D&D 5E Does Eberron need to be high fantasy?

[ad_hoc]

With all of this talk about settings I have been thinking about which ones I like and dislike.

When I first heard about Eberron I was enthusiastic. Steampunk D&D? Yes please. But then it turned out to be high fantasy so I made it work in Ravenloft instead.

So I think I don't like Eberron. But then, I also didn't like FR in 3e either. It was much too high fantasy for me.

In 5e I like FR just fine. I think it is partly due to it being the core setting so they need to pull things back a bit. But moreso I think it is the edition itself. When orcs are still a threat to 10th level characters the world is different. When you don't have merchants selling goods for coppers alongside others selling magic items for thousands of gold pieces, the world is different. That comes through.

I am no Eberron expert, so I ask, could a 5e version keep the feel and flavour of it while also being grounded in traditional fantasy tropes?

I am curious because the big difference here is that Eberron was made in 3e so maybe its world was modeled on the conceits of the edition whereas FR has reverted to its older roots?

 

[Mouseferatu]

While there are plenty of elements of Eberron that could be transferred over to a lower magic campaign, I don't believe Eberron as a whole would work that way. It's simply built around a prevalence of magic--not necessarily high magic, but common magic--to retain its identity without them.

To me, this is a feature, not a bug. I want my different settings to have different feel, and this is part of Eberron's. But it's not for everybody.

 

[Imaculata]

I've played a lot in the Forgotten Realms when I started playing D&D, but have since moved on to home brew settings. I still play the DDO videogame, which is set in Eberron... and to be honest, I can't tell the difference between the two settings. The only difference I have noticed, is warforged, airships, and a whole lot of magical floaty things like you see in all fantasy MMO's. Other than that, they both seem like standard high fantasy settings to me, with very little character to them.

 

[JohnLynch]

It's easy to get the Eberron feel without the 3.5e/4e magic item treadmill. Cosmetic magic items. An animated writing lectern that follows you everywhere you go doesn't need to cost 1,000 gp. It can be a fairly cheap item. Same with statuettes that have a magical glow crystal inserted into it and an ornamental hood that can be placed on the top. Or a flying carpet that only operates when within Sharn. Single use items (don't have to be in potion or scroll form!) can definitely be cheap to have.

Those expensive Belt of Uber Giant Strength or a +3 Holy Avenger? They can still be items that can be purchased. But they need to be custom made by House Cannith and will cost about the size of a small country (now wartorn and on special!). My Pathfinder group has been hassling me to GM a game. I've been thinking Eberron in 5th edition would probably be a good fit and so I've been revisiting notes I made this time last year. It's totally viable IMO.

 

[JohnLynch]

Here's my number 1 house rule on making Eberron feel magical.

Fight On
After a character fails two death saving throws they can choose to automatically stabilise and not have to make any further checks. Instead they become wounded and gain a handicap determined by the DM that will make life difficult for them until such time as they manage to repair the handicap. Examples of appropriate handicaps include losing a hand and being able to only fight with one-handed weapons until a prosthetic one can be obtained and fitted on or losing an eye and gaining disadvantage on perception checks and attack rolls until a prosthetic one can be obtained. Any prosthetics would be magical and nature in would work just as well as the biological bodypart did if not better. However obtaining the prosthetic can take time (whether because it's being made by House Cannith or being stolen on the black market).

----
This replicates the old "pay X gold to be reincarnated and take a -2 penalty on all checks for Y time or until you get Z number of restorations" rules surrounding dying but with the added benefit of being more flavourful and you don't need to pause the story to go find a cleric. Players can also gain a "prosthetic arm" that gives them strength 22. Of course such an item would come at a premium. What doesn't say magitech more than ex-soldiers walking around with iron hands? So much more flavourful than a Belt of (Variant) Giant Strength

 

[Onslaught]

Eberron is "wide magic", not "high magic"...
It's a setting where NPCs wouldn't get past lvl 10, except for some very important villains (Lord of Blades)... Or one or another Commoner (like the best cook in the world, who had to have high levels to justify her high point count in cook skill

Yeah you can commission magic items, they might be more easy to come by... But most of it is the items that give the setting its look and feel: airships, lightning rail, Sharn's flying stuff (a ring of feather fall could be easy to get for example), Sivis communication network... Heck, even Warforged - they are basically Golem-lite in mass production!
So there's magic everywhere... But not necessarily you'll find a holy avenger down the road in a county village.
Moreover, I think most items will fall into two categories: minor/common wondrous items (including consumables) and +1 magic items. Everything better than this probably as hard to get as elsewhere.

Sigh, I miss Eberron

 

[Mouseferatu]

Let's keep in mind that "high magic" and "high fantasy," while they often overlap, don't mean the same thing.

Eberron needn't be "high magic," in terms of magical power. High-level casters and potent magic items can remain rare. It's "broad magic." Low-powered utility magics are common and readily available.

But I believe that "broad magic" does qualify as "high fantasy," because the magic remains ubiquitous and setting-shaping. Thus, Eberron does, IMO, have to be high fantasy despite not necessarily requiring high magic.

 

[ad_hoc]

Let's keep in mind that "high magic" and "high fantasy," while they often overlap, don't mean the same thing.

Eberron needn't be "high magic," in terms of magical power. High-level casters and potent magic items can remain rare. It's "broad magic." Low-powered utility magics are common and readily available.

But I believe that "broad magic" does qualify as "high fantasy," because the magic remains ubiquitous and setting-shaping. Thus, Eberron does, IMO, have to be high fantasy despite not necessarily requiring high magic.

I suppose that is what I am wondering.

3.x had a high powered world built into the system. Every x-level character had thousands of gp worth of magical items. And everyone had levels.

This is not necessarily the same as having magic pervade things. Like using light can trips to light the streets.

I suppose what I am wondering is whether you can divorce Everton from 3rd edition-isms like magic item shops. Can you place it in 5e as is? And if so what would that look like?

When I thought about it I realised that it was a setting that I might be interested in despite not previously caring for Eberron.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Ah. I believe you can do that, yes. I mean, you'd have shops for things like magic lamps, sending stones, all the little utility magics that the setting is known for. But you could easily remove the idea of shops selling "adventurer-power" magic items.

 

[Space Jockey]

I'm curious what makes Eberron high fantasy for some people? For me it's anything but. It's influenced way more by stuff like pulp serials, Indiana Jones and film noir than it is Tolkein-esque fantasy. Evil and good are muddled with shades of grey, where a lawful good cleric can massacre a village and get away with it as long as they continue to believe in their god. It has robots, trains and airships, stuff that is almost unheard of in high fantasy. And as others have pointed out, magic is abundant but significantly weaker than most other settings. Most magewrights, ie the working class spellcasters, never learn more than a handful of spells their entire lives.

I've played a lot in the Forgotten Realms when I started playing D&D, but have since moved on to home brew settings. I still play the DDO videogame, which is set in Eberron... and to be honest, I can't tell the difference between the two settings. The only difference I have noticed, is warforged, airships, and a whole lot of magical floaty things like you see in all fantasy MMO's. Other than that, they both seem like standard high fantasy settings to me, with very little character to them.

This makes me sad inside my kidneys.