I’m not sure what exactly the world of Eberron is other than a collection of ideas made into a world. Picture a setting where every interesting fantasy rpg idea you considered but ultimately turned down was now reality. Before you know it the PCs are wearing a cowboy hat riding around in a floating tank-house mounted with wands of fireballs, “Yee-Hawww! Fireball scatter-cannons to port! Readdy fer adventurin Sir!”
Post originally by EarthsShadow at 2004-06-28 01:52:39
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This is one of the worst reviews I have ever read...it's not even a review. This is a blatant attempt by somebody to try to rip on a campaign world who looked for anything bad they could find without even trying to be impartial in the least.
This review is a load of crap...errr...this isn't a review, it's just a biased peace of bullshit!
Post originally by Dammi at 2004-06-28 02:12:58
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Jupp, the only reason I read the review through to the end was because I waited for him to actually make a point. But I ended up reading the longest rant ever.
Seriously - you shouldn't post such a mess. Everyone is entitled to his opinion, but this one belongs into a forum and not into a Review section.
Post originally by Castigator at 2004-06-28 03:25:26
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Review was fine enough.
I actually got to know a LOT more about whats in the book and what to expect from the book than I got from the previous two reviews for Eberron here on RPG.net.
And thats what reviews are all about, aren't they?
Post originally by Enforcer5981 at 2004-06-28 03:59:22
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Action points don't give rerolls. They allow you to roll 1d6 if you're level 1-7, 2d6 if level 8-14, and 3d6 if 15-20. The 2d6 and 3d6 rolls are NOT added, however. You take the best single die roll and add it to the normal result of your attack/save/skill check/ability check/level check.
So, rolling low is still going mean failure for the PCs, as you have a maximum of 6 (8 with the Action Boost feat) that can be added to your rolls. That's generally not going to help you when you roll like crap. Also, 1s are still automatic failures for attack rolls and saving throws. You cannot use Action Points once the DM has told you whether your result is a success or failure, either. This creates a risk for the player in that spending an Action Point may not make a difference, or in that the player has already succeeeded and wastes an Action Point "just in case."
Furthermore, danger isn't avoided with Action Points, except by improving attack rolls and hopefully killing the baddies sooner. You can't use Action Points to improve your Armor Class, for example. The monsters are going to hit you just as much. Though, you can spend 1 Action Point to stabilize.
Sorry, but it doesn't seem like you actually read the Action Points rules very closely.
The first sentence in your Chapter 2 section makes no sense to me... "Only one new class is presented in this book which is a shame considering you have 300+ pages of new material and the D20 system is very easy to create new material for." Yes, d20 is easy to create new material for. You even point out the size of the campaign setting book (320 pages including index and title pages). If you wanted more base classes, you should've just stuck with that, and not mentioned how much new material there is. Also, why is there a problem when common sense is added to the mix of psionics and "techno magic"?
The drawbacks of the Warforged aren't negligible. They only get half the result of divine healing spells. So, the party's cleric has to spend twice the effort to heal the Warforged. Granted, the Artificer and Sorcerers/Wizards gets Repair (Cures for constructs) spells, but this takes away from the offensive power of the arcane classes and the buffing power of the Artificer. Oh, and Warforged don't heal naturally for resting the night, which sucks in my opinion.
The Warforged armor feats also have drawbacks. The Adamantine Body feat comes with all the fun movement and armor check penalties of Full Plate, and it's not like the Warforged can take off the armor to Climb/Jump/Balance better or move faster. Don't worry about Warforged "Tankmages" either, their Armor feats come with Arcane Spell Failure. Armor Bodied Warforged can't be Druids either (well, they can, just without spells or spell-like/supernatural Druid abilities...). The Armor feats must be taken at 1st level or not at all. And if they ever want Adamantine Body +2, they need to sit their with the enchanter for the whole process. No mail order armor bonuses for the Warforged. They can upgrade their DR with feats, however (1/adamantine per feat, they get 2/adamantine with the Adamantine Body feat that also duplicates Full Plate; no DR is inherent with Mithral Body). My take on their Armor feats is that they provide a good benefit at low levels, but higher level non-Warforged warriors will easily be able to outshine them in the AC department, unless there's a lot of downtime for the Warforged to get enchanted.
