Best Eberron Supplements [Archive] - Wizards Community

Best Eberron Supplements [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
SaberXtreme
06-24-07, 05:02 PM My D&D group is currently playing a FR campaign which is probably going to last a good while, but when its over I'd like to give our current DM a chance to be a player and take over the reigns as DM. Several members of our group including myself are interested in trying out Eberron since none of us have ever played in the setting before. I am terribly intrigued with the whole setting and would absolutely love to run an Eberron campaign.

I immediately fell in love with the ECS when I read it. Currently it is the only Eberron Campaign Setting Material I own besdies one of the novels I recently picked up. I'd really love to read more of the Eberron supplements both for the Fluff, but also in anticipation of running a game. Which supplements do you all feel are best in terms of fluff and fleshing out aspects of the campaign setting? Which are best for prospective DMs?
Rechan
06-24-07, 05:49 PM It depends on WHERE you want to run your campaign. Sharn? Xen'drik? Who do you want involved in your campaign? The Silver Flame? The Dragons Below? The Dragonmarked Houses?

Player's Guide to Eberron - best for players. It's 98% fluff. It also leaves the "spoilers" of the setting out. As a DM, it lets you generally move fast through the material too.

Dragonmarked - Useful for both Dm and Player. There's a lot of crunch, but each House gets a more indepth write up, if you plan on playing a Marked character. It also spells out what benefits a marked member of a House gets if they take the Favored in House feat.

Sharn:City of Towers - best for DMs if you're running in Sharn. It pretty much fleshes out the majority of the city to the extent you can run a campaign there.

Races of Eberron - This is hotly contested actually. But if you want Kalasthar fluff, RoE is the place to go, hands down.

Forge of War - Well, if you're going to run a Last War campaign, or have a PC who's a war veteran... But the book is 98% fluff.

Faiths of Eberron - Essentially it fleshes out all of the religions and the druidic sects a little more.

Secrets of Sarlona - If you want to send your PCs to Sarlona, well... get this.

Books to Not Get:

Secrets of Xen'Drik, Explorer's Handbook. Why? These books aren't Fluff, they're just Adventure Sites. Basically "Here's a place your PCs can visit if they are going to these places!"

Also, does anyone think there were any useful fluff material in Magic of Eberron? I don't remember that much, unless you consider the PrCs "fluff".
Nived
06-24-07, 06:04 PM Yeah it's pretty much the type of game you run. For the most part I'll agree with Rechan but I think Secrets of Xen'drik and Explorer's Handbook aren't useless.

My group's embraced the pulp adventure thing, playing very much like The Mummy, Indiana Jones and the like. I've used the info from the ExH on the Wayfinders and the Aquisitions Directorate quite a bit, and the monsters from SoX and stuff out of it like The Traveler's Curse.

Granted they do have a lot of adventure sites which I don't use, but I enjoed reading.

In fact the Aquisitions Directorate is one of my favorite organizations in Eberron, sadly my players are more fond of the Wayfinders.
gensuke626
06-24-07, 07:32 PM I like the Explorer's Handbook for the (Partially incorrect) information on such things as Airships, Lightning Rails, and other such considerations...

There's a list of travel prices and speeds as well as a Point-to-point Lightning rail distance chart that's relatively accurate (I think I did a comparison between the distance listed in the chart and the distance on the maps from the ECS and they were close enough...though I think a few of the "distance from previous stop" measurements are off...

As a DM I bought the Explorer's handbook for the first 2 chapters, which are primarily Crunch based off of travel times and other logistics.

Magic of Eberron had some things that could be useful for a prospective DM. The Daelkyr Half-blood race, the PrCs and the new spells and monsters are always useful. Admittedly, it's another Mostly Crunch book, but I liked it. When I get home I'll scour it and point out fluffy bits.

