RealAlHazred
Frumious Flumph (Your Grace/Your Eminence)
Originally posted by Elton74:
Ah, now that it's been officially announced, I'll be on pins and needles watching for this. I'm excited, excited! Fully Open or fully closed, I don't care (it's a game on the fence I hate)! I've been waiting for 5th Edition since I was first frustrated with 4th Edition (and some of the people on these forums, thank you very much).
I'm hoping to see Eberron continue into the new Edition for curiosity's sake. Keith, I hope you will be as excited about this as I am.
Originally posted by Mandarin:
I too hope that Eberron goes into 5e and I would definitely support it. Eberron is imo, the best piece of work Wizards have ever done! There is no Wizards book I've enjoyed reading more than what Eberron has released. And almost all of the extra materials (Five Nations, Magic of Eberron, Dragonmarked) was excellent. Too bad it didn't get that much support in 4e but I guess it would just be reprinting what was already said.
I do hope they make a Eberron Campaign Setting for 5e. I would also suggest maybe a few changes to the setting or just adding more elements. Maybe even let Eberron advance a few year forward in time. What worries me most with such a thing is that you might loose some of the "cold war" feeling of Eberron so it shouldn't be too many years. Maybe add some dramatic events. At least enough to make it worth a 5e upgrade. However Eberron fans seems to be quite sensitive about changing anything or advancing the setting a few years so be careful. Just my wishes for 5e Eberron.
Originally posted by Edymnion:
The announcement of 5e and the idea of them actually looking for player input was enough to drag me out of retirement.
I can only hope they can make it playable.
4e Eberron wasn't even worth looking at for me, unfortunately.
Originally posted by Elton74:
I got a copy. The 3 pictures of the races was the best part of the Player's Guide, actually.
The Layout was -- in a word -- terrible.
Originally posted by Ogiwan:
Everybody here (presumably) knows that I love the 4th edition, but even I will say that the Dragonmarks of 4e Eberron were lackluster. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to 5e Eberron.
Originally posted by Ashlock:
My personal hope is that the new version of D&D will allow for easy portability of old material. That is, rules that are simple enough to accomodate any fluff text from any setting and any edition. So that my 3.5 Eberron Campaign Setting
and my 4E Eberron Campaign Guide remain solid source material.
Even in my 4E Eberron game, I often reach for the various 3.5 Eberron books. Throwing some mechanics together is no big deal; it's the story that makes Eberron great.
For money reasons alone, I'm sure that the Forgotten Realms will remain in the vanguard of the new edition. (And I do like the Realms, but c'mon, I've been invested in Eberron since writing for it!) The hope is that Eberron will at least not be left out.
Originally posted by kare:
Hey,
I'm somewhat in two minds about 5e and eberron (5eberron, nexberron?). Clearly, to my mind, Dragonmarks would've worked better as themes rather than feats (particularly the element of progression that would've involved). In fact, I think if themes had been available at the start of 4e they would've been implemented that way - and I wouldn't mind an optional set of rules for dragonmarks implemented as themes (either additional or alternative to the feats), if anyone with the power to make that happen is reading.
That aside, however, I'm pretty happy with how 4e and Eberron work together. I would've liked to have seen a book on Khorvaire's nations other than the main five, but I still have hope that information will be drip-fed to us in a series of Dragon articles - and it's not really an edition problem anyway.
Yours,
JMH
Originally posted by Edymnion:
There is one thing that will be a dealbreaker for me with a 5e Eberron.
There. Are. No. Dragonborn.
Period.
Dig out your 3e Eberron Campaign Setting book. That is the base of what Eberron should be. Not shoe-horned in dragon people who only suddenly exist because they were in the new PHB and the setting apparently wasn't allowed to say "Um, no, those don't exist here, you can't use that by default".
Simply put, I will not buy a single Eberron 5e product if they support Dragonborn by default. A sidebar that gives them as a possible option, I could live with that, but the setting as a whole should not acknowledge their existance.
If it does, I'll stick to my 3e books and the 5e ones can rot on the shelf as far as I would be concerned.
Originally posted by Lugnut171:
I'm fine with them, as a matter of fact they can throw in whatever they want if I don't like it I won't use it.
Originally posted by Elton74:
You're mad that they put in Dragonborn. Actually, it's true, they made no mention of any half-dragons except for Erandis Vol. And that was just to try to stop a war that shouldn't have went as long as it did. When they put them in, yeah it's a surprise. However, I don't think they will add them in this time. We haven't even seen what is going on with Eberron.
Still, I think Keith will have some ideas on how to do things for the next "iteration." Hopefully it will be modular because Eberron was designed to have everything including the kitchen sink. Even if it doesn't make sense to have it.
Originally posted by Ogiwan:
What's wrong with the Dragonborn being in Q'barra?
Originally posted by tallric_kruush:
I thought they did a great job of finding a suitable, believable home for them. Q'barra was perfect, and their role as guardians of Hakha'torvak made perfect sense, in my opinion.
They can play as major or minor a role as you wish. NPC dragonborn really have little reason to ever venture beyond Q'barra, unless you fashion such for your campaign.
I was apprehensive, since I'm as big a purist snob as there is, when it comes to Eberron (at least, I thought I was until reading Edy's post
). In the end, though, I thought the races were well implemented.
Originally posted by Edymnion:
Ooh, just thought of another dealbreaker.
5e will have to have a robust crafting system, because Eberron has to have the Artificer. Not just a "I buff your gear" 4e Artificer, but the full on master crafter from 3e.
Originally posted by Lugnut171:
They can in 4th ed, just has to take the ritualist feat. Personally though I would drop the feat and just tie all rituals into Arcana anyways basically you don't need a feat to use rituals.
Originally posted by m4kitsu:
I really hate to be the one to call this out, Edymnion, but:
There's a lot that changed between the two books, but that wasn't one of them. The fact that it's rule no. 1 on the "ten things to know" list in both books didn't change either.
Now you, as a DM, of course, are free to ignore the Dragonborn. You're free to rule them back to Lizardfolk in Q'barra or simply wave your wand and make them disappear completely. You could also do that to Tieflings, Eladrin and the Feyspires, the Feywild and Shadowfell, and everything else that was added or changed between the ECS and ECG. That you can do that is one of the best things about D&D.
But to flatly refuse to buy an entire line of books because there's one thing in them that you utterly refuse to even see mention of on the page, when that things is as insignificant as a race? That's incredibly arrogant and a fairly dire insult to everyone that's had a hand in making Eberron what it is, including Keith.
I thought you were better than that.
Originally posted by kare:
Hey,
I don't think it was too weird to open up a place for the Dragonborn in Argonessen and Q'barra, so that worked for me. Obviously it messed up Vol's backstory a bit, and her and the organisations surrounding her were and are a key portion of Eberron myth that characters can dive into. Tweaking her history to keep her and the mark of death unique (and distinct from her half-dragon status) was a tricky one, and it could've been handled more sensitively.
Broadly, I'm glad the core elements of D&D, including Dragonborn and Tieflings, were present in all the settings.
Yours,
JMH
Originally posted by tallric_kruush:
I don't think the introduction of the Dragonborn affects Erandis' story at all. The Dragonborn are not half-dragons and have nothing to do with the elves, nor with the enmity between the Dragons and the Undying Court.
I'm not seeing a connection.
Originally posted by Lugnut171:
He has always been against the adding of races outside the Eberron's orginal 8 or so. I don't think it is arrogant, just his perfernce and while I think it isn't the best choice not to buy a book you might enjoy because of that, it is his right and I fully support him. For instance I would not bother with D&D if it went classless but I know Endymnion would eat it up. I agree with you though that the best thing, is to ignore the things you like, I don't use Bator in 4th ed.
Anyways dragonmarks need to be implemented better in 5th ed. in both 3rd and 4th they were lacking. The theme system is a much better way to do it then feats.
Originally posted by m4kitsu:
Something like going classless (or, in my case, shoehorning in "classic" feeling classes to a game that neither wanted nor needed them and hopelessly muddying the game's presentation in the process) is a much more fundamental change than adding a single race to a remote corner of the campaign setting.
