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?

 

[Staffan]

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?

Exactly. If Eberron hadn't had an artificer class, no-one would have batted an eye at this artificer wizard tradition. It is clearly someone dealing with making magic stuff. But it's not the artificer.

It's a bit like if they had made a class that focused on writing, learning, contemplating the nature of God, and oppressing peasants. That would certainly qualify as a "monk". But it's not the monk.

 

[Remathilis]

I think there is a LOT of expectation vs. reality problems with this.

Face it: this is the WotC team spit-balling a couple ideas on how to handle a few key elements of Eberron that can't be done with the PHB. (Three races, a class, and dragonmarks). This is NOT a complete Player's Guide. This isn't even finished material (which makes me sad: I'd rather have had a finished Warforged than a bunch of half-finished concepts, but whatever). This is totally a "patch until we make an Eberron book" rather than "how we're supporting Eberron from here on".

When you look at it as a temp patch, it makes a lot more sense.

1.) Kalashtar/Psionics: While I'm sure it bothered someone, these are probably the least important elements of Eberron. They haven't begun to work on psionics, let alone have something playable yet.

2.) Races: They need some work (nip/tuck) but I think they were aiming for "this is our idea on how they'll work" vs. "These are our perfectly balanced versions". Not great, but enough to convert a warforged PC or make a shifter if you want.

3.) Artificer as a sub-class. I actually think they might do this as a full class, but if my memory of the playtest serves me well, its hard to nail down the feel of a class, let alone design subclasses, spells, and such for it. A temp patch would be to make a pseudo-wizard artificer until they can work on making a complete class.

4.) Dragonmarks. I'm actually at a loss to see why this is such a big deal. Levels 1-3 are a session long at most anyway; you'll get your mark fairly quickly and NPCs don't need it (they have marks because DM fiat). So all the feat does is give a cost to a PC to picking up a dragonmark. Again, as a patch, they didn't feel the need to reinvent the wheel. The feat system is supposed to handle non-class customization, therefore it handles this.

"But Remy" you say, "I don't use feats in my game!" Well, then you don't have PCs with dragonmarks. Easy solve.

Overall, We need to look at this less as "Here is Official Eberron Support" and more of "This is something to help you play Eberron until we get a book made." Its not perfect, but its something for now.

 

[Zaran]

Are you? I have to wonder too, then -- why are you paying a subscription to a game you don't play anymore?

I kept it up just because I was expecting the Magazines to come back. But after they laid off those editors I dropped it.

 

[lkj]

I think there is a LOT of expectation vs. reality problems with this.

Face it: this is the WotC team spit-balling a couple ideas on how to handle a few key elements of Eberron that can't be done with the PHB. (Three races, a class, and dragonmarks). This is NOT a complete Player's Guide. This isn't even finished material (which makes me sad: I'd rather have had a finished Warforged than a bunch of half-finished concepts, but whatever). This is totally a "patch until we make an Eberron book" rather than "how we're supporting Eberron from here on".

When you look at it as a temp patch, it makes a lot more sense.

1.) Kalashtar/Psionics: While I'm sure it bothered someone, these are probably the least important elements of Eberron. They haven't begun to work on psionics, let alone have something playable yet.

2.) Races: They need some work (nip/tuck) but I think they were aiming for "this is our idea on how they'll work" vs. "These are our perfectly balanced versions". Not great, but enough to convert a warforged PC or make a shifter if you want.

3.) Artificer as a sub-class. I actually think they might do this as a full class, but if my memory of the playtest serves me well, its hard to nail down the feel of a class, let alone design subclasses, spells, and such for it. A temp patch would be to make a pseudo-wizard artificer until they can work on making a complete class.

4.) Dragonmarks. I'm actually at a loss to see why this is such a big deal. Levels 1-3 are a session long at most anyway; you'll get your mark fairly quickly and NPCs don't need it (they have marks because DM fiat). So all the feat does is give a cost to a PC to picking up a dragonmark. Again, as a patch, they didn't feel the need to reinvent the wheel. The feat system is supposed to handle non-class customization, therefore it handles this.

"But Remy" you say, "I don't use feats in my game!" Well, then you don't have PCs with dragonmarks. Easy solve.

Overall, We need to look at this less as "Here is Official Eberron Support" and more of "This is something to help you play Eberron until we get a book made." Its not perfect, but its something for now.

I don't think your main observation is wrong-- that this is definitely not final material. But I think a more optimistic take is to treat it like playtest material, for which they will be soliciting feedback. In fact, Mearls pretty much said this on twitter:

Twitter person: Awesome job on the Eberron rules, Mike! Was really looking forward to it. Is this Adventurer's League legal?

Mearls: nope - it's not, since it's equivalent to playtest material

Twitter person: Cool! Okay. Is there an official way you would like to solicit feedback?

Mearls: we'll include questions about this material in a future survey

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Okay, let me start by saying that I'm not intending in any way to tell Eberron fans "you should like it the way they did it." I'm not well-versed in Eberron, so my opinion of how well it fits Eberron would be irrelevant. That being said, I'd like to address the issues of what WotC should do with their product line. (Spoiler: I think they are doing it right.) Also, I only quoted a couple of posts to illustrate the issues I'm responding to, so I'm generally discussing the issues rather than actually responding to any particular posts.

