John Cooper
Explorer
DRAGONMARKED
By Keith Baker, Michelle Lyons, and C.A. Suleiman
Wizards of the Coast product number 953807200
160-page hardcover, $29.95
Dragonmarked is the latest release in the Eberron line, this time dealing with those individuals who manifest one of the many types of magical dragonmark on their bodies.
The cover art, by Wayne Reynolds (no surprise there, as he's done all of the cover artwork for the Eberron line), is a portrait of various dragonmarked individuals. It differs from most of his works in that it is not an action scene; rather, the individuals are all pretty much just standing around. Like in all Eberron hardcovers, the full work is printed on pages 2-3, but for the cover artwork, the whole piece has been cut up into chunks and redistributed. Still, while this isn't the most exciting piece that Wayne has provided, he's still got his traditional fine attention to detail, and he made sure to include a wide variety of races: humans, elves, half-elves, half-orcs, dwarves, gnomes, and even warforged are represented. (Oddly, no halflings, though.)
The interior artwork consists of 70 full-color illustrations by 11 different artists. These are of varying levels of quality, and quite a few of them are simple head-shots of various important personages. There are also a few cut-away shots of buildings and vehicles, which is a first (to my recollection at least) for an Eberron book. My favorite pieces include the (unattributed) painting of Merrix d'Cannith standing on a tile map of the continent of Khorvaire on page 19 (excellent map - I really like the tile effect, and Merrix's Greek-style toga and robe is very well done); Rick Drennan's portrait of Jaxon d'Cannith on page 23 (I especially like his contemplative look); his portrait of Endira d'Deneith on page 30 (she looks very down-to-earth and yet wears an expression of confidence that's very well done); Anne Stokes' portrait of Lysse Lyrriman d'Sivis on page 74 (very serene, and not unlike Peter Parker's Aunt May from the Spider-Man comic books, albeit with a dragonmark on her cheek); her portrait of Corius Corralyn d'Sivis on page 76 (another elderly gnome, this one managing to come across looking like a competent Pilgrim with pointed ears); and her portrait of Lady Aeylia d'Thuranni on page 88 (she does a very distinctive-looking bald female elf, and she also did a really nice job on her raven). On the negative side, the three members of the Triumvirate on page 79 (also by Anne Stokes) are misattributed, which could cause some confusion; the first one is Khundar'aashta (not Daric d'Velderan), the second is Maagrim Torrn d'Tharashk (not Khundar'aashta), and the third is Daric (not Maagrim). If Wizards of the Coast ever decides to come out with an annual "Best Dressed/Worst Dressed" issue like People magazine does, I think the female spellcaster depicted on page 151 (artwork by Warren Mahy) would easily place high in the second category; her questionable outfit consists of a purple bikini that manages to include "floating" sleeves and pant-legs attached like stockings, and the unlikely ensemble is completed with a brown cape and backpack. Finally, Jon Hodgson's illustration of Taelyn d'Lyrandar on page 52 is okay, but the text specifically states that he doesn't have a dragonmark (and the stat block supports that), yet Jon's given him one on his forehead.
Dragonmarked is laid out as follows:
One complaint I've heard in the past was that the dragonmarked seemed predominantly geared for NPCs, given that their dragonmarked-fueled abilities were not the splashy, exciting kinds of things that PCs tend to enjoy. While I rather agree with the assessment (or perhaps it's better to say that I can see where the view comes from), I think Dragonmarked goes a long way towards making dragonmarked PCs a more viable offering. Granted, some of the options presented here (especially some of the prestige classes) still seem rather geared towards NPCs as opposed to PCs (I don't see many players deciding to play a black dog, for example - a House Ghallanda halfling who uses his skills as an innkeeper to specialize in poisons), but it's a step in the right direction.
The vast majority of Dragonmarked is tied into Chapter 1 - a good 79 pages, or an even half of the 158 pages that actually have gaming material on them (as the last 2 pages are ads for other products), but as I found this to be the most interesting chapter in the book, I didn't mind at all. The prestige classes in Chapter 2 were okay, and some of them were above average, but a few of them followed the "let's take an aspect of the House into a completely opposite direction" ploy, like the black dog poisoner innkeepers I mentioned earlier, and the nosomatic chirurgeon, who uses his knowledge of the healing arts to spread disease. (Oddly enough, both of those examples are the halfling Houses - you silly halflings!) My favorite of the prestige classes is the Blade of Orien, which has 10 levels devoted to using dimension leap and associated teleportation-style powers in interesting ways; eventually, they can teleport foes off of speeding lightning rails or straight into jail cells!