Warforged get the following Construct benefits: immunity to poison, sleep, paralysis, nausea, fatigue, exahaustion, the "sickened" condition, and energy drain; they automatically stabilize at -1 to -9 hp; no need to eat, sleep, drink, but can drink potions or benefit from things like Heroes' Feast; inherent +2 Armor bonus (NOT natural armor) to AC; natural 1d4 slam attack (normal damage); and Light Fortification. Oh, and they're not Terminators. They may have been designed for war, but they have actual personalities, and even act like males or females.
The drawbacks: They're affected by spells that affect living creatures and by spells that affect constructs. But cure spells heal only half, as mentioned. Heat metal and warp wood (yes, all Warforged have some Darkwood in their frames) work. Still disabled normally at 0 and -1 to -9 hp. Their built-in Composite plating counts as armor, so that a Warforged can't wear a regular suit of leather or half plate--including magical versions of armor that the party comes across. No magical robes either. Oh, and their natural plating comes with 5% arcane spell failure. Finally, the benefits listed are the only construct benefits that they get. Anything else from the template isn't included.
Fun and interesting to play? I think so. Broken? I'll have to actually play it, but my first impression says no.
Prestige Classes. I disagree that they're "unmemorable." The Dragonmark Heir PrC, which revolves around developing one's natural Dragonmark abilities (which you call "probably the most interesting part of Eberron" by the way) is really cool. The Exorcist of the Silver Flame is a great PrC for Paladins/good Clerics and it's pretty fresh compared to previous WotC Paladin PrCs, I think. The Extreme Explorer may or may not have a silly name (I tend to agree with you on that point), but it's an awesome class that screams Indiana Jones and the like. If you don't like the name, change it, jeez. The Warforged Juggernaut (this actually does tread on Terminator grounds, including big penalties to social skills and the loss of being Cured at all, in exchange for more complete Construct abilities) and Weretouched Master (for the Shifter race) are also great options for the two races. The Master Inquisitive is right up my alley as I'm a fan of mysteries and detective style games.
I think you totally missed the point of Chapter 9. It's not generic DM advice (although a new DM would pick up some tips useful for running a non-Eberron, but pulp style campaign). Rather, the advice is specifically geared towards creating the pulp-adventure style of play that the setting is meant to take advantage of.
The idea of a player wanting to sell his Warforged's body parts is inane. Want a legitimate reason? It's his body! The impression I got was that the armor plates hold the Warforged together--they're its skin. And given that the Warforged are designed for combat, any evil players would have a big fight on their hands. Although, your complaint did give me a neat idea for illegal non-Warforged "organ" leggers--folks that Warforged have to avoid lest they actually get killed and then stripped of the precious materials that form them, so thank you for that!
Post originally by Jackob at 2004-06-28 04:37:37
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Disclaimer #1: I like Eberron.
Disclaimer #2: I don't write reviews.
Disclaimer #3: I know you shouldn't normally do this sort of thing, but still...
Okay, the above review was filled with personal opinions and this is fine, because without personal opinions, reviews aren't reviews, they are summaries. However, the review above contained a number of points which I consider misleading bordering on outright wrong and so I will attempt to address this.
"Having other people support your product and revive your creatively dead production staff for free is a brilliant move."
I consider this a rather unfair attack on the WotC staff.
"Picture a setting where every interesting idea you considered but ultimately turned down was now reality. This includes ideas that you thought were cool when you were twelve – you now have Eberron. Trains powered by lightning, terminators-er Warforged as PC, portable floating castles, and entire cities of demons. As a collective, the setting feels like a patchwork quilt vainly sewn together a mishmash of ‘kewl’ ideas that cater towards the 12-16 demographic. That said let me go over the book in detail and you can judge for yourself."
