Urban content: Races of Destiny vs. Cityscape

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Races of Destiny (which I do not own) has a decent amount of urban content, including the god Urbanus, the Urban Soul prestige class and rules and fluff. Now, a year-plus later, WotC is coming out with an all-urban sourcebook, Cityscape.

Starting in August, my D&D campaigns will shift towards Ptolus, and I've been planning on adding almost all the game's urban content into the stewpot (the urban druid and urban ranger, for instance, are a must, in my mind). And I'm planning on buying Cityscape.

But I'm unsure about Races of Destiny, which I'd otherwise only want for the half-ogre. Anyone got a gut feeling (or better) about whether or not Urbanus, the Urban Soul and similar content will be reprinted in Cityscape?

 

[Whimsical]

I'm not sure, but instead of having Urbanis as a regular god, he could be the "spirit of the city" that is created from communal subconsious minds of the people. This would be the force that the urban druid taps and reveres.

 

[MerricB]

Races of Destiny is not a particularly good book. I would recommend not getting it and just waiting for Cityscape (which will probably reprint the good urban parts of RoD).

Cheers!

 

[prosfilaes]

I liked the Illumian race in the Races of Destiny, but besides that I didn't see anything terribly useful.

 

[Drowbane]

Races of Destiny was pretty damn bland. I've done a rather successful job of scouring it from my grey-matter.

That said, I guess I'd have to vote for Cityscape.

 

[Nyeshet]

I'm not sure, but instead of having Urbanis as a regular god, he could be the "spirit of the city" that is created from communal subconsious minds of the people. This would be the force that the urban druid taps and reveres.

Somehow, whenever I think of Urban Druids 'feng shui' comes to mind. "No, the building must be built in this shape with its entrance in this direction - and a koi pool in the back near the east corner. Otherwise the 'feel' of the building will be off, bringing poor luck upon the dweller!"

Odd, I know, but there it is. I would need to make more than a few changes to the Druid class to actually give it this type of feel in-game, but then I've never had a player ask for an Urban Druid before, so I've never needed to consider the matter one way or the other. I must admit to some curiosity about Cityscape and what will be in it. I've liked the other environmental books, but I'm not too sure about this one.

 

[Graf]

Somehow, whenever I think of Urban Druids 'feng shui' comes to mind. "No, the building must be built in this shape with its entrance in this direction - and a koi pool in the back near the east corner. Otherwise the 'feel' of the building will be off, bringing poor luck upon the dweller!"

Very cool image.
What kind of game mechanical changes you thinking about?

[ontopic]RoD is a love letter about a race of better-than-human-but-otherwise-indistinguishable-human-monks... the illumian mechanics are interesting and the image of a bunch of humans with glowy symbols over their heads is cool, but making them their own race was... silly.
Personally I think they were a testbed for a lot of good ideas that were turned into feats (practiced spellcaster, etc).

Its not a book you should own unless you're a completist though.

 

[the Jester]

The ONLY thing in RoD that made me tempted to buy it was the urban stuff. I didn't buy it, and am now hoping against hope that Cityscape reprints it (the City domain or whatever it's called was AWESOME!).

 

[Whimsical]

Dragon #317 has a good writeup of an urban druid. I would love to play one someday, in an urban focused campaign.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The ONLY thing in RoD that made me tempted to buy it was the urban stuff. I didn't buy it, and am now hoping against hope that Cityscape reprints it (the City domain or whatever it's called was AWESOME!).

Argh, I forgot about the domain. So we have a god, a prestige class, a domain and spells. I'm sure the RoD purchasers will be pissed if all that is reprinted in Cityscape, but unless I can get RoD for 75 percent off or something, I just can't justify buying it. Ugh. (Although Ptolus apparently includes its own urban god, so there's that, at least.)