James Wyatt + FR!?
- Thread starter Badkarmaboy
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Brian Compton
First Post
I'm not quite sure why people think they are "Eberronising" FR. In terms of flavor, are they introducing steampunk or world-spanning houses marked by some ancestral power? In terms of mechanics, what does Eberron do besides action points (which can be used in any campaign thanks to Unearthed Arcana) that regular D&D doesn't? Does the magic system require the use of items to cast spells?
Again I argue: Eberron= modern literary and cinematic genres put to a magical fantasy setting; FR= traditional medieval/renaissance world steeped in magic. They are two different things, which is why they, for the most part, have different groups of devotees. Unless the rules are introducing magic bullet trains and the like, I'm not sure where this is coming from.
Again I argue: Eberron= modern literary and cinematic genres put to a magical fantasy setting; FR= traditional medieval/renaissance world steeped in magic. They are two different things, which is why they, for the most part, have different groups of devotees. Unless the rules are introducing magic bullet trains and the like, I'm not sure where this is coming from.
Majoru Oakheart
Adventurer
What I mean is that Eberron was designed from the ground up as a 3rd Edition world. It asked the question: What would a world look like where:Brian Compton said:
a) magic items could be created fairly easily and lasted forever
b) there were ancient cultures for thousands of years that were undiscovered to allow PCs a chance to explore them
c) healing magic was readily available
d) magic items were assumed to be able to be purchased by anyone with money in any city
e) magic existed (and could be made into items) that would allow people to fly, travel really fast, and teleport
f) all of the creatures in D&D existed somewhere
g) any number of other assumptions by the rules that I don't feel like listing
Now, what I mean by Eberronizing Forgotten Realms is that if we take the core concepts(whatever they may be) of 4th edition and ask "What would a world be like that had these as assumptions?" then we should get the answer: "Exactly like the NEW Realms are."
So, we know that wizards need staffs, orbs, and wands to focus their magic. Why? Perhaps it is because the god of magic is dead and it is hard to cast spells without the aid of focuses to channel the spells.
We know that some of the classes will not be in the first PHB....will those classes die off in the Spellplague only to be rediscovered in some storyline when the classes come out in a book again?
We know that the core rules allow people to go up to level 30 and that 20-30 ARE Epic levels. Does that mean that some sort of Epic Spellcasting will discovered on FR again?
We know that the planes are being changed around as part of the "core" rules. And that FR are using the cosmology. Planes get added and destroyed in order to turn it into the "default" D&D world.
We don't know what else is changed in 4th Ed, but my point is that FR seems to be set up to be the premiere 4th Ed D&D world. So, if the default rules say something about a race or class, I believe you will see FR change so that it is inline with everything said in the PHB. A lot of changes in the rules and default assumptions means a lot of changes in FR.
Odhanan
Adventurer
I'm not so sure. I'm the kind of guy Dave's talking about here: I've been around for some time yes, and I think that 4E's rules themselves may be going in the right direction... but I am not the least bit excited at the moment.Jack99 said:
You know what? I would love to get excited about it. To feel the adrenaline rush prior to a new edition. But at the moment I'm like "I'll pick up the 4E books anyway, if it's good, I may switch, if not, I can keep playing 3.5 for a long, long time".
That's where I'm at, right now.
The "oohs" and "aahs" on the internet don't really pull me in, one way or another. I feel that the whole marketing approach sounds fake, including the blogs, as if everything was (and it is) orchestrated but yet, there was some constant damage control for stuff that should have been considered and avoided before hand.
All in all, it seems dull, prepared and yet badly improvised with each resulting outcry.
I feel like I'm watching some kind of soap rerun unfolding on TV. Like I'm not part of it, somehow. I was (am) hopeful in the revisions of the game itself. The DI makes me skeptical since day 1. And I see the Dragon articles and I'm like... "ok. Whatever". I'm not even upset, when I would like to be upset. See what I mean?
Guild Goodknife
Explorer
JamesM said:
Uh, no that was not what i meant at all. Stating personal opinions on the way things are heading is something different than passing final judgement on a product that isn't even done yet.
JamesM said:
I meant posts like this:
Kae'Yoss said:
Granted, apart from some notorious naysayers the quality of the negative posts in this thread was allright.
Not so much in countless other threads.
Rulesets often keep most of their fans through major overhauls, RPG settings rarely -- Greyhawk Wars and Fifth Age Dragonlance being chief examples. The changes made in Grand History of the Realms -- and moreover the shift in design philosophy that they indicate, together with designers' comments -- are already much more drastic than the Time of Troubles or anything previously done to Faerûn. This is a huge gamble for Wizards.JamesM said:
It says a lot about TSR and Wizards' handling of the Realms that you (and others) have that impression. My best attempt to simplify the Realms' influences triangulates into Fritz Leiber, Guy Gavriel Kay and Roger Zelazny. It's quite as much sword and sorcery as high fantasy.Brian Compton said:
There are theoretically conditions under which the Realms would revert to Ed, but Wizards won't let it happen and it's not worth hoping for.JamesM said:
Brian Compton
First Post
Majoru Oakheart said:
3rd Edition FR addressed all that, without needing to be redone "from the ground up."
a) Not a problem. Ed (via Volo and Elminster) had always hinted that there were ways to make magic items in FR without sacking ability points. Quite possibly, that's what WotC used when they came up with 3E's rules.
b) Netheril. Cormanthor. Shoon Imperium. Imaskar. Narfell. Umpteen other fallen kingdoms, all of which have always existed in FR Lore, some of which even received game material support (the 2E Arcane Age initiative tied to Chronomancy).
c) With all the gods, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a cleric. Add to that the fact that just about everyone rather openly follows a god or two and the proliferation of temples and shrines to good faiths all over, and healing was never an issue.
d) Hence the Thayan enclaves. Also, many shops are mentioned as selling "mundane and magic items." Simple inclusion of text, no major problem. Using the "City of Splendors" boxed set, even in 2E I was giving some weapon and armorsmiths' goods +1 bonuses based on the notes about the quality of their goods.
e) Halruuan sky ships. Spelljammers (take that, you Eberron lovers-FR's fliers could go into space
). Again, always been a part of FR. As for teleportation, there had always been networks of portals and gateways; the FRCS and Magic of Faerun merely fleshed them out and made the ideas concrete.f) And they do in FR. Even dinosaurs. The only ones that don't are the Eberron-specific creatures like Warforged, and even they can be fitted in (the bloodforges mentioned in the Grand History are one example of how you could generate armies of "created" beings, just make them warforged instead of golems.)