Themes would be a wonderful way to do so. If Themes do become the "third pillar" of character creation in the new edition (something I wouldn't mind at all), I can see 5berron following doing exactly that. The question is: is that one Theme ("Dragonmark Heir"), or fourteen (twelve true marks for thirteen houses, plus Aberrant)? And how would you fit Siberys Marks into that? Their own theme? PP? ED?
Originally posted by mylon:
I'm currently running an Eberron game using a non-D&D system and it's going great so far. There's so many resources to fall on and the intrigue is an awesome foil to work with, it's exactly what I've been after in a fantasy setting, yet incredibly rare.
My only complaint about the setting is the "If it exists in D&D there's a place for it in Eberron" philosophy. Changelings already have incredible potential to muck things up given how intrigue oriented the setting is. Shifters are like the new half-orc in the form of, "Your kind is not welcome here". Gnomes have always felt redundant with halflings around. Khalashtar are very human in appearance and nature and they seem more or less like an excuse to have a psion race. As opposed to giving more options for any race to excel at psionics. Warforged were a great addition though. They do suffer from racial prejudice, but it's an interesting difference from the uncout barbarians of orcs or shifters.
Everything else? It stretches the suspension of disbelief. Putting in evil-dwarves ruins the shades of gray style of Eberron. And there just isn't room for more races anyhow. I could understand perhaps how Xen`drik could be an excuse to add a player's favorite material, but it shouldn't be an excuse for EVERYTHING to exist. That was just a means to try and sell more books. Sometimes a setting is made more interesting by what it does not have. Cyre, anyone?
Originally posted by Edymnion:
There is a vast, overwhelming difference between "it has a place" and making it default core. The spirit of it was that "Hey, if you just found something cool you want to use, then by all means use it. There will be someplace you can squeeze it in and make it work. If not, we left a whole continent open for you, you could fit anything in there."
People don't seem to understand the differnence anymore between having the option to use something, and having it rammed down your throat as being there by default. To use those lines to support a slightly more absurd position, if WotC were to print D&D stats for My Little Ponies as a playable race, are you honestly going to tell me we have to add Ponyland to Eberron just because "if its in D&D, its in Eberron", and that if it did you would be completely okay with that?
Again, there is a world of difference between "You can fit anything you want into the setting" and "By default, this setting has everything ever printed for any setting, any expansion, or anything else you can find. Even that subrace of warforged kitchen sinks. And it all lives in Sharn."
Originally posted by glowinghyren:
You're right. A race of ponies would be kind of dumb. So I would do what you should do with the Dragonborn and ignore them and their rules entirely. That's one of the great things about this game, you can pick and choose what you want to use and totally ignore everything else. I think it'd be silly to ignore an entire setting because one line in the rules says that you can include something if you want to.
Originally posted by Lugnut171:
That is what I mean yes 3rd ed's version was the orginal but much like 4th I didn't really like it's application. The prestige class part worked, but the feat system add on failed in my opinion. Still both systems required to much sacrafice that the theme system doesn't.
Anyways I do think Endymion is right about one thing, they shouldn't try to fit everything in. I believe more should be left up to individual groups playing. So for instance if a player wanted to play a shardmind in my game, I would work to make it happen with the player, but Wizards shouldn't have a book giving them a country here. This also figures in that not every race needs their own country.
Originally posted by Edymnion:
Call me a grognard, but the 3e campaign setting is Eberron to me. The main reason I don't like things like the Dragonborn being in the core, beyond the "Hey look, its a LA+0 half dragon for you to play!" is that anything in the core book is going to be assumed to be standard in all games, so future books will continue to address them.
I honestly would not mind the Dragonborn if they were handled in a one off splatbook that said "You can normally find them over here, and their interactions with group X and Y generally go as follows". Thats fine. Its great for people that want to use them, and great for people that don't want to use them because its self contained.
By putting them into the core, base book, it means not only do I (and everyone else that doesn't want to use them) have to unwind them from one book, we have to unwind them from EVERY book.
Eberron should stick to the core races it was designed to use, the ones in the 3e books. Keep that as the default. Anyone that wants to add or subtract from it are perfectly free to do so, and an updated Races of Eberron (that doesn't suck) could be done to provide detailed info on how to do it.
Just don't stick it in the core campaign setting book.
Originally posted by bofdm:
Regarding the races that were added to the 4th edition of Eberron, I have to somewhat agree with Edymnion's grudge against the Dragonborn but for a different reason. Aside from the Eladrin and their feyspires (though even the Eladrin suffer this) none of the *new* races that were shoved into the setting in 4th edition actually contributed to the history of the world in any meaningful way.
You have these elaborate detailed histories on the formation of the nation of Galifar, the creation of the Warforged, the battle of the Quori, the escape from Xen'drik of the Elves, etc etc. And then you get "By the way there are dragonborn in Q'barra. They've been there the whole time. Totally different from a half dragon."
And then as more books came out it was the same thing. "Goliaths exist here in this one mountain range. They've been there the entire time."
"Tieflings exist in the demon waste cause...there ya go. Enjoy."
But for some reason the strangest change to the setting, and one that I still don't get why they changed it is the cosmology. The Orrery setup was awesome. I loved there being multiple moons that doubled as other planes of existence. And then it all kinda got lumped into like a giant PB&J sandwich.
Now I do agree that the quality of the 4e Eberron books was fantastic. The art was incredible and the maps were way better than the 3e books. But I want Eberron to feel....unique among DnD settings.
Does anyone else feel the same? I'd love to hear other opinions on what they hope for in the next edition of Eberron.
Originally posted by Lugnut171:
Not to be mean but a lot of the stuff that was added with races contributing was added after the intial book especially shifter and changelings. Also Eberron does to me because of the things that actually make it unique, the broad magic accesible by most everyone and the way it is used, the way religion was treated, the similarites of post WW Europe. These are the things that really made it unique to me, not the races used or the planes.
Originally posted by Gilo:
I kinda liked the way those new races were added to 4E Eberron:
The Tifflings (4E EPG) have a very nice backstory that connects the the fallen Ohr Kaluun nation in Sarlona. It gives a DM away to plant Khorvairen hooks that lead to a great Secrets of Sarlona's chapter (btw, paizo's did a nice job in flashing-out the concept of an infernal themed nation in the Council of Thieves adventure path set in the Inner Sea nation of Cheliax).
The Dragonborn: I liked that addition especially due to the - "Explore Q'barra, Part 2 Poison Dusk, Black Sun" article: 'Duty before Glory.' So says the inscription on the gates of Ka'rhashan. Our ancestors carved this when they fled the western lands and returned to watch these dusty ruins. For a hundred generations we have been told that this is all we can aspire to, that we must guard these cursed cities until the end of time. I say no more!"
-This gives a very noir feel to the Dragonborn culture in Eberron.
I don't mind new stuff getting added (races included) as long as the concept is cool and they integrate seamlessly with the existing canon (which I think so far it did).
Originally posted by bofdm:
Not to be mean but a lot of the stuff that was added with races contributing was added after the intial book especially shifter and changelings. Also Eberron does to me because of the things that actually make it unique, the broad magic accesible by most everyone and the way it is used, the way religion was treated, the similarites of post WW Europe. These are the things that really made it unique to me, not the races used or the planes.
I do not see any malice in your words Lugnut and I appreciate the point of view. I do agree with the things you like about the setting as well, the broad use of magic, the different take on religion (particularly the distance of the gods) and the similarities to post WW Europe. I don't want to come off as saying I hate the setting, I don't. It's still my favorite DnD setting despite the changes made in 4th edition. I guess it's that I don't understand why they changed things like the Cosmology or added in all these new races.
The design philosophy behind adding all of the new races into every setting, and making the Cosmology the same in every setting, is what I feel takes away from the uniqueness of Eberron.
Gilo I also appreciate the point of view you presented as well. I unfortunately do not have a DnD Insider subscription so I can't read the article you reference, could you explain how it gives a noir feel to the Dragonborn culture?
I will have to go back and read on the Tiefling connection to Ohr Kaluun in Sarlona since you bring it up.
