Why don't you like Dragonlance?

[troqdor1316]

Yes, you. What, in your personal opinion, makes Dragonlance a sub par or bad setting to run games or play as a PC in?

inb4 possibilities of dealing with kender and the fact that the wizards are color coded.

I'm legitimately curious because I've been running a game in the setting for about a year now and my players are all perfectly happy with the game.

[Tvtyrant]

I came to D&D through Dragonlance originally, so nothing. As a game setting it has the issue of always being small compared to the big players.

[eggynack]

I'm not really aware of much in the way of issues with Dragonlance. The main reason it doesn't come up much, if I'm not mistaken, is that only Dragonlance campaign setting is a first party book, which limits the degree to which the setting can be referenced. By contrast, I end up referencing Eberron stuff all the time, because books like races of eberron and faiths of eberron, along with a number of others, have stuff well worth referencing.

[Alefiend]

I have no problem with the basics of Dragonlance. I had a blast as Tanis in a college game we adapted to Hero System. It becomes unpleasant to me when the power creep starts. Not with the players—unless they're playing Heroes of Legend/The Lance—but with all the Raistliny, Fistandantilus-ridden time travel ULTIMATE POWAAAHHHHH things that happen in the novels, which somebody always wants to bring into the game.

Also, kender and gully dwarves.

[troqdor1316]

I came to D&D through Dragonlance originally, so nothing. As a game setting it has the issue of always being small compared to the big players.

I guess I never saw that as an issue, as it's always been very lampshaded by the setting itself. Most people in the setting are just regular guys, but every now and then the gods themselves pretty much handpick a group of people to adventure and become awesome (or in some cases, the adventurers say "screw the gods!" and handpick themselves; Raistlin comes to mind). Then the opposing side of the pantheon picks a group of people to screw with those people, and balance is maintained by a bunch of awesome heroes of exalted/vile destiny while everyone else goes about with their normal nomad/farmer/merchant/wizardling lives. The setting itself and the writers for it are very aware of this trend and they use it to great effect in giving characters plothooks in adventure modules.

[heavyfuel]

I'm not really aware of much in the way of issues with Dragonlance. The main reason it doesn't come up much, if I'm not mistaken, is that only Dragonlance campaign setting is a first party book, which limits the degree to which the setting can be referenced. By contrast, I end up referencing Eberron stuff all the time, because books like races of eberron and faiths of eberron, along with a number of others, have stuff well worth referencing.

I honestly never understood that. Don't the Dragonlance books (not just the campaign setting) have the WotC's seal of approval? Isn't it exactly like D&D with a different name (could be wrong, as I never actually played it)? What's so different about mentioning something from a DL book than from an Eberron book?

[troqdor1316]

I have no problem with the basics of Dragonlance. I had a blast as Tanis in a college game we adapted to Hero System. It becomes unpleasant to me when the power creep starts. Not with the players—unless they're playing Heroes of Legend/The Lance—but with all the Raistliny, Fistandantilus-ridden time travel ULTIMATE POWAAAHHHHH things that happen in the novels, which somebody always wants to bring into the game.

Also, kender and gully dwarves.

Well, that's not really a problem specific to Krynn. Any setting that treats wizards somewhat realistically is going to end up focusing the story around wizard shenanigans while the rest of the mundanes try to keep up.

As for kender, I've always seen that a mature group can decide whether they would truly enjoy having a kender PC or not and if so, the kender is hilarious. If not, nobody plays one.

As for gully dwarves, they're basically comic relief, so I can understand that they don't add anything worthwhile to the setting. But I've always loved the idea of playing a level 1 gully dwarf wizard with 14 Intelligence, getting Int boosting items, and mass-producing permanent int-boosting magic items for all my gully dwarf neighbors with the epic goal of raising my race from the gutters.

[Sartharina]

I honestly never understood that. Don't the Dragonlance books (not just the campaign setting) have the WotC's seal of approval? Isn't it exactly like D&D with a different name (could be wrong, as I never actually played it)? What's so different about mentioning something from a DL book than from an Eberron book?Dragonlance uses D&D 3e to be the Dragonlance created in 2e (And all the variant rules irreconcilable with the main game therin).

D&D uses Eberron to be D&D.

[troqdor1316]

I honestly never understood that. Don't the Dragonlance books (not just the campaign setting) have the WotC's seal of approval? Isn't it exactly like D&D with a different name (could be wrong, as I never actually played it)? What's so different about mentioning something from a DL book than from an Eberron book?

Yeah, all the Dragonlance books I've seen have the WotC logo on them. I'm unsure what exactly makes them third-party.


Dragonlance uses D&D 3e to be the Dragonlance created in 2e (And all the variant rules irreconcilable with the main game therin).

D&D uses Eberron to be D&D.

The Dragonlance Campaign Setting is very clearly 3.5e.

[Story]

I thought that the only reason DCS was considered first party was due to a legal settlement?

[eggynack]

I thought that the only reason DCS was considered first party was due to a legal settlement?
I thought that was kingdoms of kalamar.

[Vogonjeltz]

I like the standard (Greyhawk) rules and pantheon more. That's really the only reason.

[jedipotter]

Yes, you. What, in your personal opinion, makes Dragonlance a sub par or bad setting to run games or play as a PC in?


I love Dragonlance, as a novel storytelling setting. As a game setting it's horrable. It's not a D&D game seting. So when you play in ''Dragonlance'' all your doing is playing D&D in a D&D world, with DRagonlance names for everything.

The novels describe a setting: lots of dragons everywhere. No wizards anywhere. Few high level people. Lots of Good and Evil. And such. But then when you drop the D&D rules in....well, you need to go by the D&D rules to play D&D. So the dragons fade away. Wizards are around as per ''normal D&D''. Character levels go by the DMG. And you get all the Gray.

A great example. Rastalin and Cameron are described about a hundred times in dozens of books as ''fighting together as a team, combining sword and magic together flawlessly in battle''. That sounds great, even awesome. Untill you apply the D&D rules. Rastalin is under 5th level in most of the novels. So he only gets a couple spells. So how does he ''fight for a couple minutes, with only a handfull of spells? And what spells does he even have? Like magic missle? What spells ''combine'' well? Even if you were to make him 5th level, it would be hard to make the character described in the books.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

First, I absolutely love Dragonlance. By far the most successful game I've run, or that anyone in my high school/college gaming group had ever participated in, was a 3E Dragonlance game.

Second, the setting does have an issue or two. For players of a particular bent, Kender are obviously a challenge, and so to a lesser extent are all of the Elven subraces (because they're super racist), Gully Dwarves (whose stupidity can quickly become irritating) and Tinker Gnomes (whose stupidity can quickly become irritating). Also, a comparatively high percentage of the playable Dragonlance races suffer from the FR Drow problem of being extremely noticeable and Kill on Sight to other races. I'm speaking here of Half-Ogres, Minotaurs and the various Draconians. The setting is also rife with Paladin's Code type issues. Many of the iconic setting-specific PrCs have very strict codes to follow.

Basically, the Dragonlance world is full of traps to negotiate. If the rapport between members of the group, and the group and the DM, is strong, none of these things are gamebreaking. But when you're sitting down with a group for the first time, you don't know if you're going to have a fantastic bunch of people, or a Knight who objects to being charitable, a Kender who steals ALL THE THINGS!, an Elf who refuses to talk to anyone because they're inferior, a Wizard who gets pissed off by the Curse of the Magi*, is a Black Robe and uses the Magic of Betrayal secret frequently, and the person who gets pissed that he takes all the backlash damage from said secret.

The last thing is that only the DLCS is first-party material. After DLCS's publication in 2003, WotC dropped Dragonlance, and all subsequent publications went through Sovereign (owned by Margaret Weis). So none of the following publications or adventures ever went through WotC vetting. Many, many DMs have a big hangup about 3rd party material, because a lot of it is utterly silly. Sometimes the silliness is because it's funny and sometimes it's because it's hilariously broken. The difference is really only cosmetic in my view (Wizards has published a lot of broken crap, like... well, like Wizards. Or a great deal of the Core rules. Or lots and lots of other stuff), but I think the majority of DMs feel much safer sticking to official material only. FR and Eberron have that official support. Dragonlance doesn't, and so it languishes.

All of that being said, if you know your group can navigate the various traps inherent in the setting, and you don't have a problem using 3rd party stuff, Dragonlance makes for an awesome setting for an E6(/4/8/10) campaign.


*Curse of the Magi is a setting-specific variant rule that requires arcane casters to pass a Fortitude save every time they cast a spell. Failure results go from fatigued->exhausted->unconscious. It's not a hard check to pass for most characters, and with the addition of Steadfast Determination, a feat in the DLCS, it's entirely possible to never fail one of these saves. It's worth noting that the 3E Dragonlance writing and testing crew never used this rule because "it's an optional rule and not a very good one, so I'd strongly suggest the DM ignore it." Meanwhile, I've used it and kinda like it. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.

[Urpriest]

It's just a really shallow setting. FR has lots of analogues to real-life cultures, and various gods with moral complexity and a mystical feel. Greyhawk has the old-school vibe, the old sort of syncretism that mixed druids with lovecraft and thought nothing of it, that reminds us of where we came from and just how alien it was. Eberron is, well, Eberron...it takes the heart of D&D and explores what it could become.

Dragonlance...the evil is evil and not much else, the good is good and not much else, the comic relief encompasses major player races, the dragons run around being exactly like dragons and the knights put a lot of effort into being good/evil knights. At most, the Minotaurs and Ogres are kind of interesting, but other settings do it well too. Dragonlance is like the Belgariad without the sparkling character acting or the wink in the author's eye. It's just not a setting with modern appeal.

[troqdor1316]

I love Dragonlance, as a novel storytelling setting. As a game setting it's horrable. It's not a D&D game seting. So when you play in ''Dragonlance'' all your doing is playing D&D in a D&D world, with DRagonlance names for everything.

The novels describe a setting: lots of dragons everywhere. No wizards anywhere. Few high level people. Lots of Good and Evil. And such. But then when you drop the D&D rules in....well, you need to go by the D&D rules to play D&D. So the dragons fade away. Wizards are around as per ''normal D&D''. Character levels go by the DMG. And you get all the Gray.

A great example. Rastalin and Cameron are described about a hundred times in dozens of books as ''fighting together as a team, combining sword and magic together flawlessly in battle''. That sounds great, even awesome. Untill you apply the D&D rules. Rastalin is under 5th level in most of the novels. So he only gets a couple spells. So how does he ''fight for a couple minutes, with only a handfull of spells? And what spells does he even have? Like magic missle? What spells ''combine'' well? Even if you were to make him 5th level, it would be hard to make the character described in the books.