I may be a fan boy, but eventually, when I get the money, I'm going to own all of the Eberron books....I'm working on it slowly.
garner_adam
06-24-07, 08:10 PM SaberXtreme,

There's also a book that I've found very useful for my Eberron Campaigns but is not an Eberron Book. Heroes of Battle helps a lot with a war torn setting. Not to mention the setting is primed for a few major battles any ways.
Moosh Nailo
06-24-07, 08:14 PM Magic of Eberron is great. Good fluff, good crunch, and a bunch of cool new ideas anyone can use.
Kaizer_Ryu
06-24-07, 08:59 PM Five Nations has a good amount of fluff mixed with crunch. I've got most of the Eberron books, and it ranks in the top three when roaming Khorvaire.

FoE, D'marked, and S:CoT are awesome for DM's looking for Fluff, and I agree with Rechan about PGtE for your players. ExH has a few useful things here and there, so I agree with gensuke626 (not bad, just limited usefulness).

I haven't read through FoW yet, but what I've seen so far has my fan-boyish side in a tizzy.

MoE has a lot of crunch, mostly built for the use Artificers, but IMHO it's potential is best served by the plot ideas it can spawn.
PoeticJustice
06-24-07, 09:35 PM It all depends...

Is your group open to the idea of playing an Eberron game? Can they be convinced?

Races of Eberron does a marvelous job of convincing players to jump ship.

Is your group already on board with Eberron?

Sharn, 5 Nations, and Dragonmarked are probably the way to go. These books deal with small details about their various subjects that wasn't included in ECS.

Do you spend a lot of time (4+ hours/session) making game material.

If not, Secrets of Xen'drik, Explorer's Handbook, and Secrets of Sarlona do a lot of work for you.

Is your group Eberron-literate? Do they want to be?

I think the easiest way to bring a hesitant group to speed is by buying another copy of ECS.
Rechan
06-24-07, 11:59 PM Doh, I COMPLETELY forgot about Five Nations.
Ath'kethin
06-25-07, 09:07 AM Do you spend a lot of time (4+ hours/session) making game material.

If not, Secrets of Xen'drik, Explorer's Handbook, and Secrets of Sarlona do a lot of work for you.

I didn't find this to be so much the case with Secrets of Sarlona. SoX was kind of a disappointment to me, because it really idn't give so much information on how Xen'drik worked as a bunch of places you could go an prople you could meet while you were there.

Secrets of Sarlona, on the other hand, gives a comprehensive overview of the countries, governments, and people of Sarlona, making it incredibly easy to run a campaign there. It's like a mini-ECS, for the other continent, and in my opinion one of the absolute best Eberron suppliments. Of course, its usefulness is limited if you don't have a heavy Sarlonan edge to your game, but still.
Wymarc
06-25-07, 09:55 AM If your going to spend a lot o time in the locations, Secrets of Xen'Drik, Secrets of Sarlona, and Sharn: City of Towers are all very good books.

The Five Nations is an excellent book unless you are going to spend no time in the 5 nations (unlikely).
SaberXtreme
06-25-07, 10:42 AM What Exactly is the difference between the ECS and the Players guide to Eberron? Is there any more crunch or is the PGtE just a stipped down ECS?
Kaizer_Ryu
06-25-07, 10:46 AM What Exactly is the difference between the ECS and the Players guide to Eberron? Is there any more crunch or is the PGtE just a stipped down ECS?PGtE allows your players to get a comprehensive overview of Eberron minus the spoilers. Things about the world that the average person whould/should know. The ECS has countless things that might spoil the surprise, so WotC tried to make the PGtE largely spoiler-free. I think they did a good job.
Fabius Maximus
06-25-07, 12:28 PM For pure reading pleasure, I'd say Faiths of Eberron beats all other D&D supplements. Staying in the limits of the setting, Secrets of Sarlona is marginally worse, followed by Five Nations.

Sharn is good, too, but a bit to fractured (and lacking an index).
Rechan
06-25-07, 02:42 PM Sharn is good, too, but a bit to fractured (and lacking an index).

