Dungeons & Dragons: Eberron – Forge of the Artificer
Being a fan of Dungeons & Dragons in 2026 is complicated. These days, the fanbase is split largely into two camps. The first, are the old school players who enjoyed the game in its earliest days. These players tend to like the crunchy math of the rules, they enjoy things like hex crawls, random loot tables and they like their dungeons deadly. The second group largely consists of younger players. Players who were introduced to the game through YouTube shows like Critical Role. These players focus more on roleplaying and character backstories. For them, exploring the narrative is often more important than exploring a dungeon. Neither one of these players is “wrong”, per se. They just have different goals and a different style of preferred play. The problem is, they often clash over the direction that the game has taken.
In recent years, WotC has catered heavily to the younger crowd. D&D 5.5E brought in vast changes to the game that many older players see as a slap in the face to the traditions they hold dear. However, recent reports suggest that WotC is about to release new products that might bring back many of the things these older players want to see. Even more recently, reports have hit the internet that certain members of the creative team at WotC have organized a protest to try to pushback against this potential embrace of old-school ideas for future products. The whole scene has become a chaotic mess. With older players leaving in droves for alternative TTRPGs, WotC is desperate to grab on to anything they can to keep the brand strong. Sadly, I don’t think that the recent releases are going to help things. Recently, I posted my reviews for the two Forgotten Realms rules expansions. But, there’s one more official 5.5 release that I’ve been holding off on reviewing. That book is Eberron – Forge of the Artificer. And before you ask, no – this book isn’t going to save 5.5E either.
When 5.5 launched, one of the first things that players noticed was that the popular class of Artificer was not included in the core rules. This book is designed to address that.
One of the first things you’ll notice about this book is how small it is compared to nearly any other D&D hardcover release. Forge of the Artificer only contains 112 pages – that’s TINY! Why is this book so small? Well, the answer can be found in the text itself if you take the time to read it. This book exists simply to modernize several of the rules and ideas that were published previously in the Eberron: Rising from the Last War book for D&D 5E. In fact, this new book suggests that players interested in Eberron should also purchase a copy of that older sourcebook.
The first two chapters of Forge of the Artificer contain a 5.5 update to the artificer class. This update brings that class up to par with the revisions made to the other classes in the 5.5 Player’s Handbook. This includes updates to the various subclasses. The second chapter also provides a 5.5 treatment for Eberron related backgrounds and species.
Chapter 3 includes Eberron-specific options for the new Bastion system that was introduced in 5.5 Dungeon Masters Guide. – That’s it.
Chapters 4, 5, and 6 present short loosely defined Eberron-based adventure scenarios. The bulk of these chapters describe the genre that the adventure is intended to have and then presents a very barebones adventure module to get things started. I found this presentation to be very unusual. In many ways, it reminded me of the “Campaign Frame” chapter in the Daggerheart core rulebook. It almost feels like WotC is trying to emulate Daggerheart in the way these three chapters are laid out. And I’m not sure that’s a good thing… Daggerheart is a decent game in its own right. But it’s not D&D. In my opinion, WotC shouldn’t try to make D&D into Daggerheart.
Finally the book closes with a chapter dedicated to the concept of flying airships and rules for integrating them into your game. To me, this feels like a tack-on and largely pointless.
By the time I was done with this book, I felt more confused about what it was trying to accomplish than I did when I started reading it. Instead of feeling like an optional rulebook. This product feels more like a collection of errata designed to make some 5E options compatible with the 5.5 ruleset – with a handful of experimental concepts sprinkled on top.
I suppose if you are playing a 5.5 game and you want to have artificers in your campaign, this book will have some value. But for the average player or DM, this book will seem largely pointless. It feels more like cheap DLC for a video game than it does a “rules expansion”. I think if WotC had any real plans for an updated Eberron book in the future, they would have held this material over to be included in that release. Instead, we get this. It’s not a good sign for those players that like the Eberron setting.
If this book is a sign of what’s to come from 5.5E, the hobby is in big trouble. That being said, there’s been a lot of movement behind scenes at WotC and Hasbro. There’s hints that WotC has finally realized they’ve lost a huge chunk of their players and they are scrambling to fix it. We’ll see what the future holds. But I can tell you, if this book is at all representative of that future, we’re doomed.
