D&D General People who played Eberron in 3.5 and 5e and have stuck with one or the other, can you talk about your experiences?

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I have played in Eberron in 3.5, 4e and 5e and TBH, I think Eberron is flexible enough to work well in whatever system you're most comfortable running. For me, that's 5e/5.5. I think this is the best iteration of DnD rules, so I'd run Eberron using those rules.

Unless I find or homebrew a full Daggerheart conversion ... lol.
 

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I use elements of Eberron as part of my homebrew mashup setting and have in 3.5, Pathfinder 1e, and 5e.

I think 5e is a little better fit than 3.5 for some Eberron themes in a couple of ways.

5e has a couple advantages over 3.5 in doing pulp:

Broader skills with bounded accuracy and a minimum of four skills per character means it is easier for more PCs to do well at pulp action type things. As a DM I found 5e better than 3.5 for running an Indiana Jones style crazy action chase scene in my game.

For pulp action combat things 5e characters are more durable and resilient, they have the same hp as 3.5 but death saves instead of death at -10, healing back from 0 instead of negatives so a 1st level healing spell can always get downed characters back into the action, and more non magic healing to get back to full with short rest hit dice and long rest full heal.

5e combat dynamics is a little more pulp hero action than 3.5. In 5e you don't draw AoOs from charging into melee combat fists flying, only from leaving threatened spaces. You get full attacks even when moving so there is not the 3.5 advantage of drawing in a charging opponent who would only get one attack so you can retaliate with a full attack, just get in there in 5e when you decide you need to fight.

5e is designed for the noir anybody any alignment ethos more than 3.5 is out of the box. Monks don't need to be lawful, barbarians and bards can be lawful, there is also almost no mechanical impact of alignment in 5e. You could say everyone is actually neutral with shades of gray and 5e runs the same with no mechanical adjustments needed. I loved the 3.5 Eberron cleric setup of casters who could be any alignment and 5e core is closer to that than 3.5 core was. While the 5e PH does talk about the central importance of gods for clerics, the 5e DMG tells you that all that matters mechanically is their domain and it is up to the DM how they handle gods if at all and even the 5e PH has the Eberron philosophy clerics as a core sample pantheon.

The only new core class in 5e is warlocks, which were supplemental in 3.5 and are super easy to integrate into most every world. Swap out Rakshasa for fiend patrons and quori or daelkyr work well for great old one patrons.

The things I would expect some friction on would be Sarlona psionics stuff and possibly the handling of artificers. If you were really into the mechanics of their implementation in 3.5 then 5e's real simplified mechanics could be disappointing and a bit jarring. Mostly 5e psionics are just magic powers or spells with psionic flavor, not their own full on variant system with spellpoints and psionic focus and their own full classes the way 3.5's complete psionics was. For artificers the whole xp and gold for crafting system is gone so the 5e artificer class is mechanically different, a partial caster who makes a few item things, very much focused on the flavor of the class concept over the 3.5 mechanics. I've had a warforged artificer PC play in my 5e game and it went really well for us. I find them to have been an odd class in 3.5, 4e, and 5e, but mostly equally odd in each edition.
 

The things I would expect some friction on would be Sarlona psionics stuff and possibly the handling of artificers.
What about dragonmarks? I've only glanced at some of the 5E options for Eberron, but in 3.5 there were various gradations of dragonmarks (and, later on, gradations of aberrant dragonmarks), which 5E seems to have rolled back quite a bit.
 

What about dragonmarks? I've only glanced at some of the 5E options for Eberron, but in 3.5 there were various gradations of dragonmarks (and, later on, gradations of aberrant dragonmarks), which 5E seems to have rolled back quite a bit.
Haven't used them yet but, for 5.5, the feat chains (starting with origin feats at first level) seem to represent marks pretty well.
 

What about dragonmarks? I've only glanced at some of the 5E options for Eberron, but in 3.5 there were various gradations of dragonmarks (and, later on, gradations of aberrant dragonmarks), which 5E seems to have rolled back quite a bit.
Not a big area of interest for me so I am not the best to comment on them.

3.5 had feats and prestige classes.

I have not looked up the 4e implementation.

5e had variant racial subclasses with stuff added on as you levelled (spells known through 5th level).

5.5 has feat chains.

Most anymore specific I'd have to look up individual stuff.

I never thought the 3.5 dragonmarked feats were very good mechanically or would be that impactful on the world in a narrative sense compared to existing mechanics of class and item magic so I mostly ignored them after seeing their first implementation in 3.5. The Dragonmarked House themes and politics were the big deal for me. The dragonmark magic was an OK idea not very well mechanically implemented most anywhere IMO.
 

Per Voadam: good points. Although KB has said that the real power of the Dragonmarked Houses is based as much on providing services based on their mundane services, sociopolitical clout, & unique magic items as much as their spell-like abilities.
 

I am about 14 sessions into Dm'ing a 5.5 Eberron campaign. Eberron was my first setting to play in back in 3.5 so I like to think I have a decent sense of it.

Overall, if you are starting a campaign right now, I would suggest just going fully into 5.5, with the Core rulebooks, the combo of Rising from the Last War (For Setting info) and Forge of the Artificer (For Mechanics more setting info), plus Exploring Eberron 5.5 and Frontiers of Eberron (KB's two 5.5 books), you have all you need to have a robust campaign.

I do agree tho the current lack of a define psionics system is the only real pain point currently.
 

I've run multiple campaigns of both 3.5 and 5/5.5 Eberron. Everyone's points about 5/5.5 being easier to run and matching the pulpy/noir tone of Eberron is right. However, I still find myself using the 3.5 ECS for flavor and depth while using 5/5.5 for mechanics. My current campaign is in Eberron 5.0 with some 5.5 elements when we liked the changes better (mostly spell updates, the new Monk and Ranger classes, and the new Exhaustion rules). However since we started the campaign with 5.0 we are sticking with the dragonmarked houses as sub-species.

All that being said, you can't beat the 3.5 ECS for flavor, world-building, and lore. Of course Keith Baker's non-WotC Eberron supplements are also very lore and flavor heavy.

Edit: and yes, the lack of "real" psionics is a pain in the butt. There are plenty of psionic adversaries for the party (e.g., re-flavor the Ulmist Inquisitors from VRgtR and any Gith from the various monstrous manuals) but player facing psionic options are not very interesting.
 

If you want Psionic-like powers for 5e, there's the Korranberg Chronicles: Psion's Primer, which is basically a conversion for the Old 3.5 Psionics rules, with 3 Psionic classes (The Empath, Icon and Psion) and 3 Psionic subclasses: the Adamant Fighter, the Soulknife Monk, and the Lurk Rogue.

It also has some psionic races like the Blue Goblins and the Dromites, Feats and Psionic Monsters.
 

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