D&D 5E Running Eberron in 5e

[Gradine]

Alternate title: "How good DMs run Eberron in 5e"

Since we just got a full Artificer write-up (albeit one that has... debatably questionable ties to the original class and setting) I figured it might be a good time to talk about the myriad ways everyone is adapting the setting to 5e while waiting for an official ECS 5.0 that will likely never, ever, come.

I should note that my daughter is a little less than 3 months younger than 5th edition D&D, so I've run maybe a handful of sessions of 5e Eberron, so I can't say I've playtested, well, any of the things here. This is more of a "I haven't done, but if I did it here's how I would do it" take on 5e Eberron. But I'm definitely interested in how other people are adapting Eberron as well!

Races
There was that UA article with three of the four new races that was... underwhelming, to say the least (well actually, I liked the work they put into Shifters at least). Before that came out I made my own attempt at homebrewing the races. I can't say whether these are well balanced or not; at least they have the full +2/+1 ability bonuses.

Changeling

+2 Charisma, +1 Dexterity
Minor Shapechange - As an action you may change your appearance to that of any medium-sized humanoid of your choice. This change affects both your change and your voice. This is an actual physical change and not just an illusion, so effects that pierce illusion will not reveal your true form. Effects that grant true seeing do reveal your true form, however. You may end this effect at any time without an action.
Inscrutable Mind - You have advantage on all saving throw rolls against effects that charm or attempt to read your mind.
Many-Faced Liar - You gain proficiency in the Deception skill and the Disguise kit.

Kalasthar

+2 Wisdom, +1 Charisma
Segregate Mind - As an action on your turn you may end one effect that has you charmed or stunned.
Peerless Insight - You gain proficiency in the Insight skill.
Mindlink: Your quori spirit gives you limited, short range telepathy. As an action on your turn you can establish a telepathic link with one willing creature within 30 feet. The link allows communication both ways, and you and the subject can understand each other even if you do not share a language. If the subject does not understand any language the Mindlink fails to allow any sort of meaningful communication.


Shifter

+1 Wisdom
Shifting - Shifters gain the ability to shift, tapping into the bestial nature of their ancestry. On your turn you can shift as a bonus action. When you first shift, you gain temporary hit points equal to half of your level, rounded up. You also gain additional benefits while shifting based on your subrace. You may remain shifted for as long as a minute, but you may end your shifting on your turn as a bonus action. At first level, you may shift 2 times before being unable to shift again. You gain additional uses of your shifting ability at 5th and 11th levels. You regain all uses of your shifting whenever you take a long rest.
Low-Light Vision
Animalistic Heritage- You gain proficiency in the Athletics skill.

Longtooth Shifter

+2 Dexterity

35 Speed
Catlike Grace- While shifting, you gain advantage on all Athletics and Acrobatics rolls required to move through natural terrain (such as climbing a tree, or maintaining your balance on a log bridge), and you ignore difficult terrain caused by non-magical natural phenomena.
Pounce- While shifting, when you use the Dash action, you may use a bonus action to make one melee attack.
Recoil- While shifting, you may use a bonus action to Disengage.

Razorclaw Shifter

+2 Strength
Claws- While shifting, your hands turn into a pair of razor-sharp claws. These claws can be used to make unarmed strikes as long as they are empty. They deal a d6 of slashing damage and you are treated as being proficient with them.
Rend- While shifting, when you use the Attack action with an unarmed strike using your claw, you can make one unarmed strike as a bonus action with your offhand claw. Both of your hands must be empty to use this feature.
Scent- You gain advantage on all ability checks made to track a quarry through a natural wilderness. You also gain advantage on Perception rolls opposed against Stealth checks.

Warforged

Constitution +2, Strength +1
Living Construct- Even though you were constructed, you are a humanoid. You are immune to disease. You do not need to breathe, eat or drink, but you can ingest food or drink if you wish.
Unsleeping Sentinel- Warforged don't need to sleep. Instead, they settle into a resting state, remaining semiconscious for 4 hours each day. While in this rest state, you are fully aware of your surroundings. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep.

