geoffrey d`glanville
First Post
Races of Faerûn
This is a little discussion of what could easily be the best book so far in the 3e Forgotten Realms line, although there have already been many good ones.
The overall concept to finally gather all major Races of Faerûn in one nice hardcover was overdue and is very good, 5.6 out of 5.10.
The Cover of the book by Greg Staples is very good, although I expected something more tranquil or peaceful for a Races book, 4.7.
The Binding of the book is WotC premium, as always, 5.4.
The general Cover Layout of this book is like that of the whole FR series - very good and evocative, 5.4.
The Paper Quality is one of the best in the business, 5.6.
The general crème Inner Layout set new standarts when the FR Campaign Setting came out in June 2001 and is also one of, if not the best in the business, 5.7.
Now a little bit towards the content of the book.
The Introduction chapter (5 pages) is not bad, but a little bit too crunch-laden for my taste, and it did not make me waste a night`s sleep reading through the whole book from front to back, 3.5
Next is Dwarves, a very good chapter, 5.0. The reader is guided through the various aspects of Dwarven, especially Faerûnian Dwarven racial and cultural aspects.
How this is done is maybe best explained by showing you an example: the Arctic Dwarves.
After a page worth of general Dwarven History, the Dwarf, Arctic chapter begins.
First, it features statistical information about Regions, Racial Feats, and a possible Level Adjustment, in this case a +2.
Then follows a general 0.5 page long introduction about the Arctic Dwarves with staistical information about life expectancy, age categories and random height and weight.
Then due up are History and Outlook. Outlook features as sub-chapter Arctic Dwarf Characters with a note on possible Favored Classes.
Then up next are Arctic Dwarf Society, Language and Literacy, Abilities and Racial Features. Arctic Dwarf Magic and Lore comes along with sub-chapters Spells and Spellcasting and Arctic Dwraf Magic Items.
The chapter about the Arctic Dwarves closes with Arctic Dwarf Deities, Relations with other Races, Arctic Dwarf Equipment (almost always that also features Animals and Pets, not so in Arctic Dwarves entry, and Arctic Dwarf Region.
This last chapter features as statistical sub-chapters Preferred Classes, Automatic Languages, Bonus Languages, Regional Feats and Bonus Equipment.
As you might assume, none of those many chapters is very long, as the whole Arctic Dwarf entry in the book is only less than 2.5 pages long; but it`s very nicely structured.
The same pattern is then followed thoughout the whole book.
Dwarves features Arctic Dwarves, Gold Dwarves, Gray Dwarves, Shield Dwarves, Urdunnir Dwarves and Wild Dwarves. It counts 18 pages.
Next up is Elves. It features Overview, Racial History, Aquatic Elves, Avariel (Winged Elves), Drow Elves (Dark Elves), Moon Elves (Silver Elves), Sun Elves (Gold Elves), Wild Elves (Green Elves) and Wood Elves (Copper Elves). It counts 22 pages (Elves are taller), a very good 5.0 rating.
Gnomes is next. It features Racial History, Deep Gnomes (Svirfneblin), Forest Gnomes, and Rock Gnomes. This chapter was a little bit too short in my estimation, a 4.7, 10 pages.
Half-Elves is next, and is again too short, although it`s difficult to do something with that race, I admit. Racial History, Common Half-Elves, Half-Aquatic Elves and Half-Drow comprise this small chapter, 6 pages, 4.0.
Then comes Half-Orcs and Orcs, one of the strongest chapters in the book, although, too, a little bit too short. 10 pages, 5.2.
The different races introduced after Overview and Racial History are Gray Orcs, Half-Orcs, Mountain Orcs and Orog (Deep Orcs).
Up next are the "little ones". Racial History, Ghostwise Halflings, Lightfoot Halflings and Strongheart Halflings comprise this way too short chapter, 6 pages, 4.4.
Up next is the longest chapter, 30 pages,and who else could this be, Humans, 5.4.
After the Overview all important sub-groups join in the battle royal. Calishite, Chondathan, Damaaran, Illuskan, Mulan, Rashemi, and Tethyrian are the main Human ethnical groups.
Under Other Human Ethnic Groups are the Bedine, Chultan, Durpari, Ffolk, Gur, Halruaan, Imaskari, Lantanna, Maztikan, Nar, Netherese, Raumviran, Shaaran, Shou, Sossrim, Talfir, Tashalan, Tuigan, Turami, Ulutiun, Vaasan and Zakharan.
Sadly, many of these cultures are only scratched; either there is nothing more to say about them (as I guess, because the Forgotten Realms were always a little bit more about quantity than about quality , but then you could invent something new!) or space was too confined (a general nemesis of this otherwise very good book).