I don't understand a lot of your problems with "applying the D&D rules" to Dragonlance. In many of the published campaigns, dragons are everywhere (my party fights/hangs out with/rides/mates with/hatches/saves/generally interacts with a dragon at least once every session or two, and I'm running a pre-written 1-20 adventure). Wizards were always around in Dragonlance novels, at least during the times when the Gods of Magic were present. I mean, they have entire orders just based around being wizards and having fun with magic together. And the setting is only as Grey as your players make it. If they want a morally Grey game with lots of grit and edgy, the campaign will simply be themed around questioning whether everything is actually as Black and White as the gods intended it to be (which is a common theme in many novels). If not, well, you have a perfect setting for good ol' fashioned Paladins killing evil dragons to save the princess.

It was also always pretty apparent to me that when two people combine their separate tactics well, that means that they're simply good at following each others' strategies. It doesn't mean they help each other hold swords in combat. Raistlin is also only 5th level *at the very beginning of the War of the Lance.* By the end of it, he's already at least 12th level and more than capable of being an immense badass.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

And in Autumn Twilight, he spends most of his time in combat hiding behind Caramon. He casts spells in combat very infrequently, but to great effect.

Basically how a Wizard should be.

[jedipotter]

I don't understand a lot of your problems with "applying the D&D rules" to Dragonlance.

No other setting has dragons on every corner. Unless you count that Wyrm one. Dragons are everywhere in Dragonlance. And even with Dragonlance dragons being very, very nerfed and weak and whimpy....they are still too much for low level folks...aka, the whole world.

And how do you see ''lots of wizards''. You only see a couple throughout most of the books. And most are like near zero level. Even the so called powerful wizards just sit around and do nothing.




It was also always pretty apparent to me that when two people combine their separate tactics well, that means that they're simply good at following each others' strategies. It doesn't mean they help each other hold swords in combat. Raistlin is also only 5th level *at the very beginning of the War of the Lance.* By the end of it, he's already at least 12th level and more than capable of being an immense badass.

What tactics? What could Rast do, in every fight with magic? It's not like he had lame lazy ''encounter powers''. Like ''oh look an encounter, I can use fire bolt, again...er, for no reason''. Just think of the fun of having an encounter then ''oh, I take a five foot step out of the encounter...and then step back in to get my encounter power again...lol''.


Sure during the War of the Lance Rast was so weak that he could not even cast the awesomely over powered spell 'Fireball'. Remember the awe of that world breaking spell? But then, in the last couple of pages, Rast leaps from ''under 5th'' to ''20th''. Maybe the Dragon Orb added +1,000,000 Xp?


Or take the undead....whatever guards Rasts tower. So they are what, Epic Gods of Death? They are always described as ''beyond all powerful''. But, er, they are like just wraiths right? Shadows?

Or how did Goldmoon, a zero level wanna be cleric kill that black dragon with the blue staff? Was that an Epic Weapon? Like auto kill dragons? Even the boring ''dragonlances' only do what ''double damage'', wow.....

It just does not fit into D&D.

[squiggit]

Basically how a Wizard should be.

But emphatically not how a D&D wizard is (which apparently are fake wizards now?). I sort of agree with jedipotter that the power levels tend to be incongruous when compared with baseline D&D but not a lot of work goes into adapting it one way or the other in the campaign setting.

[captain fubar]

white dragon spawn, easy access to time travel, rules from multiple editions mixed in the same book, no possibility of intrigue when the wizards are color coded, the fact all the splat books are third party, all the dietys abandoning the setting for a while after rastlins power play, said dietys deporting everyone above level 18 when they came back, the fact it is so easy to gain kill on sight status from every one including both white and black robes, making some races and classes basicly unplayable unless pvp as soon as you join the party it the goal, kender...

but mostly because I don't know kyrin as well as i do eberron

[troqdor1316]

No other setting has dragons on every corner. Unless you count that Wyrm one. Dragons are everywhere in Dragonlance. And even with Dragonlance dragons being very, very nerfed and weak and whimpy....they are still too much for low level folks...aka, the whole world.

And how do you see ''lots of wizards''. You only see a couple throughout most of the books. And most are like near zero level. Even the so called powerful wizards just sit around and do nothing.




What tactics? What could Rast do, in every fight with magic? It's not like he had lame lazy ''encounter powers''. Like ''oh look an encounter, I can use fire bolt, again...er, for no reason''. Just think of the fun of having an encounter then ''oh, I take a five foot step out of the encounter...and then step back in to get my encounter power again...lol''.


Sure during the War of the Lance Rast was so weak that he could not even cast the awesomely over powered spell 'Fireball'. Remember the awe of that world breaking spell? But then, in the last couple of pages, Rast leaps from ''under 5th'' to ''20th''. Maybe the Dragon Orb added +1,000,000 Xp?


Or take the undead....whatever guards Rasts tower. So they are what, Epic Gods of Death? They are always described as ''beyond all powerful''. But, er, they are like just wraiths right? Shadows?

Or how did Goldmoon, a zero level wanna be cleric kill that black dragon with the blue staff? Was that an Epic Weapon? Like auto kill dragons? Even the boring ''dragonlances' only do what ''double damage'', wow.....

It just does not fit into D&D.


First and foremost, a D&D setting and a set of novels written in said setting are not the same thing and are under no compulsion to follow the same rules.

Point by point:

1. Dragons are not nerfed. I am unsure where you get this idea. Dragons in Dragonlance are the standard 3.5 Monster Manual True Dragons. As far as why having lots of Dragons is a bad thing, I guess that's just your opinion, and nothing for me to disagree with. I think Dragons are cool, you obviously don't. I also agree that the dragons are too powerful for most folks. That tends to be why they often rule the battlefield (and sometimes the world) in the setting.

2. The Wizards of High Sorcery are so important to the world of Krynn that not only do they have their own 10-level prestige class, they have their own sourcebook (The Towers of High Sorcery). They are not "a couple" "near zero level" characters. Refer to point "First and Foremost" for why your perceived lack of wizards in Caramon and Raistlin's journey, Palin and Usha's journey, and any other particular journey says nothing about the setting as a whole.

3. I'm unsure what your argument about "encounter powers" is referring to at all, so I'm ignoring it. Raistlin was, from what I saw of his stats when I played him, just as powerful as any average fifth level wizard. The fact that he didn't know how to cast Fireball yet is a moot point, since he'd only have been capable of casting it for less than a level and probably just didn't have it in his spellbook yet. As to why he suddenly surged in power at the end of the book, there are two explanations: 1. DM fiat, or 2. See point "First and Foremost" once more.

4. I'm once again not sure why you're bringing up the Tower Guardians. They're kind of entirely moot to our discussion of whether Dragonlance is a good setting or not. I can, however, guarantee you that they've been statted up in the book I mentioned earlier, Towers of High Sorcery.

5. The Blue Staff was actually a greater artifact, so yeah, it kinda was. The RAW in the Autumn Twilight campaign for how the staff interacted with Onyx the black dragon:

"For this encounter, if the Prophet strikes Onyx with the Blue Crystal Staff (a melee touch attack against Onyx's touch AC of 9), all of the Staff's remaining charges will be expended at once, dealing 1d8 points of damage to both the dragon and the Prophet for each charge expended, doubled if the attack was a critical hit. If the damage dealt to Onyx is at least 50 points, she automatically fails her massive damage saving throw and is consumed by the brilliant blue radiance."

The (Greater) Dragonlances not only are actually Epic Weapons capable of bypassing most Epic DR, but also deal double damage against dragons, but also deal 1 Constitution damage with each successful hit. On a critical hit, they deal 1 point of Con damage per character level of the wielder. So probably around 10-15 on a Crit, and I'm reasonably sure this would be enough to insta-gib quite a few dragons. Even a great wyrm is going to be hurting like hell after losing 15 points of Con on top of ubercharger lance damage.

Again, I'm only telling you all this to inform you of how the items actually work. I'm still unsure why you're using them as arguments against the setting, but they all definitely fit into D&D.


white dragon spawn, easy access to time travel, rules from multiple editions mixed in the same book, no possibility of intrigue when the wizards are color coded, the fact all the splat books are third party, all the dietys abandoning the setting for a while after rastlins power play, said dietys deporting everyone above level 18 when they came back, the fact it is so easy to gain kill on sight status from every one including both white and black robes, making some races and classes basicly unplayable unless pvp as soon as you join the party it the goal, kender...

but mostly because I don't know kyrin as well as i do eberron

I guess the only thing I disagree with here is the lack of possibility of intrigue. With everyone wearing color coded robes, disguises and impersonations are easier than ever.

Also, the deities abandoned the setting because Takhisis (Goddess of Evil) stole the world. It had nothing to do with Raistlin. Unless you mean the Cataclysm, which was the product of the Kingpriest's arrogance.

Deities deporting people hasn't happened since 2E.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

But emphatically not how a D&D wizard is (which apparently are fake wizards now?). I sort of agree with jedipotter that the power levels tend to be incongruous when compared with baseline D&D but not a lot of work goes into adapting it one way or the other in the campaign setting.

No, it's definitely true that that's not most D and D Wizards work. I just prefer, from a flavor standpoint, Wizards who are a bit more limited in what they do. I prefer the Raistlin of Autumn Twilight, who has to husband his strength and contributes through cunning and wit, to the Raistlin of Spring Dawning, who tells everyone to stand behind him while he rolls through the climactic dungeon basically unchallenged.

troq, just to add or whatever to some of your points:

1: Not only are dragons not nerfed, there's a whole new class of dragons that are basically the size of cities. They're proportionally sized to regular dragons in the way that a standard Adult dragon is to a human.

2: The Orders of High Sorcery basically have some crazy neutrality stuff going on. There's quite a lot of justification for why they don't all run around doing things. Part of it has to do with the fact that they're devoted to magic itself, and not to any ideas of good or evil, at least primarily. And part of it has to do with not wanting to destroy the world.

3: If I'm remembering the story correctly, Hickman designed the modules that formed the initial release of the Dragonlance setting. After a bit of moving pieces around, Weis came onboard as the editor of the novels, then became the primary author. The original Weis/Hickman manuscript for DoAT was based on a playthough of Dragons of Despair. Much of Raistlin's character in DoAT is based on the way he was played in that module; see the intro to Soulforge. So basically, the reason Raistlin has a massive power spike is because he went from a PC to an NPC. And it helps that he was the author's favorite character. And it further helps that, in the story, he basically stops being Raistlin. It's as if in the middle of your game the DM took away your character sheet and handed you a different one. Same class, twelve levels higher. Have the keys to this, baby.

And to your point about Greater Dragonlances, they're lances. They're used in charges. Charging characters do ridiculous amounts of damage. And the Con damage they deal is permanent. (I don't think they specifically do double damage to dragons, though. They're just regular Bane weapons.)

[BWR]

I like DL well enough. I just don't like it as much as most other settings. It's very low-key compared to most others, and can get a bit bland. And that's the main point, I think, for why DL rarely tops the list: it doesn't stand out compared to the rest. The Realms are big and sprawling and have tons of magic and ruins and mystery all over the place. Dark Sun is bleak and harsh and dry. Birthright has you playing rulers of the land with magic ties to itinheritedfrom gods. Ravenloft is Gothic, horrible and scares the excrement out of your PCs. PS is everything turned up to 11 and beyond. Spelljammer is high-seas adventure in space with magical ships and amazing planets and species. What is DL? It is pretty low-powered, quiet and generic compared to most other settings. And it's really hard to accept that good gods drop a meteor on a continent to punish one jerk rather than just depowering him. There are good things in DL, it's just that they don't stand out compared to just about any other world.


