D&D Launches New Eberron-Themed Playtest With Dragonmarked Feats

The D&D design team has launched a new Unearthed Arcana playtest focused on the upcoming Eberron: Forge of the Artificer book, featuring Dragonmarked feats and a new Artificer subclass. The new packet contains rules for a Cartographer subclass for the Artificer, along with a handful of new magic item options and over 25 Dragonmarked feats. The Artificer base class rules also received a few tweaks to some of its features, with an eye towards more general versatility.

The other big feature is the new Dragonmarked feats, most of which are considered either Dragonmarked Feats or General Feats. The Dragonmarked Feats are specifically limited to Eberron campaigns and allow only one Dragonmark per character (thus preventing Warlocks from accumulating Dragonmarks). The General Feats are Greater Marks and specifically upgrade existing Dragonmarks as a requirement. It's interesting that D&D is keeping with campaign setting specific feats and feat trees, as both of these design traits were found in the Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen book.

You can check out the full playtest on D&D Beyond.

 

[Parmandur]

Interestingly enough Strixhaven doesn't have campaign prereqs for it's Strixhaven Initiate feats either, but I'd assume one would need to be a student to get one, which would most likely be in those school backgrounds. As Strixhaven was perhaps the second instance of the 2024 type backgrounds, Ravenloft was sort of the start with Dark Gifts sort of being origin feats with conditions attached.

Strichaven also specifically includes suggestions for.portikg the College into other existing Settings.

But it also sounds like they might just leave a lot of things in Rising From the Last War with some updates, if they plan to sell a revised Rising along with Forge of the Artificer.

Yeah, this is more love DLC than a replacement. Most of Rising from the Last War isn't invalidated or even impacted by the new rule books.

 

[Corinnguard]

I agree, but it remains to be seen it WotC takes advantage of the opportunity.

And rolls for both Perception and Insight. They better roll high for both.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

Official 5E books saying material is specifically "campaign-specific" to certain campaigns opens up doors for more tightly-designed and specific campaigns. Its a minor thing but I think it's the right direction.

Hopefully this gets us away from villainizing the banning of certain player options in campaigns. A game's quality is in no way indicated by the DM's willingness to allow anything. And it was fairly annoying that DMs have been condemned and attacked for restricting options.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

So one of the promotional art pieces show 5 characters, I'm guessing this is supposed to be the Artificer subclasses (though not necessarily the pictures for the featured subclass art, as it lacks D&D species diversity given that 4 out of 5 of them look Human).

I think it's quite clear which one is the Battlesmith, Alchemist, Armorer and Artillerist. I'm guessing the one with the glasses holding a magnifying glass is supposed to be the Cartographer.

I actually thought the one in the middle was a warforged until I read your comment and looked closer, your absolutely right it's the Armourer not a warforged.

 

[Corinnguard]

I actually thought the one in the middle was a warforged until I read your comment and looked closer, your absolutely right it's the Armourer not a warforged.

I thought so too when I first saw that one. If that one had been a Warforged, it would have one of House Cannith's Juggernaut models.

Now it just reminds me of a technomagic version of Iron Man.

 

[kapars]

The character in that image doesn’t give me the feel of a cartographer. I wonder if they had something else in mind? Regardless I really like the subclass!

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

The character in that image doesn’t give me the feel of a cartographer. I wonder if they had something else in mind? Regardless I really like the subclass!

People were speculating that he was holding a pocket watch, but maybe it was meant to be a compass.

 

[Mephista]

The character in that image doesn’t give me the feel of a cartographer. I wonder if they had something else in mind? Regardless I really like the subclass!

I'm getting 11th Doctor vibes from him. He's got that Matt Smith feel. At least, some of that "Gentleman Explorer."

 

[Marandahir]

What more Bender vibes do they need? They all already get 2-3 elemental spells plus a few unique abilities. I think they are in a good place now, honestly.

Keep in mind Genasi are unique. It’s not a single species that taps into any element, they have parents from specific elements.

Now, I would love to see paraelemental Genasi like Ash and Steam.

We had a lot of those in 4e with the changes made to them for the World Axis cosmology as well as for fitting into Dark Sun.

Stormsoul was a core Genasi type alongside the core 4 Genie descendants, showing up in the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide. Here they were a displaced people brought with Returned Abeir (alongside Dragonborn), but Dragon #367 article "Ecology of the Genasi" explored their potential Nerath / World Axis origins, some of which align with the "cousin species or descendants of the Noble Genies" but others align them with the Elemental Chaos in general.


Then we also had Causticsoul, Cindersoul, Plaguesoul, and Voidsoul, from Dragon #380 article "Abyssal Genasi", given that in the World Axis cosmology, the Abyss was like a black hole at the center of the roiling maelstrom that is the Elemental Chaos.

And later, we got Embersoul, Magmasoul, Sandsoul, and Sunsoul from Dragon #396 article "Winning Races: Genasis of Athas", as they tried to fit the species into that setting (they fit quite well).

There's also a couple throwaway paragraph in the Eberron books for 4e about how Genasi are extremely rare in Eberron, but as Keith Baker always says on his blog, there's a place for EVERYTHING PC option Eberron, and these paragraphs present a couple different origins for the extremely rare Genasi.

 

[Marandahir]

I hope this is true, but every time they talk about the FR books they specifically leave out species as added options, while species is one of the first things they mentioned for Eberron.

I suspect we won’t get any species in FR, and instead we may get a line pointing to the Genasi in the Monsters of the Multiverse book.

Unfortunately, that's what happened with Tritons, Grave Domain, and Forge Domain in Mythic Odysseys of Theros. When I play Theros games, I allow Tritons and Reborn in addition to the book's playable spp.