D&D 5E New Eberron Book Details From WotC

WotC’s Jeremy Crawford appeared on Twitch last night with Bart Carroll, discussing the upcoming D&D setting book Eberron: Rising from the Last War. Lots of details within!

- Overview of Eberron, emphasized potentials for adventure and post-WWI pulp style of setting.

- Dragonmarked Houses as fantasy Corporations, playable Dragonmarked characters as race rules in the book

- Rules and stories for playing, Warforged, Changlings, Kalsthar, Shifters, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Bugbears, Orcs. Playable Orc is different fro mthe Volo's Guide rules to reflect the different story (no intelligence malus, few other tweaks, still usable for other worlds, these are PC Orcs as opposed to Monster Manual Orcs like Volo's).

- Full rules for the Artificer, including a new feature in this book for making Common and Uncommon magic items

- Aberrant Dragonmark Feats are in the book

- Group patron rules for organizations the late 19th-early 20th century style: newspapers, criminal syndicates, universities, spy rings: fourth choice after Race-Class-Background that the party makes together, has new fluff background features to give characters and adventure hooks

- Possibility of the party becoming their own patron, example being creating your own Crime Syndicate

- All of the above is Chapter 1 material

- Chapter 2 is a Gazeeter of Korvaire and the world: delves into great nations, the religions, touches on otehr continents

- Chapter 3 is a zoom in on Sharn, a microcosm of the setting, great place for Noir intrigue

- Chapter 4 is a 100 page adventure creation toolkit comparable to Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica: wealth of adventure building tables, maps, organization information, first level adventure set in Sharn. Reveals brand new information about the Mournland, for instance, during the war they created not just regular Warforged and Warforged Titans but also Warforged Colossi the size of skyscrapers: one of the maps is of a fallen Warfored Colossi as a dungeon @doctorbadwolf

- Section in "massive" chapter for creating adventures about Eberron's cosmology, and how it relates to Great Wheel multiverse, left to DM to decide how sealed off Eberron is by the Progenitor Dragons

- There are extended magical item economy rules in chapter 5, Common magical items are plentiful: buying, selling, crafting rules and price lists.

- Eberron specific monsters and NPCs in the sixth and final chapter, covering things like Daelkyr, Living Spells (3 different Living Spells in the book including Living Cloud Kill, and a template for making more) and various specific NPCs

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[Bolares]

I'd say 5E's whole approach to any sort of "Canon" is a funny mixture of 2E ("It's All Connected") with Bakerian Eberron circa 3.5 ("Here Are Some Options, Make What You Want").

My perception is that ntentionally or not 5e follows A LOT of the "Bakerian Eberron circa 3.5" (loved this description) design philosophy. Alignment takes a back seat, ideas are presented as options not facts, and the list goes on...

 

[Bolares]

No, it doesn't. It states that if one were to want to connect the Eberron cosmology to the wider multiverse, one could use the Deep Ethereal (whatever that is) NOT that that's the default.

The Wayfinder's Guide goes out of it's way to remind you that Eberron can indeed exist on its own, separate from the wider D&D canon. It's only Mordenkainen's that messes with that. We can only wait and see how the new ECS treats the subject.

I've quoted the text that unequivocally says, Eberron IS a part of the multiverse...Then it gives a lot of insight in how to handle it and what to do either if you want the connection between planes to be easy or impossible.

 

[Reynard]

My perception is that ntentionally or not 5e follows A LOT of the "Bakerian Eberron circa 3.5" (loved this description) design philosophy. Alignment takes a back seat, ideas are presented as options not facts, and the list goes on...

Well, that's true in the Wayfinder's Guide buy Baker was a big contributor in that. I am.not so sure how involved he is in the new book.

For my own part, on listening to a bunch of the Manifest Zone podcast, I realized I actually prefer WotC Eberron to Baker Eberron, at least in the 3E era. I chalk that up to the Slavicsec influence though, since he is one of my favorite designers back to the WEG Star Wars era.

 

[Bolares]

Well, that's true in the Wayfinder's Guide buy Baker was a big contributor in that. I am.not so sure how involved he is in the new book.

For my own part, on listening to a bunch of the Manifest Zone podcast, I realized I actually prefer WotC Eberron to Baker Eberron, at least in the 3E era. I chalk that up to the Slavicsec influence though, since he is one of my favorite designers back to the WEG Star Wars era.

He's saying that he's working on this book for a year... And most o Wayfinder's will be on the new book, possibly this part too, but we can never now for sure until november. All the assumptions here are based on the latest Eberron book, and will chnge if Rising says something different.

About your preference, well, it's different then mine but equally viable, and I believe the book will still support it if they don't screw it up majorly.

PS: Crawford, Mearls and Welch were all aditional designers for wayfinder's, that's one of the reasons I believe the new book won't do any dramatic changes to what was defined in WGtE.

 

[Reynard]

He's saying that he's working on this book for a year... And most o Wayfinder's will be on the new book, possibly this part too, but we can never now for sure until november. All the assumptions here are based on the latest Eberron book, and will chnge if Rising says something different.

About your preference, well, it's different then mine but equally viable, and I believe the book will still support it if they don't screw it up majorly.

PS: Crawford, Mearls and Welch were all aditional designers for wayfinder's, that's one of the reasons I believe the new book won't do any dramatic changes to what was defined in WGtE.

 

[Reynard]

Sorry. Stupid phone.

Anyway, all I wanted to say was I don't see much value for the design team to try and shoehorn Eberron into the broad cosmology and we probably won't see more than a few sidebars and maybe a page or so in the Eberron DM section. It just isn't important enough.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

Well, that's true in the Wayfinder's Guide buy Baker was a big contributor in that. I am.not so sure how involved he is in the new book.

For my own part, on listening to a bunch of the Manifest Zone podcast, I realized I actually prefer WotC Eberron to Baker Eberron, at least in the 3E era. I chalk that up to the Slavicsec influence though, since he is one of my favorite designers back to the WEG Star Wars era.

Can you highlight what about the published Eberron vs Keith's interpretation of it (or Canon vs Kanon as some of us call it) you prefer? I haven't caught up on Manifest Zone, so you sharing your thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[Arnwolf666]

Maybe those giants on Eberron made the elves
Of Eberron from elves they kidnapped from Cornellon. And the elves of Eberron don’t know there true history. Most real history is like that. Lots of misinformation that shape a culture.

I believe the people in Eberron believe their cosmology. Or at least the scholars that study it. But like earth history our beliefs about cosmology change alot. The scholars who write it probaly believe it.


I like how planescape was written. It all “according to some berk, but who really knows”

Planescape left their own cosmological structure as just a model that works for now. It may be wrong. It may be right.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Maybe those giants on Eberron made the elves
Of Eberron from elves they kidnapped from Cornellon.

That is one possibility, assuming one can reach Thelanis from The Feywild, and thus the Eladrin of Eberron are descended from the Eladrin elsewhere.

I prefer totally separate universes in a proper “many universes” multiverse, personally, but that could work too.

 

[Arnwolf666]

That is one possibility, assuming one can reach Thelanis from The Feywild, and thus the Eladrin of Eberron are descended from the Eladrin elsewhere.

I prefer totally separate universes in a proper “many universes” multiverse, personally, but that could work too.

I really don’t think it matters except to a few of us. But it’s fun to play with and I don’t use any published cosmology. Yet my mystara, oerth, homebrew, keynote, and forgotten realms played well. And only maybe 5% of players that played with me took any interests in the planar structure. All they knew was the spell or gate took me from point a to point b. Or maybe this spell says it draws power from this plane. Maybe the spell lied where it drawed it’s power from.