Post/Author/DateTime	Post
heirodule 01-30-07, 10:40 AM	I've noted some discussion of Races of Eberron sometimes makes the point that there are a bunch of 'problems' with the book. I gather one of the problems is they used the Races cover, instead of the Eberron cover set (which I admit would have looked better). But that aside, what are the problems with the book? Is it a bad resource for an eberron campaign if I get most everythign else? Is there a thread I can look at for the rundown, or can someone summarize?
Subtle Knife 01-30-07, 11:31 AM	I would love to see a summary as well. I've always thought it was a good reference! Then again, I don't take anything as pure gospel, so maybe I'm mentally editing out things I don't care to see. I hear similar things about lots of books (Complete Psionic, Tome of Battle), and can rarely find a pure argument against them aside from personal preference. I can respect personal preference, but I despise people who feel the need to push their preferences on others! Please, provide some cogent arguments! SK
Nived 01-30-07, 12:12 PM	Now I could be wrong, but it seems to me that a lot of the complaints begun and ended with the Changling gender issue.
Salla 01-30-07, 01:33 PM	Well, RoE wasn't meant to be an Eberron supplement; it was more for letting people add Eberron races to a non-Eberron game ... hence, the lack of Eberron font/stylings on the cover. And, well, they did get a few things wrong ... for example, they say that an Adamantine-Bodied Warforged Barbarian still gets fast movement, which is false. A lot of the racial information (save for the Kalashtar) seems extremely flat and stereotypical, but that's a problem with all the races books and the racial depictions in the PHB. They all pigeonhole the races into facile stereotypes. 'Gruff Dwarf', 'Snooty Elf', 'Prankster Gnome', 'Brutish Half-Orc', for example, from the PHB.
johnkretzer 01-30-07, 02:09 PM	And, well, they did get a few things wrong ... for example, they say that a Warforged Barbarian still gets fast movement, which is false. Why wouldn't warforged Barbarians get fast movement? The book wasn't perfect but it was overall not a bad book. My biggest problem was how the three changeling philosphies were presented. I also find it annoying that most of the psionic stuff were for kalashtar. But I think most of dislike stems from preference.
ArcTan 01-30-07, 02:29 PM	Why wouldn't warforged Barbarians get fast movement? Because the Adamantine Body feat is considered heavy armor for the sake of things like a barbarian's class abilities -- so Adamantine Body warforged will never get to use barbarian class abilities that require less-than-heavy armor, though other warforged certainly can. The book wasn't perfect but it was overall not a bad book. My biggest problem was how the three changeling philosphies were presented. I also find it annoying that most of the psionic stuff were for kalashtar. But I think most of dislike stems from preference. Well, as for the former, I agree that it was a poorly edited section and that an intro explaining what the three philosophies are and how they came to be -- "These are the three ways most changelings deal with their shapeshifting powers in their attempt to integrate with human society" -- would've helped, rather than just diving in by saying "Changelings can be passers, becomers or reality seekers". Nonetheless that *is* one of the sections that made by far the most sense to me -- it seems to me that the three paths are a pretty well-thought-out distillation of how most minority groups in real life try to negotiate dealing with a dominant culture. As for the psionic stuff dealing with kalashtar, well, that's part of how Eberron is. Kalashtar, out of the four "races of Eberron", are the only race that has any innate psionic connection.
ChristopherGroves 01-30-07, 02:31 PM	More clearly, the book says that a WF Barb with Adamantine Plating retains fast movement. A WF Barb without the adamantine body does keep the fast movement - one with is treated as wearing heavy armor.
johnkretzer 01-30-07, 03:04 PM	Because the Adamantine Body feat is considered heavy armor for the sake of things like a barbarian's class abilities -- so Adamantine Body warforged will never get to use barbarian class abilities that require less-than-heavy armor, though other warforged certainly can. Well, as for the former, I agree that it was a poorly edited section and that an intro explaining what the three philosophies are and how they came to be -- "These are the three ways most changelings deal with their shapeshifting powers in their attempt to integrate with human society" -- would've helped, rather than just diving in by saying "Changelings can be passers, becomers or reality seekers". Nonetheless that *is* one of the sections that made by far the most sense to me -- it seems to me that the three paths are a pretty well-thought-out distillation of how most minority groups in real life try to negotiate dealing with a dominant culture. As for the psionic stuff dealing with kalashtar, well, that's part of how Eberron is. Kalashtar, out of the four "races of Eberron", are the only race that has any innate psionic connection. I agree the philosophies are well thought out. I really don't mind it except this a problem with all the races book it feeds into sterotypes. Which isn't a problem if you have a DM who realizes that these are sterotypes and can be different. Especialy when in concern to PCs.
Wymarc 01-30-07, 03:19 PM	seems like the major problem is that they didn't say most enough. well, that and the warforged sscrew-ups
Cifer 01-30-07, 03:57 PM	Oh, there's some more contradictions, both internal and relating to other books.
johnkretzer 01-30-07, 05:42 PM	Oh, there's some more contradictions, both internal and relating to other books. That just makes it WotC book though.
Edymnion 01-30-07, 09:43 PM	seems like the major problem is that they didn't say most enough. well, that and the warforged sscrew-upsActually, the biggest problem is that they didn't say "most" at all. Everything in it was *NOT* presented as even being a stereotype, but as god's honest truth. I won't get into anything deep, as I'm about sick of repeating this, especially since my prediction has come to pass (that one lousy book in the beginning of the setting still becomes part of the setting, and soon nobody questions why it was bad to begin with). Flat, uninspired fluff. The majority of the book read like they handed a one paragraph description of the new races to some new intern and told them to have 30 pages on the boss's desk by Thursday. Nothing in there actually tells us anything that the generic stereotyping doesn't already say. Honestly, its like Magic of Incarnum, they may have started with a good seed, but by the time they milked an entire book out of it, it was pretty clear that they ran out of ideas and just stretched what they had to fill pages. After saying since the beginning of the setting that Warforged are not robots, that House Cannith did not have fine control over how the WF turned out, etc etc etc, one stinking line in RoE flushed half that progress down the crapper by saying that WF either had no sense of smell, or had a greatly diminished sense of smell (see fluff on Tracer Mask). And whats worse is that Keith Baker got forced into backpeddling to try and cover up for that mistake, and in doing so legitamized it. I don't know how many times I've seen since RoE was printed people pointing to that as a defense of whatever crazy thing they've thought up as proof that Cannith seems to have perfect control of the Creation Forges, because they decided that the WF didn't need a sense of smell. The WF didn't need most of what they have to be good soldiers, its the stuff that makes them into a PC race that makes them worse soldiers to begin with. Overall unfamiliarity with the rules and races. The Adm Body WF Barbarian was already brought up. Then there's the Shifter Monk that somehow manages to use a racial feat that relies on Barbarian Rage. And them just getting totally confused over how Valenar weapon proficiencies work. Horribly dumbed down fluff on the PHB races. Whats worse, they lied to us about this, right to our faces. They told us on the Eberron boards that nothing was getting dumbed down, and that we were the primary target audience. Yeah, then I caught them on the Future Releases board saying the exact opposite, that they had toned the Eberron stuff down to make the book accessable to the generic crowd. I dunno about you, but it really ticks me off to catch somebody blatantly playing both sides of the field like that, especially when the end result is a badly written fence sitter book that neither side can really use. Related to some of the above, it also overly generalized the new races, and then turned around and made baseless claims that characters that didn't follow those generalizations were essentially wrong. See the Changeling entry about there only being 3 kinds of Changeling, and something like 99% of all changelings are one of those three types, while any non-pidgeon-holed character is a freak. Not to mention how hard it tried to drive "Shifters are savage nomadic animal people" into our skulls in page after page after page... but I already said the entries read like extended note card descriptions, no need to go into that again.Generally speaking, I'm *GLAD* RoE came out as a generic line book (not just cover, WotC does not consider it to be part of the Eberron line in any way, check their own product listings for proof). The crunch was good, but the flavor was just horrible. Heck, nobody else says it, but even the Kalashtar section that Keith wrote made me want to play the race even less. Honestly, if you can, get the book second hand from a used book store. Don't give WotC the impression that you think that sort of dribble is acceptable for this setting. We want high quality books, not Races of Destiny.
Salla 01-30-07, 10:15 PM	Why wouldn't warforged Barbarians get fast movement? My bad, I failed to specify 'Adamantine-Bodied' Warforged. Apologies offered, edit in progress.
The Dreaming Duck 01-30-07, 10:45 PM	Heck, nobody else says it, but even the Kalashtar section that Keith wrote made me want to play the race even less. I'll bite on this one. Most of what I've seen in response to the book is like Salla's post - "The flavor sucks except the kalashtar." In general, I agree with your assertion that the races just run with the established stereotypes. But as I saw it, the problem was that there WAS no stereotype on the kalashtar; they were essential "the psionic guys", with very little explanation of what they actually were. For me, the broader explanation of history and psychology - notably sections like "Inner Balance" - added a lot of color to the race, making them more than just humans with bonus psionic points. Now, one thing that I'm guessing, based on your complaints about the other races, is that you may be seeing it as "All Kalashtar Fight The Dreaming Dark", and that since you don't care about the Dreaming Dark, you don't want to play a kalashtar - essentially, the same "Here's what you should do" issue as with the other races. If that's your problem, I do understand that. At the same time, I don't think it's true. "The Secret War" section notes that as a kalashtar, YOUR life is always in danger... but doesn't actually say that you personally have to care about the fight. Inner balance, spiritual lineage, leisure... skiiming over these sections, I don't see much relating to the war. The later war section calls out the question of "You need to decide if you will fight in this secret war or if you will decline the call of your ancestors" - so you DON'T have to be a crusader against the Dreaming Dark, it's just a major theme of Kalashtar culture. in the case of groups like the warforged and shifters, it does seem strange to have a strict "this is shifter culture", because shifters from Sharn and the Eldeen Reaches should by their nature be very different. There is no "shifter homeland", nothing that should drive them to share the same beliefs. The kalashtar, on the other hand, are born from a single struggle. Their personalities are shaped by the sixty-seven spirits that escaped the war, and all modern kalashtar share one of those 67 (well, 66) spirits. It's odd to say while changelings would share a belief, but it's obvious why kalashtar would; it's what makes them who they are. At the same time, the chapter notes that you DON'T have to follow the path of your quori spirit, that you can choose to walk away from the war and find your own way. So certainly, just because I like it doesn't mean that you should. But to me, the changeling chapter says "all changelings follow one of these three paths" without giving any explanation of why a race spread across such a wide range, and with no common culture or history, would have such a common belief. The kalashtar chapter, on the other hand, takes a race that has a tighter geographic focus and a very tight point of origin and presents the consequences of their origin... and, if it doesn't use the word "most", it certainly says "It's your personal decision whether to follow this path or find your own way." If your point is just "I don't like the interpretation", we're all entitled to our opinions. But if it's "The kalashtar chapter makes all the same mistakes as the other chapters", I'll argue that.
