Eberron: Rising from the Last War Review

Review copy courtesy of Wizards of the Coast.

Pros

• Lots of full cover art.
• On the longer side for these books at 320 pages long. These setting books should be 300-400 pages at least in my opinion, not the 200 or so of your typical adventures.
• The descriptions of the houses, backgrounds, and the world is very nicely done. The Group Patrons are a particularly nice section, which I hope to see a return in the future for different settings.
• This was probably in my top 3 of next settings to do for this edition (other two being Planescape and Dark Sun). Now let’s get some adventures for it.
• Some new NPCs/monsters for us Dungeon Masters (37 pages). Honestly, I’d have liked to see more.
• The alternate cover looks amazing in my opinion. Much better than the normal one.

Could Go Either Way

• I’m not a fan of the new races. Where before human was uninspired but workable, here we have outright extra damage for some of these. These shouldn’t be why you buy the book. I think I’m feeling some power creep.
• I’m not a fan of the new classes either. There are elements, such as magic item creation, that sort of step on the toes of the magic item creation rules that exist. It also takes away some power from the Dungeon Master which I think is usually best to let the group figure out. And I’ve never been a fan of a class that has a companion as part of the way it operates. That said they don’t seem overpowered to me. I haven’t had a chance to run a player as one though.
• Besides the map, there wasn’t as much art that wowed me compared to previous books. Except the alternate cover. That one looks absolutely outstanding.

Cons

• No PDF*

* Denotes nitpicking.

Both versions of the cover. I personally love the one on the right.

Introduction

D&D has a long tradition of many interesting settings. From the Forgotten Realms, to Greyhawk, to Planescape and Eberron. Oh yeah there’s also Dragon Lance, and Ravenloft. And Dark Sun. I’ll stop there. And now we have Eberron making its return. I’ve never run Eberron before, but have played in some mini-campaigns and one shots, and liked what I see. I hope that we’ll eventually get all of the classic settings brought back. However, how’s this one? Well, let’s jump right into it.

New Player Options

There’s a fair amount of player options here. There are 4 new classes (artificer, alchemist, artillerist, and battle smith), 13 dragon marks, and 8 races for a total of 11 sub races (I think, globinoids get 3 different, non-overlapping stats). There’s also about 6 pages worth of magic items that the Dungeon Master gives out, but they decide how to use. So all in all, not a bad amount for a player.

However, I’m not a big fan of these new options. Artificer takes control from the Dungeon Master regarding magic items, and now we have magic item creation rules along with this. The battle smith has an iron pet as part of their class. I’ve never been a fan of including creatures as part of a class because let’s say I give the fighter a couple of soldiers they order around. Well, aren’t I sort of stepping on the toes of a class that has a creature companion baked into its class? It becomes even more of a problem if a party member get a wolf companion or something.

The kind of art that you throughout the book. Pictured here are elves.

New Monsters

Oh yeah, here we go. There’s 37 pages of these guys for a total of 38 different creature stat blocks. Some of these share a main type, but still, not bad at all. If anything, I wish there’d be more. Standouts include the Overlords (ancient extremely powerful beings trapped for now), and the Quori (creatures from the dreaming dark, possessing hosts to act upon the world).

What You Need to Play

Well, you’ll need the basic rules and the Monster Manual to fill out more of the creatures not given here, as well as rules. What else? Oh yeah, you’ll need to come up with your own adventure as this is just a settings guide.

The Contents Itself

The rest of the book is dealing with the tone of the settings, locations, characters, and events that occurred and shaped the current state of the setting. I’ve already gone over the monsters and classes so I won’t repeat what I said. That said, there's quite a few interesting monsters here that could be used for mini or complete campaigns.

When it comes to Eberron, my experience before this was planning in a mini-campaign. That makes me not as well versed as some others, but that playing experience has stayed with me. And the reason behind that is the setting itself is fascinating, and warforged were so well tied into the setting.

What this book does very well is set up opportunities for players and parties. Factions are well outlined, as well as occupations and patrons for player parties. This hasn’t featured in other published material before, but the basic idea is someone is working, financing, or somehow otherwise involved with what the players are doing. They could be running a news paper, running a security agency, working for a government, and much more. It’s expanded on very well, and having players invested in the world is often good for player engagement.