And this has nothing to do with the quality of games run or stories set there. A good GM and players can make any setting work. A good author will make everything seem great. It's how it's brought to life that matters over what's in the rulebooks. Yes, kender, gully dwarves and to an extent the tinker gnomes are annoying and kind of ruin immersion, but they are easy enough to ignore or remove in games you play, and not all the literature includes them.

The biggest reason why I like DL: I love Solamnia - an entire country of paladins. Some of the books are pretty good, too.

But as far as content and presentation go, DL is sorely lacking compared to just about all other D&D settings.

[Sian]

my peeve with Dragonlance is that it is very much an book-setting, created as part of series of novels, and doesn't really seem to offer much beyond this. Even Forgotten Realms (which is otherwise the setting bashed the most about this) have miles upon miles of land in which series rarely if ever describes what is moving and shaking the regional world, and as long as you stay out of the Northwestern corner (Swordcoast, The North, Cormyr and Dalelands are the regular offenders), you're pretty much safe from walking into high level / importance characters by exiting Joe Random's Tavern.

[jedipotter]

Again, I'm only telling you all this to inform you of how the items actually work. I'm still unsure why you're using them as arguments against the setting, but they all definitely fit into D&D.


Well, I've never seen 3X Dragonlance stuff.

1.One adult dragon, let alone a dozen can take over a ''standard D&D world''. And Dragonlance is way, way, way below a ''standard D&D'' world power level. And Dragonlance has whole armies of Dragons...yet they don't obliterate the world? Why? They are nerfed dragons.

2.Where do you see many wizards in the books? There are only a couple. And all very, very low level. You never see much powerful magic outside of Rast. All the other wizards just sit around and think magic missle is god like power.

3.But Rast from the novels is ''way below a 5th level character''. If you D&D him, he would be a Demi god in the novels. And no modern player would ever take his flaw of ''being weak and sick and helpless with con and str of like 5'' and the ''I cast a cantrip and now my fall into a coma for three chapters''.

4.So what are the Tower Guards? In the novels it's like they could blink and kill anyone. So when they stated them...are they Epic Wraiths? Or just like ''Shadows that get a +1 to hit inside the tower''?

5.Seems like a lot of handwaving to make things work like they do in the novels.

[troqdor1316]

Though I could produce counterarguments to all of your points once again, I instead find it necessary to ask: Why are you so fixated on ignoring point "First and Foremost?" The authors themselves stated that after the first part of the first book, they pretty much decided to stop following D&D rules entirely. The fact that what happens in a book and what happens in actual play have some discrepancies has nothing to do with whether Dragonlance itself is a good setting to run games in.



(I don't think they specifically do double damage to dragons, though. They're just regular Bane weapons.)

You're right, I was remembering a different Dragonlance artifact. The Dragonlance of Huma (the big important one) is a +5 holy keen dragon bane lance. When used against an evil true dragon, it deals 2 points of permanent Con drain with every hit that causes damage. On a critical, it deals instead 5+Wielder's level+Wielder's Charisma modifier in permanent Con drain. So, your average level 10 paladin wielding this baby deals about 18-20 Con drain on a critical. Oh, did I mention that it also gives you Mounted Combat for free and grants you 1/day Dismissal, CL20? It even has *the ability to appear in the dreams of those who are pure of heart to offer advice.* So not only is it not a weapon to be trifled with, it's also apparently a pretty nice guy and helps people out. Dunno why you're hating on the lances, jedi

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Well, I've never seen 3X Dragonlance stuff.

1.One adult dragon, let alone a dozen can take over a ''standard D&D world''. And Dragonlance is way, way, way below a ''standard D&D'' world power level. And Dragonlance has whole armies of Dragons...yet they don't obliterate the world? Why? They are nerfed dragons.

No. There are equal numbers of dragons of opposed alignment. The times when there haven't been, the world has gotten taken over.

Edit: And what the hell? A regular adult dragon can't really do crap in your standard published world. Eberron? Freakin' Forgotten Realms? You kiddin' me? Forgotten Realms has more characters who poop on dragons than I could list in a post without hitting the text limit.


2.Where do you see many wizards in the books? There are only a couple. And all very, very low level. You never see much powerful magic outside of Rast. All the other wizards just sit around and think magic missle is god like power.

The Soulforge is a good starting place. Or the various 'background' magic; I'm thinking here of things like the creation of the Draconians. I'd also point to Fizban, who, while technically a god, has no compunctions about throwing around fireballs.


3.But Rast from the novels is ''way below a 5th level character''. If you D&D him, he would be a Demi god in the novels. And no modern player would ever take his flaw of ''being weak and sick and helpless with con and str of like 5'' and the ''I cast a cantrip and now my fall into a coma for three chapters''.

Ok? He was designed in the early '80s for a different game system. His whole being-sickly thing is entirely a creation of his player in the test session for Dragons of Autumn Twilight. And the fainting is a result of the Curse of the Magi, an old variant rule (which sticks around in 3E) that forces saves to avoid exhaustion and unconsciousness every time a spell is cast.


5.Seems like a lot of handwaving to make things work like they do in the novels.

You've got it backwards. Tracy Hickman and his wife came up with the setting. Hickman and a design team created a bunch of modules. Margaret Weis, Hickman and some of the other designers played through Dragons of Despair and wrote it up as the basis for Dragons of Autumn Twilight. The following two novels - Winter Night and Spring Dawning - are similarly based on existing modules. The modules existed before the novels.

[Ivanhoe]

Joining the side of those who think Dragonlance is awesome :smallsmile:

Seriously, the original DL 1-14 series was in my view one of the best set of D&D modules ever. Some highlights that they provided:

great maps showing whole sunken cities, from the first adventure onwards
a great, epic plot - basically the making of any great movie: throw some characters and their personal stories (love triangles, sibling conflict, different personal philosophies and cultures, friendship and enmities) into a backdrop of epic proportions (earth-shaking revolutions, wars and mysteries)
great example characters (excellent for starting players to get a "feel" for an adventuring group
the innovation of providing a separation of location-driven "encounters" and time-driven "events"
the dragons! (transcending mere monster statblocks for the first time in D&D history
a great idea and background story providing the standard mooks/villains unique for the setting: draconians
definitely overall better than the more recent clone "Red Hand of Doom" (RHoD) campaign, although that may be better suited/balanced for 3.5 gaming purposes.
for beginning players, the inclusion of typical fantasy "stereotypes" is very nice (knights, dragons, somewhat Lord-of-the-Ring-like elves, "cute" elements like kender, great villains like dragon highlords and Lord Soth etc), while also adding some interesting new elements (dragons and clerics are myth in the beginning- just like for new players, anyhow -; different currency, different cultures like tree cities etc.)


Objections to the DL series that I see in other forums that often come up are:

"racism" as evident in the setting-specific races of kender, gully dwarves and gnomes.
These were basically introduced, I think, to serve as a comic relief to prevent the story becoming too dark right from the beginning. So they are imo rather a plot device, than containing some hidden allegories or racism. Difficulties arise, of course, when they are chosen as pc races. In that case, the overall good playability for beginning players quickly can turn into problems - such pc races are rather for very experienced roleplayers (not necessarily from a game mechanics standpoint) to work, in particular the thieving kender.
"railroading plot" since the pcs are expected to become the major story heroes quickly, getting deity contact in the first adventure (at around level 3-6!) and have several rigid adventuring paths set before them (there is really only one major split/choice of approaches envisioned, after the 4th adventure).
The linear adventure structure truly is something for beginning groups - in any case, though, an experienced DM is required for getting the most out of the modules. In case of a very experienced DM, you can just play the original modules in whatever order you like, and let the players do whatever they like. The events and encounters can be made still challenging, interesting and awesome.
No real "D&D feel" - since choices for starting levels and classes are somewhat limited (no cleric/divine powers at the beginning, rather magic-poor campaign).
This again depends on the DM. The original series was envisioned to encompass all Monster Manual monsters which is actually quite a proof for a "typical" D&D feel, if there is any (but greatly impairs atmosphere, for instance, when the pc group has to fight a giant slug as a major monster in an ancient elven tomb). I do not quite know about the 3.5 version, and also those DL campaign settings that go beyond the original series (like adventuring in minotaur pirate lands etc). Those non-original series elements may contain some bad aspects. A friend of mine once DMed a 3.0 version of Dragonlance, and that worked quite D&D-like for me.


Overall assessment: the Dragonlance original modules are one of the best ever published by TSR or WoTC and work best for beginner players with an experienced DM.

[Larkas]

Dragonlance is alright in my book, and can certainly become great in the hands of a good DM, as I've pleasantly learned recently in a game I'm playing. It has the distinction of throwing a hard spotlight on the player characters, which is great if you're going for epic storytelling, and is different from most settings in that capital-g-Good isn't really what's best for the world, but rather Balance/Neutrality. That's a gold mine of possible stories just there!

Of course, not everything is roses and rainbows, and I pretty much don't care about the latter developments in the in-universe history, but all you have to do is play in an earlier era (Age of Despair is a good one) or simply ignore canon and extrapolate yourself what happens after some fateful event of your liking.

[Brookshw]

Personally I have no interest in the setting as I don't find it offers me the creative opportunities as a DM that I prefer, at least if the setting is going to be maintained as dragonlance. Any big bad or whatever I may want to introduce is going to be overshadowed by this all encompassing war, and I can't really do much with the war without effectively not using the setting, its already resolved via the books. It just doesn't offer me much. Other settings at least don't really put the main conflict right there and offer more freedom to design a campaign.

[Alefiend]

my peeve with Dragonlance is that it is very much an book-setting, created as part of series of novels, and doesn't really seem to offer much beyond this.

Untrue. The original Dragonlance was a published campaign based on actual play, and then novelized. This doesn't make it any better or worse, just sayin'. :smallsmile:


Any setting that treats wizards somewhat realistically is going to end up focusing the story around wizard shenanigans while the rest of the mundanes try to keep up.

And this is why I'd rather either treat wizards unrealistically, or make it crystal-effing-clear that there are limitations to what mortal magic can do. I respect the logic of Tippyverse, but I don't want to play in it. Traditional fantasy is what we're here for (at least what I'm here for) and if we assume that wizards will always become gods and control the world, there is no reason for anything else to exist. Fighters and rogues serve no purpose if full casters can remake reality with a standard action, and I would rather play Fafhrd and/or Gray Mouser than Belgarath.

[Sian]

Untrue. The original Dragonlance was a published campaign based on actual play, and then novelized. This doesn't make it any better or worse, just sayin'. :smallsmile:

eh, doesn't change that it feels very much like a novelized setting, that just happen to have a bit of published campaign stapled onto it.

