Eberron coming soon? (KEEP IT CIVIL, DAGNABBIT!)

[Arkhios]

DISCLAIMER: I don't want to see anyone degrading or slandering someone over their personal preferences regarding the setting, be they negative or positive. I will report them immediately. If you don't like Eberron or its fans talking about Eberron, it's better to say nothing and leave, rather than to cause drama for a ridiculous reason.

Unfortunately things got sour (hence the disclaimer above) in the previous thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?563444-Oh-you-Nathan-B-Stewart-you-(Eberron-Campaign-Setting-tease-)&p=23211953#post23211953) I started. For one, I'm still excited about the possibility of an Eberron Campaign Setting for 5th edition being released in a very near future.

I'd like to point out though, that this is still very much speculative and nothing has been confirmed by the WotC staff (as of now, AFAIK), but judging from how the staff is sporadically spreading teasing news throughout the internet (mostly in Twitter, where this one (https://twitter.com/NathanBStewart/status/1016444525886128128) came up as well).

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dhsi6DnU0AAjUEN.jpg

PS. I'm aware that Spelljammer is confirmed(-ish) to be released. However, I'd like to note that neither one of these (possible) products prevent the other from being released as well.
---
In light of the recent revelations, it seems that Spelljammer isn't coming as soon as people would have hoped, BUT EBERRON IS HERE! (even if only in online pdf format for now). That said, I believe it's probable that Spelljammer will be coming anyway, as it was already confirmed. Most likely the July 23rd news was only to cover the two other products that are out sooner.

[ZenBear]

Hey! Dagnabbit (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Dagnabbit) was always civil! Just cuz he’s dead doesn’t mean you have to shout!

I’m looking forward to Eberron’s official 5e debut. It’s a fantastic setting with limitless political intrigue and some of my favorite D&D fiction! I need to reread Thieves of Blood.

[Arkhios]

Hey! Dagnabbit (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Dagnabbit) was always civil! Just cuz he’s dead doesn’t mean you have to shout!

...Oh, god! R.A.Salvatore, now you did it! :smallbiggrin: (Facepalm)

Funny, I had totally forgotten that one. Or maybe the name was lost in translation as I didn't read the series in original language?

[JoeJ]

I only recently glanced at some Eberron stuff. The setting looked pretty interesting, although I'm not a fan of that style of art (which is found throughout 3.x, not just Eberron). I'd definitely like to see what they do with it in 5e.

[Arkhios]

I'm not a fan of that style of art (which is found throughout 3.x, not just Eberron).

You must be referring to the Wayne Reynolds' (WAR©) art. I, on the other hand absolutely love his style, but I know it divides opinions, and I respect that.

[Astofel]

Unless I'm running a module, I only tend to run games in my own setting, so this probably won't be useful to me as a setting book. I'll still read it, though, because I'm sure it'll introduce some cool concepts for me to steal. My setting does already include warforged, after all (they were constructed from wood by deep forest-dwelling drow in order to fight a war against the forces of the god of war).

[Regitnui]

I would like to reiterate that I am not officially on the hype train until the 23rd. 12 more days to go. No, I'm not counting down.

[Arkhios]

I would like to reiterate that I am not officially on the hype train until the 23rd. 12 more days to go. No, I'm not counting down.

Of course not. Neither am I trying to kill time while waiting, since most of my workdays during this holiday season are boring as heck. :smallwink:

[MrStabby]

Not really the setting for me, so I am not excited about the prospect at all. Not super thrilled about spelljammer either - more a fan of broad high fantasy.

Still, a setting builder with some additional content is always nice - I am never one to say no to new content. Something like the Sword Coast Adventurers Guide but for Eberron - I know a few people who would like it.

[Beechgnome]

I hope to see an improved artificer. I would prefer one that was a half arcane caster instead of the one-third caster we got in UA. The Alchemist also needed some work to be competitive (or at least more interesting). And more subclasses - a machinist, for example, would be nice. And if they are going to do all that, they better reprint the Xanathar's spells that work for them...particularly Tiny Servant.

[jaappleton]

I am fairly setting neutral.

I do want official support for settings that fans want, so they can happily run their games with more content.

What I love most about new material is the ability to pilfer stuff from it for my own game. Specifically any magic items, player options, spells, etc.

So that said, bring in Eberron and it’s Artificers!

[Millstone85]

I really love the idea of D&D in a steampunk/magitek setting, though I would probably go for Eberron-like worlds in Spelljammer.

[DanyBallon]

Not really the setting for me, so I am not excited about the prospect at all. Not super thrilled about spelljammer either - more a fan of broad high fantasy.

Still, a setting builder with some additional content is always nice - I am never one to say no to new content. Something like the Sword Coast Adventurers Guide but for Eberron - I know a few people who would like it.

I'm not a fan of Eberron either, but a SCAG style Eberron setting book, I'll definitely buy it! Heck I wasn't a fan of FR either and the SCAG convinced me of running our games in it! I might just do the same with Eberron :smallbiggrin:

[Sigreid]

To me all setting books have value ad fodder for cannibalism for my own worlds.

[KorvinStarmast]

My setting does already include warforged, after all (they were constructed from wood by deep forest-dwelling drow in order to fight a war against the forces of the god of war). That sounds cool. (Are they vulnerable to fire or did you choose not to go there?)

I really love the idea of D&D in a steampunk/magitek setting, though I would probably go for Eberron-like worlds in Spelljammer.
I blame Warcraft II for the D&D steampunk trope, but I suspect that it arose earlier than that. I think Phil Foglio was doing a mixture of steampunk and fantasy at one point ... but if I go back even farther, there was a neat swords/sorcery/SF fusion series by Robert Adams, the Horseclans series. (I read all of them, but I don't still have all of them). That kind of tech/genre fusion isn't all that new, I guess.

[JackPhoenix]

That sounds cool. (Are they vulnerable to fire or did you choose not to go there?)

I blame Warcraft II for the D&D steampunk trope, but I suspect that it arose earlier than that. I think Phil Foglio was doing a mixture of steampunk and fantasy at one point ... but if I go back even farther, there was a neat swords/sorcery/SF fusion series by Robert Adams, the Horseclans series. (I read all of them, but I don't still have all of them). That kind of tech/genre fusion isn't all that new, I guess.

Warhammer predates Warcraft, so I'd look there. And D&D had spaceships, cowboys and what not even earlier.

And Eberron is not steampunk in any way. At least not until the fire and water elementals get loose.

[Arkhios]

Warhammer predates Warcraft, so I'd look there. And D&D had spaceships, cowboys and what not even earlier.

And Eberron is not steampunk in any way. At least not until the fire and water elementals get loose.

I guess it's more like magepunk, really.

[mgshamster]

I really like the idea someone brought up in the Spelljammer thread: that the next setting book will be a collection of settings: Ebberon, Spelljammer, Planescape, Darksun, etc...

I think that would be really cool to see.

[KorvinStarmast]

And Eberron is not steampunk in any way. At least not until the fire and water elementals get loose. OK, I was trying to express the steampunk/magic fusion, but it was unclear. I like the way you put that better. :smallsmile:

[Sception]

I'm reasonably excited for a 5e version of Eberron.

When the campaign first came out it did a number of things I really liked, in particular the magi-punk, pulp-noire, late 1800s to early 1900s type tone, and it's handling of 'monstrous' humanoids. I certainly understand people who didn't like these things, but they were big selling points for me. I like the City of Towers, I liked the less concrete take on the setting religions - in particular that Eberron didn't make a canonical stand on whether deities actually exist at all. Eberron in general felt very distinct and modern to me, and in a way that deliberately catered to fun, serialized adventure, perfectly suited to D&D campaigns.

I am a little worried about the recent apparent pushes to give all of D&D a unified underpinning, and how that might mess with some of the aspects I liked about the setting, in particular the unique histories and personalities of the traditional D&D races in Eberron, as well as the deliberate decision to leave open the question of whether the deities exist.

But mostly I'm excited. In particular, it would be cool to see updated rules for the artificer, Eberron races, airships, etc. I mostly only run homebrew settings in recent years, but if the re-introduction of Eberron is handled well, the next game I run might end up there.

[ciarannihill]

I've never played or run Eberron, but given the love I see from people for it I'm very interested and excited to see a modern incarnation of it that I can sink my teeth into a bit.

[Naanomi]

Not my favorite setting, but a setting that had enough unique races/classes/etc that it really does need at least one good mechanics-oriented book to do it justice; so I’ll be happy to see that added to the milieu when it does come about

[Anon von Zilch]

Man, do I loathe the term "magipunk." It's such a lazy construction, as it just means "vaguely steampunk aesthetic but with magic instead of steam power," completely ignoring the other half of steampunk: Punk.

This has even spread to the term "dungeonpunk," which is used on TV Tropes to mean the same thing as magipunk, using Eberron as a specific example. It actually means the aesthetic of early 3rd Edition D&D, which had nothing to do with steampunk.

In summary: Words actually mean things, people!

EDIT: Oh, and yay for maybe 5Eberron!

EDIT 2 ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: My preferred term for the Eberron aesthetic is, in case anyone cares, "industrial magic" (light optional).

[CharonsHelper]

I'm actually a bit dubious.

I like Eberron. My first campaign I ran was in Eberron, and my buddies and I still talk about the switcheroo I pulled on them with it (they were on the job proving that a teenage serving girl wasn't the murderer before she was executed at the end of the week - which led into all sorts of political intrigue since the victim was the assistant of a powerful politician etc.).

However - I'm not 100% on how well it will translate into 5e. I like 5e pretty well, but Eberron's whole sctick is tied pretty heavily into the 3.5 idea of magic items being everywhere and being their equivalent of technology - which 5e intentionally took a large step away from.

I like Eberron - but I'm a bigger fan of a system's mechanics and the setting vibe meshing properly. And frankly - I'm not sure if 5e meshes well with Eberron.


Man, do I loathe the term "magipunk." It's such a lazy construction, as it just means "vaguely steampunk aesthetic but with magic instead of steam power," completely ignoring the other half of steampunk: Punk.

This has even spread to the term "dungeonpunk," which is used on TV Tropes to mean the same thing as magipunk, using Eberron as a specific example. It actually means the aesthetic of early 3rd Edition D&D, which had nothing to do with steampunk.

In summary: Words actually mean things, people!

EDIT: Oh, and yay for maybe 5Eberron!

EDIT 2 ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: My preferred term for the Eberron aesthetic is, in case anyone cares, "industrial magic" (light optional).

I prefer "magitech". Maybe "swashbuckling magitek"? And frankly - steampunk settings without any magic are generally a hot mess. I like their vibe, but if you look under the hood at all they fall apart. They need some magic to hold it together as a reason that the Victorian era steam-tech is around.

The only one without magic I know of that doesn't 100% fall apart is Genius Girl - which has super-geniuses who don't really even understand how their own tech works. (Which is sort of using the 'a wizard did it' excuse only without magic.) It only works as well as it does due to being a tongue-in-cheek comic strip.

[Morty]

5e runs on the idea of magic items being scarce and declares that "monstrous" races not being universally vile has no place in fantasy. The latter is easy enough for a setting book to get rid of, but the first? I wonder what they'll do if Eberron does get the 5e treatment.

[Millstone85]

And Eberron is not steampunk in any way. At least not until the fire and water elementals get loose.
I guess it's more like magepunk, really.If you tell me magepunk, I will expect grim magitek, but I will still wonder if the aesthetic will ressemble that of cyberpunk, dieselpunk, steampunk, clockpunk or what.


OK, I was trying to express the steampunk/magic fusion, but it was unclear. I like the way you put that better. :smallsmile:You quoted JackPhoenix with my name.

[Alderic78]

I kinda like Eberron, and it also means an official release of psionics is going to happen, which is even better ^_^

[hamishspence]

5e runs on the idea of magic items being scarce and declares that "monstrous" races not being universally vile has no place in fantasy. The latter is easy enough for a setting book to get rid of, but the first? I wonder what they'll do if Eberron does get the 5e treatment.

EDIT: I missed the "not".

Eberron runs on "monstrous races are not nearly as Always Evil as usual", it's true.

One of the biggest complaints I've seen about 5e was that monsters in general are more "universally vile" than previous editions portrayed them as. Especially gnolls - even the production of new gnolls is now different - instead of regular reproduction, they're created when a hyena eats something slain by Yeenoghu, who regularly rampages across the world.

[Beelzebubba]

I missed the Eberron train in 3.x, so I'll enjoy using it to add some funky stuff to my home-brew setting.

[Cybren]

I don't like Eberron but I think it has some cool iconography and material that can be stolen for other purposes, so it would be nice if an upcoming book was an Eberron manual. Though to be honest, another setting search contest would be fun... provided they didn't allow freelancers who they already have a professional relationship with to enter. That always felt weird.

[Sception]

I'm not sure why people think magic items being vanishingly rare is baked into 5e mechanics. published adventures hand them out left and right, and Xanathar's guide added a whole mess of 'minor' magic items specifically so that there would be more low-powered magical items to fill out the world with or hand out as rewards to PCs even at low levels. Healing Potions and Holy Water are common, purchasable items even within the core PHB, and the most recent version of the alchemist class explicitly creates minor magic items every few levels as a class feature. I fail to see how any underlying mechanics of 5e are broken if players are able able to buy and sell ever-burning torches or self-mending cloaks at high end markets.

Likewise, nothing about the actual mechanics of 5e breaks if orcs and goblins are people rather than monsters. If an adventure needs them to be enemies, then they still can be - after all, most campaigns have plenty of human bandits and cultists to fight as well.

Dark sun, with no divine magic and arcane heavily punished not just culturally but by the setting itself? That 5e has difficulty with (though, to be clear, it isn't difficulty that I personally see as insurmountable, and I'd certainly like the 5e devs to take a crack at surmounting them). But Eberron? It certainly diverges from the default tone and world the 5e mechanics were written to convey, but not in any way that those mechanics themselves seem incompatible with, at least not from where I'm sitting.


One of the biggest complaints I've seen about 5e was that monsters in general are more "universally vile" than previous editions portrayed them as. Especially gnolls - even the production of new gnolls is now different - instead of regular reproduction, they're created when a hyena eats something slain by Yeenoghu, who regularly rampages across the world.

This is not a *mechanical* problem. Nothing breaks in the game mechanics for a setting where gnolls have a different origin and history and are just a fantasy race that reproduces normally.

But this DOES get into the one worry I have about 5e Eberron, the recent push to give 5e unified lore that transcends settings, including racial origins and attitudes, the existance of gods in general and even specific pantheons, a unified cosmology, etc. That stuff very much IS at odds with Eberron in its entirety. Eberron's orcs, goblins, gnolls, and so on work with 5e's core mechanics, but they don't work with 5e's core narrative. If 5e Eberron is allowed to be its own thing, everything will work fine. But if it's forced to fit into 5e's existing story elements, then they might as well just stick to putting out more forgotten realms stuff.

[JackPhoenix]

The meaning of the "punk" part changed since 70's and cyberpunk that started it all. But you can still see echoes of it in Eberron: you have vaguely sinister, powerful corporations in Dragonmarked Houses, you have behind-the-scenes conspiracies of the rich (Aurum) or more malevolent organizations (The Inspired, Lords of Dust, Cults of the Dragons Below, ...), you have the struggle (overt and covert) both internal and external in each nation, you have the grim results of recent war, you have the artificlal race trying to find its place in the world that doesn't like them, you have the technology magic changing the world, from airships and warforged to the more subtle effects of utility magic (that's provided by those greedy megacorporations to boot). You even have magic version of cybernetic body modifications. And there's the general tone: there are no powerful good guys to save the world, and even if you win, you may have played straight into someone else's hand. It doesn't have to be that way... you can go on high adventures, searching for treasures in long-forgotten ruins, fighting against fantastical monsters and saving the world from over-the-top villains: Eberron offers options for various gaming styles.

Edit: Hell, my last game was about players being a bunch of Aberrant-marked outcasts who stumbled upon Dragonmarked conspiracy to take over the Five Nations. Change swords and bows to guns, Dragonmarks into cybernetic implants, the Macguffin into data storage device with top-secret information and the Twelve to your favorite megacorp, and it would fit right into a cyberpunk story of your choice. Including the gloomy and rainy alleys between Sharn's towers.

[Sception]

The meaning of the "punk" part changed since 70's and cyberpunk that started it all. But you can still see echoes of it in Eberron

Even more fundamentally, if you are playing a character who is trying to do the "right thing", that doesn't necessarily mean defending the status quo from evil outsiders out to threaten it. In many cases the villains are internal to society's overt power structure, and the status quo itself is often portrayed as dangerous, corrupt, or oppressive. To be honest, Eberron is, or at least can be, more "punk" than a lot of what passes as straight-up steampunk these days. And yeah, deriding "magipunk" as just a shallow aesthetic derivative of steampunk, when steampunk itself is mostly just an aesthetic derivative of cyberpunk, is a bit silly.

Now, Eberron certainly doesn't HAVE to be punk. It isn't even really trying to be, as the clear (and overtly stated) tonal aim is pulp & noir. But even without overtly trying to be, Eberron seems more punk than just about any other established first party D&D setting.

[Cybren]

Eberron would be deiselpunk if anything, not cyberpunk

[ZenBear]

Unless I'm running a module, I only tend to run games in my own setting, so this probably won't be useful to me as a setting book. I'll still read it, though, because I'm sure it'll introduce some cool concepts for me to steal. My setting does already include warforged, after all (they were constructed from wood by deep forest-dwelling drow in order to fight a war against the forces of the god of war).


To me all setting books have value ad fodder for cannibalism for my own worlds.

This is my position as well. I’m working non-stop on my own homebrew setting with every character and monster race crammed in. Warforged are of Gnomish invention in my setting, originally made as mindless automata until one Dr. Frankenstein crafted the first sapient Warforged, and now they’ve become a minority demographic that is lobbying for equal representation in the government.

[Twigwit]

I find it a bit strange that we try to label Eberron with "magepunk" or what have you and then turn around and say it fails to live up to the expectations that come with the label (isn't "punk" enough).

[KorvinStarmast]

You quoted JackPhoenix with my name.
Huh. How did I manage to do that? Sorry. :smalleek:

[Naanomi]

I kinda like Eberron, and it also means an official release of psionics is going to happen, which is even better ^_^
I’m not sure that is true. Psionics is present in Eberron, but not central to the concept like it is in Darksun... Kalashtar could easily be done with racial ‘spells’ (like Gith), perhaps with a supporting racial feat or three


But even without overtly trying to be, Eberron seems more punk than just about any other established first party D&D setting.
Have you seen the Darksun aesthetics?

[KorvinStarmast]

The meaning of the "punk" part changed since 70's and cyberpunk that started it all. Shall we blame William Gibson, or generally all dystopian authors? :smallcool:


But you can still see echoes of it in Eberron:
you have vaguely sinister, powerful corporations in Dragonmarked Houses,
you have behind-the-scenes conspiracies of the rich (Aurum) or more malevolent organizations (The Inspired, Lords of Dust, Cults of the Dragons Below, ...),
you have the struggle (overt and covert) both internal and external in each nation,
you have the grim results of recent war,
you have the artificlal race trying to find its place in the world that doesn't like them,
you have the technology magic changing the world, from airships and warforged to the more subtle effects of utility magic (that's provided by those greedy megacorporations to boot).
You even have magic version of cybernetic body modifications.

And there's the general tone: there are no powerful good guys to save the world, and even if you win, you may have played straight into someone else's hand. It doesn't have to be that way... you can go on high adventures, searching for treasures in long-forgotten ruins, fighting against fantastical monsters and saving the world from over-the-top villains: Eberron offers options for various gaming styles. Nice summary.

[Millstone85]

Huh. How did I manage to do that? Sorry. :smalleek:No problem. :smallcool:

[JackPhoenix]

Eberron would be deiselpunk if anything, not cyberpunk

Nobody claimed Eberron is cyberpunk. But cyberpunk was what started the whole -punk genre (while for example Verne's novels may seem pretty steampunk now, it was more about the adventures and the bright future brought by SCIENCE! than the grim and gritty -punk style). Cyber-, steam-, diesel-, rocket-, magic- or whatever prefix just describes the aesthetics.

[KorvinStarmast]

I'm not sure why people think magic items being vanishingly rare is baked into 5e mechanics. published adventures hand them out left and right, and Xanathar's guide added a whole mess of 'minor' magic items specifically so that there would be more low-powered magical items to fill out the world with or hand out as rewards to PCs even at low levels. Healing Potions and Holy Water are common, purchasable items even within the core PHB, and the most recent version of the alchemist class explicitly creates minor magic items every few levels as a class feature.
Alchemist is UA. DMG discussed High, Medium, and Low magic settings. Consumables of low power are just that, low power. XGtE doesn't add any items to a campaign; all of that stuff is optional, but I like what they did with that in terms of low powered items with limited impact. Fits a low magic setting/theme/baseline very well.

Likewise, nothing about the actual mechanics of 5e breaks if orcs and goblins are people rather than monsters. If an adventure needs them to be enemies, then they still can be - after all, most campaigns have plenty of human bandits and cultists to fight as well. Yep.
A campaign need not have orcs in it.
We had a D&D campaign back in the 1970's that had no races besides human, elf and dwarf (and elf/dwarf ere your class, not your "race" and they were very rare).
No other humanoids/demi humans.
Plenty of people who we had to deal with, though, to include dervishes, berserkers, bandits, pirates, and small armies of mercenaries supporting wizards, fighting men, and clerics in various ways.

And monsters. Various monsters but our biggest problems kept cropping up as:

Assassins; thieves guilds; various religious orders and their armed troops, sometimes led by paladins (against us! We weren't followers of "the one true god" so we were targets); wizards; Nobles/fighting men and their retainers; monks. (Yeah, a monastery full of evil monks ... Blackmoor style)

And a blue dragon who had a cult of humans worshipping and serving. Great fun, no orcs required.

That stuff very much IS at odds with Eberron in its entirety. Eberron's orcs, goblins, gnolls, and so on work with 5e's core mechanics, but they don't work with 5e's core narrative. If 5e Eberron is allowed to be its own thing, everything will work fine. But if it's forced to fit into 5e's existing story elements, then they might as well just stick to putting out more forgotten realms stuff. 5e seems to have removed the orcs as another human tribe and returned to a more original D&D view on orcs. And goblins. In particular I like 5e's treatment of gnolls in terms of getting them back to their AAD&D 1e style and savagery.
Putting on my DM hat, I can see humans and hobgoblins getting into an alliance to fight gnolls, even in this edition.

[JackPhoenix]

Have you seen the Darksun aesthetics?

Not sure if I'd called it a -punk. Post-apocalyptic sword & sorcery is more fitting, IMO.

[Waterdeep Merch]

There's a specific campaign I've always wanted to run in Eberron. If we get a 5e update, I might finally do it.

Kingdom Vice: True Crime on the Streets (Bridges?) of Sharn.

[Temperjoke]

Full disclosure, I haven't played in Eberron before, but I like a lot of the aesthetics in it. I don't think it can be fully categorized by a single descriptor though. I mean, like a good setting should, it's got lots of different flavors and potentials baked into its flaky crust (sorry, just had lunch), so you can find something in it that appeals to you. This is one of the big reasons I'm looking forward to it. I'm very much a fan of scientifically-explored magic, and that's something that has been lacking in official 5e so far.

[GlenSmash!]

...Oh, god! R.A.Salvatore, now you did it! :smallbiggrin: (Facepalm)

Funny, I had totally forgotten that one. Or maybe the name was lost in translation as I didn't read the series in original language?

I had forgotten about this too. I wish I could go back to forgetting it. I like some Salvatore stuff, can't take a character with a name that would be used as profanity by a cartoon old timey prospector seriously.

Anyway, I always liked the Shifters from UA Eberron, but thought they felt unfinished/unrefined. It would be nice to see them redone.

[CharonsHelper]

Anyway, I always liked the Shifters from UA Eberron, but thought they felt unfinished/unrefined. It would be nice to see them redone.

Yeah - both they and the changlings felt more slapped on. Not as integrated into the setting as the Warforged.

Still cool mechanically, but the changlings' existence especially would change how various security and whatnot function, which wasn't reflected in the setting that I can recall.

[Rerem115]

I probably wouldn't run an Eberron campaign, but I'd definitely steal bits that I thought interesting; it's always good to have another source book.

[JackPhoenix]

Yeah - both they and the changlings felt more slapped on. Not as integrated into the setting as the Warforged.

Still cool mechanically, but the changlings' existence especially would change how various security and whatnot function, which wasn't reflected in the setting that I can recall.

Changeling can't do anything that couldn't be done by magic before. They still won't get through Kundarak wards without a proper key, and password or few questions may be enough to reveal them. They can take someone's shape, but not to read his mind. Unlike magic, they can't change their equipment, and watchful observer will notice a difference in behavior. They aren't getting anywhere important, and there's a reason why people don't like them.

[Regitnui]

Changeling can't do anything that couldn't be done by magic before. They still won't get through Kundarak wards without a proper key, and password or few questions may be enough to reveal them. They can take someone's shape, but not to read his mind. Unlike magic, they can't change their equipment, and watchful observer will notice a difference in behavior. They aren't getting anywhere important, and there's a reason why people don't like them.

Don't trust them. Everyone likes a changeling who's feeling charming, especially those who don't trust them.

[EvilAnagram]

Eberron has always fascinated me as a setting because it is grounded in something real.

Yes, it's full of ludicrous magepunk nonsense like elemental-tech and magic war-robots, but the heart of the setting is grounded in post-war anxieties. There's an entire race that exists to explore what it's like to be a veteran in a society that is hostile to its military. The villains of the setting are entrenched in the governing bodies and business hierarchies that are only interested in perpetuating their own power, or else are extremists attempting to separate from society as a reaction to genuine persecution. There are adventures that could be run in d20 modern games set in the mid-70s with only cosmetic changes because the story of the setting is so fundamentally grounded in genuine human motivation, and that creates room for tables to explore themes that are much more interesting than "Manshoon does evil because Manshoon."

