D&D 5E Eberron Is Here Today!

Eberron: Rising from the Last War hits local gamestores today. Eberron creator Keith Baker talks on his blog about what's changed!

So, what's changed? The Mror Dwarves, races, Dragonmarks, the Mournland, Lady Illmarrow, monsters... but not guns!

And what's new? The artificer class, group patrons, warforged colossus, and scary monsters!

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Explore the lands of Eberron in this campaign sourcebook for the world’s greatest roleplaying game.

This book provides everything players and Dungeon Masters need to play Dungeons & Dragons in Eberron—a war-torn world filled with magic-fueled technology, airships and lightning trains, where noir-inspired mystery meets swashbuckling adventure. Will Eberron enter a prosperous new age, or will the shadow of war descend once again?

• Meld magic and invention to craft objects of wonder as an artificer—the first official class to be released for fifth edition D&D since the Player’s Handbook.
• Enter the world of Eberron in a 1st-level adventure set in Sharn, the City of Towers
• Dive straight into your pulp adventures with easy-to-use locations, complete with maps of train cars, battle-scarred fortresses, and fallen warforged colossi.
• Explore Sharn, a city of skyscrapers, airships, and intrigue and a crossroads for the world’s war-ravaged peoples.
• Flesh out your characters with a new D&D game element called a group patron—a background for your whole party.
• Explore 16 new race/subrace options including dragonmarks, which magically transform certain members of the races in the Player’s Handbook.
• Confront horrific monsters born from the world’s devastating wars.
• Prepare to venture into the Mournland, a mist-cloaked, corpse-littered land twisted by magic.

 

[lyle.spade]

Basically combine Rising from the Last War+Updated Eberron Adventurers Almanac+Exploring Eberron,(Which is being written by Keith Baker himself) once it's released, for your complete Eberron 5E needs.


Wayfarers Guide To Eberron was basically: I want my Pulp Steampunk DnD and I need it now!!!!

But there was NO guarantee Eberron was gonna return. Hence Wayfarers was the prototype/"Essentials Settings Kit" to 5E Eberron with the option to update stuff that "should've" been in there but wasn't as stuff (like the Artificer) was still being reworked/fine tuned.

...Wayfinder's was probably also a market test to gauge interest in the world.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

Basically combine Rising from the Last War+Updated Eberron Adventurers Almanac+Exploring Eberron,(Which is being written by Keith Baker himself) once it's released, for your complete Eberron 5E needs.


Wayfarers Guide To Eberron was basically: I want my Pulp Steampunk DnD and I need it now!!!!

But there was NO guarantee Eberron was gonna return. Hence Wayfarers was the prototype/"Essentials Settings Kit" to 5E Eberron with the option to update stuff that "should've" been in there but wasn't as stuff (like the Artificer) was still being reworked/fine tuned.

...Wayfinder's was probably also a market test to gauge interest in the world.

Baker himself said as much in this interview: The Cow in Hell with the Dice

How was “Wayfinder’s Guide to Eberron” born? What was your reaction when the title reached Platinum Seller status in just a few days?
I began talking with Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford about Eberron while Fifth Edition was still being playtested. There was always the general idea that it would be released for Fifth Edition; the question was when and how. Part of the challenge was the degree to which Eberron was isolated from the Multiverse. The idea that this could be explained as it being intentionally walled off behind the Ring of Siberys, and making contact with the multiverse a point that DMs could choose to work into a campaign or ignore, was a key element of making it happen sooner rather than later. So after years of discussions, WotC approached me late in 2018 with the idea of doing an online book for the DM’s Guild, largely as a way to see if there was enough interest to justify a full book like Rising From The Last War. And luckily for all of us, there was.

 

[DragonBelow]

Saw its not doing too good on D&D Beyond its filled with bugs. Glad I never invested one cent into that program.

I use it all the time, it works great

 

[Shardstone]

My review I wrote on another group.


THE 60% GOOD

• The setting is honestly super interesting, with a lot of redefinition of the core PHB races into something neat (like dwarves who use aberrants to make living weapons and armor, or elves who worship the oldest undead liches as gods).
• Introduces a lot of new mechanics, such as the Dragonmark sub-races (which also serve as MegaCorps ala Cyberpunk; each Dragonmark House is a non-biological gathering of dragonmarked people that corner the market on something and have lots of espionoage between them).
• • Introduces the Artificer class, which has two good sub-classes (Artillerist and Battlesmith) and one really, really bad sub-class (Alchemist).
  • The Group Patron + Adventure Creation tables make it super easy to run a campaign in this world, and gives lots of ideas of how to make a game feel noir, pulpy, and "by the seat" with advice for recurring villains, etc etc.
  • A bunch of new-races are included (and ultimatley I wish Eberron was JUST Humans + these new-races, even with the dope reflavorings).
  • Very in-depth fractions for creating adventures, complete with sample adventure kits including a map, tables, seeds, etc.
  • The adventure generators are really astounding. They put every other book's generators, except maybe Ravnica's, to shame.
  • A pretty big bestiary with a range of enemies from low to high CR.

