D&D 5E Eberron in 5th Ed - Ideas

[JWO]

I really like the whole dungeonpunk aesthetic but I didn't really think that Eberron would fit well with the implied scarcity of magic items in 5th Ed. I saw [MENTION=907]Staffan[/MENTION]'s idea for a custom artificer located here and it got me thinking about how Eberron might work out so I thought I'd write a post and see if anyone else had any cool ideas for it.

I was thinking to set it a little way into Eberron's future. It's a bit of a cliché now but the idea I had was to have some kind of cataclysmic event that depowered almost all the magic items in the world, even lowering the potency of the more powerful ones.

You could still have one use magic items and artificers could still enchant things on a temporary basis but it's now seemingly impossible for people to enchant weapons and items on a permanent basis.

The warforged would remain as they are, which could be one of the mysteries of the world. How have they stayed active in spite of everything? Maybe there are some groups who try to kidnap and experiment on them to unlock their secrets.

By the way, I don't really know anything about Eberron, other than the very surface details so maybe I'm completely barking up the wrong tree!

What d'you think?

 

[Paraxis]

The feel of Eberron isn't dependent on merchants selling +2 flaming swords.

The world is magical for all the little everyday magical items and effects. People travel on lightning rails, cleansing stones in your inn make it so you don't have to shower, Dragonmarked houses provide services like long distance messages, these are the things that make it feel magitech.

You can keep all of that, give the characters an airship, and still make it a rare thing to find a magic shield or sword.

 

[Jacen_Omas]

I too am preparing to run a game of Eberron in a few weeks, I read some of the setting a few years ago and thought it was great but at the time I was already burned out on 3rd ed. Keith Baker has an excellent blog article on 5th eds low magic in Eberron. The thing is that although magic is common, its the low leveled stuff that is abundant.

A shopkeeper may have an enchanted broom that sweeps the place up for him, or everbright lanterns will light the streets but obtaining magical weapons would still be hard to come by. Magewrights (the magical craftsman of the setting) have the formula to make the kind of magical trinkrets that make life to the common man easier, little of this would have much practical use to adventurers. There exist skyships and magically lighting rails, but these things benefit the masses and have the financial backing of the wealthy dragonmarked houses.

 

[I'm A Banana]

It's not a bad idea for a campaign, but for the actual "release," I wouldn't futz with the metaplot. One of Eberron's appeals is that it has no metaplot and needs no metaplot. It is always 2 years after the Last War. Turning Eberron into some post-apocalyptic, lower-magic world because 5e has lower magic is the opposite of making the rules match the story, and it wrecks some of what makes Eberron appealing to its fans.

Mechanically, I'd recommend not over-thinking it. 5e Eberron would be fine in a world awash with magical items without much tweaking. What Eberron has that normal 5e doesn't is a lot of common magic items -- it's not just potions of healing that appear on an Eberron equipment list, it's also oil of magic weapon and single-use gems of detect magic and cantrip wands and the like. This doesn't mean you need to invent new magic item rules, you just need to expand the list of magic items characters can buy into consumable versions of most cantrips and 1st-level spells.

That's not game-breaking, that's just a GP sink.

Most of 5e's existing magic items work fine without any tweaking as things that are built more by skilled crafters and are closely-held guild secrets. Like, a single-use Lens of Comprehend Languages that translates words as you read through it but crumbles to dust after use is something anyone could buy from House Sivis. But a Helm of Comprehending Languages would be something that only the master-crafters of the House could construct, and might be a reward for loyal service to the house. And that works with those helms being rare, but the spell itself being commonly accessible to most people.

 

[Tony Vargas]

5e's low-magic-item assumption is just an assumption. If magic items are common in the setting, they're likely common on both sides of the encounter equation. Item-using monsters could have dragon-mark-like talents that let them power temporary racial/tribe/clan/totem items that are effectively magical while their fighting the PCs, but disenchant when the shaman/chosen-one/chief is killed or the items are claimed by outsiders. Even monsters that don't normally use items could be enchanted with extra abilities by their masters or have acquired additional abilities just from evolving in such a magic-rich environment.

 

[neobolts]

Jacen and KM make good points. Another thing to consider about Eberron's everyday magic is that the big stuff (like magical monorails and airships) rely on having huge powerful elementals bound to them. The magical gear the players are wearing isn't going to have elementals bound to it (i.e. you can have magic trains without having a +1 sword in every scabbard).

 

[RealAlHazred]

For my Eberron, I want lots of low-magic items. Every magic item shouldn't be a +1 sword, +1 shield, or ring of protection. What about a ring of protection from rain? What about magical cosmetics, or keys that sound a tone when you say their name?

 

[JWO]

Interesting stuff! I'm going to try to read up on Eberron some more today.

So the key is lots of magic items of a practical nature, very few with military purposes. Something about the magic used to enchant weaponry and armour being of a different nature. Easy enough to enchant on a temporary basis but very difficult to make it stick.

 

[Paraxis]

I think there would be magic of a military nature besides warforged, the world just got finished with a 100 year long war. But most of those military based magic items would have been on big issues like siege weapons, troop transport, maybe magical items that granted heroes feast benefits, stuff like that.

High ranking officers were probably gifted with magical weapons or armor instead of ribbons or medals, but they wouldn't spend the time, gold, or energy on equipping the enlisted man with nice gear, it would be better spent on a new airship, more warforged, or some other big ticket item.

 

[TwoSix]

Interesting stuff! I'm going to try to read up on Eberron some more today.

So the key is lots of magic items of a practical nature, very few with military purposes. Something about the magic used to enchant weaponry and armour being of a different nature. Easy enough to enchant on a temporary basis but very difficult to make it stick.

While it's not spelled out explicitly in the 3.5 Eberron rules for item creation, it's canonical within the world that most powerful magic items require special magical stones called dragonshards. Since dragonshards are rare and expensive, and usually found in places that are crawling with monsters, having the PCs have to undertake a quest to get the dragonshards needed to make their magical sword or armor is entirely within the feel of Eberron.