Knight of Solamnia 5e
You have trained to be a valorous warrior known as a Knight of Solamnia. Strict rules guide your every action, and you work to uphold them as you strive to defend the weak and oppose evil. Your honor is as important to you as your life.
Source: Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen
Languages: Two of your choice
Equipment: An insignia of rank, a deck of cards, a set of common clothes, and a pouch containing 10 gp.
Feature
Squire of Solamnia: You gain the Squire of Solamnia feat.
In addition, the Knights of Solamnia provide you free, modest lodging and food at any of their fortresses or encampments.
Building a Knight of Solamnia Character
Any class that has martial prowess can be a good fit in the Knights of Solamnia. Fighters and Paladins make up the bulk of the knighthood’s forces. Clerics (often with the War Domain) can also be found among the knights' ranks.
For a more unusual take on a Knight of Solamnia character, consider playing a Bard of the College of Valor (or the College of Swords) or a Barbarian devoted to the ideals of the nature god Habbakuk (perhaps adopting the Path of the Zealot).
Knight of Solamnia Trinkets. When you make your character, you may roll once on the Knight of Solamnia Trinkets table, instead of on the Trinkets table in the Player's Handbook, for your starting trinket.
Knight of Solamnia Trinkets
| d6 | Trinket |
|---|---|
| 1 | A flat silver disk you record your heroics upon |
| 2 | A piece of a fallen knight's armor |
| 3 | A pendant featuring a crown, a rose, or a sword |
| 4 | The pommel of your mentor's sword |
| 5 | A meaningful favor from someone you defended—perhaps a handkerchief or glove |
| 6 | A locket with a sketch of a silver dragon inside |
Should You Be a Knight of Solamnia?
Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold
Out of all the modern “feat-based” backgrounds, Knight of Solamnia is the one I wish most was accessible to everyone. It's a fantastic little package all baked around being an honorable person. Unfortunately it's literally attached to an organization, and has a prerequisite stuck to it that will strand it in the handful of Dragonlance campaigns run.
If you are playing such a Dragonlance campaign or have a DM willing to wave the prerequisite (which is reasonable, for the record) this background gives a lot of characters some needed extra resources and bonus decisions to make in the early and mid-tiers, all with some commonly taken skills martial characters tend to take.
Feature
Squire of Solamnia isn’t quite worth a feat, but it’s a lot better than the nothing features options like Acolyte and Criminal tend to get. Mount Up is a largely flavorful ability that a handful of mounted combatants may consider useful ones of times per game- where the juice of the feature comes is in Precise Strike.
Precise Strike gives you advantage on attacks a few times, and when those hit, they do bonus damage. What sets this feature apart from many similar abilities is that if you miss, you don’t expend any uses. This guarantees two bonus dice of damage early, and offers you a couple of times per long rest a somewhat meaningful decision. Classes like Rogue, Fighter, and Paladin all love this little boon to consistency and damage.
There are three additional feats that build out of this some characters could want as well, making this all around a reasonable pickup for a decent chunk of characters, ranged or melee alike.
Skills
Athletics and survival come up frequently when you’re looking at the classes that would want Squire of Solamnia. Having extra flexibility in your class skills is a great boon where you’d normally want to sink one of those skills into Athletics. Survival fits the same role on rangers and some rogues; it's a skill you want to have for what your job generally is seen as.
Other Proficiencies
You get two languages of your choice with some flavorful recommendations… but that’s it. Not tools, no vehicles, just some bonus languages, which isn’t great. Most games aren’t going to care all that much about what languages the player characters speak unless the DM prefaces the game with “These languages will be important- somebody should know them!”
Fortunately, Squire is coming with enough extra juice you won’t miss the tools or game sets other backgrounds come with.
Equipment
Your equipment is unremarkable. The deck of cards doesn’t even come with proficiency in any games with them, making them fairly moot, and unless you can flash that insignia of rank to compel people to treat you differently, I think you’ll find there isn’t much to get out of the remaining common clothes and pouch of gold.
I’m annoyed that they didn’t include any mount-based equipment here- having a saddle or packs for a steed would go a long way in encouraging the mounted combatant fantasy, and wouldn’t be out of the realm of equipment for early game characters.
Bonus Tables
Trinkets differ from Equipment in function; I love trinkets dearly as tools to build backstories out without needing to come up with everything out the gate. Why you have the pommel of your mentor’s sword isn’t a question you’ll need an answer to right away, but is something you can develop as the game progresses to flesh out what makes you unique. Of the six presented, all but the third and sixth have a ton of potential to define character traits you can play up as you adventure. The remaining two are a bit bland by comparison.
All Together
Knight of Solamnia functions to provide martial characters bonus decisions early on while providing a handful of options down the road that some characters may consider for their feat. This serves a slightly different role than an average background, as all of its power is baked into the feature as opposed to the skills, proficiencies, and equipment. That’s not to say you don’t also get solid skills, but more to say this is a feature first options select classes will want a lot more than others. Bards and sorcerers don’t have much reason to consider this, where anyone can be a Scholar.
If you’re planning on making weapon attacks, and this option is available to you, it’ll serve you well, and add extra juice to your sheet through your Background many others will be lacking.
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