There's a Sharn index on Keith's website.
HxHunter
06-25-07, 09:03 PM Dragonmarked is pretty good, I like crunch.
Edymnion
06-25-07, 09:08 PM I consider the following to be the "core" of Eberron:

ECS (Duh)
Player's Guide to Eberron (ignore the sidebars)
Dragonmarked
Faiths of Eberron
Five Nations
Fabius Maximus
06-25-07, 09:19 PM There's a Sharn index on Keith's website.
I know.
SaberXtreme
06-25-07, 09:26 PM PGtE allows your players to get a comprehensive overview of Eberron minus the spoilers. Things about the world that the average person whould/should know. The ECS has countless things that might spoil the surprise, so WotC tried to make the PGtE largely spoiler-free. I think they did a good job.

So there's nothing in the PGtE that the ECS doesn't already have?
Rechan
06-25-07, 09:34 PM So there's nothing in the PGtE that the ECS doesn't already have?

I wouldn't say that. I don't have any hard and fast examples, because I'm going through with the ardruous task of reading and comparing each right now, but I will say this:

PGtE is much more organized if you're looking for a specific topic. The ECS is a BIG BOOK, and you can have information about Topic X scattered in several chapters - such as a lot of info on the Silver Flame in the Thrane chapter, not in the religion chapter. PGtE is more encyclopedic, having entries on each topic.
DragoonDarkfire
06-25-07, 09:53 PM I really like Magic of Eberron. By far it has the best crunch out of all of them.
Adamaro23
06-26-07, 03:53 PM For players i'd suggest: Faiths of Eberron, and Magic of Eberron, PGtE
For DMs i'd suggest: Five Nations, and Dragonmarked

This way, players will be able to know more a bout themselves. And you'll be able to know more of Khorvaire and it's main orginizations.

But if you plan on running a game away from khorvaire, i'd aslo recomend: Explorer's Handbook, Secrets of Xen'drik, and Secrets of Sarlona.
OneWinged4ngel
06-28-07, 03:32 AM Player's Guide to Eberron is anything but spoiler free. It reveals the secrets of many of the main conspiracies in the ECS, such as the Blood of Vol.

I found it HUGELY disappointing in that regard. To all those people who are saying it provides no spoilers, have you actually READ the book? "It benefits this secret organization to manipulate sects in..." and "But really, behind the scenes, Vol and her lieutenants orchestrate..." etc etc. That's not "non-spoiler" information in any sense. At all. The book doesn't deliver on any such promises of being spoiler free. :rolleyes:
gensuke626
06-29-07, 07:50 PM PGtE has some interesing Feats, PrCs and fluff to help you flesh out the world of Eberron. Some sidebars aren't all that great and basically are just there to give (OPTIONAL) ideas on how to integrate some non PHB classes into Eberron.

It's worth picking up IMHO, but it's not my favorite book.

Edit- By the way...I went back and checked the Explorer's Handbook's chart on lightning Rail distances and prices and found out that they were off by a good amount. The distances listed in Five Nations is much much better, but Five nations doesn't give a detailed point to point chart for the Karrnathi lines... I did go through and manually measure them though....
Ath'kethin
06-29-07, 08:30 PM I immediately fell in love with the ECS when I read it.

Welcome to the club. Good to have you.

Which supplements do you all feel are best in terms of fluff and fleshing out aspects of the campaign setting? Which are best for prospective DMs?

As others have mentioned, this really depends on what style of game you want to run, and what interests you in the ECS. I will say, however, that a more recent release that doesn't seem to have received much coverage is Secrets of Sarlona, which is in my opinion one of the the best supplements that has come out so far for Eberron. However, to use it would require a very different campaign style (and focus) than a Khorvaire- or even Xen'drik- based campaign, and you do pretty much need the XPH to make full use of SoS.

