Unearthed Arcana 23/07/2018 - Eberron Races

Welcome to Eberron everyone! Fans of Dice, Camera, Action will have been given a preview of the Warforged but we'll go through them all and see what appeals. These races do appear in Wayfarer's Guide to Eberron and after the playtest will be updated with any tweaks or changes for the sake of balance. You can find the playtest materials here. 

Changelings 

As you can guess from the name these are face and form shifters. They come from three different upbringings which will not affect your statistics but will inform your roleplay style; there's the traditional and stable community, orphans raised by other races or the travelling nomads. Changelings have two distinct methods of changing these are Masks or Personas. Masks are surface level and shallow, Personas are deep and involve history, skills and identity. They are also fluid in everything like appearance and gender. Due to their inherent state the Changelings tend towards Chaotic alignments. 

Mechanically they are versatile, they are primarily Charisma based and have the choice of either Dexterity or Wisdom as their secondary statistic. They have the Unsettling Visage ability which means they can impose disadvantage on an attack roll against themselves by using their reaction. You also have advantage on Deception checks against being detected as a Changeling.

I want to play a Changeling Bard from the College of Lore and have a bunch of Personas for the various skills I pick up. If you really wanted to you could play this race like The Faceless Men in Game of Thrones and play a faceless assassin! 

Kalashtar

Ths race has one foot in the Human realm and one in the spiritual realm. The Dream Spirits, or Dal Quor, have a symbiotic relationship with the humans they are bonded to. Fans of Stargate SG1 will see them more as Tokra than Goa'uld. As they are part spirit they are a little odd and can appear to be either incredibly graceful or very unnerving as they are too perfect. Kalashtar tend to live in close knit communities that seek to help each other and the wider world through acts of service and good deeds. They are very much seen as a race of light that is trying to lessen the darkness, as such they tend to be Lawful Good in terms of alignment.

Mechanically Kalashtar are a race that are strong in Wisdom, Charisma and one of your choice. They can use their reaction to gain advantage on Wisdom saving throws, have resistance to Psychic Damage and are immune to spells that make you dream. As such they are giving us something new in terms of a psychic resistant race and combating mental magic. They also have telepathy and can grant it to another to respond with their bonus action, this will make secret plans easier to execute. 

Shifter

Shifters are a race that has been touched by an animal spirit that allows them to temporarily transform into a more animalistic form to enhance their natural abilities. This race feels like it is based around real world beliefs held by Native Americans, Aboriginals and African Nations and as such feels both spiritual and primal. It could also be used like European werewolf superstition but with agency. This race lives on the edge of society, embracing nature and spirituality. 

Mechanically there are four sub-races of Shifter: Beasthide (Constitution), Longtooth (Strength), Swiftstride (Dexterity+Charisma) and Wildhunt (Wisdom). Each has their own proficiency, prime ability score and shifting feature. This makes Shifters very versatile in terms of synergistic class choices. All Shifters have darkvision and proficiency with perception as they are natural survivors and hunters. Living in the natural world has limited their language skills so they only know common.
 

Warforged

Lathander be praised! We can play our loveable Saint Evelyn at home now!
The Warforged are a created race of metal soldiers that have been improved over time until they became sentient. A Warforged was built with a specific function and so they tend to focus on fulfilling their purpose. They tend to be gender-less as all Warforged are sexless. The Warforged were created to fight in a war that has now ended and as they are sentient were granted freedom and now have to wrestle with how they will proceed with their lives. This race allows you to play out all your Data from Star Trek, Pinocchio or Bicentennial Man fantasies!

Mechanically you are just better than the other races at surviving, you don't need to eat, drink, sleep or even breathe. You are immune to disease as you aren't made of flesh and you have advantage against being poisoned and if you are somehow poisoned then you have resistance to it anyway! You are also built of armour and have three options for your composition after a long rest which will affect your armour class and ability to stealth. There are three sub-classes of Warforged based on their designed function: The Envoy (+1 to two Stats), The Juggernaut (Strength) and the Skirmisher (Dexterity). The Envoy is a rarity as they were built for a function that isn't necessarily fighting such as entertainment or dangerous research and as such could be unique. 

I hope this helps you out on you journeys around the multiverse. Remember that these aren't Adventurers League legal so don't build one and turn up to you friendly local games store hoping to play it. But if you do play one let us know about you experiences below and may you roll well!