Locations are described as well as we can expect, and in line with previously published books. The nations, factions, rulers, and important cultural aspects are explained first. After this, the nations, kingdoms, and other areas are detailed. The differences and details of each area are covered in broad strokes. Sharn gets its own little section as well. Just under 50 pages are devoted to all of the areas of Eberron except Sharn, though part of this count is devoted to the faiths of the areas. This translates to a couple of pages per area, with many different areas detailed. The 5 nations that resulted from the fall of the Kingdom of Galifar are detailed, but there are many other areas and parties at play as well. An additional 30 are devoted to Sharn alone. The aftermath sections are particularly interesting, and help set the world as having scars that have yet to heal from the recent conflict, as well as the current state being fragile. Combine that with the maps, and it becomes a very interesting package. I’d have liked to see more art of the ruins though, given the emphasis on the scars left after the last war.

The section on villains is also interesting, and combined with some of the new creatures included are begging to be used. There’s even tables to roll story development and ideas. Now, I wouldn’t recommend doing your gaming session purely by dice rolls ... though that does sound like an interesting challenge. Instead it gives you ideas inline with what intended in the settings. The themes, the tone, those important elements that help provide a starting off point. Combine that with the examples of possible antagonists and villains in the setting, as well as things to keep in mind while making an Eberron adventure, and you get something that makes me want to run a session in that world. I want to see more for future settings, and actually more in this one too. Examples go a long way and while I feel adventures are the best examples you can make, what we have here is pretty good.

One of my favourite pieces of art from this book.

The Art and Book Build Quality

What you’re used to is what you get. The build quality is the same hard bound book. The binding is done in the same manner. Both of mine were perfect, but I’d suggest opening to the middle of the book and checking the binding there. However, I’ve seen previous books with issues, and if you’ve already got the book in your hands, I’d suggest checking it.

The large scale maps in particular are beautiful, as is the alternate cover. Large regions, such as Islands, continents and cities, are beautifully detailed with full colour art. Unfortunately, I wasn’t wowed by the art as much as usual. There were fewer pieces done in that pseudo realistic style I so love seeing in these books. That style makes for particularly stunning art for locations, and I feel it was a wasted opportunity not to include it in this book. The exception here are the maps I mentioned. They are stunning like usual. Interior locations are unfortunately mostly done in black and white. I would have loved to see them with more detail and colour, but at the least they get the impression across. Don’t get me wrong, the art is good, as are those interior maps. They get what they need across and it’s better than no art at all. There are also some really impressive pieces. The picture of the Cathedral of the Silver Flame is a standout, as are the illustrations of all of the dragon marks. But it isn’t as awe inspiring as some other books in this edition.

Price

The price is the standard MSRP of $49.99 USD. Nothing new here.

What I felt was Missing

Up until now books functioned as settings and also as adventures. Curse of Strahd is one such example. This one is basically begging for a published adventure, but it’s not here. Even a short one on the website or in a magazine would do wonders. When we got the Forgotten Realms book, we had already had quite a few adventures set there already. This does wonders for expanding characters and giving the setting its character.

Please Do Planescape Already

I’m happy to see another setting in this edition. In fact, I want to see more. In particular Planescape would be a great next choice. I wouldn’t mind Dark Sun either.

Free Stuff

Nothing to see here.

Summary

And here we are: another campaign setting. Eberron has stuck with me ever since I my first campaign. It was one of the settings I really hoped to see covered sooner or later. The war forged, constructs made for the last war that are playable, elves dabbling in necromancy, and sleeping beings of great power all combine together to make a setting you’d never want to leave in the right Dungeon Master’s hands. Overall, it’s a solid campaign setting book. The art is what we’ve come to expect, though I didn’t find as many standout pieces as some other books in this edition. The maps are gorgeous, I just wish the interior maps of building had more colour. The ones detailing kingdoms and continents are what you’d expect to see in an in world atlas. The emphasis on in world business and occupation is very nice to see, as is the section detailing villains and conflicts you can cook up for your players. All of this begs for an adventure. One thing books like Curse of Strahd had going for them is their dual nature as a setting and adventure in one. However, here you have just the setting. I hope we get it soon, and I guess that’s a good sign.