[Shinken]

I really like the Dragonlance books, but I think I'd only play a Dragonlance campaign with AD&D rules.

[super dark33]

I think that aside from having a big power difference between the books and actual D&D, its just a very generic setting?

Dont get me wrong, its not bad, but its just too mundane and watery id prefer different settings.

[Crazysaneman]

I adore Dragonlance, and in fact I houserule in tinker gnomes and kender into most of my games where I can. When played correctly, they are amazing characters to watch grow and evolve. I like the knight and caster codes and think that they add something unspoken into the game... balance. This is kind of the same reason I love paladins in the party: you cant murderhobo with a paladin around. You have to either out think him, trick him, or play better characters. (Look! Sir Auzirik, EVIL DOERS!)

Oh and I don't necessarily mean balance as in balances out the throng of OP stuff available, but balances out the party and forces those OP toons to behave.

[Shinken]

I adore Dragonlance, and in fact I houserule in tinker gnomes and kender into most of my games where I can. When played correctly, they are amazing characters to watch grow and evolve. I like the knight and caster codes and think that they add something unspoken into the game... balance. This is kind of the same reason I love paladins in the party: you cant murderhobo with a paladin around. You have to either out think him, trick him, or play better characters. (Look! Sir Auzirik, EVIL DOERS!)

Oh and I don't necessarily mean balance as in balances out the throng of OP stuff available, but balances out the party and forces those OP toons to behave.

I was kinda sorta agreeing with you but then you just had to call characters 'toons'

[ArqArturo]

In the same vein as both Paladins and any character with the Lawful Neutral alignment are used as an excuse to RP pricks, kenders are used as an excuse to play kleptomaniac monkey wrenches.

And I apologize to all monkeys and wrenches everywhere.

[Crazysaneman]

I was kinda sorta agreeing with you but then you just had to call characters 'toons'

:smalltongue:I have been playing too many MMO's lately...

[jedipotter]

Though I could produce counterarguments to all of your points once again, I instead find it necessary to ask: Why are you so fixated on ignoring point "First and Foremost?" The authors themselves stated that after the first part of the first book, they pretty much decided to stop following D&D rules entirely. The fact that what happens in a book and what happens in actual play have some discrepancies has nothing to do with whether Dragonlance itself is a good setting to run games in.



Well, I don't know what ''first and foremost'' even is. Dragonlance is a great setting for telling a story, like in a novel. I have no doubt they tossed the D&D rules out the window to tell a good story.

But That Is The Whole Point!

Dragonlance is not a D&D setting. Sure you can play D&D and use all the Dragonlance names, but that is not playing in the setting. You can go to the High Clerist Tower and go all ''wow look here is the spot Sturm died.'' Remember that? It was a great story. Though try it in D&D: So lets start with an utterly pathetic and weak, not just not optimized, but under optimized and even handicapped fighter with delusions of being a paladin, who is like 6th level and has no real magic items to speak of at all. Up against a ''right out of the book'' adult blue dragon. So how would this battle play out in D&D? Blue dragon flies over to within a hundred feet and breathes. Even if Sturm makes his save (not that he would) he would still take like three or four times his hit points in damage. And die.

So what do they do? They ignore the D&D rules and write a good story. You can't have a good Dragonlance story with D&D rules.

[Zombulian]

I love Dragonlance! It's crazy and Races of Ansalon brought things I've wanted for years. Half-Dwarves and Gnomes? Hell yeah.
You already inb4'd it, but I think people mostly hate Kender.

[Shieldbunny]

I think a lot of people are forgetting that the original Dargonlance books where written based on the AD&D rules. So, you really can't say, "The setting is bad because it can't translated from the books to the 3.5 rules system."

Also: In the AD&D rules system finding treasure actually did grant you xp. That Dragon Orb likely did take Raistlin from level 5ish to level 20. :smalltongue:

[Sartharina]

The Dragonlance Campaign Setting is very clearly 3.5e.It's a clumsy attempt at updating an AD&D setting with its own rules and guidelines and other such fun stuff to a new D&D edition that wasn't built to handle it. It's trying to tack itself onto a popular system, but losing the system in the process.

That said, it does make ECL 1 minotaurs, so I can respect that. More beefcake in any party is appreciated.

[BWR]

Well, I don't know what ''first and foremost'' even is. Dragonlance is a great setting for telling a story, like in a novel. I have no doubt they tossed the D&D rules out the window to tell a good story.

But That Is The Whole Point!

Dragonlance is not a D&D setting. Sure you can play D&D and use all the Dragonlance names, but that is not playing in the setting. You can go to the High Clerist Tower and go all ''wow look here is the spot Sturm died.'' Remember that? It was a great story. Though try it in D&D: So lets start with an utterly pathetic and weak, not just not optimized, but under optimized and even handicapped fighter with delusions of being a paladin, who is like 6th level and has no real magic items to speak of at all. Up against a ''right out of the book'' adult blue dragon. So how would this battle play out in D&D? Blue dragon flies over to within a hundred feet and breathes. Even if Sturm makes his save (not that he would) he would still take like three or four times his hit points in damage. And die.

So what do they do? They ignore the D&D rules and write a good story. You can't have a good Dragonlance story with D&D rules.


Man I'm glad you're here to tell us that we've been getting it wrong all this time. All these years playing D&D in DL and enjoying it and not having a problem and it was all a collective delusion on our part, because it actually isn't a D&D setting despite the massive evidence in favor of it being one.
The lack of Orcus randomly showing up should have been a hint.

[Brookshw]

I think a lot of people are forgetting that the original Dargonlance books where written based on the AD&D rules. So, you really can't say, "The setting is bad because it can't translated from the books to the 3.5 rules system."

Also: In the AD&D rules system finding treasure actually did grant you xp. That Dragon Orb likely did take Raistlin from level 5ish to level 20. :smalltongue:

To be fair the books didn't translate all that well into AD&D either:smalltongue:

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Well, I don't know what ''first and foremost'' even is. Dragonlance is a great setting for telling a story, like in a novel. I have no doubt they tossed the D&D rules out the window to tell a good story.

But That Is The Whole Point!

Dragonlance is not a D&D setting. Sure you can play D&D and use all the Dragonlance names, but that is not playing in the setting. You can go to the High Clerist Tower and go all ''wow look here is the spot Sturm died.'' Remember that? It was a great story. Though try it in D&D: So lets start with an utterly pathetic and weak, not just not optimized, but under optimized and even handicapped fighter with delusions of being a paladin, who is like 6th level and has no real magic items to speak of at all. Up against a ''right out of the book'' adult blue dragon. So how would this battle play out in D&D? Blue dragon flies over to within a hundred feet and breathes. Even if Sturm makes his save (not that he would) he would still take like three or four times his hit points in damage. And die.

So what do they do? They ignore the D&D rules and write a good story. You can't have a good Dragonlance story with D&D rules.

So what did they do? They banana weeble wub wub sculp, that's what!

That sentence I wrote made as much sense as all of this does.

I'm sorry, mate. I really don't have a clue what the point you're trying to make is. Forgotten Realms is not a D&D setting. Sure you can play D&D and use all the Forgotten Realms names, but that is not playing in the setting. You can go to that cave thing in Icewind Dale where Drizzit did that thing and go all "wow look here is the spot Drizzit did that cool thing." Remember that? It was a terrible story. Though try it in D&D: So lets start with an utterly pathetic and weak, not just not optimized, but under optimized and even handicapped Warrior with delusions of being a Ranger, who is like whatever level and has one completely terrible magic item to speak of at all. Up against a "right out of the book" Balor. So how would this battle play out in D&D? Balor flies over to within 300 feet and spams insanity. Even if Drizzit makes his save (not that he would) he would still have no way to attack his opponent and be subject to another insanity next turn. And die. So what do they do? They ignore the D&D rules and write a good story. You can't have a good Forgotten Realms story with D&D rules.

Books are not tabletop RPGs. Even books like Dragons of Autumn Twilight, which is literally a compilation of things that happened in a playthrough of an AD&D module, are not subject to the rules of the game. That's the grim reality of writing versus game design. And even if you chose to hold that against it (which is stupid and dumb), Dragonlance is hardly unique in having its characters occasionally transcend the published rules. Drizzit, for instance, the last I saw his published stats, has seven levels of Warrior. And his body count includes, among other things, a whole city of illithids, multiple demons and devils, multiple dragons, multiple equal-to-higher level Wizards and Clerics, the largest army in Drow-land and the laws of probability. This comic (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0417.html) is relevant because unlike Haley and Elan and the gang, Drizzit doesn't get hit on natural 20s. In fact, when some common Drow soldier rolls a natural 20 Orcus.

I fully recognize that you're a troll, entirely interested in provoking people. I'm willing to indulge you in this, even fully knowing it's a bad idea. I'd rather argue about this topic than another epic about how little you like player agency.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

I think a lot of people are forgetting that the original Dargonlance books where written based on the AD&D rules. So, you really can't say, "The setting is bad because it can't translated from the books to the 3.5 rules system."

Also: In the AD&D rules system finding treasure actually did grant you xp. That Dragon Orb likely did take Raistlin from level 5ish to level 20. :smalltongue:

The other thing about the power spike is that, something like Peter Parker, Raistlin is bitten by a radioactive epic-level Lich and gains all the powers and strengths of the most powerful Black-Robed Mage who had yet lived. I made the point earlier that it's basically like the DM took away that player's character sheet and gave him another one.

[Karnith]

Drizzit, for instance, the last I saw his published stats, has seven levels of Warrior.
His 3E stats (from 2001 in the FRCS) model him as a Fighter 10/Barbarian 1/Ranger 5. Amusingly, he's also built pretty incompetently.

[The Insanity]

It's not Forgotten Realms.

[Psyren]

I'm sorry, mate. I really don't have a clue what the point you're trying to make is. Forgotten Realms is not a D&D setting. Sure you can play D&D and use all the Forgotten Realms names, but that is not playing in the setting. You can go to that cave thing in Icewind Dale where Drizzit did that thing and go all "wow look here is the spot Drizzit did that cool thing." Remember that? It was a terrible story. Though try it in D&D: So lets start with an utterly pathetic and weak, not just not optimized, but under optimized and even handicapped Warrior with delusions of being a Ranger, who is like whatever level and has one completely terrible magic item to speak of at all. Up against a "right out of the book" Balor. So how would this battle play out in D&D? Balor flies over to within 300 feet and spams insanity. Even if Drizzit makes his save (not that he would) he would still have no way to attack his opponent and be subject to another insanity next turn. And die. So what do they do? They ignore the D&D rules and write a good story. You can't have a good Forgotten Realms story with D&D rules.


*applauds* Hear hear! :smallbiggrin:

All the novels break the rules (or brew up new ones) in some way. Hell, so does OotS - doesn't stop it from being a great story or from being based on D&D. The Pathfinder novels break the rules all the time too, because subverting people's expectations is the fast track to drama.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

His 3E stats (from 2001 in the FRCS) model him as a Fighter 10/Barbarian 1/Ranger 5. Amusingly, he's also built pretty incompetently.