Construct Resistances- You have advantage on saving throws against poison. In addition, you have advantage on Strength saving throws against effects that force your movement.
Warforged Resilience- Any time you spend Hit Dice during a short rest to regain hit points, you may roll an additional hit die and add the amount rolled to the total hit points recovered. You may only regain additional hit dice in this manner twice between long rests.

Self-Stabilizing- You have advantage on death saving throws.
Composite Plating- Though you skin is made of metal or wood, you still feel the full effects of the blows you take. During a short rest you may bond with any suit of armor to increase your protection. You may remove any suit of armor you are bonded with during a short rest as well.


Dragonmarks
The UA Eberron article had a pretty good breakdown of what spells could be conferred by which Dragonmark, but it makes the classic mistake of thinking that those spells are the most important (or only) thing about them. In Keith's Bakers own words, those SLA's were meant to be the least important benefit of a Dragonmark. The most important features were the skill bonuses and ability to use Dragonmark focus magic items. So Dragonmarks also confer proficiency (or expertise) in a specific skill or tool (hadn't worked out specifically which ones, but they're mostly pretty easy to suss out). And there are Dragonmark focus items that you can only use and/or attune to if you have the required level of mark (such as sending stones or elemental steering wheels).

One might say that's all a bit much for a feat. One would be correct. I've never liked the use of the feat mechanic for Dragonmarks, which is why I would use a different mechanic, helpfully provided by the DMG: Blessings & Charms. For the price of a permanent attunement slot (which could double-up with a Dragonmark focus item), one would gain all the benefits of the Least Dragonmark, which may or may not grow over the course of one's life.

One might consider this Dragonmarks by DM fiat. One would again be correct. But of course I would, as a DM, work with players who are interested in having their PC's develop marks. I mean, if someone hands me a character sheet and their name is Fred d'Cannith, I assume they're probably expecting (or intending) to develop a Mark of Making at some point in their adventuring career. I simply get to choose the time and manner in which it manifests (and, potentially, grows), which feels, to me, more organic and natural to the setting.

One might assume from all this that this also means that aberrant dragonmarks are also doled out by DM fiat. Yes. Yes they are.

This may seem a bit unfair to the non-dragonmarked PCs, but I would try to ensure that any use of Blessings/Charms would be doled out somewhat evenly. Also, there are many many disadvantages to being an adventurer and also a member of a dragonmarked house (or possessing an aberrant mark, for that matter).

Artificer
The UA Artificer (the new one, not the horrible old one), or at the least the gunsmith half, works decently enough if you re-fluff the gun as a wand. I don't know, even in 3.5 my campaigns tended to not feature Artificers because I hated the magic item creation rules and my players hated the magic item creation rules. I've never felt like I've needed them. But they're there, if you know, somebody wanted to play one. But, heresy as it may seem, Artificer adventurers have never really been an integral part in my personal Eberron.

Action Points
The DMG has these. Well, Hero Points. Whatever. They work fine, really.

Adventure Conversions
When digging through my old Google Drive documents I found this conversion guide I wrote up for Hoard of the Dragon Queen (I re-named it Hoard of the Cold Sun). I can't imagine ever actually running it or why anyone else would want to, for that matter, but here it is, for posterity if nothing else, if anyone's interested.
Hoard of the Cold Sun - Eberron Conversion Guide
I had intended to do one for Rise of Tiamat also but then I never ended up getting that one until much later when it seemed pointless to even attempt it. But I figured if I ever got to DM again I'd still want to DM in Eberron, and I probably wouldn't have time to come up with too much of my own material anymore, so that was the idea behind that.

Backgrounds
I had some ideas for Eberron-specific backgrounds, but then I learned that writing a full background is a crapton of work and never fleshed any of them out. But here was the list I started:
Cultist
Cyran Avenger
Dragonmarked Scion
Extreme Explorer
Inquisitive
Prospector
Towerborn
Which looking at it now seems remarkably small.

Anyway, that's my 5e Eberron. What's yours like?

