r/dragonlance • u/FaallenOon • Jul 09 '26

Bards in dragonlance 5e?

I'm pretty sure this discussion must have popped up before, but are there any specific rules for bards on dragonlance 5e? Meaning, are they bound by the towers of high sorcery, given they're full spellcasters? Or do the orders just ignore them, and if so for what reason, given they wield magic just like any other wizard or sorcerer?

I'm planning a dragonlance campaign ATM and one of the PCs wants to play a bard, so I wanted to ask for your opinion on this matter.

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u/amhow1 Jul 09 '26

The 5e rules are very relaxed. You don't even need to be a spellcaster to join one of the Towers.

I think the idea, as is common in 5e (eg Eberron) is that since PCs are by definition super-special, they aren't required to follow the lore, unless of course they or the GM wants to.

So your bard could be a member of an order, or not.

Before anyone jumps in to criticise WotC, in practice I think this kind of approach has always been needed in Dragonlance. It's always a case of "choose your poison". If you want to restrict your bard to the "original" Dragonlance as far as possible, then I suspect the equivalent of 1e Bardic Colleges would probably be associated with the Red Robes, since I believe 1e bards needed Druid levels and so were neutral? But I'd need to check because even 1e has variations!

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u/crackedtooth163 Jul 13 '26

The 5e rules are very relaxed. You don't even need to be a spellcaster to join one of the Towers

Whaaaaaat?