He's also been stated as a Ran 6/Ftr 8/Rog 2/Dervish 1/Brb 1. And also as a straight Ran 16. I can't remember which book I saw this in, but I remember him having like 24 HD with 7 levels in Warrior. However way, he's a complete joke of an NPC, just like nearly every other published character.

[Hecuba]

I love Dragonlance, but I'll certainly acknowledge that many of the key elements of the setting are he heavily out of vogue at the moment.

The setting isn't particularly internally consistent: this means you can't really go significantly of the rails. Anything approaching sandbox play will devolve quickly.
The pillars - various Knightly & Wizarding Orders, etc. - of the setting are very vanilla (this does, however, give wide lattitude for easily making the PCs stand out).
Much of the setting specific material is narratively driven.


These are not a priori bad things, but they're also not in the same general tone as 3.5 as whole nor to the elements that are keeping people with the system nearly 2 editions later.

The lack of a non-disruptive Kender solution (like the pouches table of of prior editions) is also a problem for many groups that should have been anticipated and preemptively solved.

[Psyren]

What's a "pouches table?"

[Nightcanon]

Never played Dragonlance, but reading the books in my early teens got me into AD&D (and then 2nd Ed). I tend to agree that the power level of the books doesn't translate very well to standard D&D- consider the awe with which his companions greet Raistlin casting a sleep spell, or the horror with which Tanis (I think) realises that he could have cast his charm person on any of them at any time- but the grittiness of slogging across the landscape, meeting with strange robed 'clerics' on the road, hiding from goblin search-parties and so-on is classic AD&D for me. No quietly farming your xp until the mage has teleport and the cleric has righteous might and raise dead here... As with LOTR discussions, I think that early Dragonlance might best be represented in 3.5e D&D as E6.
With regard to the 'why don't Dragons/ Wizards/ Clerics rule the world?' question, that's explained in the various novels rather better than in the core 3.5e rules (which tell us that the core classes are balanced all the way up to level 20). Dragonlance says that when they tried it they almost destroyed the world and thus came to agreements to rein in their power. 3.5e (officially) tells us that Wizards and Clerics don't rule the world because the Fighters and Monks won't let them.

[Nightcanon]

What's a "pouches table?"

The AD&D1ed Dragonlance book had a table that determined what semi-worthless junk a kender had in his/ her pouches at any given time.
It's arguably a weakness of the setting that rather than making Tasslehoff either the archetypal kender, or merely an individual of that racewho happened to be cheerful, fearless and irritating, they chose instead to respond to players desire to play that character by making all kender canonically clones of TB down to the personality and the belt pouches.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

What's a "pouches table?"

Something like this (http://www.kencyclopedia.com/kender/roleplaying/Article_display.cfm?page=HandleHandling).

[Pex]

I don't like the Apocalypse excuse they used to update the game to 3E. Takhisis dead. Palladine mortal. Landscapes obliterated, countries destroyed, afflicted kender, no Towers of Wizardry. The game has decided for you Chaos and Evil take turns winning. Everyone else are just suckers.

I do admit to some schadenfreude of liking every elf civilization being utterly obliterated due to personal dislike of elves in general because of their snobbery and game mechanics with Dragonlance elves taking snobbery up a notch or two, but it's just more evidence of Evil Wins, period.

[Kish]

Answering the thread question:
1) Never heard of anyone who plays kender as actually kender. Dragonlance players seem to be split between "grah, kender, kill!" and, "Yay, I can play a thieving amoral sociopath, and if you get mad at me for it it's your problem!"
2) Elves are the ancient embodiment of good. Which means they're hypocritical fascists. Uh...yeah. Playing Humpty-Dumpty with the word "good" will not make me think your childish and trite moral thesis is not childish and trite, Weis/Hickman.
3) I like paladins. I like orders of paladins. I don't like orders of paladins who genuinely and unironically are written as having sticks up their asses as a class feature.
4) I despise the Forgotten Realms' power-glut. I have nothing in particular against the idea of a setting which mandates that no one ever gets as powerful as the average Forgotten Realms bartender. (Yes, the "average bartender" part is exaggeration, but you get the point.) I find something really, really ironic, not in a way that speaks well of the Dragonlance writers, about the fact that the setting which had such a rule immediately carved out an exception to it because one of their central characters absolutely had to be epic. And then put him in the spotlight forever.

[Knaight]

Personally, Dragonlance just feels too generic to be interesting. Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms are the same way - they're all pretty generic Tolkien-ripoff fantasy, with a heavy dose of D&Disms attached. The main selling point of Dragonlance is that there are dragons everywhere, and that really doesn't inspire any interest. 1e and especially 2e had some interesting settings - Al Qadim, Mazatlan, Dark Sun, Planescape (though it really isn't my thing), Spelljammer, etc. - and the dull ones just don't stand out. Most didn't make it to 3e, but even there Eberron is so much more distinct, and it's not like porting the settings forward is difficult.

That said, I generally avoid published campaign settings like the plague anyways, so there's that.


What tactics? What could Rast do, in every fight with magic? It's not like he had lame lazy ''encounter powers''. Like ''oh look an encounter, I can use fire bolt, again...er, for no reason''. Just think of the fun of having an encounter then ''oh, I take a five foot step out of the encounter...and then step back in to get my encounter power again...lol''.

Encounter powers are generally defined as things you can do frequently, but not without some amount of rest in between them. In the context of magic which is physically draining to use (which is a far more common fantasy depiction than D&D style magic), only being able to cast a spell once in a fight then needing to recover makes perfect sense. Much as an unathletic person might be able to sprint some short distance, then need to recover before doing it again - which isn't going to happen during a fight as they are short.

[jedipotter]

I fully recognize that you're a troll, entirely interested in provoking people. I'm willing to indulge you in this, even fully knowing it's a bad idea. I'd rather argue about this topic than another epic about how little you like player agency.

Well, at least FR does it much better then Dragonlance. A 10th ish level drow character, with an anti flame weapon stands a much better chance vs a balor then a maybe 5th level fighter vs a dragon. FR is full of tons and tons and tons of characters of every level from one to twenty. Not like Dragonlance were everyone is lucky to have one level, maybe.

My point is, you can't have a pure Dragonlance game...like in the novels....with the D&D rules. By mid level, a D&D character is a magic item Christmas tree. Dragonlance does not have anywhere near the level of items needed. All uses of magic are rare and weak in Dragonlance, but in D&D they will need to be a challange to the group, so they will be D&D standard.

Novels are not set in D&D. But that is my point.

What makes Dragonlance Dragonlance? You can name plenty of fluff, but then get to the crunch. And when you get to the crunch, you can't do it with D&D unless you modifiy the game so much that it's not D&D.

[Flickerdart]

And when you get to the crunch, you can't do it with D&D unless you modifiy the game so much that it's not D&D.
Oh, the irony.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Well, at least FR does it much better then Dragonlance. A 10th ish level drow character, with an anti flame weapon stands a much better chance vs a balor then a maybe 5th level fighter vs a dragon. FR is full of tons and tons and tons of characters of every level from one to twenty. Not like Dragonlance were everyone is lucky to have one level, maybe.

No. 0% is not higher than 0%. An intelligently played blue dragon probably flies back and forth throwing lightning at Sturm. An intelligently-played Balor (in this case, one played strictly according to the rules presented in the MM) flies around throwing insanity, power word stun and telekinesis at Drizzt. Neither character has any chance to retaliate whatsoever. And it's important to realize just how absurdly much you're twisting this. In my Forgotten Realms example, a character defeats a vastly-superior foe in toe-to-toe combat. That foe has no reason whatsoever to get close to him, no reason whatsoever to do anything beyond maximizing its chances to win. Meanwhile, Sturm isn't killed by a random dragon. He's killed by a person ON a dragon, someone who does have lots of reasons not to blow him the heck up with lightning bolts. The person who kills him is a long-time friend and companion; in fact, the mother of his son. Before he dies, Sturm... hits the dragon. One time. For essentially trivial damage. And yet you've decided that that represents some sort of evil twisting of the rules, when it's something that happens at most tables at some point. The villain has the player at his mercy and stops to offer a deal or gloat, and the player says "**** that!" and takes a swing.



You know, I thought about responding point-by-point. But there's no, aha, point. Because everything you have said is wrong. You gotta give me something to work with, jedipotter. This whole bit about I-need-to-give-you-crunch, well, there's literally a dozen PrCs that require Dragonlance-specific organizations, races or feats to use. One of the best Wizardly feats is in the DLCS.

Campaign settings are fluff. That's what they are. They're big fluffy beds for the Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master's Guide and the Monster Manual, and sometimes, when people feel like gettin' kinky, the Psionics Handbook, to roll around in. The idea that there's some crunchy switch that you have to flip before your campaign can be Officially Forgotten Realms or Officially Dragonlance or Officially Dark Sun or, hell, Officially Takes Place In That World Jaqueline Carey Writes That Definitely Isn't Basically 1400s History We Promise... that idea is absurd.

(Note: this post was written under the influence of runnerguy2489's Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time chat% speedrun. It's amazing. Send me a PM if you're curious.)

[Knaight]

Campaign settings are fluff. That's what they are. They're big fluffy beds for the Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master's Guide and the Monster Manual, and sometimes, when people feel like gettin' kinky, the Psionics Handbook, to roll around in. The idea that there's some crunchy switch that you have to flip before your campaign can be Officially Forgotten Realms or Officially Dragonlance or Officially Dark Sun or, hell, Officially Takes Place In That World Jaqueline Carey Writes That Definitely Isn't Basically 1400s History We Promise... that idea is absurd.

They're fluff, but they are crunch dependent. Not all fluff works with D&D. To use an extreme example - A game I GMed recently had a setting that was basically based on a major near future collapse in petroleum products, along with some major developments in synthetic chemistry that never really made it out of the upper class. Think cyberpunk, but with chemistry. That setting would make a terrible D&D setting. Sure, there is some D&D like stuff in it - older vehicles made a major comeback, and the first session featured both a sailing ship and a donkey pulled cart (also a submarine, but that's incidental) - but it wouldn't work as a D&D setting.

Dragonlance is faux-medieval fantasy, so it obviously is going to work a lot better. Still, there's no guarantee that a setting, as fluff, will work with given crunch. Trying to port them to given crunch can easily give you a cheap impression of the setting. I don't think that's the case with Dragonlance, though the points about the lower powered world and D&D monsters not coexisting all that well seem solid. It's still very much a possibility that can't just be dismissed though - trying to use D&D for the setting I sketched out above would have exactly that effect.

Basically, there's no crunchy switch. There is fluff that won't work with the crunch, where you're working in a pale imitation of the setting until the crunch changes.

[jedipotter]

And it's important to realize just how absurdly much you're twisting this. .)