The dragonmark feats are okay, but after awhile they just start to get a bit silly; it seems like you can use a feat to get your dragonmark to do just about anything you want, from turning itself into a version of the shield spell to preventing yourself from ever being nauseated or sickened. The short section on aberrant dragonmarks was interesting, and it's also important to note that Dragonmarked supersedes information in the Eberron Campaign Setting book - specifically, the part that states that you can never improve an aberrant dragonmark in any way - now, with the material in this book, you can.
As far as the stat blocks went, they weren't too bad - not as bad as some in recent products, at least - but there were still quite a few more errors than I'm happy with. Here's my "unofficial errata" for Dragonmarked:
Besides the stat blocks, the proofreading and editing jobs were very well done. I only spotted a very few errors that made it past editor Scott Fitzgerald Gray, editorial assistant Logan Bonner, and editing manager Kim Mohan: namely, a couple of sentences missing a word, a few misspelled words ("sentrys" instead of "sentries," "tribex" instead of "tribes"), an extraneous character ("-any" instead of "any"), a sentence missing a period at the end, several places where a "?" was used instead of a "†" (the "dagger" symbol commonly used in footnotes) in a table or two, the occasional spell name (or, in one instance, just part of a spell name) not being italicized, a few "titles" not being in bold font in a stat block, and the "D" after domain spells not being in superscript font. All in all, not bad for a 160-page book, and much better than a few other recent books; I commend the editorial staff for their diligence on this book.
Dragonmarked is a useful entry in the Eberron line, and I suppose with a little bit of tweaking, you could use some of the information in this book in a non-Eberron campaign as well. (The prestige classes and House information already had adaptation notes provided.) I give it a solid "4 (Good)."
Finally, for whatever reason, an EN World messageboard user named Graf tried to post his own review of this book and was unable to. I'm going to include a link to his review (which, as a temporary solution, he posted as a messageboard thread until the problem can be fixed); for those interested, you can find the thread at http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=183304.
By Keith Baker, Michelle Lyons, and C.A. Suleiman
Wizards of the Coast product number 953807200
160-page hardcover, $29.95
Dragonmarked is the latest release in the Eberron line, this time dealing with those individuals who manifest one of the many types of magical dragonmark on their bodies.
The cover art, by Wayne Reynolds (no surprise there, as he's done all of the cover artwork for the Eberron line), is a portrait of various dragonmarked individuals. It differs from most of his works in that it is not an action scene; rather, the individuals are all pretty much just standing around. Like in all Eberron hardcovers, the full work is printed on pages 2-3, but for the cover artwork, the whole piece has been cut up into chunks and redistributed. Still, while this isn't the most exciting piece that Wayne has provided, he's still got his traditional fine attention to detail, and he made sure to include a wide variety of races: humans, elves, half-elves, half-orcs, dwarves, gnomes, and even warforged are represented. (Oddly, no halflings, though.)
The interior artwork consists of 70 full-color illustrations by 11 different artists. These are of varying levels of quality, and quite a few of them are simple head-shots of various important personages. There are also a few cut-away shots of buildings and vehicles, which is a first (to my recollection at least) for an Eberron book. My favorite pieces include the (unattributed) painting of Merrix d'Cannith standing on a tile map of the continent of Khorvaire on page 19 (excellent map - I really like the tile effect, and Merrix's Greek-style toga and robe is very well done); Rick Drennan's portrait of Jaxon d'Cannith on page 23 (I especially like his contemplative look); his portrait of Endira d'Deneith on page 30 (she looks very down-to-earth and yet wears an expression of confidence that's very well done); Anne Stokes' portrait of Lysse Lyrriman d'Sivis on page 74 (very serene, and not unlike Peter Parker's Aunt May from the Spider-Man comic books, albeit with a dragonmark on her cheek); her portrait of Corius Corralyn d'Sivis on page 76 (another elderly gnome, this one managing to come across looking like a competent Pilgrim with pointed ears); and her portrait of Lady Aeylia d'Thuranni on page 88 (she does a very distinctive-looking bald female elf, and she also did a really nice job on her raven). On the negative side, the three members of the Triumvirate on page 79 (also by Anne Stokes) are misattributed, which could cause some confusion; the first one is Khundar'aashta (not Daric d'Velderan), the second is Maagrim Torrn d'Tharashk (not Khundar'aashta), and the third is Daric (not Maagrim). If Wizards of the Coast ever decides to come out with an annual "Best Dressed/Worst Dressed" issue like People magazine does, I think the female spellcaster depicted on page 151 (artwork by Warren Mahy) would easily place high in the second category; her questionable outfit consists of a purple bikini that manages to include "floating" sleeves and pant-legs attached like stockings, and the unlikely ensemble is completed with a brown cape and backpack. Finally, Jon Hodgson's illustration of Taelyn d'Lyrandar on page 52 is okay, but the text specifically states that he doesn't have a dragonmark (and the stat block supports that), yet Jon's given him one on his forehead.
