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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[Reynard]

Honestly as 5e has been maturing as a system while also reaching new audiences that don't know anything beyond the generic D&D fantasy of the FR products, I think what I might like to see them experiment with are "Starter Sets" that introduce new worlds to folks. Something like the Essentials Kit but instead of making it for core D&D make it for Dark Sun or Planescape (or maybe even Ravenloft). Combine that with a sourcebook that is a follow on purchase for folks who enjoy the "Starter Set" in that setting and I think there's a model there that could work.

I think one thing that newer players have is a feeling of freedom in genre. A lot of streams eschew the purely medieval fantasy themes of D&D and freely mix in anachronisms, supertech and other weird fantasy elements. Ironically, these were all present at the dawn of the hobby but were kind of suppressed in official D&D products for a long time, or at least sequestered in their own settings. In this way, I think Eberron is actually a better introduction to D&D than Forgotten Realms. It would be very cool to see an Eberron Starter Set, or a Planejammer* starter set when the time comes.

*I still think they are going to mash these into one setting.

 

[vivsavage]

Have they decided to stick with the cover shown in the article? I thought WOTC had said it was just a placeholder, but the description on the WOTC website makes it sound like this is indeed the actual cover art.

 

[gyor]

Now we need something like this for Dark Sun!

Now we need something like this for the Forgotten Realms.

 

[Parmandur]

Now we need something like this for the Forgotten Realms.

By 2030, probably.

 

[Reynard]

Now we need something like this for the Forgotten Realms.

I would guess that is pretty far down the list, considering it would amount to collecting a lot of information already presented in the big adventures. That said, there's probably room for a "Heartland" setting since so far the adventures have focused largely on the Swordcoast.

 

[Parmandur]

I would guess that is pretty far down the list, considering it would amount to collecting a lot of information already presented in the big adventures. That said, there's probably room for a "Heartland" setting since so far the adventures have focused largely on the Swordcoast.

With the Gazeeter material in the adventure books, the Realms is getting waaaay more attention than any other setting.

 

[Parmandur]

Consider this: the pure Gazeeter section about Baldur's Gate n the next book is 50 pages long.

That's 50 pages for one city state, on a giant coast filed with city states. I think it is safe to bet that the next AP will highlight some section of the Realms in a similar manner: I'm guessing Icewind Dale.

 

[Bolares]

There is a book entirely for Chult, one for the Underdark, one for Baldur's Gate, one for Waterdeep, one for Undermountain, one for the Sword Coast... sure, FR is really suffering for material hahahah

 

[Urriak Uruk]

There is a book entirely for Chult, one for the Underdark, one for Baldur's Gate, one for Waterdeep, one for Undermountain, one for the Sword Coast... sure, FR is really suffering for material hahahah

Two for the Sword Coast, if you include Storm King's Thunder.

 

[R_J_K75]

Honestly as 5e has been maturing as a system while also reaching new audiences that don't know anything beyond the generic D&D fantasy of the FR products, I think what I might like to see them experiment with are "Starter Sets" that introduce new worlds to folks. Something like the Essentials Kit but instead of making it for core D&D make it for Dark Sun or Planescape (or maybe even Ravenloft). Combine that with a sourcebook that is a follow on purchase for folks who enjoy the "Starter Set" in that setting and I think there's a model there that could work.

I dont think the more cerebral campaign settings would serve well or be served well in a starter set. Youre either in or you are out on those. When I say cerebral I mean it takes more than the casual player to pull off a campaign in those settings like Planescape, Ravenloft, Darksun, Spelljammer and Tales of the Comet. As far as WotC is concerned every campaign setting that we want converted to 5E is a legacy setting so its gonna take a hefty page page count to translate in one book. But you may have a point that the starter campaign settings might be a good way to go. I often forget that thankfully there is a younger generation of gamers that arent familiar with some settings so testing the waters with a $20 product might work. Might actually be nice to see them do a whole year of that.