D&D 5E Exploring Eberron: Now Available!

Eberron creator Keith Baker’s Exploring Eberron, with new races, subclasses, monsters, and tons of setting information is now available in PDF format!

Also, Keith will be on the Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk podcast in a couple of weeks with a great competition to give away three hardcovers! Be sure to brush up on your Eberron lore!

Discover Uncharted Depths

Join Eberron setting creator Keith Baker in this tour through the lands, oceans, and planes of Eberron. Exploring Eberron presents Keith's vision of Eberron like never before, with fresh lore and rich illustrations to bring the setting to life.

In this book, Keith takes players and Dungeon masters on a thrilling dive into Eberron and its thirteen planes. Encounter the monstrous folk of Droaam, the goblinoid Heirs of Dhakaan, the Mror dwarves and their Realm Below, and the sahuagin and merfolk dwelling beneath the waves. Embrace faiths of altruism, pragmatism, and darkness. Browse Dolurrh's Vault of Memories, seek the Amaranthine Cities of Irian and Mabar, meditate with the Gith monks of Kythri, and much more.

The adventure won't be easy! Mighty friends and foes await - from legendary archfey and proud sahuagin to nightmarish quori and alien daelkyr. Eberron is a world in need of heroes, but take heart: between these pages lie a host of player options for would-be heroes to enjoy. You'll discover new archetypes for the artificer, cleric, druid, monk, and bard. Play unique Eberron races and subraces including gnolls, Dhakaani goblinoids, aasimar of diverse faiths, and ruinbound dwarves. Uncover a wealth of magic items from around the world, bear symbionts that bond with your very flesh, wield dragonmark focus items - perhaps even manifest a Siberys dragonmark of immense power.

FAQ
New FAQ by Keith on his blog

Q: What is Exploring Eberron?

A: Exploring Eberron (ExE) is a 248 page book written by Keith Baker stuffed with new lore, giving depth to topics such as the dwarves of the Mror Holds and the 13 planes.

Production
Q: Where will ExE be sold? What formats? When will it be available?

A: ExE is available exclusively on the dmsguild in hardcover and pdf

Q: Will ExE be available on DnDBeyond?

A: Without the intervention of Wizards of the Coast, the dmsguild has the sole licensing rights to third party Eberron content. If you're upset about this, tweet at them

Q: Did I miss out on a kickstarter or something? Are there preorders?

A: The dmsguild does not allow kickstarted products nor does it have the infrastructure for preorders.

Q: Didn't I hear about this book months ago? What happened?

A: Uh, life happened. Exploring Eberron ran into a variety of production issues, as detailed here and here. A combination of personal issues in Keith's life, prioritizing more urgent projects like the Adventure Zone card game, and COVID have delayed the book significantly.

Content
Q: What's in the book?

A: You can check out the table of contents, a scroll-through preview by Sly Flourish, and a variety of previews from the book's production. The first 200 pages are dedicated almost exclusively to new lore, then chapters 6, 7, and 8 provide new mechanical content for both players and DMs.

Q: There's mechanical content? Is it balanced?

A: The production team has had an extensive team of playtesters review the material on a variety of metrics, including balance.

If you want to know more about Eberron, please check out /r/Eberron, the discord, Keith's blog, and the Manifest Zone podcast. There's even a brand new episode dedicated to the book!

Reviews

Sly Flourish
Todd Talks
Merric's Musings: Part 1
All Things Lich
Dungeon Mapster of None
The Mania
411 Mania
The Tome Show
Total Party Thrill

 

[Hellcow]

My players could’ve ventured into Mabar some time ago. I was planning on using something like halved healing and the HD only long rest healing that Risia has. I just don’t think the binary ”protection or die” mechanic works well in play.

I understand your perspective and I respect it. However, how do you handle the comparison to aquatic adventuring? If you are going to go to a sahuagin city a thousand feet below the surface, the situation is the same: you have protection or you die. Again, why should Mabar -- the deadliest place in existence -- be safer than that? Going to the heart of Mabar is like walking into a black hole; there shouldn't BE any more dangerous place in existence.

And as I said before, the fact that it IS so dangerous is the reason it has the Hinterlands -- so you CAN have an adventure in Mabar without that absolute risk. But it's not supposed to be safe for mortals in the Amaranthine City.

 

[ChaosOS]

Hey Keith the least you could do is plug yourself

 

[Teemu]

I understand your perspective and I respect it. However, how do you handle the comparison to aquatic adventuring? If you are going to go to a sahuagin city a thousand feet below the surface, the situation is the same: you have protection or you die. Again, why should Mabar -- the deadliest place in existence -- be safer than that? Going to the heart of Mabar is like walking into a black hole; there shouldn't BE any more dangerous place in existence.