Dragonmarked is laid out as follows:
- Introduction: A quick 10-page section explaining what dragonmarks are, how they came about, and the effect they've had in the Eberron campaign world, plus various types of dragonmarked characters you might choose to play
- Chapter 1 - The Houses: Details on each of the Twelve Houses, with the House's history, entry requirements, Favored in House benefits, Lore (what your character knows about the House based on a specific Knowledge check), adaptation, and a sample NPC for each
- Chapter 2 - Prestige Classes: 12 new prestige classes, one for each of the Houses, each with details on the class' history, NPC reactions to members of that class, how to play a character with levels in the class, a Lore table, adaptation, and a sample NPC
- Chapter 3 - New Feats: 58 new feats, mostly geared towards using your dragonmarks in new ways
- Chapter 4 - Magic and Dragonmarks: 23 new spells and infusions, 3 new dragonmarked items, and a section on aberrant dragonmarks
One complaint I've heard in the past was that the dragonmarked seemed predominantly geared for NPCs, given that their dragonmarked-fueled abilities were not the splashy, exciting kinds of things that PCs tend to enjoy. While I rather agree with the assessment (or perhaps it's better to say that I can see where the view comes from), I think Dragonmarked goes a long way towards making dragonmarked PCs a more viable offering. Granted, some of the options presented here (especially some of the prestige classes) still seem rather geared towards NPCs as opposed to PCs (I don't see many players deciding to play a black dog, for example - a House Ghallanda halfling who uses his skills as an innkeeper to specialize in poisons), but it's a step in the right direction.
The vast majority of Dragonmarked is tied into Chapter 1 - a good 79 pages, or an even half of the 158 pages that actually have gaming material on them (as the last 2 pages are ads for other products), but as I found this to be the most interesting chapter in the book, I didn't mind at all. The prestige classes in Chapter 2 were okay, and some of them were above average, but a few of them followed the "let's take an aspect of the House into a completely opposite direction" ploy, like the black dog poisoner innkeepers I mentioned earlier, and the nosomatic chirurgeon, who uses his knowledge of the healing arts to spread disease. (Oddly enough, both of those examples are the halfling Houses - you silly halflings!) My favorite of the prestige classes is the Blade of Orien, which has 10 levels devoted to using dimension leap and associated teleportation-style powers in interesting ways; eventually, they can teleport foes off of speeding lightning rails or straight into jail cells!
The dragonmark feats are okay, but after awhile they just start to get a bit silly; it seems like you can use a feat to get your dragonmark to do just about anything you want, from turning itself into a version of the shield spell to preventing yourself from ever being nauseated or sickened. The short section on aberrant dragonmarks was interesting, and it's also important to note that Dragonmarked supersedes information in the Eberron Campaign Setting book - specifically, the part that states that you can never improve an aberrant dragonmark in any way - now, with the material in this book, you can.
As far as the stat blocks went, they weren't too bad - not as bad as some in recent products, at least - but there were still quite a few more errors than I'm happy with. Here's my "unofficial errata" for Dragonmarked:
- p. 23, Jaxon d'Cannith, male human sorcerer 6: Skills should include Appraise +1 (+3 alchemical items) [0 ranks, +1 Int, +2 conditional synergy bonus from Craft (alchemy)] and Diplomacy +5 [0 ranks, +3 Cha, +2 synergy bonus from Bluff].
- p. 30, Endira d'Deneith, female human paladin 5/dragonmark heir 3: Smite evil attacks should be at +3 to attack, not +2 (+3 Cha).
