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Monks in the Dragonlance Setting - A new spin on old material.

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Monks! Didn’t exist when the OG was published. Weis and Hickman didn’t include them in the game, but they did include one unique group that I think the Monk class would fall into nicely.  But to flesh this out we need to do a bit of retcon to the Seekers and see how Monks fit nicely into their ranks.  Here is what we know about the Seekers. They were founded in the Age of Despair when the true gods left and people were seeking new gods to replace the old ones. Unfortunately no new gods showed up. In the books characters recall charlatans fleecing people and pretending to be true clerics. While the Seekers may have started off like this, they evolved into something more and became established in some societies as governmental organizations.   The City of Haven is known as the “Lords City of Haven” as it is the headquarters of the Seeker faith. They came to power in that city after ousting another false faith the Belzorites. They then expanded and at the start of the g...
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The Bard & The Barbarian - Or Why Kender and Minotaurs are really useful!

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  The first two characters I’m going to make will be the Minotaur Barbarian and the Kender Bard. I’m going to use the 4d6 method with dropping the lowest roll.  Bard: Simon Talespinner is a recreation of an OG character I had back in the day. Kender Handler (Don’t call them thieves!) So I felt it a good idea to bring him back, but I wanted to put a different spin on him for the 5E version as Kender Rogue seems a bit too obvious.  So I’m opting for the Bard, reason being is that Kender in the novels loved to tell stories and this just seemed to fit in really well with the new system.  The Bard class comes with three Proficiencies of choice, so before I opt for one I should consider the background for Simon so I don’t end up duplicating options. As a kender he has the choice of Insight, Investigation, Sleight of Hand, Stealth or Survival. I feel like as a kender he would end up with Slight of Hand. This works also with the background features I’m selecting. The backgro...
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Building the NEW Heroes of the Lance IE (A solid 5E Test Party)

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The goal of this post is to build a well rounded party for the revamped Dragonlance 5E Classic campaign. I’m going to compare the original Heroes of the Lance and look at the new available formats and how the rulesets change the two. With any luck I’ll be able to craft a 5E party that will be capable of taking on the challenges posed by the Dragon Armies, but there are a number of challenges that I’ll have to address to make that happen. So looking at the original Heroes of Lance we have the following. First each character was between the 3rd and 6th level Tanis - Half Elf - Ranger Flint Fireforge - Dwarf - Fighter Sturm Brightblade - Human - Fighter Cararmon - Human - Fighter Raistlin - Human - Magic User Tasselhoff - Kender - Thief Goldmoon - Human - Cleric (NPC) Riverwind - Human - Ranger (NPC) I intend to keep Goldmoon & Riverwind as NPCs, so this leaves six characters to generate fresh. the OG Heroes of the Lance had three tanks (Fighters) and three distance attackers (Ranger,...
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Dragons of Despair Prologue: Clerics, Elves, Kender, Dragons, Gold and Steel.

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Dragons of Despair is the first part of the Dragonlance Saga as such it serves as an intro to the world. Right off the bat the GM is hit with some class and character limitations.  First the game lets you know there are no clerics. So healing in the earlier version is going to be a challenge. Here is the quote: There are important differences between the world of Krynn and standard AD&D® game campaigns. True priests have been unknown in Krynn for centuries. There are priests, but they do not have spell powers since they worship false gods. PC priests who enter Krynn from other worlds lose all their powers (but these can be regained, if all goes well) .  So immediately the party is at the disadvantage under the old rules of lack of healing. 5E somewhat negates this challenge as PC’s get all hit points back after a long rest.  Even still it means that imported characters who relied on other world deities are out of luck. So the party should take into consideration the s...
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The 5C's of Converting to 5E

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  A number of challenges come into play when looking back at old game modules and converting them to 5th edition. Without going into too much detail they fall into a few categories, which I refer to as the 5C’s of converting to 5E.  Capacity : The capacity of characters in 5e is greater than that of prior releases. This means that the party is better equipped to challenge the monsters if we keep everything on a one to one scale.  Clarity : A lot of the original modules were not exactly clear on how the game was to be run. This led to GM’s either going with a best guess as to what the writers intended, or trying to adjust on the fly to accommodate the particular game they were running.  Compensation : Due to the rule changes from the initial system to 5e a lot of tactical adjustments need to be made in order to ensure the game has the same tone, and challenge levels to it.  Canonization : Some of the original material as presented might be unacceptable/problem...
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