[alchahest]

I didn't care at all about Shifters til I was reading one of the book series (I'm away from my shelf but it involved a human, his shifter deputy crossbow marksman, and a few others). the shifter in that series made me interested in them in setting.

I can't wait to get some fully integrated (mechanically, not lore wise) 5E Eberron.

[Nifft]

Shall we blame William Gibson, or generally all dystopian authors? :smallcool: Buncha punks, the lot of 'em.


Eberron has always fascinated me as a setting because it is grounded in something real.

Yes, it's full of ludicrous magepunk nonsense like elemental-tech and magic war-robots, but the heart of the setting is grounded in post-war anxieties. There's an entire race that exists to explore what it's like to be a veteran in a society that is hostile to its military. The villains of the setting are entrenched in the governing bodies and business hierarchies that are only interested in perpetuating their own power, or else are extremists attempting to separate from society as a reaction to genuine persecution. There are adventures that could be run in d20 modern games set in the mid-70s with only cosmetic changes because the story of the setting is so fundamentally grounded in genuine human motivation, and that creates room for tables to explore themes that are much more interesting than "Manshoon does evil because Manshoon."

Yeah.

I mean, there are also Daelkyr and other such FOR TEH EVULZ villains available if you want them, but the default level of play is much more focused on the sorts of problems that real-feeling people and plausible societies might have.

[Astofel]

That sounds cool. (Are they vulnerable to fire or did you choose not to go there?)


Nah, giving a PC race a damage vulnerability, especially such a common one, is too huge a penalty imo. It's easy to explain away by just saying the warforged are made of magic/treated wood. Not that it's super important anyway, right now my setting warforged only exists in my notes, no-one has ever played one, met one, or gone to the very small area where they actually live.

[KorvinStarmast]

Eberron has always fascinated me as a setting because it is grounded in something real.

Yes, it's full of ludicrous magepunk nonsense like elemental-tech and magic war-robots, but the heart of the setting is grounded in post-war anxieties. There's an entire race that exists to explore what it's like to be a veteran in a society that is hostile to its military. The villains of the setting are entrenched in the governing bodies and business hierarchies that are only interested in perpetuating their own power, or else are extremists attempting to separate from society as a reaction to genuine persecution. There are adventures that could be run in d20 modern games set in the mid-70s with only cosmetic changes because the story of the setting is so fundamentally grounded in genuine human motivation, and that creates room for tables to explore themes that are much more interesting than "Manshoon does evil because Manshoon." Thanks for making this post. My minor problem with Eberron is that I am not keen on high magic settings in general/magic as tech, but the points you make about the foundation upon which the setting is built are all good ones. (tips cap)

[Solamnicknight]

I’m definitely excited for Ebberron provided it is released. I generally run higher tech/anachronistic settings when I play d&d so there’s definitely stuff I can use in the book. Also my players are pretty open to trying new settings so running an Ebberron campaign at some point would probably be fun!

[Waterdeep Merch]

Nah, giving a PC race a damage vulnerability, especially such a common one, is too huge a penalty imo. It's easy to explain away by just saying the warforged are made of magic/treated wood. Not that it's super important anyway, right now my setting warforged only exists in my notes, no-one has ever played one, met one, or gone to the very small area where they actually live.
The wooden parts of a warforged are livewood. Part of the unique thing about livewood is that, even chopped and cut, it remains alive.

Live trees make poor timber due to the moisture throughout. Theoretically, a human being is more flammable due to how much faster we can lose water and how high the fat content under our skin is. Plus we like wearing clothes a lot more often than warforged do, which can serve like a wick and turn us into inside-out candles.

[werescythe]

Hey, if we can get some official rules on how to play a Changeling (aside from the UA) and maybe some cool new spells/feats to go along with it, then I'm all for it. :smallsmile:

[Jama7301]

Reading through this thread and remembering some of the other settings discussions makes me wish there was a sort of "World building random generation table" With things like "Magic is...": '1. powered by leylines, doesn't work in area with no lines/magical deadzones exist. 2. widespread, but generally weak, 3, powerful, but few spellcaster, 4. available, but at a cost, etc [max number] Roll twice, rerolling any [max number]". (I've misplaced my DMG, so I'm unsure of the generation tables in there at this time)

Taking bits from existing settings as well as new ideas, to allow people to craft up interesting concepts.

Now, I know tables can't give the cohesion of building a world holistically, and a lot of people would chafe at the idea of leaving the world their going to make their game in up to chance, but for someone who loves launching points, it's something I'd be interested in. I take bits and pieces from things I see anyways, may as well have a uniform list of features that could generate something fun to work with.

[Naanomi]

Old Spelljammer material had a few versions of ‘build a Crystal Sphere’ with that kind of table. Rolling on those charts is how my homebrew world became a ‘nested crystal sphere’

[Knaight]

Warhammer predates Warcraft, so I'd look there. And D&D had spaceships, cowboys and what not even earlier.

And Eberron is not steampunk in any way. At least not until the fire and water elementals get loose.
It goes well before early D&D. To an extent fantasy, science fiction, modern horror, and a few other genres are essentially all outgrowths of pulp, which have all gotten more specific and developed a stronger tradition of more literary works, partially by deliberately tracing back to older pre-pulp works and bringing them in as a secondary founding source. Back in 1920-1940 or so pulp freely mixed all of them together, and these eclectic mixes still show up pretty often. Fantasy empires full of fantasy creatures on Mars with rayguns? Yeah, that's just pulp being pulp. Bringing in a few firearms and some basic mechanization is mild by comparison.


Man, do I loathe the term "magipunk." It's such a lazy construction, as it just means "vaguely steampunk aesthetic but with magic instead of steam power," completely ignoring the other half of steampunk: Punk.
If anything that follows the naming of steampunk of cyberpunk, with a lot of steampunk effectively dropping the -punk part. Which is weird, because a lot of the core structure of cyberpunk has to do with opposition deeply embedded in the status quo of a society instead of external enemies (or internal enemies that took over recently), and between the heavy inspiration of the social structure of Victorian Britain and contemporary entities like the British East India Company (for which there's a serious case that they're one of the most vile mega-corporations ever to exist) the -punk should come naturally.


Even more fundamentally, if you are playing a character who is trying to do the "right thing", that doesn't necessarily mean defending the status quo from evil outsiders out to threaten it. In many cases the villains are internal to society's overt power structure, and the status quo itself is often portrayed as dangerous, corrupt, or oppressive. To be honest, Eberron is, or at least can be, more "punk" than a lot of what passes as straight-up steampunk these days. And yeah, deriding "magipunk" as just a shallow aesthetic derivative of steampunk, when steampunk itself is mostly just an aesthetic derivative of cyberpunk, is a bit silly.

Now, Eberron certainly doesn't HAVE to be punk. It isn't even really trying to be, as the clear (and overtly stated) tonal aim is pulp & noir. But even without overtly trying to be, Eberron seems more punk than just about any other established first party D&D setting.
Pretty much, though there's a definite case for Dark Sun.

[Nifft]

I've wanted to run an Eberron game about aberrant and fiendish symbiotes used as cybertechnology.

The genre would be Khyberpunk.

[druid91]

Man, do I loathe the term "magipunk." It's such a lazy construction, as it just means "vaguely steampunk aesthetic but with magic instead of steam power," completely ignoring the other half of steampunk: Punk.

This has even spread to the term "dungeonpunk," which is used on TV Tropes to mean the same thing as magipunk, using Eberron as a specific example. It actually means the aesthetic of early 3rd Edition D&D, which had nothing to do with steampunk.

In summary: Words actually mean things, people!

EDIT: Oh, and yay for maybe 5Eberron!

EDIT 2 ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: My preferred term for the Eberron aesthetic is, in case anyone cares, "industrial magic" (light optional).

I mean, Steampunk is the exact same thing. It's just 'Cyberpunk' but with Steam instead of Cyber.

[AstralFire]

The 5E content has been good at keeping my interest and frankly, even selling me a bit on a setting I'm not especially fond of -- FR. I really look forward to Eberron for this reason.

The mechanical hurdle that I see as the biggest issue for Eberron is that I don't know if it's possible to really meaningfully tackle the Artificer without doing the common restriction of "this item is only for the creator" even though making it for everyone is what makes an Artificer feel like an Artificer and not being able to really make anything for anyone is what makes an Alchemist in PF feel like just a very bad wizard.

I am not sure artificer as a class needs to exist, I feel like it's ideally a background that benefits the whole party.

[CharonsHelper]

The 5E content has been good at keeping my interest and frankly, even selling me a bit on a setting I'm not especially fond of -- FR.

I think a lot of that is that the mechanics of 5e allow FR's world to make more sense. Especially in 3.x & 4e, having that many powerful monsters running around everywhere made politics and armies of mooks pretty pointless. 5e's much flatter progression system has those monsters be scary, but not something that can stand up to an army in the open - so it makes sense that humans and the other races can actually survive.

[Arkhios]

For my defense I have to say I used the term "magepunk/magipunk" only as a placeholder while searching for a better term. "Magitech" did come up, but to me it feels more like a naming for pieces of technology, not a term to be widely used for an aesthetic of a setting.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I think a lot of that is that the mechanics of 5e allow FR's world to make more sense. Especially in 3.x & 4e, having that many powerful monsters running around everywhere made politics and armies of mooks pretty pointless. 5e's much flatter progression system has those monsters be scary, but not something that can stand up to an army in the open - so it makes sense that humans and the other races can actually survive.

Armies aren't pointless in AD&D and 3e, it just requires a lot more of them to threaten powerful monsters--in those editions it requires actual armies of hundreds of soldiers, as opposed to small squads as in 5e, so 5e takes most of them down past "more survivable" territory and into "not threatening if you have peasants with bows and spears" territory, which somewhat undercuts the point of having heroic characters heroically slaying monsters.

And of course AD&D and 3e have mass-combat-enhancing abilities, both for offense and for buffing, like the larger spell areas in open areas and Birthright's war magic for 2e or Bardic Music and marshal auras for 3e, so you can certainly have armies defending cities from monsters but only with powerful and/or heroic characters leading and supporting them, striking a good balance between "Why do we need adventurers and other above-low-level characters?" and "How has civilization survived this long?"

[Arkhios]

... this DOES get into the one worry I have about 5e Eberron, the recent push to give 5e unified lore that transcends settings, including racial origins and attitudes, the existance of gods in general and even specific pantheons, a unified cosmology, etc. That stuff very much IS at odds with Eberron in its entirety. Eberron's orcs, goblins, gnolls, and so on work with 5e's core mechanics, but they don't work with 5e's core narrative. If 5e Eberron is allowed to be its own thing, everything will work fine. But if it's forced to fit into 5e's existing story elements, then they might as well just stick to putting out more forgotten realms stuff.

Honestly? Now that they've published somewhat "universal standards" for lore (including for many, but not all, races), I wouldn't be surprised if in Eberron Campaign Setting (alone or maybe in other similarly different settings specifically?) they wrote setting-specific lore that would contradict that standard wherever it matters setting-wise. It wouldn't even be unprecedented. D&D has a long history of having included "a generic <thing>" and "a specific <thing> that gets priority over generic". I think it's perfectly possible to apply on setting lore as well.

[AstralFire]

I think a lot of that is that the mechanics of 5e allow FR's world to make more sense. Especially in 3.x & 4e, having that many powerful monsters running around everywhere made politics and armies of mooks pretty pointless. 5e's much flatter progression system has those monsters be scary, but not something that can stand up to an army in the open - so it makes sense that humans and the other races can actually survive.

I think you raise an excellent point, but it goes much deeper than that for me. I feel like it has a lot to do with making small adjustments to presentation that makes threats feels more organic and woven together as a world better. My first impression of FR, even when I was brand new to D&D 3 way back in 2000, was that it felt sort of ... patchwork. I don't want to discuss FR too much, mind, just restate that I'm eager to see what the new edition can do for presentation to Eberron. While Eberron has always been presented with a strong coherence that I really enjoyed, there are parts where it can be patched up. I agree with other comments that suggest that the Changelings and Shifters don't really get as much focus as they deserve due to the runaway success of Warforged. (I admit to not being a big shifter fan, but I love Changelings.) While Kalashtar are integral to their plotline, they're also more 'boring' imo -- I love their lore but it's easy for "it looks like a human" to get lore centering.

While I've done a pretty good job converting some of my favorite Eberron magic items to 5e, I'd love to see what they can do, and I'm interested to see any possible further developments with the metaplots for the Silver Flame, Sarlona, Droaam, and the Dragonmarks.

[MrStabby]

The 5E content has been good at keeping my interest and frankly, even selling me a bit on a setting I'm not especially fond of -- FR. I really look forward to Eberron for this reason.

The mechanical hurdle that I see as the biggest issue for Eberron is that I don't know if it's possible to really meaningfully tackle the Artificer without doing the common restriction of "this item is only for the creator" even though making it for everyone is what makes an Artificer feel like an Artificer and not being able to really make anything for anyone is what makes an Alchemist in PF feel like just a very bad wizard.

I am not sure artificer as a class needs to exist, I feel like it's ideally a background that benefits the whole party.

Yeah, I agree. Artificer and Alchemist as a feat rather than a class makes more sense (or as you say a background, but there are always going to be some players that want a building items in a workshop game rather than an adventure game to an extent; a nod to that preference seems largely harmless if the whole party agrees). The challenge of creating a class that addresses your concerns is much more difficult than doing so for a feat. A feat that is situational is fine, a class that is situational is a bit of a drag and forcing the DM to warp heir campaign/rules to try and ensure it's power level is right can be damaging to the story.

I am not really such a big fan of crafting - I like the exploration side of the game including discovering loot. I love that 5th edition has removed shopping lists. There is a joy to picking up the genuinely unexpected magic item. If PCs could create items that broadly fill needs it kind of diminishes this excitement (unless the discovered items are better, in which case it limits the value of the crafting ability).

[CharonsHelper]

Armies aren't pointless in AD&D and 3e, it just requires a lot more of them to threaten powerful monsters--in those editions it requires actual armies of hundreds of soldiers,

Maybe (they're probably even weaker in 3e than earlier). But the thing about the FR is - sure you can win a Phyrric victory against THAT monster, but what about all of the other ones? There are a TON of monsters walking around in that setting - yet somehow the main settled areas are mostly clear except for the sneakier monsters.

In 5e it makes much more sense for the monsters near settled areas to have to be sneaky.



so 5e takes most of them down past "more survivable" territory and into "not threatening if you have peasants with bows and spears" territory, which somewhat undercuts the point of having heroic characters heroically slaying monsters.

Not really. By that logic no one needs Batman either.

And I think that you're underestimating the scariness of some monsters. Sure - in 5e they can't walk up and slaughter hundreds of peasants in the open without breaking a sweat. But most monsters can just avoid armies - and massive standing armies criss-crossing the countryside aren't viable. Small groups of adventurers are.

It also makes more sense that many of the scariest places are dungeons - where big armies can't fit and bring their numbers to bear.

[Nifft]

IMHO as an Eberron fan...

Eberron doesn't need PC item crafting.

The Artificer could be an Int-based half-caster with a list of Infusions, and some Rogue abilities. Item crafting would be nice, but it's not necessary that a PC be doing the crafting.

Who crafts? The NPC Magewrights, who are all NPCs and thus don't need PC mechanics.


Eberron doesn't need Psionics, either. I'd prefer them to exist, and Eberron will be richer if Psionics do exist, but the majority of games can be played without them.

Kalashtar can work just like Githyanki/-zerai, and just get a few racial spells per day which are their innate Psionic abilities.


So what does Eberron need?

- Dragonmarks, preferably NOT as feats since you need access to one at very low levels.

- Items which interact with Dragonmarks.

- Spells which interact with Warforged and Dragonmarks.

- Action Point mechanics.

- Rules for jumping off a dinosaur and onto a train while a wizard on an airship shoots fire rays at you.

[Pelle]

- Rules for jumping off a dinosaur and onto a train while a wizard on an airship shoots fire rays at you.

That's already covered by the ability check system...

[mgshamster]

That's already covered by the ability check system...

I don't know...

Maybe we should have a chart for that.

:smallbiggrin:

[KorvinStarmast]

"Why do we need adventurers and other above-low-level characters?" Armies are expensive.

[Knaight]

Not really. By that logic no one needs Batman either.

Nor many other characters. The three musketeers? Pssh, they couldn't singlehandedly kill armies. Conan? A bit more individually dangerous to be sure, but not an army killer. The fellowship of the ring? Nah, they're good, but not that good. Robin Hood? He could barely handle one sheriff and his men.

This whole idea in the D&D fandom that adventurers must be personally equivalent to whole armies to count for anything is just bizarre.

[Nifft]

- Rules for jumping off a dinosaur and onto a train while a wizard on an airship shoots fire rays at you.


That's already covered by the ability check system...

Trains, airships, and riding dinosaurs are NOT covered by the ability check system in my PHB.

[EvilAnagram]

Trains, airships, and riding dinosaurs are NOT covered by the ability check system in my PHB.

Dinosaurs have stats, and both trains and airships have relative speeds that the DM should calculate to determine the DC in your example. I don't need to know the hit points of a wall to know if it's climbable.

[Pelle]

Trains, airships, and riding dinosaurs are NOT covered by the ability check system in my PHB.

They are; the DM just decides which ability that applies and if any proficiencies, and if it's an easy, moderate, hard or whatever task.


I don't know...

Maybe we should have a chart for that.

:smallbiggrin:

:smallwink:

[MrStabby]

So what does Eberron need?

- Dragonmarks, preferably NOT as feats since you need access to one at very low levels.



Not up to speed on much of Eberron - I had thought Dragonmarks were pretty much a human thing? So a feat could work?

How about adding them as fighting styles and a feat added that gives +1 stat and a fighting style as an alternative way of picking up a dragnonmark? Hopefully this wouldn't change the fundamental game too much.

[Nifft]

Not up to speed on much of Eberron - I had thought Dragonmarks were pretty much a human thing? So a feat could work?

Humans are one of the races which can have Dragonmarks.

Other races which can have Dragonmarks are:
- Elves
- Half-Elves
- Half-Orcs
- Dwarves
- Gnomes
- Halflings


Feat could NOT work, unless the rules for feats were changed.

[Anonymouswizard]

Armies are expensive.

After a handful of levels the same is true of adventurers. Not to the point of an army, but hiring 8th level adventurers is not something you do casually. In some ways if a big bad monster is running about your first point of call might be to raise a militia from the closest villages, not as good as a standing army but cheaper than good adventurers.

Looking forward to a potential 5e Eberron, the setting has always looked interesting but I've never had a chance to play in out. Might convince me to give running 5e another go.

[CharonsHelper]

After a handful of levels the same is true of adventurers. Not to the point of an army, but hiring 8th level adventurers is not something you do casually. In some ways if a big bad monster is running about your first point of call might be to raise a militia from the closest villages, not as good as a standing army but cheaper than good adventurers.

You're assuming that the peasantry would be willing - and that you ignore the cost of losing several dozen (vary a lot by the monster) peasants as taxpayers/serfs for the remainder of their lives.

Also two additional points -

1. Equipping them with decent gear isn't super cheap. Even just a score of peasants with longbows is going to cost over 1k to equip (1k plus arrows), not to mention feed/ for however long it takes to get the monster. A lot more if you want to give them melee weaponry and armor. They also won't be working their crops or paying taxes during that time, plus they might even expect to be PAID! *shudder* In the end it's much easier and quite possibly cheaper just to put a bounty of a few thousand gold on the beast.

2. Do you really WANT your peasantry to have high quality weaponry?

[Sception]

Feat could NOT work, unless the rules for feats were changed.

Maybe as backgrounds then, granting a couple skills, languages, or tool proficiencies related to the business of the associated house, with a background feature in the form of a minor magical ability to represent the most basic power of the mark? Then you could have feats with those backgrounds as prerequisites to expand on those abilities as the power of the dragonmark grows along with that of the marked individual.


As for crafting magical items, I'd imagine the rules would be the same as for crafting nonmagical items, pethaps with a new associated tool proficiency. Just slap official market values on a bunch of minor & utility type magic items, while leaving stronger stuff and math pushing items like +X weapons and armor as non-reproducible relics of an earlier age, same as they are in other settings.

I think the current playtest artificer handles the class pretty well apart from that. Maybe ditch the too strong when you get it but pointless later non-scaling robo pet, bump it up to a half caster instead of a third caster, tinker with the subclasses a bit (robopet could come back as a third option here). I mean, there's tinkering to do certainly, but I do think the playtest is on the right track there, so I'm personally not worried about it.

[Naanomi]

Dragonmarks will be challenging to implement, I think... background? Feat (possibly via bonus feat)? New system? If it is a new system, how do we integrate it with AL and not make it a freebie compared to other character origins?

Someone mentioned action points, I don’t see that as very central to the setting myself... extra guidelines on inspiration may cover it just fine if necessary

[Anonymouswizard]

You're assuming that the peasantry would be willing - and that you ignore the cost of losing several dozen (vary a lot by the monster) peasants as taxpayers/serfs for the remainder of their lives.

Also two additional points -

1. Equipping them with decent gear isn't super cheap. Even just a score of peasants with longbows is going to cost over 1k to equip (1k plus arrows), not to mention feed/ for however long it takes to get the monster. A lot more if you want to give them melee weaponry and armor. They also won't be working their crops or paying taxes during that time, plus they might even expect to be PAID! *shudder* In the end it's much easier and quite possibly cheaper just to put a bounty of a few thousand gold on the beast.

2. Do you really WANT your peasantry to have high quality weaponry?

1) 1k instead of paying ~5 8th level adventurers seems fair (although I might still be thinking in 2e-4e terms). Let's be honest though, in reality the stuff we're talking about is going to either be solved by high level heroes while they're doing something else before it becomes a problem, or a few lower level adventurers and like 10-20 locals playing support (guides, longbowmen, and solve spear carriers).

Also, it is very much a case of immediate versus ongoing costs. Sure, it costs less to pay adventurers in the long run, but after you've collected taxes, fixed your keep, paid your guards and servants, and solve whatever public spending you need/want to do, do you have the few thousand gold? If not, might be best to suffer the ongoing losses rather than offer money you don't have.

2) at this point we have to judge risks. Maybe it's one longbow among 20 peasants, or one in five. Although if we do nothing we're going to get overthrown by the peasants with their converted farm implements (to save face let's call them polearms).

[Doug Lampert]

Nah, giving a PC race a damage vulnerability, especially such a common one, is too huge a penalty imo. It's easy to explain away by just saying the warforged are made of magic/treated wood. Not that it's super important anyway, right now my setting warforged only exists in my notes, no-one has ever played one, met one, or gone to the very small area where they actually live.


The wooden parts of a warforged are livewood. Part of the unique thing about livewood is that, even chopped and cut, it remains alive.

Live trees make poor timber due to the moisture throughout. Theoretically, a human being is more flammable due to how much faster we can lose water and how high the fat content under our skin is. Plus we like wearing clothes a lot more often than warforged do, which can serve like a wick and turn us into inside-out candles.

Even dry wood is HARD to set on fire unless you can carefully stack it and use an accelerant or starter of some sort, meanwhile, human flesh is critically damaged by fire long before it actually catches alight.

Cotton or linen cloth, hair, things like that, they burn easily compared to wood. Gosh, I wonder if most adventurers have anything like that with them (consider the thick padded cloth most armor has under it and the surcoat over it).

Basically, there's no good reason a man-sized wooden structure or thing should be more vulnerable to fire than a human.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Even dry wood is HARD to set on fire unless you can carefully stack it and use an accelerant or starter of some sort, meanwhile, human flesh is critically damaged by fire long before it actually catches alight.

Cotton or linen cloth, hair, things like that, they burn easily compared to wood. Gosh, I wonder if most adventurers have anything like that with them (consider the thick padded cloth most armor has under it and the surcoat over it).

Basically, there's no good reason a man-sized wooden structure or thing should be more vulnerable to fire than a human.
If we were being completely "realistic" with our resistances, warforged would actually be resistant to just about every damage source aside from lightning, if we're assuming humans as a base model for 'neither resistant nor vulnerable'.

Fire: Livewood is a living hardwood, extremely difficult to seriously damage with fire as detailed above.
Cold: Wood and metal aren't as susceptible to freezing temperatures, either.
Acid: The denseness of their bodies would make acid take a lot longer to erode them.
Thunder: No squishy bits that would be vulnerable to shockwaves. Greater density for absorption.
Necrotic: Necrosis and death are much delayed in normal plants, let alone one that can apparently survive being chopped into pieces. And the metal parts have basically no vulnerability whatsoever.
Radiant: Hard to say what radiant damage is, exactly, but it appears to be similar to radiation first and foremost. Again, plants are less vulnerable due to density, and metal has no susceptibility to it.
Slashing: Cutting flesh is a whole lot easier than chopping down a tree. And then there's the metal.
Bludgeoning: No real organs, hardwood and metal give way a lot less easily than a person.
Piercing: Ever accidentally stab your hand? Did it take a hammer and some elbow grease, like putting a nail in a wall? And your wall's almost certainly NOT hardwood.

Even lightning's a bit suspicious. They're definitely more conductive, but do they have organs that are as damaged by electricity as humans have?

[Naanomi]

I assume warforged are like Swiss watches... sure maybe hard to completely destroy, but easy to ‘break’ by jostling some tiny component piece; so it balances out to ‘average vulnerability’ in the end

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Maybe (they're probably even weaker in 3e than earlier). But the thing about the FR is - sure you can win a Phyrric victory against THAT monster, but what about all of the other ones? There are a TON of monsters walking around in that setting - yet somehow the main settled areas are mostly clear except for the sneakier monsters.

In 5e it makes much more sense for the monsters near settled areas to have to be sneaky.

