Prerequisite: Dragonlance Campaign, Fighter or Paladin Class or Knight of Solamnia Background
Your training in the ways of the Knights of Solamnia grants you these benefits:
Mount Up. Mounting or dismounting costs you only 5 feet of movement.
Precise Strike. Once per turn, when you make a weapon attack roll against a creature, you can cause the attack roll to have advantage. If the attack hits, you roll a d8 and add the number rolled as a bonus to the attack's damage roll. You can use this benefit a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, but a use is expended only if the attack hits. You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
Squire of Solamnia: Hip to be Squire
Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold
Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen brings with it nine new feats to play with specifically in the Dragonlance setting. Each feat has a prerequisite either requiring an earlier feat to be taken from the book, or that you’re playing in a Dragonlance Campaign, all of which end up functionally requiring the character be in the world of Dragonlance. Let's be honest, though: these feats are just as mechanically applicable at every table, even those outside of Dragonlance, and the vast majority of tables can find them to be solid additions to character sheets should you shrug off the lore and focus just on the mechanics they bring to the table. None of them require some Dragonlance specific gimmick or rule to function; if you’re DMing for somebody who likes these new feats, but aren’t playing in Dragonlance, I’d encourage you to let them give it a go should they meet whatever other prerequisites the feats ask for.
Squire of Solamnia additionally has the prerequisites of either being a fighter or paladin or having the Knight of Solamnia background (which I’d advise against bringing as a background to just any table). If you’re considering Squire of Solamnia, I’d recommend looking at it with just the class restriction prerequisite.
What it actually gives you is an improvement to mounting (going from needing to spend half your movement to just 5 feet of it) and a new feature, Precise Strike. Precise Strike gives a proficiency bonus per long rest advantage on a weapon attack with an additional d8 damage. This on its own would be very solid for a feat; what makes it particularly compelling to me is the added mechanic that only consumes the Precise Strike resource whenever you actually connect with the attack. In the low to mid tiers of play, this feat is a massive boon, and in the upper tiers it’ll feel very comfortable to use.
The mount improvement isn’t particularly notable; a big part of mounted combat, especially for paladins, is the mount's speed becoming your new speed. You are typically engaging a fight while already mounted, and being forcibly dismounted doesn’t tend to put you so far from your mount you can’t get back on it with a single move anyway. Going from spending 15 feet of speed to 5 doesn’t meaningfully empower mounted characters; if your goal is to build a mounted knight kind of character, Mounted Combatant is definitely something you take before you consider this.
Another important note about Squire of Solamnia is it is a prerequisite to three more feats in the Dragonlance book; Knight of the Crown, Rose, and Sword. Each of those come with a +1 ability score increase, meaning while I’d normally note how competitive feats for paladins and fighters can be, guaranteeing one will improve a stat you care about is a massive deal.
Squire of Solamnia won’t wildly change your play pattern, nor will it redefine your character like Sentinel or Great Weapon Master will. It does offer a great new resource for paladins and fighters who aren’t going towards any specific build; it works with two-weapon fighting characters, duelists, ranged bowmen, and classic sword and board styles just fine. If you’re in the market for a general character improvement and don’t feel you need an ability score improvement, this feat is perfectly serviceable.
Thank you for visiting!
If you’d like to support this ongoing project, you can do so by buying my books, getting some sweet C&C merch, or joining my Patreon.
The text on this page is Open Game Content, and is licensed for public use under the terms of the Open Game License v1.0a.
‘d20 System’ and the ‘d20 System’ logo are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
and are used according to the terms of the d20 System License version 6.0.
A copy of this License can be found at www.wizards.com/d20.
