Eberron...is it worth picking -up?

[Vocenoctum]

Oh, and travel is only easy and fast if you are going where the Lightning Rail is going... or rich enough to pay for an off-the-track Airship. Otherwize you are stuck with caravans or horses.

This is one of the things I like about the setting. I've made the Lightning Rail more common in the setting myself, adding lines whereever I need them, but they're not everywhere. The DM can use fast travel (without glossing over weeks of trudging travel across fields), or make the players walk their way to where they need to go. You've got the option built into the setting.


Airships are the one I always found amusing, since they're in nearly every setting but only Eberron catchs flak for them.

I like Action Points, though I tend to horde them a bit much and never use them all before leveling.

Races: I like them, but I also think any of them are removable from the system without a problem. Even Warforged can be lifted out. (They were a result of the Last War, not a cause. They've never done anything essential, and the Lord of Blades can lift out easily as well.) I do think they add to the game, but they're not required.

Class: Artificer is an interesting class, haven't played on directly so can't say too much on them.

Countries: There are parallels to real world, but not in a direct way I think. More of "if you want to set your campaign in Siberia, we've got a place to put it". I think that's part of the openness of the campaign, you can easily find a place for everything, though none of it is required.

 

[mcrow]

Eberron is by far my favorite 3.5 WotC setting. I also think that the novels for Eberron as a whole have been very good by gaming standards.

 

[Thyrkill]

Thanks very much. Based upon the replies, I went out and picked up a copy of Eberron...a very interesting read so far.

Another question springs to mind...What sort of DMing style does Eberron require? I mean this in the sense of how to run it "properly," especially in keeping with the style of the setting.

Thanks again,
Matt

 

[Prince of Happiness]

And hey! With Lightning Rails or Airships, you can now simulate those crazy heist scenes that you always wanted, but with the lethal velocities/altitudes! Nothing says redshirts better than being able to push goons off the side and listen to their screams as they fall to their doom.

ZOMG, you have finally sold me on Ebberronnn with just two sentences wherein others have expended thousands of words to get me interested in Eebeeeerrrrooon.

I wanna push redshirts off of trains and airships and hear them scream!!!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Thanks very much. Based upon the replies, I went out and picked up a copy of Eberron...a very interesting read so far.

Another question springs to mind...What sort of DMing style does Eberron require? I mean this in the sense of how to run it "properly," especially in keeping with the style of the setting.

Watch "Raiders of the Lost Ark" over and over and over again. Have the party all be employees of a major university, including the obligatory worldweary veteran of the Last War, except for the one (secret) employee of a news rag.

Send them all after a McGuffin in Xendrik, and have them race 1) an evil organization, 2) a rival party. Give them dramatic mechanical traps to overcome, a chase through the jungle (scorpion-loving jungle dark elves or giants slapping trees aside while in hot pursuit both work well for this) and then a betrayal just as they think they're about to get their ride back home to Khorvaire, preferably by a femme fatale. (No cute kid sidekicks, please.)

Look in the DMG2 for the list of archetypal adventure settings and try to cram more than one into each adventure. Make it big, make it eye-popping, make it hair-raising.

 

[broghammerj]

Urohawk

I played in only one adventure, but had a blast. It reminds me of Indian Jones/Wild West type feel. For some reason it reminds me of the westward expansion in the US. My biggest complaint is the main sourcebook. Unfortunately it reads like stereo instructions. I had problems following the timeline of the Last War and putting it all together to make sense of what was going for the characters in the present. Overall, get the core book to give it a try

 

[Glyfair]

Another question springs to mind...What sort of DMing style does Eberron require? I mean this in the sense of how to run it "properly," especially in keeping with the style of the setting.

The Eberron book covers it pretty well. In fact, I don't think there is one DMing style that Eberron requires. There are a number of different styles the campaign supports well (a pulp action adventure actually can run quite differently from a noir adventure).

If you want to run Eberron there are a few adventures I recommend that give a strong feel of the campaign style.

Dungeon #133 – "Chimes at Midnight" by Nicholas Logue

No only one of the best Eberron adventures, but one of the best adventures since 3E was released.

Dungeon #115 – “Steel Shadows” by Keith Baker

Gives a great sense for the feel of lower Sharn where the population is expected to work and live, but actually get no support from the city (city guard won't enter the area, etc). It also serves as an introduction to the attitudes people have towards warforged.

Dungeon #136 – "Tensions Rising" by Ryan Smalley

Find a missing airship and then escape with it as opponents' try to keep you from escaping,

If you have access to someone with the old Mark of Heroes adventures I highly recommend "No Ticket" (nice chase aboard a lightning rail) and "The Delirium Stone" (Keith Baker transports the PCs back to a pivotal scene in the War of the Mark).

 

[Nightfall]

Mh,

Yeah well doesn't help to figure out how the Loth hierarchy would work. I mean sure underground is fine and all for Devils. (Classic Hell and all), but not sure for the Demons and/or Loths it's that ...D&Dish. I'm not against Keith's world. Just think he was only looking at Sharn much the same way Greenwood was looking at the Dales and/or Waterdeep.

In any case...

Thry,

My advice to you about running an Eberron game, make sure the player's understand this is more "High Renniance" than medieval. Showcase swashbuckling, intrigue and probably more Jame Bondish type deals than general "dungeon grab." There is that aspect to parts of Khoviare, but mostly exploring Xen'drik is better suited for something like that.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I do not run Eberron.

It is unlikely that I will run Eberron any time in the relatively near future.

The reason is simple - I am currently running Iron Kingdoms, Spycraft, and very occasionally these days, my homebrew setting. I also plan out and run small campaigns in Skull & Bones, though only rarely. I have too much on my plate already.

If Eberron had come out nearer the beginning of 3.X I would very likely be running it and having a fine old time I have a heck of a lot more interest in ECS than in Fogotten Realms, Greyhawk, or Dragonlance, the 'magic as technology' feel is wonderful. Magic is common enough in a D&D setting that folks would see it in their everyday lives, at least if they live in the big cities, and someplace other than the boondocks.

The pulp action world, where a great war that is not centuries in the past, but within PCs lifetimes adds a nice 1930s feel. It just feels like more Indiana Jones than Conan or Bilbo, and for me this is a good thing.

The Auld Grump

 

[Stone Dog]

Yeah well doesn't help to figure out how the Loth hierarchy would work. I mean sure underground is fine and all for Devils. (Classic Hell and all), but not sure for the Demons and/or Loths it's that ...D&Dish.

It helps a bit (at least for me) if you don't think of Khyber merely as Underdark, but almost as a seperate transitive plane all by itself. Keith has mentioned on the boards that Khyber is almost a wholly unnatural place and that the prisons of the Rajahs and other ancient evils are very often more like demiplanes than they are mere underground reaches. The demonweb pits are probably down there somewhere, or nestled at the core of a great mountain. Some where you will find cavers where gravity pulls you towards any given wall instead of down and the howling winds drive delvers mad.

Khyber is a place where all evils have been bound and sealed till the world's ending. It doesn't really conform to natural laws anymore. Wandering through the body of the Dragon Below is as dangerous and unpredictable as blindly planeshifting through the lower planes.