Eberron sneak peek!!!

[Truth Seeker]

Great, thanks!

By the way, to people who are reading this thread and looking for more information about Eberron, I humbly point you to a little site I've created about the setting:

Jhonen Olain's Eberron Journal​

It's basically a collection of every scrap and tidbit of Eberron information that's been leaked by Keith Baker or on message boards like these. I feel like a lot of people who hear one thing about Eberron assume there's nothing below the surface. Those people write off the ideas as derivative. But when you see the care with which those ideas have been assembled and fleshed out... it's hard not to get excited.

Nice Site, and you are welcome.

 

[~Johnny~]

You said something about the alignments being more subjective... were you implying that BoVD & BoED would not apply here as well (moral relativism or something) or were you just saying there is alot more variation in each race's alignment? (such as, instead of most elves being CG, you see just as many CN, NE, N, etc elves?)

In general, the trend in Eberron seems to be toward making alignment more of an individual choice, as opposed to a "everyone living in this city is neutral good" thing. The new alignment-oriented rulebooks will still apply, but alignment will, in general, be more case-by-case and (you might say) realistic.

For Keith Baker's extensive comments on this subject, click here. Here's a snippet:

"We are taking a slightly different approach to alignment. The first has already been mentioned in one of the articles, and that is that there are very few things that have mandatory alignments. Wererats aren't always evil and gold dragons aren't always good. The second is a broader look at alignment -- using more of a scale of shades of gray as opposed to pure black and white. What does it mean to have an evil alignment? One of the main elements is the willingness to put your own needs ahead of the needs of others. Well, by that definition, how many people do you know who are evil? In a big city, you're going to find an awful lot of evil people. So you're a paladin, and you discover that the innkeeper is evil. First off, you can't just cut him down where he stands; being "evil" is not a crime. The question you have to wonder is just how evil is he? Odds are, he's just greedy and selfish; he'd be happy to overcharge you for your meal, but he won't murder you while you sleep. Then again, you never know..."

 

[Hardhead]

You said something about the alignments being more subjective... were you implying that BoVD & BoED would not apply here as well (moral relativism or something) or were you just saying there is alot more variation in each race's alignment? (such as, instead of most elves being CG, you see just as many CN, NE, N, etc elves?)

In a post on the WotC messageboards the creator (who goes by the name Hellcow) said:

Alignment is still a part of Eberron. Removing alignment completely would have a lot of mechanical implications and would have more of an impact on importing or exporting material to and from other settings than, say, action points. With that said, we are taking a slightly different approach to alignment. The first has already been mentioned in one of the articles, and that is that there are very few things that have mandatory alignments. Wererats aren't always evil and gold dragons aren't always good. The second is a broader look at alignment -- using more of a scale of shades of gray as opposed to pure black and white. What does it mean to have an evil alignment? One of the main elements is the willingness to put your own needs ahead of the needs of others. Well, by that definition, how many people do you know who are evil? In a big city, you're going to find an awful lot of evil people. So you're a paladin, and you discover that the innkeeper is evil. First off, you can't just cut him down where he stands; being "evil" is not a crime. The question you have to wonder is just how evil is he? Odds are, he's just greedy and selfish; he'd be happy to overcharge you for your meal, but he won't murder you while you sleep. Then again, you never know...

It's worth noting that human evil is one of the forces the Silver Flame strives to combat -- but that is generally a philosophical battle as opposed to a physical one, the work of the church ministry as opposed to the church militant.

At the same time, there are some foes out there that are very black and white. This allows the DM to pick the style of place best suited to his or her group. If they like ethical and moral dilemmas, then urban adventures, corruption within governments and churches, and a number of the more complex conspiracies are ideal things to use. If the players prefer straight-up action, they can fight to keep groups like the Order of the Emerald Claw from seizing ancient artifacts and posing a threat to the world as we know it. The goal of Eberron is to embrace multiple different playstyles. As a whole, it's "pulp/noir" -- but it's up to you to decide the balance between the two.

Hopefully that made SOME sense...

In another post on the IGN messageboards (in the new D&D MMRPG board), he said

The main thing is that good and evil are viewed on a much broader spectrum. Detect evil lets you spot evil folks. Let's say you are a paladin and you detect evil and discover that the innkeeper is evil. It's possible that this means he plans to murder you in your sleep. It's more likely that he's just a greedy bastard who will try to cheat you out of every copper that he can. With most people (clerics and fiends notwithstanding) a spell like detect evil will tell you that someone is evil, but not how evil they are. Likewise, if I'm the King of Breland, I may *want* an evil man to be my spymaster; a ruthless man may make a more effective spy than a good one. If you tell the king "Half you court is evil!" he might say "If they get their jobs done, it's no concern of mine."

This actually has some corollary in the real world. When corporations started using personality tests in hiring people, they found that the best people for sales departments were often borderline sociopaths (ie people that had little regard for others' feelings, and had no compunctions about screwing over and lying to people). These people are now actively sought by many companies, if you believe the people that make the personality tests (of course, no company would admit to activly seeking out borderline sociopaths for their sales departments. It'd be a PR disaster!)

 

[Truth Seeker]

More?

Hey Johnny, nice use of the pic...I didn't see it the first time. Anyway, that is not all of them...I have one that I am saving, and waiting for response from a certain mag...to see if they will use it down the line.

If they don't for some reason...I will put it up on the gallery thereafter, and you can use it on your site.

And on the top of that, your site has been shown at WOTC forums as the best possile source of info on Eberron.

KUdos lad...

 

[~Johnny~]

Truth Seeker: thanks for the accolades, and for allowing me to use your photo. I was going to ask permission before I posted it, but so far with this site I've found that it's easier just to say, "I put your thing on my site. See? Is that cool?"

