D&D 5E The Final Announcement from The Descent Live Stream: Eberron Hardcover

Edymnion1 said:

Does it have Dragonborn in it? If so, don't care. 3e Eberron, the way it was intended or nothing.

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Aldarc said:

Not really. They play to different campaign hooks, themes, and even aesthetics.

Most of Khorvaire is actually rural. Many of the nations that broke away from the Five Nations of Galifar are also fairly non-urban too. And the nation of Cyre, which used to contain many major cities, also is now a smoldering wild magic wasteland. Across the ocean, both Aerenal and Xen'drik are mostly jungles. While the urban fantasy and cityscapes are commonly marketed for Eberron, it has a LOT of wilderness, nature, and rural areas.

The way it was intended? If you knew anything about Eberron, then you would know that is ignorance talking. Let's look at #1 on the list of 10 Things You Need to Know About Eberron (ECS p.8): "If it exists in D&D, then it has a place in Eberron."

Eberron was intentionally written to be inclusive of all D&D content at the time of 3E. In fact, 3E arguably does not even represent Eberron "the way it was intended" once you realize how much was changed, inserted, and rewritten from Baker's initial draft and sales pitch to the final product. WotC basically reworked Baker's Eberron for 3E fairly extensively. Fairly certain, for example, that shifters, warforged, and kalashtar were actually "forced" into Eberron by WotC because Wizards wanted Eberron to feature new character options. Halflings riding dinosaurs also came into the picture at the point when WotC was editing the project. This is not to discredit the creative genius or input of Keith Baker, but Eberron was a a team effort and "the way it was intended" emphasizes point #1 above: Eberron is inclusive of whatever D&D content you want to use.

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gyor said:

How do you know what was forced into Eberron by WotC? Just curious.

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Matthia05718273 said:

So I noticed a few comments on how people think the new Eberron book will just rehash the Wayfinder's Guide. So I thought, just for people's use, I might compare what's actually in the Guide compared to the new structure of hardcover setting books set with Ravnica.

Wayfinder's Guide;
- Ch 1: What is Eberron? (General Setting Lore), 16 pages
- Ch 2: Welcome to Khorvair (Lore about the continent), 38 pgs
- Ch 3: Races of Eberron, 30 pgs
- Ch 4: Dragonmarked Houses, 24 pgs
- Ch 5: Magic Items, 10 pgs
- Ch 6: Sharn, City of Towers (Lore on the city and backgrounds), 41 pgs

Hardcover Setting Book:
- General Setting Lore, 4 pgs
- Ch 1: Character Creation (races, classes, subclasses), 18 pgs
- Ch 2: Guilds (for Eberron this will likely be more backgrounds/dragonmarks material), 70 pgs
- Ch 3: City Lore, 24 pgs
- Ch 4: Creating Adventures, 50 pgs
- Ch 5: Treasures (Magic items and more), 10 pgs
- Ch 6: Friends and Foes (Monsters/NPCs), 73 pgs

You can avoid a lot of overlap by following the new hardcover format, if you include new material for lore, Dragonmarked Houses, backgrounds and magic items. Then fill the rest with creating adventures and statblocks and you’ve got a book.

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Aaron L said:

While I really don't care for Eberron as a setting (the "magic as technology" trope is just too twee for me and rubs me the wrong way) I am very happy for the people who do love the setting, and look forward to the book because, even though I'm not a fan of the world, I'm assuming there still be at least a few things in the book that will be interesting new additions to use in my games.

As for the psionic Mystic class, don't forget that Eberron has an entire PC race consisting of the shards of psionic spirits cohabitating with human souls in psychically empowered human bodies. I wouldn't at all be surprised if the Mystic class was included in the Eberron setting book so you can play full-on psychic Kalashtar. My only wish for the Mystic (and my only grievance with 5E psionics, which I absolutely adore) is that they would use a different goshdang name for the class(!); Mystic is just so wrong for the name of the Psionic power-using class. Why not just use the good old name "Psionicist?" Or even better yet, why not just call the psychic class "the Psychic?" Naming a class based on psychic powers "the Psychic" is seriously kind of a no-brainer, while calling the psionic class "the Mystic" is just slightly extremely confusing. In my experience, the term "mystic" as used in modern fantasy/speculative fiction of all stripes has just about always been associated with magic.

But now that we know an Eberron setting book is coming out, I think it's a fairly safe bet that all the work on 5E psionics has been for that book rather than for a Dark Sun setting book, and to my mind that kind of explains the reason behind "the Mystic" name: it's being named for Kalasthar mysticism. I still don't like it, and would much, much prefer they just called the psychic class "the Psychic," I can at least understand why they've done it, as much as I totally disagree with it.

While I absolutely love the mechanics they've created for 5E psionics, the name of the class really irks me.

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