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In Short
The Player's Guide To Eberron delivers interesting encyclopedic entries on all aspects of the Eberron world. This book is great if you're looking for two page entries on a variety of topics in the world as an easy reference for players and DMs, as an idea generator for those playing in an Eberron game, or as fun reading material for those who are just interested in a good book full of clever and inspiring ideas.
The Physical Thing
At 160 pages, this hardcover book presents us with an Average value for sheer number of pages. However, you'd be hard pressed to find a book with higher production qualities. Constant artwork from Average to Great quality can be found inside. A full page art spread depicting a comic book like scene begins every chapter, and the art continuously reinforces the mood of Eberron. Different colored fonts and sidebars are used perfectly to showcase interesting tidbits about the world or game mechanics relevant to a given section. A solid index rounds out this high quality product.
The Ideas
Right off the bat you need to know that the title of this book is a little deceptive. While there is plenty of material in here focused on a person playing in an Eberron campaign, such as example character concepts in chapter one, the book might be better viewed as an encyclopedia of Eberron.
You also need to know that this book does reveal the secret conspiracies and organizations in Eberron. This could spoil some surprises for players.
This is a great book, arguably the best supplement released yet for Eberron, and i'd happily endorse it as the first book to pick up after the core. It's fill with interesting setting information, the occasional feat or prestige class which integrates well with the presented material, and tons of little factoids that make the reader want to play the game.
D&D 3.5 has a reputation for being a game that, for some folk, requires a lot of prep time to run. This book helps to an amazing game. Need to know what Half Elves are like in the world? Want to generate some adventure hooks involving the Dragonmarked Houses? How about quickly coming up with material for an expedition to Xen'drix? Just flip to the right section (the entries are alphabetized, there is a table of contents, and there is an index) and find exactly what you need!
Under the Cover
Interestingly, there are only two chapters in this book. The first presents several ideas to help players come up with character ideas for an Eberron game while the second presents a large and interesting guide to the world. While the first chapter serves a useful purpose, it doesn't even encompass a twentieth of the book. This is why I suggest that the book isn't really a player's guide so much as a fictional encyclopedia.
Chapter 1 Building an Eberron Character 6 pages.
Eleven archetypes appropriate to Eberron are presented here. These aren't classes or anything of the sort, but are general concepts that could fit a variety of roles. The concepts are Chronicler, Devotee of the Host, House Renegade, House Scion, Innocent Victim, Inquisitive, Outlander, Restless Wanderer, Scholar-Adventurer, Streetwise Scoundrel, and War-Torn Hero.
Some of these are pretty straight forward. What is there to say, really, about a Restless Wanderer? They wander... restlessly. Still, when you're trying to work up a setting appropriate concept it's nice to have a list like this. The Inquisitive encourages players to play a detective like character. One of the more unique concepts is the House Renegade, a member of one of the Dragonmarked Houses who has spent considerable time and effort in engineering a way to get out of the oppressive institution and has finally succeeded. Now, however, their family keeps a close eye on them worrying they might spill trade secrets and important plans.
Each of the eleven entries begins with an introduction followed by sections on Adventuring, Personality, Behavior, Language, and Variants. Each of these sections offers general advice on roleplaying a character of this type in Eberron, and Variants offers several spins on the base concept to further stimulate the player's mind.
While I acknowledge that this section will be useful to many people who have difficulty coming up with character concepts, or want Eberron specific concepts, I find the entries to be a little bland. For someone who has been roleplaying for a while, or who has read the Eberron core book, there isn't much of interest here.
Chapter 2 A Guide to Eberron 140 pages.
This is it, the meat and potatoes of the book, and it sure is nifty. Most entries are a two page spread dealing with a fairly broad topic, but for a few things such as The Last War there is more. These entries are more than just a summary of previously presented material. They do cover some ground already covered in the Eberron core book, but they also present new and interesting information.
What's important about these is that they're well written, fun to read, and provide enough information to give a player or DM tons of ideas without becoming tedious. When I started reading the book I was prepping a new campaign, by the time I was done I had figured out exactly what I wanted to do with the game. Not only does the book make individual session prep easier, thanks to the easy to find and interesting entries, but a sit down with it can provide an excellent overview of Eberron.