 

[Jester David]

Dragonmarks
The UA Eberron article had a pretty good breakdown of what spells could be conferred by which Dragonmark, but it makes the classic mistake of thinking that those spells are the most important (or only) thing about them. In Keith's Bakers own words, those SLA's were meant to be the least important benefit of a Dragonmark. The most important features were the skill bonuses and ability to use Dragonmark focus magic items. So Dragonmarks also confer proficiency (or expertise) in a specific skill or tool (hadn't worked out specifically which ones, but they're mostly pretty easy to suss out). And there are Dragonmark focus items that you can only use and/or attune to if you have the required level of mark (such as sending stones or elemental steering wheels).

One might say that's all a bit much for a feat. One would be correct. I've never liked the use of the feat mechanic for Dragonmarks, which is why I would use a different mechanic, helpfully provided by the DMG: Blessings & Charms. For the price of a permanent attunement slot (which could double-up with a Dragonmark focus item), one would gain all the benefits of the Least Dragonmark, which may or may not grow over the course of one's life.

One might consider this Dragonmarks by DM fiat. One would again be correct. But of course I would, as a DM, work with players who are interested in having their PC's develop marks. I mean, if someone hands me a character sheet and their name is Fred d'Cannith, I assume they're probably expecting (or intending) to develop a Mark of Making at some point in their adventuring career. I simply get to choose the time and manner in which it manifests (and, potentially, grows), which feels, to me, more organic and natural to the setting.

I did a book on Spellscars for the DMsGuild, where I subtly updated Dragonmarks as well, and that's the method I used, having them be a boon granted that takes an attunement slot.
This means balancing Dragonmarks is easy, as Least, Lesser, and Greater equate nicely with Common, Uncommon, and Rare magical items.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I've run Eberron mostly with existing rules. The Wizard tradition worked as an artificer for the purpose of their position in the world, and the racial write-ups were workable.
I adjusted Dragonmarks a little: while they give spells, much of their benefits were that they allowed specific spells to be cast as rituals in conjunction with the correct item, and magic items with a restriction requiring the correct dragonmark are one step more common. The attunement slot idea is a good one.

I did remove variant humans though and allowed characters to trade in their racial ability bonuses in exchange for a feat though.

 

[Aldarc]

I would possibly prefer a Dragonmark providing an advantage on proficiencies instead of simply providing skill proficiencies or expertise. That lowers the overlap with bard, rogue, knowledge cleric, and artificer, while subtilely highlighting that the Dragonmarks gave these families a mercantile advantage.

 

[Gradine]

I did a book on Spellscars for the DMsGuild, where I subtly updated Dragonmarks as well, and that's the method I used, having them be a boon granted that takes an attunement slot.
This means balancing Dragonmarks is easy, as Least, Lesser, and Greater equate nicely with Common, Uncommon, and Rare magical items.

That's actually a really great idea; I hadn't even thought about balancing Dragonmarks versus magic item rarity.

I've run Eberron mostly with existing rules. The Wizard tradition worked as an artificer for the purpose of their position in the world, and the racial write-ups were workable.
I adjusted Dragonmarks a little: while they give spells, much of their benefits were that they allowed specific spells to be cast as rituals in conjunction with the correct item, and magic items with a restriction requiring the correct dragonmark are one step more common. The attunement slot idea is a good one.

I did remove variant humans though and allowed characters to trade in their racial ability bonuses in exchange for a feat though.

That's not a bad idea in a game where Dragonmarks are taken as feats, though instead of racial ability bonuses I'd have targeted some of the other racial benefits (primarily, the ones that are obviously based on culture/training and not biology), since by Eberron lore the Dragonmarked Houses are somewhat separate from their racial peers, at least for Halfling and Elven houses, and in a lot of ways Kundarak are separate from other Dwarves too. Medani and Lyrander Khoravar would probably lose the half-elven skill boosts (since my dragonmarked feats would include a relevant skill/tool proficiency/expertise anyway; they'd be more specialized than the typical Khoravar). Sivis and Tharashk seem the most integrated in their respective racial cultures. Would probably have Tharashk drop Savage Attack at the least... Gnomes would require a lot more thought; it doesn't seem right that House Sivis gnomes would be less intelligent than other gnomes. Might have to look into sub-race features I don't have access to at the moment.

Then again, I'm still not sold on the idea of Dragonmarks as feats, but this is an idea that least allows 1st level characters of all races to have a shot at a least mark, if nothing else.