Thank you for responding! I'd love to hear more opinions! =)
Originally posted by Gilo:
offtopic Dragonborns
[sblock]Noir In the sense that there is a feeling of disillusionment, pessimism attached the Dragonborn culture: They live in the ruins of their own crumbling empire(which at its height included the Blade Desert and the Talenta Plains during the Age of Monsters). They are race of arrgont, glory seeking warriors (originally hand picked from the legions of the Light of Siberys) but they are stuck on permanent sentry duty (since the age of Demons), guarding against an enemy (Cold Sun overlord) which they they cannot defeat (and yet his influance corrupt a presentage of each Dragonborn generation)...[/sblock]
Originally posted by DoctorBadWolf:
I've been playing both 3.5 Eberron and 4e eberron with equal frequency, due to DDO. From the Loremaster threads there, online research of my own, flipping through 3.5 eberron books at my hobby shop, and playing 4e, I don't see much real difference in the cosmology.
The moons interact like they always have. The cosmology of eberron IS different from core. I honestly felt like they took a long look at eberron before they came up with the 4e cosmology. World Above, World below, etc.
Originally posted by AvonRekaes:
Personally, I'm very open when it comes to the inclusion of races or classes when I'm runing a DnD game. I know that when I'm playing a character for someone else's game, I *HATE* to hear blanket statements like "Oh, and there are no goliaths" if I really wanted to play a goliath. It's not my job as DM to limit player fun, and I like to keep the entire catalouge of options open.
Rather, I feel my job is to find that interesting way to include that race into the setting, and ground them in available lore. Goliaths in my Eberron are not just mountain folk. They mostly live in a specific range, the Byshek Mountains, and they're the ones that mine byshek and produce weapons out of it, simply because it's the most readily available workable metal to them. Then they trade these weapons and raw byshek ore to the druids of the Eldeen Reaches.
So there. Now Goliaths actually have something to do with Eberron beyond "they exist in it".
The way dragonborn were handled in the 4e setting book left much to be desired. I think they were trying TOO HARD to make them non-obtrusive. However because little was said to mitigate their prescence, it just came across as a hard fact that they were there. BAM. Dragonborn in Eberron: "they exist in it".
The above linked Dragon article did wonders for their inclusion (not to mention fleshing out Q'barra as an adventuring locale with awesome "wild west meets the rainforest" flavor). I love the fact that to humans and the rest of Khorvair, dragonborn aren't "Dragonborn", they're just another flavor of "scale", the derogatory term they have for all lizardfolk.
Now go back and read the 3.5 Eberron setting. Replace any mention of "lizardfolk" with "scale". Did you see what happened there? To the rest of Khorvare, in-character, Dragonborn are Lizardfolk. They always have been. You don't have to suddenly question where these half-dragons came from. What dragons? That's just a walking lizard-man. He breathes lightning? Crazy tribal lizard-magic. (Plus, not like Khorvaire hasn't seen it's share of fire-breathing human sorcerers).
Now Dragonborn have seemlessly been meshed with the background lore of Q'barra, as guardians of Hav.. Hata... Havatorvak? (Forget what it's called) They have a place in the lore of the Age of Monsters and their fledgling empire's fall highlights one of the fundamental dangers of the setting (Rajah influence), and their relation with modern day Khorvaire is already accounted for.
This is how I like to see it done, because this is how I run my own campaigns. I'm not going to tell a friend who I want to have fun "don't play the character you want to play because I don't like it", I'm going to say "Sure, you can play your drow assassin! BUT, Eberron drow are not like Menzoberanzan drow. You see there are three separate cultures..." etc. etc. etc.
Whether the race, class, theme, or whatever in question is in the PHB, PHB2, Heroes of the Exceptionally Exotic Extradimensional Emporium, I'm going to find a way to include it if a player wants to play it.
Originally posted by marcigny:
I understand many statements here, but for my part, I'm a traditionalist and for me, Dragonborns are not Lizardfolks.
Tieflings, no problem.... It's not as if they didn't exist before in Eberron.
Eladrin, no problem, they have a very interesting story (personnal POV), and integrate themselves in a very "fae" way.
But dragonborn.... If limited in the context of Argonessen, yes, but to put them in Q'barra, the "paradise" of my beloved lizardfolks, no way.
(Where I'm concerned, goliath can go to hell.) (And my players (all GMs), are a lot more "stuck up" about races than I am, so...)
For this new edition, I do hope that they won't go the way they did for the 4th about races and subtypes.
Enough races have already been implemented (even if we had to wait the publication of Dark Sun for the Thri-keen (Xendrik, mostly). I mean:
-Dwarf, Human, Eladrin, Kalashtar, Thri-keen, drow (and umbragen), elves, warforged, shifter, changeling, orcs, goblinoids, tiefling, gnome, halfling.... and many variations for each. (If I was vicious
, I would put vampire and lycanthropes, trolls, oni, medusa and Illithid in the batch.)
That's a lot more than many universes propose in terms of racial types and subtypes (and I'm limiting myself to D20 games).
And that's for Eberron as a planet alone... (If we put the plans in the mix, we are overwhelmed with races and subtypes...) In this view, I don't see the need to put some more races in the mix... Bloody hell, it's not Star Wars with it's thousands of planets !
If they were to advance the timeline, well, it would have to be enough to be significant, but not so much as to destroy one of the major backbones of the setting, which is the noir, "cold war" feeling. At least, making the unrest more palpable "indoors", with each country having domestic events of significance preventing them to go all out on their neighbours (a purge in the Silver Flame, a ersatz of revolution in Breland, etc....).
And for classes, or the lack of those, well, "themes", or "lifepath", "Specialties" should be present, fleshing out the characters (and I concur with the idea of "themed" dragonmarks).
As for the artificer, a "retour aux sources" is, in my humble opinion, needed. Crafting felt bland, without flavour in 4th (in my opinion and that of my players). I don't mean that we should take a step back and keep 3.5 crafting feats, but, well... doing something about it. (A crafting system like in Ars Magica, perhaps.)
My two cents, anyway
Originally posted by Hellcow:
It's been a crazy few months for me, hence my virtual absence from the boards. I only just noticed this thread, but obviously it's a topic I'm very interested in and I'm glad to see the old band coming back together. I'm involved in the current playtests, and so far I like what I see. However, I have no knowledge about plans for Eberron.
Regarding things like the Dragonborn and Tieflings, when it came to 4E these things weren't choices. It was a mandate that the setting provide support for the races of the Player's Handbook. One way to look at it is that for many people, 4E was their first introduction to Eberron. For people who came to the setting in 3.5 it was a "Wait, this peanut butter doesn't belong in my chocolate" scenario; the counter is that the solely 4E player would say "I don't understand - I bought this book, but what am I supposed to do with my peanut butter?"
It has always been my preference to limit the number of races in the world but add depth to each one; I've never been a fan of thirty-one flavors of elf. However, this wasn't a choice we were given: it was a mandate, so the question was how to proceed with it. What I sought to do was to limit the impact they had on the world. Looking to tiefling, dragonborn, and eladrin, while you might find one in Sharn, none of them possess true nations, dragonmarks, or a particular impact on history. And while you could find one in Sharn, you'll also find that most of the inhabitants of Sharn who encounter an eladrin are going to wonder why that elf has funny eyes; that most people don't know the difference between lizardfolk and dragonborn; and that tieflings are just bizarre, but in a world where you could potentially meet a medusa on a city street they can live with that bizarre.
The use of the feyspires gave the Eladrin a role in the world, but one that separated them from history - specifically, they've been intentionally hiding from the people of Eberron. Note that in The Fading Dream, Thorn herself doesn't initially know what Eladrin are. Tying tieflings to Ohr Kaluun seemed logical - it's a fallen empire known for its use of dark magic and traffic with fiends - and was a way to make that nation a little more relevant in the world. As for the dragonborn in Q'barra, the goal was to say "They've always been there, but humans don't really know or care." As AvonRekaes says, they're all scales to me. My intention in doing this wasn't to downplay the relevance of the lizardfolk; on the contrary, if you read "Poison Dusk, Cold Sun" (ok, "Black Sun", but it SHOULD have been "Cold Sun") the lizardfolk of the Cold Sun Federation consider the dragonborn to be just as much of a problem as the humans, for all that the dragonborn have been there longer. Q'barra is the homeland of the lizardfolk, while Argonnessen is the home of the dragonborn; it simply happens that there is an ancient outpost of dragonborn in Q'barra that provides an easy entry point for player characters, as opposed to having a PC dragonborn from Argonnessen.
