FR Podcast is up

[jensun]

Elminster's been rendered incapable of using magic on pain of being possessed by spirits instantly, and is thus just a useless old man. So... yes.

So he has been returned to how Greenwood originally used him apparently, as a crotchety old sage who would occasionally give out advice about what was going on.

The real difficulty with Elminster wss his presentation in the novels as a deux ex machinae, both by Greenwood and others. See for example Spellfire.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Ok.. Elminster fearing to use his magic is useless...

Doesn't Elminster have a couple of levels in fighter, rogue and cleric?

 

[PeterWeller]

Well, all the deities of magic (Mystra, Azuth, Velsharoon and Savras) and Cyric are either dead or banished to the Astral Sea. Tyr killing Helm (his long-standing ally) and Torm apparently "stealing" both of their portfolios. Elven deities have been revealed to be mere "aspects" of the human deities (e.g. Sehanine has always been just Selune "in disguise"). Dwarven deities Haela, Gorm, Laduguer and Deep Duerra all dead. And the Pantheon being "trimmed down" to 20 or so "real" Deities with the rest of the gods being reduced to their servants ('Exarchs') without any worshippers or churches (e.g. Clanggedin, an Intermediate Power, becoming Moradin's 'Exarch'). Not any significant changes to the Pantheon, right?

You're right, Rich Baker is a damned liar. Wait...

I'm going to take his word over yours, buddy.

To me the "spirit" or the "feel" of the Realms is that it feels like a living, thriving world filled with interesting people (NPCs) who all have their own stories -- whether they be "movers and shakers", humble farmers, greedy merchants, other adventurers, black-hearted villains, The Chosen of Mystra, and so on. It is a setting that has unknown lands and villains, ancient secrets and hidden threats, but also "homely" villages and familiar faces. To me, the Realms are defined by its detailed history, people and lands, that all offer endless possibilities to tell and experience stories. In 4E, most of those people are gone and the world shattered almost beyond recognition. It will take another twenty years to get the same level of detail I have now, so why bother, if it is important to me and my players?

This is the biggest pile of platitudes I have ever seen. You've basically said, "FR is a world with a bunch of detail and a bunch of fantasy." That hasn't changed.

I am well aware of what the term implies. So let's talk about Shadow Weave, for example -- it was Rich's idea for 3E FR, and it was "retconned" as having always been part of the Weave . Then, as the news about the Spellplague started to trickle in, some posters pointed out that Shadow Weave -- as part of the Weave and dependent of its fate -- would also collapse. Suddenly, Rich Baker announced that they're going to retcon it again, so that Shadow Weave can exist outside the Weave. All the gnomes in FR? Retconned to become 4E Gnomes and most likely their kingdoms and villages have never existed, either (I wish to point out that the designers used the term "retcon" themselves). And to be frank, I doubt that they've actually gone through all the historical events in the FR timeline to ensure that the introduction of Abeir (and it being the "source" of all aberrations in FR) is not contradicting some previously written major event or detail.

Does any of this actually have anything to do with the cosmology? I have to say that it's pretty funny you're getting up in arms about them ret-conning a ret-con. The first one was cool, but the second time around it is totally ruining the Realms, eh? Where do you get this information about them ret-conning the Gnomes and all their important villages and kingdoms. I mean, I understand that the Gnomes are an inherent part of the Realms and all... wait a minute... Finally, you have no grounds to assume that they didn't do their homework when developing the changes. This is a classic example of some fanboy assuming he's more qualified than the professionals who have been entrusted with his favorite property.

 

[mach1.9pants]

As a slight aside, I play FR in 3.5 but I haven't purchased a book since the PGtF. Thus I haven't kept up with the continuing story line of FR. Now I will probably run a home-brew campaign for 4E first, just to have a low level rung through but we are thinking of switching FR latter (even with he same characters or starting from scratch).
Now, being a bit lazy, I don't really feel like trawling through threads etc and getting the low down on the changes that way. Especially since some people have opinions about the changes which are a little on the strong side .So what I am getting at is what is the trilogy to read (like the avatar for 3E)? Cos I'll probably get that to get me going and (with all the FR books out) I can't seem to figure which books are relevant.
Maybe not published yet?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Would you call the Spellplague natural evolution? I don't. What we are seeing in 4E FR is a conscious design direction to break down the world to its basic elements, so that it can be rebuilt to fit a new model and a new customer base. Therefore, I think it's change for change's sake.

Comparable to... say a meteorite strike. Or maybe a new ice age. Except not so bad, since apparently, races don't go extinct...

 

[TrainedMunkee]

Gnomes don't exist any more, all the cities are wiped out? I thought that they just weren't including Gnomes in the PHB. I didn't know that they were going to kill them off.

I'm a Gray Box kind of guy, so I guess the changes don't upset me. The Realms has become too complicated for me. This is what happens with twenty some years of setting and novels. The shadow weave is a good example of something that I could do without.

I thought that the Time of Troubles was kind of stupid and the books were lousy, but it didn't cause me to be as upset as some folks are about the 4e changes. No one has killed the realms, as far as I can tell from the previews. They seem to be alive, but maybe not well, plagues can do that.

What products would you like to see released for 4e FR. I vote for an Aurora Catalogue.

Space

 

[Primal]

I agree. I love the new Elminster. He's got the knowledge of history from being alive so long. He's wise, he USED to be powerful. He has lots of contacts and friends. However, he can't save the world anymore. He can only use his knowledge to help other people save it.

Actually, that's incorrect -- Elminster is not powerless, at least according to contemporary FR Canon. You see, Elminster (and the other Chosen) carries and safeguards a portion of Mystra's Divine Essence, which does not vanish with Mystra's death or the Weave's collapse (unless the designers are going to retcon this) . You can compare this to deities granting Divine Ranks to their followers in 3E, thus making them effectively Demigods -- even if the "sponsor" dies, the newly-created Demigod does not "lose" his Divine Ranks or Salient Divine Abilities. Apparently the FR Design Team forgot about this, and Ed did not spell it out to them (and I doubt they even asked him about Mystra or Elminster, because his job is to write about "unexplored" parts of Faerun).

 

[The Little Raven]

You see, Elminster (and the other Chosen) carries and safeguards a portion of Mystra's Divine Essence, which does not vanish with Mystra's death or the Weave's collapse (unless the designers are going to retcon this).

That's why he's still around, since he is still immortal. However, it doesn't do anything to change the fact that when he attempts to use magic, bad things happen to him, so he's afraid to use it.

 

[Imban]

You're right, Rich Baker is a damned liar. Wait...

I'm going to take his word over yours, buddy.

Well, we know, for a fact, that they're doing what Primal said, from previews that have been officially released. Rich Baker also says they're also not making significant changes to the pantheon. I'm not sure these two statements are compatible.

At the very least, Rich Baker seems like he's equivocating with that statement, doing one thing while saying he's doing something completely different. It is possible that, actual setting book in hand, he will be entirely right. It seems much more likely, at this present time, to mean that they selected a pantheon of 21 deities that they would not make "significant changes" to, and considered leaving these mostly unremoved "not making significant changes to the pantheon."

 

[Primal]

That's why he's still around, since he is still immortal. However, it doesn't do anything to change the fact that when he attempts to use magic, bad things happen to him, so he's afraid to use it.

Ah, but he still has that Divine Essence to play with (and it definitely should grant El more abilities than just Immortality, hey?). And El also has Spellfire plus Psionics, too. And did he just lose all his magical items, too? You know, even if stripped of all the other abilities by the designers, he still should have plenty of items in store.