Yeah, I like how it captured some of the online game's feel. The races are kinda lame and weak statistically, but since it's the same for most of the races in the book (excepting iksar and trolls, understandably), it's still balanced within its own context. I like how the casters were handled, though, and I like the descriptions of the races and classes in the book - more flavor than what I was able to find in the MMORPG's manual, the game itself, and the websites that had info from the beta or from hard-to-find books in the game.... So I really like the fleshed out history and such.
As for the Erudites, they don't have many warriors because they're a scholarly, isolationist people. They left Qeynos long ago to escape fighting, politics, and people who didn't like magic-users. So they went to a small, remote, inhospitable continent that is made up of tall impassable cliffs along the waterside, and they founded a new city on one of the few small shores that were accessable. They named the continent Odus, and their city was named Erudin after the leader of the exiles, Erud. They settled there for the sole purpose of practising magic and delving into its secrets without interruption or persecution. They didn't go anywhere else or bother anyone else for a long, long time, so they had the isolation they wanted. Their mastery of magic grew and surpassed that of Elves and Gnomes as they never had any conflicts to distract them, and nearly everyone in Erudin was a mage, so they were quite content with that. Eventually they had a schism as their elders decided Necromancy was one type of magic they didn't want to mess with, while those amongst them who had discovered Necromancy didn't want to give up their pursuit of its power, so they eventually went and built Paineel, isolating themselves from the already-isolated Erudites. The Erudites then knew war for a time, and there was devastation, but they got through it and sent the necromancers crawling back to their stinking Hole to hide and plot and curse them. The Erudites began some trade and such with Qeynos after that, needing to rebuild and replenish supplies, so they got involved with the world again to some extent. Now they have some warriors to defend them, but most or all of them are Paladins of Prexus, and they're mostly just devotees of the water god first, warriors second. They keep the peace and protect the citizenry, but there aren't many of them and there's not much need for them. Erudin has the majority of Norrath's greatest magic users, and there are something like dozens of arcane spells known around the world that were invented by prolific Erudites like Al'Akbar. The Erudites' isolation precludes any significant need for warriors, and mages are better anyway for them, given that Odus' shores are nearly all cliffs, which invading ships couldn't land on or dock at anyway. It doesn't take very many experienced mages to blast ships trying to approach Erudin's one small harbor. They're peaceful folks for the most part and don't need peacekeeping warriors most of the time. They're called High Men for a reason, they've advanced beyond petty quarrels and law-breaking. The Erudites of Paineel certainly differ to an extent, in that they're filled with hatred for the other Erudites, but they still generally just want to keep researching magic (Necromancy anyway) and growing more powerful, so they just have some Shadowknights for guards.