1) I am fairly disappointed with what WotC released in the UA for Eberron. I have seen better home-brewed posted information in EN World than what WotC put together. Why did they even bother?
...
b) they have locked down the rules (as another poster suggested) for 5th edition and are terribly reluctant to make any variant changes with regards to the various play settings.

I think that is the key issue here. WotC is keeping a very tight reign on any rules expansions. If they can represent something "well enough" with an addition of a feat, subclass, or maybe tiny tweak to the existing 5e rules, that's how they will do it. They are not going to reinvent the wheel for a new setting. Even if they can't represent something with extra feats, subclasses, or tiny rules tweaks, they will make the minimum rules necessary to hit that "well enough" state, or they will not convert it at all and just let fans have fun doing it themselves. We cannot expect 3e or 4e level of options in 5e, or we will be sorely disappointed. It's not that edition.

Personally, I'm a fan of this direction as it keeps to the spirit of how 5e is designed and the "no bloat" product marketing philosophy, which keeps the game accessible to newer and more casual players--as well as being sensitive to those who want/need official rules but aren't interested in hunting for houserules and doing them themselves.

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 limiting at the same time?

From the MM, it's apparently the same way doppelgangers now work. Whether that is good or bad is a matter of opinion, but at least they are being consistent. It would be odd if changelings were better at a doppelganger's schtick than they themselves are.

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.

I may not be reading your post right, because I'm not sure how they could be overpowered with this feature. Mike Mearls clarified that the change is purely cosmetic--you don't gain any abilities from the assumed form.

 

[maceochaid]

I think that is the key issue here. WotC is keeping a very tight reign on any rules expansions. If they can represent something "well enough" with an addition of a feat, subclass, or maybe tiny tweak to the existing 5e rules, that's how they will do it. They are not going to reinvent the wheel for a new setting. Even if they can't represent something with extra feats, subclasses, or tiny rules tweaks, they will make the minimum rules necessary to hit that "well enough" state, or they will not convert it at all and just let fans have fun doing it themselves. We cannot expect 3e or 4e level of options in 5e, or we will be sorely disappointed. It's not that edition.

I don't think this is fair to 5th Edition. While they kept the Sorcerer and Warlock close to the chest, (both of which COULD have been Wizard subclasses easily) when they did release them which were much more different mechanically from the Wizard than the 4thE classes were from other similar roles.

 

[MoonSong]

Artificer - Doesnt feel right, more lacks the swashbuckling MacGuyver aspect of the class..

Exactly, artificer would make more sense as a bard subclass -both flavorwise and mechanicwise-

Exactly. If Eberron hadn't had an artificer class, no-one would have batted an eye at this artificer wizard tradition. It is clearly someone dealing with making magic stuff. But it's not the artificer.

It's a bit like if they had made a class that focused on writing, learning, contemplating the nature of God, and oppressing peasants. That would certainly qualify as a "monk". But it's not the monk.

Or if they made a class based upon the concept of inherent magic, except it is inherently dangerous if not outright moustruous and called it sorcerer, the class we got is a sorcerer, but is not the sorcerer. I think that the desing team got too much into thinking of the wizard as the default magic using class that they have lost the ability to comprehend how those other magic user classes are supposed to be different, If you throwed a 3 e wizard and a 3e artificer into an antimagic field prison, the wizard goes back to being a helpless scholar, while the artificer keeps being a semidecent combatant and a tinkerer. A similar thing happens with 4e, take both a wizard and an artificer at the ende of the day, when they are out of juice, the artificer is still less vulnerable.

3.) Artificer as a sub-class. I actually think they might do this as a full class, but if my memory of the playtest serves me well, its hard to nail down the feel of a class, let alone design subclasses, spells, and such for it. A temp patch would be to make a pseudo-wizard artificer until they can work on making a complete class.

They should have made it a bard subclass, it is way closer.

I don't think this is fair to 5th Edition. While they kept the Sorcerer and Warlock close to the chest, (both of which COULD have been Wizard subclasses easily) when they did release them which were much more different mechanically from the Wizard than the 4thE classes were from other similar roles.

And I don't know you, but I think the sorcerer class was made more to appeal to wizard fans than to sorcerer fans -really they never asked, they were so sure on how it should look from the beginning they never bothered to ask-. It is too similar to the wizard class in areas where they were obviosly different before (proficiencies and mundane durability) and too different in the areas were they shared a niche (total removal of out of combat utility from sorcerer). In the same way, this subclass looks good for a wizard (some semblance of magic crafting! more toys for wizards actual artificer/Eberron fans be damned!) but it is subpar as an artificer, no thievery, no real weapons, no armor, too much of a scholarly focus. You could say that the right race /Background helps to make up for it, but that only means all other options are no longer viable, and the class still carries a lot of unwanted stuff for an artificer.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

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.

Posting an article about Eberron makes it possible to use lots and lots of Eberron books which were not fully compatible with 5e before (now, you can use almost everything but Secrets of Sarlona, I guess) It's not just the article itself: a huge heap of old material can now be used again.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I don't think it would have made more sense as a bard subclass. You'd have to change parts of the base bard class (removing the musical abilities, jack of all trades, musical tool proficiency) and define a skill list, perhaps swap saves around, to make it fit; I can see inspiration dice staying, particularly if they are used to fuel infusions.

The changes would mean that you would no longer have a subclass of bard but a new base class.

too true... I would go for a wizard sub class, but they needed a little more tweeking

 

[Paraxis]

Well Keith Baker has done a modification of both the warlock and cleric as artificers, so I can easily see a bard.