In FR specifically, it's mostly because of all the high-level characters and powerful magic rather than armies, actually. Waterdeep has high walls, watchtowers, hippogriff-mounted cavalry, and that sort of thing, but it's also full of powerful individuals who can deal with a dragon attack or a doppleganger infestation. FR nations have never cared about armies for monster protection in any edition; armies are for controlling territory or for attacking other places with armies, both sides with powerful characters at the head.

In a lower-magic setting like Dragonlance, yes, the ability for cities to protect themselves better with armies would be nice. But then, a key feature of Dragonlance is that they can't protect themselves against powerful dragons with powerful characters riding and leading them.


Not really. By that logic no one needs Batman either.


Nor many other characters. The three musketeers? Pssh, they couldn't singlehandedly kill armies. Conan? A bit more individually dangerous to be sure, but not an army killer. The fellowship of the ring? Nah, they're good, but not that good. Robin Hood? He could barely handle one sheriff and his men.

This whole idea in the D&D fandom that adventurers must be personally equivalent to whole armies to count for anything is just bizarre.

The Three Musketeers and Robin Hood never faced anything more dangerous than a particularly skilled human, and in most Batman stories he didn't either; when he did, it involved using the equivalent of powerful magic items to level the playing field a bit. Conan faced the occasional giant snake or spider and a few demons, but rarely anything bigger than a particularly large horse and never more than one or two at a time, and he often cheated by getting enemies to fight each other. The Fellowship didn't directly fight many superhuman threats, mostly avoiding them or relying on Gandalf to help deal with them--thought Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas did punch well above their weight class in the army-slaying department.

Mid-level adventurers in D&D, meanwhile, are expected to deal with creatures that could each each the Three Musketeers, Robin Hood, street-level Batman, Conan, and most of the Fellowship for lunch, in some cases all at the same time. Three Musketeers are outnumbered by twelve hydra heads; Batman's detective skills and acrobatics are no match for a gelugon's teleportation and ice walls; Robin Hood's arrows couldn't pierce a dragon's scales; Conan would get stepped on by a titan and the titan might not even notice.

In a setting that posits both that those kinds of creatures exist at those power levels and that you're expected to play small groups of heroes that deal with them, it follows that throwing more people at the problem (in regiments on the field of battle, in streams of dungeon-delvers, or whatever) is not sufficient or effective in dealing with them, or the small groups of people would have no reason to go deal with them alone and there wouldn't be enough of them to do so if they did. And yes, "throw bodies at the problem" is still effective in cramped locations like dungeons; AD&D PCs having bunches of involuntary trap-springers henchmen at low levels and Robilar clearing out the Tomb of Horrors with hordes of mooks show that well enough.

And if individual characters are supposed to be on the level of d'Artagnan or Robin Hood and still come out on top against those kinds of threats, then armies would absolutely murder them. Far from being scared of red dragon attacks, cities would have to set up nature preserves to save the poor endangered great wyrm red dragon. :smallwink:

It's a sort of rock-paper-scissors situation, really. Monsters, with their many natural attacks and at-will magic, are good at killing armies; armies, with their high numbers and ability to control territory, are good at dealing with PCs (at least the non-Evil ones who want to exist in civilized society); PCs, with their short-range and resource-limited but very powerful abilities, are good at killing monsters. Switch one of those up (PCs and armies are both good at killing monsters, armies and monsters are both good at killing PCs, etc.) and you end up in a situation where the traditional D&D dynamic doesn't really work. It's like if in Shadowrun you weakened the megacorps to the point that shadowrunners could make a meaningful impact on the setting, or strengthened them to the point they didn't need shadowrunners to do their dirty work; it would be a self-consistent and interesting setting, but not one that's great for playing Shadowrun.

[MrStabby]

If we were being completely "realistic" with our resistances, warforged would actually be resistant to just about every damage source aside from lightning, if we're assuming humans as a base model for 'neither resistant nor vulnerable'.

Fire: Livewood is a living hardwood, extremely difficult to seriously damage with fire as detailed above.
Cold: Wood and metal aren't as susceptible to freezing temperatures, either.
Acid: The denseness of their bodies would make acid take a lot longer to erode them.
Thunder: No squishy bits that would be vulnerable to shockwaves. Greater density for absorption.
Necrotic: Necrosis and death are much delayed in normal plants, let alone one that can apparently survive being chopped into pieces. And the metal parts have basically no vulnerability whatsoever.
Radiant: Hard to say what radiant damage is, exactly, but it appears to be similar to radiation first and foremost. Again, plants are less vulnerable due to density, and metal has no susceptibility to it.
Slashing: Cutting flesh is a whole lot easier than chopping down a tree. And then there's the metal.
Bludgeoning: No real organs, hardwood and metal give way a lot less easily than a person.
Piercing: Ever accidentally stab your hand? Did it take a hammer and some elbow grease, like putting a nail in a wall? And your wall's almost certainly NOT hardwood.

Even lightning's a bit suspicious. They're definitely more conductive, but do they have organs that are as damaged by electricity as humans have?

This is true... but somewhat offset by the can't really move much thing.

[Waterdeep Merch]

I assume warforged are like Swiss watches... sure maybe hard to completely destroy, but easy to ‘break’ by jostling some tiny component piece; so it balances out to ‘average vulnerability’ in the end
This makes the most sense, especially since some very complex magic goes into making them. While their bodies could survive an insane amount of punishment, the enchantments can't.

[KorvinStarmast]

After a handful of levels the same is true of adventurers. Not to the point of an army, but hiring 8th level adventurers is not something you do casually. Not everyone hires NPC's. That is a particular trope that is not common to all game tables. I am not sure when that started.
In the first five years that I played, we went on adventures because we were adventurers; because we had expectation of there being loot and unknown danger involved; or because someone we cared about in the game world needed help; or, because we got hit with a bloody geas or quest spell. :p (Happened more than once)

We also went on adventures because someone had a treasure map. Maps were also a valuable piece of loot in the original edition. I've seen their use decrease a bit, which is a shame. Treasure maps (see the book Treasure Island, or the Hobbit) were a standard literary trope. They were an adventure trigger. Maps and Legends were significant adventure triggers.


"Deep in the cave at the southern end of Flogs Canyon is the rumored resting place of the spear Boarspit, a magical weapon that the kings of old passed down from father to son when they hunted giant boars. But the last king was murdered two centuries ago ...

As with pirates, or with Bilbo, the "pay" was "a share of the booty/reward" once the mission was accomplished.

Granted, when I began D&D again, our first 5e mission was very much "meet in a tavern, get hired by a sponsor, with the promise of X gold per person when mission accomplished."

[Tetrasodium]

I assume warforged are like Swiss watches... sure maybe hard to completely destroy, but easy to ‘break’ by jostling some tiny component piece; so it balances out to ‘average vulnerability’ in the end

They made of live wood, living stone, and metal. But you can't just start flaying one for materials because the result will rot/corrode away

In the past their nonmeat structure was reflected in ac & sometimes dr. I think it's a given that the rediculous +1ac thing won't be the final version & suspect that it will look more like the tortle but with different subtypes to choose from. Even back in 3.5 there were several different subtypes with only a few statted at all & the different composite plating options for the pc race version. Given the number of subtypes certain races have, it would be very odd not to do the same with warforged
I could see one of them having heavy armor mastery type dror even resistance to physical damage

[samcifer]

"Keep it civil...?" As in Capt. America vs. Iron Man? >:)

[samcifer]

They made of live wood, living stone, and metal. But you can't just start flaying one for materials because the result will rot/corrode away

In the past their nonmeat structure was reflected in ac & sometimes dr. I think it's a given that the rediculous +1ac thing won't be the final version & suspect that it will look more like the tortle but with different subtypes to choose from. Even back in 3.5 there were several different subtypes with only a few statted at all & the different composite plating options for the pc race version. Given the number of subtypes certain races have, it would be very odd not to do the same with warforged
I could see one of them having heavy armor mastery type dror even resistance to physical damage

I always liked the idea of a warforged conjurer wizard who studies conjuration in order to better understand how his kind were made as well as searching for the secrets of how the warforged were created to give the race a future.

[CharonsHelper]

Mid-level adventurers in D&D, meanwhile, are expected to deal with creatures that could each each the Three Musketeers, Robin Hood, street-level Batman, Conan, and most of the Fellowship for lunch, in some cases all at the same time. Three Musketeers are outnumbered by twelve hydra heads; Batman's detective skills and acrobatics are no match for a gelugon's teleportation and ice walls; Robin Hood's arrows couldn't pierce a dragon's scales; Conan would get stepped on by a titan and the titan might not even notice.


I don't think that anyone was saying that D&D heroes are supposed to be at the level of Batman/Three Musketeers. I specifically used Batman as an example of a lower powered hero (relative to a 5e D&D PC) who is still extremely valuable to their setting, despite armies of Joe Schmoes being able to take out The Joker or even Poison Ivy with fisticuffs if they're willing to take some losses.

And yes - theoretically you could funnel an army of mooks into the hydra's cave to take it out eventually (though some monsters would likely kill a dozen or so before successfully fleeing) - but not without really heavy losses. And it's not as if it's the only monstrous problem in the world. If you use that method for all of them, you're quickly going to run out of mooks. Better to keep your standing army standing as a threat to keep all of those monsters hunkered down in their caves and a more limited threat, and then use badass heroes to go in and deal with them.

[AstralFire]

I would rather Dragonmarks not be feats; while feat chains aren't as essential in 5E as in 3E, the relative impact of those feats is still high, and the non-combat nature of non-aberrant dragonmarks makes most of them iffy choices -- handling and scribing aren't likely to be useful to the same campaigns.

I suppose it could be handled by as simple as saying that Eberron characters start with an additional feat at first level, given that's a very common houserule anyway, and making up a variety of corresponding feats, but I think the least marks should all be kept to a very low power and made into a variant background feature. Feats can still be used to expand them for higher levels.

I don't know if action points are necessary to re-implement as I think much of the pulp feel can be handled with variant rules presented in the DMG already, but I would be interested to see what gets put together as I really enjoyed action points in 3E.

[Naanomi]

Dragonmarks (or advancing them anyways) could be passable half-feats and be not quite as painful to invest in

[Temperjoke]

I think one of the things that attracts me to the Warforged of Eberron is that they remind me of the Black Mages from FFIX (http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Black_mage_(Final_Fantasy_IX)), beings created to be living weapons. Granted there are differences, but I like the idea of a character who's trying to understand the world and their new place in it.

[AstralFire]

Dragonmarks (or advancing them anyways) could be passable half-feats and be not quite as painful to invest in

Half-feat meaning the type that add +1 to a stat? Those are my favorite and there's not enough of them.

[MeeposFire]

Dragonmarks (or advancing them anyways) could be passable half-feats and be not quite as painful to invest in

A different option is to make them a sub racial choice so instead of choosing hill or mountain dwarf you could take the dragon mark instead and gain abilities like that. We even have sub races that give spells out as you level so the concept is already there.

It does have the opposite problem that feats have however in that it works great for a 1st level character but you would need to decide how you would work with marks that manifest after 1st level (whereas feats by how RAW is currently do not work for most races until 4th level but of course you could take one at any time).

[Arkhios]

Honestly, I hope they come up with an additional mechanic for the Dragonmarks, because I feel they'd be slightly problematic as feats. Mostly because any other race except humans can get their first feat at 4th level, and in a game that doesn't use feats (remember: that's the default assumption; feats are optional!) no one could have a dragonmark if they were feats.

[Temperjoke]

What if dragonmarked characters were a subrace option? Instead of taking your normal subrace traits for your race, you would gain the dragonmark?

[Arkhios]

What if dragonmarked characters were a subrace option? Instead of taking your normal subrace traits for your race, you would gain the dragonmark?

That ... could work actually. Or, maybe an alternative racial trait that would replace something from the core race (so, not exactly a sub-race but something that any sub-race of a single race could have).


...If they went this way, I'd be surprised if they didn't include those rumored alternative class features (one of which might be the direction where revised ranger was going) in the same book. That'd provide a good chunk of new player options aside from just rewritten setting lore.

[Astofel]

Out of curiosity what did dragonmarks do in past editions? Everyone talks about them like they're a very important part of the setting but I don't know why or what they do.

[EvilAnagram]

That ... could work actually. Or, maybe an alternative racial trait that would replace something from the core race (so, not exactly a sub-race but something that any sub-race of a single race could have).


...If they went this way, I'd be surprised if they didn't include those rumored alternative class features (one of which might be the direction where revised ranger was going) in the same book. That'd provide a good chunk of new player options aside from just rewritten setting lore.

Honestly, I would prefer the feay, so long as they used the variant rule that you can pick a feat at first level. That would fit the pulpy tone.

[Arkhios]

Honestly, I would prefer the feay, so long as they used the variant rule that you can pick a feat at first level. That would fit the pulpy tone.

What variant rule? Aside from the Variant Human in PHB, I'm not aware of a variant rule that lets everyone, regardless of race, to pick a feat at first level. Can you cite the source or are you just referring to the (admittedly very common) houserule which many DM's use in their own games?

I still have to disagree though. Feats are an optional feature of the game. Anything new they (WotC) add in terms of content should take that into account, regardless how much it would affect the game as a whole.

As for Dragonmarks. There were originally a total of 13 "True" Dragonmarked Houses (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonmarked_house#True_Houses) (see the link for further description of their abilities), all of which were linked to a specific race (note, they're not humans-only, although each individual dragonmark manifested only on members of the specific races):
House Cannith (Humans), House Deneith (Humans), House Ghallanda (Halflings), House Jorasco (Halflings), House Kundarak (Dwarves), House Lyrandar (Half-elves), House Medani (Half-elves), House Orien (Humans), House Phiarlan (Elves), House Sivis (Gnomes), House Tharashk (Half-orcs), House Thuranni (Elves), and House Vadalis (Humans)

And here's a quote from the Wikipedia article I linked above (sources: Dragonmarked (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonmarked) and 3.5 Eberron Campaign Setting (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eberron_Campaign_Setting))


Dragonmarked houses are organizations in the fictional Eberron campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game that are based on bloodlines descended from families that first manifested dragonmarks. Not all members of the Houses have dragonmarks; nor is it an assurance of power. Talent is considered a better choice. Most common people have at least a small amount of House blood in their ancestry, usually unnoticed.

In the fictional world, the Dragonmarked Houses are the cornerstone of the economy of Khorvaire. Most banking, security, communications, transportation and fabrication are run by the Dragonmarked Houses. The Houses use their exclusive access to the powers of dragonmarks to sustain their economic empires that extend far beyond arcane powers of the dragonmarks themselves. The houses can attribute most of their success to their meticulously crafted reputations for standardization and quality that have elevated bearers of dragonmarks with a status that mundane wizards and artificers cannot possibly match.

[EvilAnagram]

What variant rule? Aside from the Variant Human in PHB, I'm not aware of a variant rule that lets everyone, regardless of race, to pick a feat at first level. Can you cite the source or are you just referring to the (admittedly very common) houserule which many DM's use in their own games?

I still have to disagree though. Feats are an optional feature of the game. Anything new they (WotC) add in terms of content should take that into account.

I was referring to the common house, but your 2nd paragraph makes very good point dragon marks are essential to the setting, not variants.

[JackPhoenix]

Out of curiosity what did dragonmarks do in past editions? Everyone talks about them like they're a very important part of the setting but I don't know why or what they do.

Mechanically? Give a small bonus to a skill and allow you to cast some specific spells once/few times a day (3e) and give you access to some rituals (4e).

Fluff-wise? It's a big part of the wide magic Eberron goes for. Dragonmarks make you better in certain field (crafting stuff for Making, interacting with animals for Handling, etc.), give you the ability to use spells without the need to be trained spellcaster, and with dragonmark focus items, give you abilities that are pretty much non-existent otherwise. High level spellcasters are very rare in Eberron, but there are people who can use Teleport thanks to the weird symbol somewhere on their body. You can base continent-wide teleportation service on that, if you harness the power of the mark and create a network of teleportation circles. There are people who can control weather. There are people who can raise dead with the aid of special altars... something that isn't possible otherwise (because there aren't cleric with high enough level, and the biggest religions frown on that thing anyway). People with similar marks joined into 12 Dragonmarked Houses, international mercantile organizations that provide services related to their marks. It gives them huge economical advantage: House Cannith crafter can create things faster, better, and can even make magic items more effectively than mundane caster. Lots of those things don't have mechanical representation, because they are irrelevant to player characters... something that 5e separation between NPCs and PCs allows much better than previous editions.

There's another reason to keep the houses separate: if the people with different dragonmark bloodlines interbreed (they don't even have to manifest dragonmarks themselves), the result is so-called Aberrant Mark. Though they sometimes appear without explanation, mixing dragonmarks is the only sure way to get one. They are bad news: Abilities they grant are usually negative (setting things on fire, mind control, driving people mad...), not always under the bearer's control, and they are often accompanied by physical mutation or mental issues. Aberrant marks aren't that powerful now, but in the past, they were much more dangerous: Lady of Plague could kill whole villages through her mere presence, and she's the reason Sharn's depths are full of insectoid horrors even 1500 years after her death, while Halas Tarkanan could create an earthquake powerful enough to destroy a city.

[Tetrasodium]

I would rather Dragonmarks not be feats; while feat chains aren't as essential in 5E as in 3E, the relative impact of those feats is still high, and the non-combat nature of non-aberrant dragonmarks makes most of them iffy choices -- handling and scribing aren't likely to be useful to the same campaigns.

I suppose it could be handled by as simple as saying that Eberron characters start with an additional feat at first level, given that's a very common houserule anyway, and making up a variety of corresponding feats, but I think the least marks should all be kept to a very low power and made into a variant background feature. Feats can still be used to expand them for higher levels.

I don't know if action points are necessary to re-implement as I think much of the pulp feel can be handled with variant rules presented in the DMG already, but I would be interested to see what gets put together as I really enjoyed action points in 3E.


The real power of a dragonmark lies in the dragonmark focus items they allow the heir to use not the mark itself. Unfortunately wotc has never spent the time to make any. I don't think that dragonmarks will be feats given that I'm pretty sure keith baker has said about how he doesn't use feats for marks & handles them "differently".

[EvilAnagram]

Out of curiosity what did dragonmarks do in past editions? Everyone talks about them like they're a very important part of the setting but I don't know why or what they do.

They provide neat little magical abilities that are useful without breaking the game.

More importantly, they are tangible things tying you to a powerful family in an immediately identifiable way, which provides you with interesting story options moored in the deep-cut lore of the setting.

[Zalabim]

Out of curiosity what did dragonmarks do in past editions? Everyone talks about them like they're a very important part of the setting but I don't know why or what they do.
They allowed characters to cast certain utility spells as spell-like abilities a certain number of times per day, as a feat chain. The higher up feats unlocked higher level spells. Which spells were unlocked were specific to which dragonmark they were. Aberrant dragonmarks had different spells with no fixed pattern. I have no idea why they were important for the setting, from a player-making-a-PC-perspective. They never interested me.

[Arkhios]

They allowed characters to cast certain utility spells as spell-like abilities a certain number of times per day, as a feat chain. The higher up feats unlocked higher level spells. Which spells were unlocked were specific to which dragonmark they were. Aberrant dragonmarks had different spells with no fixed pattern. I have no idea why they were important for the setting, from a player-making-a-PC-perspective. They never interested me.

IIRC; dragonmarked houses were somehow connected to "the Dragon Above", Siberys, while aberrant dragonmarks were more connected to "the Dragon Below", Khyber. Or something.

Siberys, Khyber, and Eberron were the Three Great Dragons responsible for creating the Universe in which the setting resides.

Again, another tidbit which falls into the IIRC category: Siberys was killed by his sister Khyber, and from his remains became the constellations above Eberron (and his blood somehow affected those who would become the first dragonmarked ones?), while Eberron imprisoned Khyber inside her as a retaliation, becoming the planet and her sister Khyber becoming its core.

[Regitnui]

IIRC; dragonmarked houses were somehow connected to "the Dragon Above", Siberys, while aberrant dragonmarks were more connected to "the Dragon Below", Khyber. Or something.

Siberys, Khyber, and Eberron were the Three Great Dragons responsible for creating the Universe in which the setting resides.

Again, another tidbit which falls into the IIRC category: Siberys was killed by his sister Khyber, and from his remains became the constellations above Eberron (and his blood somehow affected those who would become the first dragonmarked ones?), while Eberron imprisoned Khyber inside her as a retaliation, becoming the planet and her sister Khyber becoming its core.

Flexes typing fingers.

The broad strokes there are right, although you have a couple of things off:

Siberys, Eberron and Khyber were the Primordial Dragons, though nobody's actually sure if they were dragons or just really powerful creatures. In any case, they created each of the planes, then set about making the Material. However, due to an argument or maybe Khyber's simple anger, she slew Siberys and attempted to do the same to Eberron. However, Eberron entrapped Khyber in her coils, and they merged with the unfinished Material Plane, Eberron Sealing Khyber, and Siberys' remains becoming the belt of stones around the planet. The constellations are assumed to be normal old stars, but we know the dragons charted them in the image of their gods and the Overlord Tiamat.

Khyber is the source of fiends, primarily rakshasa and the god-like Overlords. Eberron is the source of all nature, and mother to the dragons and all the mortal races. Siberys, being dead, created nothing, but his blood became the coatls and other native celestials, and where it hit the ground of Eberron, dragons arose, making him their 'father' i guess. As Siberys is dead, the native celestials of Eberron the world are always weaker than the fiends, hence there being no natural or celestial counterparts to the god-like Overlords. This is also why the children of Eberron, at first dragons, but lately the mortal races (i.e. you) have to pick up the slack in fighting Evil.

Dragonmarks (on people) are mysterious. Not even the dragons know where they came from. Dragonmarks in general are signs of the Prophecy (long story), but usually appeared in nature. When dragonmarks appeared on people, it threw the dragons' and fiends' planning into a loop. Hence, the dominant theory among the fandom is that the Lords of Aberrations, the daelkyr, caused dragonmarks (on people) by messing with dragonmarks (in general).

[Naanomi]

And of course, this being Eberron, who knows what (if anything) in those dragon stories is actually true or just myth

[Tetrasodium]

And of course, this being Eberron, who knows what (if anything) in those dragon stories is actually true or just myth
It's even more complicated when groups like the lords of dust deliberately spread & create misinformation too >:D

[EvilAnagram]

Can I just say I'm very grateful that Dagnabbit hasn't shown up and acted uncivil.

[Arkhios]

Can I just say I'm very grateful that Dagnabbit hasn't shown up and acted uncivil.

You may. Dagnabbit deserves a cake ^^

Also, thank you Regitnui for correcting the mistakes I had. It's been too long I've set my eyes on Eberron's lore. And played in it (can't wait to pull my ages old Valenar veteran from naftaline and make a 5th edition iteration of him).

[Beleriphon]

I didn't care at all about Shifters til I was reading one of the book series (I'm away from my shelf but it involved a human, his shifter deputy crossbow marksman, and a few others). the shifter in that series made me interested in them in setting.

Are you thinking of The Dragon Below trilogy which features Singe (a fire themed wizard), Geth (the shifter warrior), Dandra (the kalashtar psion), Ashi (the human tribal with a Syberis mark), and Ekhaas (the hobgoblin dirge singer)? Because if you aren't go read the series. Its a fantastic exploration of Eberron. And the follow up trilogy The Legacy of Dhakaan is a very interesting look at goblins in Eberron.

[Temperjoke]

That ... could work actually. Or, maybe an alternative racial trait that would replace something from the core race (so, not exactly a sub-race but something that any sub-race of a single race could have).


...If they went this way, I'd be surprised if they didn't include those rumored alternative class features (one of which might be the direction where revised ranger was going) in the same book. That'd provide a good chunk of new player options aside from just rewritten setting lore.


Honestly, I would prefer the feay, so long as they used the variant rule that you can pick a feat at first level. That would fit the pulpy tone.

I like the idea of a subrace or at least racial alternative because then it requires commitment and investment from the character creation. Maybe a feat could be used to give you a stronger dragonmark. That way it still maintains the optional nature of feats, after all you don't really need a stronger dragonmark to get by in game, but it has a clear price point at later levels in a game where feats are allowed. You could take the ASI boost, or boost your dragonmark. Plus it also respects the facts that people with dragonmarks are special and probably raised in a different environment than a member of that race who doesn't possess such a mark. After all, you were probably raised in one of the Houses with a lot of focus devoted to you since you were born with a mark.

[Naanomi]

If we are not wanting to invent a whole new system, I’d think it could be a ‘Dragonmarked’ Background, with half-feats to power it up (and potentially an ‘abberant dragonmark’ type feat to add one later if you didn’t start with one?)

[EvilAnagram]

If we are not wanting to invent a whole new system, I’d think it could be a ‘Dragonmarked’ Background, with half-feats to power it up (and potentially an ‘abberant dragonmark’ type feat to add one later if you didn’t start with one?)

A Background makes a hell of a lot of sense.

[Nifft]

A Background makes a hell of a lot of sense.

It's fine if you're always planning your character from level 1, but it's bad if you want to change your build later to include a Dragonmark (for some reason).

[EvilAnagram]

It's fine if you're always planning your character from level 1, but it's bad if you want to change your build later to include a Dragonmark (for some reason).

Now, correct me if I'm wrong - I am, after all, just a poor country chicken - but I believe that dragon marks are hereditary, and thus cannot be chosen later than birth, yes?

[Tetrasodium]

Now, correct me if I'm wrong - I am, after all, just a poor country chicken - but I believe that dragon marks are hereditary, and thus cannot be chosen later than birth, yes?

yes and no.

dragonmarks are hereditary yes, but excoriates (http://eberron.wikia.com/wiki/Excoriate) are a thing & people are like animals (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpgTC9MDx1o) so foundlings are a thing. Add to that the fact that dragonmarks aren't something that manifests in the womb. It's more like finding out you are a mutant in xmen, something stressful happens and maybe a mark will manifest if you have the lineage.
Not coincidentally, foundlings tend to show up in places were large number of dragonmarked individuals live/visit/travel through.


