Sagas from the lands of Krynn are filled with valiant heroes destined to discover ancient secrets and vanquish terrible evils. Like those great champions, you will band together with brave companions to set forth on daring adventures. The tales of those bold deeds will become the newest legends in the world of Dragonlance.
From Solamnic Knights and Dragon Riders to kender, tinker gnomes, and draconians, the rich tapestry of the Dragonlance world comes alive in this campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game. With historical content covering eras from the War of the Lance to the War of Souls, along with expanded rules for aerial combat, the Dragonlance Campaign Settingprovides the charcter races, prestige classes, feats, spells, monsters, and maps you need to fully explore the world of Dragonlance.
Great for content Pros: Great for content and getting players excited about the setting, Made for 3.5e
Cons: Lots of spoilers for the novels (They don't ruin the story but lessen some of the drama if you haven't read them since you know how they are going to end.), poorly organized (in contrast to the FRCS), and no full-size world map (unlike the FRCS, but a full size map can be downloaded from the publisher's website)
Overall, I really think it could have been a lot better if it was done by game designers and not the author of the novels.
At Last I still remember the day I first saw the ad for Dragons of Despair in Dragon Magazine. I still remember playing that adventure for the first time. I still remember when Dragons of Autumn twilight became the first fantasy novel to hit the New York Times best seller list. These are some of the defining moments in my gaming career.
So it only stands to reason that I'd be excited to see this revisiting of one of my favorite settings. There was a certain feeling of trepidation as well. I thought that Dragonlance Adventures had lots of problems. I never cared for the Saga System at all. Still, I sucked it up, forced my expectations low and opened the book.
I have to admit, I liked it. It brings the Dragonlance rules nicely into the 3.5 game system. Prestige classes alone were something that the Dragonlance setting desperately needed. This book is a must-have for anyone who loves Dragonlance.
The book starts with the obligatory race chapter. There are some surprises, though. Fatherless dwarves (dwarves without a home), thinker gnomes (the "insane" opposite of tinker gnomes) and afflicted kender (kender who have had the spunk scared out of them) leap out immediately. Then there are the draconians. (When I was a kid we didn't have player character draconians. Draconians were the enemy and we liked it that way!) The irda have entered the player character arena, crushing the hopes of all the munchkins out there by presenting an official (and balanced) treatment of the race. On the strength of this chapter alone, I decided the book was worth it.
Then we enter class-land. The mystic (a divine version of the sorcerer) and the noble base class are two pleasant surprises. There's a nice little boxed text explaining why certain classes (like the paladin) aren't appropriate in Krynn. Then we move onto prestige classes, with a more reasonable treatment of the Knight of Solamnia than in Dragonlance Adventures (no week long spell prep times, for instance). Then we move onto the evil knights and the Wizards of High Sorcery (which are one class with plug and play powers). There are several other classes, the most notable being the dragon rider. The chapter rounds out with a nice selection of world-specific feats.
From there we move on to the chapter on magic. If you've seen the former Dragonlance treatments and know 3.0 or 3.5, there aren't really any surprises here. This section even has its own domains, ala Forgotten Realms. While it might not be anything too surprising, it's well done. After that is the deity chapter, which is more of the same.
The book then moves onto Geography and then Creatures. There isn't much to say about these, except that they bring some of out favorite old creatures into 3.5 (spectral minions, anyone?). Then we have a chapter on Dragons and ariel combat (very important), and a final chapter on Eras of Play.
This book is very satisfying and I look forward to future supplements (which I hear are being done by Sovereign Stone). It is on sale this year at GenCon, but goes onto the market en masse on August 22. Look for this book and enjoy.
P.S. Yes, they did reduce the power of the Dragonlance to the level of an item you can actually give your players. Now the dragons are waiting in the sidelines, itching for a rematch with your players.
amazing... this book is awe-inspiring!! Ive never been happier with my purchase before!!! If you play DnD, Buy this(while its still 9 bucks used!!!)
Dragonlance First off, yes, I'm a little bit biased. I've loved Dragon lance for a long time, but this book seems to be getting a lot of bad reviews that aren't all that justified. Yes, there is an inch and a half margin which really shouldn't be that large. They should have at least added the chapter titles into the margin if they were going to make it that big. The art isn't all that great. In fact there isn't a lot of art at all. Which means that the inch and a half margins don't sacrifice text, but rather pictures. The other peeve I have about this book is that there is a lot of repeated information. The whole Chapter on other eras of play really isn't necessary, and everything that is in that chapter should have appeared somewhere else in the book. The good thing is there are two new character classes, several prestige classes, and a lot of history for those people who don't feel like reading ALL of the Dragon lance books. But once again there is a lot of repetition of the history. There are also stats for some of the magic items used by the characters in the novels, and 2 mini adventures. I want to comment on one prestige class. The dragon rider. Even if the dragon rider isn't used in your dragon lance campaign it can be easily changed to a different animal. I think I'm going to convert it to Star Wars and use it for the Rancor Riders.
Mainly for campaigns set during and after the War of Souls. This is a pretty good campaign setting.
Though not without a few errors here and there, it is better produced and edited than the "World Book of Ansalon" that came with the AD&D 2nd ed. "Tales of the Lance" set. The main things it seems to be missing are details of non-standard weapons and equipment (kender in particular), information on famous heroes and NPCs from before the Age of Mortals (no Heroes of the Lance or Dragon Highlords), details of many famous locations (Foghaven Vale, High Clerists Tower, Istar) and almost anything regarding the Dragon Orbs, the Device of Time Travelling, the Portals to the Abyss and several other key artifacts from the Age of Despair.
What it does have is enough to run fairly detailed adventures in the post War of Souls period and somewhat generalized campaigns in all the major time periods since the Cataclysm (or First Cataclysm for Age of Mortals folks). It is effective for updating older Dragonlance settings, modules and characters to 3rd edition or 3.5. What it lacks in detail of maps and NPCs it makes up for with sections allowing for PC Draconians and Knights of Neraka (or Takhisis) among others, as well as very detailed chronologies and geographical information.
I am running a game using both the old, out of print Dragonlance Classics reprints of the original DL module series AND this new campaign setting. I am finding this combination very effective for running the original campaign using v.3.5 rules. The Classics series and the original DL modules are all available from retailers such as NobleKnight.com and TitanGames.com. If you like modules the old ones definitely still stand up, but 3rd ed. has many significant changes. If you want to make your own campaign in the old period I recommend the Sovereign Press book coming out later this year (see next paragraph).
So once again I emphasize that this product is designed mainly for playing in or after the War of Souls period. It is also (currently; see below) the only good way to play in the Dragonlance setting using D&D 3 or 3.5. Hopefully the "War of the Lance" expansion (published by Sovereign Press, due out later this year) will solve many of the problems I have mentioned here. Ideally, it will give enough information to allow play in that period without purchasing this WotC Dragonlance campaign setting, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Tony's Online Tips
Trevor