Just like gnomes or elves, my goal with working these things into Eberron is to try to find an angle that holds to what they are while providing some sort of new hook for people to explore. As for the comment that one is forced to use them if they're in the core books, well, *I* don't. Case in point: Baator. It was dropped into Eberron in the ECG. And for the next year I completely ignored it. If anyone in my campaign asked, I'd have said "What's Baator? Never heard of it." And if they said "It's on page 5X of the book," I'd say "Not in MY Eberron." Then I decided to find a way to fit Baator into the world in a way that made me actually want to use it - something that felt like it belonged in Eberron and wasn't just there because it existed in another book. You'll see the result in this month's Eye On Eberron. But if you still want to ignore it? Ignore it. For me, a core principle of Eberron has always been that the books are guides - but you should make the world your own.
With that said...
Originally posted by Hellcow:
... Just as this is a time to shape the next edition of D&D, it's also the opportunity to determine the fate of Eberron. If you want to see print support for Eberron, let WotC know! And if there are specific things you want or don't want - Dragonborn? Timeline adjustment? Race-restricted dragonmarks? - tell them. Eberron lacks the novel support of Forgotten Realms, and it doesn't have a board game. There's not a lot of ways for WotC to see that there IS a market for Eberron or to judge what people want from it. So if you want to see more Eberron, get the word out!
Originally posted by VoyRager:
To begin with:
I been enjoying the evolutionary changes happening with Athas, Faerun, Feywild and the introductions to the new dephts of the DnD World that occurred during the 4E era but sadly I feel somewhat disappointed with my favorite section of the DnD universe of Eberron's contributions to 4E.
I also feel the getting the word out would be an easier transition by sharing tales and results from the Players and DMs whom has experiment with Eberron base ideas and annouced the results for other to put add their inputs on or to or simply utilized the information with their future DnD experiences.
Like what I'm doing (or attempting) at my forum, The Players' Vault(x) (here at the WotC's Forums)using the DM's Guidebook's chapters on Houseruled and the DM's toolbox while religiously avoiding the overly homebrew overtones to created several interesting campaigns for all tiers revolving around one epic event and all unfolding (for now) in different Eberron's settings.
As for the development of the Eberron board game all I can come up with are some suggestions that I believe would escalate Eberron's settings popularity with DnD's Players and DMs' all over but as in drawning in newcomers to the market, I do understand how important the novels (graphic and paperback) are this type of expanding for the DnD marketbase.
As for those suggestions for 5E Eberron:
1. Theme features with powers and new class features based from Eberron past campaigns and with prerequisites of the classes in PH1, PH2, PH3 instaed of just focusing on Eberron based Classes.
2. More uniquely focused backgrounds' bonuses and themes' features as well as feats; all based from Eberron regions, with prerequisites for races found in PH1, PH2, PH3 (as dictated by the indicated Eberron's region population's make-up) as options to choose from instead of choosing houses' or dragonmarks' feats, and general area's backgrounds bonuses.
3. Expanded class features by introducing new class features and new feats that are cannibalized, reformed and redeveloped from defeated evils means of past Eberron's campaigns or is of a displaced, transplanted and matured with an Eberron's accent from "The-meant-for-travelling-type of settings like the Planes Above and Planes Below.
4. Introduced couple of new campaigns for The Rule Of Threes series that has 5E Eberron's settings as a segment and this last suggestion I think is the best of the suggestions I just quickly came up with right now.
Thx. V.
P.S.
One more question. If one would like to send-in feedbacks and/or to offered support for 5E Eberron workings, where or/and to whom should one send these sorts of expression of admirations and appreciations?
Originally posted by PaladinNicolas:
I certainly want Eberron to be supported in 5E, because it is my favorite campaign setting ever for multiple reasons. The question is, how to let WoTC that many of us want that support? Creating a group in WoTC's webpage where our suggestions, preferences and ideas are shared and officially presented? I, for instance, have only played 2E, but own the ECS and have read several of the novels, so I do not have experience playing in the setting but know about its lore (and, even if I have heard that Keith prefers to play Eberron with 4E, I prefer simpler mechanics and would love to play by using the core of 5E).
On the other hand, I for one would love the setting book to stress the good things about the Church of the Silver Flame, which I love, because sadly I have the feeling that many regard all flamers as corrupt or fanatics and ignore the merciful and selfless tenets that inspire them, so while I understand that stressing how in every organization there may be people with several tendencies, it would be good to highlight how corrupt flamers are either a minority or blatantly ignore what they are supposed to live up to (theology treatises examine this).
Originally posted by Hellcow:
It's a good question. I don't have an ideal answer at the moment, but I'll look into it.
It certainly couldn't hurt.
Obviously it's still in its infancy, but I'll say that I like what I've see of the new edition - as long as it continues down the same road, I expect that it's what I'll use.
If you read through old threads, you'll certainly find a lot of posts by me on this very subject. There is corruption in the church - but no more than among the followers of the Sovereign Host, and far less than the Blood of Vol (Erandis herself is a corrupt figurehead abusing the faith of her followers). The point was always to say that even the followers of the Flame aren't perfect; that you can find corruption in this bastion of light. But overall, it IS a force driven by compassion, and a force that does a great deal of good in the world. The corrupt are there, but as you say they are supposed to be a minority who tarnish the reputation of the Church - not a majority who define it.
Originally posted by Hellcow:
Thanks for the link and your thoughts. As noted above, I'm not sure who one should send feedback to, but I'll see if I can find out. Creating a group specifically for this purpose couldn't hurt.
Originally posted by PaladinNicolas:
(First of all, I apologize for any English mistakes I make) I don't know if this is a crazy idea or not, but would it not be good for Keith to talk to the guys at WoTC to ask them to support all of us who would like to officially playtest D&DNext in Eberron? In other words, perhaps a sub-set of playtesters (once the public playtest begins) could play (in person or online) and while testing the proposed new rules of 5E simultaneously playtest features that are unique to Eberron (e.g. dragonmarks, artificers, etc.). Wizards is certainly interested in raising support and legitimacy by means of the public playtests, and certainly they could likewise be interested in having one popular campaign as Eberron benefit from the same features. Additionally, this would speed up the process for the next campaign book/setting.
P.S. I am an international law scholar, and would like to know if Eberron is somehow inspired in the Peace of Westphalia: after the 30 years war in Europe, the treaty of Westphalia was agreed upon and paved the way for the inter-State system of international relations
Originally posted by DoctorBadWolf:
This. I really hope that this comes across as well in the next Eberron book as it does when you talk on the forums about the Silver Flame.
Now, I really feel like the things that were added in 4e are good additions. If feel natural and right to me to have draconic humanoids running around somewhere. The Feyspires strike me as a reminder that the cosmos is vast and mysterious, and that there are perils unknown even to the great scholars.
Of course, I also always use elves and eladrin interchangeably in every elven or eladrin society. I just use them as part of the same race.
Originally posted by Hellcow:
Yes, I think this is a perfectly reasonable way to handle things in an Eberron campaign where you don't want a multitude of races. I don't use devas as a race, but I've used reskinned devas in a number of cases. I played a "deva" avenger with the Shaman multiclass feat, on the basis that he was a Cyran human possessed by thousands of spirits from the Mourning. His Memories of a Thousand Lifetimes were the memories of the spirits within him; they were the source of his necrotic resistance; and his ability to conjure a spirit was essentially yanking one out of those inside him. So mechanically he was a deva with shaman abilities... but flavorwise he was just a human peasant possessed by vengeful spirits.
Ah, now that it's been officially announced, I'll be on pins and needles watching for this. I'm excited, excited! Fully Open or fully closed, I don't care (it's a game on the fence I hate)! I've been waiting for 5th Edition since I was first frustrated with 4th Edition (and some of the people on these forums, thank you very much).