If it wasn't in your blood before it theoretically can't manifest, but being in your blood alone doesn't dictate that you must have been born into the house & know you had the potential of manifesting a mark with the perks of education & such that come with that potential even if you never do manifest it.

[Nifft]

Now, correct me if I'm wrong - I am, after all, just a poor country chicken - but I believe that dragon marks are hereditary, and thus cannot be chosen later than birth, yes? Your premise is not totally wrong (they are hereditary), but your conclusion is wrong since a trait being hereditary does NOT require that trait showing up at birth.

In practice, Dragonmarks can show up at any time.



Not coincidentally, foundlings tend to show up in places were large number of dragonmarked individuals live/visit/travel through.

Yeah, and since Dragonmarked individuals tend to be rich & powerful, their by-blow are not rare.

One frisky guy with a funky tattoo could leave quite a trail of progeny across the continent, and there's many more than just one such guy.

Siberrys marks are another fun one -- they only manifest if you could have been Dragonmakred but aren't yet, and they only show up at relatively high levels (Proficiency bonus +4 or so).

Aberrant marks were once thought to be admixtures between two proper Dragonmarked houses, but there's some other setting info which seems to indicate that they're actually due to the influence of Khyber or Daelkyr -- especially if you use the variant wherein Aberrant Dragonmark is an [Aberrant] feat.

[AstralFire]

It's fine if you're always planning your character from level 1, but it's bad if you want to change your build later to include a Dragonmark (for some reason).

Handle it with story then, which is basically all background features do -- introduce a bit of concrete story for people to work with. The other situation of having to wait 1 to 4 levels and interrupt your build is pretty bad and imx far more detrimental. I have only run one Eberron game where players took a Dragonmark under a feat scheme.

[Naanomi]

Have it as a background, and with feats to open it up later. Can cover both options then with existing systems

[AstralFire]

I only think feats should be for Lesser/Greater/Siberys.

The more I think about it, the more I really like it as a background, especially for Aberrant marks. "You can use burning hands 1/day" didn't really convey the... unregulated terror aspects of an untrained aberrant mark very well in 3e.

Hrm.

I kind of feel like Warlock is a good model for a class built around drawing strength from a Dragonmark. It's not close enough you could just make it an archetype, but...

[Nifft]

Handle it with story then, which is basically all background features do -- introduce a bit of concrete story for people to work with. The other situation of having to wait 1 to 4 levels and interrupt your build is pretty bad and imx far more detrimental. I have only run one Eberron game where players took a Dragonmark under a feat scheme.

If you can do that, then you never needed to use a Background in the first place.

You're just begging the question -- if you can get a thing without using any resource, why even tie it to a resource in the first place?

So your real answer is: just let anyone have a Dragonmark if they want one. That's viable, but somewhat unsatisfactory.

[AstralFire]

If you can do that, then you never needed to use a Background in the first place.

You're just begging the question -- if you can get a thing without using any resource, why even tie it to a resource in the first place?

So your real answer is: just let anyone have a Dragonmark if they want one. That's viable, but somewhat unsatisfactory.

I would disagree with the idea that it's happening without any resources expended, any more than anything else in the plot of a campaign is happening without resources expended. The dragonmark is a defining aspect of someone's characterization, just as much as someone in the party ending up with a mistaken identity.

If you start with it as your background, it works a little differently -- shapes who you are -- than if you gain the feature later on. To be clear, I expanded the popular "ribbons" houserule and use it to track things I give players or that they choose for themselves -- I think something similar would work well here.

[Ralanr]

I don't understand the hint. All I see is a dice with the current D&D logo.

[Temperjoke]

I don't understand the hint. All I see is a dice with the current D&D logo.

The computer screen displayed behind the die is showing the cover of one of the Eberron campaign books.

[Nifft]

I would disagree with the idea that it's happening without any resources expended, any more than anything else in the plot of a campaign is happening without resources expended. The dragonmark is a defining aspect of someone's characterization, just as much as someone in the party ending up with a mistaken identity.

If you start with it as your background, it works a little differently -- shapes who you are -- than if you gain the feature later on. To be clear, I expanded the popular "ribbons" houserule and use it to track things I give players or that they choose for themselves -- I think something similar would work well here.

If you gain a background effect later, that effect does NOT work a differently.

It works exactly as it says, and what it says is identical no matter when in your character's life your character gains it.

Maybe you're thinking that it SHOULD work differently?

[PairO'Dice Lost]

The dragonmark is a defining aspect of someone's characterization, just as much as someone in the party ending up with a mistaken identity.

If you start with it as your background, it works a little differently -- shapes who you are -- than if you gain the feature later on.

This is true, but the "random person whose dragonmark manifests later in life" and "marked scion who has left or been exiled from their House" character concepts are just as common and valid as the "marked scion of a House" concept, and need to be supported. Having dragonmarks be tied to background doesn't work with either of those concepts, especially if "member of a Dragonmarked House" is going to be a background (which it almost certainly will), in the former case since the dragonmark can manifest mid-campaign and in the latter case since being part of a House and having a 'mark are orthogonal concerns.

I'd honestly much rather just have the 5e ECS declare that players get an extra feat at 1st level (which could then be used for Least Dragonmark) or gave them some other means of additional customization, because they're more nuanced and awesome than core PCs, in the same way that the 3e ECS just declared that all Eberron PCs get action points.


The more I think about it, the more I really like it as a background, especially for Aberrant marks. "You can use burning hands 1/day" didn't really convey the... unregulated terror aspects of an untrained aberrant mark very well in 3e.

Hrm.

I kind of feel like Warlock is a good model for a class built around drawing strength from a Dragonmark. It's not close enough you could just make it an archetype, but...

Honestly, a short prestige class might be the best option, since non-class-based customization is thin on the ground in 5e otherwise. Make a couple feats for the base dragonmarks and have the PrC grant them for free, then throw in a list of selectable class features by mark to let people build Windwright Captains, Blades of Orien, Silver Keys, and the like, and you're golden.

[Nifft]

Honestly, a short prestige class might be the best option, since non-class-based customization is thin on the ground in 5e otherwise. Make a couple feats for the base dragonmarks and have the PrC grant them for free, then throw in a list of selectable class features by mark to let people build Windwright Captains, Blades of Orien, Silver Keys, and the like, and you're golden.

Yeah, make Dragonmarked Heir a 4 or 5 level class -- not even a prestige class, so you could start taking it immediately at level 1 -- with benefits that scale by total character level. Some people might take one level, some might take all levels, and you wouldn't necessarily want to take all levels immediately.

It might be a bit complicated, since a class feature scaling with total character level is unusual, but I think this has the most potential to work.


Child of Kbyber might be a 4 or 5 level class to model the Aberrant Dragonmark chain, with analogous benefits to the Heir, except Aberrant & Khyberian.


Heir of Siberrys might be a high-level feat which precludes either of the above classes -- sort of a Magical Initiate feat which you can only get at level 12 or so, and which gives you a high-level spell instead of two cantrips.

[Naanomi]

Just giving a free feat would be a great ‘Variant rule’ way to handle it, while still allowing AL play without adding unnecessary balance concerns there

[AstralFire]

If you gain a background effect later, that effect does NOT work a differently.

It works exactly as it says, and what it says is identical no matter when in your character's life your character gains it.

Maybe you're thinking that it SHOULD work differently?

Either I'm miscommunicating or you're misreading me.

Mechanically, yes, getting a feature later on works the exact same. I'm saying that the process of gaining a feature before the game starts and your character accumulating new story developments as the plot continues works differently in campaigns -- without something that actively plays with categorization like FATE's aspects, you can't and really shouldn't mechanically regulate organic story developments. But it's fair to try and get people to focus on one background pre-play.

[JackPhoenix]

No feat chains. Feats are variant rule, and feat chains are stupid, stupid idea. And giving free feats at level 1 would clash with AL, so that wouldn't be a solution.

No background. While nice solution in theory, background that gives solid mechanical effect is a bad idea. Unless you make the background feature "you have a dragonmark, you can use dragonmark focus items, but it does nothing on its own". Which should be fine, if the items require attunement and aren't especially overpowered.

No prestige classes. Delaying your class progression just for a dragonmark is a stupid idea. And 5e doesn't need any more multiclassing shennanigans.

I wouldn't be surprised if WotC declared dragonmarks NPC-only (which would be a shame, but understandable... dragonmarks don't fit into 5e design space)

[AstralFire]

Unless you make the background feature "you have a dragonmark, you can use dragonmark focus items, but it does nothing on its own".

I think this or a single 1/day non-attack cantrip (or attack cantrip with bad side-effects, for Aberrant) would be appropriate least dragonmark features, personally, though I do realize they break precedent a bit.

I missed the Prestige Class suggestion. That might be the best possible use of a prestige class in this edition.

[Naanomi]

“You have a dragonmark and associated social stuff” is a fine background with no spellcasting at all

[Tetrasodium]

No feat chains. Feats are variant rule, and feat chains are stupid, stupid idea. And giving free feats at level 1 would clash with AL, so that wouldn't be a solution.

No background. While nice solution in theory, background that gives solid mechanical effect is a bad idea. Unless you make the background feature "you have a dragonmark, you can use dragonmark focus items, but it does nothing on its own". Which should be fine, if the items require attunement and aren't especially overpowered.

No prestige classes. Delaying your class progression just for a dragonmark is a stupid idea. And 5e doesn't need any more multiclassing shennanigans.

I wouldn't be surprised if WotC declared dragonmarks NPC-only (which would be a shame, but understandable... dragonmarks don't fit into 5e design space)

Backgrounds would either make them a no brainer OP thing or weaken dragonmarks to be on par with things like feed your party while traveling I agree. I don't know either way as a class, with 5 wisdom, 4 intelligence, & 2 charisma they would work well with invocation type mix & match for dragonmark focus items but I dunno. Personally I go a different way entirely. My players all get the usual race/class/background plus an origin (https://www.dropbox.com/s/nshfkwh3d4r1yvo/origins_full_0.9.3.pdf?dl=0) (basically where you were raised/living). The origins are featlike things tied to the region you came from with dragonmark enclaves being non-nation options that grant the dragonmark & a dragonmark focus. It has the result of linking certain types of concepts to regions where those should be more common while avoiding the GWM/PAM/Sentinel/Warcaster/ss/etc since many of the things granted are things that you simply can not get from other ways or very cool things that would take multiclassing investments just not worth the cost.

[Beleriphon]

On Dragonmarks, I think a non-mechanical function like a background is a good way to go, since one of the primary functions of Dragonmarks are they allow the marked character to interact with particular items, rather than the bit of magic they provide personally. So a Mark of Sending lets a gnome interact with the Sivis Sending Stone, while a Mark of the Storm lets a half-elf pilot elemental galleons or airships. A character with any level of mark can do those things, that's the bread and butter of the mark. That they can use what amounts to magical spells once or twice per day is incidental to what the power of the mark does in setting. Obviously the players of said character probably want some cool magical doodads to play with, but that's where I think feats are a good place to go to, since they add interesting abilities to a character.

[Naanomi]

Dragonmark: a Background
Dragonmark spells: Magic Initiate feat
Super-Heir of Syberis type powers: Sorcerer Subclass (or maybe Warlock)

[Nifft]

Dragonmark: a Background
Dragonmark spells: Magic Initiate feat
Super-Heir of Syberis type powers: Sorcerer Subclass (or maybe Warlock)

Dragonmark Sorcerer is a great subclass idea. Nothing to do with Siberys in specific -- just a Sorcerer with a bonus spell list per Dragonmark with thematic powers.


The others are pretty poor fits. Dragonmarks don't mesh well with bonus combat cantrips, for example.

[MeeposFire]

I think background should be used for detailing that you are related to a dragon mark house but not necessarilly having a mark. You can be a member of a house and even be related to a dragonmarked individual without having a mark yourself.

However I do not think the background should give you spells or anything like that since at least up to now backgrounds do not give you those sorts of concrete mechanical benefits.

I think that to me I still think that racial sub races is the way to go for gaining the basic dragonmark. That would give you access to the lowest level spells, perhaps prof in a skill/tools related to the mark, and access to dragonmark related items.

I think there is also room for a dragonmark feat that allows for improved spells and abilities. I agree feat chains are not something we want but I do not think they are needed as feats that give more bonuses in terms of spells as you level is already a thing we have seen so there is precedent.

Thematically I think making a sibery's mark a sorc bloodline themtically makes the most sense but I do think that the warlock is often the more versatile chassis since mark of siberys are not tied explicitly to general casting. Warlock has the benefit that using invocations you can recreate things from other classes or non-spellcasting things that may fit your character concept without multiclassing. Siberys marks as I recall manifest first and then later you got spells so I also think mechanically fits the best as well since while the original did not have lower levels spells I think that is a fair change potentially if you do not mind making changes. I think that you might make a special rule requiring certain spells to be put on their list based on their mark which would be unusual in this rule set but would be fair considering the changes being considered here.

If not comfortable making those sort of changes I would say you would need to make it a very high level feat since you would be gaining a very high level spell.

[Temperjoke]

You know, it wouldn't need to be a feat chain, exactly. Just a feat, which requires that you possess a dragonmark and can be taken multiple times, that raises it to the next tier, until you reach Siberys level. That requires a significant investment to raise it to that level, and makes worth the mechanical advantages of having that powerful of a dragonmark.

[MeeposFire]

You know, it wouldn't need to be a feat chain, exactly. Just a feat, which requires that you possess a dragonmark and can be taken multiple times, that raises it to the next tier, until you reach Siberys level. That requires a significant investment to raise it to that level, and makes worth the mechanical advantages of having that powerful of a dragonmark.

Well that would make it a feat chain. Taking multiple feats that require you to take a previous feat (even if in this case it is the same one) is essentially a feat chain.

As for siberys unless you are making a change to what that is Siberys marks are different from traditional dragon marks as they manifest much later in life and they originally never appeared on somebody who already had a standard dragon mark so with the original fluff you would not have a standard dragon mark and then take a feat to gain the power of a siberys mark.

Remember a feat is much more precious in 5e than 3e so taking multiple is a huge investment. You gained 7 for free in 20 levels in 3e but you usually only get 5 in 5e and each one you take is sacrificing higher ability scores unlike in 5e. I do not think you need to have have multiple feats to do this. I think you can create just one feat that can modify a sub race and get most of what you want. I also think you could potentially make unrelated feats that allow to gain other abilities related to dragonmarks but do not require any other dragonmark feats (this is similar to how many races have multiple racial feats but none of them require you to have the other racial feat).

[Nifft]

Well that would make it a feat chain. Taking multiple feats that require you to take a previous feat (even if in this case it is the same one) is essentially a feat chain.

Absolutely yes.

And you're right that 5e is a game which uses Feats quite differently than 3.5e did. Using feats for Dragonmarks is not appropriate in 5e.

[Tetrasodium]

Dragonmark: a Background
Dragonmark spells: Magic Initiate feat
Super-Heir of Syberis type powers: Sorcerer Subclass (or maybe Warlock)

While true that those two are the most logical choice for a subclass for some of them based on prior edition fluff.

Marks of detection, finding, handling, healing, & sentinel use wisdom... making, passage, scribing, storm, & warding use Int... It'as only hospitality & shadow that use charisma. If the dragonmarks (https://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/UA_Eberron_v1.pdf) were made into subclasses, they absolutely should not be yet another boon to scorlocks

[AstralFire]

My issue with making dragonmarks tied to subraces is that that's the most messy option of them all for a dragonmark spontaneously emerging later in development. "Whoops, looks like Hilde suddenly got less tough now that she's got the Mark of Warding."

[MeeposFire]

My issue with making dragonmarks tied to subraces is that that's the most messy option of them all for a dragonmark spontaneously emerging later in development. "Whoops, looks like Hilde suddenly got less tough now that she's got the Mark of Warding."

Well to get around that you could have sub races and have a feat option. The feat option could be slightly better or worse if you feel a feat is worth less or more than a sub race option. Take the sub race option at level 1 or take the feat at later levels if you want to get it later. If you want advanced dragonmarked options you make a feat for that option and only require a dragon mark. This would not be a feat chain anymore than say spell sniper is because you can get a dragon mark from your subrace or a feat just like you can the ability cast spells from a race, class, or feat (magic initiate) so you can take spell sniper.

This would potentially allow for 1st level dragonmarks and later acquired dragonmarks and also allows you to gain one without having to use an ASI but the option is there if you wold rather do it that way.

[Cybren]

Dragonmark: a Background
Dragonmark spells: Magic Initiate feat
Super-Heir of Syberis type powers: Sorcerer Subclass (or maybe Warlock)

How dare you be reasonable and make sense.

[Nifft]

Well to get around that you could have sub races and have a feat option. The feat option could be slightly better or worse if you feel a feat is worth less or more than a sub race option. Take the sub race option at level 1 or take the feat at later levels if you want to get it later. If you want advanced dragonmarked options you make a feat for that option and only require a dragon mark. This would not be a feat chain anymore than say spell sniper is because you can get a dragon mark from your subrace or a feat just like you can the ability cast spells from a race, class, or feat (magic initiate) so you can take spell sniper.

This would potentially allow for 1st level dragonmarks and later acquired dragonmarks and also allows you to gain one without having to use an ASI but the option is there if you wold rather do it that way.

If those racial feats from UA became core, then you could give one Racial or Dragonmark feat at level 1, and preserve the status quo. VHum would get an extra unrestricted feat in addition.

At later levels, you could spend an ASI to take a Dragonmark feat, per usual.

That assumes the Dragonmark feats all scaled with character level, so you couldn't have a level 20 Dragonmarked character with a lesser Dragonmark.

Having a Dragonmark feat could also be required for some new subclasses, like a Mark of Handling Ranger, or a Mark of Shadows Rogue.

Hmm.


The best & most flexible solution still seems like some kind of mini-class, not necessarily prestige but just a few levels that you could sprinkle into anything. That would allow you to be a level 20 character with just a Lesser Dragonmark, if that's what you wanted. Presumably the class abilities would also scale with character level, but you'd only have the abilities of your (lower) mark if you didn't take all 4-5 levels. If you take it at level 1, well there's your trained-by-House backstory. If you take it at level 10, your Dragonmark manifested later.

[Cybren]

If those racial feats from UA became core, then you could give one Racial or Dragonmark feat at level 1, and preserve the status quo. VHum would get an extra unrestricted feat in addition.


You mean those racial feats in Xanathar's?

[Nifft]

You mean those racial feats in Xanathar's?

Don't have that book.

Were they identical reprints?

If not, what's different?

[MeeposFire]

If those racial feats from UA became core, then you could give one Racial or Dragonmark feat at level 1, and preserve the status quo. VHum would get an extra unrestricted feat in addition.

At later levels, you could spend an ASI to take a Dragonmark feat, per usual.

That assumes the Dragonmark feats all scaled with character level, so you couldn't have a level 20 Dragonmarked character with a lesser Dragonmark.

Having a Dragonmark feat could also be required for some new subclasses, like a Mark of Handling Ranger, or a Mark of Shadows Rogue.

Hmm.


The best & most flexible solution still seems like some kind of mini-class, not necessarily prestige but just a few levels that you could sprinkle into anything. That would allow you to be a level 20 character with just a Lesser Dragonmark, if that's what you wanted. Presumably the class abilities would also scale with character level, but you'd only have the abilities of your (lower) mark if you didn't take all 4-5 levels. If you take it at level 1, well there's your trained-by-House backstory. If you take it at level 10, your Dragonmark manifested later.

Personally I do not like the idea of having marks associated with specific classes as the original marks were not and I do not seeing making htem be as being a real benefit. I see it as pigeon holing marks to certain classes. Certainly some marks get a lot from certain classes but if you were to look in the older books you can find all sorts of classes with each mark. Think of a traditional halfling barbarian who you want to manifest the healing mark. Should that halfling be forced to take levels in cleric (or whatever class you think fits a healing mark best) or do you end up having to make a mark sub class for every mark for every class? That option works but is a lot of work and it also means that if you make any new classes that they will lack a mark sub class or you have to make one for each new class. I do not htink they would want to go that way.

As for the idea of a generic levels to slot in that really is a prestige class concept. I really do not want to go back to that personally (I find it weakens the class based nature of the game and I consider that one of the most important mechanics that really define D&D). On the other hand I do think that the concept can work sine that is one of the ways it worked in 3e so it could work here. Another notch against the prestige class concept is that it was vote down when it was brought up in UA but it may be possible that a more limited version in a limited situation may be more palatable.


While I would not say that they could not create a new rule allowing a free 1st level feat for all characters I would find that to be really unlikely. I am also not sure what you mean by racial feats becoming core. They will never be core and even if they did become core it has nothing to do with a level one free feat. If they came up with a new rule for Eberron that allowed for a free level 1 feat I do not think it would be limited to core feats.

EDIT: I am using the idea that "core" is anything in the PHB, MM, and DMG. If it is published in a book outside of those 3 books would still be a rule but I would not say it is core. Just saying in case we have differing definitions of what core is.

[Regitnui]

I'd possibly recommend;
Background: Dragonmarked Ancestry (only human, elf, dwarf, gnome, half-elf, half-orc, halfling): You have a recent ancestor from a Dragonmarked House. You may not have a dragonmark, but you may be able to call on assistance from that house. If you were unknown to the house before now, you may have to prove your ancestry. Item: signet ring/identification papers.
You cannot have ancestry in a house that is not appropriate to your race: (short list here)

Background: Aberrant Mark (any race). All your life you've been haunted by the painful collection of twisting, red lines on your body. You may cast one spell of your choice from the below list once per long rest:
(List of thematic spells)
Your mark may abruptly change and grow across your body, granting you more abilities, but making it harder to hide.

Feat: Dragonmark (modelled off racial spellcasting feats)

Feat: Siberys Marked (prerequisite, level 12)

Subclass: Marked Sorcerer: You've learned to plumb the depths of your dragonmark, unlocking powers your fellow scions would never know. (Options for True dragonmarks and Aberrant)

[Nifft]

Personally I do not like the idea of having marks associated with specific classes as the original marks were not I'm talking about the 3.5e prestige classes like Blade of Orien or Vadalis Beastkeeper, which were specific to a single type of Dragonmark, and were often strongly associated with a base class.

In 5e, the Blade of Orien prestige class might become a Fighter subclass, which teleports around the battlefield making lightning-fast melee attacks.

The Vadalis Beastkeeper prestige class is basically an accelerated-casting Ranger, so I don't see much harm in making it a Ranger subclass.



and I do not seeing making htem be as being a real benefit. I see it as pigeon holing marks to certain classes. Well, no. The idea would be that you could take the Mark, or you could take the Mark and also go into the associated class. Or you could take the Dragonmark Sorcerer subclass (which works with every Mark). Or you could just take the separate Dragonmark Heir 4-level class.



Certainly some marks get a lot from certain classes but if you were to look in the older books you can find all sorts of classes with each mark. Think of a traditional halfling barbarian who you want to manifest the healing mark. Should that halfling be forced to take levels in cleric Hell no, and that's not something I have suggested.


As for the idea of a generic levels to slot in that really is a prestige class concept. I really do not want to go back to that personally (I find it weakens the class based nature of the game and I consider that one of the most important mechanics that really define D&D). On the other hand I do think that the concept can work sine that is one of the ways it worked in 3e so it could work here. Another notch against the prestige class concept is that it was vote down when it was brought up in UA but it may be possible that a more limited version in a limited situation may be more palatable. I don't want another 3.5e prestige class swamp to happen in 5e, but this isn't a slippery slope situation. I'm not talking about an Incantatrix which gives you every Wizard class feature plus free Metamagic, and stacks with Wizard casting.

I'm talking about new mechanics being put into a small class which doesn't have 20 levels -- you might start with it, so it feels weird to call it a "prestige class", but it is a class which mechanically represents membership in an organization so it might qualify by the original definition.



While I would not say that they could not create a new rule allowing a free 1st level feat for all characters I would find that to be really unlikely. I am also not sure what you mean by racial feats becoming core.

Here's my thinking:

- If Dragonmarks were feats, they'd need to be available to all races at level 1.

- Therefore, every race would need to get a free feat at level 1.

- That's got some issues, including making VHum un-special. So maybe the universal level 1 feat should be limited in some way.

- Hmm, those Racial feats were pretty cool, but I hardly ever see them because feat slots are too precious at low-ish levels for anything but ASIs or GWM / SS / PAM. It'd be neat if PCs could choose one of those at level 1, or a Dragonmark. That seems like a reasonable trade, and gives some flavorful options.

"Core" was intended as a contrast to "UA", which is emphatically non-core.


Subclass: Marked Sorcerer: You've learned to plumb the depths of your dragonmark, unlocking powers your fellow scions would never know. (Options for True dragonmarks and Aberrant)

Would you need the feat before you took the first level of Sorcerer? Makes non-humans suffer a bit.

IMHO the Warlock might be good for Aberrant marks.

[Tetrasodium]

I'm talking about the 3.5e prestige classes like Blade of Orien or Vadalis Beastkeeper, which were specific to a single type of Dragonmark, and were often strongly associated with a base class.

In 5e, the Blade of Orien prestige class might become a Fighter subclass, which teleports around the battlefield making lightning-fast melee attacks.

The Vadalis Beastkeeper prestige class is basically an accelerated-casting Ranger, so I don't see much harm in making it a Ranger subclass.


Well, no. The idea would be that you could take the Mark, or you could take the Mark and also go into the associated class. Or you could take the Dragonmark Sorcerer subclass (which works with every Mark). Or you could just take the separate Dragonmark Heir 4-level class.


Hell no, and that's not something I have suggested.

I don't want another 3.5e prestige class swamp to happen in 5e, but this isn't a slippery slope situation. I'm not talking about an Incantatrix which gives you every Wizard class feature plus free Metamagic, and stacks with Wizard casting.