Salla 01-30-07, 11:18 PM	Honestly, I think that the writers take the 'most' as assumed for the racial personality traits. I would think it would be blatantly obvious to all but the most newbie or unimaginative gamers that not every member of a race, regardless of the race, would be part of the same overarching monoculture. Unfortunately, it seems I game with some of these players, as I admonished fairly frequently for not playing my character 'right' if I don't step to racial stereotypes.
ArcTan 01-31-07, 03:03 AM	Actually, the biggest problem is that they didn't say "most" at all. Everything in it was *NOT* presented as even being a stereotype, but as god's honest truth. Many stereotypes have a high degree of truth to them, hence their becoming stereotypes. Seriously, the point of the Races of X series has always been to try to provide a stereotypical, flattened, "generic" view of how to play a race. Because people *do* have an image of what their culture is "supposed" to be like relative to other cultures, and someone who chooses to differ from the stereotype is still having the stereotype to contend with. I won't get into anything deep, as I'm about sick of repeating this, especially since my prediction has come to pass (that one lousy book in the beginning of the setting still becomes part of the setting, and soon nobody questions why it was bad to begin with). Maybe some of us read the book when it came out, and read your objections to it, and liked it anyway. Flat, uninspired fluff. The majority of the book read like they handed a one paragraph description of the new races to some new intern and told them to have 30 pages on the boss's desk by Thursday. Nothing in there actually tells us anything that the generic stereotyping doesn't already say. Honestly, its like Magic of Incarnum, they may have started with a good seed, but by the time they milked an entire book out of it, it was pretty clear that they ran out of ideas and just stretched what they had to fill pages. Hey, I didn't mind Magic of Incarnum, even though I don't understand it well enough to use it. And, again, what's the big deal, here? So the races are all variations on a theme. The alternative -- "Here's a dwarf who loves nature and an elf who loves machines!" -- has become its own cliche as well. The best way to show diversity is to acknowledge the presence of shared characteristics within all members of a group and show how they deviate from them. FWIW, the point of fluff for me is not to give me radically new hooks, but to show me ways that you can take just one hook -- "Here's a race that changes shapes" -- and deepen and broaden that hook by taking logical extrapolations from it. It's easy to take something like this and extrapolate from it, extend it, find little ways to subvert it, if you like. There's not much use to me to have a long section that just says "Here's the names and life stories of 500 dwarves who completely buck the dwarven stereotype", but there is some interest in saying "How can we take the dwarven stereotype and flesh it out? What does it imply about how dwarves grow food? How they get married? What kind of art they make?" Etc. After saying since the beginning of the setting that Warforged are not robots, that House Cannith did not have fine control over how the WF turned out, etc etc etc, one stinking line in RoE flushed half that progress down the crapper by saying that WF either had no sense of smell, or had a greatly diminished sense of smell (see fluff on Tracer Mask). And whats worse is that Keith Baker got forced into backpeddling to try and cover up for that mistake, and in doing so legitamized it. I don't know how many times I've seen since RoE was printed people pointing to that as a defense of whatever crazy thing they've thought up as proof that Cannith seems to have perfect control of the Creation Forges, because they decided that the WF didn't need a sense of smell. The WF didn't need most of what they have to be good soldiers, its the stuff that makes them into a PC race that makes them worse soldiers to begin with. Er, WTF? Warforged not being able to taste or smell isn't "evidence" of anything. Warforged can't have sex -- does that mean they're "robots" designed not to have sex? Warforged can't swallow and digest food -- does that mean they're "robots" designed not to swallow and digest food? This kind of negative argumentation is ridiculous. Should we make it so that warforged have skin, hair, the need to breathe oxygen and the possibility of contracting diseases so that they'll be less "robotlike"? Sheesh, taking *away* one very, very minor argument for the warforged being a truly biological argument hardly constitutes an argument in favor of warforged being mindless machines. Isn't the fact that warforged can love and hate much more significant than whether they can eat or drink? And regardless of whether it came from biological evolution or (somewhat) intelligent design by Cannith, warforged having chemical senses when they can't be poisoned or diseased and they *don't eat or drink to survive* is pretty dumb. Overall unfamiliarity with the rules and races. The Adm Body WF Barbarian was already brought up. Then there's the Shifter Monk that somehow manages to use a racial feat that relies on Barbarian Rage. And them just getting totally confused over how Valenar weapon proficiencies work. *shrug* Minor crunch problems that can be errata'd don't concern me that much. Horribly dumbed down fluff on the PHB races. Whats worse, they lied to us about this, right to our faces. They told us on the Eberron boards that nothing was getting dumbed down, and that we were the primary target audience. Yeah, then I caught them on the Future Releases board saying the exact opposite, that they had toned the Eberron stuff down to make the book accessable to the generic crowd. I dunno about you, but it really ticks me off to catch somebody blatantly playing both sides of the field like that, especially when the end result is a badly written fence sitter book that neither side can really use. "Toned down" and "dumbed down" are different things. If you want a general idea of how a race works, you don't need to replicate the entirety of the book Five Nations in the book Races of Eberron. Related to some of the above, it also overly generalized the new races, and then turned around and made baseless claims that characters that didn't follow those generalizations were essentially wrong. See the Changeling entry about there only being 3 kinds of Changeling, and something like 99% of all changelings are one of those three types, while any non-pidgeon-holed character is a freak. It never once says that any non-pigeonholed character is a freak. You're taking as strong a reaction as you can and putting words in the book's mouth. It does say almost all changelings see themselves as following one of three philosophical poles. I don't see why this is a problem. These three philosophical poles really do define the three poles of what a shapeshifter in a human society might do. Not to mention how hard it tried to drive "Shifters are savage nomadic animal people" into our skulls in page after page after page... but I already said the entries read like extended note card descriptions, no need to go into that again. *shrug* I'm interested in seeing how a stereotype plays out when you see it in differing situation after situation. Warforged really are describable by one sentence -- "Humanlike machines torn between their nature as sentient beings and as weapons of war" -- but RoE does a wonderful job of exploring everything that this *implies*. Generally speaking, I'm *GLAD* RoE came out as a generic line book (not just cover, WotC does not consider it to be part of the Eberron line in any way, check their own product listings for proof). The crunch was good, but the flavor was just horrible. Heck, nobody else says it, but even the Kalashtar section that Keith wrote made me want to play the race even less. Honestly, if you can, get the book second hand from a used book store. Don't give WotC the impression that you think that sort of dribble is acceptable for this setting. We want high quality books, not Races of Destiny. I liked Races of Destiny too, to be honest. Not everything in it, but the illumian race is one of the more interesting things WotC has ever come up with. Maybe the consensus should be "Not everyone shares Edymnion's kneejerk opinion on things".
ArcTan 01-31-07, 03:10 AM	in the case of groups like the warforged and shifters, it does seem strange to have a strict "this is shifter culture", because shifters from Sharn and the Eldeen Reaches should by their nature be very different. On the other hand, strong phenotypic difference as pronounced as with the shifters and warforged is enough to differentiate people enough to get them to adopt a common culture in real life. Note that, in the case of the warforged, they all share a common origin -- the Cannith training centers -- and mostly lived and socialized with each other exclusively in the war. There is no "shifter homeland", nothing that should drive them to share the same beliefs. Aside from their genetic heritage, and an orally transmitted shared culture developed to explain their difference from the dominant human culture around them? Just because shifters live in very different places doesn't mean there's no *contact* between those places. There are plenty of nomadic, scattered cultures in real history that have nonetheless maintained strong similarities with each other over time. So certainly, just because I like it doesn't mean that you should. But to me, the changeling chapter says "all changelings follow one of these three paths" without giving any explanation of why a race spread across such a wide range, and with no common culture or history, would have such a common belief. The paths aren't really complete belief systems as much as they are a set of three general ways to live and act within the dominant culture, with a prevailing set of cultural and philosophical assumptions that's associated with both. It seems quite natural to me that such a thing would come to exist. In Germany, France, Britain and the US, homosexuals developed astonishingly similar terminology and customs to identify each other and categorize themselves, despite the fact that this was a culture that was deeply underground for most of the 19th and early 20th centuries. I hate to keep using the analogy, but it's a good one -- there's a really strong language and set of assumptions and roles and beliefs in the gay community -- ideas like "butch" and "femme" and so forth -- born simply from what the pressures of being gay and having to keep it secret have been, historically. There are pretty strong parallels with the nature of being a changeling in a non-changeling society and trying to decide what face to wear.
Salla 01-31-07, 03:30 AM	Maybe the consensus should be "Not everyone shares Edymnion's kneejerk opinion on things". While Edy's love of Eberron is often commendable, there are times he goes a WEE bit too far in his obsession. As you say, the issues with RoE are pretty minor and not worth all the outrage.
Darakhoranon 01-31-07, 03:49 AM	Hmm, interesting points... from all of you. However, I donŽt really see the problem with the "Races of" books presenting stereotypes. They are MEANT to do exactly that, after all. Eberron is BREAKING stereotypes (which is a main point), but in practically every other campaign-world, the half-orcs are typically "brute" and "dumb", the elves "tree-huggers" and the dwarves "gruff". Apart from that, the "contradictions" in RoE donŽt really count. Bear with me for a moment and youŽll see my reasoning. True, the fluff in RoE contradicts ECS, 5N, MoE, etc. However, since RoE was never intended to be used for playing in Eberron, this has about as much importance for this world as the Chosen status of a certain archmage. And just because the races in Eberron regularly break stereotypes (you could say this actually is one again...), changing the way a "generic" race is presented in a "Races" book wouldnŽt really accomplish anything. It would only "water down" the differences between Eberron andŽother worlds. And the mistakes concerning the crunch? They are bound to happen. Every time you have an extensive set of rules (however useful or useless that might be), misunderstandings and misinterpretations are just a matter of time. Last but not least: The "chemical senses" (thanks, ArcTan) of Warforged actually MAKE sense. They wonŽt be affected by poisonous gases, but if they can notice them with a "useless" sense, they can warn their (human) superiors...
