An Eberron Review by SKR

[GentleGiant]

Giants have to stick together, heh?

That's one way to look at it

But it was duly linked, so I don't think it was too much a problem. I just wanted his point to be seen also by people too lazy to follow a link.

I just thought it would be better to err on the side of caution.

 

[Vocenoctum]

And their own rules are that used the same word for different meanings, and letting context sort 'em out, is just fine.

But, that's SKR's point really. For this instance, they DID have a rule. Perhaps it's changed now, perhaps it's an oversight.

 

[seankreynolds]

SKR is smoking crack...

And you're being rude.

{He obviously hasn't read a d20 book since FRCS...}

Not true ... I just haven't used most of the post-PH/DMG/MM books as a reference for anything I've written or in a campaign.

{Artifice appeared in Deities and Demigods.}

A book which I skimmed when it came out and haven't touched since. Heck, the book was still in development when we were using it as a reference for Faiths & Pantheons, and changed in many ways, and since then I haven't worked on a book or a campaign that needed to explicitly state the powers and stats of a god. ::shrug::

{Community has appeared in Every book since the PH that has had new domains (including FRCS)}

You are mistaken. The FRCS doesn't have the Community domain. You may be thinking of the Family domain. And other than four spells in common (bless, telepathic bond, heroes' feast, refuge), the Community domain and the Family domain aren't the same (the remaining spells and the domain power are quite different).

{Exorcism was in Defenders of the Faith}

A book which IMO was hit-or-miss, and since all of my later work at WotC was FR, we couldn't draw on it without resorting to recopying, and given that we already had a bunch of new domains in FR and didn't need to add any more....

{Passion and Meditiation were in Dragonlance Campaign Setting}

A book which I have and plan to review, but have only skimmed the classes and feats section so far.

{Shadow is the renamed Darkness Domain (FRCS/D&DG)}

I can see how you would think that, but the only things those domains have in common are the domain power (free Blind-Fight feat) and their 1st-level spell (obscuring mist). Thus, Shadow is not the same domain as the FRCS Darkness domain.

{Deathless is no where near the Repose domain. Neither the granted power nor the spell list is similar.}

Yeah, looking at it now I have no idea why I said that. Of course, if you admit that Deathless !== Repose, I think you have to admit that Community !== Family and Shadow !== Darkness.

{Repose was in D&DG and Faith and Pantheons (Not Oriental Adventures)}

Hmm,

{Only Community appeared in Book of Exalted Deeds, none appeared in Book of Vile Darkness}

Neither of which I have, so I was just guessing.
Sean needs to do his domain homework.

{EDIT: Sean might have met the Grave Domain from OA, not Repose.}

Well, we reprinted Repose in Faiths & Pantheons and the text notes associated with it in the designers' turnover say Repose is from DDG/OA. So if that's wrong, well, then it's wrong. In any case, I meant Repose, not Grave, though I realize now Repose and Deathless are not even similar. I'll update the review with the correct origins of the feats I mis-origined, though I will stad by my comments that the domains I say are different _are_ different and not variants of the ones you mention.

Barring these details on books that aren't part of my Eberron review (and really, if I'm reviewing a book and say it has "new to me" domains and get the origins of some of the "sounds familiar but I'm not sure" domains wrong, does that really matter? I'm not reviewing the other books, I'm reviewing Eberron), do you have any other corrections for the review?

 

[Remathilis]

Sorry bout the rude comment... it was offensive and I apologize.

I coulda swore community was in FRCS, but it appears that FRCS was one book community didn't make it into... Family was the domain I was thinking of... (BTW: Community: Defenders, Deities, Exalted Deeds, Complete Divine, Eberron, Dragonlance, OA)

The whole thing struck me as seeming very unpolished, and as a person who might be swayed by a review such as this, it rang of sloppy fact-checking.

 

[seankreynolds]

::shrug:: I admitted the domains were news to me. If I got the original sources wrong, does that really invalidate the review? Would you be so critical if I had just said, "It has these domains, I don't know which ones are new or not?" I'm reviewing _Eberron_, not writing an encyclopedia entry with thesis-quality source quoting.

 

[coyote6]

But I've never in my life met anyone who actually had trouble following what was meant by "level" in any point of the game, and I've been playing since I tought myself to play with the Moldvay boxed set at age 9.

Well, you still haven't, but I have. One of the players in my group got confused by various levels (spell & character, then spell, character, & class, and possibly caster) a while back (last year? something like that). That person has been playing since at least the '80s sometime.

It's usually not hard to figure out, but every once in a while it can become less than clear what one is speaking about when one says "level".

(Doesn't it seem odd that Gygax, of all writers, would re-use the same word for various things? )

 

[seankreynolds]

(Doesn't it seem odd that Gygax, of all writers, would re-use the same word for various things? )

There was a section in the 1E PH or DMG where he discusses that choice. For a time they considered alternate names, such as power, order, rank, and level for spells, monsters, characters, and dungeons (I believe that's the breakdown).

 

[Henry]

There was a section in the 1E PH or DMG where he discusses that choice. For a time they considered alternate names, such as power, order, rank, and level for spells, monsters, characters, and dungeons (I believe that's the breakdown).

Absolutely correct; I even tried it for a short while, thinking it was a cool idea - and came up with Gary's exact same conclusion, and switched back to good old fashioned "level."

 

[woodelf]

No, it's called noirpulpfantasy now. Or was that punkpulpfantasy? Punknoirpulp? Noirpulpnoir? I forgot, sorry.

Pulpish pseudo-fantasy. Or maybe Pulppunkpulp. Or how about pulppunk fantasypunk--you can never have too much -punk.

 

[Flyspeck23]

Pulpish pseudo-fantasy. Or maybe Pulppunkpulp. Or how about pulppunk fantasypunk--you can never have too much -punk.

Agreed.