I'm talking about new mechanics being put into a small class which doesn't have 20 levels -- you might start with it, so it feels weird to call it a "prestige class", but it is a class which mechanically represents membership in an organization so it might qualify by the original definition.




Here's my thinking:

- If Dragonmarks were feats, they'd need to be available to all races at level 1.

- Therefore, every race would need to get a free feat at level 1.

- That's got some issues, including making VHum un-special. So maybe the universal level 1 feat should be limited in some way.

- Hmm, those Racial feats were pretty cool, but I hardly ever see them because feat slots are too precious at low-ish levels for anything but ASIs or GWM / SS / PAM. It'd be neat if PCs could choose one of those at level 1, or a Dragonmark. That seems like a reasonable trade, and gives some flavorful options.

"Core" was intended as a contrast to "UA", which is emphatically non-core.



Would you need the feat before you took the first level of Sorcerer? Makes non-humans suffer a bit.

IMHO the Warlock might be good for Aberrant marks.
As much as I agree with you on variant human, there are lore reasons why true marks are so heavily towards full & half human races.


In eberron, monstrous races are just people. Granted they are people who live longer/are much stronger/have powerful magic powers from birth/etc, but they are people. Logically they are often so much better that they should dominate the world rather than humans, but they don't. Since "how would the world develop if magic were around" is a key stone to eberron, this is an important "problem".
While all of those monstrous races are objectively better than humans in various ways, they don't build communitiesike humans. Maybe they like their solitude too much. Maybe they have too many antisocial qualities. Maybe they are too xenophobic or too hung up on their ancestors. Maybe they are any number of things depending on the race, but they are. Humans come along and add glue to a community of orcs/gnollselves/Medusa/dwarf/gnime/khoravar/etc and start spreading that glue across to other communities in complex web of trade/capitalism/scientific advances/etc that in turn elevates quality of life & society itself

[JackPhoenix]

As much as I agree with you on variant human, there are lore reasons why true marks are so heavily towards full & half human races.

Speaking of which... there's something interesting about halflings and gnomes. Elves only developed dragonmarks when they arrived to Aerenal, and it is possible the first dragonmarked bloodlines were descendants of those who visited Khorvaire before the collapse of Dhakaan. Humans only developed dragonmarks only after they reached Khorvaire, they haven't got them back in Sarlona. Dwarves aren't native to Khorvaire either. Half-elves and half-orcs only became possible once humans got to Khorvaire.

Yet... no race native to Khorvaire developed dragonmarks, except gnomes and halflings. No pureblood orcs, no goblinoids, no gnolls, no lizardfolk (though the later may be artificial race, so YMMW). While we don't know the origin of halflings, the gnomes were around at least since Dhakaan Empire.

Now, the reason is obvious (all dragonmarked races were core player races in 3.5), but still, interesting lore-wise.

[Tectorman]

Speaking of which... there's something interesting about halflings and gnomes. Elves only developed dragonmarks when they arrived to Aerenal, and it is possible the first dragonmarked bloodlines were descendants of those who visited Khorvaire before the collapse of Dhakaan. Humans only developed dragonmarks only after they reached Khorvaire, they haven't got them back in Sarlona. Dwarves aren't native to Khorvaire either. Half-elves and half-orcs only became possible once humans got to Khorvaire.

Yet... no race native to Khorvaire developed dragonmarks, except gnomes and halflings. No pureblood orcs, no goblinoids, no gnolls, no lizardfolk (though the later may be artificial race, so YMMW). While we don't know the origin of halflings, the gnomes were around at least since Dhakaan Empire.

Now, the reason is obvious (all dragonmarked races were core player races in 3.5), but still, interesting lore-wise.

I gotta be honest. Relaxing the "core 3.5 races only" rule for dragonmarks was something I liked from the 4E take on Eberron. It didn't change the lore (historically, the races that had had 'marks for hundreds/thousands of years in 3.5 were still the only ones that had those 'marks), and it was (I felt) made clear that playing, say, a shifter or a kalashtar with a 'mark or a half-elf with a 'mark of Healing or Hospitality was such an outlier event that practically all the Dragonmarked Houses were going to want to capture/study/purge you if they found out. But you at least had the option to engage with that nifty aspect of the setting, even if you're a player who's just dead-tired of the 3.5 core races.

And as a DM? Oh, I had plans for that to be A major plot point, tying the emergence of 'marks on even more races to the Mourning and even suggesting that the first 'marks came from an earlier Mourning that happened long ago on an island in the Lhazaar Principalities. Go ahead and check; there is an island described as "constantly shrouded by mists" and it's not established when that happened, so for all we know, it could have been right before the first 'mark emerged. And oh, the implications and plot hooks that can come out of that: a new arms race, increased surveilance by the Chamber, attempts by Lady Vol to somehow use this to re-energize her dead 'mark?

All from opening up the dragonmarks to more than the 3.5 core races. It probably won't come back, but I dearly wish it would.

[Tetrasodium]

Speaking of which... there's something interesting about halflings and gnomes. Elves only developed dragonmarks when they arrived to Aerenal, and it is possible the first dragonmarked bloodlines were descendants of those who visited Khorvaire before the collapse of Dhakaan. Humans only developed dragonmarks only after they reached Khorvaire, they haven't got them back in Sarlona. Dwarves aren't native to Khorvaire either. Half-elves and half-orcs only became possible once humans got to Khorvaire.

Yet... no race native to Khorvaire developed dragonmarks, except gnomes and halflings. No pureblood orcs, no goblinoids, no gnolls, no lizardfolk (though the later may be artificial race, so YMMW). While we don't know the origin of halflings, the gnomes were around at least since Dhakaan Empire.

Now, the reason is obvious (all dragonmarked races were core player races in 3.5), but still, interesting lore-wise.

true, but look at what those marks do.
Lets start with humans: everything their marks do is a basic function of growing, elevating, & maintaining a stable & rapidly advancing civilization
House Cannith (mark of making). mass production & industrial scale construction. Yes the Giant & Dhakaani empires made incredible cities & lots of stuff before they fell, but the giants did it with an enormous population of slave labor we all know as "elves", the Dhakaani did it with we don't reeally know the sort of magic they had (I picture then as having limited 3.5 epic level magic & maybe some low level spells in the hands of extremely skilled practitioners) plus an enormous eusocial population of "Dar" (goblinoid) workers. In both cases, the simplicity held back the civilization itself. Cannith is in a lot of ways what enables the industrial revolution eberron is basically going through. Anybody can make a healers kit, long sword, or whatever... But much like standard oil, a house Cannith mark means that you know it meets the minimum standards of quality they set for that tier of that item. A house Cannith certification on a smith's wall means that A he or she can get you house Cannith stuff, B that he might have access to some of House Cannith's magewright templates(? or whatever 5e calls them), & C that the smith's own creations meet or exceed the specifications that house Cannith puts out on PHB142-phb155, XgE whatever, & some of dmg134-dmg214.
House Orien (Mark of Passage). Yes they maintain their teleport network, but that is expensive & not for day to day use akin to early airplane travel. More importantly is that they maintain & operate their roads. Yes many of those roads started as disused dhakaani roads; but Orien (combined with cannith & such) did things like go through a mountain instead of around it or build a new fork that goes towards present day cities that still exist instead of whatever long forgotten dhakaani thing it might have gone towards. Not only that, with dragonmark focus items, House Orien is able to ship goods across those roads by wagon faster than anyone else in larger quantities. Thanks to house Cannith they can have better made wagons able to hold more of what is largely house cannith goods too
House Vadalis (Mark of Handling)This might seem like an iffy benefit to society being good at working with animals, but with dragonmark focus items they leap from mere animal husbandry & selective breeding to genetic engineering that would make today's scientists working in gentech green with envy. Those animals are able to pull larger loads faster with less need for skilled handlers & maintenance type labor even before you consider any dragonmark focus items house Orien might be using like reins of extended/permanent expeditious retreat
House Deneith (Mark of Sentinel). All of that is great and all, but you need to be able to defend it with skilled peacekeeping & law enforcement or someone is going to take the easy route of taking it from their neighbor because their kingdom is not benefiting from BenevolentPowerfulMage until the knowledge is lost
Halflings: Halflings had aprimitive (semi?) nomadic tribal culture for a long time & iirc were some of the first to develop dragonmarks.
House Jorasco (Mark of healing) A lot of those tribes lived in the blade desert & rode/hunted what are often highly lethal carnivorous dinosaurs. Someone with the mark of healing can keep the tribe on their feet after a hunt or keep a bad birth from turning lethal. As civilization grew, this turned out to be even more valuable to large settlements
House Ghallanda (Mark of Hospitality) What started as someone capable of making friends with another tribe & able to make an impromptu shelter when weather had gone bad turned into a different sort of value with the addition of dragonmark focus items that allow the Gold Dragon Inns we all know today. It might not be the most fancy place to stay, but the beds are always clean & free of lice, the food is always safe, the locks are sturdy, & there is practically always at least one more empty room... even when there is not. With all those roads & such this kind of industry was all but certain & house Ghallandra's mark of hospitality ensures that even a random certified hole in the wall is going to meet certain standards. Not sure about the authenticity of that certification on the wall? run your house Cannith made authenticator against it & say verify, if your authenticator turns black, you know it's not a certification issued through house Kundarak by House Ghallanda. Sure they were self issued through the various Houses & often printed by House Sivvis (who still prints many of them), but House Kundarak applies & maintains the authentication wards to prevent both casual forgery as well as ensure certificates expire when they are supposed to.
Gnomes: Gnomes have only a single mark with House Sivvis & the Mark of Scribing. What started out as a way to quickly spread gossip & reproduce books grew into the modern communication network known as House Sivvis message stations with the addition of the sending stone dragonmark focus item. Sure without it a marked Sivvis Heir can cast comprehend languages or message once a day, certainly useful if only rich people needed their services & only on rare occasion; but with it, even a least marked individual can send messages all day long every day only needing to stop for things like eating, sleeping, & other biological needs meaning that even your worried & lonely mother can send a couple cp along with her friend going into town on other business in order to send you a letter after you moved across the continent & likewise get one back with the next delivery. This level of high speed telegram-like communication has enormous impacts on civilization for so many reasons it would be difficult to list.
Dwarf: Like Gnomes, Dwarves have a single mark but it's a big one. House Kundarak & the Mark of Warding. Want a secure vault? Who cares what those ridiculous Tuckers kobolds claim, you know that house Kundarak wards are quality because they provide the authenticity wards for the great houses and with the cooperation of other houses maintain a vault & more importantly Banking system that no other crystal sphere comes close to having. The implications of not needing to bring all the money that you plan to spend on a trip are enormous both to merchant & tourist alike. your average reudable authenticator might be good enough for day to day use, but that 2,000 Platinum Dragon writ of funds being used to pay for that suit of masterwork plate is going to be checked with one of those fancy 25gp single charge kundarak authenticators that need to be taken back to a house Kundarak bank to recharge but guarantee funds .
Elf: The last of the pure races with a mark of their own & that mark embodies the "frivolous" focus that elves often have on the arts. The mark of Shadow grants them a number of useful abilities ranging from the scrying houses we all know & love letting people see far off plays & performances shakespeare meets JJ Abrams and anime type stuff even with thousands of regular attendees worldwide & funds transferred through House Kundarak banks . Oh conveniently those abilities also make them wonderful spies & assassins. The probleems associated with assassins & spies working for both sides of a conflict during the war are a big part of why House Phiarlan forked off a portion of its members into House Thurrani where entertainment is not as large of a focus for them.
Half-human Races... These all focus on the needs of civilization along with filling holes that are somewhere between nontrivial & difficult to fill even for us in present day earth.
Half-Orc & Human: House Tharashk (Mark of finding). Want to find Dragonshards to power magic items or common magewright formulas? These are the guys you want. Keith Baker has gone on record saying that the three different types of dragonshards vary in availability but that eberronshards (those power most stuff) are likely on par with oil during the early industrial revolution but up to the GM. As the war continued, they branched into finding competent & trustworthy monstrous mercenaries in lovely places like Droaam, the Demon Wastes, Q'barra, & even far off Xen'driik. now that the war is over, everyone is familiar with the stereotypes of a Tharashk mercenary minotaur/orc/etc who settled down & started a farm or hires herself out pulling a plow for farmers they might have protected or saved during the war, people are even getting used to the idea of someone else's children courting those monstrous neighbors.
Khoravar(Half-Elf): House Lyrander (Mark of Storm) What once started as a minor Dragonmark House with a focus on bringing rain & bountiful yields to farmers willing to pay unexpectedly turned into a powerhouse when the gnomes managed to uncover some knowledge about binding elementals in Xen'driik & started working with House Cannith to make airships a Lyrander Heir is able to fly across the sky. Suddenly travel & shipping by ship was no longer bound to port cities... to say nothing of the advances in warfare this allowed. Modern day fortresses are made with not just walls, but a fortified ceiling as well now to avoid the problem of someone dropping a bunch of angry magebred war animals with featherfall collars into your fortress, luckily some of the other Houses worked together to make those ceilings able to display an illusory representation of the sky you would normally see & some of them have been outfitted with such.
Khoravar(Half-Elf): House Medani (Mark of Warning). Human inquisitiveness combines wuth elven attention to detail here to allow these Inquisitives & spy catchers to do their thing. Sherlock Holmes would be green with envy,
That brings us to The Warforged. During the war they served a simple purpose that most everyone was happy to not be serving themselves.. but with the war over & warforged granted freedom, trying to compete for employment with someone who does not need to breathe, does not sleep, does not eat, & is orders of magnitude more durable than you brings eberron to the problems & benefits coming with automation but does so with intelligent free willed sapient warforged rather than dumb AI's


The problem with adding more true marks is that there is not very much room for one to develop barring mass colonization of eberron's planes (which are very different from faerun's in several important ways)or wide adoption of spelljammer type tech. Even that might be difficult. Any race can bear an Aberrant Mark & thanks to 500 years of propaganda from the dragonmarked houses playing up every accident involving aberrant marked individuals deliberately or accidentally hurting others... everyone knows that any aberrant marked individual is a dangerous sociopath who will do terrible things to everyone around them. If you know someone bears an aberrant mark, contact the nearest Sentinel Marshal today, don't delay... tomorrow might be too late for you to contact anyone. There is a lot of interesting things that can be done with aberrant marks, especially if House Tharask (whom everyone knows are a bunch of terrorists!) manages to resecure a government level backer without that government having The Twelve (every other dragonmarked house) tell that nation that they will no longer provide their services to them.

[Nifft]

As much as I agree with you on variant human, there are lore reasons why true marks are so heavily towards full & half human races. Sure, and of the various lore, it seems like immigration is the best (most consistent & least racist).

Halflings & Gnomes don't fit this unless you decide to resolve their origins as immigrants, too.



Speaking of which... there's something interesting about halflings and gnomes. Elves only developed dragonmarks when they arrived to Aerenal, and it is possible the first dragonmarked bloodlines were descendants of those who visited Khorvaire before the collapse of Dhakaan. Humans only developed dragonmarks only after they reached Khorvaire, they haven't got them back in Sarlona. Dwarves aren't native to Khorvaire either. Half-elves and half-orcs only became possible once humans got to Khorvaire.

Yet... no race native to Khorvaire developed dragonmarks, except gnomes and halflings. No pureblood orcs, no goblinoids, no gnolls, no lizardfolk (though the later may be artificial race, so YMMW). While we don't know the origin of halflings, the gnomes were around at least since Dhakaan Empire.

Now, the reason is obvious (all dragonmarked races were core player races in 3.5), but still, interesting lore-wise. Yeah. This is my favorite theory. Maybe it's something about a new race interacting with the magic of the land, so Goblinoids etc. could totally get Dragonmarks if they moved to Sarlona. Maybe Halflings & Gnomes were actually from Argonessen and the dragons moved them (and then erased all records of doing so for their own convenience).


Anyway, in terms of mechanics, I think the key functional attributes are:

- Be fair to all Dragonmarked races. That means not using a feat unless you give everyone a bonus feat at level 1.

- Be available at low levels of play, ideally starting at 1st level. 5e did a good job of expanding the supported levels of play, but Eberron's "wide magic" means that lower level characters should still have access to Dragonmark stuff.

- Turn the various 3.5e Dragonmark PrCs into 5e subclasses.

[Tetrasodium]

Sure, and of the various lore, it seems like immigration is the best (most consistent & least racist).

Halflings & Gnomes don't fit this unless you decide to resolve their origins as immigrants, too.


Yeah. This is my favorite theory. Maybe it's something about a new race interacting with the magic of the land, so Goblinoids etc. could totally get Dragonmarks if they moved to Sarlona. Maybe Halflings & Gnomes were actually from Argonessen and the dragons moved them (and then erased all records of doing so for their own convenience).


Anyway, in terms of mechanics, I think the key functional attributes are:

- Be fair to all Dragonmarked races. That means not using a feat unless you give everyone a bonus feat at level 1.

- Be available at low levels of play, ideally starting at 1st level. 5e did a good job of expanding the supported levels of play, but Eberron's "wide magic" means that lower level characters should still have access to Dragonmark stuff.

- Turn the various 3.5e Dragonmark PrCs into 5e subclasses.

gnomes and dwarves came from other planes Risia /plane of ice for dwarf & I think Thelanis (which is very doifferent from simply being "The Feywild" no matter what stupidity WotC copy/pasted into the 4e books). As to immigration. ... The setting starts in 998YK (and is supposed to always start there). In 1YK Galifar the First finished building the nation of Galifar from the 5 nations in khorvaire (ie basically all of the continent of khorvaire minus some bits nobody sane wanted). In 894YK king Jarot of Galifar died & due to a contested chain of succession, civil war broke out among his children. Up until 994YK, a 5 way civil war continued with those unwanted bits getting roped in as mercenaries to varying degrees. The fighting only stopped in 994YK because on the day of mourning one of the five nations effectively blew up & became a magically irradiated wasteland for reasons nobody knows during a major battle between each of the powers. Since nobody knew why or who caused it & nobody was fessing up MAD kicked in & the treaty of thronehold was established to create an unhappy peace rather than risk being next. each nation still feels like they would have won the war & had their victory stolen at the last minute so wants to restart the war now/later for various reasons... It's kind of like if on june 6th 1944 in the middle of the D-Day invasion that the entire nation of france suddenly exploded from nuclear weapon that stopped pretty much at the national borders instead of the events we learned in school happening during the normandy D-day invasion & everyone took a step back in horror saying "uhh.. I didn't do that... who did?". not getting any answers, they hastily signed a peace treaty. Unfortunately, not having any real victor meant it wound up being a treaty everyone thought was giving them the short end of the stick on tip of having to recover from nearly a century of warfare. The nationalism is still strong between opponents who were once part of the same nation as neighbors resulting in a situation where a medusa from Droaam & ogre from Q'barra might get a better reception traveling in breland or Karrnath than a brelish/Karrnathi citizen traveling in Karrnath/Breland. People move from one nation to another though. Racism is less of an issue in eberron than most other settings, although everyone knows elves will stab you in the back & take your stuff if you show even a moment's weakness & should treat them as such when I'm running eberron... my first elf noble player was surprised by that one :P

I'm not sure what you mean by the bolded bit though

[Nifft]

Speaking of which... there's something interesting about halflings and gnomes. Elves only developed dragonmarks when they arrived to Aerenal, and it is possible the first dragonmarked bloodlines were descendants of those who visited Khorvaire before the collapse of Dhakaan. Humans only developed dragonmarks only after they reached Khorvaire, they haven't got them back in Sarlona. Dwarves aren't native to Khorvaire either. Half-elves and half-orcs only became possible once humans got to Khorvaire.

Yet... no race native to Khorvaire developed dragonmarks, except gnomes and halflings. No pureblood orcs, no goblinoids, no gnolls, no lizardfolk (though the later may be artificial race, so YMMW). While we don't know the origin of halflings, the gnomes were around at least since Dhakaan Empire.

Now, the reason is obvious (all dragonmarked races were core player races in 3.5), but still, interesting lore-wise.


I'm not sure what you mean by the bolded bit though

The above quoted post is the context for the bolded bit.

[EvilAnagram]

I had always assumed that halflings and gnomes are distantly related in some way, and every wave of immigrating cultures got busy with them.

[Tetrasodium]

Speaking of which... there's something interesting about halflings and gnomes. Elves only developed dragonmarks when they arrived to Aerenal, and it is possible the first dragonmarked bloodlines were descendants of those who visited Khorvaire before the collapse of Dhakaan. Humans only developed dragonmarks only after they reached Khorvaire, they haven't got them back in Sarlona. Dwarves aren't native to Khorvaire either. Half-elves and half-orcs only became possible once humans got to Khorvaire.

Yet... no race native to Khorvaire developed dragonmarks, except gnomes and halflings. No pureblood orcs, no goblinoids, no gnolls, no lizardfolk (though the later may be artificial race, so YMMW). While we don't know the origin of halflings, the gnomes were around at least since Dhakaan Empire.

Now, the reason is obvious (all dragonmarked races were core player races in 3.5), but still, interesting lore-wise.

It's very possible that the dhakaani had some kind of mark of their own before the daelkyr destroyed its bloodline or that through magebreeding themselves & possibly some of those other races you mention that they can't manifest a true mark despite previously having the possibility of doing so. either the giants magebred the elves differently enough to avoid that problem or it has been so long that the elves no longer bear whatever taint magebreeding caused. Of course, Medani was hunted by the other 11 houses as Aberrants for a while, one or more of those other races could have a young true mark without anyone knowing that it was not aberrant. That possible 13th mark runs into the problem of not really having room to elevate civilization further without getting into Rediera & tippyverse type problems or changing things in equally radical ways with a spelljammer mark or something separate from Lyrander airships

[SaintRidley]

Changelings and Warforged are yay. If Eberron means we get something for psionics, also yay. Those are my only real concerns with Eberron.

[Regitnui]

Tetrasodium, I'm not sure what that long, unspaced spiel has to do with dragonmarks.

However, immigration to khorvaire is a plausible reasoning for dragonmarks; gnomes came from Thelanis, elves from Xen'drik, humans and dwarves from Sarlona, making the half-races (Khoravar and Jhorgun'taal) indirectly immigrant as well. The only one this doesn't work for is the halflings, who've been farming dinosaurs in the Talenta plains for as long as any legible records exist.

[Nifft]

Tetrasodium, I'm not sure what that long, unspaced spiel has to do with dragonmarks.

However, immigration to khorvaire is a plausible reasoning for dragonmarks; gnomes came from Thelanis, elves from Xen'drik, humans and dwarves from Sarlona, making the half-races (Khoravar and Jhorgun'taal) indirectly immigrant as well. The only one this doesn't work for is the halflings, who've been farming dinosaurs in the Talenta plains for as long as any legible records exist.

Perhaps the Dragons of Argonessen created all species of dinosaurs using epic magic fairly recently, and faked the dinosaur bones in the fossil record to obscure the fact that halflings were not native to Khorvaire.

They did this specifically to stymie the Lords of Dust being able to interpret one branch of the Prophecy.

Previously, halflings were holy and noble dragon-riding knights (i.e. dedicated pocket-healer clerics in service to specific dragons). This is probably why halflings get the mark with the healing spells. This is also why halflings get a racial bonus against fear: their job was to cast support & healing spells in very close proximity to very scary dragons, and the cowardly ones were culled.

(The above is non-canon but not particularly insane.)

-- -- --

In addition to Dragonmarks, I'm curious how Symbiotes would get implemented.

In place of ability damage, maybe they eat HD, or reduce your max HD while attached?

[JackPhoenix]

Yeah, agree with Regitnui, I have no idea what that wall of text is supposed to be about, because it's got nothing to do with my post you've quoted.


However, immigration to khorvaire is a plausible reasoning for dragonmarks; gnomes came from Thelanis, elves from Xen'drik, humans and dwarves from Sarlona, making the half-races (Khoravar and Jhorgun'taal) indirectly immigrant as well. The only one this doesn't work for is the halflings, who've been farming dinosaurs in the Talenta plains for as long as any legible records exist.

Gnomes came from Thelanis? Is that 4e canon? Because everyone (who's an educated Dhakaani goblin) knows gnomes are mutated rats.


In addition to Dragonmarks, I'm curious how Symbiotes would get implemented.

In place of ability damage, maybe they eat HD, or reduce your max HD while attached?

Propably just magic items like any else, just ickier.

[Arkhios]

Because everyone (who's an educated Dhakaani goblin) knows gnomes are mutated rats.

That might explain why I'm not particularly fond of gnomes!

[Tetrasodium]

Tetrasodium, I'm not sure what that long, unspaced spiel has to do with dragonmarks.

However, immigration to khorvaire is a plausible reasoning for dragonmarks; gnomes came from Thelanis, elves from Xen'drik, humans and dwarves from Sarlona, making the half-races (Khoravar and Jhorgun'taal) indirectly immigrant as well. The only one this doesn't work for is the halflings, who've been farming dinosaurs in the Talenta plains for as long as any legible records exist.


I wasn't saying that it was an implausible theory & I'm aware of all those migrations, I was saying that it would be difficult to squeeze in a 13th mark and why. Given that your post seems to miss that, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you didn't read it?


In other news, this tweet (https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/887163269974155264) from Mike Mearls got bumped (https://twitter.com/SageAdviceDnD/status/1018479999299530753) by sageadvice,eu in my feed today. While I don't disagree entirely with him, I think it's poorly applied given how apologetically awful the volos orc is in general. I'm hoping that if playable orcs show up in a 5e eberron book that they not be the volo faerun slanted orcs & instead are redone into A:something more fitting of orcs likely to be PC's in eberron and B:something one would not need a concussion to think was a good choice for a PC.

[JackPhoenix]

I wasn't saying that it was an implausible theory & I'm aware of all those migrations, I was saying that it would be difficult to squeeze in a 13th mark and why. Given that your post seems to miss that, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you didn't read it?

