Mutant Rabbits in the Mournlands SPOILERS for Shadows of the Last War

[fanboy2000]

WARNING! Spoilers for Shadows of the Last War!

So I've been running my players through Shadows of the Last War. Great adventure. Well, they got to the Mounlands today.

For anyone who dosen't know, the Mournlands are a nation that was destroyed by an enormous explosion of unknown origin. The flavor is reminicent of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Of course, you can't have a metaphor for nuclear weapons with out thinking of Gamma World. So, after a few seriously creepy encounters with dead bodys that won't decompose and some off the wall magical effects, (the wizard cast prestigigitation, and found he didn't have complete control over when the effects ended and exactly what they did.) I sucomed to my temptations and had an encounter with 6 foot tall humanoid white rabbits. Yes, I through hoops at them. One guy got it. And yes, they turned a morning star into rubber. It was fun.

Because I didn't write-up the stats before hand, I made them up. I had a group of 4 hoops, 2 with +1 long swords, 2 with +1 longbows. I rolled their attacks with a +1 total to attack, a 15 AC (I didn't even decide what kind of armor they were wearing, though in retrospect I should have specified leather armor), no bonus to will saves (they didn't roll any reflex or fort saves), and 25 hp. I used 25 because I knew the battle wasn't going to last long anyways. What's strange is that they came away thinking the encounter was tough, even challangeing. Hey, as long as they had fun.

So, next time your party is in the Mournlands, though a hoop or 10 at the party. Though, you may want to stat them out through something other than DM fiat.

 

[ReignMan]

Erm - Eberron

As a player new to DM'ing I am finding Ebrron somewhat a chalenge to get going. It's huge! The campaign guide provides little info on Sharn (and the "Sharn City of Towers " suppliment is not out until November). Are you using a huge amount of crative licence or have you found additional source material to assist?

 

[Allanon]

As a player new to DM'ing I am finding Ebrron somewhat a chalenge to get going. It's huge! The campaign guide provides little info on Sharn (and the "Sharn City of Towers " suppliment is not out until November). Are you using a huge amount of crative licence or have you found additional source material to assist?

A good source for semi-official answer (and some official) is the Ebberon WotC forum. The Ask Keith Baker FAQ is a good place to start for most of you're questions.

Another great source I've found (that isn't official however) is www.coveworld.net/eberron/.

Hope this helps.

 

[ReignMan]

Thanks - Have been using Eberron hompage but have been very dissapointed - even the downloadable maps are poor. Will check out the other link though.

Thanks Again

 

[Staffan]

Thanks - Have been using Eberron hompage but have been very dissapointed - even the downloadable maps are poor. Will check out the other link though.

There's a real pretty continental map at http://pages.videotron.com/sebby777/

 

[JoeGKushner]

As a player new to DM'ing I am finding Ebrron somewhat a chalenge to get going. It's huge! The campaign guide provides little info on Sharn (and the "Sharn City of Towers " suppliment is not out until November). Are you using a huge amount of crative licence or have you found additional source material to assist?

Well, part of this is dependent on what you're doing. You could easily run 5-7 sessions just based on the material already out. There's one adventure in the hardcover, one printed adventure, and two more in Dungeon magazine. What are you trying to do?

 

[ReignMan]

We are playing the Level 1 adventure in the back of the book and I have Shadows of the last war ready to follow on with and Whisper of the Vampire's Blade on pre-order.

I guess the difficulty comes with the fist few sessions where Eberron is so out of the norm e.g. Action Points ( ), Dragonmarks, Dragonshards, New Races etc. that the player characters should know the basics of because they live in the world but don't because the want to get on with the adventure.

 

[JoeGKushner]

We are playing the Level 1 adventure in the back of the book and I have Shadows of the last war ready to follow on with and Whisper of the Vampire's Blade on pre-order.

I guess the difficulty comes with the fist few sessions where Eberron is so out of the norm e.g. Action Points ( ), Dragonmarks, Dragonshards, New Races etc. that the player characters should know the basics of because they live in the world but don't because the want to get on with the adventure.

Well, most of what you've mentioned here are actually game mechanics that add flavor to the game system as opposed to needing hundreds of pages of definitions. Part of this does depend on your players. If you've got players wanting to spend hours discussing the significance of the Thirteen Marks, then you're really not running the adventurers as written or meant to be played. Nothing wrong with that mind you. The 'basics' of the world, and each race, are there, often right where the information is.

For example, what about Action Points makes you made?

BTW, welcome to the boards.

 

[ReignMan]

I guess my problem is that the players are not picking up on the significance of the Houses, Drangonmarks etc. because as yet they don't understand the setting and because of the type of players they are they are not willing to stop and reasearch or at least ask "What as a citizen of "Eberron" would I know about that". The "mad" thing was generally the opinion of the group being "what's the point in that!"

The other difficulty comes around the setting of the first adventure, Sharn. I have not yet seen a map of the city or any real detail on key places eg. markets, hospitals, universities where are they located etc. I guess I am just used to playing in campaignes where a lot more detail is provided e.g. Witchfire Trillogy from PP or any of the Necromancer Games products. In fairness to WotC though it would be impossible to provide this for every City/Metropolis given the scale of Eberron.

Thanks for the welcome - been reading for over a year now - just never bothered to register and post.

 

[fanboy2000]

As a player new to DM'ing I am finding Ebrron somewhat a chalenge to get going. It's huge! The campaign guide provides little info on Sharn (and the "Sharn City of Towers " suppliment is not out until November). Are you using a huge amount of crative licence or have you found additional source material to assist?

I've taken creative licence with the setting. The adventures I'm running (same as you, adventure in the back, Shadows, Vampire's Blade, and Grasp of the Emerald Claw when it comes out next year)

For example, I don't need a map of Sharn (though I'd bee real nice) to know that's theirs a market that caters to adventures. If they want to buy supplies, my players are comfortable going there even if they don't have a map telling them exactly where the market is. I just say "you go to the market, what are you looking for?" If it's standard stuff, rope, rations, etc.. they just buy them.

I'll admit, my group's a bit diffrent. I've got a Warforged, a Shifter, a Kaashtar, a Gnome Artificer, and the one guy who dosen't have Ebberon spicific race or class has a dragonmark. So my player's have embraced the setting.

If you have a standared D&D group (ie, 1 of each: fighter, rogue, cleric, and wizard) with no Eberron spicific feats, it shouldn't be hard. The best place to get the feel of Eberron is the Mournland. In the Mournland you can get away with "wild magic" cure spells don't work, and it's reasonable to assume that spells don't always work the way they're supposed to. For example, if a wizard casts mage armor, you can discribe it as being translucent instead of transparent, but it's translucent enough that the player dosne't recive a penalty. Flavorful discriptions go along way. Sometimes effects and give some minor penalty, just to trump up the fact that the Mournlands are dangrous place.

If you have a psion, there's no better place than the Goblin kingdom to have Blues. Unless you've used Blues a lot in the past, players are usually suprised to see blues anywhere. If you use psionics at all in Eberron, Blues really reenforce the intergrated psionics concept.

Houses are a bit trickier. For normal adventures with no connections to the houses, then it would make sense for them to just be merchant cartels youprovide goods and services for payment. Fortunitly, there are other organizations in the adventure that can give the feel of Eberron. The Blood of Vol and The Emerald Claw. Having the Emerald Claw shout things like "You can't truly kill me! I'll rise-up again and slaughter with more power than you can imagine!" goes a long way.

Eberron isn't that diffrent from straight D&D. I'm curious though, do how do you run other settings? Is it just the lack of material that bothers you?