ArcTan 01-31-07, 04:32 AM	Last but not least: The "chemical senses" (thanks, ArcTan) of Warforged actually MAKE sense. They wonŽt be affected by poisonous gases, but if they can notice them with a "useless" sense, they can warn their (human) superiors... The problem is that there are a lot of poison gases that the human nose can't identify anyway -- our own olfactory sense is pretty weak, and not that useful for identifying any poisons except the common poisons created by the food we eat when it spoils. If warforged have a sense of smell that's even duller than ours (which is one of the dullest in the animal kingdom) there's precious little they can warn anyone about. They might be able to start saying "Hey, I think there's some kind of sharp cutting scent here; it sure doesn't smell nice" about five minutes after any human with a functioning nose has already run in a panic coughing and tearing up from an overpowering stench of chlorine fumes.
Cifer 01-31-07, 07:30 AM	Their personalities are shaped by the sixty-seven spirits that escaped the war, and all modern kalashtar share one of those 67 (well, 66) spirits. Would that be another instance of the (67 -> 66+1 -> 6+6+1 -> 12+1) baker's dozen? *shrug* Minor crunch problems that can be errata'd don't concern me that much. See, and that's another problem with the book: There never was an erratum for it. Honestly, I think that the writers take the 'most' as assumed for the racial personality traits. I would think it would be blatantly obvious to all but the most newbie or unimaginative gamers that not every member of a race, regardless of the race, would be part of the same overarching monoculture. See, and this is where we diverge. I believe a race can have common traits to its personality by virtue of belonging to this race - that's part of the fantasy genre. In the case of devil, it is fair to assume that they all are lawful evil - every devil who isn't can be considered a freak. Thus, if something isn't a truly all-encompassing characteristic of a race, I'd expect it to be noted as such and not just described as if it was a universal truth, which is exactly what "Changelings belong to faction X, Y or Z" implies.
ArcTan 01-31-07, 10:15 AM	See, and this is where we diverge. I believe a race can have common traits to its personality by virtue of belonging to this race - that's part of the fantasy genre. In the case of devil, it is fair to assume that they all are lawful evil - every devil who isn't can be considered a freak. Devils aren't "races" of mortal beings akin to ourselves. Devils are Outsiders -- i.e. spirits, higher beings, things that represent abstract principles. In contrast I think you can expect that mortal races will have the same kind of variation within them that the human race has. After all, the human race exists in D&D, and D&D doesn't go to any particular trouble to describe all the possible permutations and combinations of traits that a human being can have. Thus, if something isn't a truly all-encompassing characteristic of a race, I'd expect it to be noted as such and not just described as if it was a universal truth, which is exactly what "Changelings belong to faction X, Y or Z" implies. It never describes them as "factions", it uses the term "Almost all", not "All", and it describes the passer/becomer/reality seeker thing as three "philosophical viewpoints", which is what they are -- and as such they do cover the vast majority of how changelings might use their shapeshifter powers.
Edymnion 01-31-07, 11:22 AM	Maybe the consensus should be "Not everyone shares Edymnion's kneejerk opinion on things".Or, you know, thinly veiled flames aside, the purpose of this thread is to say what we think is wrong with the book, which is what I did. You don't have to agree with it.
Cambian00 01-31-07, 11:41 AM	I see a lot of discussion and problems with a question that should never (IMO) have been asked in the first place. The Races of Eberron book was not designed to be an Eberron supplement. That has been established and accepted. It was not intended to be used as such. The Races of Eberron was designed to put some detail for the four "new" races (Kalashtar, Changelings, Shifter, and Warforged) and how they can be used/integrated into other campain settings (ie. Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk). Any discrepencies from the dedicated Eberron books and ROE book is due to this fact. The ROE also gives ideas on the "standard" races as a side note for flavor to add a new dimension to those races for the other settings as well. That's why they are presented with some of the stereotypes from the PHB (orc being brutish and elves as "treehuggers" for example), but it also shows how they are used in Eberron (Valenar for example and of course the Drow). Quite understandably, many Eberron players have looked on this supplement with skepticism and scorn because of the apparent discrepencies between ROE and the "canon" Eberron books. I, myself, did as well at first. But then I started to think about why these discrepencies were there. My conclusion is simple: (1) Keith Baker, who created the Eberron Setting was only a contributor to this supplement. The other contributors, however knowlegeable they might be, simply do not have the full understanding of the setting that he has, and never will unless they learn to read his mind. (2) Races of Eberron was never supposed to be an Eberron book. It does give ideas and hints that an Eberron player could use to "flesh" out their characters, but the rest of it should simply stay where it is. I know a lot of people may not see this issue the same way as I do - my conclusions might not be exactly correct. But this is simply how I justify it for my own sanity and well-being. I would love to hear what Keith has to say about it, though. lots of luv to all
heirodule 01-31-07, 03:35 PM	I see a lot of discussion and problems with a question that should never (IMO) have been asked in the first place. The Races of Eberron book was not designed to be an Eberron supplement. That has been established and accepted. Thanks to all for the feedback. Didn't know it actually isn't an eberron supplement. It would seem to at least SLIGHTLY be an eberron book in that it contains info on the Drow of eberron, who already exist in generic campaigns. As an interested Xendrik Expeditions player, the book proivdes feats and such that are valid for the XE campaign to use. I was mostly asking if the feats are no good, contradictory, etc. Its also useful for what the Races books seem to nicely provide, quick "roleplay hooks" that you can use "at the table" to get across how your PC is not a human. (yes, many of these are obvious or cringeworthy, but sometimes they help) Anyway thanks for the feedback, both mild and sharp. I'l hold off on it for Kalashtar and wait for the Sarlona book.
Edymnion 01-31-07, 06:02 PM	Thanks to all for the feedback. Didn't know it actually isn't an eberron supplement. It would seem to at least SLIGHTLY be an eberron book in that it contains info on the Drow of eberron, who already exist in generic campaigns.Yeah, I'm still trying to figure out how they intended to get us to swallow anything other than "We are pandering to drow fanboys" when they stuck what amounts to the single most unplayable race in all of Eberron in the place of honor on the cover.
Adhevan 01-31-07, 06:12 PM	After saying since the beginning of the setting that Warforged are not robots, that House Cannith did not have fine control over how the WF turned out, etc etc etc, one stinking line in RoE flushed half that progress down the crapper by saying that WF either had no sense of smell, or had a greatly diminished sense of smell (see fluff on Tracer Mask). The Reforged section of Faiths of Eberron also refers to warforged lacking a sense of taste or smell.
Hellcow 01-31-07, 06:14 PM	Didn't know it actually isn't an eberron supplement. Neither did I when I wrote my section of it. The decision to put it in "races" trade dress came after it was written, and *I* certainly wasn't writing with a "generic" design in mind; as has been noted already, the kalashtar section presumes the existence of Dal Quor. Its also useful for what the Races books seem to nicely provide, quick "roleplay hooks" that you can use "at the table" to get across how your PC is not a human... I'l hold off on it for Kalashtar and wait for the Sarlona book. Well, as one of the authors of both books... if you're looking for quick roleplaying hooks for kalashtar, I'd say RoE is the better book. Secrets of Sarlona revisits the reason for the kalashtar-Inspired conflict, and addresses a few historical events that tie both to the kalashtar and Adar, but it doesn't look at kalashtar psychology or customs with the same level of depth as RoE does. The kalashtar certainly play a role in the Adar chapter, but there's more to Adar than the kalashtar, and much of it is spent looking at the humans of Adar. Secrets of Sarlona presents lots of options for adventures in Sarlona, but doesn't go into as much depth on the kalashtar specifically.
goblin_pride 01-31-07, 06:25 PM	It would seem to at least SLIGHTLY be an eberron book in that it contains info on the Drow of eberron, who already exist in generic campaigns. It is and it isn't. The reason for the descriptions of the races beyond the new four is so that the book can serve as a sort of advertisement for the setting that players and DMs of generic material will actually pay for. Someone might buy the book to read about shifters, changelings, warforged or kalashtar, but they'll read the treatments of the other races in the back of the book and that might pique their interest in the setting itself.
Hellcow 01-31-07, 06:32 PM	My conclusion is simple: (1) Keith Baker, who created the Eberron Setting was only a contributor to this supplement. Correct. The level of collaboration between authors varies considerably from book to book, and in this case, I didn't have close contact with the other authors or have the opportunity to review work (or I would have pointed out the "Adamantine Warforged Barbarians Keep Fast Movement" problem). Eberron isn't my world; it belongs to WotC. If they choose to say warforged can't smell, my opinion on the matter is... my opinion. Personally, I see everything as option and inspiration. The three changeling paths are ideas, exploring different outlooks on life that you might find among a race of shapeshifters. However, when I make a changeling character, I don't feel that I have to tie him to one of these paths. I think they're all interesting ideas, but it doesn't especially bother me that it doesn't match up with the Tyrants or Velvet's in Sharn, or my vision of the Cabinet of Faces. Use it if it inspires you; don't if it doesn't. Likewise on the kalashtar; as has been said, my feeling is that the struggle against the Dreaming Dark has a serious impact on the lives of the kalashtar, but you can certainly choose to be a kalashtar who doesn't care about the struggle. RoE talks about the origin of the kalashtar, and what I see as their primary culture. But you can always choose to take your character in a different direction. Heck, when *I* played a kalahstar in Mark of Heroes, I went with an orphan who had no knowledge of kalashtar customs. It's a starting point, and it's there to provide inspiration if you need inspiration. But as others have pointed out, just because the Races books focus on the stereotypes instead of the individuals who break those stereotypes doesn't mean such people aren't out there. At least that's MY opinion. But, of course, I always like to say "some" and "might". :)
Hellcow 01-31-07, 06:37 PM	It would seem to at least SLIGHTLY be an eberron book in that it contains info on the Drow of eberron, who already exist in generic campaigns. It is and it isn't. Just as a side note, this was actually a cut and paste error in my message. This statement was actually made by Heirodule.
goblin_pride 01-31-07, 07:06 PM	At least that's MY opinion. But, of course, I always like to say "some" and "might". :) Two of the most beautiful words in the english language, only outdone by the magical conglomeration of "What if".
goblin_pride 01-31-07, 07:10 PM	Just as a side note, this was actually a cut and paste error in my message. This statement was actually made by Heirodule. Post edited and proper credit given. Thank you for pointing that out to me, oh Infernal Bovine majesty.
manneedshaircut 01-31-07, 08:02 PM	I actually liked Races of Eberron. It had some problems, but I think that it successfully took the 1 page (admittedly stereotypical) descriptions in the ECS and fleshed them out. I have my quarrels with parts of it (mostly the warforged section, which made the warforged sound too much like robots IMO), but on the whole, its one of my favorite books to give to Eberron newbies who want to know more about one or more of the new races. As has been pointed out, stereotypes are not necessarily bad things, especially in a fantasy setting, since changing the stereotypes in a character can lead to interesting interactions (would the Gimli-Legolas friendship in LotR have been nearly as interesting if Elves and Dwarves hadn't traditionally hated each other?). So, I think that it is a good book to get, as long as you keep in mind that it isn't really a core Eberron book.