I am 28 and I like it. *G*
Anyway, I like the fact that the setting takes the consequences of a high-magic setting. I mean, if you have the magics to make a relatively cheap, rather fast mass-transport system (Lightning Rails), then why NOT make it? Look what the railsroad did for our world when the technology came along. This is acutally something that has been missing from many other fantasy worlds - it's very much pseudo-Middle Ages without anyone taking real advantage of the possibilities offered by magic.
"Artwork – (...)"
No comment - it's all subjective and you make sure to present this as a personal opinion.
Introduction – (...) and a list of movies to inspire you (yes, seriously, they recommend movies). (...)"
You make this sound as if it's a bad thing.
"Chapter 1, Races – (...) And finally the infamous Warforged, where in so many words you are a terminator. The Warforged is the most interesting of the bunch and is clearly broken (I will come to that later when I talk about Feats). He seems inspired by Karn, Silver Golem, from Wizards Magic the Gather game. At least that is what came to mind for me and likely 80% of all Warforged characters in the world will be named Karn by the unimaginative players. (...)"
I think you're being unfair here on two counts. First, you are far from The Terminator, unless you have a player who really want to go with a concept like that (and that can be either good or bad and if itøs bad, well, you get bad players everywhere). Second, I doubt they were all that inspired by M:tG and my group, for one, have never heard of Karn.
"Chapter 2, Classes – Only one new class is presented in this book which is a shame (...)"
I tend to disagree - more classes just for the sake of more classes doesn't appeal to me. But then, I might be a minority where D&D fans are concerned.
" (...) Mixing Psionics, techno magic, and common sense will no doubt cause problems at some point. Something to watch out for DMs who let anything flies."
I agree here - never liked mixing Psionics and Magic, except when it comes to Dark Sun.
"Chapter 3, Heroic Characteristics – (...) Personally I think Action Points are a bad idea since it gives the players a sense of invulnerability and it minimizes any back luck that may have. In fact all they will have is good luck. If you have 6 players, that is 30 re-rolls – per level. This is quite a few and really all it takes is a few to take the danger of out a situation. (...)"
I don't know if it's intentional, but you make it sound like Action Points offer re-rolls. They don't They allow you to add 1d6 to the result of any (or is it most?) D20 rolls, before you know the DC. That's a lot less powerful than a re-roll. You can also re-use certain Class benefits (Smiting, Bardic music) more times per day by paying Action Points.
"The Feats section amplifies the Action Point problem because a good many of the Feats revolve around action points by letting players spend actions points in different ways. This can come in the form of an extra action, gaining more actions, enhancing the effect of action points, and using actions points in combat movement."
Once again, you are being misleading. There are, as far as I can count, 3 Feats that revolve around spending AP. One allows you an extra Move or Standard action, one allows you to roll d8 instead of d6 and one allows spell swapping. Two others give you more AP (one increases the per-level rate, the other gives Barbarians who Rage 1 AP in rage).
"The Warforged Feats are rather high-end since they grant silly bonuses to Armor Class, Damage Reduction and immunity to sneak attacks and critical hits. Note that the Warforged are already granted construct immunities and the drawbacks are negligible. Adamantine Body grants +8 AC, DR 2. This stacks with some other feats and class abilities to create yourself a 1st level terminator PC."
Warforged are, in fact, NOT granted construct immunities - they CAN be sneak attacked, level drained, etc. They can take a Prestige Class that will eventually grant them this, true, but they do not start with it.
