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.

 

[Parmandur]

the Adventure Generators in this book are absolute golden. The best ever produced for 5E so far; maybe D&D as a whole? Other books have done adventure seeds and stuff, but these roletables and guidelines cover so many genres and factions and ideas that it is absolutely breathtaking. Makes reading the setting information almost unneeded

These are amazing: very similar to the same chapter in Ravnica, but I think they improved on the model this go around.

While I disagree about the art, and quite like it, it does strike me how different the various products this year ended up being. Certainly Descent into Avernus made a much bolded splash in the art department, being probably the most gorgeous book in 5E yet.

 

[ChaosOS]

My biggest issue art-wise is the disjunction - I feel there was a real opportunity to set a bold direction to match the 1920's vibe of the book if more art pieces were the style of the dwarf.

Also, Point, while it's nice to get more spells on the list, at most levels the classes you've named don't have enough spells known to pull it off. Did a bit of looking earlier, big winners for spell lists out of the prepared casters.

• Cleric
  • Non-nature Handling
  • Non-Forge Making
  • Non-Trickery Passage
  • Non-Trickery/Twilight Shadow
  • Non-Tempest Storm
• Druid
  • Detection
  • Hospitality
  • Making
  • Scribing
  • Sentinel
  • Shadow
  • Warding
• Wizard
  • Handling (Perfect +9!)
  • Healing (Perfect +9!)

 

[Azzy]

I finally got mine today. I've barely had a chance to delve into it, but I love what I've read so far.

 

[gyor]

Which is a good way to handle it.

The way I see it, if I'm running an Eberron campaign, I'd want to keep non-Orrery planar stuff out. The Eberron cosmology is great for that setting. But if I'm running a Planescape campaign, I don't really see any reason not to have an occasional clueless changeling or warforged around.

I think the way they handled cosmology in Eberron could tie into broader plans they have for D&D.

 

[Shardstone]

My biggest issue art-wise is the disjunction - I feel there was a real opportunity to set a bold direction to match the 1920's vibe of the book if more art pieces were the style of the dwarf.

Also, Point, while it's nice to get more spells on the list, at most levels the classes you've named don't have enough spells known to pull it off. Did a bit of looking earlier, big winners for spell lists out of the prepared casters.

• Cleric
  • Non-nature Handling
  • Non-Forge Making
  • Non-Trickery Passage
  • Non-Trickery/Twilight Shadow
  • Non-Tempest Storm
• Druid
  • Detection
  • Hospitality
  • Making
  • Scribing
  • Sentinel
  • Shadow
  • Warding
• Wizard
  • Handling (Perfect +9!)
  • Healing (Perfect +9!)

Paladin's & artificer's being prepared casters helps quite a bit. I do agree that Rangers, Warlocks, and Sorcs do have to struggle a bit more though.

 

[Xenonnonex]

"It's ok to be rude if the other person doesn't do what I say!"

Or maybe...

"If I can prove my right, I can treat the other person as horribly as I want!"

Your definition of rude and horrible is completely out of whack with normal definitions. And reading into whatever you want to read into it so you can act all defensive is also out of whack. I would say shutting down all conversations over it in an abrupt manner is "rude and "horrible". But whatever. This sidenote is completely irrelevant.

 

[Space Jockey]

I was surprised at the depictions of guns (yeah I know, they’re really gun shaped wands) in some of the art, as well as the eldritch cannons and lighting rail. They seem a little more “mechanical” in aesthetic than’s the norm for the artwork.

Not that this is a complaint, mind you! In my Eberron, quite a few magitek can and do look more “mechanical”, and many (but not all) implements such as staffs, wands, etc. look very much like guns, rocket launchers, etc. but they’re just not called such in-game. In the same way that raptors aren’t called raptors...but they basically are.

 

[MNblockhead]

The same thing jumped out at me. On the one hand it seems to make sense. Guns developed the way they did to be comfortable and effective for five-fingered, bipedal humanoid. It would make some sense that devices with similar uses would develop some of the same forms even if they rely on magic more than physics.

On the other hand, if you could develop magic items that shoot magic missiles, throw fire, etc. you wouldn't need room for ammunition and you wouldn't need a trigger and hammer/pin mechanism.