Well, Drizzit summoned the Balor into a small space where he could fight hand to hand. And keep in mind it was a 1E Balor, not the 3.5E one too.

My point is you can't get that Dragonlance feel, of ''oh no, the bad guy has a sharp stick run for your lives!'' with the D&D rules.

[Vhaidara]

Campaign settings are fluff. That's what they are. They're big fluffy beds for the Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master's Guide and the Monster Manual, and sometimes, when people feel like gettin' kinky, the Psionics Handbook, to roll around in. The idea that there's some crunchy switch that you have to flip before your campaign can be Officially Forgotten Realms or Officially Dragonlance or Officially Dark Sun or, hell, Officially Takes Place In That World Jaqueline Carey Writes That Definitely Isn't Basically 1400s History We Promise... that idea is absurd.

Can I sig this? If for no other reason than for that bit about Psionics.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Sure. I'm willing to concede that if you're trying to model the setting of CthuluTech, for example, 3.5E doesn't do a good job. But generally anything in the fantasy family is very simple to adapt. For what it's worth, I've run games in Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms and Lo5R with campaign setting books, and in Jacqueline Carey's world, Terry Brooks's Shanara and Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar without. I've not felt inhibited in any of those. Again, I concede that things might be different if you were running a post-modern campaign focused on real-world chemistry and physics, or if your DM wants to run a campaign based on rape. In that case I guess you need FATAL. Or a psychologist.

And jedipotter, you can absolutely get that feeling. You simply need to present your characters with more dangerous encounters than you otherwise might.

Go for it, Keledrath. I'm surely not going to object. :smallcool:

[Knaight]

Sure. I'm willing to concede that if you're trying to model the setting of CthuluTech, for example, 3.5E doesn't do a good job. But generally anything in the fantasy family is very simple to adapt. For what it's worth, I've run games in Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms and Lo5R with campaign setting books, and in Jacqueline Carey's world, Terry Brooks's Shanara and Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar without. I've not felt inhibited in any of those. Again, I concede that things might be different if you were running a post-modern campaign focused on real-world chemistry and physics, or if your DM wants to run a campaign based on rape. In that case I guess you need FATAL. Or a psychologist.

I'd say that there's a great deal of fantasy that D&D doesn't model all that well. I brought up the example I did largely because it seemed like the sort of thing nobody was going to contest, whereas something like Conan would easily be contested - it feels way off to me, it might not feel way off to you.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Fair enough. There's definitely room for reasonable disagreement. And originally I had written "anything in the LotR-fantasy family."

[Vhaidara]

In that case I guess you need FATAL. Or a psychologist.

If nothing else, you'll need a psychologist after FATAL.

[Coidzor]

As for gully dwarves, they're basically comic relief, so I can understand that they don't add anything worthwhile to the setting. But I've always loved the idea of playing a level 1 gully dwarf wizard with 14 Intelligence, getting Int boosting items, and mass-producing permanent int-boosting magic items for all my gully dwarf neighbors with the epic goal of raising my race from the gutters.

Aren't Gully Dwarves basically a hamfisted warning against miscegenation, of all things?

I can see that not really sitting well with audiences with more modern sensibilities.

[troqdor1316]

Aren't Gully Dwarves basically a hamfisted warning against miscegenation, of all things?

I can see that not really sitting well with audiences with more modern sensibilities.

They would be classic examples of miscegenation if they were inbred dwarves, but they are not. There is not any record of how gully dwarves actually originated, but it's theorized (probably incorrectly) that they're crosses between gnomes and dwarves, or humans and dwarves.

I say that this theory is probably incorrect because Races of Ansalon introduces exactly what a half-dwarf is, and it's not a gully dwarf. There's no reason to believe that gully dwarves are inbred. As far as one can tell, they're all just naturally a stupid race.

On that note, it's really not that hard to believe. Animals have INT scores of 2 or 1, and they manage to survive fine on their own. Add about 4 points to the INT score of the average animal, and you have a gully dwarf.

[Coidzor]

They would be classic examples of miscegenation if they were inbred dwarves, but they are not. There is not any record of how gully dwarves actually originated, but it's theorized (probably incorrectly) that they're crosses between gnomes and dwarves, or humans and dwarves.

I say that this theory is probably incorrect because Races of Ansalon introduces exactly what a half-dwarf is, and it's not a gully dwarf. There's no reason to believe that gully dwarves are inbred. As far as one can tell, they're all just naturally a stupid race.

Miscegenation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscegenation)is race-mixing, not inbreeding. So a cross between gnomes and dwarves or humans and dwarves or humans and gnomes or even gnomes, dwarves, and humans would qualify as an example of such along fantasy lines. And having race-mixing lead to a despised, pitied, and exploited class of people who are also objectively inferior to others, at least intellectually... :/

Maybe, though that whole race-mixing leads to horrible, stupid wretches angle still seems to have been the primary foot forward on them, at least initially in 3.X, so even with confirmation that HumanxDwarf doesn't directly lead to gully dwarves, it's still not quite ideal.

Though, come to think of it, depending upon how isolated the Gully Dwarf [tribes? clans?] are from one another, they may very well be inbred...


On that note, it's really not that hard to believe. Animals have INT scores of 2 or 1, and they manage to survive fine on their own. Add about 4 points to the INT score of the average animal, and you have a gully dwarf.

What exactly are we believing here with this, now? :smallconfused: That gully dwarves can survive with low INT? I wasn't really addressing that either way, though.

[Psyren]

Campaign settings are fluff. That's what they are. They're big fluffy beds for the Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master's Guide and the Monster Manual, and sometimes, when people feel like gettin' kinky, the Psionics Handbook, to roll around in. The idea that there's some crunchy switch that you have to flip before your campaign can be Officially Forgotten Realms or Officially Dragonlance or Officially Dark Sun or, hell, Officially Takes Place In That World Jaqueline Carey Writes That Definitely Isn't Basically 1400s History We Promise... that idea is absurd.

This I don't quite agree with - there is absolutely setting-specific crunch. For example, Eberron restricts plane shift to be usable only when a given plane is coterminous or waxing/waning. And when planes are remote it can actually affect other types of spells too. Eberron also removes the one-step rule for clerics and cares more about a cleric's standing within their church than their actual alignment - basically the opposite of the PHB's priorities.

There are many other examples too - Athas and defiling, Golarion and Bleaching, Faerun and the Wall, Ravenloft and karma/betrayal of faith etc.

[awa]

i don't know if the wall counts does it actually affect mechanics like by stopping raise dead?

[Coidzor]

i don't know if the wall counts does it actually affect mechanics like by stopping raise dead?

Yep. If they don't raise ya quick enough, it requires direct divine intervention or indirect divine intervention via Wish or Miracle to get someone out of that thing.

And, of course, if one gets dissolved by the soul-destroying mold quicker than normal, then, IIRC, not even those will work(that or it's undefined and defaults to whatever the rules are for trying to bring back destroyed souls, which I think goes right back to Divine Intervention + Maybe Wish/Miracle). Though given the timescales of the ability to raise someone and how long it should take to dissolve a soul, that'd pretty much be in the realm of DM fiat, I think.

[Psyren]

i don't know if the wall counts does it actually affect mechanics like by stopping raise dead?

As Coidzor noted, yes there is crunch around this - you have 1d10 days to raise a Faithless before they require divine intervention to get free (Wish or Miracle.)

[CombatOwl]

Yes, you. What, in your personal opinion, makes Dragonlance a sub par or bad setting to run games or play as a PC in?

inb4 possibilities of dealing with kender and the fact that the wizards are color coded.

I'm legitimately curious because I've been running a game in the setting for about a year now and my players are all perfectly happy with the game.

Dragonlance is pretty deep into romantic fantasy. If that's your thing you'll like it. Otherwise, you probably won't. One thing I have found about Dragonlance: It's pretty easy to run enduring campaigns with simple black/white plot elements with it. It's basically built for doing that. For a lot of groups, that works.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

This I don't quite agree with - there is absolutely setting-specific crunch. For example, Eberron restricts plane shift to be usable only when a given plane is coterminous or waxing/waning. And when planes are remote it can actually affect other types of spells too. Eberron also removes the one-step rule for clerics and cares more about a cleric's standing within their church than their actual alignment - basically the opposite of the PHB's priorities.

There are many other examples too - Athas and defiling, Golarion and Bleaching, Faerun and the Wall, Ravenloft and karma/betrayal of faith etc.

All of this is simple tweaks to the basic rules of D&D. Sure, it's setting specific crunch. I was responding to jedipotter, who claims that the crunch of Dragonlance is so different that it's not-D&D. That the setting is so different that it can't be run using the basic rules. And that's absurd.

[Knaight]

Miscegenation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscegenation)is race-mixing, not inbreeding. So a cross between gnomes and dwarves or humans and dwarves or humans and gnomes or even gnomes, dwarves, and humans would qualify as an example of such along fantasy lines. And having race-mixing lead to a despised, pitied, and exploited class of people who are also objectively inferior to others, at least intellectually... :/

Suffice to say it's all sorts of dubious, particularly as there are still people whining about "miscegenation" and "race traitors" and all that nonsense. It's hardly a historical issue - and I can say that in my country (U.S.), there were actually still anti-miscegenation laws as recently as 20 years ago, and there very much are fantasy novels which contain thinly veiled anti-miscegenation allegories.

[Sartharina]

Well, Drizzit summoned the Balor into a small space where he could fight hand to hand. And keep in mind it was a 1E Balor, not the 3.5E one too.

My point is you can't get that Dragonlance feel, of ''oh no, the bad guy has a sharp stick run for your lives!'' with the D&D rules.

Actually, you don't need to play the Dragon intelligently. A level something TWF Ranger with a few magic items can sort of take on a balor thatuses attacks based on the narrative, but are resolved through the mechanics.

Sure, it may be optimal to have a dragon circle-strafe and everyone fight in the most tactically sane way, but there's nothing wrong with a campaign where the dragons do DramaticTM things, like land and try to take people on in mano-a-mano combat with claws and teeth, and only use a few of the attacks on their turn (each one resolved through the mechanics) instead of somehow hitting someone with a tail, bite, two claws, and two wings all at once.

You can even do low-magic-item campaigns in D&D, just remember the effect that lack of such items has on CR. A terribly-built level 14 TWF ranger can still come across as a complete badass when fighting the level 1-3 warriors that make up the bulk of the world they're in.

[Psyren]

While I get your point, generally a dragon that lands and uses melee is much more lethal in terms of damage output than one that simply relies on breathing. Though the one that circle-strafes and breathes will at least be less vulnerable to the party in turn.

Having said that, I agree - narratively most high level monsters are not played to potential because the protagonists would practically have to be supermen to take them down. The Pit Fiend encounter (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0586.html) for instance could have easily TPKed the Order.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Still, it's not actually relevant. It's not like Sturm fight a blue dragon and wins. He talks to the rider of a dragon, hits it once, and then gets stabbed to death by the rider. It seems to me to be a perfectly plausible encounter under the rules of the game. It's basically what happens when you as a PC decide you're going to take a swing at someone you shouldn't.