And as I said before, the fact that it IS so dangerous is the reason it has the Hinterlands -- so you CAN have an adventure in Mabar without that absolute risk. But it's not supposed to be safe for mortals in the Amaranthine City.

But techincally Fernia and Risia are safer than going underwater too. Just because it’s the plane of Death doesn’t mean it has to kill you within minutes. Why can’t it kill you within days instead? That way you allow for counterplay from the players. Maybe they find something to protect them, or even that they get to rest and prepare protection magic.

I would give the players permanent and non-spell underwater survival if they went deep down underwater. And/or there should be a safe haven in the destination where they can survive without protection.

I get it that it sounds logical that the planar manifestation of Death should kill living creatures, but I just don’t think the rules in the book create a fun play experience at the table.

Edit: I would use something like the published Mabar traits in a specifically deadly location within the plane, rather than having them dominate most of it.

 

[Bolares]

Well, "fun play experience" is rather subjective....

 

[EscherEnigma]

Yes... now I just gotta wait a month for the physical copy. Gamebooks just aren't one of the things I'm happy reading digitally.

 

[Hellcow]

I would give the players permanent and non-spell underwater survival if they went deep down underwater. And/or there should be a safe haven in the destination where they can survive without protection.

Certainly, and I'd do both those things if I was going to have an adventure in Mabar. I'd never send a group of adventures into Mabar if their only method of survival was casting death ward, any more than I'd send them to a major adventure in a sahuagin capital with only a single character casting water breathing. As ChaosOS mentioned, a ring of resistance gives you ongoing protection; and again, if I have adventurers going to the heart of Mabar I might have them have a blessing from one of the Architects of Irian or a similar effect that makes it POSSIBLE for them to go to this incredibly deadly environment without risk. The Hinterlands ARE a safe haven in the destination... but there's also nothing that prevents the Empress of Shadows from having a building in the Amaranthine City shielded with death ward precisely to provide that safe haven when she wants to talk to mortals.

It doesn't seem like we're going to see eye to eye on this, and that's fine. To me the core is that I'd never SEND adventurers to Mabar unless I was also providing them with protection; the fact that they have that protection and thus are SAFE from the deadly environment doesn't change the idea it would kill any normal mortal who found themselves there... unless, again, they went to the Hinterlands, which is why Mabar has the Hinterlands.

 

[Bolares]

Having one place in the universe being the most deadly place of all, where I can die in minutes if I do not prepare, but for some reason need to go to sounds like a really fun premisse. Reminds me of Mass Effect 2's suicide mission. i love this kind of stories.

And that's what Eberron is all bout, providing a lot of different scenariosto apply to many different tastes and storytelling styles. It'sokay if the rules for Mabar are no what you want in your game, but for mine, they sound really cool.

 

[Weiley31]

The Hinterlands sound good, I didn’t get the chance to read that section.

The issue I find with the continuous necrotic damage is that it makes much of the plane ridiculously hostile. It’s hard to use in a game with such rules. What if your protection is dispelled, and no one can cast the spell again? And the inhibited spells create a lot of extra rolling because you don’t lose the slot—there’s no reason not to keep trying out of combat, again and again. It’s clumsy design.

The undead extra hp also work wonkily. A CR 13 vampire has more HD than some undead creatures with a higher CR. 5e monsters aren’t built with the assumption that more HD automatically means a higher CR. Plus, 5e monsters are already bags of hp, it feels off to make that worse in a specific plane.

The notion that (almost) an entire plane kills you without specific protections is something that reads well but plays poorly, in my experience. I just don’t think players find it fun to go up against such binary-style challenge (have X or die).

Honestly I missed the whole "Negative/Positive Plane is bad for you" thing 3.5 had so I"m kinda glad this is basically the 5E take on the concept. Annoying yes, but you can form a quest outta the notion that the heroes must chase the BBEG into the heart of the plane, but have to craft or seek out items to help protect themselves from the hostile environment.

 

[Reynard]

Honestly I missed the whole "Negative/Positive Plane is bad for you" thing 3.5 had so I"m kinda glad this is basically the 5E take on the concept. Annoying yes, but you can form a quest outta the notion that the heroes must chase the BBEG into the heart of the plane, but have to craft or seek out items to help protect themselves from the hostile environment.

I think it brings up something really interesting: Eberron has 3.5 in its DNA. The original ECS and supplements really leaned into the system and made solid use of feats, prestige classes, monster templates and other fundamentally 3.5-ish systems. Although I understand the complaints about 3.x era games, including Pathfinder, and myself prefer 5Es lighter approach overall, I often feel like there's something "missing" from 5E Eberron, mechanically speaking.

 

[Bolares]

okay.. the book is already an electrum best seller! Congrats to Keith and the team!