ArcTan 01-31-07, 11:54 PM	So, I think that it is a good book to get, as long as you keep in mind that it isn't really a core Eberron book. Honestly, after hearing Keith confirm that the decision to not make RoE an Eberron line book wasn't made until after the book was actually written, I give this statement very little credence. Aside from the marketing decisions made by WotC, in concept and execution this book is just as much a "core Eberron book" as Magic of Eberron, Faiths of Eberron or Sharn: City of Towers, all of which contain things you can point out as goofs or as inconsistencies with other books.
Hellcow 01-31-07, 11:58 PM	Honestly, after hearing Keith confirm that the decision to not make RoE an Eberron line book wasn't made until after the book was actually written... Of course, to be fair: I'm not a WotC employee. *I* didn't hear anything about it. I wasn't instructed to write the book for a general audience. But for all I know, the decision WAS made earlier. Jesse Decker may have been closely involved in the decision. But I certainly wasn't told to aim my work at non-Eberron players.
Kishmo 02-01-07, 12:34 AM	I'd like to stay out of the debate, but I'd also like to toss out what I thought was the best part the book. For me, that was the prestige classes. I know that immediately evokes the image of a munchkin looking for the newest cool way to blow stuff up, but the PrCs of RoE (gotta love the TLAs) really gripped me. With possibly the one exception of one of the WF PrCs, I thought they were all very well written and thematically, well put together ideas. The crunch is adequate for all the classes, but the fluff for them all is excellent, as far as I'm concerned. Any time a new book comes out and I get to the inevitable new PrCs, there's normally one or two which seem like a neat idea - the rest read like ideas with mechanics so specific that they'd only appeal to a small percentage of the players ("Hey, alright! A PrC for multiclass barbarians / wizards! Finally!") or with fluff, again, so specific, they're of interest to few ("Hey, alright! A PrC for a healer, who got sick of healing and now wants to poison people! Finally!"). While I'm sure there's some people who really love the idea of a rage mage, or of the Ghallanda black dog, I'd also wager for most readers it earned little more than a, "meh" (and, to those enthralled with those ideas, sorry for the hyperbole!) Not so with RoE. Each PrC (again, save maybe one) immediately made me want to create a new character, just to try them out. The philosophies, class roles, inspiration, and overall fluff of each of them was just instantly appealing to me. I suddenly wondered why a creature as mutable as a changeling wouldn't be able to apply a similar philosophy to spellcasting, or why the odd warforged didn't wish for a more fleshy existence, or why shifter druids weren't already affected by the passings of the moons. I still hope to play a character from each of those PrCs someday - I'm slowly working my way through! Then again, no one else has really raised this point. So I might be just the anomaly. My 2c.
Cambian00 02-01-07, 01:25 AM	Eberron isn't my world; it belongs to WotC. Keith, the front of the Eberron Campain Setting book has the words "Created by Keith Baker" very prominently printed on it. Your name also appears several times in the credits of that book and several others. Whether or not you actually own the rights to it is pretty much irrelevant to me, and I'm sure, most of the other people that frequent these boards. The fact of the matter is this - Eberron is YOUR world; and your opinion matters a great deal to me, and others I'm sure, in these matters. I thank you for creating my favorite DnD world. Mind you - I used to be a Dragonlance fan (nobody shoot me for that admission please). Know this.....my Dragonlance books havent been used since I first purchased YOUR book.
Hellcow 02-01-07, 01:48 AM	Keith, the front of the Eberron Campain Setting book has the words "Created by Keith Baker" very prominently printed on it. Actually, it has the words "von Keith Baker" on it. At least, if you're looking at the German version. thank you for creating my favorite DnD world. You're welcome. Thank you for playing it! Mind you - I used to be a Dragonlance fan Me too! Having a story publish in a book with a story by Weis & Hickman (Dragons: Worlds Afire) was (and is) very exciting for me.
The White Sorcerer 02-01-07, 03:16 AM	I see a lot of "It wasn't written with Eberron in mind" arguments, and I have to very much disagree with them. References are made to Eberron instead of Greyhawk or the Generic Setting. The religions in the Warforged Religion section are the religions of Eberron. The History and Folklore sections tell stories of Eberron. How is this book not written with Eberron in mind?
Darakhoranon 02-01-07, 07:38 AM	I see a lot of "It wasn't written with Eberron in mind" arguments, and I have to very much disagree with them. References are made to Eberron instead of Greyhawk or the Generic Setting. The religions in the Warforged Religion section are the religions of Eberron. The History and Folklore sections tell stories of Eberron. How is this book not written with Eberron in mind? Good point. But then, Eberron is the only world where you can find warforged - at least for the time being... So a description of the warforged religion/history/whatever in WHICH campaign setting would youŽd like to see? There are no alternatives. RoE does have this "half baked" feeling, but I at least think that there are A FEW good ideas in that book - and who really cares about the other stuff?
goblin_pride 02-01-07, 10:03 AM	Eberron isn't my world; it belongs to WotC. Saying that it isn't your world is like saying Middle Earth isn't Tolkien's, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn aren't Samuel Clemens' or Hamlet isn't Shakespeare's. You created it and therefore in the minds of the people that love the setting it will always be yours, regardless of who or what actually owns the rights to it. Copyright may belong to WotC, but credit for it's creation will be yours as long as your name graces the cover.
The White Sorcerer 02-01-07, 10:08 AM	Yah, it doesn't matter who the setting legally belongs to, Forgotten Realms is still Ed Greenwood's setting, Dragonlance is Tracy Hickman's, and Eberron is Keith Baker's, from now into eternity.
Hellcow 02-01-07, 10:51 AM	Saying that it isn't your world is like saying Middle Earth isn't Tolkien's... All I'm saying is that Tolkien probably didn't have to worry about his publishers putting out a sequel which says that elves have no sense of smell. ;) But I appreciate the sentiment.
spyone 02-01-07, 10:54 AM	I'm just guessing here, but from what I gather from posts above, the issue regarding Warforged and their sense of smell (or lack thereof) was not the presence or lack of that ability per se, but rather in the fluff text that provided that information. Apparently, said fluff text suggested that the creation of a Warforged was a lot more controllable than previous material. Rather than being a mysterious process with unpredictable results so that Warforged were always basicly as desired but often had abilities or features not intended by their makers, Races of Eberron made it seem like Warforged were made in a well-understood process with predictable results, and easilly tailored to add or remove specific abilities. And, I guess, that has now become the official line now, and that annoys some folks.
goblin_pride 02-01-07, 10:55 AM	All I'm saying is that Tolkien probably didn't have to worry about his publishers putting out a sequel which says that elves have no sense of smell. ;) I don't even want to go into the problems I have with a publishing industry that doesn't understand that not just anyone can write stuff that fits.
Logos7 02-01-07, 10:57 AM	speaking from just my own experiance, When i go areaching for the book shelf for some kewl eberron stuff, i can tell you what doesn't end up in my hands. Races of Eberron. Theirs some really good stuff, and theirs a whole lot of okay stuff and even more Meh/Bleh/Barf stuff. I think the biggest thing is that for a setting that is more ambigious / contexual than most other's it doesn't seem to come off it in this book. Will no one use it, Im not saying that but i wouldn't recomend this book before say Sharn city of towers, or even 5 nations or players guide, and all of these books have they detracterrs too. My Prognosis , this boook gets a C ( Kalyshtar A, Changlings B everything else D) I'd buy it for 10 bux with tax but before that i'd be more prepared to make a 'single' investment in MTG
ArisenFromTheDead 02-01-07, 11:20 AM	From the start I knew it wasn't going to be a very good book. It was a part of the "Races Of" series. The series was universally below average, sporting horrible fluff and average crunch (Please don't say anything about Races Of Destiny, it was the outlier in which it managed to suck MORE than the rest of the series), when I saw that they weren't putting the Eberron cover on the book, I lost all hope. Thus I wasn't overtly dissapointed when info on the book started to come trickling in.
Vharuck 02-01-07, 06:49 PM	I lvoe the Eberron books. I read them for pleasure. I'm dead serious. The characters, history, and flavor is just so great. It's like a compilation of a thousand movies' plot summaries, and each one is a great movie! That being said, RoE only had one thing I liked: the new shifter, warforged, and psionic feats. Kinda sad that the most soulknife love ever was found in this book, though. I didn't finish any of the racial info chapters because I became bored within a few pages, the prestige classes were blah (but they're becoming more and more blah as WotC churns them out faster than they need to be), the spells were meh, and... well the items... I forget what they were. Which probably doesn't say much for them.
OneWinged4ngel 02-01-07, 07:39 PM	Geez, it's hard NOT to see what's wrong with Races of Eberron. A few minutes into reading you feel ashamed that you actually wasted money on the thing. Only thing in it I found useful was the Kalashtar section. So much of the rest of it was horribly written, flawed, contradictory, and just plain bad that I felt like I wanted to tear the pages out. But hey, the WotC books are getting increasingly like that, it seems. Less and less useful content. Races of Eberron makes me particularly upset, however, in that it actually mars the otherwise fantastic setting, as Edymnion mentioned.
ArcTan 02-01-07, 07:46 PM	Good point. But then, Eberron is the only world where you can find warforged - at least for the time being... So a description of the warforged religion/history/whatever in WHICH campaign setting would youŽd like to see? There are no alternatives. That's the point -- if it really were a generic "Races of" book designed to take the "races of Eberron" and enable you to transplant them to other settings, it would've *created* a canonical explanation for how the warforged were made in Forgotten Realms, or Greyhawk, or whatever.
