Well, I posted a review of EQ the RPG over on another site, and so I'll just repost the only aspect of it I haven't seen anyone mention here:
Confession #2: Everquest's classes and races seem kind of haphazard to me. Based solely on this book, of course, we have Barbarians (as a race), Dark Elves, Dwarves, Erudites (a smarter, weaker human, just as Barbarians are bigger and dumber than standard), Gnomes, Half-Elves, Halflings, High Elves, Humans, Iksar (think Lizardfolk or Sleestaks), Ogres, Trolls (which aren't much different than Ogres and not much like D&D trolls at all), Val Shir (Kzinti, to you Ringworld fans) and Wood Elves. I don't know what I was expecting, but it does seem kind of blah to me. The idea that humans have been divided into races that don't seem to be different enough to justify it is just one of my problems with it. The classes aren't much better, in my opinion. There are fifteen of them, although several of them are just altered versions of the standard D&D classes (Bards, Clerics, Druids, Monks, Paladins, Rangers, Rogues and Wizards, and the Warrior is remarkably similar to the Fighter) although again, I'm probably missing the way they deftly converted the EQ classes to d20. It isn't even that they did a bad job...several of these classes are quite playable variations of the core classes...just that I would have liked to have seen a bit more variation. XP is different from standard d20 as well, multiplying the current level by 2000 in order to go up a level. A 3rd level EQ RPG character will have 6000 XP, and will require an additional 6000 to reach 4th level. A straight D&D character will be almost 6th level by then. Frankly, I don't see any reason for this change, since the EQ classes aren't any more powerful than their D&D counterparts until they hit 20th level...since EQ didn't use, probably couldn't use the Epic Level rules for D&D, which are not in the System Reference Document and thus not OGC, but instead went with their own system which basically just tacks on new levels and what they call Disciplines, a 30th level Warrior in EQ has a +30 BAB, whereas a 30th level Fighter under the ELH would only have a +25 BAB (Epic characters only gain +1 to their BAB's every other level). However, the D&D character with the experience of a 30th level Warrior from EQ would be approaching 42nd level, and would easily gut the Warrior, so it kind of evens out. (A 30th level EQ character has 870,000 XP...slightly more than the 42nd level fighter, whose feats would far have outstripped the Warrior at this point, whose BAB would be higher, and who would have a lot more hit points.) This may be another case of translation from EQ online, but in this case it doesn't seem necessary to me, and since they were borrowing so much else, why change the experience points?
