Building Eberron (Using non-Eberron books)

[Bront]

I'll start this out with a quote from Keith Baker

The kitchen sink aspect of things is one of the most misunderstood aspects of Eberron. The quote so often taken out of context is "If it exists in D&D, it has a place in Eberron." Not "it exists in Eberron"... but rather, there's a place for it if you want there to be. More often than not, this is accomplished through one of three things:

• Xen'drik, the Dark-Continent-Meets-Atlantis. An unexplored continent twisted by magic, it's the perfect place to stick a never-before-seen-civilization-of-whatever-you-want.
• Khyber, the underdark. Following the pulpy feeling, this again gives you the opportunity for the Vril, the Lost World, Agharta, etc. Derro have no official place in Eberron. I have no plans to use derro in my game. But if I WANTED to, PCs stumbling onto a lost city of Derro in Khyber fits the setting perfectly.
• The Mourning, the bizarre-magical-cataclysm-that-warped-an-entire-country. Any monster could emerge from this bizarre event.

So, *I* prefer to focus on few races and few monsters and build up the cultures of each. As it stands, Eberron doesn't have wood elves, wild elves, purple elves, etc. It has the Valenar, the Aereni, the Qabalrin, the Gyrderi... all of whom are genetically elves with very different cultures. Want to use wood elves? Make 'em a weird tribe in Xen'drik. But *I'm* not going to use them. Likewise, you like abeil? Make them a culture in Xen'drik that's only just been discovered. Say that the Mourning transformed a human city into an abeil hive and now they're spreading like wildfire. There's a PLACE for abeil in Eberron... but only if you want to take advantage of it.

So, I certainly sympathize with the "I hate everything being crammed into one world" syndrome. But the point is that Eberron makes it easy TO include what you want from any D&D book... not that it's all automatically there by default. Me? I leave a lot of it out!

So, with that being said, what do we want from the WoTC line in Living Eberron? And I mean from "I want everything in the Complete Adventurer" to "I want the Knight from PHBII and the Hulking Hurler PrC from the Complete Warrior".

This may not be where we approve the use of such things, but this is the place to discuss them.

And I will put on the table right now, the other Psionic races from the SRD. Are there others we want in our Eberron as player options? and why or why not?

 

[Patlin]

I'd like to be inclusive.

How about allowing the spells in Spell Compendium, and feats and base classes from the complete books (Warrior, Adventurer, Arcane, Divine, and Psionic.)

 

[Patlin]

Also, to be fair to our psionic brethren, if spells from spell compendium are included, powers from complete psion should be included as well. This would, of course, include the erratta disguised as new material.

 

[stonegod]

Most of the base classed from the Comp books work just fine in Eberron; its the oriental-flavored onces that need shoe-horning. The justifications given for each in the Player's Guide is pretty weak on all four counts.

Someone might want to do a rough analysis of the feats, but the base classes (save the oriental flavors) are fine with me, my non-judging self. I personally do not have anything wrong with the feats that I recall, though there is always potential for abuse.

 

[GwydapLlew]

One of the things I like most about Eberron is that so little actually needs to be shoehorned in. The campaign setting is broad enough that there is room for the various PrC and base classes from the Complete Series.

I'm in favor of allowing the Core Rules, the Spell Compendium, and the Complete Series. The Races of... series, IMO, is a bit too nonstandard, but as for the rest...solid.

 

[drothgery]

Most of the base classed from the Comp books work just fine in Eberron; its the oriental-flavored onces that need shoe-horning. The justifications given for each in the Player's Guide is pretty weak on all four counts.

I'd agree with that, though you could probably make a case for ninja as a package of mechanics, and scratch the flavor.

A few suggestions --

Races of Eberron suggests most Kalashtar mystics of the Path of the Light are psions (rather than clerics), but I'd suggest making them ardents instead.

I'd like to see the Archivist from Heroes of Horror in at some point (in my spin of Eberron, they're often assoociated with the Church of the Silver Flame).

 

[Rystil Arden]

Also, to be fair to our psionic brethren, if spells from spell compendium are included, powers from complete psion should be included as well. This would, of course, include the erratta disguised as new material.