 

[collin]

I would possibly prefer a Dragonmark providing an advantage on proficiencies instead of simply providing skill proficiencies or expertise. That lowers the overlap with bard, rogue, knowledge cleric, and artificer, while subtly highlighting the Dragonmarks gave these families a mercantile advantage.

Nice take on dragonmarks. I am not sure which I like better, Aldarc's or Gradine's. You both have given me some good ideas and thoughts, and I will have to sit down and give them both more consideration. As for when character's get Dragonmark's, I think my players would feel there needs to be more teeth behind their occurrence in a character rather than the DM just randomly deciding when they get one or an upgrade. My current thought for our group is the character would start out with a least dragonmark at 1st level if that is what the player chose with some sacrifice (like an expertise or proficiency), but the mark would then increase with the character's age and experience, like say at 8th (minor) and 16th (major) levels. I don't disagree with the organic approach; I'm just not sure my players would totally agree with that in the long run.

My group has been flirting with going back to Eberron since 5th edition came out but so far all we've done is talk about it and play in the Forgotten Realms. The artificer class was probably the most difficult to try and transpose over to 5th edition. The races (to me) do not seem that difficult to convert to 5e. I like what has been done in UA with the new artificer rules, and perhaps now my group will actually make more of an effort to get a real Eberron campaign going again (or pick up where we left off with our old campaign a couple years ago).

Overall I am getting more excited about what I am seeing posted with regard to Eberron. I hope it will continue.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

[MENTION=57112]Gradine[/MENTION] I really like what you've done here. I run all my games strictly in Eberron, and we have some similarities in our approach to the races and Dragonmarks. But I really like what you did with the Kalashtar, and though you did not describe the backgrounds in detail, just the names are incredibly inspiring and true to the setting. I hadn't even considered Eberron specific backgrounds. I can't wait to sit down and write up my own versions.

 

[Gradine]

I would possibly prefer a Dragonmark providing an advantage on proficiencies instead of simply providing skill proficiencies or expertise. That lowers the overlap with bard, rogue, knowledge cleric, and artificer, while subtilely highlighting that the Dragonmarks gave these families a mercantile advantage.

I hadn't thought of that. I think I kind of like it better? I'll have to ruminate on it more. The idea behind proficiency/expertise was that the benefit grows as the character grows more powerful (reflecting the mark itself growing), but advantage covers that also. I also wasn't sure I wanted to hand out something that could stack with expertise. But definitely an interesting idea, thanks!

 

[Gradine]

@Gradine I really like what you've done here. I run all my games strictly in Eberron, and we have some similarities in our approach to the races and Dragonmarks. But I really like what you did with the Kalashtar, and though you did not describe the backgrounds in detail, just the names are incredibly inspiring and true to the setting. I hadn't even considered Eberron specific backgrounds. I can't wait to sit down and write up my own versions.

Thanks! I had figured out a broad idea of what their features were and silly quotes to go along with them. Some of them were simple contact-based stuff (like the Inquisitive had informant(s), Dragonmarked Scion had Favored in House, and Cyran Avenger was basically welcome with any Cyran refugees), but others were still too nebulous for my liking. Like the Extreme Explorer's feature was mostly just convenience-through-plot-device, while the Prospector had something like "Trust Your Gut" where if presented with a choice (like a fork in the road) they could say "what does my gut tell me?" and the DM would basically point them in the most interesting direction. Cultist's was something to do with Prophecy (like the Hermit's Secret, but more insane) and Towerborn's was basically the Outlander's "never get lost" feature, but within city environments. ("You think this is complex, you should try finding your way to Morgrave University from Cannith Tower* in the middle of hail storm!")

*The towerborn is pulling your chain; any true native of Sharn would know that you can't get to Morgrave University from Cannith Tower. Pff. Typical tourist

 

[Hawk Diesel]

Yea, for me the cultist brings up images of Khyber/The Dragon Below or perhaps followers of Vol. Maybe prophecy-touched or something with a better name could be along the lines of someone that has seen or possesses a piece of the prophecy. Could be cool, but also make them pretty desired by the dragons and others intent on studying the Prophecy.