Edit:

Thinking about it a bit more, Psyren, I think the other reason most monsters aren't played to potential is that writing magic is hard, at least in the novel settings based on D&D. Wizards generally don't make compelling protagonists due to the way magic works. And there's a realization that once magic gets involved, more magic is needed to counteract it and the characters without magic are just baggage*. No matter how determined, Bruenor can't fly. And no matter how angsty, Tanis can't either. And I think it's pretty evident that the potential that gets left aside is mostly supernatural. Big melee monsters generally get played as such. And lots of fights involving dragons have this character being bitten, and that character pinned under a claw, and this other character swatted across the cavern by a wing or a tail... it's less that the dragon isn't using all of its physical tools and more that it fails to concentrate its fire. I'm interested to hear people's thoughts on this idea.

* I'm thinking of the Cleric Quintet a bit here. I seem to remember Cadderly becoming less and less interesting as his cosmic power increased. And I seem to remember the structure of the books changing from 'the gang has adventures' to 'Cadderly solves problems while the gang goes off and has side stories'. Cadderly goes over here and does this, while Danica is over there punching someone and the dwarves are running around being silly.

[awa]

i think part of the problem is that the novels tend to put martial on a real world level. In the novels you have a high level barbarian just be a skilled fighter who dies if you stab him. While in the game he can win a fist fight with a tank literally ripping it apart with his bare hands after falling from orbit. While the wizard has all his normal powers it takes the inherent imbalance of d&d and makes it worse.

[Psyren]

Wizards generally don't make compelling protagonists due to the way magic works.

I don't agree with this at all. Magic has its limitations just like any other ability, and smart writers make use of it - the key is simply to establish rules early and stick to them. These can be bent or broken, but care must be taken in doing so - make the circumstances for the deviation very clear so that the audience realizes how singular or repeatable such an event truly is.

There are plenty of compelling wizard (and other primary spellcaster) protagonists, at a wide variety of power levels. Pug/Milamber. Raistlin Majere. Rand al'Thor, Egwene al'Vere, Moiraine Damodred et al. Sparrowhawk. Druhallen of Sunderath. Harry Potter. (And of course there are the sillier examples, like Xanth, Discworld, Another Fine Myth, A Wizard in Rhyme etc.)

(D&D fiction also has non-wizard examples like Cadderly Bonaduce and Danilo Thann.)


* I'm thinking of the Cleric Quintet a bit here. I seem to remember Cadderly becoming less and less interesting as his cosmic power increased. And I seem to remember the structure of the books changing from 'the gang has adventures' to 'Cadderly solves problems while the gang goes off and has side stories'. Cadderly goes over here and does this, while Danica is over there punching someone and the dwarves are running around being silly.

I saw it as the opposite - Cadderly got more interesting as he became more capable. The first two books were a bit of a slog as he ran around with that weird custom crossbow of his and his battle yo-yo "spindle-disks," being largely ineffectual, angsting over killing and continually needing rescue. But as the series went on he came into his own - taking on a master assassin, dominating an evil dragon, dueling an archmage and finally taking on his childhood "friend" turned vicious vampire cleric.

And honestly I think CQ was a prime example of how to write a powerful spellcaster - namely you show that even they cannot do everything, at least not alone. Magic power does not have to mean freedom from character flaws or tribulations - quite the opposite, gaining power can actually make a character's life worse as heavier decisions come to weigh upon them. I recall the very powerful scene where he resurrected the child, but even more powerful was the scene where he realized what a precious gift being able to raise the dead was, and that he couldn't simply go around repopulating the city by bringing every murder victim back from the jaws of death - even if they died because of someone who had been trying to kill him.

[SaintRidley]

It's a fine setting for novels as far as I'm concerned. Really well-suited, in fact. I love the lore of it.

I've never tried playing it, but people have brought up points I do think would make it less appealing - color coding, shoving the stick even farther up paladin butts, general inability for 99% of players to look at a kender and not go "Cool, now to screw everyone over when it's inconvenient!"

I do think the War Mage PrC from one of the kind of 3rd party books but with the WotC seal is pretty cool, though.

[Psyren]

I like the Mystic and Noble from the Campaign Setting. And... that's about it.

[Dimers]

I seem to remember Cadderly becoming less and less interesting as his cosmic power increased. And I seem to remember the structure of the books changing from 'the gang has adventures' to 'Cadderly solves problems while the gang goes off and has side stories'.

See also: Dr. Manhattan of the Watchmen.

Why don't I like Dragonlance for play? A social setting that's hostile to an unreasonable extent, the presumption of world-spanning racism, relationships between clerics and their deities either forcing special snowflake status or requiring DM fiat to work at all, little support for people outside tightly predetermined roles, too much high tragedy, hamhanded application of cheap comedy in a vain attempt to relieve the oppressive atmosphere, the presence of gods making any heroes' work of questionable importance.

The novels and short stories I found worth re-reading dealt with the weirdos and outsiders, and even then, I'd rather hear what those special people could accomplish if they weren't in a cruel world with stories full of fiat and stereotypes.

[Shinken]

I like the Mystic and Noble from the Campaign Setting. And... that's about it.

There is a base class with divine magic with a death theme. I can't remember the name, but I really liked it. Kind of a divine rogue.

[troqdor1316]

Miscegenation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscegenation)is race-mixing, not inbreeding. So a cross between gnomes and dwarves or humans and dwarves or humans and gnomes or even gnomes, dwarves, and humans would qualify as an example of such along fantasy lines. And having race-mixing lead to a despised, pitied, and exploited class of people who are also objectively inferior to others, at least intellectually... :/

Maybe, though that whole race-mixing leads to horrible, stupid wretches angle still seems to have been the primary foot forward on them, at least initially in 3.X, so even with confirmation that HumanxDwarf doesn't directly lead to gully dwarves, it's still not quite ideal.

Though, come to think of it, depending upon how isolated the Gully Dwarf [tribes? clans?] are from one another, they may very well be inbred...



What exactly are we believing here with this, now? :smallconfused: That gully dwarves can survive with low INT? I wasn't really addressing that either way, though.

I always interpreted the definition of miscegenation as the mixing of different races, not of different species. Gnomes and humans and dwarves are not the same species, as far as I am aware. When I said inbreeding among dwarves, I meant "a Neidar and a Darghar got it on." Again, there's no reason anywhere in any official text* that gives any reason to believe that Aghar are a product of miscegenation. Besides, even in Dragonlance, gnome+human=half-gnome/half-human, gnome+dwarf=half-gnome/half-dwarf, just like everywhere else.

As for what we're believing, I was referring to the concept that gully dwarves just sort of happened naturally like the rest of nature's animals did. Although it's more likely in Dragonlance that they were specifically created by a specific god for a specific reason

*that I am aware of

[Karnith]

There is a base class with divine magic with a death theme. I can't remember the name, but I really liked it. Kind of a divine rogue.
You're probably thinking of the Nightstalker, in Races of Ansalon.

[Larkas]

Again, there's no reason anywhere in any official text* that gives any reason to believe that Aghar are a product of miscegenation.

Uhhh... It says right there on their description in Dragonlance Campaign Setting. :smallconfused:

[Knaight]

I always interpreted the definition of miscegenation as the mixing of different races, not of different species. Gnomes and humans and dwarves are not the same species, as far as I am aware. When I said inbreeding among dwarves, I meant "a Neidar and a Darghar got it on." Again, there's no reason anywhere in any official text* that gives any reason to believe that Aghar are a product of miscegenation. Besides, even in Dragonlance, gnome+human=half-gnome/half-human, gnome+dwarf=half-gnome/half-dwarf, just like everywhere else.

This would be a lot cleaner if the actual term used wasn't generally "race", and if there wasn't the option for obvious allegory.

[troqdor1316]

Uhhh... It says right there on their description in Dragonlance Campaign Setting. :smallconfused:

It also says, unless I'm remembering incorrectly, that the interbreeding theory is probably not a correct one.

[AMFV]

I'd say that there's a great deal of fantasy that D&D doesn't model all that well. I brought up the example I did largely because it seemed like the sort of thing nobody was going to contest, whereas something like Conan would easily be contested - it feels way off to me, it might not feel way off to you.

Well it's very hard to figure out what D&D will or will not model well, since fluff is fairly mutable, and different people have different taste levels. Different things bother different people. So it's possible that you could have a group that played in Postapocalyptic Earth with D&D and worked out just fine. I'm not disagreeing, per se, I'm mostly concurring that it's largely a matter of taste.

Which probably explains why some people feel that DL works as a setting and others don't, because it runs against a common taste boundary, although I'm not completely sure what it is.

[Larkas]

It also says, unless I'm remembering incorrectly, that the interbreeding theory is probably not a correct one.


The commonly accepted tale of how gully dwarves came to be is found within the annals of Astinus's Iconochronos. According to the Iconochronos, gully dwarves are the result of breeding between gnomes and dwarves in the years following the transformation of gnomes by the Greygem of Gargath. The gnome-dwarf half-breeds appeared to inherit the worst qualities of both races. The unfortunate half-breeds were driven out of their clans. Humans later christened them "gully dwarves", reflecting their lowly status and poor living conditions.

So... Yeah.

[Knaight]

Which probably explains why some people feel that DL works as a setting and others don't, because it runs against a common taste boundary, although I'm not completely sure what it is.
Mortality of martial characters seems to be the big one. There are a lot of settings in which some great warrior can get caught off guard and killed by some punk kid with a knife* - and I don't mean assassination while they are asleep. In D&D, that's not happening. Similarly, there are lots of settings where six barely trained peasants with spears are totally capable of taking down the greatest warrior around, provided that they're fighting under conditions where they are willing to die to do it* (extremely angry, defending their homes, whatever). 6 1st level commoners are a total joke for a 20th level fighter. Or a 20th level Commoner, for that matter.

*This does generally assume that they are caught armed, but poorly armored.

[AMFV]

Mortality of martial characters seems to be the big one. There are a lot of settings in which some great warrior can get caught off guard and killed by some punk kid with a knife* - and I don't mean assassination while they are asleep. In D&D, that's not happening. Similarly, there are lots of settings where six barely trained peasants with spears are totally capable of taking down the greatest warrior around, provided that they're fighting under conditions where they are willing to die to do it* (extremely angry, defending their homes, whatever). 6 1st level commoners are a total joke for a 20th level fighter. Or a 20th level Commoner, for that matter.

*This does generally assume that they are caught armed, but poorly armored.

