So..tell me about Eberron

[Spatula]

Some beings that are worshiped do walk around, however - notable is the lich Vol

Vol isn't actually worshipped, though. The Blood of Vol cult follows the precepts of the long-dead elven House of Vol (of which the lich is the only "surviving" member, but keeps her existance secret).

Also on the religion topic, while clerics aren't required to have their deity's alignment, they still have to somehow rationalize their actions with their faith. A LE priest of the Flame commits atrocities for (in his/her mind) the greater good, not just for pleasure or personal gain.

Personally, I think Eberron is a great setting because it is just brimming over with so many ideas that translate very well into adventures. There are lots of power groups with their own agendas, set up to very clearly conflict with one another (possibly with the PCs in the middle!). There are plenty of nefarious organizations, many mysteries to explore, tons of ancient ruins to delve into, etc. etc. etc. The setting just feels very alive to me.

I also like the way religion is handled, as it does allow for corruption within a "good" church, which makes such organizations much less one-dimensional, much more interesting, and more open to adventure opportunities. EDIT: Not to mention it actually treats polytheistic religion as... polytheistic, instead of "my god is better than your god."

The only "bad" aspect of Eberron that comes to mind is that while the planar cosmology is fairly interesting, the planes themselves seem like rather lackluster sites for adventure compared to the prime. But then, I felt the same way about the Great Wheel ("wow, so this is where slightly evil CN people go when they die. ok, let's go home"). It does somewhat mystify me that we've gotten a book on Sarlona (an overseas nation closed to outsiders) but nothing developing the planes yet. And they badly need it.

 

[Wormwood]

What do you like?

I love that the setting accommodates pulp adventures easily. My only Eberron game focused on the PCs as private investigators, and honestly it felt like we were channeling Doc Savage at times.

In fact, I could run a Spirit of the Century game set in Eberron tomorrow, if I wished.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Well, I could tell you what I've learned so far, and what I like (which is just about everything! Er, sans Warforged (for PCs)) but some these guys do it so much better:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=207019


I'm loving the setting, but am still in learning mode, so I don't have a great deal of wisdom to pass on yet (heh, if ever.) Anyway, hope it ends up suiting you too - I'm finding it to be a breath of fresh air, and - by the looks of it - extremely useful/usable. Working my way (not quite cover to cover) through the core book, Five Nations and the Player's Guide, currently. Among other things. . .


Oh, and hey, Hellcow! Um. . . Mr. Baker? Where's that Crime & Punishment Eberron Expanded tie-in article? Got the time and inclination?

Here's hoping.

 

[Wik]

For a little while, I got in on a game with Blargney and a few of his friends. It was a pretty fun setting, even though really, we weren't doing anything "Ground-breaking" that couldn't be done outside normal D&D. All that being said, it was a great campaign, and the focus on high action scenes written into the rules means that a lot of final scenes are going to be a lot more chaotic and crazy than they sometimes are in normal D&D.

After the campaign fizzled, I kept my interest in Eberron. When my own STAP campaign ran dry (around the 7th episode, I think... we just dropped it as a unanimous decision), we talked about our next campaign, and I guess I presented Eberron well, because that's what was voted on!

Our first session is in a few days. And, to show you what Eberron's capable of, I'll give you an idea of my rough campaign outline:

the PCs are in the city of Karlakton (a city overrun by doomsday cults and revolutionaries, with the gray mists of the undead-filled mournland just across the river), for a variety of reasons. One PC was sent by his dragonmarked house to keep an eye/assist a Master Inquisitive, one PC learned that there was money to be made in Karlakton, our warforged is trying to find a few of her friends from the last war who have recently gone missing, and our druid is interested in studying the mournland.

The main enemies are the revolutionaries (who, after their craziness, eventually call the king of Karnn to call in the national armies, which consist mainly of undead), the cult-like Blood of Vol, and a coalition of renegade House Cannith (the house of making) and House Jorasco (the house of healing) intent on creating a "New and improved" form of warforged.

It's gonna be a lot of fun.

But, to cut things short:

THINGS I LIKE ABOUT EBERRON:
1) Dragonmarked houses and social-based PrCs (such as the Dragonmark Heir and the Master Inquisitive) make non-combat adventures much more of a possibility.
2) Dragonmarks in general are just plain COOL. If I ever get a chance to play in another Eberron game, I'll be playing a Dragonmarked character.
3) The Last War is a great campaign event, and one thing I did when we created characters was have every player discuss what they did (and how they feel about) the Last War. One note, though - don't think of the Last War as WW2. The analogy doesn't really fit. Really, the Last War is more similar, historically, to the end of WW1 - considering the sense of despression and unease that followed.
4) Psionics are integrated into the setting. While I don't like psionics, I *do* like how they don't feel "tacked on" in Eberron. (I actually got rid of them in my eberron, which means I have to rework large tracts of the setting)
5) Using action points is fun! (note: I recommend doing what Blargney does in his games; use the "Players roll all the dice" variant, along with the active defense bonus rule, where monsters have a static attack number, and players roll their armour class to defeat the monster's attack. The reasoning behind this is, players can then use action points to actually *dodge* blows. Which is good)
6) The monsters in the ECS are all cool. How rare is that? (P.S. Living Spells rock!)

THINGS I DON'T LIKE
1) Religion - I don't like any of the Eberron religions, really - they just don't stick out to me. I kind of like the Church of the Silver Flame, but they're still just so-so. Really, it seems like playing a cleric in Eberron isn't that common. I haven't seen too many.

