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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Estlor" data-source="post: 1630673" data-attributes="member: 7261">I think with Eberron there was a misunderstanding of what the fundamental aspect of the setting ("If it's in D&D, it's in Eberron") meant.  Reading through the book I can tell that a strong effort was made to keep things as basic as possible while still leaving room for everything to have a place somewhere in the setting.  Look at the core races - yes, they changed the flavor of each race, but the mechanics are the same and there isn't an overabundance of subraces to fill each niche of society (collectively known as the "Elven Subrace Problem"). Of course, the problem with opening the setting to any supplement currently released or due out (or even still just the wild imagination of a designer) is you have to prepare for anything.  And to that end, Eberron did the right thing.  If they had filled every organization with specific prestige classes or races from various supplements, it would have lessened the utility of the setting as a whole.  More and more of the campaign setting would lose meaning for all but a select portion of the audience.  Instead, they went the other way.  Keep it fuzzy.  Let the DM decide who makes up what.  This way if you want an order to be all Favored Souls, it's done.  But another DM can spin it a different way. It's an economics issue also.  Logically, more people will buy the core rulebooks than the millieu of supplements that come after it.  Likewise, more people will buy the Eberron CS than the supplements to follow.  Therefore, you cater the CS to the core audience, then get more specific in supplements.  If they wanted to, WotC could probably get away with releasing a supplement that details how to include the more popular supplements at a later date. Now as for the races not having enough mechanics, it occurs to me that the goal behind those races was to take some of the "kewler" monsters and turn them into ECL 0 races.  Changlings are toned down doppelgangers.  Shifters are toned down lycanthropes.  Warforged are toned down golems.  This gives them the chance to (at a later date) develop a series of feats or prestige classes that let these races tap fully into their ancestry.  It's actually a sound mechanical decision.</blockquote>

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