The entries largely follow the same format with a few small exceptions here and there. The bulk of the pages discuss the topic generally. A sidebar on the first page called What Do You Know? Presents the Knowledge Dcs for a variety of bits of information about the topic. Side paragraphs scattered throughout the book present mechanical information, as the focus of the book is on setting material. Still, this book gives you prestige classes, feats, spells, items, rules for Epic Artificers, and other D&D material without you even realizing it at times. Game mechanics are neatly integrated with the topics at hand, which is a welcome change from previous books that list page after page of unrelated mechanics. Now if you want to have a character hail from the Undying Court there are a few mechanical options there for you to give more flavor to your character. Mechanically I found the material presented to be well balanced and, if anything, occasionally on the lower powered side.
One of the things this book does that I love is it continues the Eberron mission statement of creating a world that incorporates all of the options presented in Dungeons and Dragons 3.5. This is done through small side sections, scattered through the book, suggesting how the content of other books could be incorporated into Eberron. Want to use Samurai in Eberron? How about the horror mechanics from Heroes of Horror? Want to know what a good source of power for Warlocks would be? Some folk will hate this, as it is there only for people who are WOTC fans and have purchased many of their other books. Some other folk, like me, love it as it intelligently incorporates other published material and gives it a place in Eberron. For what it's worth these side sections are presented in an interesting setting oriented manner, and do not read like ads or plugs for other products. They're more like a “Hey, if you're going to use Warlocks in your game most of them come from here. Their powers are derived from the Rakshasa demon lords and...” I liked it.
As an example of everything discussed so far I'm going to discuss the Eldeen Reaches entry. It begins discussing the Eldeen Reaches broadly, what life is like there, how people live, what the relationship is between the Reaches and the rest of the world. On the right side of the first page we have the What Do You Know? section. A DC 15 Knowledge: (local) check reveals that “The law in the Reaches is enforced by the Wardens of the Wood, who follow 'natural law' as opposed to the Code of Galifar.” There are nine total entries like this one providing a bit of flavor and GM support.
At the bottom of the first page is a side entry called Races of the Eldeen Wild. It discusses races found in books Races of the Wild and Races of Stone. The section is in a different font, making it easy to skip over if a player or GM isn't interested in incorporating those supplements.
The second page of this six page entry begins covering the Druid Sects of the Eldeen Reaches in greater detail. The Druid Sects in Eberron are really nifty because they give druids interesting reasons for existing instead of the tired “guardian of nature” deal you typically find in fantasy games.
Page three continues covering this material, providing another What Do You Know? Sidebar with 13 more entries specific to these druid factions. A DC 10 Knowledge (nature) check reveals that “The Children of Winter is an apocalyptic druid sect that worships death and decay.” Handy stuff for an adventuring party to know.
The next three pages continue to cover the druid sects in a similar manner. They have brief side sections at the bottom discussing Wu Jen and Spirit Shaman, in the event Complete Arcane or Complete Divine are being used. Another side section which takes up about half a page discusses Rituals of the Eldeen Druids and provides several magical feats players could represent a PC druid's ability to use these rituals.
A six page entry of this size isn't the rule, and most entries fall between two and six pages with two being more common. The entries are definetly focused on setting material, though there are topic specific game mechanics and occasional nods to WOTC supplements scattered throughout.
These entries are well written, interesting, and when mechanics are introduced they are closely tied to the entry.
My Take
This book is a must have for Eberron fans and will make a great addition to your collection. It is not really a Player's Guide, however, though it might be a great choice to loan out to those players who don't have the time to look over the full campaign setting. The easy to access format will make it easy for them to flip through and figure out what they want to play. “I like elves, what are elves like? Necromantic ancestor worshipers? Hmm.. What about a halfling, like Frodo? Barbarian dinosaur riding plains dwellers? Hmm... What about a nice human fighter?”
D&D fans who don't care for Eberron or who don't intend to use the Eberron campaign setting wont get much out of this book. The mechanics presented are strongly tied to Eberron, as are the prestige classes. Still, those who want an enjoyable read filled with fantasy ideas will find that this book has a lot to offer.
As a book meant to show off the world of Eberron in detail by topic I find this to be an excellent product. It's pretty, fun to read, an excellent tool for players and DMs, and very accessible. If you're an Eberron fan pick this one up.
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