Free Update Brings Eberron To Dungeons & Dragons 5e

[Fanghawk]

Free Update Brings Eberron To Dungeons & Dragons 5e

Want to convert Eberron to your Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition game? Wizards of the Coast has a free online supplement to get you started.

Dungeons & Dragons came back in a big way last year, as fans returned in droves to play <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/tabletop/reviews/12103-D-D-Player-s-Handbook-Review-A-Greatest-Hits-Collection>the newly published Fifth Edition. Now the question is what campaign settings Wizards of the Coast will resurrect moving forward, such as <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/137095-Eberron-in-Dungeons-Dragons-5th-Edition-Keith-Baker-Explains-How>the Origin award-winning Eberron. While Eberron PDFs are still available online, they're for previous editions, and converting all of the books to a new system would be time-consuming at best. Thankfully, Wizards of the Coast made that process easier with a free Eberron update, offering suggestions for how Eberron's races and mechanics would fit the revised Fifth Edition ruleset.

Eberron is set in a fantasy world where magic is low-level, but far more pervasive. Magic-powered technology has made airships, train systems, and even street lanterns commonplace, mimicking the industrial tone of 20th Century Europe. From the beginning, Eberron was intended as a pulp setting where player characters would quickly become larger-than-live adventurers. For that reason, Eberron implemented "action points" that granted additional actions each round, bonus six-sided dice rolls, or quick stabilization of dying characters.

The new systems and races aren't something that fit easily with D&D's Fifth Edition while remaining balanced, but the rules update provides a solid framework to build from. The Artificer, originally a base class, has been folded into D&D's standard classes as a Wizard Tradition. Rules for Changeling, Shifter, and Warforged races are also detailed for players using them as Level 1 characters. Meanwhile the Action Points system, which inspired the Hero Points mechanic in the <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/tabletop/reviews/12849-D-D-Dungeon-Master-s-Guide-Review-A-Toolbox-But-is-it-Useful>Dungeon Master's Guide, has been revised to fit its original Eberron conception.

The final system covered - the one <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/137095-Eberron-in-Dungeons-Dragons-5th-Edition-Keith-Baker-Explains-How>Eberron designer Keith Baker had the most trouble finding a solution for - are Dragonmarks. In Eberron, Dragonmarks are elaborate skin patterns (much like tattoos) that grant spellcasting abilities wearers and become more powerful over time. Dragonmarks are usually associated with Eberron's ruling families, and can be granted to characters who match the corresponding race, house, and guild. It's an intriguing system, and thankfully this update features a list of marks and corresponding Fifth Edition spell effects to use in your campaign.

On the downside, this Eberron update isn't comprehensive. The psionic kalashtar race isn't included, for example, because D&D Fifth Edition doesn't have rules for psionic abilities. Future updates might include content that isn't covered here, and it's even possible an official Eberron supplement will be released one day. Until then however, this should be a great start to anyone hoping to convert Eberron to Fifth Edition.

Will you be trying out any of the systems listed this update? Or will you be waiting until Wizards of the Coast considers a more detailed Ebberon supplement?

Source: <a href=http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/unearthed-arcana-eberron>Dungeons & Dragons

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[Makabriel]

I was a big fan of the Eberron setting and I'm glad to see they're giving it to some attention. Makes me feel like dusting off my old campaign and updating it.

 

[JonB]

Hey, I have a convenient D&D one shot this weekend I hadn't planned... Eberron it is!

 

[Omnicrom]

Wow, that Artificer class... That's pretty bad... It's quite a feat to make it until level 14 to let them actually Artifice. It's even worse because they blatantly admit that they're gutting Artificers.

Also I like how they apparently didn't get the entire point of Dragonmarks: IE that they were an advantage for non-Casters and shouldn't have benefits based on Caster class stats.

If this is a bite of Eberron under 5E I'm hoping we never get a second serving, much less a full meal.

 

[Oroboros]

Wow, that Artificer class... That's pretty bad... It's quite a feat to make it until level 14 to let them actually Artifice. It's even worse because they blatantly admit that they're gutting Artificers.

Also I like how they apparently didn't get the entire point of Dragonmarks: IE that they were an advantage for non-Casters and shouldn't have benefits based on Caster class stats.

If this is a bite of Eberron under 5E I'm hoping we never get a second serving, much less a full meal.

I have been pretty disappointed with 5e Forgotten Realms as well. I guess WoTC decided it was time to spread the 'love' to the Eberron fans as well.

 

[Mortuorum]

Will you be trying out any of the systems listed this update? Or will you be waiting until Wizards of the Coast considers a more detailed Ebberon supplement?

Actually, I'll be playing Pathfinder. If I really want to play Eberron, adapting the 3.5 version of the world book to Pathfinder would be a snap, since they share the same DNA.

 

[The Great JT]

I know it got rolled into Faerun, but more al-Qadim!

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

Wow, that Artificer class... That's pretty bad... It's quite a feat to make it until level 14 to let them actually Artifice. It's even worse because they blatantly admit that they're gutting Artificers.

Also I like how they apparently didn't get the entire point of Dragonmarks: IE that they were an advantage for non-Casters and shouldn't have benefits based on Caster class stats.

If this is a bite of Eberron under 5E I'm hoping we never get a second serving, much less a full meal.

Same. I was worried for Eberron when 5e first came out, as the new emphasis on "magic being rare" (which I don't think carried over well regarding monsters, but that's another topic) said that the game wouldn't be well suited to the everyday enchantments of Khorvaire. The most iconic thing about Eberron to me was the magewrights, that a full 1% of society -everyone from tailors and servants to clerks and full artificers- were using magic in their day to day life to make things easier, more efficient, and cheaper. It's not something that can be covered in six generously spaced pages.

The DMG was not awful, but it didn't live up to the total modularity that was promised, and I thought that things like Ravenloft and Eberron would be getting the full module treatment in due time, where the designers could have the time and space to take what they've learned about 5e and use that knowledge to take apart the system and rebuild it from it's most base elements to support the pulpy high adventure or creeping horror or what have you. If they want to release stuff for free as Unearthed Arcana, that's great, but they should really try to put out something more comprehensive rather than dribbling out something that looks like it was made by a fan to give the incomplete and not well thought out basics of what you need for Eberron, and saying that a more complete version will be out eventually.

 

[Omnicrom]

The DMG was not awful, but it didn't live up to the total modularity that was promised, and I thought that things like Ravenloft and Eberron would be getting the full module treatment in due time, where the designers could have the time and space to take what they've learned about 5e and use that knowledge to take apart the system and rebuild it from it's most base elements to support the pulpy high adventure or creeping horror or what have you.

Well there's the problem, that line about designers. 5E to me as a whole is incredibly underwhelming, it's just reheated leftovers from 3.5. Mike Mearls, the lead designer behind nearly everything 5E, doesn't really seem to care. Fifth Edition feels like Mearls publishing his homerules for 3rd Edition, and he isn't interested in pushing that effort button much less the envelope. The shear laziness of that effortless little packet on Eberron is astounding, how little effort did he bother to expend on a monthly content supplement? He's so lazy he didn't bother to put full rules for some of the stuff in it.