Edymnion 02-02-07, 12:50 PM	The Reforged section of Faiths of Eberron also refers to warforged lacking a sense of taste or smell.Yes, because of the interdependancies between sources. It came out in RoE. Keith, not being allowed to contradict written material in his dragonshards, had to deal with that in the WF article, where he tried to patch things up as best he could, but in doing so jus reinforced the idea. Since the dragonshards are considered official, TMK, FoE had to use that same idea as well. One bad book near the beginning of the setting, ANY SETTING, will cause those mistakes to perculate through the rest of the books from then on.But for all I know, the decision WAS made earlier. Jesse Decker may have been closely involved in the decision. But I certainly wasn't told to aim my work at non-Eberron players.We were specifically told by one of the higher ups (can't remember who no) during the discussion when the official cover went public that the book was *ALWAYS* intended to be a generic line book, and that it was never intended to be an Eberron line book in the first place. And that, apparently, just nobody remembered to mention that to us beforehand. Which makes me wonder if they just forgot to tell you as well, or if they just lied to us about that too in order to try and keep a lid on things. Its possible they intentionally didn't tell you, because they knew you would be here and would "spill the beans". If they left you out of that loop, they knew you would defend the book saying it was intended for Eberron, while everybody else knew it wasn't. I don't know which otpion I find least comforting. That WotC would go into a long term dissinformation campaign to delude it's customers, or that they were incompetant enough not to tell all of the writers what kind of book they were writing in the first place, or that they would just repeatedly lie to the customers to try and save face when they realized things were about to blow up in said face.
Adhevan 02-02-07, 08:34 PM	Yes, because of the interdependancies between sources. It came out in RoE. Keith, not being allowed to contradict written material in his dragonshards, had to deal with that in the WF article, where he tried to patch things up as best he could, but in doing so jus reinforced the idea. Since the dragonshards are considered official, TMK, FoE had to use that same idea as well. One bad book near the beginning of the setting, ANY SETTING, will cause those mistakes to perculate through the rest of the books from then on. Yes. I'm sorry I wasn't more clear. I posted that example to illustrate the point that although RoE isn't officially part of the Eberron line, the material in it is apparently considered canon by the writers, since they do repeat it in later supplements. Many people seem to have the attitude that you can just ignore a bad book or pick and choose which parts of the book to use. And this is true to a point. But for what I pay for these books, I expect more than pretty covers and glossy paper. I expect the text to be useful to me as well.
ArcTan 02-02-07, 08:40 PM	Yes, because of the interdependancies between sources. It came out in RoE. Keith, not being allowed to contradict written material in his dragonshards, had to deal with that in the WF article, where he tried to patch things up as best he could, but in doing so jus reinforced the idea. Since the dragonshards are considered official, TMK, FoE had to use that same idea as well. One bad book near the beginning of the setting, ANY SETTING, will cause those mistakes to perculate through the rest of the books from then on.We were specifically told by one of the higher ups (can't remember who no) during the discussion when the official cover went public that the book was *ALWAYS* intended to be a generic line book, and that it was never intended to be an Eberron line book in the first place. And that, apparently, just nobody remembered to mention that to us beforehand. Er, you don't need the Dragonshard as a link there. Whether or not RoE is an Eberron line book, it is a published book and therefore by WotC's standards more official than any Web article.
Kreistor2 02-02-07, 08:50 PM	Many people seem to have the attitude that you can just ignore a bad book or pick and choose which parts of the book to use. And this is true to a point. Uh, yeah, you can absolutely have that attitude. It's Rule 0, after all. Buying a book does not require the DM to use it, and if you are a DM, you probably have enough books that you can discard five or six and not notice.
Hellcow 02-02-07, 11:10 PM	We were specifically told by one of the higher ups (can't remember who no) during the discussion when the official cover went public that the book was *ALWAYS* intended to be a generic line book... I expect that was Charles Ryan. My thought is that HE and/or Bill Slaviscek may have always intended it to be a generic line book, but that this wasn't made clear to lead designer Jesse Decker, and certainly not to me. Hence, while it's POSSIBLE lying was going on - certainly I'm not going to be deeply shocked (though I might be disappointed) to hear that a company executive stretched the facts - it's also possible that the marketing director always had plan A, while the design director expected that things would go plan B. So again: *I* was told to write for Eberron. But I can't rule out that the people at the TOP of that ladder always had a different idea.
The White Sorcerer 02-03-07, 03:01 AM	Even though the book might've been intended as a generic line book the whole time, the entire book (with the exception of the "[race] in D&D" sidebars) seems to be written for Eberron. All of it. All eight chapters. And that's all that matters to me.
Adhevan 02-03-07, 03:50 AM	Uh, yeah, you can absolutely have that attitude. It's Rule 0, after all. Buying a book does not require the DM to use it, and if you are a DM, you probably have enough books that you can discard five or six and not notice. But if you need to rule 0 half a book, that doesn't magically make it a good book. It also only works for a small, familiar gaming group. For large gaming clubs or convention events, having to print out 10 pages of things you've decided won't apply in your game or deviate from the published rules is more than a little inconvenient. I've just never subscribed to the idea that ignoring the bad parts of something makes it good. I mean, by that reasoning, being tortured would be grand, you know, as long as you ignore the excruciating pain and eventual death bits.
Kreistor2 02-03-07, 11:10 AM	Adhevan, you are putting a lot of words in my mouth that I never said. I do not agree that i stated anything that you are rebutting. I never suggested that a bad book becomes a good book by editting it. I certainly do not agree that torture is in any way "grand". If I find a section of a book is good, then that section is good. Just as Eberron is broken down into a number of books, each of which can be good or bad, then each book can be broken down in the same way, into each section, into each subsection, into each entry. Removing a book, section, or entry for the purposes of a campaign does not make a bad book into a good book, it just improves the quality of the campaign in the eyes of the editor. The book is still bad, even though it has a few good sections he may be using. Removing content is important for many reasons. One of the biggest is controlling PC power levels. A good designer can create a powerful PC that requires powerful NPC's to challenge. A poor designer's character may find itself massacred easily by that same enemy. Is it fair to allow a situation where one person 's characters are dying regularly? Hardly. To control that situation and balance the players, hard decisions often need to be made, ones involving the allowance of particularly synergistic design choices. When you're doing that, you're not removing bad content, you're removing good content for good reasons. Anyway, I protest vehemently against your allegory that brings torture into this. There is no parallel between the pain of torture and the annoyance of lost design choices.
Edymnion 02-03-07, 11:42 AM	Uh, yeah, you can absolutely have that attitude. It's Rule 0, after all.Except that the earlier in a setting's life the mistake is, the more books will include it from then on. If its a mistake in a splatbook that doesn't get touched on ever again (like Magic of Incarnum), it doesn't really matter, because it won't affect anything else you buy. If its one of the foundational books of a setting, then every book after that for the setting will use that information. You will then find, as is happening now, that a single throw away line quickly balloons out of proportion as time passes, until you're not having to Rule 0 out one line, but entire chapters of multiple books.So again: *I* was told to write for Eberron. But I can't rule out that the people at the TOP of that ladder always had a different idea.Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not wagging any fingers at you Keith, I know good and well that you've always treated us all in good faith. Whenever you have something you know you can't tell us, you just flat out tell us that you can't comment and move on, this is more a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. I just question the motives of the right hand. ;)
goblin_pride 02-03-07, 12:00 PM	I just question the motives of the right hand. ;) That would be the one trying to nick your wallet.
Edymnion 02-03-07, 03:37 PM	That would be the one trying to nick your wallet.Oh, right. :) I should have said "methods", as the motives are pretty clear. They want my money, as much of it as they can get. Its the methods they are willing to employ to take my money that I question.
lordalm 02-03-07, 03:57 PM	That would be the one trying to nick your wallet. Not the wallet just the green rectangles or the plastic rectangle inside. Once they have all of those they will just drop the wallet, on your still bleeding corpse....
Kreistor2 02-03-07, 11:34 PM	Except that the earlier in a setting's life the mistake is, the more books will include it from then on. If its a mistake in a splatbook that doesn't get touched on ever again (like Magic of Incarnum), it doesn't really matter, because it won't affect anything else you buy. If its one of the foundational books of a setting, then every book after that for the setting will use that information. You will then find, as is happening now, that a single throw away line quickly balloons out of proportion as time passes, until you're not having to Rule 0 out one line, but entire chapters of multiple books. Certainly true. One does sometime need to accept that some things are too big to fix in the amount of time one has. Me and the Vulkoor Drow, for instance. I hate 'em, as you can see. But I'm too busy to fix them, or I don't have the right mindset to create what I want them to be: take your pick, both might be true. (I can create a lot of things, but I don't think like a Drow, so I can't create a civilization that works with their mindset. I can create a lone individual that acts in their manner, but the leap to civilization I have a problem with.) My solution is simple: the PC's just happen to avoid them and encounter the Umbragen and Sulatar instead, both of which I'm happier with. I dodge what I don't like by not including it in the campaign but not taking it out of the world.
Cabral 02-04-07, 12:52 AM	We were specifically told by one of the higher ups (can't remember who no) during the discussion when the official cover went public that the book was *ALWAYS* intended to be a generic line book, and that it was never intended to be an Eberron line book in the first place. The Eberron cover done up and still available on Amazon (http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/0786936584.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA198_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg), seems to contradict that. Depending on when the cover was done, it could be that they considered both early and developed both covers as part of that evaluation. On ther hand, perhaps the Cover Designer wasn't told at first. ;)
Raziel_Brokodar 02-04-07, 12:55 AM	Only things I ever saw wrong with it was the Changeling gender change, I'd rule it myself as you 'appear' to be of the other gender, not actually become it. and some of the problems with it like the barbarian maintaining fast movement thing and other things that the book says like that, which are obviously incorrect. Great book, great source for making any character really in Eberron.
Ravenscroft 02-04-07, 01:50 AM	I don't understand the problem some people have with Changelings being able to be fully functional as either gender. Does it break the game if they can? Are the players indulging in weird psychosexual fantasies? Seems odd that this is of more contention than actually being able to disguise yourself as a member of several other races.
The White Sorcerer 02-04-07, 02:03 AM	I don't understand the problem some people have with Changelings being able to be fully functional as either gender. Does it break the game if they can? Of course it does because if they can change gender they can also, obviously, grow functional gills and wings and extra limbs. :rolleyes:
Ravenscroft 02-04-07, 03:49 AM	Don't you need a Prestige Class for that. :eek: :D
goblin_pride 02-04-07, 04:20 AM	Don't you need a Prestige Class for that. :eek: :D Prestige classes are just for Munchkins and clerics.
Cifer 02-04-07, 07:03 AM	Prestige classes are just for Munchkins and clerics. And for people with only average strength and dexterity.
Roland the Crownbreaker 02-04-07, 07:30 AM	Prestige classes are just for Munchkins and clerics. Actually, I have found that the majority of Eberron prestige classes tend to be more balanced, and have better flavor than the ones out of the standard "generic" rulebooks.
The White Sorcerer 02-04-07, 08:45 AM	And for people with only average strength and dexterity. And high charisma.
Cifer 02-04-07, 09:52 AM	Actually, I have found that the majority of Eberron prestige classes tend to be more balanced, and have better flavor than the ones out of the standard "generic" rulebooks. Planar Shepherd would be part of the minority then, right?
