(FR) Silver Marches

Nebuchadnezzar · Jul 12, 2002

Anyone got Silver Marches yet? What did you think of it? It surprises me that the FR supplements receive so little attention. I can imagine why with the Silver Marches, as it is very campaign specific with little crunchy stuff. But Magic of Faerun was an excellent supplement, far superior IMHO than many other sourcebooks on magic, including Tome and Blood. Lords of Darkness was also an excellent supplement. The only thing that has dissapointed me in the FR product line (3rd edition) so far is the DM screen.

El_Gringo · Jul 12, 2002

Pretty book. Pretty, pretty book. I've only glanced through it, but the first thing that caught my eye was the great artwork. Between Silver Marches and the ELH, I've got my weekend reading list booked up.

Balsamic Dragon · Jul 12, 2002

I thought Lords of Darkness was a great book as well. I'm going to be using it for my next campaign (which will be the first FR campaign I've ever run!)

On the other hand, I did not pick up Magic of Faerun, as it seemed like munchkiny filler to me.

I don't know about Silver Marches. At first, I was excited about it and was planning on picking it up. Then I read the exerpt on the WOTC site, which was about as interesting as dried paste. So I'll have to flip through it before I decide whether it's worth the purchase.

The FR campaign supplement is still, imho, one of the best books WOTC has put out.

Balsamic Dragon

Nebuchadnezzar · Jul 12, 2002

I did not pick up Magic of Faerun, as it seemed like munchkiny filler to me.

What struck you as being munchkiny?

kreynolds · Jul 12, 2002

Nebuchadnezzar said:
What struck you as being munchkiny?

I'm curious as well.

Renshai · Jul 12, 2002

First off, I've been running in the Realms since it first hit the shelves and own pretty much every Realms product that has been published to date.

When I saw the plans of Silver Marches I was really disappointed. We had Waterdeep and the North, The Savage Frontier, The North, and Volo's Guid to the North already. Why did this place need revisiting?

Well, it seems it did need revisiting. The North has changed alot since those old products and Silver Marches does an excellent job of showing us those changes while offering a ton of adventure hooks and campaign style plots. There are even a couple of adventures in the book that seem top notch after a cursory look.

One of my other concerns was turning one of the great savage frontiers of Faerun into another overly civilized area.... this doesn't seem to be the case with Silver Marches. The cities of the march have banded together for common defense against the North's many and dangerous foes. The hint of danger still pervades the setting like it always has and you can add the political danger inherent in having two very stubborn loudmouth dwarven kings on the same council. The political structure is as much a danger as King Obould and his Orc Hordes... that is a welcome addition to the setting.

Apart from that the crunchy bits seem pretty good as well. Some neat new monsters along with some new Prestige Classes that work well with the setting but could also be converted to other campaigns...

Anyway... just my first thoughts after staying up and reading last night.

I'm not going to even respond to the comment about MoF being Munchkin... I hate that elitist and deragatory term. If you think there are power issues in the book, discuss them... but why paint the whole product with such a wide brush? Hrm.. I guess I did end up commenting

Ren

EricNoah · Jul 12, 2002

Magic of Faerun is one of my most used FR products.

I'm looking forward to reading Silver Marches.

Nebuchadnezzar · Jul 12, 2002

Are there new feats in the book?

Balsamic Dragon · Jul 12, 2002

Wow, I didn't expect to get quite so much flak for that comment

I guess what I meant by saying that I thought it was a tad munchkinish is that I thought, based on a cursory overview, that it was overpowered. It struck me as an attempt to "rebalance" the world of Faerun after third edition put high level fighter-types and high-level wizards on a more even scale. Wizards have always been the big powerful forces in FR, and this seemed to be attempt to restore that, but it wasn't something I was interested in doing for my campaign.

Magic of Faerun struck me, at first impression at least, as the kind of book designed to appeal to a player who wants to create a powerful and unbalanced character. Ergo, not really my thing as a GM who wants to maintain a good class power balance. At the same time, it didn't offer a lot GM material that I was interested in, since I am not planning on, for example, using Spellfire in my campaign.

Balsamic Dragon

EricNoah · Jul 12, 2002

I mostly use it for some neat spells that fill in some gaps.

I also am running a campaign with a character who's using Spellfire; I figured why not just go all out and see what it's like? As it turns out, the non-scaling saving throw, the ranged touch required, and the fact that you have to ready an action to absorb incoming spells makes it a smidge less useful than you'd think just by reading it.