For better or worse Eberron
is Wizard’s new baby and they showing it off in a manner that only a mother can.
For about the past year we have seen the ultrasound images in Dragon magazine
and endless advertisements. The Official D&D web site has been ‘gearing up
for Eberron’ for the past several months despite numerous other worthy
products. That said is Eberron a babe only a mother could love? Sure Wizards
may not think so – but I am leaning that way after my first look.
Eberron was a setting wrought from the ‘make a campaign’
contest that was held in 2002. I have to give credit where credit is due; who
ever thought of making D20 an open system and creating this contest is a
marketing genius. Having other people support your product and revive your
creatively dead production staff for free is a brilliant move. I am genuinely jealous
in not being able to read the 10,000+ campaign ideas submitted. I’m sure many
of which were quite good. That said, after hearing about the contest and
knowing Wizard’s current trend of products, we all knew Eberron or something
like was coming.
Two words can sum up the setting as a whole – ‘Extreme Explorer’.
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.
Artwork – The art is an odd mix of professionally
done fantasy work similar to that of the Forgotten
Realms Hardcover book and some of it is quite good. Other portions look as
if they come from a low budget comic depicting an inane scene in a bad fantasy
novel. Not only do these full-page comic illustrations simply look silly, but
they are also wasteful since the book devotes 10+ pages to them. The cover art
is fair, but generally not my taste. Also there was no pullout map included
with the book which is sacrilege considering the cost is $40 ($27
on Amazon).
Introduction – The introduction to the book does not
start off on the right foot for me since the first page is piece of the above
mentioned comic art. The introduction covers the changes from a standard
D&D to Eberron including tone and attitude, the inclusion of all D&D
rules from all books, and a list of movies to inspire you (yes, seriously, they
recommend movies). They are not shy about what they sell, I will tell you that
much. A world of magic, a world of cinema action, and a world where tone and
attitude is everything.
Chapter 1, Races – The races of Eberron are
interesting for the most part. I like them more than I did the talking Lions
and Giants of Arcana
Unearthed. Eberron offers a Changling, basically a dumbed down Doppelganger
type. The Kalashtar, a race that justifies Psionics in Eberron. Shifters, so
you can play a werewolf that is not totally broken. 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. The races section includes regions, much like the Forgotten
Realms Campaign book did.
Chapter 2, Classes – 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. The new class is
an Artificer, and is a mix of a Rune Smith from Forgotten Realms and Tinker
Gnome from Dragonlance. They look well balanced and I imagine Wizards play
tested the hell out of them. Unfortunately an Artificer will be a broken
character in the right hands, I will get to that later, but for the most part
they are a positive for the book. The other classes are unchanged for the most
part. Eberron deliberately includes use for all rules from all D&D
supplements so you will obviously end up with contradictions and broken
combinations. 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.
Chapter 3, Heroic Characteristics – This chapter is
where the real brokenness of the system starts to show. It covers Action
Points, Feats, Skills and Dragonmarks. Actions Points is a system where PCs
are allotted points at each level, these points can be spent to manipulate with
some rolls. This is nothing new, other types of systems have been around for
ages – Warhammer Fantasy uses Fate points which came to mind first. 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. This is done because Wizards argues that it will create more
cinematic game play. Maybe they are right, maybe not. Be prepared for PCs to
have an added layer of indestructibility regardless and the attitude that will
come along with it.
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. 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.
This is really too bad since a number of the Feats are quite
good and would enhance role-playing quite a bit. Bind Elemental to create items,
Child of Winter for evil Druids, and a host of music and barbarian feats that
all look like fun. The Feats are followed by a section on Dragon Marks.
Dragon marks are essentially tattoos that have some powers and authority within
the world. It is similar the Blood Marks from the Birthright campaign as they
indicate a social station to a point. Dragon Marks are connection to the
various houses in the game, which is probably the most interesting part of
Eberron.
Chapter 4, Prestige Classes – The Eberron prestige
classes heavily revolve around the world as one would expect. This is either
in the form of there connection to the world itself or the tone of the world as
a whole, ala Extreme Explorer. The section is notably short and only describes
a handful of classes that are on a whole unmemorable. Extreme Explorer stands
out simply because the name is so silly and you get special abilities that
include Extreme Hustle and Extreme Action. Actually the class is somewhat interesting;
too bad it is utterly ruined by the god awful names. Who ever at Wizards let
those slide ought to be beat with a rubber hose.
Chapter 5, Magic – Magic itself remains the same as
it did in 3rd D&D. No noticeable changes, but the world does
have a group of weak spell casters that handle the day to day management of the
world as a whole. It is a pleasant surprise that most of the NPCs in Eberron
are a quarter of the level of those in Forgotten Realms. The magic section
covers the Cosmology of the World in fine detail, and it is obvious a good deal
of thought was put into the construction of the Cosmology. It is different
from most of the previous D&D settings and I’m glad to see they are
deviating in that aspect. The Cosmology is one of the more interesting parts
of the book and looks fairly playable as far as plots, higher powers, and
perhaps planar adventures. Artificer spells and a few new Wizard and Cleric
spells fill up the rest of the space. The Artificer spells are well thought
out and look fairly interesting. It is difficult to tell what problem could
arise in play simply because the Artificer has so many options and combinations
of what he can come up with. This is great for creativity but will definitely
cause problems if intelligent players get a hold on one.
