Eberron...is it worth picking -up?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think there's a lot of clever stuff in Eberron. I love colleges or broadsheets as patrons, and having lands specifically designated as mysterious continents full of ruins and mystery.

A lot of the mechanical stuff is so good, I hope it makes it into future versions of the game, like living spells. (The ECS has different ones than MM3.) Changelings are a lot more useful to me than dopplegangers, and I can even see an argument for putting in magewrights into a future DMG as an NPC class alongside the adept.

Eberron does feel too small at times, just in the number of nations and cultures available, but there's no rule that says it has to be the only setting a group ever plays in.

 

[stonegod]

Eberron really sticks its fingers into too many pies. One of the defining tenets is that you can find anything in D&D in Eberron.

The bullet may say "If it exists in D&D, then it has a place in Eberron", but the text says "... from the core rulebooks." This is probably the #1 misquoted thing about the ECS (and Eberron in general). They do try to give options to support non-core if you wish (thus the Player's Guide, note about theme-appropriate PrCs in Sharn: City of Towers, etc.), but the party line isn't "everything's in."

 

[Glyfair]

The bullet may say "If it exists in D&D, then it has a place in Eberron", but the text says "... from the core rulebooks." This is probably the #1 misquoted thing about the ECS (and Eberron in general). They do try to give options to support non-core if you wish (thus the Player's Guide, note about theme-appropriate PrCs in Sharn: City of Towers, etc.), but the party line isn't "everything's in."

And it's pretty clear that this has evolved, as well. It's been stated as well that the focus should be on having a place in Eberron. That doesn't mean that everything in D&D should fit in Eberron. The idea isn't that everything can be crammed into Eberron at once. It's that anything from D&D that a DM wants to use in his Eberron (perhaps at a player request) has a spot it can be placed.

Also, Player's Guide to Eberron added more confusion to this. It has sidebars giving places where you can fit many of the optional races and classes into the campaign world. Since these weren't clearly labeled as suggestions, some Eberron DMs took it as a sign that WotC was telling them they had to force these into their version of Eberron.

 

[C.W.Richeson]

I've played Eberron extensively, and one of the things I love about it is that there's always something new to do. Whether it's classic swords and sorcery, pirates, crime drama, politics, city based adventuring, or anything else Eberron supports it. No matter what neat new system WOTC puts out you'll find a niche for it in Eberron. It is, for me, the ultimate setting for 3.5 D&D. That it also happens to be well written (at least in the case of some products) and filled with interesting ideas and plot hooks is just a wonderful bonus.

I've written many Eberron reviews here if you're interested.

 

[EyeontheMountain]

If you are thinking of a published setting, by all means look at Eberron. It is a pretty broad world, and has a lot of odd thiings going on behind the scenes and in odd corners of the world.

But it is just not for me. I don't like steampunk or magicpunk. I prefer more classical fantasy, sans pseudo-technology and guns(though Eberron does not have guns as far as I know)

Eberron was a good setting, but I keep wondering what the runners-up in the contest were. Probably I would have liked them better.

 

[Ipissimus]

It depends on your tastes.

If you like the Final Fantasy games, steampunk, Flash Gordon, Shadowrun and realistic anime (Ninja Scroll over Dragonball Z), you might like Eberron. Indiana Jones and Doc Savage are also commonly mentioned, though the setting is quite a bit more epic than Indiana ever managed to achieve (I cite dwarves carving whole mountains into Mt. Rushmore-like visages).

Flash Gordon and Final Fantasy come in with the Lightning Rail (magic trains) and flying ships. Anime comes into it with some of the styling and epic settings (ever wanted to have a flying spellduel through a city of miles-high towers? You can in Eberron). Shadowrun enters stage right since you'll often work for shady guilds seeking advantage in the cutthroat world of trade.

If your idea of a fantasy game is Lord of the Rings, strict medievil governments over Renaisance-style monarchies and elves living in forrests this might not be the setting for you.

My only two criticisms of Eberron are that a. it was billed as 'anything you can use in other settings, you can use in this' and b. Some of the new feats are... not useless but you do need a real good job convincing yourself they might be worth it.

