D&D 5E Your one hope for D&D?

[doctorbadwolf]

I guess I can see that. For me (and I speak for just myself here, as my players don't have a lot of historical context), what you've just described is not so much "Eberron" but more "4th Edition"; and specifically the aspects of 4e I didn't care much for.

Granted, it also describes 3.5 Eberron perfectly well. But it doesn't describe 5e very well at all. And my charge was not to change 5e to fit Eberron, but rather determine how to change Eberron to fit 5e. How do I preserve the 5e sense of rarity and wonderment to magical items in a setting like Eberron? My answer is that the magic economy is based primarily around consumer products and luxury goods and services. Magical weapons, armor, wands of fireball; these would have negative connotations to the Last War (and primarily to the Mourning, as most were produced in Cyre and popular theory blames the Mourning on that production). Codify that hatred and disgust into the Treaty of Thronehold, and now it's against the law to sell that +2 flameburst sword or staff of lightning, and walking down the street bearing such things would mark one as a trouble-maker or instigator. Of course, governments can make use of such outcasts as well. It's also worth mentioning that the Treaty doesn't apply to Stormreach, which would likely still have a pretty thriving magical economy.

This, I think, would be the most radical change if I were creating an Eberron setting for 5th Edition (rather than simply updating it); probably even moreso than whatever I'd end up doing with the Dragonmarks.

That whole thing was part of Eberron from day one, though. In 4e it got ramped up to where high level magic weapons weren't rare, which was a change for the setting, but low level stuff being fairly normal is...fundemental to the setting.

Idk, man. To each their own, I just have a hard time seeing how a thing could keep being Eberron if you force it to conform to 5e's very, very, narrow take on how magic items interact with the world.

Partly because being able to buy a wand of magic missile at a shop makes the world feel like it isn't yet another, "the real good magic is all lost elf stuff that no one can match" setting in a way that even the Lightning Rail doesn't.

For me, the idea of changing Eberron to match 5e's assumptions about magic items just...loses the point of Eberron, somewhere. It'd be like changing it to fit the points of light aesthetic of 4e, or making +5 Sword of Burning Doom a common sight in shops in Sharn.

Sorry for the derail, though. If you want to talk more about 5e and Eberron, I'd be happy to, in another thread.

 

[cbwjm]

That whole thing was part of Eberron from day one, though. In 4e it got ramped up to where high level magic weapons weren't rare, which was a change for the setting, but low level stuff being fairly normal is...fundemental to the setting.

Idk, man. To each their own, I just have a hard time seeing how a thing could keep being Eberron if you force it to conform to 5e's very, very, narrow take on how magic items interact with the world.

Partly because being able to buy a wand of magic missile at a shop makes the world feel like it isn't yet another, "the real good magic is all lost elf stuff that no one can match" setting in a way that even the Lightning Rail doesn't.

For me, the idea of changing Eberron to match 5e's assumptions about magic items just...loses the point of Eberron, somewhere. It'd be like changing it to fit the points of light aesthetic of 4e, or making +5 Sword of Burning Doom a common sight in shops in Sharn.

Sorry for the derail, though. If you want to talk more about 5e and Eberron, I'd be happy to, in another thread.

I thinking that if I was updating eberron to 5e, I'd ignore the 5e assumptions and make magic freely accessible as it is in previous editions. I think it is more important to match the system to the setting instead of the setting to the system.

 

[Gradine]

That whole thing was part of Eberron from day one, though. In 4e it got ramped up to where high level magic weapons weren't rare, which was a change for the setting, but low level stuff being fairly normal is...fundemental to the setting.

Idk, man. To each their own, I just have a hard time seeing how a thing could keep being Eberron if you force it to conform to 5e's very, very, narrow take on how magic items interact with the world.

Partly because being able to buy a wand of magic missile at a shop makes the world feel like it isn't yet another, "the real good magic is all lost elf stuff that no one can match" setting in a way that even the Lightning Rail doesn't.

For me, the idea of changing Eberron to match 5e's assumptions about magic items just...loses the point of Eberron, somewhere. It'd be like changing it to fit the points of light aesthetic of 4e, or making +5 Sword of Burning Doom a common sight in shops in Sharn.

All fair points; this was more a thought exercise than something I think I'd actually run. I've given quite a bit of thought to how I would handle 5e's magic item rarity in Eberron and have come up with a number of different ideas of how I'd run that (another example that I actually got to run, albeit very briefly, involved a massive dragonshard shortage driving up tensions and threatening to restart the Last War). But then, as I mentioned, that aspect of Eberron has never been a hugely central part of the campaign setting for me personally. For me it was always more about the consumer/luxury magic economy and political/corporate tensions; the tone and the noir genre trappings.

Sorry for the derail, though. If you want to talk more about 5e and Eberron, I'd be happy to, in another thread.

Hah, I actually almost forgot what thread we were in! For half a second my thought was "I thought this thread was about 5e and Eberron" until I remembered that was a completely different thread than this one. Not entirely off-topic though, all things considered.

 

[Gradine]

I thinking that if I was updating eberron to 5e, I'd ignore the 5e assumptions and make magic freely accessible as it is in previous editions. I think it is more important to match the system to the setting instead of the setting to the system.