I'm hoping to see Eberron continue into the new Edition for curiosity's sake. Keith, I hope you will be as excited about this as I am.
Originally posted by Mandarin:
I too hope that Eberron goes into 5e and I would definitely support it. Eberron is imo, the best piece of work Wizards have ever done! There is no Wizards book I've enjoyed reading more than what Eberron has released. And almost all of the extra materials (Five Nations, Magic of Eberron, Dragonmarked) was excellent. Too bad it didn't get that much support in 4e but I guess it would just be reprinting what was already said.
I do hope they make a Eberron Campaign Setting for 5e. I would also suggest maybe a few changes to the setting or just adding more elements. Maybe even let Eberron advance a few year forward in time. What worries me most with such a thing is that you might loose some of the "cold war" feeling of Eberron so it shouldn't be too many years. Maybe add some dramatic events. At least enough to make it worth a 5e upgrade. However Eberron fans seems to be quite sensitive about changing anything or advancing the setting a few years so be careful. Just my wishes for 5e Eberron.
Originally posted by Edymnion:
The announcement of 5e and the idea of them actually looking for player input was enough to drag me out of retirement.
I can only hope they can make it playable.
4e Eberron wasn't even worth looking at for me, unfortunately.
Originally posted by Elton74:
I got a copy. The 3 pictures of the races was the best part of the Player's Guide, actually.
Originally posted by Ogiwan:
Everybody here (presumably) knows that I love the 4th edition, but even I will say that the Dragonmarks of 4e Eberron were lackluster. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to 5e Eberron.
Originally posted by Ashlock:
My personal hope is that the new version of D&D will allow for easy portability of old material. That is, rules that are simple enough to accomodate any fluff text from any setting and any edition. So that my 3.5 Eberron Campaign Setting
and my 4E Eberron Campaign Guide remain solid source material.
Even in my 4E Eberron game, I often reach for the various 3.5 Eberron books. Throwing some mechanics together is no big deal; it's the story that makes Eberron great.
For money reasons alone, I'm sure that the Forgotten Realms will remain in the vanguard of the new edition. (And I do like the Realms, but c'mon, I've been invested in Eberron since writing for it!) The hope is that Eberron will at least not be left out.
Originally posted by kare:
Hey,
I'm somewhat in two minds about 5e and eberron (5eberron, nexberron?). Clearly, to my mind, Dragonmarks would've worked better as themes rather than feats (particularly the element of progression that would've involved). In fact, I think if themes had been available at the start of 4e they would've been implemented that way - and I wouldn't mind an optional set of rules for dragonmarks implemented as themes (either additional or alternative to the feats), if anyone with the power to make that happen is reading.
That aside, however, I'm pretty happy with how 4e and Eberron work together. I would've liked to have seen a book on Khorvaire's nations other than the main five, but I still have hope that information will be drip-fed to us in a series of Dragon articles - and it's not really an edition problem anyway.
Yours,
JMH
Originally posted by Edymnion:
There is one thing that will be a dealbreaker for me with a 5e Eberron.
There. Are. No. Dragonborn.
Period.
Dig out your 3e Eberron Campaign Setting book. That is the base of what Eberron should be. Not shoe-horned in dragon people who only suddenly exist because they were in the new PHB and the setting apparently wasn't allowed to say "Um, no, those don't exist here, you can't use that by default".
Simply put, I will not buy a single Eberron 5e product if they support Dragonborn by default. A sidebar that gives them as a possible option, I could live with that, but the setting as a whole should not acknowledge their existance.
If it does, I'll stick to my 3e books and the 5e ones can rot on the shelf as far as I would be concerned.
Originally posted by Lugnut171:
I'm fine with them, as a matter of fact they can throw in whatever they want if I don't like it I won't use it.
Originally posted by Elton74:
You're mad that they put in Dragonborn. Actually, it's true, they made no mention of any half-dragons except for Erandis Vol. And that was just to try to stop a war that shouldn't have went as long as it did. When they put them in, yeah it's a surprise. However, I don't think they will add them in this time. We haven't even seen what is going on with Eberron.
Still, I think Keith will have some ideas on how to do things for the next "iteration." Hopefully it will be modular because Eberron was designed to have everything including the kitchen sink. Even if it doesn't make sense to have it.
Originally posted by Ogiwan:
What's wrong with the Dragonborn being in Q'barra?
Originally posted by tallric_kruush:
I thought they did a great job of finding a suitable, believable home for them. Q'barra was perfect, and their role as guardians of Hakha'torvak made perfect sense, in my opinion.
They can play as major or minor a role as you wish. NPC dragonborn really have little reason to ever venture beyond Q'barra, unless you fashion such for your campaign.
I was apprehensive, since I'm as big a purist snob as there is, when it comes to Eberron (at least, I thought I was until reading Edy's post
). In the end, though, I thought the races were well implemented.Originally posted by Edymnion:
Ooh, just thought of another dealbreaker.
5e will have to have a robust crafting system, because Eberron has to have the Artificer. Not just a "I buff your gear" 4e Artificer, but the full on master crafter from 3e.
Originally posted by Lugnut171:
They can in 4th ed, just has to take the ritualist feat. Personally though I would drop the feat and just tie all rituals into Arcana anyways basically you don't need a feat to use rituals.
Originally posted by m4kitsu:
I really hate to be the one to call this out, Edymnion, but:
There's a lot that changed between the two books, but that wasn't one of them. The fact that it's rule no. 1 on the "ten things to know" list in both books didn't change either.
Now you, as a DM, of course, are free to ignore the Dragonborn. You're free to rule them back to Lizardfolk in Q'barra or simply wave your wand and make them disappear completely. You could also do that to Tieflings, Eladrin and the Feyspires, the Feywild and Shadowfell, and everything else that was added or changed between the ECS and ECG. That you can do that is one of the best things about D&D.
But to flatly refuse to buy an entire line of books because there's one thing in them that you utterly refuse to even see mention of on the page, when that things is as insignificant as a race? That's incredibly arrogant and a fairly dire insult to everyone that's had a hand in making Eberron what it is, including Keith.
I thought you were better than that.
Originally posted by kare:
Hey,
I don't think it was too weird to open up a place for the Dragonborn in Argonessen and Q'barra, so that worked for me. Obviously it messed up Vol's backstory a bit, and her and the organisations surrounding her were and are a key portion of Eberron myth that characters can dive into. Tweaking her history to keep her and the mark of death unique (and distinct from her half-dragon status) was a tricky one, and it could've been handled more sensitively.
Broadly, I'm glad the core elements of D&D, including Dragonborn and Tieflings, were present in all the settings.
Yours,
JMH
Originally posted by tallric_kruush:
I don't think the introduction of the Dragonborn affects Erandis' story at all. The Dragonborn are not half-dragons and have nothing to do with the elves, nor with the enmity between the Dragons and the Undying Court.
I'm not seeing a connection.
Originally posted by Lugnut171:
He has always been against the adding of races outside the Eberron's orginal 8 or so. I don't think it is arrogant, just his perfernce and while I think it isn't the best choice not to buy a book you might enjoy because of that, it is his right and I fully support him. For instance I would not bother with D&D if it went classless but I know Endymnion would eat it up. I agree with you though that the best thing, is to ignore the things you like, I don't use Bator in 4th ed.
Anyways dragonmarks need to be implemented better in 5th ed. in both 3rd and 4th they were lacking. The theme system is a much better way to do it then feats.
Originally posted by m4kitsu:
I know, and I think that's unfortunate. I rather pity anyone who would be driven away from something they obviously liked at least fairly well by something so trivial as the inclusion of a single element that changed nothing and can be easily ignored.
Something like going classless (or, in my case, shoehorning in "classic" feeling classes to a game that neither wanted nor needed them and hopelessly muddying the game's presentation in the process) is a much more fundamental change than adding a single race to a remote corner of the campaign setting.
Considering the 3e version was the original, intended form of Dragonmarks, I fail to see how their presentation in that form could be "lacking", with nothing to compare them against. However, I do agree that the 4e presentation was inadequate, and that the full potential of dragonmarks as both story and mechanical device has yet to me reached.