Regardless, I thought it was was one of the better reads of the Eberron sourcebooks so far, and if you're not a big fan of all the myriad intelligent races in D&D, and are a fan of psionics and a slightly more oppressive Eastern European feel to your campaigns, Sarlona may might work well for you.
DBlizzard
06-29-07, 08:54 PM Because of the frequency of these thread, I decided to start a meta-thread on ENWorld for discussing the various pros & cons of the various books for beginners (players & DMS).

It's here (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=200166).
Edymnion
07-01-07, 02:59 PM Because of the frequency of these thread, I decided to start a meta-thread on ENWorld for discussing the various pros & cons of the various books for beginners (players & DMS).

It's here (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=200166).So, why did you make it on ENWorld instead of here?
All this means is that I'll never read it now, because I wouldn't be caught dead on ENWorld...
Euangelion
07-01-07, 03:58 PM I'll stick my neck way out and say that trying to keep things like vampire monarchs and half-dragon elf liches secret is nigh impossible. The vast majority of the time the people playing in Eberron campaigns are already going to know stuff like that, so it really makes sense to include it. The only way to make it more secretive would be to give the DMs a lot more intentional leeway with those parts of the setting (such as along the lines of the cause of the Day of Mourning). But that itself raises too many issues to make it feasible as more and more sourcebooks come out.

By the way, I agree with Edy's list, except with the personal caveat that Five Nations is a train wreck. Proceed with caution, and be ready to change anything that doesn't make sense (mindless quori, only 1 moon, no Thranish NPC with a stitch of flametouched iron anything, etc., etc., etc.) It's still a vitally important sourcebook, which makes its myriad flaws that much more irritating. Have fun!
DBlizzard
07-01-07, 09:11 PM So, why did you make it on ENWorld instead of here?
All this means is that I'll never read it now, because I wouldn't be caught dead on ENWorld...

Honestly because these sort of threads tend to get better responses at ENWorld. Also, two of the last three threads asking about this were on ENWorld,

I don't know why the ENWorld hate, but I find the community has a better feel and is moderated much more to my tastes. The only thing it lacks is an Eberron specific feel (which I can get from the barely travelled Worlds of D&D).
Trannic
07-02-07, 01:18 PM well, I own all of the Eberron books and think they are all worth while. However, as many have said before, it depends on where your campaign will run. I agree that PGtE is a general must have for the players, and I think that Faiths of Eberron is also a very good choice for fleshing out the religons in Eberron. After that, my three favorite books, and the one's I would recommend are Secrets of Sarlona, for the awesome detail of the largely, up 'till now, unknown continent, Forge of War, for the simple fact that the war had the biggest effect on the current atmosphere in Eberron, and Dragonmarked, since the houses are among the most powerful cabals driving industry.
Furion Thamior
07-03-07, 01:35 AM Player's Guide to Eberron is anything but spoiler free. It reveals the secrets of many of the main conspiracies in the ECS, such as the Blood of Vol.

I found it HUGELY disappointing in that regard. To all those people who are saying it provides no spoilers, have you actually READ the book? "It benefits this secret organization to manipulate sects in..." and "But really, behind the scenes, Vol and her lieutenants orchestrate..." etc etc. That's not "non-spoiler" information in any sense. At all. The book doesn't deliver on any such promises of being spoiler free. :rolleyes:

I agree with this. I was pretty irritated by it, since I was going to recommend the book to a few Eberron-illiterate players of mine for a future campaign.
OneWinged4ngel
07-03-07, 02:55 AM I agree with this. I was pretty irritated by it, since I was going to recommend the book to a few Eberron-illiterate players of mine for a future campaign.

Yeah, seriously. You *cannot* use the book as a good introduction to Eberron. It really doesn't work well.

I often end up picking out sections from *several* books (and posts from Keith, and dragonshards) to give to players. PGtE is one of my least-used sources.