There is also a nice Human Ethnic Groups, By Nation or Region table that features them all.
Then comes the Planetouched chapter, another pearl. Aasimar, Air Genasi, Earth Genasi, Fey`ri, Fire Genasi, Tanarukk, Tieflings and Water Genasi are featured, and it`s especially nice to see races like the Fey`ri and the Tanarukks in there, who otherwise would have been downgraded to XP shippers for the next few years, nice 18 pages, 5.6.
Then up next is Minor Races, which is very aspiring, but too short, too, 24 pages.
Content: Aarakocra, Centaur, Goblinoid (Goblins, Hobgoblins, Dekanter Goblins (I love them) and Bugbears (I love them even more!)), Kir-Lanan (arguably one of the coolest fantasy races out there), Lizardfolk, Lycanthropes (nice chapter), Shades, Wemics (one of my players in my own campaign now plays one and it`s a delight) and Yuan-Ti.
As I said, very interesting, but the space... 5.5.
The Appendix (4.8, 38 pages) features nice, useful Equipment (6.75 pages, 4.9), more than 80 (!), mostly stylish Feats (10 pages, 5.2), various, sometimes a little uninspired Magic Items (3.25 pages, 4.4), several (8) "Monsters" (though they`re basically only new Familiars, so to speak Animals, 4.5 pages, 4.5), 9 mostly sytlish and balanced Prestige Classes (10.75 pages, 4.7, I liked the High Elven Mage (a real Prestige Class), the Orc Warlord and the Breachgnome) and finally 13 Spells (2.75 pages, 4.4), which were average in my estimation, sometimes pure upgrades from already existing one, like Mass Contagion (Clr 5, Drd 5, Sor/Wiz 6).
Artwork was very decent here on average, 4.1.
It featured 68 illus, that makes it 5.4 pages per illu, which is quite good, 5.4.
The Artists` ranking is as follows:
Adam Rex, 5.1 (what a score!), 4 illus.
Raven Mimura, 4.9, 3 illus.
Jim Pavelec, 4.8, 6 illus.
Dennis Calero, 4.6, 4 illus.
Jeremy Jarvis, 4.4, 6 illus.
Wayne England, 4.2, 8 illus.
Mike Dutton, 3.9, 4 illus.
Vince Locke, 3.8, 7 illus.
Vinod Rams, 3.8, 8 illus.
Dennis Cramer, 3.7, 8 illus.
David Martin, 3.5, 9 Illus.
Sam Wood, 1 brown-on-crème illu, 3.8, which is too less to qualify.
My three MVP`s are the Kir-Lanan illu on page 138 by Adam Rex (5.6), the Lycanthrope illu on page 143 by Raven Mimura (5.4) and the Orc horde illu on page 69 by Jim Pavelec (5.3).
The two Golden Tomatoes go to Dennis Cramer for the Yuan-ti illu on page 152 (2.8) and the Calishite mail illu on page 171 by David Martin (3.2).
Generally, it must be said that this is one of the D&D books best equipped with top quality illus. But, here, too, the weakest artists (at least in this line-up) have the most illus in there; maybe the others are just too expensive, I don`t know.
But, Robert Raper (Art Director) has to be mentioned here that he`s done a very good job on this book.
The overall writing style is very nice, 4.7, not too childish as is sometimes the case with WotC products.
The Price/Page is also quite good. 29,95 $ for the book, 192 pages, makes 15,6 Cents per page. From that, I subtract 2,0 for the fact that everything is high-quality full-clolour pages, and 2,0 because everything is bound into a sturdy hardcover, that makes then 11,6 Cents, a very good value per page, 4.9.
The Fluff/Crunch ratio is excellent for this type of book. Basically 95% of it is fluff, but to have it totally without a little crunch would have been a bit boring, 5.9.
The book is very versatile; though written specifically for the Forgotten Realms world (and very likely used for that by the majority of the audience) it`s practically usable for any fantasy setting, be it d20 or not, since it contains only little crunch. An extra +0.2
So, to sum it up, Eric L. Boyd (my FR favourite), Matt Forbeck and James Jacobs have put together one of the best WotC books so far in my opinion; I missed an Index (-0,2 from the score) and would rather have spent more money on it if WotC decided to use their 224 page format on this book; the Races of Faerûn would have deserved it.
This is still officially a 3.0e book from March 2003 (the v.3.5 Rulebooks came out in 7/2003), although it features some minor changes in direction of 3.5e.
It gets a 4.8 rating and a high recommendation from the reviewer.