To explain a: If you like the planes the way they are, you'll probably have a headache working out the new cosmology. In fact, alot of the fluff from alot of your other books in this respect won't mesh properly with Eberron. If you like Oriental Adventures, they, amazingly, neglected to incorporate an asian-themed kingdom or empire. This may not bother you at all, so it's not a problem as such, or it may drive you mad.

To explain b. Quite a few of the feats seem a little needless when you have a skill that covers it (Investigation, for example, is usually covered by a Search or Spot check) and I've had alot of players dismiss them out of hand. The Dragonmark feats seem nice but none of them seem to do much that the party wizard isn't going to be able to do better anyway, so taking them tends to require a specific character reason that overides your need for a better feat. The same goes for the Druid Domain feats... or Druid Initiate feats depending on your preference, interesting and cool but they don't seem to do much for the character.

All is not lost, however, if you've ever wanted to multiclass as a monk or paladin, or if you've ever wanted to play an Elvish Monk that uses a sword, there are one or two useful feats in the bunch.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I thought that I would never be into Eberron. I thought it sounded silly. Trains? Flying ships? Constructs-as-PCs? It just didn't seem like D&D; the same way guns didn't feel right before Freeport and psionics still don't.

Then I bought the Eberron Campaign Setting -- mostly out of a sense of 3E completism -- and read it. I was hooked. It's perfectly D&D. The warforged as a race -- though IMO slightly too powerful -- are fascinating to roleplay. The world is incredibly complex, and yet simple enough to summarize in broad strokes. The entire setting is designed so that PCs will have a very serious and very direct impact ... I own everything Eberron-related, and I can't think of more than a half-dozen NPCs above 12th level. The cosmology is much more interesting than the Great Wheel.

The best thing, though, is that Eberron is filled with things that make D&D even better. Stuff like dragonmarks, which allow even the most non-magical fighter of all fighters paradoxically to have inherent magic. Stuff like magewrights and artificers, which go a long way toward mitigating my dislike of D&D's "magic items out the butt" issue ... yes, everyone still has magic items out the butt, but at least it kinda makes sense now.

So yes, I went from disdainful to fanboy. (Albeit a critical one ... Explorer's Handbook was not a very good sourcebook.)

Give it a read, at least. If you don't like it, no harm done.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Keith Baker is quoted as saying the scale is wrong. Honestly I don't care. If the players never notice, then it's not important.

Do you have a source for this? As I was running Whisper of the Vampire's Blade, I found myself thinking, several times, "Seriously? One nation is 1500 miles by 2000 miles?" That's approximately half the size of the United States, and is just way too big for my tastes.

I'd love to see what KB feels the scale should be.

 

[Sidekick]

Can’t recommend it enough.

Eberron is what kept me playing D&D to be honest. It’s fresh, its interesting, it embraces the idea that the PCs ARE the heroes and that the whole campaign setting can scale with them. The new races are great (although the shifters are a bit screwy mechanically) and the new classes like magewright and Artificer add lost to the setting.

Dragonmarks are totally awesome and really add some depth to the PHB races. There’s nothing like being a fighter who can cast protection from arrows 1/day. It sure saves your bacon at least once every now and then.

I say give it a go, at least buy the ECS. If you don’t like it that much you’re bound to find some bits that you’d like to cannibalise for your own homebrew campaign setting.

Here’s my list of good/great Eberron books
• Eberron Campaign Setting (GREAT)
• Sharn: City of Towers (very good)
• Dragonmarked (good)
• Faiths of Eberron

Middling/good sources (depends how much you’d use them)
• Races of Eberron
• Secrets of Xendrix
• Magic of Faerun
• Explorer’s Handbook
• Five Nations (poor quality but some good stuff in amongst the dross)

 

[Sir Elton]

Hello All,

I was flipping through Secrets of Sarlona yesterday, liked what I saw, and started wondering...Is Eberron worth picking-up and trying? I have been very stand-offish towards Eberron until now, mostly because I was immersed in the demise of my campaign, but also because of all the negative response to it. For every one positive thing I read about it, it was quickly followed by three negatives, mostly harping on the size of the world, the Lightning Train thingie, and Warforged.

That being said, I was wondering if those who play in or use Eberron could let me know their opinions and impressions. I don't know much about it so anything will help.

Thanks,
Matt

Short, flippant answer: YES!

I write reviews for RPG.net.

Interesting, so did I.