How to Fit Eberron into D&D 5e? Keith Baker Explains

[CyberThread]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/137095-Eberron-in-Dungeons-Dragons-5th-Edition-Keith-Baker-Explains-How


there you go, oh cruious ones.

[Zweisteine]

I love you for that link.

[CyberThread]

Think it has become prety clear am a 5e fan boy.

[T.G. Oskar]

Certainly a diplomatic answer, trying to leave WotC to work with Eberron as it desires.

Shifters are hilariously easy to work with, because the race/subrace format is perfect for them. Beasthide, Razorclaw, Longstride, Dreamsight...all of them work as nice subraces, with the Shifting ability and Low-Light Vision being the core concept between all of them. I can see a write-up easily favoring them.

Changelings and Kalashtar will be harder. Changelings aren't that hard, since they could refluff a form of Alter Self for their Minor Change Shape ability, even though they could make an ability of its own. It's the other abilities that would change: maybe they'll be a Charisma-based race, but what else? Free Deception skills? Proficiency with disguise kits? Add their proficiency bonus to checks made to disguise without the need of a kit? Kalashtar would be harder, since they necessarily NEED psionics to work, even though they don't have to be psionic at all. I'd love to see them in the new Psionics splat, though, just as Dark Sun will have Half-Giants and Thri-Kreen. That said, Kalashtar *could* have a sub-race split, tying different surnames to the Quori variants.

I love what he says about Dragonmarks. "It wants to be its own thing", indeed; it's so distinct from a feat or a background that it's hard to reconcile. Yet, it's one of the most important things about the setting, and the developers are willing to shoot half-baked stuff for the sake of making people play. That would be a good start; shoot the half-baked Dragonmark rules, hear how the players find them useful or not, and then do something around that. The patch Mr. Baker suggests, though...it's fair, but nowhere near as viable considering how the dragonmark is meant to develop (and the players will want a way to have access to the better powers, while some might not want to). The Dragonmark feat may end up being some sort of super-feat that eats two of your ability score increases for additional powers that develop based on roleplaying, so it'll end up being hit or miss: you might unlock your Dragonmark completely, or never reach your full potential because the DM doesn't feel it's viable. The actual advice is the most sound, though: don't play characters with Dragonmarks, because they're still a mess to work with. You can have NPCs with Dragonmarks, though, as monsters aren't tied to that (you could have a Challenge 1 Knight replace its Leadership ability for a Least Dragonmark Innate Spellcasting ability to turn it into a Challenge 2 Deneith Blademark, for example).

[CyberThread]

I think this edition is going to the King of Varient Rules.

[Zweisteine]

Changelings and Kalashtar will be harder. Changelings aren't that hard, since they could refluff a form of Alter Self for their Minor Change Shape ability, even though they could make an ability of its own. It's the other abilities that would change: maybe they'll be a Charisma-based race, but what else? Free Deception skills? Proficiency with disguise kits? Add their proficiency bonus to checks made to disguise without the need of a kit?
Minor Change Shape could be pulled off exactly as it is in 3.5, simply using the rules for disguise self and stating that it does not affect equipment, has an unlimited duration, and is a physical change rather than an illusory one. For balance purposes, it would probably be usable only once per short rest, though. At level 3 they can use alter self once per day (though perhaps not allowing the aquatic option).

Y'know, instead of putting this here, I'm just gonna go and make a homebrew thread out of what I was gonna put here.

[Totema]

So it's basically "use your imagination and leave out the things that aren't there".

Not exactly what I would call helpful advice.

[Zweisteine]

It's useful to readers who tend not to re-fluff things in the rules, and it provides some useful ideas for how to start the re-fluffing.

[rlc]

if you don't like to refluff things, then you probably still won't. if it never occurred to you to refluff things, then i guess you might find it helpful, but it's nothing really groundbreaking.

[Muenster Man]

If someone really wants to play an Eberron setting in 5E, this article saves the players and DM a good bit of time. Finding and imagining how to reskin mechanics isn't always an easy or smooth process

[Theodoxus]

MY 1 5E play experience so far is with a DM in love with Eberron. I'd never played the setting, other than a few half hearted attempts at DDO. So I know about warforged and the lightning rail and not much else.

Be that as it may, the DM - whom I met a week ago to start this specific game - still has a very 3x mentality. Our first 'job' as level 1 characters was to track down vials of vampiric vitae and bring them back, at 100 gold a vial, per character. We managed to find it, and brought back 10 vials. 1000 gold. We leveled to 2 - but 1000 gold. Oh, and the druid found a +1 shortsword.

So, I conned the party into gifting me 500 gold and went and bought my fighter some plate. 21 AC at 2nd level... yeah, this campaign is going to be interesting.


Interestingly enough, it actually whetted my appetite to DM a campaign, but on the premise that 5E was made on - low powered, high adventure. Hopefully I can convince my regular group to make the switch.