D&D General Let's Talk About Eberron

[hbarsquared]

Nearly every Eberron adventure in Dungeon is top notch. Steel Shadows was mentioned. I also recommend:

• Chimes at Midnight trilogy
• Murder in Oakbridge
• Riding the Rail
• The Aundarian Job

Any of the 3.5 books are great sources of information. Reading through the original 3.5 Campaign Setting and the 4E Campaign/Players Guides would also not be a waste. Although 5e’s Rising has some great stuff, the other setting books are far better written.

 

[Zaukrie]

All dungeon magazines are online. I know wotc mentioned it once, do it must be ok......

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I have often considered picking up both Lairs and Prepared to have on hand. Perhaps I should finally do that.



Maybe I was unclear -- I DO NOT want an AP, but am interested in some of the stand alone Eberron adventures (even from previous editions).

The starter adventure from the 4e books is still my favorite way to introduce players to Eberron. I always put my own spin on things, of course, and in my current campaign, the noble you save in the tower is now a long-term ally and patron of the heroes, and kind of a funny recurring character. The PCs joke about his many wands and magic tricks, and try to guess just what class he even is, as he is a bit of a dilettante with bits that speak of ranger, rogue, bard, and even artificer. He also arranged for them to get a spacious townhouse after they saved a good chunk of Sharn from blowing up, and payed for a Medusa architect to gut and redesign the place to their specs.

Anyway, I ran the into adventure as is, just winging the stat differences from 4e to 5e, though I did start the campaign at level 3.

 

[Tallifer]

My advice: Eberron is more about the setting, themes and setup than the mechanics. It was designed to be run at one point in time - which is the same point in time for both the original release and the current release. If I were you, I'd pick up the old materials from the prior edition. It is the best way to get to know Eberron and really play a 'true to setting' game. While you can put your own spin on it, the spin that they built into it is pretty incredible to explore.

Forsooth. I love the old 3.5 books about Sharn, Sarlona etc. and of course I use the 4E stuff since I run that. 5E also has some nice lore and ideas.

But then I stir into the pot Pellucidar, Oz, He-Man, Power Rangers, Narnia, Wonderland, Barsoom, Moorcock. Whoviana and Tolkien.

 

[Reynard]

I am reading through Rising from the Last War and I am kind of surprised at how thinly sketched out most of the setting is. It hits the major points for the Five Nations and such, but not much more. I feel like the 3e CS was a much deeper dive. (I have never looked at the 4e one.)

Obviously there is a lot of material available from 3e and I own most of it in PDF (and still have my CS in hard copy). Is there anything major to look out for that has been changed or retconned between 3e and 5e? Like, the players won't likely know or care but I would like to use RftLW as my foundation and I don't want to go research something more deeply from 3e only to realize it doesn't fit.

Also -- What Eberron DMs Guild products would you say are "must have"?

 

[PsyzhranV2]

Obviously there is a lot of material available from 3e and I own most of it in PDF (and still have my CS in hard copy). Is there anything major to look out for that has been changed or retconned between 3e and 5e? Like, the players won't likely know or care but I would like to use RftLW as my foundation and I don't want to go research something more deeply from 3e only to realize it doesn't fit.

From what I know, the biggest thing change new to 5e would the political environment in the Mror Holds. In 3e and 4e, there wasn't much going in the Mror Holds outside of the usual politicking. There was the ancestral kingdom of the dwarves deep below the surface to explore, but there wasn't much of anything down there. So if your party wasn't interesting in dwarvish politics or in dungeon diving, there wasn't that much reason to pay attention to the Mror Holds.

In 5e, that ancestral home, now known as the "Realm Below", is now a battlefield. Instead of empty ruins of a long dead dwarvish civilization, it is now an alien world inhabited by the Daelkyr and their abberations that laid low the forebears of the Mror dwarves. The dwarvish clans are reacting to the Daelkyr threat in different ways; while they all want to keep the Daelkyr contained below the surface, there is much argument on whether to purge every aspect of their corruption from the world or to research and reverse-engineer it, to turn their own power against them.

Adventuring teams that choose into explore the Realm Below now have the much more immediate and obvious goal of holding back the Daelkyr and possibly recovering their symbiont technology, as opposed to the vague goal of unearthing ancient dwarvish relics. Not to say that adventurer's don't find dwarvish heirlooms and treasure in the Realm Below; they still do, but that's not the only reason why they're there anymore.

Of course, if your table never goes to the Mror Holds or otherwise engages with the Daelkyr, that might not be that big a change for your group.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I am reading through Rising from the Last War and I am kind of surprised at how thinly sketched out most of the setting is. It hits the major points for the Five Nations and such, but not much more. I feel like the 3e CS was a much deeper dive. (I have never looked at the 4e one.)

Obviously there is a lot of material available from 3e and I own most of it in PDF (and still have my CS in hard copy). Is there anything major to look out for that has been changed or retconned between 3e and 5e? Like, the players won't likely know or care but I would like to use RftLW as my foundation and I don't want to go research something more deeply from 3e only to realize it doesn't fit.

Also -- What Eberron DMs Guild products would you say are "must have"?

The upcoming Exploring Eberron by Kieth Baker is kinda the ultimate must have.

 

[briggart]

I haven't seen this mentioned, but I definitely enjoy Manifest Zone podcast, by Keith Baker and others. It's more focused on Eberron lore in general, with typical episodes being ~1hour on a specific topic like Elves or The Treaty of Thronehold, rather than specific advice on how to DM an Eberron campaign, but to me has been a great source of inspiration.

 

[ChaosOS]

I am reading through Rising from the Last War and I am kind of surprised at how thinly sketched out most of the setting is. It hits the major points for the Five Nations and such, but not much more. I feel like the 3e CS was a much deeper dive. (I have never looked at the 4e one.)

Obviously there is a lot of material available from 3e and I own most of it in PDF (and still have my CS in hard copy). Is there anything major to look out for that has been changed or retconned between 3e and 5e? Like, the players won't likely know or care but I would like to use RftLW as my foundation and I don't want to go research something more deeply from 3e only to realize it doesn't fit.

Also -- What Eberron DMs Guild products would you say are "must have"?

Keith is on record for saying he felt the 4e Eberron Campaign Guide was closer to his vision in conveying the tone of the setting. 4e introduced a number of villainous Vadalis hooks, a few of which made it into Rising but not most of them. The section on the Houses in the ECG also added a few new guilds and was overall much better presented.

While the ECG did try to rework the planes to fit the World Axis, something worth keeping are the Feyspires, which are still on the map in Rising and are home to the Eladrin. The Fey Spires used to float between Thelanis and the material, but ever since the Day of Mourning they've been stuck. Also, 4e established that the elves came from Eladrin and we're transformed by the Giants.

The last big thing in 4e was the carve out for Dragonborn and Tieflings. Dragonborn are predominantly found in Q'barra, adding to the number of scaled races, while Tieflings are "planetouched" and represent people influenced by the planes. There's also some "traditional" Tieflings in the Venemous Demesne in Droaam, where the noble families are from Ohr Kaluun and made pacts with fiends long ago.

As for dmsguild supplements I'm going to suggest the Eberronicon: A Pocket Guide to the World - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Definitely listen to Manifest Zone! It’s made me a better Eberron DM, with insights into the nature’s of things that otherwise I’d have largely left untouched, and it’s just a great podcast.