Dragonlance Campaign Setting

Overall score:

Ever since I read the first Dragonlance novels back when I was in Junior High, the setting has always been my favorite. Imagine my surprise when, a few years after that at my local comic store's yearly everything-must-go sale, I found the box set for a mere $5. Years later upon hearing that Wizards wasn't going to release a D&D 3rd edition version of Dragonlance I plotted my revenge, but the lack of monkeys here in Utah thwarted those plans. So to put it plainly I've been eagerly awaiting the new d20 Dragonlance book more than D&D 3.5.

When the Dragonlance setting was created more then 10 years ago by Weis and Hickman their main goal was to take the generic dungeon crawl out of D&D and make the adventures more epic. I'm pleased to say the new d20 version follows the same idea.

This book is a setting book, much like Forgotten Realms Book. It is designed for D&D 3.5, with the intention of giving players a new world to play in without the GM having to make one. You will need the Core rule books to play. My biggest complaint with the Forgotten Realms book was that it was more area descriptions and very little culture/rule variations. True, the Realms are a much larger place than Krynn (the Dragonlance world), but I still think there should have been more about what makes the world different than plain old D&D. The Dragonlance book is almost the exact opposite of the Forgotten Realms book—very little area description, and lots of new stats and variants.

The base of the Dragonlance book is the history of Krynn, and there is a lot of time and effort put into the book to give a very unique history for all the races and some classes—enough that any player or GM can use it to add flavor to their characters. For example, the "dark" elves and dwarfs in Krynn aren't a different super evil race, instead they are people that have been banished from their respected family/clans and not allowed to return to their homeland. This could be for numerous reasons, and doesn’t mean the character is evil. Another example would be the Mage of Krynn, who is different from the Wizard in traditional D&D—not in the game mechanics but how they exist in the world. Anyone familiar with the Dragonlance novels would know that magic is not all that common on Krynn and is very closely guarded by mages. At 4th level any PC that wishes to advance further in magic must join (i.e. take a prestige class) the Order of High Sorcery and take a test. If the player refuses then he is declared a rogue mage and hunted by other wizards. This might turn off some people, but it's not as bad as it might sound at first. The prestige class actually makes wizards better then your normal D&D wizards. You get free magic items and never have to buy spells for spell books (well, depending on which point in history you're playing in) and get better spell focuses and new magical abilities. In return you have to follow the rules, which aren't anything that would affect a player for the most part, and lose the ability to cast a school of magic (much like when you specialize as a wizard) depending on your alignment. So a Good character would have to give up being able to use Illusion, Transmutation, Enchantment or Necromancy, but would be able to cast Abjuration and Divination at +1 caster level.

In addition to setting up histories to classes and races there are some new ones added as well as a few missing. Halflings and Orcs are gone, as well as anything having to do with the underdark (i.e. Drow, Drider, Mindflayers etc). New races include the Kender, a race much like the Halfling but more carefree and annoying. Centaurs are a more common PC as are Ogres, Half-Ogres and Minotaurs. Paladin is gone and, depending on when you play in the Dragonlance timeline, Sorcerers could be gone as well. Bards also get hurt in the game—they aren't allowed to cast healing spells and as with the Sorcerer might not be able to cast magic at all! A new class that has been added is the Mystic, basically a Sorcerer Cleric. The book gives a few examples of how Mystics can be different then clerics, such as Shamans or Necromancers. Another new class is the Noble, which works in many of the same ways they do in the Star Wars d20. They are like the Bard in that they can inspire confidence in their companions and get favors from people in power.