- p. 35, Ryla d'Ghallanda, female halfling aristocrat 4/dragonmark heir 2: Masterwork silvered short sword damage should be 1d4-2/19-20, not 1d4-1/19-20 (-1 Str, -1 alchemical silver). Skills should include Climb +1 [0 ranks, -1 Str, +2 racial], Disguise +3 (+5 acting in character) [0 ranks, +3 Cha, +2 conditional synergy bonus from Bluff], and Jump +1 [0 ranks, -1 Str, +2 racial].
- p. 40, Ardras d'Jorasco, male halfling adept 9: AC should be 17, not 16 (+1 size, +3 Dex, +3 armor) - he's wearing masterwork studded leather which has a +3 armor bonus, not the +2 which is annotated in the stat block. Flat-footed AC should be 14, not 13. +2 dagger damage should be 1d3/19-20, not 1d3-2/19-20 (-2 Str, +2 magic weapon). It looks like he spent 35 of 36 skill points; I recommend bumping Concentration up to +13.
- p. 52, Taelyn d'Lyrandar, male half-elf expert 5/wizard 2: The save DC for charm person should be DC 13, not DC 14 (10 + spell level + Int bonus = 10 + 1 + 2 = 13). His bonus feat (as a wizard) should be Scribe Scroll, not Heroic Spirit; as a result, he shouldn't have any Action Points. Finally, there's no mention of a familiar, or why he doesn't have one.
- p. 57, Brina d'Medani, female half-elf rogue 3: Senses lists Listen +5, Spot +7, but Skills lists Listen +6, Spot +8; Skills is correct. Skills should include Survival -1 (+1 following tracks) [0 ranks, -1 Wis, +2 synergy from Search].
- p. 70, Elvinor Elorrenthi d'Phiarlan, female elf bard 8/shadowdancer 4: Flat-footed AC should be 20, not 17, due to uncanny dodge. AC line should mention the Dodge feat. Masterwork alchemical silvered dagger damage should be 1d4-2/19-20, not 1d4-1/19-20 (-1 Str, -1 alchemical silver). Skills should include Jump +1 [0 ranks, -1 Str, +2 synergy from Tumble]. It looks like she spent 125 of 135 skill points.
- p. 76, Corius Corralyn d'Sivis, male gnome expert 6: Skills should include Decipher Script +4 [0 ranks, +2 Int, +2 least Mark of Scribing].
- p. 81, Kalaash'arrna, male half-orc rogue 4/master inquisitive 3: Flat-footed AC should be 16, not 14, due to uncanny dodge.
- p. 88, Lady Aeylia d'Thuranni, female elf aristocrat 1/urban ranger 4/shadow hunter 5: Wild empathy should be +6 (+2 magical beasts), not +4 (+0 magical beasts) [UrRgr4 + 2 Cha = +6]. As an urban ranger 4, she should have Endurance and Urban Tracking as bonus feats. No mention of an animal companion.
- p. 101, Milya d'Orien, female human fighter 6/blade of Orien 3: Fort should be +8, not +10 (+5 as Ftr6, +1 as BoO3, +1 Con, +1 cloak). Dimension leap ability should be 4/day, not 5/day (1 with least dragonmark, +1 with lesser dragonmark, +2 from blade of Orien class levels).
- p. 104, Sulwar d'Cannith, human male ranger 3/artificer 1/Cyre scout 4: +1 longbow attacks should be at +9/+4 ranged, not +7/+2 (+6 BAB, +2 Dex, +1 magic weapon), and +7/+7/+2 ranged with Rapid Shot, not +5/+5/+0.
- p. 107, Danlerna d'Deneith, female human rogue 6/Deneith warden 6: Flat-footed AC should be 21, not 19, due to uncanny dodge. +2 rapier damage should be 1d6+2/15-20, not 1d6/15-20 (+0 Str, +2 magic weapon).
- pp. 113-114, Ari d'Medani, male half-elf cleric 4/dragonmark heir 1/Medani prophet 2: Senses lists Spot +8, yet Skills lists Spot +6; Skills seems correct (0 ranks, +3 Wis, +1 racial, +2 dragonmark).