I would say that as far as I can see, Psions are actually weakened if you include Complete Psionic due to the errata. Particularly, Shapers are emasculated and rendered trivial.


As to the inclusions--I don't want to see a kitchen-sink in here either, for several reasons including alienating people who don't have the books. Spell Compendium is particularly problematic in that sense, since it may have changed spells that are in it. I own most of the books that fed into the Spell Compendium but not the Compendium itself, so I don't know what errata they put in there, and I can only vote for or against the original versions.

That said, there are a few things that people have proposed here that I will always be vetoing immediately and suggesting to all other Judges that they do the same:

Complete Divine. There are things in here that could be allowed piecemeal, maybe, but such a large percentage is totally broken that I wouldn't be able to remember it all for piecemeal vetos. The base classes are fine (except there's no reason to include orientals from any Complete book), however. This is one of the few WotC products that actually has a larger percentage of broken material than most 3rd-party products.

Complete Adventurer is mostly an awesome book that helps play things that were underpowered in the core rules. The way it does this, however, is by releasing options that are incredibly powerful in hopes of balancing the weenies. Usually this is okay, but occasionally, they throw in something that is completely inexcusable. Wraithstrike is one example. It is unbalanced at any level, and so terrible that in fact I think a game is better off not having all the good things in Complete Adventurer than having them and also Wraithstrike. It is a spell that is guaranteed to break your game at any level if a character who could use it learns it (hey Knight Phantom, how are you doing? ) There's a few others too, but Wraithstrike is worse than all of them combined.

Complete Arcane Orb spells with no SR. What the hell? A force effect that isn't magical? What is it then? Completely ignoring the SR mechanic and saving throw mechanic is inexcusable and completely unfair. There's a reason I see this in every powergamer's builds. We could allow them if we changed them to allow SR. Most of CA is fine.

Complete Warrior: Some people have problems with Hulking Hurler--this class is broken, but the main problem is that improvised weapons table that allows them to get so strong. A few of the other PrCs in there are over-the-top, and the Elusive Target feat (has that been errataed?) is overpowered even if you change the line that automatically negates the first attack against you and puts it on your enemy to only put the attack on the enemy if it misses you normally. The rest of the book is completely fine and a great addition.

 

[SelcSilverhand]

Say for example we allow the complete books, spell compendium, and psionics. Will the Judges be double checking spells to make sure they are being used properly? I don't own the spell compendium or complete psionics, so it would be easy for me to overlook a player that wasn't following the rules for a given spell. Or if I knew something special about the enemy the player was using the spell on that would cause the spell to fail (ex: spell only works on living but my npc is undead. I don't know that limitation without reading the spell text). The most conveinent way I suppose is have the players say what the spell does upon request as long as it isn't a cut and paste from a WotC source.

I do like the idea of opening it up to the other wotc material. I'm all for including the base classes, spells, and feats from the above mentioned books. It's the PrC's that would have to be included on a case-by-case basis. I ran a year-long Eberron game using all the books and I grew to HATE the changling / warshaper combo. >.<

 

[Patlin]

I suggest Spell Compendium as a better source for spells than the complete books, excising the Orbs and Wraithstrike if you prefer....

 

[Rystil Arden]

I suggest Spell Compendium as a better source for spells than the complete books, excising the Orbs and Wraithstrike if you prefer....

If the SC includes those spells without errata, then I have to give a definite No on allowing it wholesale. I seem to recall it includes spells from Dragon and the sort, and some Dragon crunch (not all of course, some is quite good) I think everyone will admit is broken--but if they didn't errata their own broken spells, they probably didn't errata Paizo's either. Plus it has the CD spells, of course, including that awful Spikes spell.

I would be happy to allow spells from any of these sources, even Complete Divine, on a spell-by-spell basis, but allowing any of them wholesale is just asking me to miss one until it is too late (I'm only human).

By the way, I think the Orb spells are fine and should be allowed, providing they allow SR. The little ones are nice for Arcane Tricksters.