2) Focus on Sharn - any adventure you buy is going to mention Sharn at least once or twice. There's a lot outside of Sharn, and it does sort of annoy me just how often people want to make it the centre of their campaign (as an example, look at the Eberron Play-By-Posts: I think fully half of our adventures are set entirely in Sharn!).

3) Scale and Populations - the map scales are messed up, making the twelve nations HUGE. Even Mr. Baker himself has admitted it was a mess-up with the art department. I haven't figured out how I'm going to reduce the scale in my own games, but it will be done. Population figures could use some boosting, too, to more "Industrial Europe" figures, as opposed to the by-the-books, based off medieval era D&D population numbers. Sharn should have a million people in it!

Kalashtar - they just annoy me. Sorry.

Finally, one last thing - if you're interested in Eberron, but can't get a group or something, I highly recommend you check out ENWorld's Living Eberron, of which I am one of the game judges. It's a play-by-post forum where you use the same character from adventure to adventure. And it's a lot of fun (even if my main PC right now is bleeding out of his ears!) It is, obviously, focused on Eberron, and it gives you an idea of how Eberron games differ from usual D&D games.

 

[Wik]

Oh, and regarding how D&D and Eberron differ:

with our group, when we started making PCs, we got a Changeling, a Warforged, and a shifter right off the bat - everyone wanted to try something new from the book. And the remaining player decided to play a dragonmarked character.

I also find that Eberron parties tend to make use of alternate sources of healing (our group will rely on the Spirit Shaman to heal them, which is dubious). Artificers seem to be abundant, as do rogues (again, in our Eberron group, almost everyone instantly thought of a rogue PC, and then they had to rework things so that they wouldn't all be killed instantly).

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Does anyone here have the "Dragons of Eberron" book yet? If so, what is it like?

 

[JeffB]

Wow There is alot of great info and links to great info in this thread. Once I get the ECS, I'm sure I'll be able to follow/better understand some of the advice given.

I wish the stupid books would arrive now

I did take a look at the PG to Eberron over the weekend and thought that looked fairly useful for a DM as well. One thing I DONT do..and never have, is buy a bazillion campaign setting books. I tend to take just the main book (and possibly 1 or 2 more that strikes my fancy) and run with the ball. I'll check out the Lich Queen adventure as I had a couple minutes to browse through it and I thought from a quick glance it looked like a pretty cool adventure.

Thanks so much! I will certainly check out the Living Eberron threads here, sounds like fun (I've never done a play by post game)

Question: Is there a (loosely or wholly) Egyptian themed area/country on Eberron? With all the pulp/Indy talk, a good old fashioned pyramid/tomb romp might be fun.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

Xen´drik is your "dwarven Indy braves the djungles" area of Eberron, although it has more of a South America vibe. It´s big, though, which means that you could "rebrand" parts of it into a more Egyptian setting. Simply don´t look at the Xen´drik book (it´s mostly a compilation of adventure sites and resources anyway) - create your Xen´drik from scratch.
For me, the Aereni elves resonate most with the whole Egypt idea - i mean, some of them embalm themselve while they are still alive. Of course, Aerenal is far from being a fallen ancient nation ripe for adventure (more of a powerful "let´s not let our ancestors die" nation of arrogant elves).

And you don´t need a lot of books for Eberron - IMHO, the ECS, Sharn and one other book are more than enough.

Oh, i recently bought Eyes of the Lich Queen, and i really like the adventure. If you read through it several times and take notes to expand it, it´s really a mini-campaing all in itself. I am using the excellent "Sharn" - trilogy by Nicolas Logue, and a highly expanded EotLQ will be fit between the adventures (the adventure chain being: / Self-created intro adventure / Chimes after midnight / Self-created travel adventure / EotLQ / Quoth the Raven / Logues Third adventure coming out for free in the new Dungeon).

 

[Asmor]

Question: Is there a (loosely or wholly) Egyptian themed area/country on Eberron? With all the pulp/Indy talk, a good old fashioned pyramid/tomb romp might be fun.

There is not, but I can think of two very simple ways to make it so:

1: Xen'Drik. As mentioned, Xen'Drik is the land of whatever ruins are relevant to the plot. You need pyramids? It's got pyramids.

2: This requires a bit of a setting re-write, but really not much... Just make the Aereni elves have an egyptian culture. It's pretty simple, just change the window dressing a bit. Heck, they've even got these underground tombs where they store every dead elf; just change the underground tombs into aboveground pyramids! (or, to take it a step further, FLOATING pyramids! Aerenal is the sole source of soarwood in Eberron, a material which is naturally buoyant.

 

[Rechan]

As before mentioned, both Xen'Drik (it has a desert along the western side) or the island of Aerenal works. The Aerenal give an Aztec vibe, but it wouldn't be hard to just point at them and go "Bam! Egyptian!" You also could try to do it with the Valenar in their desert home, but they give off more of an Arabian vibe, rather than pyramids and sphynx.

One place you could easily drop egypt, however, is the Demon Wastes. It's a blasted, forsaken desert with ancient ruins of the Age of Demons. It's got roving bands of nasty, crazy barbarians, the home of animal-headed spellcasters, etc. Yet it's not exactly "Let's just go have an archaeological dig in the middle of the Fiend Overlords Back Yard".