Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana is Here - and it's all about EBERRON!

Pretty awesome that this series has started

http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/unearthed-arcana-eberron

Will Greyhawk or Dragonlance be next??

Probably Dragonlance. Does Greyhawk have any particular crunchy player bits that aren't covered by the PHB already?

 

[Lackhand]

I wonder what they would want to do with Dark Sun? Example: how can you not simply come up with some rules that would allow Psionics and the Kalashtar? Doesn't really fit in the current 5th edition rules, I know, but why should that stop the brain-trust at WotC from developing some rules on the fly for now?

Eberron (like Dark Sun and Dragonlance) is a different world. It was created with a specific theme and purpose: high adventure, pulp action, low-level but plentiful magic. These concepts, especially the last one, do not fit into the current rules. So, change them for Eberron. Allow a feat for all players at first level to allow for Dragonmarked characters. Allow Artificers to be creators of magic items, just not quite as easily as they did in 3.5-4.0. Make some new rules for 5th edition that only apply to Eberron races.

For what it's worth, I think there's a slight mis-step here.
You asked why they didn't provide a temporary "for-the-sake-of-argument" set of rules for allowing psionics (and Kalashtar) in Eberron.
I say: That's not an unreasonable thing, but it's "more". At some point, I'd rather have them release a glimpse of what they've got rather than hold it and keep working.
There's nothing wrong with giving me rules for psionics (play a bard/lore, wizard/enchanter or wizard/illusionist and flavor your powers as Powers of the Mind; your brain now counts as an arcane focus).
But there's nothing wrong with _not_ giving me rules for psionics, when focusing on Eberron. For me, Eberron isn't about the psychic, it's about the pulp. Psionics can be a part of that, but they don't have to be, and none of my stories center on them.

In short: I don't think they'd provide a UA for Dark Sun until after they'd tackled How to do Psionics For Real. Maybe they'd use UA as the platform for playtesting How To Do Psionics For Real. For me, psionics aren't a big part of what makes Eberron Eberron. For you, they might be.

That said, this doesn't hit my sweet spot for "plentiful low level magic".
I think for that, more than dragonmarks or even character classes, we need Common magic items.

 

[Uchawi]

I am of the mind to sell content to all choices made at the table, and feats being optional is a huge choice. Just stating any future content is optional is already implied, but it still needs to consider the above.

 

[maceochaid]

I think one of the reasons the artificer needs it's own class is BECAUSE it has so many great archetype options. Arcane Trapsmith, Golem Forger, Battleforger, Eldritch-Bolter, hell even Runepriest could be thrown in there as ways to choose long range, pet, traps, or magic weapon maker (with an option for having a more divine bent for Runepriest, the sacred Dwarven art of using the God's own runes as weapons).

As for Dragonmarks, the houses could be written up as factions, while dragonmarked house member could be a background made for each house. Most of the dragonmark houses (hospitality and animal training) could easily have options that would serve as background traits, starting skills, and special downtime activities. Taking the background would start you off with a little more reknown, the dragonmark feats would be when your dragonmark gets empowered give a reknown bonus, and for people who take the feat later, a little flavor text about "latent dragonmarks" suddenly appearing on people later in their lives could keep flavor, preserve options, and open up new story ideas.. Alternatively skip the background part, you get some bonus reknown, but play up the flavor of once you have a mark it's hard to sneak past enemies of your house without raising a few eyes.

 

[Dausuul]

Or C) They're treating this as a playtest document, so they are starting discussion at most basic level to get foundational feelings from everyone on these concepts. And once they know which tracks they are on feel like the right tracks for people... they can then begin to build up from there. Adding in complexity and perhaps more involved options later on.

But it doesn't do them any good to do a whole crapload of design and development work first, just to then find out when they throw it out to the public that everyone *hates* it and they have to go back to the drawing board, scrapping months of real work. WotC's job right now is to find out if their basic ideas and concepts work for people so they can determine if they are going in the right direction. And considering the responses given here already-- they are probably learning a great deal about what players are really looking for for this stuff, and whether wizard subclasses, feats, etc. are the ways to go or if they need to re-think.

