to play a wizard. However, the boys decided that they'd rather play 5e. *shrug*
I will have to save PF2e for a future campaign...
Sorry to hear that. :(
One way of handling this would have been to use the Archetype system.
My group will play the preludes next Saturday. I've been watching a couple of live plays on YouTube that handled them very differently. One just made up his own for each of the 4 "mages" in the party and included the plot device NPC with two others in each. One of them has already had his Test at first level instead of waiting until later as written in the adventure. The other is played pretty much by the book except all four characters are at least present in each prelude. They have a more rounded party. Both are entertaining and have given me some inspiration for my own DMing.
I'm running as close to old school Dragonlance as I can. One of the characters in my group is a ranger, so I paired him with the cleric since he'll need to pick a deity to receive divine spells. The diviner wizard Red Robe initiate will be solo and the soulknife rogue and psi-warrior fighter will be together to face the draconians. I'll be sure to give updates as we progress.
How are you handling the backstories with Ispin?
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I changed Ispin to my old NPC of Bretram, a knight of the Rose that retired suddenly two decades prior. It was an easy shift to make Becklin his niece.
Since I have two squires in my group, I had that he had trained them when they were young and sent them off to the knighthood to further their training.
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Last Saturday my group played two of the three preludes due to the absence of one of the players. It felt good to be back on Krynn with players from all three of my current groups who have each been in one of my Dragonlance games in the past.
My biggest challenge was figuring out how to diver the news of an NPCs death to each character when they all currently reside in the starting town. One even lives with one of the main NPCs. Also, I had to alter the order of the preludes since the (future) cleric was not present. We'll pick that up at the beginning of the next.
How are your games going?
I played through the first book. It's hard to shake the "generic high-feudalism fantasy" of D&D 5e, even taking place in Krynn, but it was...fun? Everyone got really invested in it. I had to repackage several of the NPC's to do it, but eh.*
*Also I was doing it all in Pathfinder2e, so some encounters may have been harder or easier than written.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Guess they aren't aware that actual hybrids exist and the game can't support Lygers or Mules. And for that matter Dark Sun can't have Muls.
Maybe to be safe they should exclude centaurs, half dragons, and any other chimeric creatures. Bye-bye owlbear.
Guess they aren't aware that actual hybrids exist and the game can't support Lygers or Mules. And for that matter Dark Sun can't have Muls.
We can't have Dark Sun?
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Session 3 was last Saturday. We still didn't have the full party in attendance due to work obligations. We (I) also had technical issues that delayed the game on Roll20. The cleric (of Mishakal) and ranger (of Chislev) finally completed their prelude and are now fully able to use their divine magic. We played some events at the Kingfisher Festival up to the beginning of the Battle of High Hill.
Session 6 will be tomorrow. The characters are planning how to deal with the army on their doorstep, and may have a plan involving a certain gnomish device atop Thornwall Keep. How are your games going?