So, all of these things have existed in FR, long before Eberron came around, and others were retrofitted without nary a drop of sweat before Eberron was a seedling of an idea in Keith Baker's mind. Still don't see how they're "Eberronizing" FR.
Majoru Oakheart said:
Again, they did the same thing with 3E. About the only thing new and "earth shattering" was bringing back Shade (again, an action backed up by a trilogy of novels and a short-story collection) and introducing the Shadow Weave (which had no counterpart in the 3E core rules). Everything else just quietly filtered in. Even sorcerers were simply retro-fitted without having to punk Mystra (Barbarians and Monks were easier since there had been precedents for their existence for years).
MajoruOakheart said:
Sure, you can do that. Or, as I've suggested in another thread, she does something to save herself that messes up the Weave. Mystra, or some other god of magic, will come back, it's just a matter of when, what, and how.
MajoruOakheart said:
Would be fine if one of those classes wasn't the monk, which has no ties to magic. But again, you could argue that any change in the casting of spells depowers the minor users to the point that they aren't what they were in 3E or before. Don't need to kill Mystra to make that happen.
MajoruOakheart said:
Already has been- Mystra's Chosen and a few others have had access to Epic Spells ever since the ELH came out in 3E. That might have been nice to explain, but then you could argue that with the coming of the Shadow Weave, Mystra allowed her followers to take the gloves off.
MajoruOakheart said:
This happened between 2E and 3E. Faerunian gods lived in the Great Wheel with everyone else, then all of a sudden they didn't. Most of their realms retained the old names, some changed, it all became part of the Great Tree. Didn't have to blow up the multiverse to make that happen.
MajoruOakheart said:
Most of the people objecting aren't objecting to the changes. They're objecting to: 1) the method of the changes; and 2) the impetus for them. Going from 2E to 3E was very good, and should have been the standard by which the design team based their moves (new ideas, new developments, but nothing that tore the entire game world apart). This is not the same change, and its being motivated by a desire to sell novels which will tell of all the new changes before we get our hands on the FRCS in August. Again, many 3E changes were told via novels, but the coming of Shade and the emergence of the Shadow Weave caused nowhere near the issues that mass deicide and world-altering plagues will likely cause.
And for those who say FR has too many gods, so what? So did many real-life ancient cultures. Hinduism even today has quite a few recognized deities and spirits. FR's pantheon developed much like others, Rome's for example. Start off with a core set of gods, and as you absorb cultures and societies mingle under one shared umbrella of belief, many more enter into the mix. The Romans didn't have massive temples to every single god in their pantheon, but every god had their place in prayers and worship and festivals. So it is in FR- I think the Netherese pantheon is the default, then other gods were absorbed in from other cultures (Jhammdath for one); others, like Tyr, came in from elsewhere; and others still (Mystra's three underlings, Gwaeron, Finder, Shevarash, Cyric, Kelemvor) were mortals made gods by the grace of Ao or another chief god. Each race has their own gods, as do the non-Faerunian cultures of Maztica, Zakahara, and Kara-Tur. Even the Old Empires, part of Faerun proper, have their gods, just as many co-existing cultures had rival sets of similar gods. If you don't want certain gods in your game, limit the ones that players can choose, but let the individual DM's and players decide, not have it come from the top down.
JamesM
First Post
Agreed. What may not have been clear from my previous post was that I felt most D&D players would eventually upgrade to 4E rules, whereas I am far from certain most Realms players will upgrade to the 4E Realms. At the very least, the alteration of the Realms is, as you say, a huge gamble and it's far from guaranteed it'll pay off.Faraer said:
Yes, the Realms -- like D&D itself -- is far more comfortably characterized as sword and sorcery than high fantasy. It can do high fantasy, sure, but it's not its native idiom, so to speak.
I hold out zero hope of its ever reverting to Ed, but it's an amusing idle nonetheless.
Brian Compton
First Post
Faraer said:
OK. I will concede your literary analogies (the three I mentioned were the first few that came into my head, probably remembering the earlier comparison of the Moonshaes to Earthsea), if you will concede that, with maybe the exception of Lieber, the influences for the Realms are not quite the same as the influences for Eberron. Hence, its kind of hard for me to see how FR is being "Eberronized" when they've always been meant to be two different creatures.
JamesM
First Post
I think FR is being "Eberronized" in the same broad sense that 4E is, which is to say that mechanically and thematically Eberron was a dry run for concepts we're seeing more fully developed in the new edition: downplaying of alignment, re-imagining classic monsters, PC-centrism, funky planar cosmologies, etc. It's not that the 4E Realms -- or 4E itself -- will have many (if any) specific connections to Eberron. Eberron will remain its own unique setting, after all. Rather, it's that many of the design principles behind Eberron and the mechanical/thematic consequences of those principles are being imported into both 4E generally and FR specifically.Brian Compton said:
I suspect that's what people say when they talk about "Eberronification." That's certainly how I mean it.
