Forge of War

[TwinBahamut]

I agree about the major battles.

Currently, trying to play in a Last War campaign would be like trying to play a historical D20 Modern WW2 campaign, if none of the players or the DM had any idea what D-Day was.

 

[Glyfair]

Currently, trying to play in a Last War campaign would be like trying to play a historical D20 Modern WW2 campaign, if none of the players or the DM had any idea what D-Day was.

I don't mind knowing about D-Day type events. I do mind having the battles of the war mapped out to the level where I can't fit in a major battle without disrupting "canon" or details given on what went on in each battle.

Thus no "maps with arrows representing advances and dotted lines representing fronts and little clash symbols for battle sites."

 

[Kristian Serrano]

I don't mind knowing about D-Day type events. I do mind having the battles of the war mapped out to the level where I can't fit in a major battle without disrupting "canon" or details given on what went on in each battle.

Thus no "maps with arrows representing advances and dotted lines representing fronts and little clash symbols for battle sites."

You do realize we're talking about 100 years of war here. One detailed battle will not ruin your ideas or canon.

 

[Monkey King]

I want details on fronts, offensives, and so on. I want maps with arrows representing advances and dotted lines representing fronts and little clash symbols for battle sites. I'm *hoping* what's shown makes military sense, too.

What we've seen so far has been mixed. We've seen that in general, Cyre and Thrane were allied against the other nations, but that the alliances changed, and calling Aundair and Karrnath allied would be an error. However, there was also a mention in Five Nations that had Karrnath driving through Cyre to open a front against Breland, which is so completely insane that I don't feel that I have to explain why.

I wrote the history of the war and some army chapters. I did try to explain the existing material in Five Nations and other canon sources, and I did turn over maps that showed the progress of the war over decades. The fronts changed violently, and alliances did shift. From what I've seen of my co-authors material, there's lots of meat for everyone: story elements, mechanics, history, units, national takes on who betrayed who, adventure hooks galore, and so on.

The main problems are ones of distances (the Five nations are BIG) and time (100 year wars are long, messy things that are tough to describe in the space available). I think you'll find a lot to love in the book, though.

 

[Beckett]

Thanks for the tidbit, Wolfgang. That's one of the things I was hoping would be in there (and shifting maps too? Great! One of my favorite parts of the Great Pendragon Campaign is updated maps showing the extent of Arthur's holdings, as well as the territory of his enemies and allies. I expect it will be equally useful here)

I've got this on preorder through Amazon, and I'll be waiting for the release.

 

[Tzarevitch]

Finally, there is a preview up on the WotC site. Now I am pleased.

Tzarevitch

 

[Syltorian]

If you check the Consolidated Lists, they now have the new material for Forge of War (abbreviated FW there) up. There are no new invocations, feats, base or prestige classes. The lists do not include any spells apart from Spell Compendium and Player's Handbook anyway, so there is nothing to be found out there (there seem to be new spells, though). However, there are five new monsters listed:

Arcane Ballista (Large Construct, CR5)
Karrnathi Dread Marshal (Medium Undead, CR 5)
Mistling (Fey, Template, CR varies)
Umbral Spy (Small Construct, CR 3)
Wargorged Raptor (Large Construct, CR 8)

Regarding the previews (finally!), I liked the description of 971 YK. There are some very interesting bits in there, especially the fact that Cyre managed to kill the Karrnathi crown prince and fatally injure the king. They seem to be going about this in an almost annalistic way, though through page-constraints I assume they didn't get every year of the war in.

I'm also interested in how far the Shadow War is developped. They seem to bring in some new items, and I also like the idea of the houses sabotaging each other (especially Orien and Lyrandar, it would seem). I'm hoping there are some more details on that.

A system for scars, both physical and emotional (shell-shock?) seems interesting as well, though so far we know nothing of that beyond the existence. I'm really looking forward to this books, and the previews on the page. And I'm hoping that they did not leave out the small nations (more on the Eldeen revolt, please!).

Shifting maps will be great too. Though I hope they won't start out with the one in PGtE, where Thrane's capital of the time (Daskaran; the map is ca. 500 YK) is in Aundair...

And "national takes on who betrayed who". Just what I like for my Eberron!

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

The main problems are ones of distances (the Five nations are BIG) and time (100 year wars are long, messy things that are tough to describe in the space available). I think you'll find a lot to love in the book, though.

Awesome, thanks!

Brad

 

[Shazman]

I like fluff as much as the next guy, but it I like some crunch to go with it. If this is like Powers of Faerun (95% fluff, 5% crunch), it won't be worth buying

 

[Grymar]

The Preview of the book actually got me far more interested in it than I expected to be.