There was a thirteenth dragonmark. The mark of death. But what does that have to do with anything?

[Arkhios]

Guys, chill out a bit.

[Boci]

While true that those two are the most logical choice for a subclass for some of them based on prior edition fluff.

Marks of detection, finding, handling, healing, & sentinel use wisdom... making, passage, scribing, storm, & warding use Int... It'as only hospitality & shadow that use charisma. If the dragonmarks (https://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/UA_Eberron_v1.pdf) were made into subclasses, they absolutely should not be yet another boon to scorlocks

4th edition had paragonpaths, which were not all that disimilar from archetypes. Initially class specific they later introduced racial specific and I think even ones available to anyone. They might try that, archetypes available to every class. I think it could work, since each class is complete independant of an archetype. Not sure if they actually would do that though.

[JackPhoenix]

4th edition had paragonpaths, which were not all that disimilar from archetypes. Initially class specific they later introduced racial specific and I think even ones available to anyone. They might try that, archetypes available to every class. I think it could work, since each class is complete independant of an archetype. Not sure if they actually would do that though.

Wouldn't work. Classes get subclass abilities at different levels, and they are designed to derive different amount of power from class or subclass.

[Tetrasodium]

There was a thirteenth dragonmark. The mark of death. But what does that have to do with anything?

You are right, mark of death kind of has a special "that which shall never be defined" place in the lore so I was forgetting about it. I was saying the difficulty was more in regards to adding an additional true mark to some other race that does not currently have one like people were discussing earlier.


4th edition had paragonpaths, which were not all that disimilar from archetypes. Initially class specific they later introduced racial specific and I think even ones available to anyone. They might try that, archetypes available to every class. I think it could work, since each class is complete independant of an archetype. Not sure if they actually would do that though.

It will definitely be interesting to see what they do, Jack is right about the prc type approach you note being an awkward one because of how different classes scale. Given the tease of phb/dmg/mm covers I'm very curious about what we will be finding out in the coming days weeks & months. 5e has a lot of good changes over 3.5, but plenty of those changes have rough edges & limitations of their own that are showing. I could see a phb2 type thing needing a new cover, but that still leaves the teased dmg/mm covers up for wonder.

[Regitnui]

Because everyone (who's an educated Dhakaani goblin) knows gnomes are mutated rats.[/COLOR]

Honestly, I'd describe modern gnomes as rat people if I was a hobgoblin warlord busy making a name for myself. They're small, get everywhere, and can steal everything you have before you know they have while making you happy they took it.

[Jama7301]

Here's my dumb idea for Dragonmarks: Adventurers have an extra Attunement slot.

Make Dragonmarks an Attunable item, like a magic tattoo or something. If they want a mark, it costs a slot. Probably messes with things, giving an extra attunment slot across the board, but Eberron is a magical world.

[Arkhios]

Here's my dumb idea for Dragonmarks: Adventurers have an extra Attunement slot.

Make Dragonmarks an Attunable item, like a magic tattoo or something. If they want a mark, it costs a slot. Probably messes with things, giving an extra attunment slot across the board, but Eberron is a magical world.

There's one fundamental problem with that. No one gets a Dragonmark when and if they want one. They just appear whether you wanted it or not. A character can't choose to have it, and therefore the player can't opt to find an item to get a dragonmark either.

[Boci]

There's one fundamental problem with that. No one gets a Dragonmark when and if they want one. They just appear whether you wanted it or not. A character can't choose to have it, and therefore the player can't opt to find an item to get a dragonmark either.

But if everyone gets a bonus attunement slot, that just occupies the one you were getting for free anyway.

[Jama7301]

I figured it wasn't a great solution, but it was one that popped into my head. I wasn't sure how to weight the thought of a Dragonmark + 3 attuned items versus 4 attuned items. I figured someone smarter than me here would be able to point out my flaws. :smallsmile:

[Arkhios]

But if everyone gets a bonus attunement slot, that just occupies the one you were getting for free anyway.

Yeah, well, it still doesn't quite fit the bill of what having a dragonmark means. It's something you've always had. Even if it takes time to appear, you've always had the potential for it.
An extra attunement slot implies an item. Dragonmark is not an item, it's more like a birthmark.

[Boci]

Yeah, well, it still doesn't quite fit the bill of what having a dragonmark means. It's something you've always had. Even if it takes time to appear, you've always had the potential for it.
An extra attunement slot implies an item. Dragonmark is not an item, it's more like a birthmark.

Does it? Just because you have an attunement slots doesn't gurantee you'll find a magical item for each one.

[CharonsHelper]

I think it's been mentioned before - but I'd just have Dragonmarks take feats and add a variant rule that all PCs get a feat at first level. It's the KISS solution, and I'm always a big fan of those.

Yes - I realize that not EVERYONE even plays with feats. And that's fine - they don't have to have anyone with a Dragonmark. Or maybe they could take a stat penalty or some such.

But it certainly wouldn't be the first time that a setting introduced a variant rule to be default within the setting - such as Action Points within the original 3.5's Eberron.

[Kite474]

Edit - I was being overdramatic. Dont mind me

[Knaight]

Yeah, well, it still doesn't quite fit the bill of what having a dragonmark means. It's something you've always had. Even if it takes time to appear, you've always had the potential for it.
An extra attunement slot implies an item. Dragonmark is not an item, it's more like a birthmark.

On the other hand the whole idea of only being able to fit so much external magic and getting slightly less if you have a dragonmark makes a lot of sense.

As for things you've always had the potential for, that also describes the entire Sorcerer class, which you can multiclass into later. There's lots of player side decisions in character building which have no correspondance to character decisions, dragonmarks are just one more.

That said, I would slightly tweak the system. Either you get an extra attunement slot or a dormant dragonmark, which can be activated later. If you take the dormant draagonmark you never had the item, and thus the implication is lost, leaving only the implication that the mark is roughly comparable to an item.

That said, feats are still a cleaner method - and them being optional can be neatly bypassed. ASIs aren't optional, so tie dragonmarks to them instead of feats and you're covered.

[Arkhios]

Honestly I'm a little doubtful that a dragonmark would become essentially another option for spending ASI, but on the other hand I don't claim to know what they might have in store for us.

Let's wait and see, shall we?

(Besides, it's still roughly a week before we can even be sure if Eberron Campaign Setting for 5th edition is really coming :smalltongue:)

[Nifft]

Honestly I'm a little doubtful that a dragonmark would become essentially another option for spending ASI, but on the other hand I don't claim to know what they might have in store for us.

Let's wait and see, shall we?

If a good idea happens in this thread, I can use it for my own games without needing to wait.

If WotC does something better in the future, I can use what they did instead (or in addition).

There is no case where less creativity / less discussion / less rigorous debate helps my game.


Why are you trying to shut down a discussion that might help my game?

[Arkhios]

If a good idea happens in this thread, I can use it for my own games without needing to wait.

If WotC does something better in the future, I can use what they did instead (or in addition).

There is no case where less creativity / less discussion / less rigorous debate helps my game.


Why are you trying to shut down a discussion that might help my game?

Sorry, I didn't mean it that way. I just meant that I'll withdraw from that discussion, as I have nothing else to add to it. :smallredface:

[JackPhoenix]

Whatever form the dragonmarks will take, it has to be compatible with AL, unfortunately. So that limits design options a bit.

[Arkhios]

Whatever form the dragonmarks will take, it has to be compatible with AL, unfortunately. So that limits design options a bit.

This might be my personal enmity towards AL as a whole speaking, but I think it would be time for AL to evolve a bit :P

[Tetrasodium]

Whatever form the dragonmarks will take, it has to be compatible with AL, unfortunately. So that limits design options a bit.

AL AL AL AL is all well & good, but I don't think that it is any coincidence that spelljammer seems to have been halfway sortakinda announced as well. WotC can't make every setting into 100% faerun compatible things, without destroying those other settings & they can't turn faerun into a world/crystal sphere/whatever shaped version of sigil without destroying faerun. I'm less concerned with "how will they fit into AL as it is right now today" than I am "how will they fit into the setting they came from & how will they function" along with "are they finally going to give us some example dragonmark focus items my players can drool over while asking if they can take a mark of $whatever"

Taking a mark as a feat in place of an ASI is certainly possible, but Keith Baker has already mentioned that he does not handle them as feats. I have my suspicions, but really it's just hopeful groping guesswork in the dark because we don't have any other clues to go off.

[Arkhios]

I know I just said above that I'd basically wash my hands off of the whole dragonmark issue, but here's one thing that I realized. In 4th edition, when the so called "spellplague" hit Faerun (an in-game-explanation for why all magic and basically everything else as well, suddenly started to work differently), people all over Faerun would start manifesting Spellscars, which were more or less similar to Aberrant Dragonmarks, and IIRC, they followed a roughly similar pattern mechanically. It's also possible that while Dragonmarks as-is wouldn't fit in Faerun, they could be used as equivalent to Spellscars. As to how they'd end up implemented is another issue.

[Nifft]

Sorry, I didn't mean it that way. I just meant that I'll withdraw from that discussion, as I have nothing else to add to it. :smallredface:

In that case: good gaming, and see you in a future thread.

-- -- --


On the subject of Dragonmarks...

What are the PrCs that could be made into subclasses?

- Blade of Orien - Fighter maybe?
- Cyre Scout - ??? (weird Infusion casting)
- Deneith Warden - Ranger
- Duraak'ash - also Ranger?
- Medani Prophet - Cleric, conflicts a bit with Knowledge domain though
- Nostromatic Churigen - (doesn't look worth porting to 5e)
- Shadow Hunter - Bard or Monk
- Silver Key - Rogue or Monk
- Storm Sentry - ??? (not sure it's worth porting)
- Vadalis Beastkeeper - Paladin
- Unbound Scroll / Alchemist Savant / Cannith Wand Adept - Wizard, just make all 3 into one subclass
- Windwright Captain - Rogue? Bard?

[Arkhios]

In that case: good gaming, and see you in a future thread.

Umm... what? :smallamused: This thread is about Eberron as a whole, not only dragonmarks. When I said I'd withdraw from that discussion, that meant only the discussion related to Dragonmarks, not the whole thread.

[JackPhoenix]

AL AL AL AL is all well & good, but I don't think that it is any coincidence that spelljammer seems to have been halfway sortakinda announced as well. WotC can't make every setting into 100% faerun compatible things, without destroying those other settings & they can't turn faerun into a world/crystal sphere/whatever shaped version of sigil without destroying faerun. I'm less concerned with "how will they fit into AL as it is right now today" than I am "how will they fit into the setting they came from & how will they function" along with "are they finally going to give us some example dragonmark focus items my players can drool over while asking if they can take a mark of $whatever"

Taking a mark as a feat in place of an ASI is certainly possible, but Keith Baker has already mentioned that he does not handle them as feats. I have my suspicions, but really it's just hopeful groping guesswork in the dark because we don't have any other clues to go off.

Considering the mess 4e made out of pretty much any setting it touched, and the fact Vulkoor was proclaimed to be a part of the Dark Seldarine, with the implication that Lolth is still responsible for Eberron drow, even if they aren't aware of her... I wouldn't hold my breath for WotC not screwing up again.

[JoeJ]

WotC can't make every setting into 100% faerun compatible things, without destroying those other settings & they can't turn faerun into a world/crystal sphere/whatever shaped version of sigil without destroying faerun.

I don't see any reason they can't incorporate Faerun into both the Spelljammer and the Planescape metasettings. That's how it was in 2e, after all. As for Eberron, from what little I know, it seems that it would be connect it to Spelljammer than to the Great Wheel, but I may be mistaken. Has anything ever been said about what's above Eberron's sky?

[Nifft]

I don't see any reason they can't incorporate Faerun into both the Spelljammer and the Planescape metasettings. That's how it was in 2e, after all. As for Eberron, from what little I know, it seems that it would be connect it to Spelljammer than to the Great Wheel, but I may be mistaken. Has anything ever been said about what's above Eberron's sky?

One golden ring and twelve moons illuminate the night sky. Beyond that, there's a sun and some stars, but those don't seem to have exclusionary lore attached -- what works for Greyhawk's stars might work for Eberron's stars, too.


The thing that makes Eberron doubtful as a Planescape link is how the planes on Eberron work so differently. For example: there is no hell. Fiends are trapped underground, and where geography permits you can walk down to visit them. There's no Inner / Outer distinction: for example, the plane of fire is just a plane, not an Elemental plane, and it's home to all sorts of fire-oriented Outsiders. There's no plane of Elemental Water, but there is a plane of cold. Eberron has a plane where dead spirits go and stand around for a while (Dolurrh), but no Petitioners, and nobody knows what happens to souls that disappear from Dolurrh (one wiki says souls turn into shades, but Keith Baker is on record saying otherwise, so that one wiki is lying). Anyway, point is: Eberron planes are not compatible with FR planes, not on a mechanical nor metaphysical level. So if you want to fuse them into a unified Planescape mega-setting, you've got to harmonize both mechanics and metaphysics.

Does Spelljammer also have a firm requirement that the Great Wheel exist?

[Arkhios]

I would argue that while Planescape and Spelljammer both most likely expect certain laws to apply on planes and the worlds, there might be anomalies that could let one through, despite how their planes work -- without breaking one or the other setting apart.

[JoeJ]

Does Spelljammer also have a firm requirement that the Great Wheel exist?

Spelljammer doesn't have anything that definitely requires the Great Wheel. It doesn't really deal with other planes at all, except in the way that all D&D has them baked into certain spells and monsters. (Both tanar'ri and baatezu are creating problems in the Astromundi Cluster, for example, but their home planes are not described or involved in any adventures.) The designers seem to have realized that Spelljammer and Planescape serve the same purpose as meta-settings, and if you have one the other is redundant.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Does Spelljammer also have a firm requirement that the Great Wheel exist?


I would argue that while Planescape and Spelljammer both expect a certain laws of planes and worlds, there might be anomalies that could let one through, despite how their planes work -- without breaking one or the other setting apart.

Spelljammer is solely concerned with the Material Plane (crystal spheres, Wildspace, the Flow, and all that are part of the Prime, and you can't planar travel into the phlogiston), as JoeJ noted, while Planescape is solely concerned everything but the Material Plane (planars largely ignore the Prime entirely, aside from mocking the Clueless for their Prime origin), so neither setting interacts with or cares about the other and both can (and frequently do) exist side-by-side in the same campaign. There are reasons to have both coexist (different methods of travel, different meta-setting foci, etc.), and they do in all of my own campaigns without any issues.


The thing that makes Eberron doubtful as a Planescape link is how the planes on Eberron work so differently.
[...]
Eberron planes are not compatible with FR planes, not on a mechanical nor metaphysical level. So if you want to fuse them into a unified Planescape mega-setting, you've got to harmonize both mechanics and metaphysics.

You can model Eberron in Planescape in basically the same way Athas is modeled. Athas is in a sealed crystal sphere with a large planar barrier around it (the Grey) that prevents planar travelers, souls, deific power, and anything else from traveling through it without great difficulty; a handful of travelers have made it through, but generally extraplanar creatures who make it into Athas don't manage to make it back out. It has access to some of the Inner Planes, but between the fact that its "paraelemental planes" are not the standard set (Silt/Magma/Sun/Rain instead of Ooze/Magma/Smoke/Ice) and the way the elemental and paralemental rulers and forces act somewhat like Outer Planes (growing stronger or weaker based on their prominence on Athas in the same way the Outer Planes are shaped by Prime belief), no one in-setting knows the true nature of the planes and it's strongly implied that those planes are either portions of the larger planes that were cut off from the rest by the planar barrier and "drifted" in composition due to the isolation, are portions of those planes so remote from the well-known regions of the plane that their properties have changed and normal planar travelers rarely know how to get there, or are merely demiplanes vaguely resembling the more familiar planes.

Eberron, likewise. No evidence of spelljamming, implying a sealed crystal sphere? Check. No confirmed existence of actual deities? Check. A handful of non-deific entities (the Silver Flame, Vol, the Undying Court, etc.) granting divine power on the strength of belief and/or loyalty rather than "true" divinity? Check. Planes that each strongly resemble portions of one of the Great Wheel planes with small thematic tweaks (Hades -> Dolurrh, Risia -> Paraelemental Plane of Ice, etc.)? Check. No one's explored the planes enough to confirm that they're not just really really big demiplanes? Check. Hell, even planes waxing in waning in power and closeness in conjunction with activity on the Prime (in this case the movement of the moons)? Check.

It fits in just fine, with a bit of work in fleshing out the details. The only difference is that whereas in Athas the Gray and the Black are known hazards to sages and would-be planar travelers, in Eberron no one knows what's cutting them off from the wider multiverse, or even that they're cut off at all. How did it originally become so isolated, I wonder? Sounds like a plot hook to me. :smallamused:

[Arkhios]

Spelljammer is solely concerned with the Material Plane (crystal spheres, Wildspace, the Flow, and all that are part of the Prime, and you can't planar travel into the phlogiston), as JoeJ noted, while Planescape is solely concerned everything but the Material Plane (planars largely ignore the Prime entirely, aside from mocking the Clueless for their Prime origin), so neither setting interacts with or cares about the other and both can (and frequently do) exist side-by-side in the same campaign. There are reasons to have both coexist (different methods of travel, different meta-setting foci, etc.), and they do in all of my own campaigns without any issues.
I have to admit that to me both Spelljammer and Planescape are fairly unfamiliar, and my assumptions now and before are based on guesswork, not on facts.


You can model Eberron in Planescape in basically the same way Athas is modeled. Athas is in a sealed crystal sphere with a large planar barrier around it (the Grey) that prevents planar travelers, souls, deific power, and anything else from traveling through it without great difficulty; a handful of travelers have made it through, but generally extraplanar creatures who make it into Athas don't manage to make it back out. It has access to some of the Inner Planes, but between the fact that its "paraelemental planes" are not the standard set (Silt/Magma/Sun/Rain instead of Ooze/Magma/Smoke/Ice) and the way the elemental and paralemental rulers and forces act somewhat like Outer Planes (growing stronger or weaker based on their prominence on Athas in the same way the Outer Planes are shaped by Prime belief), no one in-setting knows the true nature of the planes and it's strongly implied that those planes are either portions of the larger planes that were cut off from the rest by the planar barrier and "drifted" in composition due to the isolation, are portions of those planes so remote from the well-known regions of the plane that their properties have changed and normal planar travelers rarely know how to get there, or are merely demiplanes vaguely resembling the more familiar planes.

Eberron, likewise. No evidence of spelljamming, implying a sealed crystal sphere? Check. No confirmed existence of actual deities? Check. A handful of non-deific entities (the Silver Flame, Vol, the Undying Court, etc.) granting divine power on the strength of belief and/or loyalty rather than "true" divinity? Check. Planes that each strongly resemble portions of one of the Great Wheel planes with small thematic tweaks (Hades -> Dolurrh, Risia -> Paraelemental Plane of Ice, etc.)? Check. No one's explored the planes enough to confirm that they're not just really really big demiplanes? Check. Hell, even planes waxing in waning in power and closeness in conjunction with activity on the Prime (in this case the movement of the moons)? Check.

It fits in just fine, with a bit of work in fleshing out the details. The only difference is that whereas in Athas the Gray and the Black are known hazards to sages and would-be planar travelers, in Eberron no one knows what's cutting them off from the wider multiverse, or even that they're cut off at all. How did it originally become so isolated, I wonder? Sounds like a plot hook to me. :smallamused:

You drive a great argument and inspired me quite a bit, especially with the plot hook at the end.

PS. This might be a bit far-fetched, but for some reason, the way you explained how Athas and Eberron are separated from the other worlds (a fact which I was aware already), made me associate Athas with Australia. Australia has taken a completely unique direction in most areas of evolution, much like as you said, the planes in athas are (probably/maybe) just small portions of the big whole and have just evolved on their own after having been cut off.

Likewise, and I don't mean any disrespect with this or the one above, Eberron could similarly be associated with the american continent, having been separated from eurasian continent. :smallbiggrin:

[PairO'Dice Lost]

PS. This might be a bit far-fetched, but for some reason, the way you explained how Athas and Eberron are separated from the other worlds (a fact which I was aware already), made me associate Athas with Australia. Australia has taken a completely unique direction in most areas of evolution, much like as you said, the planes in athas are (probably/maybe) just small portions of the big whole and have just evolved on their own after having been cut off.

Likewise, and I don't mean any disrespect with this or the one above, Eberron could similarly be associated with the american continent, having been separated from eurasian continent. :smallbiggrin:

Athas is a sun-blasted hellscape with isolated cities around a central empty wasteland where the people are hardier than normal (and a bit mental), absolutely everything is trying to kill you, and both travel and information across the deep and empty expanse around it is very difficult.

Khorvaire is several thousand miles across, a melting pot of many cultures to which people of many races have immigrated, and a hub of scientific/magical/technological advancement, with major cities on the coastlines and very little in the center aside from lightning rail tracks, with a continent full of mysterious forbidden jungles to the south, and the land where the first settlers who traveled to Khorvaire originated across the ocean to the east.

Sounds about right to me. :smallcool:

[Tetrasodium]

Spelljammer is solely concerned with the Material Plane (crystal spheres, Wildspace, the Flow, and all that are part of the Prime, and you can't planar travel into the phlogiston), as JoeJ noted, while Planescape is solely concerned everything but the Material Plane (planars largely ignore the Prime entirely, aside from mocking the Clueless for their Prime origin), so neither setting interacts with or cares about the other and both can (and frequently do) exist side-by-side in the same campaign. There are reasons to have both coexist (different methods of travel, different meta-setting foci, etc.), and they do in all of my own campaigns without any issues.



You can model Eberron in Planescape in basically the same way Athas is modeled. Athas is in a sealed crystal sphere with a large planar barrier around it (the Grey) that prevents planar travelers, souls, deific power, and anything else from traveling through it without great difficulty; a handful of travelers have made it through, but generally extraplanar creatures who make it into Athas don't manage to make it back out. It has access to some of the Inner Planes, but between the fact that its "paraelemental planes" are not the standard set (Silt/Magma/Sun/Rain instead of Ooze/Magma/Smoke/Ice) and the way the elemental and paralemental rulers and forces act somewhat like Outer Planes (growing stronger or weaker based on their prominence on Athas in the same way the Outer Planes are shaped by Prime belief), no one in-setting knows the true nature of the planes and it's strongly implied that those planes are either portions of the larger planes that were cut off from the rest by the planar barrier and "drifted" in composition due to the isolation, are portions of those planes so remote from the well-known regions of the plane that their properties have changed and normal planar travelers rarely know how to get there, or are merely demiplanes vaguely resembling the more familiar planes.

Eberron, likewise. No evidence of spelljamming, implying a sealed crystal sphere? Check. No confirmed existence of actual deities? Check. A handful of non-deific entities (the Silver Flame, Vol, the Undying Court, etc.) granting divine power on the strength of belief and/or loyalty rather than "true" divinity? Check. Planes that each strongly resemble portions of one of the Great Wheel planes with small thematic tweaks (Hades -> Dolurrh, Risia -> Paraelemental Plane of Ice, etc.)? Check. No one's explored the planes enough to confirm that they're not just really really big demiplanes? Check. Hell, even planes waxing in waning in power and closeness in conjunction with activity on the Prime (in this case the movement of the moons)? Check.

It fits in just fine, with a bit of work in fleshing out the details. The only difference is that whereas in Athas the Gray and the Black are known hazards to sages and would-be planar travelers, in Eberron no one knows what's cutting them off from the wider multiverse, or even that they're cut off at all. How did it originally become so isolated, I wonder? Sounds like a plot hook to me. :smallamused:

The big concern for fans of eberron is that in 4e they pretty much tried to link it to planescape; but instead of the reasonable route you suggest, wotc took the route of replacing & adding eberron's planes with the nearest cousin from $otherSetting while nonsensically changing a bunch of stuff in the setting itself to fit all the metaplot stuff going on with those planes.

The problem with linking eberron via spelljammer is that if anyone in khorvaire got ahold of a spelljammer ship, eberron would launch into a period of colonialism that made earth's colonial powers look like childish amateurs playing in a sandbox. The fact that those ships fly without an elemental ring would be of immediate note & concern for the twelve & the first dragonmarked heir to credibly hear about or see one would use a house sivvis message station to inform people up the chain that someone was threatening Lyrander/Cannith's monopoly on airship construction & piloting with such a design that their house could perhaps use. Following that report would be house Medani, Orien, & others finding/tracking it. Once located, house Orien would be used to teleport an army of Deneith blademarks(mercenaries)/sentinel marshals(private law enforcement basically) to seize said ship, possibly with the air of siege staffs that may or may not be mounted on house Lyrander piloted airships. If it tried to run to another sphere, they would just blast it out of the sky & reverse engineer the rubble. If one of the 5 nations instead of a house found out about it first, the results would be very similar & regardless might include members of both that nation's army as well as deneith blademarks/sentinel marshals. The next step would be interrogating any survivors & building Galactica-like shipsto colonize everywhere else asap.

As to the plot hook you mention, that is one of the big ways eberron differs from other settings. While many od the other settings have plot hooks where you can lookup to see that soandso killed suchandsuch while doing whatnot because whatever in excruciating detail, eberron has a lot of plothooks with several possible/likely/implied plots that wotc has explicitly declared to be voldermort level Shall Never be Defined. If a spelljammer crashed somewhere in xen'driik or the mournland it might take a long time to be found sure, but khorvaire took a creation forge & reverse engineered it to made more of them before churning out armies of warforged. Similar levels of technological leaping would come from finding that ship.





