Product Description
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 With historical content covering eras from the War of the Lance to the War of Souls, along with expanded rules for aerial combat, the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 Setting
provides the charcter races, prestige classes, feats, spells, monsters, and maps you need to fully explore the world of
Dragonlance.
Bret Sheeley @ 10:17 pm
I’ve been a fan of the Dragonlance Novels for a number of years now (well… 95% of them). I’ve also been running the original Dragonlance modules in a campaign for the past year. Until now, I’ve had to work with both my own 3rd edition convertions and unofficial materials I’ve found online. However with the return of the official campaign setting (designed for edition 3.5), my preparation for the RP sessions have gotten much easier.
The campaign book contains the history of the world of Krynn in its covers. Whether you’re new to the world or if you are an old time DL gamer, the Campaign Setting has what you need to get started.
It has everything needed to play a Knight of Solamnia (of any order), a Knight of Neraka (of any order), or a Knight of the Legion of Steel. It also contains the information describing the full benefits of becoming a Wizard of High Sorcery, and shows how different the abilities of the three Robes are. A variety of races are available for play (including two of the Draconian types, Minotaurs, Gnomes, Kender, two Sea Elven races, etc…) along with good descriptions of each.
Although the book covers everything up to just after the end of the War of Souls novels, enough is here to let you run at any time in Krynn’s history. Much more specific details for each era will be coming out in the upcoming years. I already have the 5th Age book, and it gives what I think of as additional ‘required’ information in order to play in those times. But the DLCS is what is needed to get the broad general overview which anyone (especially a newbie to the world) should become familiar with before diving into the details. But if you don’t wish to get the additional books, don’t worry. There is enough in here to get you going in order to develop your own Krynnish campaign.
In short, the book is well put together. The coverage of the pantheon is clear. The timeline explains clearly how things came about. The new classes I look forward to using. The prestige classes I’m already having fun with. And I’ll stop there because I said ‘in short’.
Joe Brand @ 10:54 pm
Finally! An updated campaign setting for the Dragonlance world. While this book does live up to expectations, it’s not quite perfect. The organization of the book comes across as somewhat sporadic, and the information within isn’t as detailed as, say, the Forgottem Realms campaign setting book.
With several source books already planned for release soon, I believe the Dragonlance setting will become even more popular. If you’re a fan of Dragonlance, and not necessarily a gamer, I highly suggest picking up this book.
Daniel Savio @ 12:44 am
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.
Jarrod Loidl @ 3:06 am
Ok – to sum this up briefly, if you want to play Dragonlance in 3rd edition rules, buy this book.
Doesn’t matter if you didn’t like the Fifth Age or the War of Souls. If you did, fantastic.
What this book provides is a comprehensive translation of all outdated material from the previous editions into a newer supplement. It explains the history of the setting from the creation of the world to the end of the War of Souls.
There are new races, new prestige classes and base classes. New magic items and artifacts. Now so, more than ever, DL3E is richer and more vibrant than ever before.
My pet gripes which prevents this from being five stars:
- The history had several spoilers, which, I think the book should have done a better job at warning the reader against.
- I found slabs of text which where copied and pasted from previous editions of Dragonlance campaign setting(sections on the Wizards of High Sorcery being a good example, ripped from the Tales of the Lance boxed set, and from the AD&D 1st Ed campaign setting as well IIRC).
- The art could have been greatly improved (the art in the Age of Mortals however, is the best I’ve seen in any recent d30 DnD 3e book, so that made up for it really).
The book lives up to reputation however, the material is substantial, well written (albeit poorly illustrated) and I thoroughly recommend it. I recommend you purchase Age of Mortals with it, as you’ll wind up with a lot of questions which are answered in that book anyway.
Bowsprit @ 3:18 am
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.