Dragonlance What do you think of the Kender?

[humble minion]

I

Do Kender have their own language? I can't remember.

I think Kenderspeak was a thing, back in the original modules.

Yep, here is is. Alhana speaks it.

 

[Zardnaar]

Kender all got genocided a long time ago. I suppose if your world has time travel stats could be useful.

 

[Azzy]

Jerks are gonna jerk, and con games with strangers where there's no long-term social or in-game consequences for jerkitude offer a perfect opportunity for jerking. I wonder how many of these kender-playing con jerks would have been equally jerkish playing dwarf fighters or whatever, or indeed whether they only played the game at all because they wanted to indulge in jerkhood and playing a kender gave them an excuse.

Who knows? But I was responding to what I (mistakenly?) saw as a claim to there being no pre-internet source for the claim of problematic kender. Still, kender lore gives more of an excuse to play like a jerk than dwarf fighters. /:

 

[Demetrios1453]

I think Kenderspeak was a thing, back in the original modules.

Yep, here is is. Alhana speaks it.

It's still a thing - it's listed in the languages in the new book.

Also, Tika should be a dual-classed thief/fighter, and it even shows her thief skills, so I wonder why they didn't list her thief level on the card. I'm guessing she was around 3 - 4 or so, given that she's exceeded that level and has her thief skills available again, although I think that STR score would technically not allow her to dual-class with those lovably complex 1e dual-classing rules...

 

[ECMO3]

I

I think Kenderspeak was a thing, back in the original modules.

Yep, here is is. Alhana speaks it.

Kenderspeak is also an option in DND Beyond (at least it is if you have SODQ), but I have not actually seen it mentioned in the character creation part of the book.

 

[ECMO3]

It's still a thing - it's listed in the languages in the new book.

Also, Tika should be a dual-classed thief/fighter, and it even shows her thief skills, so I wonder why they didn't list her thief level on the card. I'm guessing she was around 3 - 4 or so, given that she's exceeded that level and has her thief skills available again, although I think that STR score would technically not allow her to dual-class with those lovably complex 1e dual-classing rules...

No only is Tika an illegal Dual Class, she is also in Plate (which I assume means Plate Mail) which would make her unable to use her Thief abilities. Her AC is also wrong and should be 1 in Plate Mail with a 16 Dexterity. Meanwhile the Fighter, Ranger and Cleric are sporting leather armor.

 

[James Gasik]

As I recall, Tika's plate armor was actually piecemeal, scavenged from fallen enemies, so that might justify the AC. And there's nothing wrong with her not being able to use her thieving abilities (she could take off the armor if she had to use them, but they're kind of shabby in the first place). I can't say anything as to her illegal dual-class though; Dragonlance was always a weird setting, since it was based on novels where the rules of D&D were never allowed to get in the way of the story. As a result, some rules are set in granite, and others are more like suggestions of rules, and you never could tell which way something was going to go.

 

[Demetrios1453]

No only is Tika an illegal Dual Class, she is also in Plate (which I assume means Plate Mail) which would make her unable to use her Thief abilities. Her AC is also wrong and should be 1 in Plate Mail with a 16 Dexterity. Meanwhile the Fighter, Ranger and Cleric are sporting leather armor.

Heh, I didn't even look at that section of the stats. By the level they are at, they should all be in plate, especially since they've been through Thorbardin by this point with a grateful dwarven population probably more than willing to make some for them. Even if that weren't the case, they've been through enough that they should have been able to scavenge some chain at the very least...

 

[humble minion]

It’s been a loooong time, but I very vaguely recall Tika’s thief skills being called out somewhere as explicitly an exception to the normal dual classing rules. She was just implemented as a fighter, who happened to have thief skills from her childhood, rules be damned.

 

[Demetrios1453]

It’s been a loooong time, but I very vaguely recall Tika’s thief skills being called out somewhere as explicitly an exception to the normal dual classing rules. She was just implemented as a fighter, who happened to have thief skills from her childhood, rules be damned.

It's funny how easy that would be to do in 5e rules (she's a fighter with the Urchin background, maybe a level or two in rogue, although that wouldn't be strictly necessary), and how much it broke the rules in 1e.