Themes would be a wonderful way to do so. If Themes do become the "third pillar" of character creation in the new edition (something I wouldn't mind at all), I can see 5berron following doing exactly that. The question is: is that one Theme ("Dragonmark Heir"), or fourteen (twelve true marks for thirteen houses, plus Aberrant)? And how would you fit Siberys Marks into that? Their own theme? PP? ED?
Originally posted by mylon:
I'm currently running an Eberron game using a non-D&D system and it's going great so far. There's so many resources to fall on and the intrigue is an awesome foil to work with, it's exactly what I've been after in a fantasy setting, yet incredibly rare.
My only complaint about the setting is the "If it exists in D&D there's a place for it in Eberron" philosophy. Changelings already have incredible potential to muck things up given how intrigue oriented the setting is. Shifters are like the new half-orc in the form of, "Your kind is not welcome here". Gnomes have always felt redundant with halflings around. Khalashtar are very human in appearance and nature and they seem more or less like an excuse to have a psion race. As opposed to giving more options for any race to excel at psionics. Warforged were a great addition though. They do suffer from racial prejudice, but it's an interesting difference from the uncout barbarians of orcs or shifters.
Everything else? It stretches the suspension of disbelief. Putting in evil-dwarves ruins the shades of gray style of Eberron. And there just isn't room for more races anyhow. I could understand perhaps how Xen`drik could be an excuse to add a player's favorite material, but it shouldn't be an excuse for EVERYTHING to exist. That was just a means to try and sell more books. Sometimes a setting is made more interesting by what it does not have. Cyre, anyone?
Originally posted by Edymnion:
Thats been brought up before, and my answer to it now is the same as it was then (least this place is consistant, 5 years gone and people are still saying the exact same things).
There is a vast, overwhelming difference between "it has a place" and making it default core. The spirit of it was that "Hey, if you just found something cool you want to use, then by all means use it. There will be someplace you can squeeze it in and make it work. If not, we left a whole continent open for you, you could fit anything in there."
People don't seem to understand the differnence anymore between having the option to use something, and having it rammed down your throat as being there by default. To use those lines to support a slightly more absurd position, if WotC were to print D&D stats for My Little Ponies as a playable race, are you honestly going to tell me we have to add Ponyland to Eberron just because "if its in D&D, its in Eberron", and that if it did you would be completely okay with that?
Again, there is a world of difference between "You can fit anything you want into the setting" and "By default, this setting has everything ever printed for any setting, any expansion, or anything else you can find. Even that subrace of warforged kitchen sinks. And it all lives in Sharn."
Originally posted by glowinghyren:
You're right. A race of ponies would be kind of dumb. So I would do what you should do with the Dragonborn and ignore them and their rules entirely. That's one of the great things about this game, you can pick and choose what you want to use and totally ignore everything else. I think it'd be silly to ignore an entire setting because one line in the rules says that you can include something if you want to.
Originally posted by Lugnut171:
That is what I mean yes 3rd ed's version was the orginal but much like 4th I didn't really like it's application. The prestige class part worked, but the feat system add on failed in my opinion. Still both systems required to much sacrafice that the theme system doesn't.
Anyways I do think Endymion is right about one thing, they shouldn't try to fit everything in. I believe more should be left up to individual groups playing. So for instance if a player wanted to play a shardmind in my game, I would work to make it happen with the player, but Wizards shouldn't have a book giving them a country here. This also figures in that not every race needs their own country.
Originally posted by Edymnion:
Call me a grognard, but the 3e campaign setting is Eberron to me. The main reason I don't like things like the Dragonborn being in the core, beyond the "Hey look, its a LA+0 half dragon for you to play!" is that anything in the core book is going to be assumed to be standard in all games, so future books will continue to address them.
I honestly would not mind the Dragonborn if they were handled in a one off splatbook that said "You can normally find them over here, and their interactions with group X and Y generally go as follows". Thats fine. Its great for people that want to use them, and great for people that don't want to use them because its self contained.
By putting them into the core, base book, it means not only do I (and everyone else that doesn't want to use them) have to unwind them from one book, we have to unwind them from EVERY book.
Eberron should stick to the core races it was designed to use, the ones in the 3e books. Keep that as the default. Anyone that wants to add or subtract from it are perfectly free to do so, and an updated Races of Eberron (that doesn't suck) could be done to provide detailed info on how to do it.
Just don't stick it in the core campaign setting book.
Originally posted by bofdm:
Regarding the races that were added to the 4th edition of Eberron, I have to somewhat agree with Edymnion's grudge against the Dragonborn but for a different reason. Aside from the Eladrin and their feyspires (though even the Eladrin suffer this) none of the *new* races that were shoved into the setting in 4th edition actually contributed to the history of the world in any meaningful way.
You have these elaborate detailed histories on the formation of the nation of Galifar, the creation of the Warforged, the battle of the Quori, the escape from Xen'drik of the Elves, etc etc. And then you get "By the way there are dragonborn in Q'barra. They've been there the whole time. Totally different from a half dragon."
And then as more books came out it was the same thing. "Goliaths exist here in this one mountain range. They've been there the entire time."
"Tieflings exist in the demon waste cause...there ya go. Enjoy."
But for some reason the strangest change to the setting, and one that I still don't get why they changed it is the cosmology. The Orrery setup was awesome. I loved there being multiple moons that doubled as other planes of existence. And then it all kinda got lumped into like a giant PB&J sandwich.
Now I do agree that the quality of the 4e Eberron books was fantastic. The art was incredible and the maps were way better than the 3e books. But I want Eberron to feel....unique among DnD settings.
Does anyone else feel the same? I'd love to hear other opinions on what they hope for in the next edition of Eberron.
Originally posted by Lugnut171:
Not to be mean but a lot of the stuff that was added with races contributing was added after the intial book especially shifter and changelings. Also Eberron does to me because of the things that actually make it unique, the broad magic accesible by most everyone and the way it is used, the way religion was treated, the similarites of post WW Europe. These are the things that really made it unique to me, not the races used or the planes.
Originally posted by Gilo:
I kinda liked the way those new races were added to 4E Eberron:
The Tifflings (4E EPG) have a very nice backstory that connects the the fallen Ohr Kaluun nation in Sarlona. It gives a DM away to plant Khorvairen hooks that lead to a great Secrets of Sarlona's chapter (btw, paizo's did a nice job in flashing-out the concept of an infernal themed nation in the Council of Thieves adventure path set in the Inner Sea nation of Cheliax).
The Dragonborn: I liked that addition especially due to the - "Explore Q'barra, Part 2 Poison Dusk, Black Sun" article: 'Duty before Glory.' So says the inscription on the gates of Ka'rhashan. Our ancestors carved this when they fled the western lands and returned to watch these dusty ruins. For a hundred generations we have been told that this is all we can aspire to, that we must guard these cursed cities until the end of time. I say no more!"
-This gives a very noir feel to the Dragonborn culture in Eberron.
I don't mind new stuff getting added (races included) as long as the concept is cool and they integrate seamlessly with the existing canon (which I think so far it did).
Originally posted by bofdm:
Not to be mean but a lot of the stuff that was added with races contributing was added after the intial book especially shifter and changelings. Also Eberron does to me because of the things that actually make it unique, the broad magic accesible by most everyone and the way it is used, the way religion was treated, the similarites of post WW Europe. These are the things that really made it unique to me, not the races used or the planes.
I do not see any malice in your words Lugnut and I appreciate the point of view. I do agree with the things you like about the setting as well, the broad use of magic, the different take on religion (particularly the distance of the gods) and the similarities to post WW Europe. I don't want to come off as saying I hate the setting, I don't. It's still my favorite DnD setting despite the changes made in 4th edition. I guess it's that I don't understand why they changed things like the Cosmology or added in all these new races.
The design philosophy behind adding all of the new races into every setting, and making the Cosmology the same in every setting, is what I feel takes away from the uniqueness of Eberron.
Gilo I also appreciate the point of view you presented as well. I unfortunately do not have a DnD Insider subscription so I can't read the article you reference, could you explain how it gives a noir feel to the Dragonborn culture?