For example, the magic pistol in shown in chapter one (character creation), I'm not sure why there is a trigger and hammer. You may not need a trigger at all if you can use command words, but I presume you would want a way to fire the device without saying anything. But there are so many other options for trigger design if you don't need to strike primer on a cartridge. Perhaps a real-world style trigger still makes sense because it is comfortable for firing with a finger, gives good tactile response so you can feel when it fires, and a trigger guard makes sense to avoid misfires, but there is no reason for developing a hammer. That is, unless, perhaps gunpowder weapons have been developed, so the magic versions keep the same form. Perhaps the hammer strikes some kind of reusable magical ward the makes the spell go off.

And this seems to be the case. If you look at the picture in the section on Goblinoids, you'll see a goblin holding a blunderbuss. It appears to be the mundane weapon, not magical.

But why a gun over a wand? Wands are smaller and lighter. They are far more concealable. Perhaps they are not as easy to aim. But with spells like magic missile, you don't have to aim.

Perhaps using gunpowder along with magic is more easily attainable and less expensive. The guns operate like pistols in the the real world with with some magic added to enhance the effects and protect against some of the malfunctions of purely mechanical devices. More powerful mechanical weapons like rifles, automatic weapons, and rocket launches might not be developed because at that level of expense, perhaps it is more cost effective to use higher-level magic.

I was surprised at the depictions of guns (yeah I know, they’re really gun shaped wands) in some of the art, as well as the eldritch cannons and lighting rail. They seem a little more “mechanical” in aesthetic than’s the norm for the artwork.

Not that this is a complaint, mind you! In my Eberron, quite a few magitek can and do look more “mechanical”, and many (but not all) implements such as staffs, wands, etc. look very much like guns, rocket launchers, etc. but they’re just not called such in-game. In the same way that raptors aren’t called raptors...but they basically are.

 

[Mercule]

Eberron is 100% part of The Great Wheel in 5E.
The gods are real. Make of that what you will.

Yeah... I've heard they added that. Also disappointing, IMO. D&D is a toolbox with a variety of settings, not a unified setting, in itself. Trying to say "everything connects" is a stupid mistake, IMO. It's not hard to house rule a crossover, but forcing "Star Trek and Star Wars are in the same universe" (essentially) into canon is silly.

But... I've had that conversation before. I know some folks strongly prefer D&D-as-a-setting. We're going to have to accept that we're different audiences because that's probably the top thing on my list of "it's not D&D if this happens", at least as a variant on any other "one setting becomes synonymous with D&D" scenario (whether that setting is FR, Greyhawk, Eberron, or Planescape).

 

[Coroc]

The same thing jumped out at me. On the one hand it seems to make sense. Guns developed the way they did to be comfortable and effective for five-fingered, bipedal humanoid. It would make some sense that devices with similar uses would develop some of the same forms even if they rely on magic more than physics.

On the other hand, if you could develop magic items that shoot magic missiles, throw fire, etc. you wouldn't need room for ammunition and you wouldn't need a trigger and hammer/pin mechanism.

For example, the magic pistol in shown in chapter one (character creation), I'm not sure why there is a trigger and hammer. You may not need a trigger at all if you can use command words, but I presume you would want a way to fire the device without saying anything. But there are so many other options for trigger design if you don't need to strike primer on a cartridge. Perhaps a real-world style trigger still makes sense because it is comfortable for firing with a finger, gives good tactile response so you can feel when it fires, and a trigger guard makes sense to avoid misfires, but there is no reason for developing a hammer. That is, unless, perhaps gunpowder weapons have been developed, so the magic versions keep the same form. Perhaps the hammer strikes some kind of reusable magical ward the makes the spell go off.

And this seems to be the case. If you look at the picture in the section on Goblinoids, you'll see a goblin holding a blunderbuss. It appears to be the mundane weapon, not magical.

But why a gun over a wand? Wands are smaller and lighter. They are far more concealable. Perhaps they are not as easy to aim. But with spells like magic missile, you don't have to aim.

Perhaps using gunpowder along with magic is more easily attainable and less expensive. The guns operate like pistols in the the real world with with some magic added to enhance the effects and protect against some of the malfunctions of purely mechanical devices. More powerful mechanical weapons like rifles, automatic weapons, and rocket launches might not be developed because at that level of expense, perhaps it is more cost effective to use higher-level magic.

Maybe it is a tinkergnome (Krynn) device