Eberron Player's Guide (4e)
The Eberron Player's Guide presents the film noir world of Eberron from the point of view of the adventurer exploring it.
This product includes everything a player needs to create their character for a D&D campaign in the Eberron setting¸ including new feats¸ new character powers¸ new paragon paths and epic destinies¸ and even a new 4th edition version of a classic Eberron class: the Artificer.
Product History
Eberron Player's Guide (2009)¸ by David Noonan with Ari Marmell and Robert J. Schwalb¸ is the core player's book for the Eberron setting in D&D 4e. It was released in June 2009.
About the Cover. A warforged paladin and an artificer face an unknown foe … and the Eberron Campaign Guide (2009) might reveal who¸ as the two covers were originally part of one piece of art.
Continuing the Campaign Settings. The D&D 4e publication plan called for the release of one campaign setting a year as a trilogy of books: a hardcover player's book¸ a hardcover GM's book¸ and a softcover adventure. Wizards of the Coast published the Forgotten Realms in this format in 2008¸ then in 2009 they repeated the pattern precisely for their second campaign setting.
Wizards had many possible worlds that they could have picked for their second setting release¸ but the most obvious choice was Keith Baker's Eberron. It had successfully been released in June 2004 as Wizards of the Coast's big new setting for 3.5e and then had seen another twenty supplements over the next four years. Meanwhile¸ it had also become the setting for Dungeons & Dragons Online (2006)¸ Atari's major multimedia expansion of the D&D brand. By 2009¸ Eberron was still big¸ and that's why it won out as 4e's second setting.
A player's book and a GM's book had already been published for Eberron in its previous incarnation: Player's Guide to Eberron (2006) and Eberron Campaign Setting (2004) for 3.5e. However the designers of 4e Eberron were adamant that the new 4e books were not just translations. The previous books had included a fair amount of duplication because they weren't planned as a coherent set. The new books were¸ which allowed the designers to create a complementary pair of releases¸ with the player's book including material intended for the player or both the GM and player. (It also was the crunchier book of the two.)
Marketing Dark Sun. Though the 4e plan was to support each setting with just three books¸ Free RPG Day 2009 let Wizards extend the Eberron corpus to four. Khyber's Harvest (2009) was a Free RPG Day adventure also released in June 2009 that helped to spotlight the Eberron setting. In 2010 Wizards would push even harder on marketing their third 4e setting¸ Dark Sun¸ through even more fan-oriented publications of this sort.
The Forgotten Heroes. Eberron Player's Guide includes one new character class: the artificer. This imbuer of items and creator of constructs had a short history in D&D. He first appeared in Player's Option: Spells & Magics (1996) as a wizard available for play in any AD&D 2.5e game. He then came of his own with a new 3e class in Eberron Campaign Setting (2004)¸ a world where "magic is almost technology". During 4e¸ the artificer was the first character class to be playtested as part of D&D Insider¸ in an article that was collected in Dragon #365 (July 2008).
The 4e playtest artificer was updated quite a bit for his first official appearance in the Eberron Player's Guide¸ with the biggest change being to his healing infusions¸ which was intended to help differentiate him from other leader classes. A design & development art
This core D&D game supplement - a player's companion to the Eberron Campaign Guide - presents new character options for any 4th Edition D&D campaign. The Eberron Player's Guide features a new class¸ new race options¸ paragon paths and epic destinies¸ character backgrounds¸ feats¸ powers¸ rituals¸ magic items¸ and new rules for dragonmarks. All of these character options fit perfectly into the Eberron campaign setting¸ as well as other published and homebrew D&D campaigns.