My biggest concern is that a magic economy along the lines of what you saw in 3.5 and 4e simply would not work, balance-wise in 5e. And I worry about what kind of fit that makes Eberron for 5e in general. There's a reason why Ravenloft, of all places, was the first setting they dipped into in 5e (and why Planescape keeps getting name-dropped); 5e's magic item rarity seems to parallel the game's TSR days, which is making those editions prime material for new 5e settings, in much the same way that Dark Sun's de-emphasis on Vancian-casting classes made it a logical choice to bring into 4e.

I wanted to see if I could wrap my head around an Eberron that doesn't have 3.5/4e-style magic weapon shops, such that, if was determined that that level of magic item rarity was incompatible with 5e, that there could still be a place in this edition for the setting.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Ok, since the digital tools are coming out, here's what I want (and have asked for a bunch of times):

A digital bestiary in which you select a monster and then adjust a slider from a minimum CR to a maximum CR and the monster scales appropriately. Not every monster would have CR 1/8 to CR 20, of course, but as wide a range as possible for each one.

Then click a button and get a PDF.

Generate random treasure, too, while we're at it.

 

[Elderbrain]

Manual of the Planes, with rules for making your own cosmology. Naturally, I'd prefer that the focus be on the Great Wheel and Planescape, but it would be awesome if they showed some love for 4e fans and included the World Axis cosmology as well (since they have been including some 4e material here and there, such as the 4e pantheon in the DMG, the 4e Archons (renamed "Myrmidons"), and one Primordial, to name a few). Hell, Sigil's supposed to have portals to everywhere (well, every D&D-like reality), so why not use it to link the two cosmologies?

Oh, and an Arms and Equipment Guide with loads of mundane gear would be nice. Would put Psionics book on here, but looks like that's probably already coming...

 

[happyhermit]

Had another thought, if you will all forgive me for so many posts.

What about more "peripherals", or gaming aids, or whatever you want to call them?

For instance, my buddy who got me into 4e had monster cards. Index card sized cards with the full monster stat block and a little fluff. I think the reverse side may have had flavor and "tactics" info on it, but I don't recall for sure.

Also, we had cards with rules on them, like condition cards, and cards with "frequently used but easy to forget the details" info/rules.

What about cards with hazards, traps, traveling obstacles, puzzles, NPCs, etc? Cards for treasure and consumables? I live the idea of sticking cards for what is in a chest in a cigar box on the table, and they can't open it until they open the chest.

Now, to bring it all together, these would all be things that come with adventures, perhaps with little sleeves in the back of the book for storing them, or in packs, AND you could use DnD Beyond to make your own, format them how you want, and print them out.

Also, dndb would be able to let you format your custom play maps built with the encounter builder functions, and print those.

Yeah! I wished for monster cards in the survey about physical stuff awhile back. I think some high quality dry-eraseable ones like the GF9 spell cards could be sweet, they could incorporate some ways to track details like HP on the cards. Even if they were really plain but just well printed I would buy them in a second.

Never saw the 4e monster cards, the "power cards" or whatever they were called were cool (IMO) but they didn't go over well AFAICT, certainly not as well as the 5e spell cards seem to have. Maybe mostly due to the nature of the differences between editions in regards to bloat/options? Whatever the reason, even if they weren't a big hit in 4e they might be in 5e.

 

[Lanefan]

I . . . I just pictured a grimdark Xena reboot.

I'd line up for that! I wouldn't play its tie-in RPG, probably, as I like more humour in my games...but watch it? Hells yeah!

Lanefan

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah! I wished for monster cards in the survey about physical stuff awhile back. I think some high quality dry-eraseable ones like the GF9 spell cards could be sweet, they could incorporate some ways to track details like HP on the cards. Even if they were really plain but just well printed I would buy them in a second.

Never saw the 4e monster cards, the "power cards" or whatever they were called were cool (IMO) but they didn't go over well AFAICT, certainly not as well as the 5e spell cards seem to have. Maybe mostly due to the nature of the differences between editions in regards to bloat/options? Whatever the reason, even if they weren't a big hit in 4e they might be in 5e.

I'd love dry-eraseable monster cards! Heck yes!

Agreed on all points.
[MENTION=57112]Gradine[/MENTION]: what I do in my Eberron games, including 4e, is this:

low level magic is common, especially the stuff that is useful to everyday folks, especially consumables and stuff that adventurers don't need, like a bottle of magic clothes cleaning liquid, just a drop in the laundry bucket, and the water cleans the clothes, and leaves them smelling fresh and feeling new!

Stuff like everhsarp blades and such are fairly common, too.

Things like low level wands and minor magic weapons are about as common as guns in the 1600s, more or less. and yes, I've added in some new, more minor, weapons and armors to 5e to accommodate this.

Stuff like weapons that would be high Heroic tier in 4e have to be commissioned, or bought from a fancy shop that caters to nobles and rich adventurers, or PC crafted. Stuff more powerful than that is gonna either be treasure, expensive Cannith commissions, rewards from powerful patrons, or PC crafted.

I'd also like to add in some stuff that needs regular re-enchantment.

A pair of returning bolts is fairly expensive, but not super rare. A +1 crossbow of returning is a military item, or an expensive commission, etc. a +5 Burning Crossbow of Returning has never existed, and if it is made, it's a new invention of incredible power.

I think that is where eberron differs most from stock 5e. Rather than being found in lost ruins, powerful stuff should be a new discovery/invention, made by someone who will be remembered by future generations for their skill in crafting.

 

[Satyrn]

I hope that no one wants that, but at his point I wouldn't be surprised by a grimdark reboot of Back To The Future.

Is that the one where, having caught his mother's eye in 1955, Marty McFly eagerly commits temporal incest?