Arcanis or Scarred Lands - Help me decide

[Ceresco]

Except for the Magic of Arcanis and Players Guide to Arcanis, everything else is chock full of story goodness. Besides Year of Ill Harvest, I would suggest following up with A Carnival of Swords. It's a defining adventure for many PCs.

Other than that, Legacy of Damnation, Ssethragore: In the Coils of the Serpent Empire, and Nishanpur: City of Secrets are filled with Arcanis goodness. There is more than enough setting specific material to make it worth picking up even without using the d20 system.

I have bought the new printing of the Codex Arcanis, but have not read through it yet.

If you have any setting specific questions I will be only to happy to answer them for you.

Respectfully,

Edward Kopp: Arcaniac at Large

 

[Paradigm]

That's absolutely correct. It's meant to be a stand-alone replacement for the XPH.

I think that they are hoping this book, too, will be in the stores by September or October. (I picked mine up at Origins; Living Arcanis won't be switching over to these rules for psionics until it's generally available.)

Psionics Unbound has a street date of September 10. The book is a complete Psionic rulebook, the Expanded Psionics Handbook would not be needed if you own this title.


Psionics Unbound
256 Page Hardbound

I Think, Therefore You Die​

In the end times, a Silent enemy will arise, and in its wake it shall bring oblivion. This the Gods of Man have seen, and this the Other has told to the Goddess Belisarda. Knowing this, the Gods of Men commanded their vassals, the noble Valinor, to infuse the favored bloodlines of man with the very power of divinity. This peculiar magic of divine beings is called Psionics, and so armed the children of men shall arise to defend Arcanis for defeat brings with it the end of all things.

Whereas wielders of magic rely upon careful ritual and the fundamental properties of matter to work their miracles and tricks, a Psion commands the very power of creation through sheer force of will. No obstacle can withstand the focused power of thought from a gifted and trained mind. Within this stout volume, the secrets of Psionics are laid bare for all to see.

Honed by five years of vigorous play testing in the Living Arcanis campaign, one of the world’s largest interactive roleplaying environments, Psionics Unbound refines the Psionics rules for Third Edition Fantasy Roleplaying. Psionics Unbound is a complete rulebook, no other Psionics rules are required for use in any campaign, Arcanis or otherwise.

The book’s many features include:

• Eight Base Classes including the classic Psionic classes and new classes such as the Occisor, Psionic masters of stealth and assassination
• More than one hundred feats, including new feats like Voices in the Silence, the power to withstand the Psionics of the multiverse’s greatest enemies
• More than thirty Prestige Classes including fourteen classes each specific to a given val family, such as the val’Tensen Aspect of the Hurricane, who embody the wrath of a storm
• Hundreds of Psionic powers, both clarified and refined powers from the System Reference Document and new powers including Pyroplasmic Aura and Wall of Entropy
• Dozens of varieties of Psionic items and equipment
• A menagerie of Psionic creatures, from the classic Aboleth to the Voiceless Ones, vicious servants of the Silence
• A selection of spells that permit wielders of magic to briefly harness the powers of the mind

Psionics Unbound is designed for use with the Revised Third Edition rules of the world’s most popular fantasy roleplaying game! You may also want to get your hands on the Codex Arcanis and Player’s Guide to Arcanis to join the thousands of people world wide who have already discovered the excitement of Living Arcanis!

 

[Leatherfut]

What are the adventures in the Coryani & Canceri Chronicles? I can only find two in each. Are they supposed to be trilogies?

thanks,
Frank

 

[talien]

ARCANIS
pros: -seems to be easier to make humanocentric
-I like the Rome-like country
-Freeport is built into the setting
-All those free adventures on line
cons: - I'm still not getting a good enough sense of the setting and what sets it apart

My Arcanis story hour may help: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=103252

 

[ruemere]

My heart is with Scarred Lands. My mind would be with Arcanis.

As Arcanis is a supported setting, you won't find yourself alone a year from now, with 4E coming out. I know that you wrote that rules were not a factor, however, should you decide to change your mind, Arcanis would make that change a possibility.

To me, Scarred Lands was (and still remains) one of the finest settings published for d20. It offered wonderful opportunities for everyone, from Fantasy version of FALLOUT meets Mad Max to Byzantinian politics, from exploration of savage frontiers to decadent cities, from benevolent evil tyrants (Yes, Virduk, I'm looking at your) to sheriff-like marshals keeping the peace in large plains (loved the feeling of Wild West in Vesh), friends from mercenary companies to city states...

Believe me, I could go on and on. 3 year of campaigning barely touched a few books of material.

Regards,
Ruemere

 

[Gothmog]

No question- Arcanis.

Arcanis wins on a number of different fronts- organization/editing, quality of ideas, game mechanics, atmoshphere, the Coryani (roman-like) Empire, Ssethragore, the rich mythology mixed with noble bloodlines, comprehensiveness, LOTS of morally grey areas, and just because its so different than anything else out there. I've bought everything put out for Arcanis since it started, and have yet to be disappointed with anything.

Scarred Lands has some interesting ideas, but in the end feels kinda hoaky and like a kitchen sink setting. There is just TOO MUCH of everything in the setting. Some of the flavor text prose is pretty good, but the editing and game balance in the books is pretty horrendous.

 

[Paradigm]

Psionics Unbound is in the warehouse and ready to ship to distributors, so it is on target for its September 10th street date.

Psionics Unbound is a complete Psionics rulebook, tested by the crucible of six years of Living Arcanis play.

 

[Soel]

Psionics Unbound is in the warehouse and ready to ship to distributors, so it is on target for its September 10th street date.

Psionics Unbound is a complete Psionics rulebook, tested by the crucible of six years of Living Arcanis play.

One more question, if I already had the XPH, and didn't want to scrap it, could this book be used in conjunction?

Thanx!

 

[Paradigm]

One more question, if I already had the XPH, and didn't want to scrap it, could this book be used in conjunction?

Thanx!

It certainly can, but there is a fair body of material that would be redundant. Though you may prefer the powers are presented in Psionics Unbound as more in balance with the traditional magic system of D&D. One can almost think of Psionics Unbound as Psionics 3.75.

 

[kenobi65]

Though you may prefer the powers are presented in Psionics Unbound as more in balance with the traditional magic system of D&D.

In other words: you nerfed the blatantly broken stuff.

As the player of a psion in Living Arcanis, I was mildly heartbroken when I saw some of the changes, but I absolutely understand why you did what you did.

A few examples of what I mean:

The Expanded Knowledge feat (which let you take a power that's not on your class / discipline list) has been replaced with a similar feat (whose name escapes me at the moment; I think it's Expanded something-or-other) that gives you an additional power, but it has to be a power that your class / discipline would have let you take in the first place.

The save DC on powers like Energy Missile now scales at +1 / +2 additional PPs, putting it in better balance with spells. (I believe that this was a change that was also made in Complete Psionic, but that's not an OGC book.)

The "cold" variation on powers like Energy Missile now gives a Reflex save, rather than a Fort save (which was a dang handy thing to be able to pull out against rogues and monks, who tend to Evade fire missiles...)