How Generic is Races of Eberron?

[Vraille Darkfang]

That sums it ip.

I not investing in any more campaign settings right now, Races of Eberron peaks my interest.

So, the introduction implies that it is "Everything needed to use this book in any setting"

Just how generic is this book?

Does it have the Brown General D&D logo as a marketing decision, or is it really non-setting specific?

 

[Desdichado]

Technically, yes--I'd say it's pretty generic. Actually, it varies. The kalashtar are heavily invested in psionics, which means that 25% of the book is probably not useful to a large percentage of players who don't use psionics. The Warforged are also pretty unique, and not a good fit for every setting. Technically they're generic, but in actuality, I can see a lot of settings disallowing them based on "feel."

The changelings and shifters, on the other hand, I think could fit into any pretty classic D&D setting without any trouble at all.

 

[Crothian]

Everything in it is Eberron. Sure you could pull that out and try to adapt it to whatever setting you want but it is all written with the assumption you are using Eberron.

 

[Dykstrav]

Depends on what you mean by "generic."

The book is done with the appearance and art style of a sourcebook for the core D&D line, but it still has an Eberron-style full-page Wayne Reynolds spread in the front. It alo uses proper names and deities from the Eberron setting instead of Greyhawk (like the other core books do). All the references to culture, society, religion and other such elements are specific to Eberrron. There's even a chapter that describes how the core races fit into Eberron. For all these reasons, I myself consider it to be a work germane to Eberron that somehow got the layout and cover style of a core D&D book.

All that being said, the book does include the basic racial traits for each of these Eberron-specific races. If you want to, you can integrate it into a core D&D game without buying the Eberron setting book. But in my opinion, this feature doesn't make it a core book.

 

[Piratecat]

How about this question: If you were running a non-Eberron game, is the book still useful?

 

[Andor]

If you want to integrate the Eberron races (Changlings, Shifters, Warforged, Kalashtar) into ye olde generic/specific campaign world, Races of Eberron will not allow you to do it without additional effort. The book offers cultural background material for all the races and it is generally excellent but some of it is eberron specific. The Kalashtar are centered around their eternal conflict with the Quori and their Inspired Minions. The Warforged are artifacts of the Last War. The Shifters still feel the effects of the Church of the Silver Flames war against the lycanthropes (which the shifters fought on both sides of btw.) The changelings have lighter ties to eberron specific events than the rest do.

Now, that having been said, I think Races of Eberron is an excellent starting point from which to adapt these races into your world, and if you do use them your players will thank you for allowing the Feats and PrCs present in this book. If you have the ECS you don't need this book to bring them into your world, but I do think anyone who plans to use them will find this book useful.

 

[Crothian]

How about this question: If you were running a non-Eberron game, is the book still useful?

The mechanics really are. I did have to rewrite quite a bit to make use of the races. THey fit fine in my own world but without things like the great war Eberron just had or the Silver Flame destruction of the Shifters; without those elements that many of the races have things needed to be rewritten.

 

[Dykstrav]

How about this question: If you were running a non-Eberron game, is the book still useful?

I'd have to say generally not. There are indeed lots of Eberron-specific things in it, so much so that I would just run an Eberron game if I wanted these races rather than trying to shoehorn them into Greyhawk or a homebrew. There would be alot of questions to answer if you wanted to import them to another setting, moreso than the next "oh, these are the new humanoids" races like the desmodeu, for example.

 

[Merkuri]

For the record, Races of Eberron was my introduction to the Eberron campaign world. I knew little about the world before reading RoE, and it got me interested in the setting as a whole.

While there is a lot of Eberron-specific details, you could easily use them as stepping stones to integrate the races into a non-Eberron world. While the culture and descriptions mention Eberron-specific places and religions, you could probably replace those with similar places or gods from your own campaign. If you don't have anything that matches then you may have to re-write some of the history, but you have to expect to be able to do that if you're taking things from one setting and putting them into another.

I hear a lot of people say that the warforged are hard to put into an existing non-Eberron world, but honestly I don't see how hard it could be. They could be the ancient armies of an extinct race, just now unearthed. A modern wizard could invent them. They could come from one of the planes. I could come up with a lot of ideas on how to put them in.

The kalashtar would be the hardest to put into a non-Eberron world, IMO. The idea behind them is that they're basically the result of a merge between human souls and quori, which are outsiders from the realm of dreams (which is not a pretty place at the moment). To add them without significantly changing their background you'd have to find a type of outsider that uses psionics, give them an excuse to run away from their homeland, and make up a reason why their fellow outsiders can't easily chase them. The kalshtar lose a lot without the quori, Dal Quor, the Inspired, and the Dreaming Dark. To fully integrate them into another campaign you'd have to import all of those ideas as well, or find something to replace them.

I do have to say, though, that the only thing I thought was missing from the book was good physical descriptions of some of the races. Specifically, I remember wondering what the shifters looked like. Sure, there were pictures, but I like to have written physical descriptions of what the average member of a race looks like and how that might vary from individual to individual. RoE seemed to assume you had already read the campaign setting as far as looks go, though they did include full statistics for each of the new races.

 

[awayfarer]

The races strike me as pretty heavily centered in Eberron. I could see Shifters and Changelings in other settings as they're related to monsters that are very common in most settings.

Warforged are the stickler I think. We recently talked about this in one of my groups and I've come to the conclusion that most settings would have some difficulty. The trouble as I see it is that you need a good, in-game excuse for someone to manufacture (or have previously manufacture) the buggers in massive quantities. Even if theres a war, who says it's better to contruct an army rather than just draft some fleshy folks?

The trouble is they really need to fill a niche that I don't see as being available in most settings. To put it another way, it's easier to see Shifters and Changelings around because they're are going to be previously existing ones...er... "making" them. These races don't need to fill a niche, ththey exist because as a living being they procreate. Warforged need a good excuse to exist and I don't feel like most settings offer one.

Our DM suggested that they could take the place of the Hollow Knights in the Scarred Lands setting. I think this is best idea I've heard in regards to exporting the Warforged.