Eberron Novel: The City of Towers?

[ragboy]

Heh.

Spoiler

By the end of the book, Jode is far, far more pulpy. So to speak.

Rude!

I really like what happened to the characters over the duration of the novel. I can't wait to learn more about them, and I have a feeling Pierce will be the focus of the next book.

I finished last night and I have to agree. The resolution was pretty well done: Revealing some of the mysteries while setting up the next book with additional questions. I found the final battle scene kinda clunky. I love Story Hours, but I'm not sure if a 'blow-by-blow' style is necessarily the best way to describe the action in a novel, especially when you can hear dice rolling with every sentence. There was enough cool stuff going on that I ignored this little nitpick. I have two comments:

- My next character will have a 'lightsaber' dagger ala Daine. (we'll see if the DM approves)
- I would have rather seen the battle

Spoiler

between Pierce and the mind flayer or at least more of it. I understand why he did it this way, but it seemed like the big baddy got shafted as far as final confrontation spotlight goes. Maybe he returns in later episodes.

Anyway. Overall an admirable first novel. I look forward to continuing the series. Doesn't Matt's Eberron novel come out next month? They still have the first War-Torn novel coming out in March, too... hmm.

 

[Eremite]

(snip) And in the Eberron campaign setting book, there's mention of one or two male medusae. Apparently maedar don't exist in Eberron, and I'm alright with that. (snip)

The recent FR book, Lady of Poison, had a male medusa as the principal character. As we have yet to see the maedar officially statted up for 3E/3.5E perhaps it means that WotC has decided to simply drop the maedar idea?

 

[JoeGKushner]

I can't bring myself to pay retail for paperbacks these days.

I have a $20 gift card from b&n and decided to check it out online. Same price.

Ah well, Amazon or Books a Million it is.

 

[Klaus]

Rise, dead thread, riiiiiiise!



Just finished reading this, and I liked it a lot. I really liked all the characters (even Jode). And

Spoiler

it seems like the main bad guy with them tentacles will be coming back later

.

Sometimes we get so attached to the image of the Adamantine fighter warforged that it's refreshing and very cool to have the Mithral-bodied Pierce as the stealthy type. According to Keith Baker in a thread over at Worlds of DnD, the party is something like this:
Lei - Artificer 6-8
Daine - Fighter 6-8
Pierce - Scout X/Fighter X (total levels 6-8)
Jode - Rogue 1/Bard X or Rogue 1/Bard X/Healer X (total levels 6-8)
And he'll probably not level them up during the series, so they'll circa this power level.

Spoiler

Of course, if Daine later on manifests the Syberys Mark of the Sentinel, he'll be 12th level.

 

[Napftor]

I'm about 50+ pages into it. The book's a fun and quick read so far. I figured it would be after reading that little pamphlet story that came with the first adventure. As for Jode, his mysterious background (at least this far into the reading) works for me. I'd rather not have all the backstories dumped on me at once. And if they don't reveal it in this book, that's fine with me.

 

[Dareoon Dalandrove]

I thought it was just an OK book. I wouldn't recommend it, but I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading it. Keith Baker tries too hard to introduce all the elements of his world in the book rather than slowly introducing them over the whole series. There're some interesting characters but they didn't seem to fit the story well. First you have the leader Daine who, used to be a captain in the Crye army. You'd think that since he walks around with a sword strapped to his hip he could use it. Not this guy. In every single fight he's disarmed or opts to fight with his dagger. Hold on to your sword man!!! The other thing that bothered me was the fact that in the very beginning he's commanding one of his soldiers to destroy an airship. Basically dispel magic on one of the bound elementals holding the thing up. He's got firepower under him. He's got loyal followers, his party. He's also got a past as a merc who's done some bad things and been around the block. But he gets beat down all the time. What did he roll poorly at every level?

Overall it was uninspiring. Nothing stood out and made me want to run out and buy Eberron or even PLAY in Eberron. I might buy the second book, only in hopes that the writing gets better, if not I wont even bother with the third.

 

[Staffan]

How does this book relate to the Death at Whitehearth booklet from Shadows of the Last War?

Not much at all. They mention Whitehearth every now and then, but never what happened there. More like, "After all we've been through? Whitehearth? Keldon Ridge? Someotherplace?"

 

[Staffan]

or even hints from her as to whether this was an arranged marriage, a childhood love separated from her by war, or whatever.

I thought it was made pretty clear that it was an arranged marriage.

 

[Ishamael]

I thought it was just an OK book. I wouldn't recommend it, but I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading it. Keith Baker tries too hard to introduce all the elements of his world in the book rather than slowly introducing them over the whole series. There're some interesting characters but they didn't seem to fit the story well. First you have the leader Daine who, used to be a captain in the Crye army. You'd think that since he walks around with a sword strapped to his hip he could use it. Not this guy. In every single fight he's disarmed or opts to fight with his dagger. Hold on to your sword man!!! The other thing that bothered me was the fact that in the very beginning he's commanding one of his soldiers to destroy an airship. Basically dispel magic on one of the bound elementals holding the thing up. He's got firepower under him. He's got loyal followers, his party. He's also got a past as a merc who's done some bad things and been around the block. But he gets beat down all the time. What did he roll poorly at every level?

Overall it was uninspiring. Nothing stood out and made me want to run out and buy Eberron or even PLAY in Eberron. I might buy the second book, only in hopes that the writing gets better, if not I wont even bother with the third.

It seems like you didn't like it for the same reasons I DID like it. Daine was a soldier, a captain even, and yes, he gets his butt kicked. In my opinion, that makes him far more believable and interesting than the drow who carves through an army of giants or an archmage who dispatches dozens of orcs at a time.

He has his falts. He has his weaknesses. He was the commander of the fighting force, not the fighting force himself.

That's Pierce's job.

 

[Hellcow]

My next character will have a 'lightsaber' dagger ala Daine. (we'll see if the DM approves)

It's actually just adamantine, which gets to ignore hardness below 20. Add Improved Sunder, a small Strength bonus, and some Power Attack and you can break a lot of things. If you're smart, though, you'll get an adamantine greatsword instead of a dagger, since the cost difference is trivial; unfortunately for Daine, the dagger was all Kharizal had lying around the workshop.

Thanks for reading the novel - hopefully you'll enjoy the next one. And yes, Pierce (and, for that matter, the Dreaming Dark) will certainly play a more prominent role in book two!