A 1st level Warforged PC will have ONE feat to dedicate to this, which is one feat that cannot be dedicated to something else. Sure, this can grant you +8 AC and DR 5/Adamantine, but remember, this counts as Heavy Armor and then you cannot benefit from whatever nifty armor you might find. Plus, you need yet another Feat to get immunity to critical and sneak attacks or get +1 to DR. If you do a Fighter Warforged, it will then be behind in all those nifty combat-enhancing Feats, so I really think it balances.
"Chapter 4, Prestige Classes – (...)The section is notably short and only describes a handful of classes that are on a whole unmemorable. (...)"
I beg to differ. The Warforged Juggernaut is really stuck in my mind, as is the class devoted to making a shifter better at his natural abilities (nope, I ain't good with names).
"(...)It dates back 10+ million (yes million) years, which is clearly unnecessary for PCs, DM or otherwise to know. I think people forget exactly how long 1000 years really is.(...)"
Actually, I think this helps establish the setting and it is also helpful if the DM wants to hint at events in the past and such.
"Chapter 8, Organizations – (...) The world is self-proclaimed as a gray setting with no hard black and white, good and evil. They generally did a poor job at this since you know right off the bat who the villains are and who are generally the good guys. (...)"
You might, but PCs probably won't... except, of course, that they will know that their enemies are the villains, even if said enemies are actually good guys.
"Chapter 9, An Eberron Campaign – (...) I get the feeling that this section was unnecessary since Eberron is not a product the uninitiated would buy."
What on Earth makes you say this? Imagine a group of new people getting into role-playing. They see D&D, they see Eberron, they hear it's the latest thing, they buy it.
"Chapter 10, Magic Items – (...) I was disappointed that nothing was really said about the roll an Artificer could play with magic items and item creation as a whole. Do you smell supplement? I do. (...)"
DO I smell limited Word Count? Yes I do.
"Chapter 12, A 1st level Adventure (...)"
No comment, as I am not allowed to read this.*G*
"I was pleasantly disappointed with Eberron."
Pleasantly disappointed? Makes it sound like you were just waiting to slam it, actually.
"It was sadly better than what I had expected which does not say much for my expectations."
Or possibly you had preconceived notions? *Shrugs*
"You would have problems of taking things to their logical conclusion. The first thing one of my players said to me after glancing at the book was, “Okay I have an Adamantine body – how much gold if I sell off a few arm plates?” I did not have an answer and I absolutely hate saying ‘you can’t do that’ for no in-game reason."
Well, I suppose your huamn players go around selling their blood to necromancers as well? I mean, it comes back, right?
"(...)It is almost humorous since I know what would happen if this actually happened in a Eberron game if I ran one - the rest of the party probably would try their damnest to get the Adamantine Warforged killed to sell off his carcass or make weapons from him. “You see my lad, this is my trusty Sword - ah poor Manard Helirons, we will miss him”.(...)"
It's hardly the setting's fault that your players have no party loyalty or unity or always plays money-hungry mercenary types.
"(...)The best scenario here is to have a group of really stupid players, and then I think the campaign would run just fine.(...)"
Considering that my group's planning an Eberron campaign, I kinda resent that.
Post originally by Charlie Dunwoody at 2004-06-28 04:52:35
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A terrible review. I learned nothing concrete about Eberron but I learned the reviewer doesn't like Wizards and ranted about it.
A good review posts what the reviewer thought the product was about and what the company making the product thought it was about. The reviewer can post what he liked or didn't like but he should also cover whether the company succeeded at what they were trying to do.
By simply whining about Wizards, we received no real review. I assume this reviewer doesn't get paid to write since he is awful at reaching his readers.
I write it Style 0 and Substance 0. Please, no more reviews from this reviewer.
Post originally by Chris at 2004-06-28 05:21:50
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This review has about as much detail as someone could garner from flipping through it at the local store.
His so called nit picks about action points feats and classes are largely false. The arguement about taking things to their ultimate logical conclussion is an argument that can be taken on any game setting and holds up no worse here then it does in any other game I've seen or played.
Other then generating some interesting controversy this review was a complete waste of time.
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