The Best & Worst of 3rd Edition: WotC Settings (Realms, Ebberon...) (Winners Anc.)

[TerraDave]

Like I said in the other polls

A new year begins, and 3rd edition D&D comes close to its end.

The time for judgement has arrived. Over the coming days I will do a series of polls to see what was good, what was bad, and what was meh.

This one is WotC Campaign Settings: products for the Forgotten Realms, Eberron, and the few others for Greyhawk and Dragonlance.

Note: that some eberron and realms adventures where included in another poll.
Note: there are two eberron products to still be released for 3rd ed.

The other polls

WotC Player Supplements: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=216084
WotC Core Rules and Bestiaries: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=3981398
WotC Adventures and Locations http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=216185

 

[megamania]

a lot of blanks from myself since i don't own many of these books. I'm kinda curious to see the like/dislike of 3.0 vs 3.5

 

[Arnwyn]

I have tons of these ones, too (all FR, certainly). Some of my more notable highlights:

Loved:
- Shining South
- Serpent Kingdoms
- Unapproachable East
All these books detailed areas of Faerun that have never before been seen. Well done and exhaustive, and consistent with the (very limited) previous information we've seen in the past. Serpent Kingdoms suffered a bit due to some writers who wouldn't know FR if it slapped them in the face, but the geography chapter more than made up for it.

Liked:
- Underdark (expanded even more from DDGttU)
- Races of Faerun
- Power of Faerun (great all the way through, except ruined by the Heralds chapter, which was one big steaming pile of smelly excrement)
- Sharn: City of Towers: A city that very much reminds of Midgar from Final Fantasy VII. And that's a good thing.

Disliked:
- 3e FR Campaign Setting: Yeah, I'm one of those. I suddenly realized after years of owning it that I never use it, other than for character creation (which is, admittedly, excellent). The introduction of the 'regional feat' concept was fantastic, AFAIC. But I never used it at all after characters are created, as the 1e and 2e books (and later 3e supplements) are far superior.
- Magic of Faerun: Yeah, again I'm serious. Lacked consistency and continuity with previously published FR material (especially in the deities unique spells, and unique components). Many of the errors (yes, errors) were later - and thankfully - rectified in 3.5 products. SKR never did know much about FR, though.

Hated:
- Players Guide to Faerun: Despicable. Let's take the neat concept like regional feats and butcher them. A misguided attempt at "updating" to 3.5, with no discernable benefits.
- Faiths & Pantheons: Deity stats, and no avatar CRs... thanks for nothing. A botched concept after the equally ill-fated D&DG. But then, after 2e's F&A series, we couldn't expect much. (And indeed, not getting much is what we ended up with.) Terrible.
- Dragons of Faerun: Among the worst of the worst. Just a big hardcover that wreaks yet more changes across Faerun and invalidates more previously purchased material, thanks to yet another poorly conceived and crappy trilogy of novels. Let's throw in crappy and incomplete stats, too! Eric Boyd's embarassment.

 

[bento]

I only own about half the Eberron books, but I'll speak for two.

Sharn - great book and full of possibilities. This is the kind of setting book I look for - plenty of NPCs, interesting plot threads and important organizations outlined. The only thing I didn't like was like the Eberron Campaign book that came out before it, the book is chocked full of secrets you probably don't want your players to read beforehand.

Which brings me to...

Players Guide to Eberron - I know a lot of people (DMs?) groused about the usefulness of this book, but I really liked it because it had everything about Eberron setting the campaign book has, except with the secret parts taken out. It's one of those books you can easily hand to someone who's never played the setting before, and really understand what makes it special. The only thing that would have made it better would be to add all the character creation stuff (race, classes, feats, etc.) but then again a lot of people would kvetch about it being a reprint.

 

[Rechan]

I wonder where books like "Heroes of Horror" fit into this classification system.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I couldn't vote for FR one way or another. Good setting with huge problems, kind of like Dark Sun.

 

[EricNoah]

I liked a lot of the early FR stuff. I did not care for either of the city books (Sharn and Waterdeep). I did not buy basically anything from the last half of the list, or any of the Eberron stuff beyond the core book (which I did enjoy). Of the items on that list, Magic of Faerun is the item I actually used the most.

 

[amethal]

I did not care for either of the city books (Sharn and Waterdeep).

How come? What didn't you like about them?

Personally, I love city books but I don't play in either Eberron or the Realms and these two seemed very campaign specific so I didn't buy them.

 

[Ron]

Interesting, the top three favourites (based in % of liked) are the three main setting books:

1. Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting 79.7%
2. Living Greyhawk Gazetteer 75.5%
3. Eberron Campaign Setting 72.5%

Unfortunately, the remaining accessories disappointed the voters as Eberron average is just 56,7%, whereas Forgotten Realms fared even worse with 46,2% average.

 

[Rechan]

How come? What didn't you like about them?

No index, for one.

I really like S:CoT, but the lack of index is infuriatingly annoying.