This is a little discussion of what could easily be the best book so far in the 3e Forgotten Realms line, although there have already been many good ones.
The overall concept to finally gather all major Races of Faerûn in one nice hardcover was overdue and is very good, 5.6 out of 5.10.
The Cover of the book by Greg Staples is very good, although I expected something more tranquil or peaceful for a Races book, 4.7.
The Binding of the book is WotC premium, as always, 5.4.
The general Cover Layout of this book is like that of the whole FR series - very good and evocative, 5.4.
The Paper Quality is one of the best in the business, 5.6.
The general crème Inner Layout set new standarts when the FR Campaign Setting came out in June 2001 and is also one of, if not the best in the business, 5.7.
Now a little bit towards the content of the book.
The Introduction chapter (5 pages) is not bad, but a little bit too crunch-laden for my taste, and it did not make me waste a night`s sleep reading through the whole book from front to back, 3.5
Next is Dwarves, a very good chapter, 5.0. The reader is guided through the various aspects of Dwarven, especially Faerûnian Dwarven racial and cultural aspects.
How this is done is maybe best explained by showing you an example: the Arctic Dwarves.
After a page worth of general Dwarven History, the Dwarf, Arctic chapter begins.
First, it features statistical information about Regions, Racial Feats, and a possible Level Adjustment, in this case a +2.
Then follows a general 0.5 page long introduction about the Arctic Dwarves with staistical information about life expectancy, age categories and random height and weight.
Then due up are History and Outlook. Outlook features as sub-chapter Arctic Dwarf Characters with a note on possible Favored Classes.
Then up next are Arctic Dwarf Society, Language and Literacy, Abilities and Racial Features. Arctic Dwarf Magic and Lore comes along with sub-chapters Spells and Spellcasting and Arctic Dwraf Magic Items.
The chapter about the Arctic Dwarves closes with Arctic Dwarf Deities, Relations with other Races, Arctic Dwarf Equipment (almost always that also features Animals and Pets, not so in Arctic Dwarves entry, and Arctic Dwarf Region.
This last chapter features as statistical sub-chapters Preferred Classes, Automatic Languages, Bonus Languages, Regional Feats and Bonus Equipment.
As you might assume, none of those many chapters is very long, as the whole Arctic Dwarf entry in the book is only less than 2.5 pages long; but it`s very nicely structured.
The same pattern is then followed thoughout the whole book.
Dwarves features Arctic Dwarves, Gold Dwarves, Gray Dwarves, Shield Dwarves, Urdunnir Dwarves and Wild Dwarves. It counts 18 pages.
Next up is Elves. It features Overview, Racial History, Aquatic Elves, Avariel (Winged Elves), Drow Elves (Dark Elves), Moon Elves (Silver Elves), Sun Elves (Gold Elves), Wild Elves (Green Elves) and Wood Elves (Copper Elves). It counts 22 pages (Elves are taller), a very good 5.0 rating.
Gnomes is next. It features Racial History, Deep Gnomes (Svirfneblin), Forest Gnomes, and Rock Gnomes. This chapter was a little bit too short in my estimation, a 4.7, 10 pages.
Half-Elves is next, and is again too short, although it`s difficult to do something with that race, I admit. Racial History, Common Half-Elves, Half-Aquatic Elves and Half-Drow comprise this small chapter, 6 pages, 4.0.
Then comes Half-Orcs and Orcs, one of the strongest chapters in the book, although, too, a little bit too short. 10 pages, 5.2.
The different races introduced after Overview and Racial History are Gray Orcs, Half-Orcs, Mountain Orcs and Orog (Deep Orcs).
Up next are the "little ones". Racial History, Ghostwise Halflings, Lightfoot Halflings and Strongheart Halflings comprise this way too short chapter, 6 pages, 4.4.
Up next is the longest chapter, 30 pages,and who else could this be, Humans, 5.4.
After the Overview all important sub-groups join in the battle royal. Calishite, Chondathan, Damaaran, Illuskan, Mulan, Rashemi, and Tethyrian are the main Human ethnical groups.
Under Other Human Ethnic Groups are the Bedine, Chultan, Durpari, Ffolk, Gur, Halruaan, Imaskari, Lantanna, Maztikan, Nar, Netherese, Raumviran, Shaaran, Shou, Sossrim, Talfir, Tashalan, Tuigan, Turami, Ulutiun, Vaasan and Zakharan.
Sadly, many of these cultures are only scratched; either there is nothing more to say about them (as I guess, because the Forgotten Realms were always a little bit more about quantity than about quality , but then you could invent something new!) or space was too confined (a general nemesis of this otherwise very good book).
