D&D 4E Forgotten Realms 4e Changes: Good/Bad?

[Sylrae]

I know more about pre-4e realms than the average D&D player, but I'm not a hardcore grognard that has been playing since the old grey box, nor do I think 'grey box only' is the best time period of the realms. I also don't like the annoying cliche characters I've seen based on Drizzt Do'Urden.

I came in after the time of troubles, though I can understand how the god reshuffling could be a huge pain in the ass to anyone running the realms at that time. Likewise if I had been running the realms at the time of the reset (which actually happened while I was groupless).


I can appreciate the reasons people felt a reboot was needed even if im not sure about the way they chose to go.

-Aside-

Spoiler

People said the realms were too detailed, and the information was too spread out to be easily accessible - That's true. Too Many Mary-Sues, often only detailed in novels, which players then expect to be able to go to for help - Also True. I believe this is an issue of organization more than anything else, plus the argument of "You know this character lives in the area, does your character: Knowledge (Dalelands); Roll it." Oh you dont have that skill? You have no idea who that is.

There are a number of changes I just dont understand, and find a bit offputting. Some of them are more 4e problems than fr problems, though they influence FR.

Races: I don't quite understand why the 4e core races were thrust upon the realms. The realms have consistently had slightly different races, and a much greater variety, before 4e.

Dragonborn: Short Dragonkin with boobs? I'm not seeing what the improvement is to having a 2nd race of dragon people. Maybe I'm missing something. I would have thought the obvious choice would be to make them be dragonkin, and just use the 4e dragonborn stats if necessary.

Duergar: Why are they now devils? I'm confused.

Elves: Pre 4e there were too many types of elves with different stats, and some of them could have been combined. What I dont quite get the reason for/like is the retcon of the history of the elves in 4e to explain the eladrin.

Points of light: This is more of a question than a gripe. Is the destruction of faerun so complete that there is no trade because it is so dangerous now? or is it close to how it was in AD&D where the wild was wild, but not to the point nobody left town without adventurers.

While I've read through chunks of someone else's copy, I never went out and bought a copy. Can someone explain possible reasons for the above? Can someone tell me what's good about FR 4e to make it worth the purchase, over hunting down 2nd hand copies of the pre-4e realms books?

Is there much I could use it for in the way of setting, or is it just old material updated to deal with the spellplague which is there to describe 4e?

Or, More Succinctly: Is the 4e realms book of much use other than updated mechanics for running realms in 4e? How is it for setting information? Any better than before? or is there just less of it, and less to know?

 

[Flipguarder]

I'm not sure what you are looking for in this thread, but generally we are in the decidedly Pro-4e camp.

I think its a great setting, and quite frankly it seemed to streamline a lot of the things I felt were too complicated about FR.

 

[Sylrae]

I know that this is a pro 4e thread. That's all well and good.
I posted it here because it's a 4e product.

I'm mostly asking about it's usefulness fluff-wise (discarding all mechanics as anyting but guidelines) for use in any other system, as I'll be running a fairly heavily altered Pathfinder set in Forgotten Realms at some point and wanted to know if any of the new 4e stuff would be of use to me.

I usually hang out in the PF/old editions boards lately, but here goes:

Here's what I'm looking for, basically:

1. Does anyone have any insight into why those particular changes were made?
2. How does the FRCG work alongside older material, any useful compatibility?
3. Does the FRCG have any interesting new fluff over the old stuff? (There's the spellplague, but I knew that one).

 

[SPECTRE666]

To simplify the Realms. To make the Realms more accessible for the Living Realms. Cant have some pissy fanboy canon-nazi upsetting the tournament because the door is in the wrong spot. So the Authors have a clean slate to work with. The 4E Novels that I have read are really good.

I have been playing in the Realms since 1996. At first the changes were a little off putting. Then I thought about it and just about every setting gets overhauled eventually, so why not the Realms.

I would rather it happen soon than later. Plus all of the old Realmslore greats are not working for WotC anymore. Now you have designers that really don't know the setting. So what should we have expected. I think that WotC should have let Ed and some Freelancers like Brian R. James, Brian Cortijo(sp), Eytan B, and some others work on the 4E Realms. At least they would know the Realms and how to up date it.

You could probably find the 4E Realms books at a half priced book store. Also the DDI Articles are really good.

I hope that helps. Good Gaming.

 

[Mithreinmaethor]

Dragonborn are not native to Toril they were transplanted there when Toril and Abeir crashed together. And Dragonborn have breasts because they breast feed their young after hatching for the 1st 6 months of their life.

***** ***** ***** *****

Duregar are still Dwarves. If you read the opening paragraph for them in the MM2 you will understand why they carry a secondary keyword of Devil.

