Eberron—first look convinced me to buy

[Charles Dunwoody]

Eberron—first look convinced me to buy

I was true neutral on Eberron before it came out. Looked okay, might order from Amazon. I took one look at it at Waldenbooks and bought it.

First Impressions
Cover. A warforged busting right out of the cover, carrying a treasure chest. Looks like a mix of 30 years of D&D treasure hauling and a new race. Looks good so far.

Pages –2 to –1. Before the official page count I see a black and reddish map of Eberron (scale shows over 10,000 miles of world). Something I could hold up to my players and say it is hanging on the wall of the harbormaster’s office. So far, warforged with treasure and continents of adventure. Good.

Page 1. Title and author page. Credit given where credit is due. Kudos to Keith.

Page 2 and 3. Wow. Four adventurers hauling treasure and up to their necks in trouble. Wraiths and a warforged titan attacking them in old ruins. Looks like my kind of D&D.

Page 4. Credits page. Playtesters listed also.

Page 5. Table of contents.

Page 6. Graphic novel style art (gritty and violent) of a living spell attacking more adventurers. Again, D&D that I’m familiar with but with an extra twist.

Page 7-8. Intro. Wizards explains what they wanted, which is either for consumers to buy and play the best world they could find or buy it and mine it for ideas. Then the author puts forth the tone he wanted. D&D but darker and grittier with more action, rich history, more magic, and player characters who are heroes. I’m sold and I buy it.

This world feels real. I’d buy it just to read it, loving fantasy novels as much as I do. The book is beautiful and the world engaging.

Quick list of things I checked:

Artificer has starting gold listed. Shows knowledge of rules and attention to detail.

Druids have animal companions listed by region. Recommended in DMG but I haven’t see it before.

Regions have recommended races and classes. Purely for roleplaying, no rule benefit/penalty that I could find.

DM section with plot themes such as exploration, scavenger hunt, or evil mastermind . Should have been in the DMG in my opinion. Great way for DM to check that he and his players know they are playing the same type of game.

 

[Sir Elton]

Hmm. Interesting. However, I have some Atlantean campaign stuff to record on paper. So, if you excuse me . . .

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

Something I really like is the amount of flavor text in the book. That's right! FLAVOR TEXT! Eberrron, unlike most D&D books, doesn't read like an instruction manual.

It has a lot of crunchy stuff, but the amount of setting info and solid plot starters are mind boggling. I don't know where to start. Everything is just too cool.

 

[dropshadow]

I agree a 100%!

I was on the fence to and was actually gonna buy Grim Tales. The book just sort of leaped into my hands. First impressions were good and when I got it home the initial scan was good too.

The setting is just bursting with flavor! Like Midnight this is another book where I get campaign ideas off almost every page.

Waaaaaay back when I wasn't impressed and like a few others on this board I thought Eberron would be a total failure. The setting just didn't interest me at all. Guess where my next campaign is set?

 

[reveal]

During our dinner break at our last session, dropshadow went out and grabbed the book. He brought it back and my wife scanned it for about 5-10 minutes. Guess where she wants the next campaign to be?

 

[2WS-Steve]

The first impressions threads from Finland convinced me to pick this one up. Actually, the specific comment that the world has trains that run over lightning stones was cool enough to make me think the flavor of the world was something I could get into.

So I picked it up today. Still too early for anything definitive, but this looks very good and will probably be the WotC campaign setting I use. The book itself has a nice graphic novel feel, with a few full page spreads that show some action in Wayne Reynolds' darkish tone and some text describing the story in the scene. My guess is that Wayne Reynolds will be for Eberron what Larry Elmore was for Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance--the artist that supplies the feel of the setting.

Anyway, after a lot of years of looking outside TSR for campaign ideas I'm really pleased with this. It appeals to my desire for somewhat wild and over the top stuff.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

What's this I heard from Monte's forum about "no fold out map"?

There's a big map, right?

Right?

Because, if there isn't ... well ... we have laws about that kind of thing around these parts.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I picked up Eberron after a quick once-over in the store.

Lots of good stuff, but I don't think its inherently better than any other setting-just different.

I really like the new races though!

There have been enough sentient constructs in fiction that the addition of the Warforged is a natural. And the 2 shapeshifting races are cool. The last race is the best version of Storm Constantine's Wraethu I've ever seen in an RPG.

However, the blend of Tech and Magic particularly appealed to me- this is the perfect setting to run a campaign based on Harry Turtledove's "Darkness" saga ( a "re-imagining" of WWII in a fantasy world setting).

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

What's this I heard from Monte's forum about "no fold out map"?

There's a big map, right?

Right?

Because, if there isn't ... well ... we have laws about that kind of thing around these parts.

Sadly, there is no big map.
Though I hear there is going to be one in Dungeon....or was it Dragon?

 

[seankreynolds]

I only have a pre-release playtest copy (bound a la Kinko's, B&W) but so far I have read through the first three chapters and I'm quite impressed. Expect a formal review when I'm done (probably next week).