I don't see any reason they can't incorporate Faerun into both the Spelljammer and the Planescape metasettings. That's how it was in 2e, after all. As for Eberron, from what little I know, it seems that it would be connect it to Spelljammer than to the Great Wheel, but I may be mistaken. Has anything ever been said about what's above Eberron's sky?

spelljammer yes I don't disagree at all given my limited knowledge of the setting; but eberron is very much not capable of incorperating faerun as history has shown with 4e. Others have answered the question about the sky, that Siberyis ring that was mentionedis made up of Siberyis dragonshards that occasionally fall to eberron & those shards are valuable things.If earth had a ring, it would be the equivalent of finding a ship capable of cheaply lifting you to that ring where you could collect & return with crude oil or something. Eberron dragonshards are the type that power general purpose stuff & siberyis dragonshards power dragonmark focus items, but it's not as if dropping their cost to near zero would not allow the dragonmarked houses to make ridiculous numbers of dragonmark focus devices.

[Naanomi]

4e’s handling of setting integration should be a cautionary tale, but not one the eliminates the concept entirely... just that it needs to be handled non-disruptively. (And I genuinely understand the concern; as a Planescape fan 4e literally burned my favorite setting to the ground)

I’m not a huge expert on Eberron Lore, but... something like this would work for me:

1) Eberron is a distant crystal sphere, far from the Greater Arcane flow, so Spelljammer traffic would be inherently rare and dangerous
2) The magic of dragonshards is disruptive to the Spelljamming mechanism, Spelljammers cannot fly near them without shutting down. That makes Spelljammers impractical for flying in the Eberron crystal sphere at all, and adds another danger to going to Eberron to begin with
3) Arcane (the folks who sell Spelljammers) have entered a business deal with house Lyrander; providing a few secret ships for study (no one in the multiverse has ever ‘reverse engineered’ a Spelljammer helmet, they are not worried) and a ‘no competition clause’ so no others exist on Eberron.... barring ancient crash sites in Sahuagin hands ... Some spies from House Cannith have seen the ‘new prototype’ but don’t know what it is yet (intruige plothook)

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Don't have that book.

Were they identical reprints?

If not, what's different?


Barbed Hide, Critter Friend, Dragon Wings, Everybody's Friend, Human Determination, Grudge-Bearer, Orcish Aggression and Wonder Maker were cut entirely. Dwarf Resilience, Elven Accuracy, Prodigy, and Fey Teleportation were changed. Some of those were buffs - Elven Accuracy can give +1 Int, Cha or Dex instead of Dex. Some were nerfs - Fey Teleportation lost the +1 Int.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

The big concern for fans of eberron is that in 4e they pretty much tried to link it to planescape; but instead of the reasonable route you suggest, wotc took the route of replacing & adding eberron's planes with the nearest cousin from $otherSetting while nonsensically changing a bunch of stuff in the setting itself to fit all the metaplot stuff going on with those planes.


4e’s handling of setting integration should be a cautionary tale, but not one the eliminates the concept entirely... just that it needs to be handled non-disruptively. (And I genuinely understand the concern; as a Planescape fan 4e literally burned my favorite setting to the ground)

Yeah, I think the recent crop of WotC devs have shown themselves to be utterly incapable of not ruining every classic setting they touch. :smallwink:


The problem with linking eberron via spelljammer is that if anyone in khorvaire got ahold of a spelljammer ship, eberron would launch into a period of colonialism that made earth's colonial powers look like childish amateurs playing in a sandbox.

That assumes that they do get ahold of one, though. Spelljamming exists in Krynnspace and Realmspace, but spelljammers rarely go where inhabitants of Krynn or Toril might discover them. It's entirely possible that spelljamming crews could access Eberron's moons or the Ring of Siberys without anyone on Eberron being any the wiser. Would be fun if the Draconic Prophecy had fairly obvious references to that (as obvious as the Prophecy gets, anyway) but none of the experts on the Prophecy have the frame of reference to figure out what the Dolurrh it means.


Others have answered the question about the sky, that Siberyis ring that was mentionedis made up of Siberyis dragonshards that occasionally fall to eberron & those shards are valuable things.If earth had a ring, it would be the equivalent of finding a ship capable of cheaply lifting you to that ring where you could collect & return with crude oil or something. Eberron dragonshards are the type that power general purpose stuff & siberyis dragonshards power dragonmark focus items, but it's not as if dropping their cost to near zero would not allow the dragonmarked houses to make ridiculous numbers of dragonmark focus devices.

Another fun plot hook: Several of the Dragonmarked Houses launch into a "space race" to get to the Ring of Siberys (Cannith to get enough siberys dragonshards to power whatever crazy magical invention they're working on now, Tharaskh to maintain their dragonshard-supplying dominance, Lyrandar and Orien to prove that they're the better House at traveling above the atmosphere), only for the winner to find that there's already a spelljamming mining colony in the Ring. Awkward first contact ensues.


As to the plot hook you mention, that is one of the big ways eberron differs from other settings. While many od the other settings have plot hooks where you can lookup to see that soandso killed suchandsuch while doing whatnot because whatever in excruciating detail, eberron has a lot of plothooks with several possible/likely/implied plots that wotc has explicitly declared to be voldermort level Shall Never be Defined.

Yep. Eberron being cut off from the multiverse isn't one of the "known but not-to-be-answered" hooks, though, so I figured I'd put it out there explicitly.


2) The magic of dragonshards is disruptive to the Spelljamming mechanism, Spelljammers cannot fly near them without shutting down. That makes Spelljammers impractical for flying in the Eberron crystal sphere at all, and adds another danger to going to Eberron to begin with


That certainly makes sense. Other crystal spheres have various reasons for their spheres to be hard or dangerous to travel, and "the Ring of Siberys is basically one big magical radioactive hazard that screws with spelljamming helms" fits it pretty well with the other reasons.

[Boci]

Some were nerfs - Fey Teleportation lost the +1 Int.

Are you sure? I thought it still let you choose cha or int.

[Tetrasodium]

4e’s handling of setting integration should be a cautionary tale, but not one the eliminates the concept entirely... just that it needs to be handled non-disruptively. (And I genuinely understand the concern; as a Planescape fan 4e literally burned my favorite setting to the ground)

I’m not a huge expert on Eberron Lore, but... something like this would work for me:

1) Eberron is a distant crystal sphere, far from the Greater Arcane flow, so Spelljammer traffic would be inherently rare and dangerous
2) The magic of dragonshards is disruptive to the Spelljamming mechanism, Spelljammers cannot fly near them without shutting down. That makes Spelljammers impractical for flying in the Eberron crystal sphere at all, and adds another danger to going to Eberron to begin with
3) Arcane (the folks who sell Spelljammers) have entered a business deal with house Lyrander; providing a few secret ships for study (no one in the multiverse has ever ‘reverse engineered’ a Spelljammer helmet, they are not worried) and a ‘no competition clause’ so no others exist on Eberron.... barring ancient crash sites in Sahuagin hands ... Some spies from House Cannith have seen the ‘new prototype’ but don’t know what it is yet (intruige plothook)

I'm not attacking you on this, just covering an important relevant detail that invalidates most of what you noted. Lyrander couldn't actually make an airship even if they wanted to. House Cannith builds them, but even they do not know how they are enchanted. The gnomes in zilargo got ahold of the methods used to bind elementals for airships from the drow in xendriik (who are nothing like salvatore's drow we all know & loathe). The drow got it from the giant empire of xen'driik because they stuck around after it fell despite being a slave race forcibly created through magebreeding of their eldar ancestors. House Lyrander with their mark of storm are only involved at all because they can control the resulting elemental rings used to drive airships & submarines (I forget the name of those). The gnomes keep that knowledge a closely guarded secret& cannith would love to cut them out if they could.

Back in the 3.5 days there was an epic level handbook & in it was some truly lolnopebroke magic spell craftingrules. creating life & a bunch of other things were possible with it & a lot of the fallen civilizations(giants of xen'driik, dhakaani Dar/goblinoids) and still living (dragons, Daelkyr)did/created things that made use of it with fairly obvious ties. The difference between eberron & other settings is that rather than eliminster/mordenkeinen/etc trying to personally puzzle it out, it would be one or more megacorps (the dragonmarked houses) plus potentially near modernish governments doing it as part of a Manhattan project/skunkworks/etc type thing & mystara's chosen got nothing on that kind if resource allocation.

[Naanomi]

As I said, I’m not an Eberron Loremaster. Just replace the house I arbitrarily chose out of your post with whichever group does build most airships and the potential explanation is still the same

As for ‘figuring it out because Eberron is awsome’... the Arcane themselves are a massive conglomerate monopoly spanning worlds, and infinite devils and the like have never broken the secret of Spelljammer helm construction. One backwater Prime, even one kind of good at artifice, isn’t a concern

[JackPhoenix]

As I said, I’m not an Eberron Loremaster. Just replace the house I arbitrarily chose out of your post with whichever group does build most airships and the potential explanation is still the same

As for ‘figuring it out because Eberron is awsome’... the Arcane themselves are a massive conglomerate monopoly spanning worlds, and infinite devils and the like have never broken the secret of Spelljammer helm construction. One backwater Prime, even one kind of good at artifice, isn’t a concern

The gist is... one group builds the ships, but can't enchant them, and can't pilot them. Another enchants them, but doesn't have access to the resources needed to build one, and can't pilot them. And the last can pilot them, but can't build or enchant them.

[Naanomi]

The gist is... one group builds the ships, but can't enchant them, and can't pilot them. Another enchants them, but doesn't have access to the resources needed to build one, and can't pilot them. And the last can pilot them, but can't build or enchant them.
So... whoever builds them gets a monopoly from the Arcane because they hope (probably in vain) to use Spelljammer tech to bypass the need to have specialists enchant or pilot them

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Are you sure? I thought it still let you choose cha or int.

I thought I was sure but I might be wrong. I'm AFB right now. The UA version was Int-only, so it still got changed.

[Tetrasodium]

So... whoever builds them gets a monopoly from the Arcane because they hope (probably in vain) to use Spelljammer tech to bypass the need to have specialists enchant or pilot them

That's the thing. all of those groups are involved in their little niche because it's something that they as individiual groups can do to make money. House Lyrander didn't get involved because house cannith said "oh lets share the wealth", likewise with the gomes saying "hety lets involve Cannith", Lyrander got involved because the gnomes only stole enough to enchant the airship but not the bit the drow use to control it it. It just happened to be that the guys with the mark of storm known for bringing rain to farmers were able to control the elementals bound to those airships. In one of the recent [/url="http://manifest.zone"]manifest.zone[/url] podcasts the idea of someone trying to make airships that anyone could pilot actually came up. The twelve dragonmarked houses are part of an Opec/UN/etc type group called the twelve (yea just the houses are members), I believe the quote was something like "yea..... so anyways, we're real sorry about what's happened to your factory two weeks from now" and then if that upstart was still determined, they would run into the problem where the twelve cut them off of everything, try building your ships when nobody will do business to you & your only method of communication is to send some guy on a horse with a letter across the continent because the people who are the telegram network refuse to do business with you, the people who own & maintain the roads/shipping networks refuse to do business, so on & so forth.

The "that anyone could fly" would be like saudi arabia starting a credible research project into reverse engineering the urban myth engine that runs on water from a working prototype. It's not so much "because eberron is awesome" as the fact that eberron is deep in midstage global capitalism & early industrial revolution with magic. Because of that, it would be strange if they did not act like it. /the person doing the work doesn't need to be able to use it, they just need to believe they can make enough money to recoup their research costs or find someone else who thinks bankrolling such research is worthwhile because they could make enough money from it.

[Naanomi]

Even if they did all work together, I don’t think reverse engineering it is a big risk. The Arcane have held their monopoly since before humans, elves, or dwarves have existed... forget ‘burgeoning industrial revolution’; they have sold them to galactic empires with sci-fi levels of technology and literal Gods of Invention who have never figured them out.

Eberron may be hot technologically among the established campaign settings; but is still a speck in a big ocean on a transplanar scale... and if they did ‘crack the code’ I don’t think it would end well for them, I don’t think the Arcane would stand for it (and have the resources to end life on a single Prime if necessary, though prefer more subtle methods)

[War_lord]

I know that "reverse engineering" alien technology is a frequent sci-fi plot device. But if you ask any actual engineer, "reverse engineering" something is hard enough when it's technology that's an improvement on something you already know the basic principles of and you're working from an intact example. Never mind the idea of working from the blasted fragments of something you've never seen before and have no concept of its workings.

Also, I'm pretty sure you've never studied even basic economics. Eberron's twelve houses are essentially guilds, using guild intimidation tactics to maintain their individual monopolies over certain goods and services. Historically speaking, one of the prerequisites for the capitalist industrial revolution was the collapse of the guild system. Capitalist innovation is driven by competition. Monopolies are all about eliminating competition.

Lyrandar, for example has no reason to charge a fair price for their airships, because no one exists to undercut whatever price they set. They have no reason to improve the speed of their vessels, because there are no other vessels. If they decided to begin cutting manufacturing corners, their customers have no rival to turn to, because Lyrandar owns the market. If you don't like their prices or their quality, you have to give up on airship travel. If anyone else did come up with an improved design, they'd have to fund it in secret and then fight a war to be allowed to sell it.

It's the same for all the houses, you either take the service they offer on their terms, or leave. If profit is the be the motivation for innovation, you need free market competition to drive companies to innovate. That's economics 101, Adam Smith. I'm not even going to look at the economic (space colonization is economically unfeasible unless space has something you can't get on your sphere) or military feasibility of "colonizing" other spheres when your assertions fall long before that point.

TL;DR: Reverse Engineering is hard. Bragging about how iron clad the monopolies are and then bragging about the imminent industrial revolution is a contradiction in economic terms.

[CharonsHelper]

If you don't like their prices or their quality, you have to give up on airship travel. If anyone else did come up with an improved design, they'd have to fund it in secret and then fight a war to be allowed to sell it.

Which is basically what many gang/drug wars are about - only to do with the selling of narcotics.

[Regitnui]

Though the Houses aren't static monopolies. They're driven by innovation. Orien and Lyrandar, as an example, are competing over transport. Medani and Kundarak compete with the Houses of Shadow, because their businesses are directly opposed (counterintelligence and security vs intelligence gathering and assassination). The largest House, Cannith, has three competing branches.

And say you came up with a brand new way to forge better Damascus steel. House Cannith would actively try to get you personally on their side. If you were human, they'd do anything up to offering you marriage (provided you were unrelated to any other dragonmark bloodline). The House of Making wants new ideas and new blood, in both the metaphorical senses.

Finally, there are incidences where the Houses compete against each other. Cannith wants to learn how to make airships anyone can fly and bring the gnomish secret of elemental binding (on a large scale) in-house. Lyrandar wouldn't be happy with that. House Vadalis wants to sell everyone smarter, more enduring horses, but Orien likes being the only long-distance overland travel option.

So the guild system might be a impediment to capitalism, but the Houses have gone beyond guilds. They're closer to family-based Megacorps. There are guilds; most Houses control a guild or two; but the Houses are bigger than that, and the guilds don't require people to join. They're more like industry regulators (to the House's benefit, not the consumer's) than traditional guilds.k

[JoeJ]

Even if they did all work together, I don’t think reverse engineering it is a big risk. The Arcane have held their monopoly since before humans, elves, or dwarves have existed... forget ‘burgeoning industrial revolution’; they have sold them to galactic empires with sci-fi levels of technology and literal Gods of Invention who have never figured them out.

Eberron may be hot technologically among the established campaign settings; but is still a speck in a big ocean on a transplanar scale... and if they did ‘crack the code’ I don’t think it would end well for them, I don’t think the Arcane would stand for it (and have the resources to end life on a single Prime if necessary, though prefer more subtle methods)

I agree that one world's magitech is not going to frighten the Arcane. Not in a setting where there are beholder nations, and even orcs have planet killing weapons.

[Knaight]

I know that "reverse engineering" alien technology is a frequent sci-fi plot device. But if you ask any actual engineer, "reverse engineering" something is hard enough when it's technology that's an improvement on something you already know the basic principles of and you're working from an intact example. Never mind the idea of working from the blasted fragments of something you've never seen before and have no concept of its workings.
This is especially true for engineers who aren't working with gadgets or buildings. If you can see a circuit you can at least essentially duplicate it, though extremely compact microcircuitry pushes back on this. If you see a mechanism made of mechanical parts you can at least broadly duplicate that, though again it takes a lot of effort. It's not easy in either case, but it's at least broadly doable. Of course, that still just gets you to the point where you have a prototype.

On the other hand if you have something like a bottle full of some sort of liquid chemical? Yeah, you're out of luck there. That tells you roughly nothing about how the chemical plant made that, and if you don't have the body of known reactions built up you're basically just hosed. A similar thing applies to polymers, some metal alloys, ceramics, and to basically anything biological (though in that case if you don't already have the specific organisms you might just be hosed. Then even if you do get a prototype you still have to figure out how to scale it.


Also, I'm pretty sure you've never studied even basic economics. Eberron's twelve houses are essentially guilds, using guild intimidation tactics to maintain their individual monopolies over certain goods and services. Historically speaking, one of the prerequisites for the capitalist industrial revolution was the collapse of the guild system. Capitalist innovation is driven by competition. Monopolies are all about eliminating competition.
There were drastic technological changes during the heyday of guilds, including what was effectively a smaller industrial revolution based around water power (as seen in the massive increase in the number of water mills from the 11th to 15th centuries, along with the somewhat smaller but still very significant increase in the number of types of mills).

That the industrial revolution was capitalist* doesn't mean that other economic systems couldn't have undergone one.

*Ish, there was a lot of mercantilism going on.

[Tetrasodium]

This is especially true for engineers who aren't working with gadgets or buildings. If you can see a circuit you can at least essentially duplicate it, though extremely compact microcircuitry pushes back on this. If you see a mechanism made of mechanical parts you can at least broadly duplicate that, though again it takes a lot of effort. It's not easy in either case, but it's at least broadly doable. Of course, that still just gets you to the point where you have a prototype.

On the other hand if you have something like a bottle full of some sort of liquid chemical? Yeah, you're out of luck there. That tells you roughly nothing about how the chemical plant made that, and if you don't have the body of known reactions built up you're basically just hosed. A similar thing applies to polymers, some metal alloys, ceramics, and to basically anything biological (though in that case if you don't already have the specific organisms you might just be hosed. Then even if you do get a prototype you still have to figure out how to scale it.


There were drastic technological changes during the heyday of guilds, including what was effectively a smaller industrial revolution based around water power (as seen in the massive increase in the number of water mills from the 11th to 15th centuries, along with the somewhat smaller but still very significant increase in the number of types of mills).

That the industrial revolution was capitalist* doesn't mean that other economic systems couldn't have undergone one.

*Ish, there was a lot of mercantilism going on.

Your analogy is effectively how eberron has handled it since the beginning. Artificers were arcane pseudo-casters who made wands and such to cast both arcane and divine spells despite having no divine links. The current cop of recharging wands we are all familiar with have very obvious ties to the eternal(?) wands from the original eberron setting launch. It's been suggested implied many times that House Cannith doesn't actually know how the creation forge works, that didn't stop them from reverse engineering the one they found in xen'driik to make more and go through trial and error till they got them to churn out warforged. It's kind of like an EE course will sometimes have students make a (very) rudimentary processor (https://www.quora.com/Can-a-person-build-a-processor-like-Intel-8086-at-home). without needing to understand how certain things work on an atomic level or even be capable of etching it into a silicon wafer.

As to the "beholder nation" someone mentioned... The daelkyr invaded eberron a few thousand (~9k)years ago. The daelkyr created both mind flayers and beholders. Forcing stuff from setting A into setting B falls apart quickly & can violently damage a setting. The best approach is to simply adapt the things you want to carry from setting A into setting B so they fit setting B and ignore any conflict with setting A because the conflict with setting A's lore is in setting B rather than setting A. I notice a lot of what amounts to "Eberron needs to adapt to spelljammer instead of acting like Eberron if it got some spelljammer tech" That's fine, if it goes both ways & I think there is no debate that some of eberron's baselines like the daelkyr, The Dragons (https://manifest.zone/10-dragons/), Dragonmarked Houses, etc would violently disrupt every other setting. I guess eberron will see your beholder nation & raise it imprisoning the things who created beholders, shifting planar orbits, Native fiends, demons as needed created from the energies spawned during the world's creation rather than from mortal souls (likewise with celestials/elementals/etc), do on & so forth.

Whatever reason kept some other advanced civilization from being able to reverse engineer a spelljammer ship well enough to make one that someone could fly is pretty unimportant to the way magic is treated as a science/teachable fact being different from other settings right down to colleges of higher learning like the arcanix & library of korrenberg or wide magic used in day to day life for the average person.

[JoeJ]

I guess eberron will see your beholder nation & raise it imprisoning the things who created beholders, shifting planar orbits, Native fiends, demons as needed created from the energies spawned during the world's creation rather than from mortal souls (likewise with celestials/elementals/etc), do on & so forth.

Are you seriously trying to start a "my setting can beat up your setting" argument? Because that's really pointless. From what I've seen, Eberron meshes just fine with Spelljammer without needing to do violence to either setting. Just make it an out of the way sphere, so very few ships ever go there and very few people on Eberron have ever heard of a spelljamming helm. If it's just an occasional adventuring party dropping in from space, it doesn't have to change anything.

[Arkhios]

I guess eberron will see your beholder nation & raise it imprisoning the things who created beholders, shifting planar orbits, Native fiends, demons as needed created from the energies spawned during the world's creation rather than from mortal souls (likewise with celestials/elementals/etc), do on & so forth.

Are you seriously trying to start a "my setting can beat up your setting" argument? Because that's really pointless. From what I've seen, Eberron meshes just fine with Spelljammer without needing to do violence to either setting. Just make it an out of the way sphere, so very few ships ever go there and very few people on Eberron have ever heard of a spelljamming helm. If it's just an occasional adventuring party dropping in from space, it doesn't have to change anything.

Yeah, please don't start one. I don't care if such a discussion has its place somewhere, but that somewhere is definitely not in this thread.

In case it wasn't clear by now, I'm not an "Eberron Supremacist" -- meaning, I don't put Eberron on a special silver platter and raise it above any other settings. Please, refrain from doing that yourselves.

[Knaight]

Are you seriously trying to start a "my setting can beat up your setting" argument? Because that's really pointless. From what I've seen, Eberron meshes just fine with Spelljammer without needing to do violence to either setting. Just make it an out of the way sphere, so very few ships ever go there and very few people on Eberron have ever heard of a spelljamming helm. If it's just an occasional adventuring party dropping in from space, it doesn't have to change anything.

Setting merges are one of those rare cases where it might be relevant - normally the power level of a setting is a largely internal thing that doesn't matter much, and the habit of certain readers/viewers/players/whatever to treat more powerful as more interesting is just completely obnoxious. As I've made clear elsewhere, I like my human scale conflicts between human scale characters, and all things equal am generally more likely to favor the setting which would get horribly stomped on in a my-setting-can-beat-up-your-setting environment. It's not a proxy for quality.

It can matter for merging though. Even putting aside, for the moment, my intense dislike for jamming settings together willy nilly when they can work just fine as separate settings*, introducing some settings to other settings can introduce major holes. Early Star Trek is fundamentally an optimistic, pseudoutopian, and post scarcity setting (Though it's less truly post scarcity and more a matter of being limited not by limited resources but by limited resource flow rates). Battlestar Galactica is fundamentally a much bleaker setting defined by its scarcity, where all human life is down to one fleet of ships, where every ship lost is gone forever, and where a lot of conflict is based around how best to least lose what people already have. Tossing a couple of federation ships and a planet in there fundamentally breaks the setting. a similar case can apply to adding Spelljammer to Ebberon, where I'd maintain that the vastly more powerful Spelljamer setting would inherently fundamentally alter Ebberon, and not for the better. The theme's don't work well there at all.

This also gets into a secondary pet peeve, where the desire for a central coherent canon can lead to homogenization which can be avoided by just not merging the settings to the same extent. You can introduce Ebberon to Spelljammer without introducing Planescape to Spelljammer. Will it cause divergence? Sure. Is it okay for different settings to be different? Also sure. Getting back to thematic resonance this also works just fine. Ebberon is Ebberon partly because of it being an industrializing setting undergoing major changes, from the disruptive influence of said industrialization to the internal conflicts that come from the abstraction of a lot of "villains" into institutional systems embedded in a society that are also embedded into the parts that do good. The massive external forces of Spelljammer both deemphasize those internal conflicts and cut away the themes and motifs connected to that industrialization through the contract of a vastly more advanced technological society that's in many ways static on a grand scale.

Going the other way though? Spelljammer is a game of large scale exploration, of discovering new and strange things, of going from drastically different world to drastically different world and seeing how that affects the characters. Adding one more drastically different world strengthens those themes. Ebberon slots nicely in to Spelljammer, which isn't surprising - it's basically designed to absorb other settings as pieces of itself, and as long as that is allowed to be one way that works just fine. That said, if Tetrasodium's assessment of Ebberon disrupting Spelljammer more than vice versa is correct, the same one way gates can be built backwards, and the same sort of allowed variability between a setting and a setting as implemented in another setting can be used. If, for some reason, adding Spelljammer to Ebberon was desireable, and Spelljammer needed to be powered up to make that work**, sure, do it. Just don't alter Spelljammer to make it happen.


*See: Marvel and DC collectively deciding to have one universe each, where all the characters are in the same universe.

**Both of which seem really dubious to me.

[Tetrasodium]

Are you seriously trying to start a "my setting can beat up your setting" argument? Because that's really pointless. From what I've seen, Eberron meshes just fine with Spelljammer without needing to do violence to either setting. Just make it an out of the way sphere, so very few ships ever go there and very few people on Eberron have ever heard of a spelljamming helm. If it's just an occasional adventuring party dropping in from space, it doesn't have to change anything.

not at all. In case you missed a few posts, I pointed out how Khorvaire would react to a ship flying through the sky without an elemental ring & because part of that reaction involves gaining control over it & reverse engineering anything the twelve do not already have a few people jumped in with comments about how they couldn't because the magics are complicated. That was pointed out as a poor argument because The Twelve are more like megacorps than a lone eleminster type & the responses were largely about how the arcane are too powerful & such along with how other advanced civilizations failed so the Twelve would obviously fail. Somewhere in there it was also pointed out how The Twelve dragonmarked houses don't need to be able to fully reverse engineer it as long as they think they can make money by selling the results of their research.