There is also a nice Human Ethnic Groups, By Nation or Region table that features them all.
Then comes the Planetouched chapter, another pearl. Aasimar, Air Genasi, Earth Genasi, Fey`ri, Fire Genasi, Tanarukk, Tieflings and Water Genasi are featured, and it`s especially nice to see races like the Fey`ri and the Tanarukks in there, who otherwise would have been downgraded to XP shippers for the next few years, nice 18 pages, 5.6.
Then up next is Minor Races, which is very aspiring, but too short, too, 24 pages.
Content: Aarakocra, Centaur, Goblinoid (Goblins, Hobgoblins, Dekanter Goblins (I love them) and Bugbears (I love them even more!)), Kir-Lanan (arguably one of the coolest fantasy races out there), Lizardfolk, Lycanthropes (nice chapter), Shades, Wemics (one of my players in my own campaign now plays one and it`s a delight) and Yuan-Ti.
As I said, very interesting, but the space... 5.5.
The Appendix (4.8, 38 pages) features nice, useful Equipment (6.75 pages, 4.9), more than 80 (!), mostly stylish Feats (10 pages, 5.2), various, sometimes a little uninspired Magic Items (3.25 pages, 4.4), several (8) "Monsters" (though they`re basically only new Familiars, so to speak Animals, 4.5 pages, 4.5), 9 mostly sytlish and balanced Prestige Classes (10.75 pages, 4.7, I liked the High Elven Mage (a real Prestige Class), the Orc Warlord and the Breachgnome) and finally 13 Spells (2.75 pages, 4.4), which were average in my estimation, sometimes pure upgrades from already existing one, like Mass Contagion (Clr 5, Drd 5, Sor/Wiz 6).
Artwork was very decent here on average, 4.1.
It featured 68 illus, that makes it 5.4 pages per illu, which is quite good, 5.4.
The Artists` ranking is as follows:
Adam Rex, 5.1 (what a score!), 4 illus.
Raven Mimura, 4.9, 3 illus.
Jim Pavelec, 4.8, 6 illus.
Dennis Calero, 4.6, 4 illus.
Jeremy Jarvis, 4.4, 6 illus.
Wayne England, 4.2, 8 illus.
Mike Dutton, 3.9, 4 illus.
Vince Locke, 3.8, 7 illus.
Vinod Rams, 3.8, 8 illus.
Dennis Cramer, 3.7, 8 illus.
David Martin, 3.5, 9 Illus.
Sam Wood, 1 brown-on-crème illu, 3.8, which is too less to qualify.
My three MVP`s are the Kir-Lanan illu on page 138 by Adam Rex (5.6), the Lycanthrope illu on page 143 by Raven Mimura (5.4) and the Orc horde illu on page 69 by Jim Pavelec (5.3).
The two Golden Tomatoes go to Dennis Cramer for the Yuan-ti illu on page 152 (2.8) and the Calishite mail illu on page 171 by David Martin (3.2).
Generally, it must be said that this is one of the D&D books best equipped with top quality illus. But, here, too, the weakest artists (at least in this line-up) have the most illus in there; maybe the others are just too expensive, I don`t know.
But, Robert Raper (Art Director) has to be mentioned here that he`s done a very good job on this book.
The overall writing style is very nice, 4.7, not too childish as is sometimes the case with WotC products.
The Price/Page is also quite good. 29,95 $ for the book, 192 pages, makes 15,6 Cents per page. From that, I subtract 2,0 for the fact that everything is high-quality full-clolour pages, and 2,0 because everything is bound into a sturdy hardcover, that makes then 11,6 Cents, a very good value per page, 4.9.
The Fluff/Crunch ratio is excellent for this type of book. Basically 95% of it is fluff, but to have it totally without a little crunch would have been a bit boring, 5.9.
The book is very versatile; though written specifically for the Forgotten Realms world (and very likely used for that by the majority of the audience) it`s practically usable for any fantasy setting, be it d20 or not, since it contains only little crunch. An extra +0.2
So, to sum it up, Eric L. Boyd (my FR favourite), Matt Forbeck and James Jacobs have put together one of the best WotC books so far in my opinion; I missed an Index (-0,2 from the score) and would rather have spent more money on it if WotC decided to use their 224 page format on this book; the Races of Faerûn would have deserved it.
This is still officially a 3.0e book from March 2003 (the v.3.5 Rulebooks came out in 7/2003), although it features some minor changes in direction of 3.5e.
It gets a 4.8 rating and a high recommendation from the reviewer.
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