John Q. Mayhem 02-04-07, 10:04 AM	this is more a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. I just question the motives of the right hand. ;) But the left hand is the one that made the book. The book was made in the belief that it was an Eberron-series book. I know you have a hat of RoE, but it was still written as a core Eberron book, not dumbed down for a broader audience. To answer the OP's question, the problem with Races of Eberron is that some people like it and some people don't. That's basically it. Look at the previews and decide for yourself. I like it; it's the only one of the Races Of series that I kept when I was selling off my books last year.
Cifer 02-04-07, 12:37 PM	But the left hand is the one that made the book. Actually, we know that the left index finger thought he would be making an Eberron book. With the others, we don't know - and we don't know how deep they were into Eberron. The sometimes faulty judgements (WF barbarian) indicates they may not have been as deeply involved in it as was desirable.
Cabral 02-04-07, 01:44 PM	As funny as recommending a feat that negates their speed bonus because their speed bonus offsets the feat's speed penalty is, I find it more humorous that they spend so much time talking about its many boons, even mentioning a drawback in the tone of a boon (Adamantine Body's DR does not stack with barbarian DR) and only mention a far better choice for a warforged barbarian (Mithral Body) only in passing. I suspect that passage was written by adamantine merchants attempting to drive up demand ...
Edymnion 02-04-07, 02:14 PM	The Eberron cover done up and still available on Amazon (http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/0786936584.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA198_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg), seems to contradict that. Depending on when the cover was done, it could be that they considered both early and developed both covers as part of that evaluation. On ther hand, perhaps the Cover Designer wasn't told at first. ;)Accourding to "The Man", the Eberron cover was a mistake. That an over-anxious cover designer whipped it up, it was sitting on his desk or whatever, and when the time came to send out covers, somebody grabbed the wrong one and away it went. The cynical amongst us would, however point out that that cover was out there for quite some time, and nobody said anything about it being wrong until they officially announced it as being a generic line book and switched covers on us. A bait and switch, like they did with 3.5.But the left hand is the one that made the book. The book was made in the belief that it was an Eberron-series book. I know you have a hat of RoE, but it was still written as a core Eberron book, not dumbed down for a broader audience.Except that, again, I have personally caught the designers saying that this is not the case, and that it was intentionally toned down to avoid being too Eberron so they could sell it to the generic market. I just wish I could find those posts by the execs to show to people. I realize that "This dude on the internet says he saw something, but nobody else claims to have seen it" does not consitute proof, and I know there's no way in hell that they would ever admit to saying it now, but they did say it.
lordalm 02-04-07, 08:58 PM	Of course it does because if they can change gender they can also, obviously, grow functional gills and wings and extra limbs. :rolleyes: Not really. They are still changling what ever thier sex. If you take the right hormones in the real world you'll develop to a certain extant as a male or female instead of what you were born as. Give science enough time and you will be taking a pill to change your sex. I really don't see why everyone insist that being able to change your gender within your own species automatically makes it so you can grow the bits from other species.
goblin_pride 02-04-07, 09:06 PM	I just wish I could find those posts by the execs to show to people. I realize that "This dude on the internet says he saw something, but nobody else claims to have seen it" does not consitute proof, and I know there's no way in hell that they would ever admit to saying it now, but they did say it. The three rules, deny everything, admit nothing and demand proof.
Cabral 02-04-07, 09:18 PM	Of course it does because if they can change gender they can also, obviously, grow functional gills and wings and extra limbs. :rolleyes:Give science enough time and you will be taking a pill to change your sex. Give science enough time and you will be taking a pill to grow functional gills, wings and extra limbs ... ;)
crimsonwolf 02-05-07, 01:15 AM	My bad, I failed to specify 'Adamantine-Bodied' Warforged. Apologies offered, edit in progress. could it just be by chance.. the reson why fast movemnt would work for a warforge... is dealing with becuse its not relly that much as addon but becuse they get use to it.. just as an extra body part?
ArcTan 02-05-07, 01:24 AM	Of course it does because if they can change gender they can also, obviously, grow functional gills and wings and extra limbs. :rolleyes: ...Unless they aren't "changing" gender in the first place but are biologically hermaphrodites. Of course, I do partially blame the book for not clarifying this, but it makes the most sense out of any of the proposed variants.
Cifer 02-05-07, 09:18 AM	could it just be by chance.. the reson why fast movemnt would work for a warforge... is dealing with becuse its not relly that much as addon but becuse they get use to it.. just as an extra body part? Sure. The day they don't receive armor check penalty for their adamantine armor because of being "used to it" is the day I'll give them Fast Movement. The fast movement shtick is an error. Nothing more to it. There is no "this doesn't count as heavy armor for purposes of abilities depending on a character wearing only X armor" in the racial description or feat entry.
John Q. Mayhem 02-05-07, 11:50 AM	I just wish I could find those posts by the execs to show to people. I realize that "This dude on the internet says he saw something, but nobody else claims to have seen it" does not consitute proof, and I know there's no way in hell that they would ever admit to saying it now, but they did say it. I sympathize, I've been there before. For whatever it's worth, even though I disagree with a lot of your opinions, I respect them and you, and I believe you.
Wrathamon 02-06-07, 06:50 PM	Of course it does because if they can change gender they can also, obviously, grow functional gills and wings and extra limbs. :rolleyes: wow that is a huge stretch... if they could do that it would say they could. If you think that because they can do A they must also be able to do Y is incorrect assumption. The changing sex thing is nothing more than fluff and has no game mechanic associated with it. It is very easy to just take it as an possible idea and doesnt alter or drastically wreck the game. Changelings just get a +10 Racial bonus to disguise checks... that is it. Everything else is pretty much fluff. I have yet to see anything in this thread to think this book is horrible. Doesnt mean people arent going to hate it because some little things can be enough to irritate anyone into not liking something. Warforged line that was missed by editing... check. Easy thing to errata. dont like changeling fluff about changing sexes... doesnt effect any game mechanics. ignore. easy fix. Shifters being too stereotyped - doesnt effect any mechanics, and is an easy fix with story/plot elements to compliment your vision of what a shifter is and how the other books discuss them. Cover art <- yes this is the only thing that bugged me. I think this was a test more than anything to see if an eberron book would sell better with a non eberron cover. But, I dont think that is enough to toss the baby out with the bathwater. anything else? Is there any history timeline type campaign altering events that were botched? any mechanics that are broken? etc.
Cabral 02-06-07, 09:13 PM	wow that is a huge stretch... Not necessarily. Changelings can change gender -> Changelings can grow functional gills is a stretch. A Changeling's Minor Change ability is phsiological rather illusionary, thus they can change functional gender -> Changelings can grow functional gills is not a stretch at all. :)
Wrathamon 02-06-07, 09:28 PM	Not necessarily. Changelings can change gender -> Changelings can grow functional gills is a stretch. A Changeling's Minor Change ability is phsiological rather illusionary, thus they can change functional gender -> Changelings can grow functional gills is not a stretch at all. :) water breathing is an Ex or Su type ability... gender is not an ability nor does it have any relavence on game mechanics (except with the disguise skill penalty. Which I am guessing this is the only thing it is mention for to allow changelings to not suffer a penalty for assuming a different gender). It is a stretch to apply game mechanics from fluff text to somehow create abilities that the changeself ability does not have. Changing gender is just away to use change self to disguise yourself as a female or male... the writer saying changelings can be either is fluff the only mechanic is that changelings dont suffer the -2 penalty it would seem based on this book. From the ECS it looks like that +10 gets sucked away quickly from the -2 for race, -2 for sex, -2+ for age category. Anything else if it bugs you can be easily ignored. Any player thinking they can somehow squeeze additional abilities out of this and take the Changelings changeself ability and make it into alter self or a limited polymorph just from reading some fluff text from RoE is "stretching it".
Hellcow 02-06-07, 09:31 PM	I think the issue of Changeling Gender is really best left up to the DM. Some people hate it; some like the chance to explore a culture in which gender identity truly is a matter of choice. Because, unlike gills, it has a minimal impact on gameplay, I think it's fine for each DM to have a different opinion. With that said, just to throw in my two crowns... A Changeling's Minor Change ability is phsiological rather illusionary... A changeling's Minor Change Shape ability is physical rather than illusory; this is clearly stated on page 13 of the ECS. The question is how far it goes. Personally, I do allow gender-swapping, but don't allow gills. Why? Because in my opinion, it's not a conscious decision on the part of the changeling. The CHANGELING has no idea how to form the incredibly complex structures of ovary or testes. But it doesn't have to. Changelings have gender. At some point in the process of conception, the changeling's body was set as male of female. Unlike a human, the changeling's BODY remembers that, and knows how it could have gone the other way. The changeling doesn't actually consciously alter its internal organs; instead, it meditates on the concept of masculinity or femininity, and the body does the rest, remembering the potential held within. Sure, gills are simple. But the changeling can't FORCE the creation of gills, any more than he can create armored skin or claws. The potential to be male or female is something expressed in every changeling, and something that they can flow between. Again, for ME, this is a fascinating opprtunity to explore the culture of a species for whome gender truly is a choice, and to consider how such a creature would differ from humans. Changelings can't create gills. That much is concrete, canon fact. Giving them the ability to do so would alter the game balance of the race, and raise many other questions - can they give themselves darkvision? Scent? By canon (since I can tell you that us freelancers are supposed to consider RoE as canon), changelings can change gender. So, you can either come up with an explanation for that that works for you, as the "subconsciously reseting the gender switch" explanation does for me... or ignore it, and say that in your campaign they don't. I think that changeling gender-switching could have been explained in such a way that this argument could have been avoided. But with that said, I personally like it for what it can bring to a story.
ArcTan 02-07-07, 01:45 AM	Not necessarily. Changelings can change gender -> Changelings can grow functional gills is a stretch. A Changeling's Minor Change ability is phsiological rather illusionary, thus they can change functional gender -> Changelings can grow functional gills is not a stretch at all. :) It's a stretch because sex is something that every member of every species has as a genetic switch that can be flipped, as opposed to things like having gills or extra limbs or whatnot. You can say that changelings really are hermaphrodites on the inside, or simply that, like some kinds of frogs, they have the equipment to switch out male genitalia for female ones. Neither is a really big stretch for a real-life species to have.