Sometime during the next week, I'll be posting an interview with Keith Baker. Stay tuned!

 

[Truth Seeker]

Links in the chain.

Truth Seeker: thanks for the accolades, and for allowing me to use your photo. I was going to ask permission before I posted it, but so far with this site I've found that it's easier just to say, "I put your thing on my site. See? Is that cool?"

Sometime during the next week, I'll be posting an interview with Keith Baker. Stay tuned!

Hey...its' cool...as long it is for a good cause. It is not everyday I can contribute in helping a game system get some buzz. I had run a link of some the pics to the WOTC site (at Keith's suggestion...(snicker) about making them jealous or something.) But EnWorld is getting the most of them...at the lastest count 12 so far.

In all, it was a quirky and fun game...I had a ball... and that is rare for me, but then again, I went in blind, with no expections...in the end, I had fun.

 

[qstor]

It sounds cool. I cant wait for the RPGA campaign to start.

Mike

 

[BrooklynKnight]

Well, i decided to post more of what I remember. After numerous emails begging, and an offer of 300$ to tell someone something I dont know....i figure i better just get it into the open.

City of Sharn (i think its called that.)

The City was a scaling city built upon the cities that preceded it. The original city was subterranian, the second above that, and this one above that. It reached miles into the sky actually.
You had magically powered "lifts" and skywalks.

The unique arcitechture of the city required flying messengers. One of the "houses" of the area owned a buisness of Delivery Harpies. Thats right, Harpies that flew around the city making deliveries and sending messages.
Like any scaled city, the bottom has the poor and the top has the rich.

Artificers:
The Artificers are incredible. They are like the mechanics of the fantasy world when it comes to buffs and magical items. They can create one use items for themselves, and later on for others. They can cast spells called infusions that grand temporary weapon properties.

Kinda makes it worth more just carrying around a masterwork weapon and having an arficer infuse em before a fight.

They build the Warforged and are the primary class to repair them.

Feats: Dragonpaths or scales or somethinng. I forget what they are called. These feats are linked to your bloodline and do something special. They grow with your character much like Weapons from TGM's Artifacts of the Ages. And i dont mean damage or more uses a day, it grows in new and intresting ways.

Shifters: These lycanthrope descendants have this very light "shifting" ability where they gain an aspect of the lycanthrope they are decended from. Its similar but maybe weaker then Animal Affinity from the psionic books. I'm not sure to be honest.

Magic Items are more often but only in the temporary sense. SKR would say that it Jips the players but....i dunno how to react there. When I fought guys with magic items and they turned out to be fake, i wasnt as upset as i thought i would be.

cant htink of anything else now.

 

[Truth Seeker]

The Fake out...

LOL....hey, if the same thing...if it was at the Tavern, they swung first, well sort of, the Warforged had a dislike against humans, and it SHOWED...he just manhandle one of the mercs, and threw him across the bar....then everything went south.

Johnny...the Mag, has responded, so the extra pic is going to them.

ArthurQ, from the sleepless day you had...your report is near damn accurate. I did the reverse, I was running on a 26 hour day...(don't ask), and one thing, we were lucky to get the chance to play the new setting, because...it was not on the schedule listing of events.

 

[Hellcow]

Well, i decided to post more of what I remember. After numerous emails begging, and an offer of 300$ to tell someone something I dont know...

Shucks, no one offered ME $300...

A word of caution, more to the other folks reading the thread than to Arthur: The people who played in the preview received pregenerated characters and played through half an adventure, but it's not as if they were given copies of the corebook to read. I am confident that the party got a clear sense of the tone of the world, but they only saw a few locations, and many things were glossed over. While there was a character with a dragonmark, he didn't get any detailed information about the nature or mechanics of dragonmarks. Likewise, players saw 1 shifter and 1 warforged character; Arthur asked a lot of good questions about the warforged, but he still didn't see the corebook entry, and there is information and rules still to be revealed. Shifters also have a lot going on mechanically, much of which may be revealed in the next issue of Dragon.

Magic Items are more often but only in the temporary sense. SKR would say that it Jips the players but....i dunno how to react there. When I fought guys with magic items and they turned out to be fake, i wasnt as upset as i thought i would be.

To clarify, the issue here was that the party encountered a group of people with weapons that had been enhanced by an artificer. Fundamentally, it's the same concept as encountering a group buffed by a wizard or cleric -- just slightly more confusing because it seems like you've found magic items. In retrospect, detect magic and Spellcraft should probably allow a character to tell the difference between a permanent magic item and a temporarily infused one, and this may in fact already be specified in the Eberron corebook. So while I'm glad to hear that it didn't bother you, Arthur, we may try to prevent it from being an issue in the future.

They build the Warforged and are the primary class to repair them.

Artificers are effectively the clerics for the Warforged, but it's not simply the case that "artificers build warforged". The precise history of the warforged and their current place in the world was not discussed in detail during the demo, and there's a little more to it than that.

Also, somewhere I saw someone say that most warforged are 1-5 years old. This is clearly the result of a misunderstanding. What I said was that Warforged actually have the opposite starting age progression from other races; the complex classes (like wizard) actually start out younger than the simple classes, because the first warforged made were fighters, warriors, and scouts, while the more complex classes represent later refinements of the design. (I rather like the idea of the warforged sorcerer, with the concept that its magical powers are effectively enchantments woven into its body).

Anyhow, I'm certainly glad that you enjoyed playing in the game, Arthur, and thanks for sharing your experiences with everyone else. I had a great time running the game for you and the other groups. The one favor I ask is that you not describe the actual events of the adventure, simple so as not to spoil it for anyone who wants to play it come July!