***** ***** ***** *****

They didnt retcon the history of the elves the Eladrin are the Moon and Sun Elves of FR. Elves are the Wood Elves and Wild Elves of FR.

***** ***** ***** *****

Points of Light is the generic setting for 4th edition. It has nothing to do with FR 4th edition other than FR is a point of Light in the large universe.

***** ***** ***** *****

And since you are confused about all of the above and probably much more then I would recommend that you get the FR Players and Campaign guides and read them. It will answer many of your questions. Also I would find any racial write ups you can find to help you understand the races better.

 

[DracoSuave]

Forgotten Realms fanboys should be used to a change in edition heralding a complete overhaul of everything involving Toril.

Seriously, this isn't the first time the central god of magic and the weave got offed and Changed Everything (TM). That's what you get for having more Chosen than the population of Waterdeep.

Goblin Warkings have a greater life expectancy.

'Don't mess with me, I'm the Chosen of Mystra!' 'Yeah, so am I. And my six other sisters. And that guy with a beard I'm having an affair with. And the other guy. Oh and a house cat you fed a fish too.'

At least it's not 'All the assassins died in the world just cause.' The 4th edition changes are a logical progression of what happened during the Time of Troubles and the wacky stuff Cyric's been pulling off.


(clearly DracoSuave didn't take the old Forgotten Realms very seriously as a campaign setting)

 

[Colmarr]

3. Does the FRCG have any interesting new fluff over the old stuff? (There's the spellplague, but I knew that one).

Let's see. Off the top of my head?

1. Thay has become overrun by undead and gnolls and is essentially Mordor in Faerun. Szass Tam has ascended to Lichhood.

2. There's a giant purple desert in the NW(?) that is growing by the month and is riddled with purple worms (think Dune).

3. There are plaguelands scattered throughout the realms, that periodically issue plaguescarred monstrosities.

4. Netheril and the shades have returned and rule the Aunaroch desert. Sembia is now Netheril's vassal.

5. Cormyr annexed the Dragon Coast, creating a swell of resentment there.

6. The floor of the Sea of Fallen Stars cracked during the spellplague, allowing millions/billions of gallons of water to flood into the Underdark, leaving many former ports landlocked - with predictable results.

I wasn't a 3e realms player, so I can't say whether 4e FR is better or worse, but after reading the 4e FRPG I can honestly say that there are tons of cool campaigns waiting to be run there.

 

[Shazman]

Quite frankly, I think that they did a horrible hack job of shoehorning 4E tropes and assumptions into the Forgotten Realms. It would have been better to make a brand new campaign setting for 4E than trashing and remaking the Realms into the monstrosity that is the 4gotten Realms. Playing in LFR, you can't even tell it's the Realms besides a few names of gods, organizations, and locations which have been changed so drastically that their names really have no meaning anymore. The worst part of it is the way they implemented the changes. All the gods acting like bad soap opera characters with no intervention from Ao and the subsequent "spellplague" seemed like a non-sensical, ham-fisted way of explaning why things happened without any semblance of versimiltude or knowledge of how things actually work in the Forgotten Realms.

 

[Hawkeye]

Let's see. Off the top of my head?

1. Thay has become overrun by undead and gnolls and is essentially Mordor in Faerun. Szass Tam has ascended to Lichhood.

As long as the Realms have been a D&D product, Szass Tam has been a Lich. He had been one for at least two hundred years prior to the Spellplauge.

Hawkeye

 

[renau1g]

I think that WotC should have let Ed and some Freelancers like Brian R. James, Brian Cortijo(sp), Eytan B, and some others work on the 4E Realms. At least they would know the Realms and how to up date it.

Funny you should say that...they did have Ed contribute, although I am not sure the extent of his efforts on it.

[ame=http://www.amazon.ca/Forgotten-Realms-Campaign-Guide-Supplement/dp/0786949244/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271774632&sr=8-1]Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide: A 4th Edition D&D Supplement: Amazon.ca: Bruce R. Cordell, Ed Greenwood, Chris Sims, Philip Athans: Books[/ame]

That said, I lament the changes personally, especially in LFR as that setting is cold and without any sort of personality now, just another POL setting, yes it is the 4e standard, but they didn't drop a nuke onto Eberron to get it to fit. I think the Spellplague or something like it was necessary to remove the high-level casters that essentially did all the big jobs (Elminster, looking at you), but don't see the need for the return of Abeir, makes no sense... It added nothing to the setting and removed much of the neat aspects of the world (Maztica anyone?). Nothing you can do though, it's already done, so a few choices:

1) play it as WoTC published it, in the ram the changes down your throat method
2) play 4e rules, but with the 3e supplement (my favourite fluff product ever published)
3) change settings

Unfortunately, none of these are great options, but they needed to sell book and fit 4e tropes into the setting so they did what they did...