ArcTan 02-07-07, 01:46 AM	Changing gender is just away to use change self to disguise yourself as a female or male... the writer saying changelings can be either is fluff the only mechanic is that changelings dont suffer the -2 penalty it would seem based on this book. From the ECS it looks like that +10 gets sucked away quickly from the -2 for race, -2 for sex, -2+ for age category. Well, no. Disguise checks are based on gender rather than sex -- sex is a matter of biology, while gender is a matter of self-identification. Most changelings, who are raised in and around human societies, probably do identify with either the male or female gender from birth, however their plumbing actually works. The fact that a "male" changeling can create functional female genitalia doesn't mean he'll feel any more comfortable or natural trying to act like a female, after all.
goblin_pride 02-07-07, 11:57 AM	It's a stretch because sex is something that every member of every species has as a genetic switch that can be flipped, as opposed to things like having gills or extra limbs or whatnot. You can say that changelings really are hermaphrodites on the inside, or simply that, like some kinds of frogs, they have the equipment to switch out male genitalia for female ones. Neither is a really big stretch for a real-life species to have. Don't some frog species have gills early in their development?
lugnut71 02-07-07, 12:14 PM	Most do. Tadpoles have gills.
Cifer 02-07-07, 12:22 PM	Well, no. Disguise checks are based on gender rather than sex -- sex is a matter of biology, while gender is a matter of self-identification. Well... would you expect the PHB to use the scientifically correct term 'sex' to refer to anatomical gender? There has been no character sheet which had seperate fields for sex and gender, to my knowledge, so I'd expect that when WotC says Gender, they mean it as a whole, physical + psychological. Most changelings, who are raised in and around human societies, probably do identify with either the male or female gender from birth, however their plumbing actually works. The fact that a "male" changeling can create functional female genitalia doesn't mean he'll feel any more comfortable or natural trying to act like a female, after all. I'm not quite sure about that one... do you really identify that strongly with a single gender/sex when you have the chance to swap it every second of your life without any problems? Certainly changelings are raised in human communities, but they are raised by at least one changeling parent. The day I play a changeling, I'll make it as ambigious as possible, not even revealing to the other players what the character's true sex is.
Hellcow 02-07-07, 12:26 PM	Most do. Tadpoles have gills. And yet, changelings are neither frogs nor tadoles. The point is that an adult changeling has the biological potential to be male or female. ALL adult changelings are either male or female. This is a fundamental element of their biology. In the case of changelings, they have the ability to flip between it. Meanwhile, NO adult changeling has gills. There's no innate genetic tag for "gills" in an adult changeling. Certainly, if a changeling CONSCIOUSLY shaped the reproductive organs - if it thought about it, and actively said "OK, the left testicle goes over here, the right testicle goes here..." If it could CONSCIOUSLY alter its own internal biology on this level, then gills aside, it out to be able to heal injuries and do all kinds of things. But it's not conscious. As ArcTan suggests, I see it as a lightswitch. It just thinks "female" and its body knows what to do. If it thinks "gills", its body has nothing to work with. With that said, I think that ArcTan's point that the gender of a changeling may transcend its physical/reproductive gender is an interesting one; after all, warforged can have a "masculine" or "feminine" personality while having no gender at all. As such, it makes sense that the changeling should take a penalty when impersonating a gender other than its prime. With that said, the question of what gender means to a creature who can change it at will is something I find interesting, especially in a changeling-dense region like the Gray Tide. Again, the opportunity to explore a racial psychology that would have completely different concepts of gender/physical identity than humans is part of what I like about changelings. An example of this is the fact that both the Prince of the Gray Tide and the changeling councilor of Sharn are presented as shared identities - that the identity itself is either heriditary or actively shared by multiple people at once.
okaynowa 02-07-07, 12:31 PM	Said Cifer: Certainly changelings are raised in human communities, but they are raised by at least one changeling parent.Except for those changelings raised in half-elf communities. Or hobgoblin or gnoll communities. Or by dwarves. And the changeling parent's involvement is not guaranteed any more than a human parent's involvement is. For the love 'em and leave 'em impersonator, I'd actually argue that changeling parents are less likely to stick around. Cuckoos, and all that. It's easiest for them to get along in human communities (no special abilities to mimic), but I'd say there's nothing certain about a given changeling's background and upbringing.
ArcTan 02-08-07, 02:48 AM	Well... would you expect the PHB to use the scientifically correct term 'sex' to refer to anatomical gender? There has been no character sheet which had seperate fields for sex and gender, to my knowledge, so I'd expect that when WotC says Gender, they mean it as a whole, physical + psychological. This is actually explicitly *not* true, since warforged absolutely do not have a physical sex or reproductive systems at all, but do have a line in the Gender: blank. Of course the official rules emphasize this by saying you should write "male personality" rather than "male", but whatever. Character sheets, as a general rule, shy away from talking about sex and reproduction at all. You'll notice that the vast majority of monster and race descriptions *never* bring up how sex works among these creatures, what their gestation period is, etc. It's too controversial for D&D games -- it raises too many problems. There's still enough prejudice against transgender people that actively making transgender an option (letting you put "Male" for "sex" and "Female" for "gender") would create more problems than it'd solve, for WotC as a business. I'm not quite sure about that one... do you really identify that strongly with a single gender/sex when you have the chance to swap it every second of your life without any problems? Certainly changelings are raised in human communities, but they are raised by at least one changeling parent. RoE's flavor makes us think that changelings aren't experienced enough with shapeshifting -- remember it's taking a Disguise check -- until adulthood, and that most children, even from "becomer" families (i.e. raised by a changeling parent who sees shapeshifting as a huge part of her life) won't take on many forms other than one familiar one until they pass puberty. Makes sense to me, and explains how you can get away with going with the default of having changelings having a "real" sex, a default WotC seems reluctant to abandon. The day I play a changeling, I'll make it as ambigious as possible, not even revealing to the other players what the character's true sex is. Good plan.
ArcTan 02-08-07, 02:49 AM	Don't some frog species have gills early in their development? Yeah, so what? As Keith said, changelings aren't frogs. It is not a universal fact that all creatures have gills at some point and could genetically reclaim them if necessary. It is a fact that male/female is a simple genetic switch in creatures that reproduce sexually -- this is intrinsic to what sexual reproduction and sex *is*.
heirodule 02-08-07, 04:25 PM	Certainly, if a changeling CONSCIOUSLY shaped the reproductive organs - if it thought about it, and actively said "OK, the left testicle goes over here, the right testicle goes here..." If it could CONSCIOUSLY alter its own internal biology on this level, then gills aside, it out to be able to heal injuries and do all kinds of things. But it's not conscious. As ArcTan suggests, I see it as a lightswitch. It just thinks "female" and its body knows what to do. If it thinks "gills", its body has nothing to work with. So what does it do when it makes itself look like a locathath?
okaynowa 02-08-07, 04:31 PM	Said heirodule:So what does it do when it makes itself look like a locathath?It makes itself look like a locathah. If the changeling has a level of dragonfire adept, dragon shaman, or warlock, it might have access to an invocation or quality that allows it to breathe water. Otherwise, it had better know how to swim.
Hellcow 02-08-07, 04:36 PM	It makes itself look like a locathah. Exactly. It changes the texture and color of its skin. It contracts and expands muscles to change its overall body shape. It changes the appearance of ears and eyes - but just the appearance. It does't gain a swim speed, the aquatic subtype, or the +8 racial Swim bonus of the locathah - and if you cut it open, you'd find that its internal organs are thouse of a changeling, not those of a locathah. Note that if a changeling changes its appearance to that of a humanoid with natural weapons or armor, it may APPEAR to have those things, but they don't actually function. It's like Mystique impersonating Wolverine in the first X-Men movie; she may LOOK like she has claws, but when you slash at them, you cut them in half and they bleed. A changeling is, fundamentally, a changeling. Whether it's a male or female changeling is something it can shift - because both of these are valid options for changelings. Gills, natural armor, etc - these are not part of the innate biology of an adult changeling. It can APPEAR to have gills, but it can't create functional gills.
Roland the Crownbreaker 02-08-07, 04:57 PM	Besides, aren't changelings descended from sexless creatures anyways? The ability to change gender (complete with working parts) is probably a throwback to thier doppleganger ancestry.
Cabral 02-09-07, 01:10 AM	It does't gain a swim speed, the aquatic subtype, or the +8 racial Swim bonus of the locathah - and if you cut it open, you'd find that its internal organs are thouse of a changeling, not those of a locathah. If you are examining the internal organs, I'm sure there's already no doubt that it's a changeling on the autopsy table. ;) A changeling is, fundamentally, a changeling. Whether it's a male or female changeling is something it can shift - because both of these are valid options for changelings. Gills, natural armor, etc - these are not part of the innate biology of an adult changeling. It can APPEAR to have gills, but it can't create functional gills. Unless said changeling is a 5th level cabinet trickster. Which brings up the question of is said changeling able to push his/her innate abilities further or just enhance them with PrC taught magic.
Wrathamon 02-09-07, 03:37 PM	Note that if a changeling changes its appearance to that of a humanoid with natural weapons or armor, it may APPEAR to have those things, but they don't actually function. It's like Mystique impersonating Wolverine in the first X-Men movie; she may LOOK like she has claws, but when you slash at them, you cut them in half and they bleed. A changeling is, fundamentally, a changeling. Whether it's a male or female changeling is something it can shift - because both of these are valid options for changelings. Gills, natural armor, etc - these are not part of the innate biology of an adult changeling. It can APPEAR to have gills, but it can't create functional gills. And if the enemy makes a high enough spot check they can see that hey those arent real gills, or hey those claws are fleshy! \ Remember it is just a +10 to Disguise checks that cant be dispelled or disbelieved. Now does the Disguise Self Spell and the Changeling racial ability stack with each other?
ArcTan 02-09-07, 04:48 PM	If you are examining the internal organs, I'm sure there's already no doubt that it's a changeling on the autopsy table. ;) Unless said changeling is a 5th level cabinet trickster. Which brings up the question of is said changeling able to push his/her innate abilities further or just enhance them with PrC taught magic. The flavor is clearly the latter. If the changeling is making a physical change, then it makes more sense for the difference between an ordinary changeling and Cabinet Trickster or ordinary changeling and changeling with a RoE changeling racial feat to be knowledge and experience, not some kind of extra magic.
ArcTan 02-09-07, 04:50 PM	And if the enemy makes a high enough spot check they can see that hey those arent real gills, or hey those claws are fleshy! \ Remember it is just a +10 to Disguise checks that cant be dispelled or disbelieved. Note that the lack of a Will save to disbelieve upon interaction means that if you touch a changeling it does feel realistic, as much as it looks realistic, anyway -- you don't get the "hologram" effect of a disguise spell. Now does the Disguise Self Spell and the Changeling racial ability stack with each other? I would argue that no, all "You look exactly like the target" +10's to Disguise are to be considered the same +10 to Disguise. Otherwise you get the silliness of being a changeling with a hat of disguise who casts alter self and polymorph and polymorph any object, all into the same form, to get a total of +50 to Disguise. Which is obviously stupid.
dunkeykong 02-09-07, 10:30 PM	Personally, I love the book. Not quite as good as some of the other Races books, But still very nice.