Eberron meshes with it & vice versa just fine yes, but khorvaire would not be a peaceful leisurely flight peppered with a casual shopping trip in Sharn (picture all of NYC built vertically on the island of manhattan basically). Docking a spelljammer craft at a house lyrander airship dock (ie basically all of them) would be just as problematic because you've just done the equivalent of telling the only people capable of flying an airship that A: someone other than cannith can make them and B that somebody other than a house Lyrander heir (the only people in the "shared" multiverse bearing the mark of storm*) can pilot those second source airships without having to do crazy things like trying to charm monster the elemental.

As to setting integration being done in a way that does violence to one setting in order to import another setting into it... don't forget that eberron has already experienced that in 4e. Back then when wotc got too excited about their asmodious tiefling slashficesque metaplot & started doing things like replacing/adding planes or changing the role of fiends in order to fit said metaplot as written rather than adapting it to fit eberron when it got copied into eberron. Had all that stuff been in a planescape suppliment, it likely would have been received a lot like my mtof review or eerronization (see sig); except WotC put all of that stuff in eberron sourcebooks rather than eberron stuff.

So anyways, moving along... travel across Khorvaire in a spelljammer ship is not likely to be a particularly good idea for reasons already stated

* I would have been thrilled if dragonmarks were in the phb or dmg, but instead we needed things like a page about humans in various parts the forgotten realms & other similar faerunizations

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

* I would have been thrilled if dragonmarks were in the phb or dmg, but instead we needed things like a page about humans in various parts the forgotten realms & other similar faerunizations

I kind of think you'd have been furious rather than thrilled.

[JoeJ]

not at all. In case you missed a few posts, I pointed out how Khorvaire would react to a ship flying through the sky without an elemental ring & because part of that reaction involves gaining control over it & reverse engineering anything the twelve do not already have a few people jumped in with comments about how they couldn't because the magics are complicated. That was pointed out as a poor argument because The Twelve are more like megacorps than a lone eleminster type & the responses were largely about how the arcane are too powerful & such along with how other advanced civilizations failed so the Twelve would obviously fail. Somewhere in there it was also pointed out how The Twelve dragonmarked houses don't need to be able to fully reverse engineer it as long as they think they can make money by selling the results of their research.

If what you want is to radically change Eberron, then sure, have them reverse engineer a spelljamming helm. The effect on the Spelljammer setting would be negligible because it's much too big for one world to affect very much, but it would change Eberron into something very different than.

The reason spelljamming magic can't be reverse engineered is to protect settings from all the changes that come with easy space travel. Based on previous posts of yours, I had thought that was a priority for you. Maybe I was wrong.

[Nifft]

Spelljammer being accessible from Eberron is much more of an existential problem for Eberron.

One of the big setting meta-issues is that the Dragon continent are an over-armed nuclear power, and they're covertly active all over the place. If there's a demon invasion coming, you want to thwart the demon invasion quickly & efficiently -- because if you don't, the Dragons will remove the threat of demon invasion, and their solutions may include destroying everyone and everything on your continent, and they won't feel bad about it because if they're forced to choose between your life or their own safety, they will generally choose themselves.

If the dragons could just leave Eberron -- if they had the option of moving to a world which was NOT built upon a foundation of overwhelming fiendish evil, then infested by aberrations, and periodically invaded by nightmare-horrors -- if they could just pack their bags of holding and leave the threat of being enslaved by the Overlords behind them forever, I think a lot of them would do exactly that. Then, instead of a desperate cold-war with some of the oldest / smartest / most powerful dragons working full-time against the Lords of Dust, you'd risk a steady erosion of the Prophecy's chains in the favor of the Overlords escaping.

[Tetrasodium]

Spelljammer being accessible from Eberron is much more of an existential problem for Eberron.

One of the big setting meta-issues is that the Dragon continent are an over-armed nuclear power, and they're covertly active all over the place. If there's a demon invasion coming, you want to thwart the demon invasion quickly & efficiently -- because if you don't, the Dragons will remove the threat of demon invasion, and their solutions may include destroying everyone and everything on your continent, and they won't feel bad about it because if they're forced to choose between your life or their own safety, they will generally choose themselves.

If the dragons could just leave Eberron -- if they had the option of moving to a world which was NOT built upon a foundation of overwhelming fiendish evil, then infested by aberrations, and periodically invaded by nightmare-horrors -- if they could just pack their bags of holding and leave the threat of being enslaved by the Overlords behind them forever, I think a lot of them would do exactly that. Then, instead of a desperate cold-war with some of the oldest / smartest / most powerful dragons working full-time against the Lords of Dust, you'd risk a steady erosion of the Prophecy's chains in the favor of the Overlords escaping.

Yes, the other continents (rediera/sarlona/argonessean) all have their own massive problems if spelljammer tech were introduced & it would not be pretty for other worlds

[Naanomi]

Yes, the other continents (rediera/sarlona/argonessean) all have their own massive problems if spelljammer tech were introduced & it would not be pretty for other worlds
Eh, at worst they take over a few local spheres and form a little empire in the Stars... would be the first group of dragons to do so. Plenty of the big known powers in Spelljammer would take notice, likely to trade, but to annihilate if necessary... as would the Gods and other transplanar powers once the dragons left their little Godless bubble of Eberron.

This assumes of course they kept working together at all, once it is known that most of existence knows nothing of and doesn’t care about their ‘prophecy’ and the threats they thought threatened all existence were local nuisances at the worst

[Tetrasodium]

Eh, at worst they take over a few local spheres and form a little empire in the Stars... would be the first group of dragons to do so. Plenty of the big known powers in Spelljammer would take notice, likely to trade, but to annihilate if necessary... as would the Gods and other transplanar powers once the dragons left their little Godless bubble of Eberron.

This assumes of course they kept working together at all, once it is known that most of existence knows nothing of and doesn’t care about their ‘prophecy’ and the threats they thought threatened all existence were local nuisances at the worst

dragons have a different role in eberron. the quori literally have a continent of big brother style control. Letting them move to a different sphere at will would be problematic because they don't need to take over through violence. The thing holdig them back in eberron is The Prophecy, which would be irrelevant on other spheres. If giving that tech to the khorvairans or those other spheres was a good thing according to the prophecy, it would be handed over. Worlds like faerun & such would fare similar to the americas/africa/etc during the colonial period when faced with a more advanced civilization stripping away their culture/government/etc one trade deal at a time.

The Dragon's don't need to start an apocalypse & have never shown any desire to do so. The same goes for the quori who pretty much run a very peaceful paradise as long as you don't stick out. The lords of dust & demon overlords are problematic for other spheres because they are literally on a different power scale & playing a different game in many cases.

The problem is less "spelljammer couldn't handle this" than "eberron is a very bad place to be tooling around in a soelljammer ship because there are large chunks of it that would be faced with a choice between "bork other settings badly or pull a 4e & make eberron conflict with itself in illogical ways even when only looking at that edition's stuff"

[Naanomi]

I’m not talking about eberron’s ability to overthrow Toril or Kyrnn (though I’m not sure it would be easy, in part because the Gods are given a lot of leeway to protect ‘their’ worlds from foreign invaders)...

I’m talking about the Imperial Elven empire, clockwork horrors, the neogi slave consortium... established star empires with vast Spelljamming armadas, control over dozens of spheres and influence over thousands of others, and established ability to just wipe out planets from orbit if they need to. It is a matter of scale, one entire world full of Uber-dragons toting an enormous stash of artifacts is a local threat, but not a threat to the grander order.

[Sigreid]

Personally, I don't think anyone has anything to worry about. Even if the worst case you can imagine happens, WoTC can only give you the hammer. That doesn't mean you have to hit your setting with it.

[Knaight]

Personally, I don't think anyone has anything to worry about. Even if the worst case you can imagine happens, WoTC can only give you the hammer. That doesn't mean you have to hit your setting with it.

No, but if they hit their setting with it before we get access to it it makes it less available for us. Some of us (myself included) dodge that, as the only value those settings have to me is ideas to swipe for other uses, but for the people who actually play in them this might be a problem.

[Regitnui]

Taking this from a different angle, it would be interesting if clerics from Eberron had a different type or level of power to clerics from other settings; after all, they're powered by pure faith, where a cleric from FR or Greyhawk is on borrowed power. Would a cleric of Dol Array be able to "ignore" some of Pelor's clerical magic because of her disbelief in him being anything more than a powerful representative of her god? Not that it wouldn't hurt, but it wouldn't hurt as badly.

And I think it might be fun for the dragons of Argonessen to look at the greater Dragon Empire for Spelljammer for help. They're dealing with God-level demons, after all. A more permanent solution to the Chernobyl in their backyard and Tiamat constantly chewing at their minds wouls be welcomed.

[JackPhoenix]

dragons have a different role in eberron. the quori literally have a continent of big brother style control. Letting them move to a different sphere at will would be problematic because they don't need to take over through violence. The thing holdig them back in eberron is The Prophecy, which would be irrelevant on other spheres. If giving that tech to the khorvairans or those other spheres was a good thing according to the prophecy, it would be handed over. Worlds like faerun & such would fare similar to the americas/africa/etc during the colonial period when faced with a more advanced civilization stripping away their culture/government/etc one trade deal at a time.

The Dragon's don't need to start an apocalypse & have never shown any desire to do so. The same goes for the quori who pretty much run a very peaceful paradise as long as you don't stick out. The lords of dust & demon overlords are problematic for other spheres because they are literally on a different power scale & playing a different game in many cases.

The problem is less "spelljammer couldn't handle this" than "eberron is a very bad place to be tooling around in a soelljammer ship because there are large chunks of it that would be faced with a choice between "bork other settings badly or pull a 4e & make eberron conflict with itself in illogical ways even when only looking at that edition's stuff"

By their nature, Quori can't work outside Eberron, as they are still dependant on Dal Quor. No access to Dal Quor, no need to be worried about Quori. And they don't care about Prophecy.

Prophecy is also the reason why (most) dragons wouldn't invade other spheres. With no links to the Prophesy, there's nothing really interesting in there. Material wealth? Sure, that would lure some greedy dragons. New things to see? Again, some more adventurous dragons would go to see the sights. Territory? Dragons already have all territory they want. Potential servants? Generally, Eberron dragons aren't interested. There may be some tourists, but no organized draconic exodus. And that's before they find out that Tiamat is free and active beyond Eberron...

Lords of Dust may show some interest, but they are just demons (higher-tier demon, true). Nothing new for the rest of the multiverse. Overlords would be something else, as they are god-like in power, without being actual gods, which allows them to ignore, say, Ao's stupid rules, but they aren't a factor, as they are all imprisoned. Daelkyr would be bad, as they aren't as linked to their plane of origin as Quori are, and they are certainly powerful enough to be a threat. So it's all up to mortals, and while they do have some nice things, nothing that would make whole worlds fall to them. And no mortal in Eberron is on the level of Gygax's and Greenwood's Mary Sue self-inserts.

[Tetrasodium]

By their nature, Quori can't work outside Eberron, as they are still dependant on Dal Quor. No access to Dal Quor, no need to be worried about Quori. And they don't care about Prophecy.

Prophecy is also the reason why (most) dragons wouldn't invade other spheres. With no links to the Prophesy, there's nothing really interesting in there. Material wealth? Sure, that would lure some greedy dragons. New things to see? Again, some more adventurous dragons would go to see the sights. Territory? Dragons already have all territory they want. Potential servants? Generally, Eberron dragons aren't interested. There may be some tourists, but no organized draconic exodus. And that's before they find out that Tiamat is free and active beyond Eberron...

Lords of Dust may show some interest, but they are just demons (higher-tier demon, true). Nothing new for the rest of the multiverse. Overlords would be something else, as they are god-like in power, without being actual gods, which allows them to ignore, say, Ao's stupid rules, but they aren't a factor, as they are all imprisoned. Daelkyr would be bad, as they aren't as linked to their plane of origin as Quori are, and they are certainly powerful enough to be a threat. So it's all up to mortals, and while they do have some nice things, nothing that would make whole worlds fall to them. And no mortal in Eberron is on the level of Gygax's and Greenwood's Mary Sue self-inserts.

You are right about the Quori, but the giants of Xen'driik originally invented the creation forges & there are ample shall never be defined implications that one of the reasons may have been as a way to house Quori refugees. Given bodies, their plane got moved once...

The dragons have ample reason to take over other spheres... [url="http://farscape.wikia.com/wiki/Peacekeepers"]an army[url] & way to escape the shoehorned tiamat's influence while building it.... that or just to keep one of the other groups interested in manipulating the prophecy from doing so.

with regards to the lords of dust being fiends, there is an important distinction. In other spheres, like wherever they pulled the whole asmodeous 9 hells & bloodwar stuff from, demons(edit: along with devils, celestials & a few others) are made from mortal souls, in eberron they just get created from Khyber's leftover energies as needed. How the two could work together is a pointlessly long list.

As to the gods having lots of leeway thing... Part of the reason eberron doesn't have gods getting in bar brawls & stuff is because the evil side of that coin Khyber left behind is so much more powerful leaving mortal types to thwart them via The Prophecy. Without The Prophecy to constrain them, the balance goes sideways in very bad ways with the presence of deity level powers tht do not have the same deity type restrictions.

[Naanomi]

To be technical, not all demons are born from mortal souls... some varieties are born from the stuff of the Abyss itself, it just tends to be a slow process so those demons are much less common in the modern Planes compared to tanar’ri

As for the larger ‘reverse engineering inevitably will happen despite magic-sci-fi empires failing to do so’; does it help that the Lore is that (almost no one knows this in game) the Spelljammer helms are not ‘made’, they are grown... all born from a malevolent living artifact called ‘the first helm’ that was likely made by a race called the Reigar (which may be a precursor race to humans) and only later stolen and monopolized by the Arcane... after the First Helm engineered the destruction of the Reigar homeworld.

[Tetrasodium]

To be technical, not all demons are born from mortal souls... some varieties are born from the stuff of the Abyss itself, it just tends to be a slow process so those demons are much less common in the modern Planes compared to tanar’ri

As for the larger ‘reverse engineering inevitably will happen despite magic-sci-fi empires failing to do so’; does it help that the Lore is that (almost no one knows this in game) the Spelljammer helms are not ‘made’, they are grown... all born from a malevolent living artifact called ‘the first helm’ that was likely made by a race called the Reigar (which may be a precursor race to humans) and only later stolen and monopolized by the Arcane... after the First Helm engineered the destruction of the Reigar homeworld.

Eberron does not differentiate fiends the same way, that includes devils. If you want to get technical. Fiends & celestials along with some others too use the same residual energy thing. I should have been more clear

It would be very difficult to remove this native fiend thing and the effect it has had or add/change it to the plsnescape(?) mortal soul style without drastically changing things since do much in eberron is influenced/shaped/causes by past evenys That is a big part of why 4e created so many problems in not recognizing the different roles & limits when they transplanted a bunch of lore from another setting to fit tieflings with all their lore from another setting when so much of that lore & its supporting baggagele(asmodeous/9hells/bloodwar/etc depends on that alternative set of baselines in significant ways

[Naanomi]

It would be very difficult to remove this native fiend thing and the effect it has had or add/change it to the plsnescape(?) mortal soul style without drastically changing things since do much in eberron is influenced/shaped/causes by past evenys That is a big part of why 4e created so many problems in not recognizing the different roles & limits when they transplanted a bunch of lore from another setting to fit tieflings with all their lore from another setting when so much of that lore & its supporting baggagele(asmodeous/9hells/bloodwar/etc depends on that alternative set of baselines in significant ways
And Spelljammer wouldn’t necessitate that. Eberron is its own crystal sphere with few if any direct planar connections, its series of connected demi-Planes have allowed fiends to manifest much differently than in most of the Great Wheel, Athas doesn’t manifest fiends at all. That isn’t a problem at all that precludes Spelljamming visitors (who may be weirded out by the local changes... but maybe not, the universe is a diverse place and most seasoned Spelljammers have seen weirder in their time)

4e handled a lot of that stuff... not ‘badly’ per se, but without much reverence to the existing lore to be sure. In my beloved Planescape setting, they took a character for whom one of his defining features was he wanted to avoid becoming a God... made him a God... had him win the setting defining unwinnable war... by throwing an infinite-sized plane that is a corner stone of existence into another part of the Universe... completely destroying nearly every setting location... because of a villain from Greyhawk suddenly becoming the big bad of everything

[War_lord]

Taking this from a different angle, it would be interesting if clerics from Eberron had a different type or level of power to clerics from other settings; after all, they're powered by pure faith, where a cleric from FR or Greyhawk is on borrowed power. Would a cleric of Dol Array be able to "ignore" some of Pelor's clerical magic because of her disbelief in him being anything more than a powerful representative of her god? Not that it wouldn't hurt, but it wouldn't hurt as badly.

No. Deities are limited to granting power within their own sphere, at least in the OG spelljammer setting. So any Cleric outside a sphere where their deity is recognized can only regain spells up to second level, until they manage to establish a following there. Since the rules predate the existence of "ego clerics" it doesn't have provisions for that. So you can choose to believe that either A. the unique aspect of Eberron's weave that allows even individuals to cast divine spells doesn't work outside that sphere, and thus Eberron's divine casters are powerless if they manage to leave. Or B. There's something about Eberron's inhabitants that causes that effect, and their self belief powers them anywhere, but doesn't transfer to non-natives in spheres where that's not the case.

Being able to ignore a god's clerical magic because you don't believe they're a god isn't how divine magic works in D&D. A cleric of Dol Array thinking that Pelor is just "a powerful representative of her god" is tragically misinformed about the workings of the multiverse, that spiritual weapon is still going to be just as effective. The gods run off of belief, but they're not weakened by individual disbelief. Planescape established this when it formally worked out how the gods aspect of D&D functions.

Similarly, even if would be colonists of Faerûn genuinely think that Ao is just an insanely powerful outsider because they have no concept of overdeities, they're still beholden to its absolute authority over the sphere. Which includes the ability to destroy them totally if they're disrupting the realms. Remember that the gods of Realmspace actually have tasks they have to carry out on Ao's behalf, and their need to maintain a base of worship is actually by decree of Ao. A decree he could suspend if the situation requires it.

So for example, Mystra controls the weave, so any attempt by a spelljamming party from Eberron to use their fancy eternal wands of fireball to take over the sword coast is going to be foiled when they wake up one day and find out that none of their magic gear works, and they can't even cast spells under their own power anymore, because doing so on that sphere depends on the weave. I didn't get into that earlier, because (I hope you agree) Tetra's fanfiction starts running into feasibility problems long before that point. Starting with "oh they'll just work out the secret to helm magic on their own."


with regards to the lords of dust being fiends, there is an important distinction. In other spheres, demons are made from mortal souls, in eberron they just get created from Khyber's leftover energies as needed. How the two could work together is a pointlessly long list.

Actually that's not true, the majority of Demons in mainstream D&D are formed from the infinite energies of the Abyss, that's the chief advantage they have over Devils.


As to the gods having lots of leeway thing... Part of the reason eberron doesn't have gods getting in bar brawls & stuff is because the evil side of that coin Khyber left behind is so much more powerful leaving mortal types to thwart them via The Prophecy. Without The Prophecy to constrain them, the balance goes sideways in very bad ways with the presence of deity level powers tht do not have the same deity type restrictions.

That's not as big a deal as you seem to think it is. The Overdeity Ao is active in his sphere, and the only reason the gods of FR have restrictions is because Ao doesn't want them neglecting their duties. Other Spheres don't have known Overdeities, but it makes sense to assume they do exist. Not really a balance issue.


As for the larger ‘reverse engineering inevitably will happen despite magic-sci-fi empires failing to do so’; does it help that the Lore is that (almost no one knows this in game) the Spelljammer helms are not ‘made’, they are grown... all born from a malevolent living artifact called ‘the first helm’ that was likely made by a race called the Reigar (which may be a precursor race to humans) and only later stolen and monopolized by the Arcane... after the First Helm engineered the destruction of the Reigar homeworld.

I don't think anything you say to Tetrasodium about how obviously full of holes his views on this are are actually going to help. He has a strong personal emotional investment in the idea that Eberron is not only self evidently superior creatively, but also in terms of fictional power level. No amount of pointing out the flaws is going to work because it's construction of Cognitive bias.

In Tetrasodium's mind, Eberron has to be objectively, the best in literally every way, because otherwise he might have to reconsider the time he has evidently spent buying every single product and memorizing every single bit of setting trivia. Now, consciously he might not understand it in those terms. But I've seen enough of his posting on the subject to be confident in taking this view of the matter.

It's like Frank Millers obsession with the idea that Batman can just destroy Superman in a fight. Now, Batman is my favorite superhero, but I can admit that A. Superman is nigh unstoppable without using kryptonite and B. They aren't written with the same kind of fiction in mind, so it's a pointless argument. There's space for one, or the other, are both to be liked. You see the same in every fandom.

[Tetrasodium]

And Spelljammer wouldn’t necessitate that. Eberron is its own crystal sphere with few if any direct planar connections, its series of connected demi-Planes have allowed fiends to manifest much differently than in most of the Great Wheel, Athas doesn’t manifest fiends at all. That isn’t a problem at all that precludes Spelljamming visitors (who may be weirded out by the local changes... but maybe not, the universe is a diverse place and most seasoned Spelljammers have seen weirder in their time)

4e handled a lot of that stuff... not ‘badly’ per se, but without much reverence to the existing lore to be sure. In my beloved Planescape setting, they took a character for whom one of his defining features was he wanted to avoid becoming a God... made him a God... had him win the setting defining unwinnable war... by throwing an infinite-sized plane that is a corner stone of existence into another part of the Universe... completely destroying nearly every setting location... because of a villain from Greyhawk suddenly becoming the big bad of everything

The problem is more that they nonsensically added that rediculous metaplot without stopping to think "does this cause problems?" or "is this trashcan of absurdity even needed here?". Having spelljammer ships visit faerun/krynn/Oerth/etc is cities like waterdeep/greyhawk city/etc not a big deal because there is really nothing like that so even docking them at specialty ports or whatever would leave those ships kind of mind blowing. Meanwhile eberron has airshipsas well understood local technology & those airship docks are relatively well understood things. A spelljammer ship docking in sharn would be like captain kirk getting out of a shuttlecraft he just landed on the launchpad in KSC (https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/) and expecting nasa/governments/major corporations not to react as expected when he gets out & walks to the local federation outpost secretly hidden in a stripmall. It would be very easy for WotC to shoehorn that level of stupidity into places like sgarn/thronehold/rekkenmark/korrenberg/stormreach/etc & they have done that level of stupidity before both in 4e as well as a PoTA adapting to eberron suggestion with guidance on changing groups in eberron with complext motives & goals so those groups could instead fit the roles of the $NotFaerun specific AL factions.

Warlord, eternal wands were limited to low level spells, siege staffs would back them up when trade failed as complete assimilation of their new colonies. if those siege weapons needed tuning to the local arcane web, so be it

[War_lord]

Warlord, eternal wands were limited to low level spells, siege staffs would back them up when trade failed as complete assimilation of their new colonies. if those siege weapons needed tuning to the local arcane web, so be it

No, you don't get it, the goddess of magic can just decide your "siege staff" doesn't work. It's not a case of "tuning it to the local web", the principles of magic in other sphere just don't work the way they work on Eberron. Leaving aside that the inhabitants of other spheres are hardly ignorant of either magic or siege warfare.

Furthermore, it's likely that Eberron would be far more effected by contact with other spheres then vice versa. Elves would mass convert to worship of their true creator Corellon, which would mean Corellon could manifest on that sphere. After all "In some places, the name Corellon has passed from the memory of the elves, but the god’s blood flows within them still, even if they know nothing of its source."

[Knaight]

Furthermore, it's likely that Eberron would be far more effected by contact with other spheres then vice versa. Elves would mass convert to worship of their true creator Corellon, which would mean Corellon could manifest on that sphere. After all "In some places, the name Corellon has passed from the memory of the elves, but the god’s blood flows within them still, even if they know nothing of its source."

Plus there's the sheer matter of scale. One new sphere is generally going to be much, much less likely to have an impact on existing collectives of thousands of spheres than existing collectives of of thousands of spheres are on that one sphere. This is particularly true when those existing collectives aren't precariously balanced and just waiting for something to throw them out of alignment (e.g. any case of a really fragile peace that's likely to get blown to pieces the moment something that vaguely looks like a strategic resource shows up), and Spelljammer is comparatively stable.

[Naanomi]

The problem is more that they nonsensically added that rediculous metaplot without stopping to think "does this cause problems?" or "is this trashcan of absurdity even needed here?". Having spelljammer ships visit faerun/krynn/Oerth/etc is cities like waterdeep/greyhawk city/etc not a big deal because there is really nothing like that so even docking them at specialty ports or whatever would leave those ships kind of mind blowing.
On Toril, Halruaa used skyships and some still exist... in fact most people think that the Spelljammers visiting waterdeep are actually just Halruaan skyships (or Gith astral ships, which are also known on Toril and look similar to many Spelljammer vessels, the design of the 'tradesman' Spelljammer ship is based on Githyanki design). Someone visiting Eberron in a Spelljammer would likely be mistaken for an 'ordinary' skyship as well, and *most* (not all) Spelljammers tend not to interfere or teach inhabitants of the Prime worlds they visit otherwise

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

You see the same in every fandom.

*crushes glass*

How dare you? How dare you suggest that his obviously biased notions are in any way similar to my objective, fact-based discoveries about the relative power levels of Ob-Wan and Darth Maul speaking of which it is absurd that Maul was defeated at the end of Episode I as he was much stronger than Obi-Wan and furthermore

*carried out of room by nursing staff, still ranting*