FR Update at WotC-Year of the Ageless One

[Khairn]

It's kind of comical how the most popular spots are essentially untouched, moments after we're told how sweeping the effects of the Spellplague were.

I wouldn't call it comical. More like cheap and lazy writing IMHO.

They make sweeping changes to the setting but then avoided impacting the more popular locations? Who knew the Spellplague was capable of such discriminating destruction.

Sad

 

[drothgery]

A wasteland full of magic, monsters and ruins seemed nearly impossible to use in D&D? Seriously?

Well, kind of. Low-level PCs won't go in the Mournland because it's too dangerous to go places where you can't heal, and the means of getting around it are difficult. High-level PCs can bypass that problem easily, but it adds annoying bookkeeping.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Don't like it but otherwise don't really care. If I'm going to use the Realms canon is the grey box anything afterwards is merely an option and most of them unused.

 

[humble minion]

It's the lack of healing. 4e actually seems to fix this problem rather neatly (as would using some other non-magical hp recovery system, such as Iron Heroes' reserve point mechanic).

That's part of it, but it's more the weird-wild-magic-mutant-causing-disaster-area vibe I have trouble with. I mean, it's evocative and a classic literary device (like the Stain from Mieville's Iron Council) but I always find random environmental threats like that really hard to adjudicate in-game without making them feel either silly and trivial at one end of the scale or overly PC-brutalising at the other.

"Roll a fort save"
"14"
"Right, as you are setting up the campfire, a weird green mist arises. When it subsides, you have fanged tentacles growing out of your eyeballs and an insatiable desire for human spinal fluid"
"Um..."

I mean, the magic, monsters and ruins are fine, but you don't need the sorcerous equivalent of a toxic waste dump to situate them in. They do just fine by themselves.

 

[Mieric]

Nice article and overview of the coming changes to the Realms.... But it definitely reinforces my impression that the 4e Realms do not appear to be for me.

I'll just stick with my 1e, 2e, and 3e Realms (sans the Time of Troubles of course).

 

[Darth Cyric]

I actually agree that evil being monolithic was a trend that started in 3e, not in 4e.

Personally, from what I've seen so far, I don't see how the 4e Realms are any worse than they were in 3e, and the reboot may very well be a de facto improvement. The 3e Realms failed miserably in my eyes as soon as it completely screwed up all the grand plot points from the last 2e Realms product, the utterly brilliant Cloak and Dagger.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I wouldn't call it comical. More like cheap and lazy writing IMHO.

They make sweeping changes to the setting but then avoided impacting the more popular locations? Who knew the Spellplague was capable of such discriminating destruction.

That's not lazy. They specifically said, long ago, that the popular places that were working weren't going to get fixed.

It's, you know, doing what people wanted them to do with Waterdeep, etc.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

'Changing Lands' seem directly analogous (because 'blatant copy' is such an uncharitable term!) to the Mournlands from Eberron. Were the Mournlands that popular? They always seemed nearly impossible to use in a game, from my Eberron readthrough.

A wasteland full of magic, monsters and ruins seemed nearly impossible to use in D&D? Seriously?

You can use it. Actually I like Eberron campaigns set near the Mournlands. You never know what horrible monster will come out next. Or maybe the Lord of Blades' minions.

However, you can't actually go in there! No healing, starvation and dehydration serious concerns, and the horrible monsters! Living Spells are fun if you're the DM The environment makes a trek through Dark Sun's harsh deserts look like a pleasant Florida day... and I'm only exaggerating slightly.

I was in a group that played the Eberron adventure that has us going into the Mournland. We played the adventure unmodified, despite being 8th-level. (Considerably higher than the adventure was written for.) We avoided random encounters but still got our butts kicked when we did have to fight. (This despite being indoors in a weird area where we could heal. I think the DM was being nice to us there.)

Maybe it's a better task at higher levels though, but I simply can't see why a sane adventurer would want to go there. They'd need a really good reason.

 

[humble minion]

Edit: deleted post due to something horrible going wrong...

 

[Reaper Steve]

OK, after a decade of 'ugh, FR,' I'm interested again.

Very well done, I think.

I have no problem with the cut-and-paste addition of an entire Dragonborn civilization. That certainly better than "enough random people turned into Dragonborn that they made their own culture and avoided being killed like any other monster."

I didn't see mention of tieflings. (What if they are treated like I just stated... randomly people became them but weren't killed for their devilishly-good looks? )

I wonder if the shade/shadow-transformed Netherese are the other new PC race (besides Drow?)