To replace the Paladin there are the Knights of Solamnia. This is a special set of prestige classes that any class can take and can join early (a fighter could get it at 4th level). There are three separate classes but you have to take them in a certain order. The first one is a purely combat class that gives you all the Paladins' saving throws plus some other abilities if you stick with it. The second one will allow you to smite evil, turn undead, and cast divine spells. The third class allows you to detect evil and inspire courage, as well as give you a leadership bonus. You only have to take one level of the first to advance to the second and one of the second to advance to the third; there are other bonuses to reach the second and third but a player could take one level of each and then level in something else until you meet the requirements for teh next level. Also included for each class is a requirement to do some type of quest, but it's up to the GM and player as to how it fits into the campaign. Also included in the prestige class section is the Dragon Rider, which as the name suggests gives the player a dragon mount! In the Dragonlance world dragons are more common and interact with people on a more regular basis then in traditional D&D.

A large portion of the book goes to setting up how magic and religion works. Again there are no rule changes but a lot of history and flavor that can give creative players and GMs great fodder for in-depth characters and adventures. The gods in Krynn are much more interested in mortals than in other D&D settings, and depending on where in the timeline you play the gods could make for some interesting adventures. The current time and setting of Kyrnn is the 5th age or the Age of Mortals. At the beginning of the Age of Mortals all magic disappeared, both arcane and divine, because the gods had disappeared. In this time Sorcerery and Mysticism was discovered, up until now neither form of "raw" magic existed. Long story short: there was a war and the gods came back, now all four types of magic exist and the gods are really desperate to get worshipers again. The book focuses mainly on this time but does give discriptions of what classes and races are like in some of the other popular times.

Even though it's not as in-depth as the Forgotten Realms book, there is a section on areas and places. All the important places are covered in much the same way. An area name is given, then regional history and geography, then city descriptions and important places (like a forest or a ruin). There's enough here to give a GM enough information to use the area in an adventure. More detailed descriptions are to come out in later books. I like this, since you get what you need without it taking up the majority of the book. The only problem here is the maps—they're not quite as good as they should be. There are lots of things not labeled so you have to read the descriptions really well to locate the area on the maps.

Any way, it leaves plenty of room for other things that I feel are more important such as the campaign section. This little gem of a chapter is really useful, especial for new or first time GM's. The authors give advice and ideas on how to run a campaign in Krynn and how to make them less dungeon-crawl-y and more epic; included are things like how to make a villain memorable, the flavor and tone of Krynn, sections on how to make character backgrounds and use them in adventures, and giving more experience for roleplaying and story than by randomly killing things [editor's note: one of d20's major flaws]. Wow, a lot of good stuff here. The story exp is my favorite, and the book goes so far as to say that combat should only to be used to advance the story and that if players start seeing things as just exp then don't give them anything. Also included is advice on creating major and minor story/group and character goals. These may or may not be known by the players, and are used for advancing the plot and such. I could easily go for another page or so on what I think of this chapter, but lets just say there’s a lot of good ideas here.

The last part of the book describes new monsters and new descriptions for dragons. There are no new statistics for dragons, just new personalities and how they interact with humans and such. Also given at the end of the dragon descriptions is a new section of aerial combat. Much more detailed than the one in the DM's guide, this one included maneuvers, altitude, and many things to help make the combat more engaging. I haven't tried any of the new rules but I do know that the normal ones were never that fun so I wish I could say for certain if they’re better or not.

The biggest complaint I have with this book is the layout, and this is the majority of the reason I gave it a 5 out of 6 (that and the aforementioned maps). For one thing, the book's margins are an inch and 5/8ths (that's almost 2 full inches for those of you that are mathematically challenged)! What's up with that? They could have easily shortened them to lower the cost or add several extra pages of info. The book's laid out well for someone casually reading it from beginning to end (for example, when talking about a magic staff in the text, the item's game stats are listed in a box below the description), but it's not laid out very well for in-game referencing. There are a few typos in the book, and one or two of them could seriously confuse someone who's not familiar with D&D rules or the game setting.

Over all this is a great game setting if you want a rich world that doesn’t feel the same as a generic D&D setting. However, those of you who don't want the hassle of creating a story or rich characters will be bored by this book. Buy Dragonlance and respect it, or I'll send the monkeys after you.

Written by Spriggan on July 28th, 2003