That's fair enough, but that's pretty going to have to be an acceptable break from reality in most campaign settings. Eberron for example, and FR both feature assassinations, although in Eberron they are better explained by having a lower level setting. I assume that this is just an acceptable rules reality break, or at least one I'll tolerate since I'm fond of D&D

Edit: D&D is actually a really really bad system for modelling assassinations. By default there's no facing, so no stabbing people in the back. The drug rules are pretty poorly developed, there's no really catching somebody off guard and a level 20 character could probably fight off a very large number of adversaries (possibly an infinite number if given the right build)

[Knaight]

Edit: D&D is actually a really really bad system for modelling assassinations. By default there's no facing, so no stabbing people in the back. The drug rules are pretty poorly developed, there's no really catching somebody off guard and a level 20 character could probably fight off a very large number of adversaries (possibly an infinite number if given the right build)

I was basically just excluding Coup de Grace, which is the one way that low level characters can actually kill high level characters pretty reliably. Even if scythes are a really good tool for it and daggers suck, in blatant defiance of reality.

[AMFV]

I was basically just excluding Coup de Grace, which is the one way that low level characters can actually kill high level characters pretty reliably. Even if scythes are a really good tool for it and daggers suck, in blatant defiance of reality.

Well daggers suck in reality if you don't know where to stick them, and decapitating somebody with a scythe would probably be pretty easy. Although I've never decapitated anybody to know, but I have used scythes to cut some pretty thick and nasty foliage, and they work pretty amazingly.

So is it just the assassination thing, that brings out the 3.5 and DL are incompatible feel, do you think? I'm genuinely curious as to why people dislike this setting in this system, since to me it seems like there would be no major differences from other similar settings as far as fluff-crunch dichotomy goes.

[Knaight]

Well daggers suck in reality if you don't know where to stick them, and decapitating somebody with a scythe would probably be pretty easy. Although I've never decapitated anybody to know, but I have used scythes to cut some pretty thick and nasty foliage, and they work pretty amazingly.

So is it just the assassination thing, that brings out the 3.5 and DL are incompatible feel, do you think? I'm genuinely curious as to why people dislike this setting in this system, since to me it seems like there would be no major differences from other similar settings as far as fluff-crunch dichotomy goes.
Let me clarify: I was excluding assassination, and speaking more generally as to fantasy that feels incompatable. It's more the cases of a fully aware expert warrior getting dropped by a handful of inept civilians, or some punk getting lucky and managing to kill an expert while they are slightly off guard (somewhat drunk, for example), or a whole host of other things in which even experts are way, way more fragile than those in D&D.

Take Princess Bride. Inigo Montoya is a ludicrously capable swordsman who kills 4 guards in about 2 seconds. By D&D standards, that's pretty high level. Later in the same scene, he's chasing after someone who turns around unexpectedly and throws a knife at him. It nearly kills him. Yes, he survives, and he's even able to recover during the fight to a limited extent, but that unexpected thrown knife was extremely deadly, and it's not like it was thrown by some expert knife thrower - Count Rougan is a decent fighter who's best days are behind him, he isn't and never was great. Montoya is just much more mortal than the typical D&D character.

[AMFV]

Let me clarify: I was excluding assassination, and speaking more generally as to fantasy that feels incompatable. It's more the cases of a fully aware expert warrior getting dropped by a handful of inept civilians, or some punk getting lucky and managing to kill an expert while they are slightly off guard (somewhat drunk, for example), or a whole host of other things in which even experts are way, way more fragile than those in D&D.

Take Princess Bride. Inigo Montoya is a ludicrously capable swordsman who kills 4 guards in about 2 seconds. By D&D standards, that's pretty high level. Later in the same scene, he's chasing after someone who turns around unexpectedly and throws a knife at him. It nearly kills him. Yes, he survives, and he's even able to recover during the fight to a limited extent, but that unexpected thrown knife was extremely deadly, and it's not like it was thrown by some expert knife thrower - Count Rougan is a decent fighter who's best days are behind him, he isn't and never was great. Montoya is just much more mortal than the typical D&D character.

But that is again, what I would consider, an acceptable break from reality. If we want to model realistic combat, it's going to be very unpleasant and lethal, and that's less fun. Even as far as realistic fantasy combat goes, this is pretty much an acceptable break from reality. Since otherwise we introduce more randomness that leads to more death, which may or may not be good for a game.

Generally my experience has been that when games try to reach a more appropriate level of fatality, it often winds up being ridiculous, for example my character in Shadowrun once survived a grenade and then almost died due to fumbling on climbing two seconds later. The problem is that while that inconsistency is realistic, it isn't very fun to have your character killed because of bad luck, at least not when you're invested.

I think though that if that break from typical fantasy reality or the narrative bothers you (or others) too much, then D&D isn't their game, because the areas that bother them (or you, I'm not sure if you were describing your own viewpoint or those of others) are going to continually hop up. Especially since hit points are a pretty big abstraction as far as that goes.

[Knaight]

But that is again, what I would consider, an acceptable break from reality. If we want to model realistic combat, it's going to be very unpleasant and lethal, and that's less fun. Even as far as realistic fantasy combat goes, this is pretty much an acceptable break from reality. Since otherwise we introduce more randomness that leads to more death, which may or may not be good for a game.

It's a matter of degrees, really. I generally do tone down lethality, but I would personally say that D&D takes it too far in a number of ways - hit point bloat, the sad excuse for a flanking bonus, etc. I would say that because of that, it feels off with a number of fantasy settings. There are also fantasy settings wherein the heroes casually wade through hordes and such, and I'd say that D&D fits some of them like a glove (it depends on other aspects of the setting).

Coming back to Dragonlance specifically - that seems to be Jedipotter's issue with it, and he's not the only one. It's not mine, which is the much simpler reason of finding it an extremely generic, tedious, and uninspiring setting that I have zero interest in playing in in any system.

[AMFV]

It's a matter of degrees, really. I generally do tone down lethality, but I would personally say that D&D takes it too far in a number of ways - hit point bloat, the sad excuse for a flanking bonus, etc. I would say that because of that, it feels off with a number of fantasy settings. There are also fantasy settings wherein the heroes casually wade through hordes and such, and I'd say that D&D fits some of them like a glove (it depends on other aspects of the setting).

Coming back to Dragonlance specifically - that seems to be Jedipotter's issue with it, and he's not the only one. It's not mine, which is the much simpler reason of finding it an extremely generic, tedious, and uninspiring setting that I have zero interest in playing in in any system.

Fair enough, I also don't really like Dragonlance, although I find certain things can be really fun to cherry pick from it. The Order of Gishy Knights with evil Divination powers whose name I can't remember are pretty fun and can be useful in many settings. There are a few other things worth snagging, I don't like the setting on the whole though.

As far as the lethality issue goes. I've rarely had players complain when I say something like: "The King was ambushed and killed", or "His adviser stabbed him in the back and murdered them" probably because combat is so separated from narrative consistency that breaks from reality are probably pretty normal for it.

[Tvtyrant]

The mortality thing is why I like the wounds/vitality system from Unearthed Arcana. The throwing knife was a crit and did damage directly to Inigo's real life points, so it was extremely lethal and forced him to instantly become fatigued.

[AMFV]

The mortality thing is why I like the wounds/vitality system from Unearthed Arcana. The throwing knife was a crit and did damage directly to Inigo's real life points, so it was extremely lethal and forced him to instantly become fatigued.

I'm not overly fond of the system, myself, since it makes combat very lethal, and I find that it's somewhat more fun to have combat be less lethal than realism would want, and that people are generally okay with accepting combat lethality being low, although that may not be everybody, but that is my preference.

[Tvtyrant]

Sure it sucks when you lose, I'm just saying that it actually does a much better job modeling real world combat. 20 commoner guys shooting arrows are suddenly dangerous, because the one guy who rolled a natural 20? He hits your wound/life points.

My group usually plays the opposite, with raised amounts of HP and second winds, but I like the vitality system better and would love to run it.

[AMFV]

Sure it sucks when you lose, I'm just saying that it actually does a much better job modeling real world combat. 20 commoner guys shooting arrows are suddenly dangerous, because the one guy who rolled a natural 20? He hits your wound/life points.

My group usually plays the opposite, with raised amounts of HP and second winds, but I like the vitality system better and would love to run it.

The problem I have with this, is that I'm fond of narrative significance. If a level 20 character dies, I don't want it to be to Scrawny McNoName, the peasant in a randomly rolled ambush, no matter how realistic that is. Although I could see that being a workable system for a certain kind of campaign. This is particularly due to the high level of investment you see in higher level characters.

[Tvtyrant]

The problem I have with this, is that I'm fond of narrative significance. If a level 20 character dies, I don't want it to be to Scrawny McNoName, the peasant in a randomly rolled ambush, no matter how realistic that is. Although I could see that being a workable system for a certain kind of campaign. This is particularly due to the high level of investment you see in higher level characters.

I think we are probably visualizing this differently. I'm seeing a Chargebarian with a con score of 26 being ambushed by 100 archers hiding in the rocks. The vast majority of the arrows miss or glance off of him as they pour arrows out at him, and he occasionally takes a deep arrow. In the first 6 seconds of the fight he takes 5 actual hits, arrows that punch deep into his chest or neck. Numerous other arrows have either missed or lodged lightly in his skin and armor, but he is in no way deterred. Charging forward the barbarian slaughters the leader of the ambush and draws their fire while the rest of the group has time to react.

The battle lasts less then 30 seconds, a sea of fireballs and high level abilities putting down the ambush as the party attempts to rescue the badly injured Barbarian who is now laying stunned on the ground with a dozen actual arrows in him and many others barely punching through the surface.

As opposed to being attacked, taking negligible damage even from the crits and the barbarian single handedly killing the ambush without breaking a sweat.

Edit: Basically I am thinking of Boromir or other fantasy characters, while without wound systems they are more like superheroes. Machine gun rounds bouncing off of Loki's skin.

[awa]

100 level 1 warriors is only a cr 11 threat the barbarian should be able to solo that without serious injury

[Yahzi]

I'm fond of narrative significance. If a level 20 character dies, I don't want it to be to Scrawny McNoName, the peasant in a randomly rolled ambush
George R.R. Martin seems to combine both. :smallbiggrin:

[Psyren]

George R.R. Martin seems to combine both. :smallbiggrin:

I doubt anyone in A Song of Ice and Fire would qualify as 20th level even for a mundane, if that's what you're referring to...

[AMFV]

George R.R. Martin seems to combine both. :smallbiggrin:

I've not read Song of Ice and Fire, but I've read a lot about it, it does seem pretty narrative, but the huge amount of massive death is for me not a benefit. Just because random brutal death is realistic for warfare doesn't mean that it's something I want in my fiction.

[Shinken]

If anyone believes Song of Ice and Fire lacks plot armor, it's because they skipped all their literature classes.

[awa]

deaths in song of fire and ice a'rnt random not even a little. The only reason they may seem arbitrary is because we are so use to main characters having plot armor that guarantees them a happy ending no matter how many dumb things they do.

[Vhaidara]

If anyone believes Song of Ice and Fire lacks plot armor, it's because they skipped all their literature classes.

They don't lack it completely, but he is more willing to kill someone than most authors.

[Knaight]

They don't lack it completely, but he is more willing to kill someone than most authors.

Sure, but major characters all die due to their particular personality traits, and not due to things like getting unlucky.