I will have to go back and read on the Tiefling connection to Ohr Kaluun in Sarlona since you bring it up.
Thank you for responding! I'd love to hear more opinions! =)
Originally posted by Gilo:
offtopic Dragonborns
[sblock]Noir In the sense that there is a feeling of disillusionment, pessimism attached the Dragonborn culture: They live in the ruins of their own crumbling empire(which at its height included the Blade Desert and the Talenta Plains during the Age of Monsters). They are race of arrgont, glory seeking warriors (originally hand picked from the legions of the Light of Siberys) but they are stuck on permanent sentry duty (since the age of Demons), guarding against an enemy (Cold Sun overlord) which they they cannot defeat (and yet his influance corrupt a presentage of each Dragonborn generation)...[/sblock]
Originally posted by DoctorBadWolf:
I've been playing both 3.5 Eberron and 4e eberron with equal frequency, due to DDO. From the Loremaster threads there, online research of my own, flipping through 3.5 eberron books at my hobby shop, and playing 4e, I don't see much real difference in the cosmology.
The moons interact like they always have. The cosmology of eberron IS different from core. I honestly felt like they took a long look at eberron before they came up with the 4e cosmology. World Above, World below, etc.
Originally posted by AvonRekaes:
Personally, I'm very open when it comes to the inclusion of races or classes when I'm runing a DnD game. I know that when I'm playing a character for someone else's game, I *HATE* to hear blanket statements like "Oh, and there are no goliaths" if I really wanted to play a goliath. It's not my job as DM to limit player fun, and I like to keep the entire catalouge of options open.
Rather, I feel my job is to find that interesting way to include that race into the setting, and ground them in available lore. Goliaths in my Eberron are not just mountain folk. They mostly live in a specific range, the Byshek Mountains, and they're the ones that mine byshek and produce weapons out of it, simply because it's the most readily available workable metal to them. Then they trade these weapons and raw byshek ore to the druids of the Eldeen Reaches.
So there. Now Goliaths actually have something to do with Eberron beyond "they exist in it".
The way dragonborn were handled in the 4e setting book left much to be desired. I think they were trying TOO HARD to make them non-obtrusive. However because little was said to mitigate their prescence, it just came across as a hard fact that they were there. BAM. Dragonborn in Eberron: "they exist in it".
The above linked Dragon article did wonders for their inclusion (not to mention fleshing out Q'barra as an adventuring locale with awesome "wild west meets the rainforest" flavor). I love the fact that to humans and the rest of Khorvair, dragonborn aren't "Dragonborn", they're just another flavor of "scale", the derogatory term they have for all lizardfolk.
Now go back and read the 3.5 Eberron setting. Replace any mention of "lizardfolk" with "scale". Did you see what happened there? To the rest of Khorvare, in-character, Dragonborn are Lizardfolk. They always have been. You don't have to suddenly question where these half-dragons came from. What dragons? That's just a walking lizard-man. He breathes lightning? Crazy tribal lizard-magic. (Plus, not like Khorvaire hasn't seen it's share of fire-breathing human sorcerers).
Now Dragonborn have seemlessly been meshed with the background lore of Q'barra, as guardians of Hav.. Hata... Havatorvak? (Forget what it's called) They have a place in the lore of the Age of Monsters and their fledgling empire's fall highlights one of the fundamental dangers of the setting (Rajah influence), and their relation with modern day Khorvaire is already accounted for.
This is how I like to see it done, because this is how I run my own campaigns. I'm not going to tell a friend who I want to have fun "don't play the character you want to play because I don't like it", I'm going to say "Sure, you can play your drow assassin! BUT, Eberron drow are not like Menzoberanzan drow. You see there are three separate cultures..." etc. etc. etc.
Whether the race, class, theme, or whatever in question is in the PHB, PHB2, Heroes of the Exceptionally Exotic Extradimensional Emporium, I'm going to find a way to include it if a player wants to play it.
Originally posted by marcigny:
I understand many statements here, but for my part, I'm a traditionalist and for me, Dragonborns are not Lizardfolks.
Tieflings, no problem.... It's not as if they didn't exist before in Eberron.
Eladrin, no problem, they have a very interesting story (personnal POV), and integrate themselves in a very "fae" way.
But dragonborn.... If limited in the context of Argonessen, yes, but to put them in Q'barra, the "paradise" of my beloved lizardfolks, no way
.(Where I'm concerned, goliath can go to hell.) (And my players (all GMs), are a lot more "stuck up" about races than I am, so...)
For this new edition, I do hope that they won't go the way they did for the 4th about races and subtypes.
Enough races have already been implemented (even if we had to wait the publication of Dark Sun for the Thri-keen (Xendrik, mostly). I mean:
-Dwarf, Human, Eladrin, Kalashtar, Thri-keen, drow (and umbragen), elves, warforged, shifter, changeling, orcs, goblinoids, tiefling, gnome, halfling.... and many variations for each. (If I was vicious
That's a lot more than many universes propose in terms of racial types and subtypes (and I'm limiting myself to D20 games).
And that's for Eberron as a planet alone... (If we put the plans in the mix, we are overwhelmed with races and subtypes...) In this view, I don't see the need to put some more races in the mix... Bloody hell, it's not Star Wars with it's thousands of planets !
If they were to advance the timeline, well, it would have to be enough to be significant, but not so much as to destroy one of the major backbones of the setting, which is the noir, "cold war" feeling. At least, making the unrest more palpable "indoors", with each country having domestic events of significance preventing them to go all out on their neighbours (a purge in the Silver Flame, a ersatz of revolution in Breland, etc....).
And for classes, or the lack of those, well, "themes", or "lifepath", "Specialties" should be present, fleshing out the characters (and I concur with the idea of "themed" dragonmarks).
As for the artificer, a "retour aux sources" is, in my humble opinion, needed. Crafting felt bland, without flavour in 4th (in my opinion and that of my players). I don't mean that we should take a step back and keep 3.5 crafting feats, but, well... doing something about it. (A crafting system like in Ars Magica, perhaps.)
My two cents, anyway
Originally posted by Hellcow:
It's been a crazy few months for me, hence my virtual absence from the boards. I only just noticed this thread, but obviously it's a topic I'm very interested in and I'm glad to see the old band coming back together. I'm involved in the current playtests, and so far I like what I see. However, I have no knowledge about plans for Eberron.
Regarding things like the Dragonborn and Tieflings, when it came to 4E these things weren't choices. It was a mandate that the setting provide support for the races of the Player's Handbook. One way to look at it is that for many people, 4E was their first introduction to Eberron. For people who came to the setting in 3.5 it was a "Wait, this peanut butter doesn't belong in my chocolate" scenario; the counter is that the solely 4E player would say "I don't understand - I bought this book, but what am I supposed to do with my peanut butter?"
It has always been my preference to limit the number of races in the world but add depth to each one; I've never been a fan of thirty-one flavors of elf. However, this wasn't a choice we were given: it was a mandate, so the question was how to proceed with it. What I sought to do was to limit the impact they had on the world. Looking to tiefling, dragonborn, and eladrin, while you might find one in Sharn, none of them possess true nations, dragonmarks, or a particular impact on history. And while you could find one in Sharn, you'll also find that most of the inhabitants of Sharn who encounter an eladrin are going to wonder why that elf has funny eyes; that most people don't know the difference between lizardfolk and dragonborn; and that tieflings are just bizarre, but in a world where you could potentially meet a medusa on a city street they can live with that bizarre.
The use of the feyspires gave the Eladrin a role in the world, but one that separated them from history - specifically, they've been intentionally hiding from the people of Eberron. Note that in The Fading Dream, Thorn herself doesn't initially know what Eladrin are. Tying tieflings to Ohr Kaluun seemed logical - it's a fallen empire known for its use of dark magic and traffic with fiends - and was a way to make that nation a little more relevant in the world. As for the dragonborn in Q'barra, the goal was to say "They've always been there, but humans don't really know or care." As AvonRekaes says, they're all scales to me. My intention in doing this wasn't to downplay the relevance of the lizardfolk; on the contrary, if you read "Poison Dusk, Cold Sun" (ok, "Black Sun", but it SHOULD have been "Cold Sun") the lizardfolk of the Cold Sun Federation consider the dragonborn to be just as much of a problem as the humans, for all that the dragonborn have been there longer. Q'barra is the homeland of the lizardfolk, while Argonnessen is the home of the dragonborn; it simply happens that there is an ancient outpost of dragonborn in Q'barra that provides an easy entry point for player characters, as opposed to having a PC dragonborn from Argonnessen.
