Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: Magic Items of Eberron

There's a new Unearthed Arcana up from Keith Baker, Ruty Rutenberg, and Ben Petrisor -- "This month's Unearthed Arcana looks at the magic items that are part of everyday life in the world of Eberron. Arcane focuses, enchanted clothing, warforged components, and more are all common sights for the citizens of the Five Nations."

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The material in this month's Unearthed Arcana also appears in the Wayfinder’s Guide to Eberron, available on the DMs Guild.

 

[Satyrn]

I always wondered how people could get so passionate in their opinions about certain supplements. I genuinely hadn't considered that they might actually be in an intimate sexual relationship with them.

Well, there was a certain book back in 3e . . .

 

[barasawa]

I have to agree with the others about the armblade requiring attunement is just messed up.
No way is it worth one of your precious attunement slots.
The only advantage is you can't drop the weapon, and yet you can't use the hand either.

I'd suggest to dump the attunement requirement, and just bolt the darned thing on, or use sovereign glue, or something similar.

Effectively losing a hand AND an attunement slot so you can't be disarmed is WAY to high of a price.

 

[Chaosmancer]

3) I like the Orb of Shielding. However, I would also add one's proficiency bonus to it. This maintains a small amount of damage reduction against an energy type, but allows it to continue to have use at higher levels. Given that spellcasters are less likely to use reactions for things like Attacks of Opportunity (outside of those with the Warcaster feat), I think this makes sense.

I like this a lot


And boringly enough I agree with most of the things being said. Armblades shouldn't require attunement as written. Though I do wonder if that would change if you used the Quick Attunement property. Minute on, minute off, attunement while on? Still crappy but less crappy than needing a whole short rest to bolt the thing back on after you take it off to climb the ladder onto the pirate ship.

I like differentiating the Focuses, but I agree that range doesn't scream useful and meaningful choice most of the time. But, I can still use this concept to branch out so that's good.

Honestly, the Cleansing Stone, Shiftweave and Glamerweave (why not Glamourweave?) are the coolest things for me personally. I have a highly magical ruler sitting on the back burner and these are great ways to sew in some impressive visuals since the world isn't as broadly magical if the players ever meet them.


One thing I'm confused about, docents. They are intelligent, have a ton of things they can do in terms of lore and detection abilities, and you use a bonus action to ask them to do one of those things. Okay, one of those things is making a medicine check to stabilize you... How? You can't use a bonus action, do they get a turn? How do they actually stabilize you since they are an orb in your chest, magical defibrillation? Cool enough but I kind of want an answer since it implies they get their own turn. Also, with a +6 roll and a DC of 10 they will stabilize you, I'm not sure what the exact odds of rolling 3 or less on a d20 three times in a row are but I'm sure it is absurdly low. I like it, has good story flavor, but no point in pretending that the Warforge is in danger unless they roll a 1 on that first death save and even then 85% chance of being ok that same turn.

 

[Leatherhead]

One thing I'm confused about, docents. They are intelligent, have a ton of things they can do in terms of lore and detection abilities, and you use a bonus action to ask them to do one of those things. Okay, one of those things is making a medicine check to stabilize you... How? You can't use a bonus action, do they get a turn? How do they actually stabilize you since they are an orb in your chest, magical defibrillation? Cool enough but I kind of want an answer since it implies they get their own turn. Also, with a +6 roll and a DC of 10 they will stabilize you, I'm not sure what the exact odds of rolling 3 or less on a d20 three times in a row are but I'm sure it is absurdly low. I like it, has good story flavor, but no point in pretending that the Warforge is in danger unless they roll a 1 on that first death save and even then 85% chance of being ok that same turn.

They don't need their own turn to do something on a turn. In this case we can use the "Specific Rules beat General Rules" rule. They automatically perform this check once per turn. That means when the enemy goblin takes it's turn, it gets a check. When your friendly rogue takes a turn, it gets a check. When you take your turn and just roll a death save, it takes a check.

Yes, that seems really powerful. But it is a very rare intelligent magic item, and those things tend to have oodles of power.

Also, the enemy could just coup de grace the warforged if they really wanted the kill.

Edit: oh yeah, and in older editions warforged could be in a perpetual state of suspended animation on the brink of death after stabilizing, and be that way for years if nobody bothered to heal or repair them.

 

[Chaosmancer]

They don't need their own turn to do something on a turn. In this case we can use the "Specific Rules beat General Rules" rule. They automatically perform this check once per turn. That means when the enemy goblin takes it's turn, it gets a check. When your friendly rogue takes a turn, it gets a check. When you take your turn and just roll a death save, it takes a check.

Yes, that seems really powerful. But it is a very rare intelligent magic item, and those things tend to have oodles of power.

Also, the enemy could just coup de grace the warforged if they really wanted the kill.

Edit: oh yeah, and in older editions warforged could be in a perpetual state of suspended animation on the brink of death after stabilizing, and be that way for years if nobody bothered to heal or repair them.

I...can't say you are wrong with that interpretation of how they work...

Which makes even less sense. Look WoTC, look at the Periapt of Wound Closure. Uncommon item, at the start of your turn if you are dying, you become stabilized.

Unless your intent is that the Docent makes a warforged nearly immune to coup de grace (when you are stabilized your death saves are reset, so each turn if successful the two saves you fail from getting hit are removed) then just make it automatic instead of having us roll. Especially when failure is pretty much impossible at this point.

 

[jmoolaman]

Overdue for what? It is not a core class. It makes since to be a part of Eberon, but that is not out yet. There is a play test Eberon and a play test artificer. The seem pretty close to the same time frame. If anything the artificer came out ahead of time, since it came out before 5e Eberon.

This would be a fair point if Eberron wasn't the first UA back in like 2014. Artificer is well overdue for the amount of jerking around they've done with Eberron.

 

[Seramus]

Overdue for what? It is not a core class. It makes since to be a part of Eberon, but that is not out yet. There is a play test Eberon and a play test artificer. The seem pretty close to the same time frame. If anything the artificer came out ahead of time, since it came out before 5e Eberon.

They've been teasing Eberron for over 4 years, so the expectation is that Eberron should have been out "Soon" about two years ago. Every release since then has been a bit of a rollercoaster, even though those were also nice and enjoyable releases on their own merits.

Imagine it like an intimate sexual relationship (thanks MarkB!) There has been so much flirting and foreplay that we're ready to... you know. Take our relationship to the next level.

 

[dave2008]

This would be a fair point if Eberron wasn't the first UA back in like 2014. Artificer is well overdue for the amount of jerking around they've done with Eberron.

I skipped 3e so I guess Eberron just doesn't have much pull for me, thus I don't feel jerked around.

I guess I see it as the most developed setting (in 5e) outside of FR so that seems like you should be celebrating compared to everyone else.

 

[dave2008]

They've been teasing Eberron for over 4 years, so the expectation is that Eberron should have been out "Soon" about two years ago. Every release since then has been a bit of a rollercoaster, even though those were also nice and enjoyable releases on their own merits.

I will repeat what I said to @jmoolaman:
"I skipped 3e so I guess Eberron just doesn't have much pull for me, thus I don't feel jerked around.

I guess I see it as the most developed setting (in 5e) outside of FR so that seems like you should be celebrating compared to everyone else."

Imagine it like an intimate sexual relationship (thanks MarkB!) There has been so much flirting and foreplay that we're ready to... you know. Take our relationship to the next level.

Except everyone is not on the same page, you don't yet have consent - so you can't

 

[Seramus]

Except everyone is not on the same page, you don't yet have consent - so you can't

Now you went and made things creepy! X.x