Remember... this is Basic Game / very first playtesting packet levels we are at for this stuff. It ain't gonna look that polished for a whole heck of a while. So just like when we were playtesting... we need to actually play the rules given to us, then post our feelings on whether it did or did not work.

Well said. I share concerns that the races are too weak, and I'd like clarity on whether spellcasters treat the dragonmark spells as "known" for purposes of casting with spell slots. But that's tweaking, and it's what we have playtesting and feedback for.

Also, remember that not everyone reading this material intends to use it by the book in Eberron. To me, this article is a grab bag of possibly-useful tidbits for a homebrew campaign. For instance, I'm quite likely to incorporate the artificer as a "hermetic mage" who mixes alchemy with proto-science. It fits beautifully with the setting I have in mind for my next campaign. However, I prefer low-magic settings. If the artificer had Eberron's high-magic milieu hardwired in, I'd never touch it.

Now, maybe that renders it useless for Eberron. If so, making Eberron material work for its intended setting should of course take precedence over making it work in my world. Ideally, however, the artificer could be independent of the setting's magic level. Perhaps we could have a set of optional "magitech" rules which would more or less replicate the 3E item crafting model, and which would integrate with the artificer tradition without either of them being dependent on the other.

 

[Uchawi]

I agree there is plenty of content available for the Artificer to be a class, but I am pro class in general versus a watered down version via a sub-class.

 

[Curmudjinn]

Why say "Changlings can only change into humanoids that they have previously seen." Really?? What a can of worms THAT is. I can see it now: players are going to be arguing with their DMs about what races they have seen or could have seen in their lifetime. How could they leave that so open-ended and limiing at the same time?

Changelings are descended from dopplegangers, therefore obviously have a watered-down version of their main ability. This repetitive complaint going around that you can't change into anything your mind conceives would make a starting character overly powerful beyond the rest of party. It's not practical in 5th edition's theme of play.

In 3rd edition, their ability was useful but paltry compared to this, while 4th's is too powerful for lower levels. I think this version runs a nice in-between, but it's still pretty dang powerful. The ability makes a changeling better at what it does than any other race or class can achieve at lower levels.

At higher levels it is still incredibly useful except against Big Bads and powerful magic.

Edit: This edition has been stated over and over to use the pieces you want to achieve your own ideal ruleset.That was the very first statement told to us by Jeremy Crawford early on before playtests. Why do folks feel chained to a ruleset? The whole purpose of a tabletop game is to change it to fit your own caliber of fun. Leave the strict rules to video games. Take these UA ideas and modify them to your needs.

 

[MarkB]

For what it's worth, I think there's a slight mis-step here.
You asked why they didn't provide a temporary "for-the-sake-of-argument" set of rules for allowing psionics (and Kalashtar) in Eberron.
I say: That's not an unreasonable thing, but it's "more". At some point, I'd rather have them release a glimpse of what they've got rather than hold it and keep working.
There's nothing wrong with giving me rules for psionics (play a bard/lore, wizard/enchanter or wizard/illusionist and flavor your powers as Powers of the Mind; your brain now counts as an arcane focus).
But there's nothing wrong with _not_ giving me rules for psionics, when focusing on Eberron. For me, Eberron isn't about the psychic, it's about the pulp. Psionics can be a part of that, but they don't have to be, and none of my stories center on them.

Indeed. To put it another way, I'd much prefer that they produce a UA article exploring Psionics, and add a little sidebar about Eberron, rather than producing an article exploring Eberron and then add in a little sidebar about Psionics.

 

[Sailor Moon]

Since we don't have Psionics yet, I think it would have been better to start with a Dragonlance article.

This to me feels really rushed and half heartedly done.

 

[Parmandur]

I think it is worth pointing out that they mean Changelings can transform into individual humanoids they have seen, not just races: they can change into Bob or Ed, not generic human.

My impression is that they plan an all-inclusive Psionics document at some point, laying out all the Psionic classes, subclasses, races, subraces, etc. in one go, irregardless of setting.

 

[Parmandur]

Also, as anon-Eberron player, it seems maybe they havecreated a good, Tinker-ish Wizard Tradition, but maybe not something that fits the Artificer of Eberron for the fans?