THE 10% MEH

• The art in this book is monstly horrendous. If it isn't reused from the original 3E Eberron books, its a new piece that ranges from trash to slightly above average, with maybe 5 or fewer pieces in the book being original AND good. This is a travesty and greatly weakens the aesthetic of the setting; so much of the old art is a jumbled mess, and so much of the new art is honest to god a mystery as to what it says about the world. I've attached to this post one of the dope pieces though - a Warforged Colossus slumped in a Mournland ruin.
• This book would have benefitted from more focus. All the stuff outside the main continent should have been cut or left for Wayfinders and that space given to better exploring the ramshackle war-torn landscape that is left behind. Every section in the gazeteer offers a small blurb about how the Last War effected it, but not enough is shared that realls gives you the post Last War vibe.
• Much of the writing is pretty meh. Not bad, well-edited, but a lot of it doesn't do a lot to rile up the imagination. Compared to Descent into Avernus or Ravnica or Saltmarsh, I felt that this was a step back, and it hindered my enjoyment of the book.
• The Alchemist Sub-Class is absolute trash. It has an infusion tax if you want the cool homunculi, and its new level 3 ability is a trashy skill to make a random d6 potion with a small-time magical effect (or flying).

THE 30% RIP OFF

• Let's not mince words: if you bought Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron, you got ripped off. Most of that book is, word for word, reprinted in Rising from the Last War.
• The gazatter sections are all 100% copy/pasted and then embellished a bit with "Aftermath of the Last War" sections, as are the faiths, planes, and the entirty of Sharn.
• All the cool tables in Wayfinder's is copy/pasted as well, and some even shortened, such as the "Falling in Sharn" table (which went from a d10 to a d8).
• Again, a lot of art just comes from old books. Tragic. And while Ravnica reprinted art too, at least its original art (sans the cover) was all FANTASTIC.

DO I THINK YOU SHOULD BUY THIS BOOK?

• If you want a wide magical society, this is a pretty good one, but Ravnica is better.
• If you want a world that's a cool spin on Forgotten Realms, that is a lot more coherent, and that has some cooler aesthetics, then this is the book for you.
• If you want a book to help you run Noir, Intrigue, or Pulp stories, this is a must-buy for the adventure-generation stuff.
• A lot of the NPCs and factions are just OK, so if you want this book for piece meal, your mileage may vary.
• If you want the new races, classes, and Dragonmarks, this might be a good purchase. All are pretty interesting for the most part, sans the mechanically-defunt Warforged.
• The bestiary isn't big enough to justify the purchase by itself.
• If you buy these books for the art and writing, avoid; it isn't worth it.

 

[Savage Wombat]

What about the adventure part? How much content total?

 

[Demetrios1453]

Saw its not doing too good on D&D Beyond its filled with bugs. Glad I never invested one cent into that program.

Hmm, everything is pulling up just fine for me. The first day a product is up can have some hiccups simply due to the mechanics of the release process, but after that it's pretty much always rock solid stable.

 

[MarkB]

Hmm, everything is pulling up just fine for me. The first day a product is up can have some hiccups simply due to the mechanics of the release process, but after that it's pretty much always rock solid stable.

I had an initial issue where I could view the contents page, but got taken to the Marketplace page when I tried to click a topic. However, clearing my cookies fixed that for me. That aside, the book's been perfectly readable on D&D Beyond, both from desktop and mobile devices.

 

[Al2O3]

Since I probably won't get hold of the book for at least another 18 hours:
Will the infusions still let me play an Artificer with a magically reloading crossbow and an infinite supply magic bolts?

 

[Zaukrie]

I confess to owning the first pdf, so this might be a no go for me....maybe. I'm about 90% done writing my first PDF for sale, living spells that are not based on damage spells. If anyone wants to look at them an let me know your thoughts, PM me....

 

[dave2008]

i just purchased the special edition cover version. I wasn't going to, but it looked some much better sitting next to the regular cover.