Just like gnomes or elves, my goal with working these things into Eberron is to try to find an angle that holds to what they are while providing some sort of new hook for people to explore. As for the comment that one is forced to use them if they're in the core books, well, *I* don't. Case in point: Baator. It was dropped into Eberron in the ECG. And for the next year I completely ignored it. If anyone in my campaign asked, I'd have said "What's Baator? Never heard of it." And if they said "It's on page 5X of the book," I'd say "Not in MY Eberron." Then I decided to find a way to fit Baator into the world in a way that made me actually want to use it - something that felt like it belonged in Eberron and wasn't just there because it existed in another book. You'll see the result in this month's Eye On Eberron. But if you still want to ignore it? Ignore it. For me, a core principle of Eberron has always been that the books are guides - but you should make the world your own.
With that said...
Originally posted by Hellcow:
... Just as this is a time to shape the next edition of D&D, it's also the opportunity to determine the fate of Eberron. If you want to see print support for Eberron, let WotC know! And if there are specific things you want or don't want - Dragonborn? Timeline adjustment? Race-restricted dragonmarks? - tell them. Eberron lacks the novel support of Forgotten Realms, and it doesn't have a board game. There's not a lot of ways for WotC to see that there IS a market for Eberron or to judge what people want from it. So if you want to see more Eberron, get the word out!
Originally posted by VoyRager:
Pardon me I was passing by when your posting on the forum's main sideboard caught my attention and couldn't resisted sharing the ideas and suggestions that your message quickly brought up.
To begin with:
I been enjoying the evolutionary changes happening with Athas, Faerun, Feywild and the introductions to the new dephts of the DnD World that occurred during the 4E era but sadly I feel somewhat disappointed with my favorite section of the DnD universe of Eberron's contributions to 4E.
I also feel the getting the word out would be an easier transition by sharing tales and results from the Players and DMs whom has experiment with Eberron base ideas and annouced the results for other to put add their inputs on or to or simply utilized the information with their future DnD experiences.
Like what I'm doing (or attempting) at my forum, The Players' Vault(x) (here at the WotC's Forums)using the DM's Guidebook's chapters on Houseruled and the DM's toolbox while religiously avoiding the overly homebrew overtones to created several interesting campaigns for all tiers revolving around one epic event and all unfolding (for now) in different Eberron's settings.
As for the development of the Eberron board game all I can come up with are some suggestions that I believe would escalate Eberron's settings popularity with DnD's Players and DMs' all over but as in drawning in newcomers to the market, I do understand how important the novels (graphic and paperback) are this type of expanding for the DnD marketbase.
As for those suggestions for 5E Eberron:
1. Theme features with powers and new class features based from Eberron past campaigns and with prerequisites of the classes in PH1, PH2, PH3 instaed of just focusing on Eberron based Classes.
2. More uniquely focused backgrounds' bonuses and themes' features as well as feats; all based from Eberron regions, with prerequisites for races found in PH1, PH2, PH3 (as dictated by the indicated Eberron's region population's make-up) as options to choose from instead of choosing houses' or dragonmarks' feats, and general area's backgrounds bonuses.
3. Expanded class features by introducing new class features and new feats that are cannibalized, reformed and redeveloped from defeated evils means of past Eberron's campaigns or is of a displaced, transplanted and matured with an Eberron's accent from "The-meant-for-travelling-type of settings like the Planes Above and Planes Below.
4. Introduced couple of new campaigns for The Rule Of Threes series that has 5E Eberron's settings as a segment and this last suggestion I think is the best of the suggestions I just quickly came up with right now.
Thx. V.
P.S.
One more question. If one would like to send-in feedbacks and/or to offered support for 5E Eberron workings, where or/and to whom should one send these sorts of expression of admirations and appreciations?
Originally posted by PaladinNicolas:
I certainly want Eberron to be supported in 5E, because it is my favorite campaign setting ever for multiple reasons. The question is, how to let WoTC that many of us want that support? Creating a group in WoTC's webpage where our suggestions, preferences and ideas are shared and officially presented? I, for instance, have only played 2E, but own the ECS and have read several of the novels, so I do not have experience playing in the setting but know about its lore (and, even if I have heard that Keith prefers to play Eberron with 4E, I prefer simpler mechanics and would love to play by using the core of 5E).
On the other hand, I for one would love the setting book to stress the good things about the Church of the Silver Flame, which I love, because sadly I have the feeling that many regard all flamers as corrupt or fanatics and ignore the merciful and selfless tenets that inspire them, so while I understand that stressing how in every organization there may be people with several tendencies, it would be good to highlight how corrupt flamers are either a minority or blatantly ignore what they are supposed to live up to (theology treatises examine this).
Originally posted by Hellcow:
It's a good question. I don't have an ideal answer at the moment, but I'll look into it.
It certainly couldn't hurt.
Obviously it's still in its infancy, but I'll say that I like what I've see of the new edition - as long as it continues down the same road, I expect that it's what I'll use.
If you read through old threads, you'll certainly find a lot of posts by me on this very subject. There is corruption in the church - but no more than among the followers of the Sovereign Host, and far less than the Blood of Vol (Erandis herself is a corrupt figurehead abusing the faith of her followers). The point was always to say that even the followers of the Flame aren't perfect; that you can find corruption in this bastion of light. But overall, it IS a force driven by compassion, and a force that does a great deal of good in the world. The corrupt are there, but as you say they are supposed to be a minority who tarnish the reputation of the Church - not a majority who define it.
Originally posted by Hellcow:
Thanks for the link and your thoughts. As noted above, I'm not sure who one should send feedback to, but I'll see if I can find out. Creating a group specifically for this purpose couldn't hurt.
Originally posted by PaladinNicolas:
(First of all, I apologize for any English mistakes I make) I don't know if this is a crazy idea or not, but would it not be good for Keith to talk to the guys at WoTC to ask them to support all of us who would like to officially playtest D&DNext in Eberron? In other words, perhaps a sub-set of playtesters (once the public playtest begins) could play (in person or online) and while testing the proposed new rules of 5E simultaneously playtest features that are unique to Eberron (e.g. dragonmarks, artificers, etc.). Wizards is certainly interested in raising support and legitimacy by means of the public playtests, and certainly they could likewise be interested in having one popular campaign as Eberron benefit from the same features. Additionally, this would speed up the process for the next campaign book/setting.
P.S. I am an international law scholar, and would like to know if Eberron is somehow inspired in the Peace of Westphalia: after the 30 years war in Europe, the treaty of Westphalia was agreed upon and paved the way for the inter-State system of international relations
Originally posted by DoctorBadWolf:
This. I really hope that this comes across as well in the next Eberron book as it does when you talk on the forums about the Silver Flame.
Now, I really feel like the things that were added in 4e are good additions. If feel natural and right to me to have draconic humanoids running around somewhere. The Feyspires strike me as a reminder that the cosmos is vast and mysterious, and that there are perils unknown even to the great scholars.
Of course, I also always use elves and eladrin interchangeably in every elven or eladrin society. I just use them as part of the same race.
Originally posted by Hellcow:
Yes, I think this is a perfectly reasonable way to handle things in an Eberron campaign where you don't want a multitude of races. I don't use devas as a race, but I've used reskinned devas in a number of cases. I played a "deva" avenger with the Shaman multiclass feat, on the basis that he was a Cyran human possessed by thousands of spirits from the Mourning. His Memories of a Thousand Lifetimes were the memories of the spirits within him; they were the source of his necrotic resistance; and his ability to conjure a spirit was essentially yanking one out of those inside him. So mechanically he was a deva with shaman abilities... but flavorwise he was just a human peasant possessed by vengeful spirits.
