Azazyll said:Not everyone likes the planetouched running around. In Eberron, they don't quite fit the setting. But besides that, Eberron doesn't need planetouched, although they could, I suppose, exist, they just aren't integral, as they are starting to be in the FR. Eberron has four new races, two of which fit particularly well with the setting (warforged and shifter). Beyond that, they made elves interesting for the first time in perhaps a decade (if you ignore the teen crush on orlando bloom), and all the other races at least got a twist. Gnomes, praise god, have their gonads back, and I'm actually inclined to use Orcs in my campaign. Druidic, nature loving Orcs? The spiritual goblins? Wait wait, goblins actually get a moments notice, unlike in FR? I was hooked.
I was, however, also very sad about Psionics. It does not blend into the setting well. It is defnitely modular, but very cleverly integrated, IMHO. I actually feel cheated out of an idea, that the same source of psionics I wanted to use in my setting. In fact, Eberron has done so many things that I want to do in my own setting, either directly or coming up with something just as good, that I for once feel no shame in using someone else's campaign. Which is a way I always felt about FR. To me, FR lacks soul, but has everything else. Eberron has soul. If it's lacking everything else, well, it doesn't have more than a decade of support or WotC's darling status to support it. Psionics got less than what it's gotten in Eberron so far in the original campaign setting book, and at least in Eberron Psionics has a life of it's own instead of being "personal weave magic" and taking backseat to the arcane. If FR has been incorporated into the rest of WotC's products, it's because of demand. And because they knew they could seel the Player's Guide and make money off of it. Which caused a lot of griping on these message boards, if I remember correctly. But then, people always complain at first and then praise when it helps later complaints. That's just how people are.
I disagree that the mechanics have fallen short. [edit: it is possible to overdo the mechanics tastelessly, and no one could accuse Eberron of this. There's a little of everything, from the standard feats, races, PCs, spells and domains, to the more recently popular core classes and house rules, but erring on the side of "this is a setting, not a supplement". Don't think of it in terms of FR, which pushes feats and prestige classes as if that was the lifeblood of a campaign world, but more like Greyhawk, where you rarely see a new rule but the campaign is still going strong 25 years later. Rules do not the game make.] The dragonmarks are a stroke of genius. Background and mechanics blend beautifully, with the added twist of the Heirs of Siberys, detailed connection to the setting and an interesting history. Warforged and Shifters get bonus feats that, rather than exhausting the possibilites, point the way to exciting character ideas. I hardly think that adamantine or mithril body plating are the only possibilities, and I'm pretty sure we'll see more options to come. Shifter feats are some of the most graceful game mechanics I've seen in a long time, since the entire genre of feats doesn't just open up knew options of what you can do, they all allow you to do those things often and longer. These are the kinds of ways feats should be used for. This is one of the first books where I didn't feel feats were a dime a dozen in a long time.
But the best part of this book is ideas. People are always complainging about not having enough fluff. Well, this book has enough. I can see why Keith Baker won the setting search. "The same but different" is right. He made the divine interesting again, with believable, actual pantheons and a church earily similar to the real world (the best attempt at the real world church I've ever seen in a fantasy game, but still "fantasy" enough to fit and PC enough not to start MADD up again). He made economics actually feel important to the campaign. There really is an Indiana Jones-ish feel, that nineteen twenties feeling of exploration and wonder laced with intrigue and horror, which has some how comfortably come to rest in a world that is most definitely high fantasy. And about time, there are plenty of low fantasy games out there right now. Not that I don't think midnight or my own favorite ravenloft don't have their places, but I was glad to see that High fantasy can still be cool, since FR hasn't had a breath of fresh air in ages.
In the end, you'll either like Eberron or you won't. But there's no denying that a lot of heart didn't go into this project, or that it brings a truly new and unlooked for mood to the fantasy community that hasn't been caught unprepared in years.
Word to your exquisite use of words!! I agree 100%
That's great! A setting that opens up two years after a major war? Excellent idea. Diplomatic gnomes, pirate half-elves, mercenary elves, Gatekeeper orcs, barbarian halflings, and a whole slew of different kinds of humans: excellent.