Edymnion 02-10-07, 03:26 PM	Not quite as good as some of the other Races booksHeh, and that should tell you something. ;)
dunkeykong 02-10-07, 04:27 PM	Heh, and that should tell you something. ;) Haha, i never thought of it like that. Races of Deastiny blew, Races of Dragon is so-so, the only good ones we have are Races of the Wild and Races of Stone. Given that, I think Races of Eberron might be that best out of them.
ArcTan 02-10-07, 04:37 PM	I didn't mind RoD that much, mainly because of the illumian chapter (I confess I ignored most of the rest of it).
dunkeykong 02-10-07, 04:55 PM	I have to admit, The "Races" books have some of the best RP material for theyre respective races. Honestly, I would like to see more books or web material going into more depth on the races of DnD. I am a very RP heavy gamer and im also stymied by a lack in depth material about the race im playing. Come to think about it, thats not a bad idea for a series of threads giving some more in depth RP information on the various racesthat make up Eberron. I dont think Im the best one to do it, but if no one else does id be glad to.
AlHazred 02-12-07, 09:10 PM	A lot of the racial information (save for the Kalashtar) seems extremely flat and stereotypical, but that's a problem with all the races books and the racial depictions in the PHB. They all pigeonhole the races into facile stereotypes. 'Gruff Dwarf', 'Snooty Elf', 'Prankster Gnome', 'Brutish Half-Orc', for example, from the PHB.I pick up the WotC books for the 'crunch' -- the game mechanical info. If I need RP info, I'll create it. The 'Races' books should have had more crunch, then they might have been barely passable. I have to admit, The "Races" books have some of the best RP material for theyre respective races.I pick up the WotC books for the 'fluff' -- the role-playing info. If I need game mechanical info, I'll create it. The 'Races' books should have had more fluff, then they might have been barely passable. I think that covers the two main complaints with the 'Races' books in general and the 'Races of Eberron' book in particular.
Edymnion 02-13-07, 09:40 PM	I didn't mind RoD that much, mainly because of the illumian chapter (I confess I ignored most of the rest of it).See, I hated the Illumians chapter. That was the single most unneeded thing I've ever seen. "Hey, look at these guys over here! They're basically humans with Favored Class: Wizard with little glowy things around their heads!" I mean, seriously, what was the point? Just to have a neon sign circling your head? You could do that with dull gray ioun stones and a minor illusion spell.
ChristopherGroves 02-13-07, 10:01 PM	I mean, seriously, what was the point? Just to have a neon sign circling your head? You could do that with dull gray ioun stones and a minor illusion spell. That would be an amusing plot to pull in a game. "Um, yeah ... so this insane wizard started taking the peasants and arcane marking them as part of his wacky experiments. Those that didn't die to excessive intestinal probing eventually became illumians."
Ravenscroft 02-13-07, 10:03 PM	As with many things D&D , Illumians were ruined for me by a particular player in a campaign. I didn't mind the background ideas for their culture and society , but the glowing sigils seemed a tad silly for use in an Eberron game. Having a few more games and Eberron books since then , i think i would be able to integrate them better. The sigils would be astral or ethereal for one thing.
ArcTan 02-14-07, 12:36 AM	See, I hated the Illumians chapter. That was the single most unneeded thing I've ever seen. "Hey, look at these guys over here! They're basically humans with Favored Class: Wizard with little glowy things around their heads!" I mean, seriously, what was the point? Just to have a neon sign circling your head? You could do that with dull gray ioun stones and a minor illusion spell. Er, a race that exists entirely of artificially created offshoots of humanity, always in small cloisters explicitly created for some direct, grandiose purpose (going with the "Destiny" theme), who manipulate the affairs of the whole world around them through the collection of information and obscure magics? Can't think of how that would be a cool concept for a fantasy game that hadn't yet been really addressed by any of the default races or nations. Not to mention the way the illumians acted as a precursor to Truename magic and implement the idea of modular magic made by fitting together "syllables" in a pretty cool way. I mean, the whole illumian chapter would've made a fascinating campaign setting all on its own, with the mythos of the illumians' creation, their true language, their conflicting purposes, etc. Yeah, the most interesting cosmetic feature is the words around the head, but saying that this is all there is to them is like saying there's no point to elves because they're just humans with pointy ears.
Cifer 02-22-07, 02:40 PM	Yeah, the most interesting cosmetic feature is the words around the head, but saying that this is all there is to them is like saying there's no point to elves because they're just humans with pointy ears. Well, as long as we're not in Eberron, you're pretty much right there: In most worlds, elves are humans with pointy ears and either a nature fetish or a superiority complex. Er, a race that exists entirely of artificially created offshoots of humanity, always in small cloisters explicitly created for some direct, grandiose purpose (going with the "Destiny" theme), who manipulate the affairs of the whole world around them through the collection of information and obscure magics? Can't think of how that would be a cool concept for a fantasy game that hadn't yet been really addressed by any of the default races or nations. See, the last sentence is exactly my problem. There's just so many secret cabals in the world that I'm reminded of Pratchett ("Welcome, Brother, to the Elucidated Lodge of the Ebony Night!" - "Oh, wait! This is not the Cabal of Secret and Ancient Knowledge Man Was Not Meant To Uncover?" - "Nope. They're two doors to the left..."). What have the Illumians got that I couldn't do with the Cabinet of Faces, the Aurum, the Chamber, the Lords of Dust or the Dreaming Dork - er, Dark?
ArcTan 02-22-07, 03:32 PM	Well, as long as we're not in Eberron, you're pretty much right there: In most worlds, elves are humans with pointy ears and either a nature fetish or a superiority complex. That's unfair, especially if you have read Races of the Wild. Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk fluff for Elves may be uninspired, but it's far from "Elves are just people who like trees". (And sure, FR may be stealing a lot of that fluff from Tolkien in fairly obvious ways, but still.) The long lifespan, the greater sense of detachment and freedom from the world that that brings, the slower, contemplative pace of life... it's all there, even if not always written very well. And it's still there in Eberron's flavor too, just altered. See, the last sentence is exactly my problem. There's just so many secret cabals in the world that I'm reminded of Pratchett ("Welcome, Brother, to the Elucidated Lodge of the Ebony Night!" - "Oh, wait! This is not the Cabal of Secret and Ancient Knowledge Man Was Not Meant To Uncover?" - "Nope. They're two doors to the left..."). What have the Illumians got that I couldn't do with the Cabinet of Faces, the Aurum, the Chamber, the Lords of Dust or the Dreaming Dork - er, Dark? You misunderstand. The "cabals" you name are giant world-spanning conspiracies with centralized leadership and a clear goal. The flavor of the illumians is that each illumian lodge is a tiny, self-contained community after one very specific local goal that only lasts as long as the lifespan of that particular cabal, all of which are different and highly idiosyncratic. That makes an interesting wild card for any game. And after all, the illumians were created to *add* secret cabal flavor to an ordinary D&D game, not to be an integrated part of Eberron's existing secret-cabal-ness. If there were a longer, more intricate "Illumians in the World" for Eberron I think it could be really cool.
Bentley Mirrorshade 02-23-07, 03:38 PM	I wholeheartedly agree with the following statements: I lvoe the Eberron books. I read them for pleasure. I'm dead serious. The characters, history, and flavor is just so great. It's like a compilation of a thousand movies' plot summaries, and each one is a great movie! That being said, RoE only had one thing I liked: the new shifter, warforged, and psionic feats. Kinda sad that the most soulknife love ever was found in this book, though. I didn't finish any of the racial info chapters because I became bored within a few pages, the prestige classes were blah (but they're becoming more and more blah as WotC churns them out faster than they need to be), the spells were meh, and... well the items... I forget what they were. Which probably doesn't say much for them. Geez, it's hard NOT to see what's wrong with Races of Eberron. A few minutes into reading you feel ashamed that you actually wasted money on the thing. Only thing in it I found useful was the Kalashtar section. So much of the rest of it was horribly written, flawed, contradictory, and just plain bad that I felt like I wanted to tear the pages out. But hey, the WotC books are getting increasingly like that, it seems. Less and less useful content. Races of Eberron makes me particularly upset, however, in that it actually mars the otherwise fantastic setting, as Edymnion mentioned. Flat, uninspired fluff. The majority of the book read like they handed a one paragraph description of the new races to some new intern and told them to have 30 pages on the boss's desk by Thursday. Nothing in there actually tells us anything that the generic stereotyping doesn't already say. Honestly, its like Magic of Incarnum, they may have started with a good seed, but by the time they milked an entire book out of it, it was pretty clear that they ran out of ideas and just stretched what they had to fill pages. Horribly dumbed down fluff on the PHB races. Related to some of the above, it also overly generalized the new races, and then turned around and made baseless claims that characters that didn't follow those generalizations were essentially wrong. See the Changeling entry about there only being 3 kinds of Changeling, and something like 99% of all changelings are one of those three types, while any non-pidgeon-holed character is a freak. Not to mention how hard it tried to drive "Shifters are savage nomadic animal people" into our skulls in page after page after page... but I already said the entries read like extended note card descriptions, no need to go into that again.Generally speaking, I'm *GLAD* RoE came out as a generic line book (not just cover, WotC does not consider it to be part of the Eberron line in any way, check their own product listings for proof). The crunch was good, but the flavor was just horrible. To sum it up, the fluff is boring. And useless. It does not live up to the Eberron standards. The Other Races chapter is so uninspired I find it offending. The only bits I liked: +kalashtar chapter +one concept from the shifter chapter (Journey Yet to Come) +some feats I don't really care about crunch though, I'm not really into all that racial substitution etc. business, so I can't say if it's worth it... If you play as one of the races, you may find it helpful (Shifter feats!), but otherwise I would advise people to keep away from it. While Edy's love of Eberron is often commendable, there are times he goes a WEE bit too far in his obsession. As you say, the issues with RoE are pretty minor and not worth all the outrage. I hold Edymnion's opinions about sourcebooks in high regard, and I'm always thankful for his insights. Also, I think there is a large (if not as vocal) portion of die-hard Eberron fans that doesn't consider the issues with RoE to be "pretty minor". Mostly chaps that value well-written material above additional game-mechanics options, I guess.