Chapter 6, Adventuring Equipment – What really
surprises is me is that Eberron was sold with an almost Steam-Punk image of magic
and devices floating around. With a class such as Artificer you would assume a
plethora of equipment would be on hand but this is simply not the case. No Gunpowder,
no gadgets to toy with and definitely no vehicles to purchase and run around
the world on. Airships are shown in pictures and hinted at being around, but rules
for owning one are non existent. This was actually a disappointment to me
since I expected an over the top list of crap to buy. I know, not very
eloquent, but if I’m stuck as a player in this world, I at least want the goods
to get a hold of that I see everywhere.
Chapter 7, Life in the World – The background of
Eberron is well thought out and is probably the biggest reason to buy the
book. While it is nothing mind-blowing, it is interesting, well detailed, and
has a plethora of ideas for any fantasy campaign. It is clear that the
producers of the game simply pooled the best ideas they had and made a world
out of what was in front of them. As for a D&D setting Eberron lacks the cohesiveness
of Dragonlance, the moody atmosphere of Darksun, the strangely personable NPCs
of Forgotten Realms and the feeling of home that Greyhawk offers. I’m not sure
what exactly the world of Eberron is other than a collection of ideas made into
a world. Perhaps it is because I have not played it for any length of time.
The world is something to look forward too however, 80% of the value of the
book is right here. One bad thing about this section is the last few pages
which has a timeline of Eberron. 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.
Chapter 8, Organizations – This extends the world
supplement in chapter seven. It details the various organizations that were
not already talked about in the Dragonmarked section. You have a lot of
houses, which reminds me quite a bit of Dune, and I think that is intentional.
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. The
institutions are somewhat more interesting and it is nice that they gave some
flavor to tribes of druids and barbarians that are not quite so predictable.
Chapter 9, An Eberron Campaign – Essentially a continuation
of the Eberron World section and a DM for Dummies guide. You get your plot
themes and a few words on running and managing a campaign. I get the feeling
that this section was unnecessary since Eberron is not a product the uninitiated
would buy.
Chapter 10, Magic Items – The magic items are
standard fare with the addition of artifacts and Warforged item being most
notably. Warforged items are power-ups for your party Terminator- er
Warforged. I hate to make it that simple, but it is what it is. 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.
Chapter 11, Monsters – They give you enough critters
to make it obviously different from normal run of the mill boring til you cry
D&D. Some are interesting but they certainly lack personality for the most
part. No hordes from the chaos waste here to sacrifice you to their blood god,
just random bookie men and parts monsters (random tentacles and teeth and make
something out of it). The deathless is a new subtype and are annoying to me.
They are good undead, but not really undead since they are good. You know,
because dying, being stuffed in a rotting carcass for eons does wonders for
your sanity. This was there big push about no black and white, good or evil –
a good undead…
Chapter 12, A 1st level Adventure - A
decent little adventure but it looks the same as anything that would have been
in Dungeon magazine in the past decade. Find the who-has it for a reward
dealie. A free adventure is good though, though I would not say it was on par
with some of the third party D20 supplement what have come out recently. The
lack of good adventures in one thing Wizards D&D has really messed up since
3rd edition came out, which is a damn shame. This does nothing to
change that.
The Bottom Line
I was pleasantly disappointed with Eberron. It was sadly
better than what I had expected which does not say much for my expectations.
Eberron is far too bad of a setting for me to punish my players with. A large
problem has to do with taking an intelligent group and putting them into this
world. 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. 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”.
Evolving to a logical conclusion is major problem from a
practical point of view. Airships, floating castles, lightning trains are all
interesting ideas but I knew there was a reason that I very, very sparing used
them in my campaigns in the past. Before you know it the PCs are wearing a
cowboy hat riding around in a floating tank mounted with wands of fireballs.
With a class like the Artificer and the technology gadgets and massive magic
around it is only a matter of time before players come to their senses and a
make the most of a given situation. That can be cool in its own way, but it is
definitely not something that will last more than a few sessions. The best
scenario here is to have a group of really stupid players, and then I think the
campaign would run just fine.
Still, in the right hands and the right mindset Eberron is
playable setting. The detail and production of the world is by far the best
thing about it and I will undoubtedly steal some ideas for myself if nothing
else. As a whole however I find many things far too silly and breakable, even
a group with no intentions of misbalancing the game will have a hard time not
doing so with Action Points. The problem of extreme high magic is taking
things to there logical conclusion as I’ve said above. Alas, Manard Helirons,
Warforged from the mountains of Mror Holds, destined to have his body smelted
into weapons by a group of greedy adventurers will likely never see the light
of day. I bid you well fair terminator.