- pp. 116-117, Garrett Thorngage d'Jorasco, male halfling druid 5/dragonmark heir 1/nosomatic chirurgeon 4: Fort should be +13, not +12 (+4 as Drd5, +2 as DrH1, +4 as NCh4, +2 Con, +1 racial). Ref should be +8, not +7 (+1 as Drd5, +2 as DrH1, +1 as NCh4, +3 Dex, +1 racial). Will should be +14 (+16 against fear), not +13 (+15 against fear) (+4 as Drd5, +2 as DrH1, +4 as NCh4, +3 Wis, +1 racial). Speed should be 25 ft., not 20 ft. (20 ft. base, down to 15 ft. for wearing a breastplate, +10 ft. for wearing boots of striding and springing). +1 scimitar attacks should be at +7/+2 melee, not +6/+1 (+6 BAB, +1 size, -1 Str, +1 magic weapon). Wild empathy should be +5 (+1 magical beasts), not +4 (+0 magical beasts) (Drd5 + 0 Cha = +5).
- p. 120, Kaleth Shol d'Phiarlan, male elf rogue 3/urban ranger 2/shadow hunter 5: Wild empathy should be +2 (-2 magical beasts), not +1 (-3 magical beasts) (UrRgr2 + 0 Cha).
- p. 123, Batwigg the Vole, male dwarf rogue 6/silver key 3: Flat-footed AC should be 18, not 15, due to uncanny dodge. Skills should include Survival +2 (+4 following tracks) [0 ranks, +2 Wis, +2 synergy bonus from Search].
- p. 126, Malena d'Lyrandar, female half-elf fighter 2/swashbuckler 3/storm sentry 4: Masterwork short sword damage (as part of Two-Weapon Fighting) should be 1d6/19-20, not 1d6+1/19-20 (half of a +1 Str bonus gets rounded down to +0). Skills should include Intimidate +3 [0 ranks, +1 Cha, +2 synergy bonus from Bluff].
- p. 133, Alirrin Shir, male human ranger 4/Vadalis beastkeeper 3: He has 7 feats, but he should have 8 (3 as a 7th-level character, +1 human bonus feat, +3 bonus ranger feats, +1 bonus Vadalis beastkeeper feat). Also, a heavy warhorse is not a valid animal companion for a ranger; a heavy horse is. This pretty much invalidates the whole stat block that follows (heavy warhorse animal companion), which will have to be rebuilt from scratch.
- p. 133, Heavy Warhorse Animal Companion: Change "Heavy Warhorse" to "Heavy Horse." Change "Listen +6" to "Listen +5" in the Senses line. Change AC to "16 (-1 size, +2 Dex, +5 natural), touch 11, flat-footed 14." Change hp to "32 (5 HD)." Change the saving throw line to read "Fort +6, Ref +6, Will +2." Change Melee to "2 hooves +1 (1d8+2)" since heavy horses treat hoof attacks as secondary attacks, and don't get a bite attack. Change Base Atk to "+3." Change Grp to "+11." Change Abilities to "Str 18, Dex 15, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 6." Delete "Improved Natural Attack" from the Feats line. Change Skills to "Listen +5, Spot +5."
Besides the stat blocks, the proofreading and editing jobs were very well done. I only spotted a very few errors that made it past editor Scott Fitzgerald Gray, editorial assistant Logan Bonner, and editing manager Kim Mohan: namely, a couple of sentences missing a word, a few misspelled words ("sentrys" instead of "sentries," "tribex" instead of "tribes"), an extraneous character ("-any" instead of "any"), a sentence missing a period at the end, several places where a "?" was used instead of a "†" (the "dagger" symbol commonly used in footnotes) in a table or two, the occasional spell name (or, in one instance, just part of a spell name) not being italicized, a few "titles" not being in bold font in a stat block, and the "D" after domain spells not being in superscript font. All in all, not bad for a 160-page book, and much better than a few other recent books; I commend the editorial staff for their diligence on this book.
Dragonmarked is a useful entry in the Eberron line, and I suppose with a little bit of tweaking, you could use some of the information in this book in a non-Eberron campaign as well. (The prestige classes and House information already had adaptation notes provided.) I give it a solid "4 (Good)."
Finally, for whatever reason, an EN World messageboard user named Graf tried to post his own review of this book and was unable to. I'm going to include a link to his review (which, as a temporary solution, he posted as a messageboard thread until the problem can be fixed); for those interested, you can find the thread at http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=183304.
