Review of the Eberron Campaign Guide...

[Somebloke]

This has been discussed in this thread on the WotC forums.

Keith weighs in with:

I stand corrected and somewhat chastened.

 

[Glyfair]

I stand corrected and somewhat chastened.

No need to be chastened. I just found it an enlightening side to the discussion, that you wouldn't see if you hadn't visited the WotC forums (and I find Keith's tastes and ideas about Eberron tend to run very close to my own).

 

[Rechan]

Sat down with the ECG today at BooksAMillion. While I couldn't indulge in reading everything I wanted, I did look through the various statblocks. Very sexy. The Spire of Fading Dreams is uber sexy.

I was slightly disappointed there wasn't hard-fast stuff for symbiotes. Especially because it mentions that the Lord of Eyes has a symbiote breast plate and other things, and the sidebar says "Hey, you can use them if you separate them from him", but no stats for them.

 

[gribble]

I was slightly disappointed there wasn't hard-fast stuff for symbiotes.

The general rules for symbiotes (as well as specific rules for a couple of items plus an artifact) can be found in the Free RPG Day adventure, Khybers Harvest.

 

[Rechan]

The general rules for symbiotes (as well as specific rules for a couple of items plus an artifact) can be found in the Free RPG Day adventure, Khybers Harvest.

Saw those all ready.

I meant the breastplate and the eye amulet that the Lord of Eyes has. Also, it's a shame you have to dig up a free adventure to get something that ought to be in the core book (since it was in the ECS the first time 'round).

 

[Glyfair]

Saw those all ready.

I meant the breastplate and the eye amulet that the Lord of Eyes has. Also, it's a shame you have to dig up a free adventure to get something that ought to be in the core book (since it was in the ECS the first time 'round).

Keith stated that he put the symbionts in the adventure so that they would exist in 4E (here

Well, it's worth noting that symbionts are in the adventure because WotC gave me the opportunity to WRITE the adventure. And while they aren't in the ECG, there's a good section on Khyber and the daelkyr; the loss of symbionts is a factor of how much other stuff is in there, and it wouldn't surprise me if they appear in the AV2.

Honestly, I am not a big fan of the symbionts and could miss them altogether. In fact, in that particular adventure I didn't think they were particularly effective items for the creatures that used them.

 

[Klaus]

Speaking to the history of Dhakaan, it's left out because it's DM information. Nothing has changed, and if anything, the ECG contains more information on the daelkyr and the Dhakaani than the ECS did.

IMO, the changes to the planes have relatively little impact on things; If I were writing The Gates of Night today, I wouldn't do anything different. Dolurrh is now called "Dolurrh, the Shadowfell" instead of "the Region of the Dead", but it still IS the region of the dead; the description of the plane and its effects when coterminous and remote are still in line with the original Dolurrh, and there's no Raven Queen there. It makes it easier to help people who want to link Shadowfell material from other books into the setting to do so, but it's not a vast change to the setting itself.

Dragonmarks are specifically discussed in the ECG. While PCs CAN have out-of-race dragonmarks, the ECG clarifies that this is a astonishingly rare thing and that they may be the first people in history to manifest such marks, stating that it shouldn't be casually done with NPCs and that it could result in conflict with the dragonmarked houses.

But the main thing is that the EPG is written as "PC knowledge" and as such things that may appear to be changes may actually be "PCs don't really know anything about the Age of Demons".

You know what I think is lacking from 4e Eberron? PC write-ups of hobgoblins.

 

[Cyronax]

You know what I think is lacking from 4e Eberron? PC write-ups of hobgoblins.

I wish there was also more feats and more varieties of shifters in the Eberron book. I wanted a 4e version of the 'cliffdive' shifter.

C.I.D.

 

[hvg3akaek]

Yes, I was very disappointed that there weren't another two or so forms of shifters in the Eberron Player's Guide.

 

[CelticMutt]

You know what I think is lacking from 4e Eberron? PC write-ups of hobgoblins.

Damn straight. I'm still hoping for a massive Dragon article covering all the Goblinoids - massive since some of the articles deemed "DM only" are supposed to be moving to Dungeon, which should leave more room for a nice big Goblinoid article. At the very least there needs to be one for Hobgoblins

I was expecting one this month in fact, since the books are out. Hopefully in August.

Of course, last year around the time the FR books came out we got an article or 2 on Drow, plus an Ecology article for Genasi, so I was expecting that to happen this month or August for Changelings, Kalashtar, and maybe Xen'drik Drow as well, but no luck so far there either.