For example, the part on the Blood of Vol is AWFUL (at least, in filling the advertised role of the book). It tells you about the conspiracies and people behind the scenes, but gives next to none of the information a player needs to play a Blood of Vol cultist (such as explaining their beliefs beyond "they have undedz," and explaining the culture of the publically known religion, rather than the conspiracy behind it). In this way, it fails UTTERLY at being a useful PC resource. Heck, it has almost as much DM-only type stuff as the ECS!

Some other things are just lame, though. For example, the subraces sidebars look like they threw darts at a map then BSed a story in there (same as they did for the new MM Eberron-adaptation entries).

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
SaberXtreme 06-24-07, 05:02 PM	My D&D group is currently playing a FR campaign which is probably going to last a good while, but when its over I'd like to give our current DM a chance to be a player and take over the reigns as DM. Several members of our group including myself are interested in trying out Eberron since none of us have ever played in the setting before. I am terribly intrigued with the whole setting and would absolutely love to run an Eberron campaign. I immediately fell in love with the ECS when I read it. Currently it is the only Eberron Campaign Setting Material I own besdies one of the novels I recently picked up. I'd really love to read more of the Eberron supplements both for the Fluff, but also in anticipation of running a game. Which supplements do you all feel are best in terms of fluff and fleshing out aspects of the campaign setting? Which are best for prospective DMs?
Rechan 06-24-07, 05:49 PM	It depends on WHERE you want to run your campaign. Sharn? Xen'drik? Who do you want involved in your campaign? The Silver Flame? The Dragons Below? The Dragonmarked Houses? Player's Guide to Eberron - best for players. It's 98% fluff. It also leaves the "spoilers" of the setting out. As a DM, it lets you generally move fast through the material too. Dragonmarked - Useful for both Dm and Player. There's a lot of crunch, but each House gets a more indepth write up, if you plan on playing a Marked character. It also spells out what benefits a marked member of a House gets if they take the Favored in House feat. Sharn:City of Towers - best for DMs if you're running in Sharn. It pretty much fleshes out the majority of the city to the extent you can run a campaign there. Races of Eberron - This is hotly contested actually. But if you want Kalasthar fluff, RoE is the place to go, hands down. Forge of War - Well, if you're going to run a Last War campaign, or have a PC who's a war veteran... But the book is 98% fluff. Faiths of Eberron - Essentially it fleshes out all of the religions and the druidic sects a little more. Secrets of Sarlona - If you want to send your PCs to Sarlona, well... get this. Books to Not Get: Secrets of Xen'Drik, Explorer's Handbook. Why? These books aren't Fluff, they're just Adventure Sites. Basically "Here's a place your PCs can visit if they are going to these places!" Also, does anyone think there were any useful fluff material in Magic of Eberron? I don't remember that much, unless you consider the PrCs "fluff".
Nived 06-24-07, 06:04 PM	Yeah it's pretty much the type of game you run. For the most part I'll agree with Rechan but I think Secrets of Xen'drik and Explorer's Handbook aren't useless. My group's embraced the pulp adventure thing, playing very much like The Mummy, Indiana Jones and the like. I've used the info from the ExH on the Wayfinders and the Aquisitions Directorate quite a bit, and the monsters from SoX and stuff out of it like The Traveler's Curse. Granted they do have a lot of adventure sites which I don't use, but I enjoed reading. In fact the Aquisitions Directorate is one of my favorite organizations in Eberron, sadly my players are more fond of the Wayfinders.
gensuke626 06-24-07, 07:32 PM	I like the Explorer's Handbook for the (Partially incorrect) information on such things as Airships, Lightning Rails, and other such considerations... There's a list of travel prices and speeds as well as a Point-to-point Lightning rail distance chart that's relatively accurate (I think I did a comparison between the distance listed in the chart and the distance on the maps from the ECS and they were close enough...though I think a few of the "distance from previous stop" measurements are off... As a DM I bought the Explorer's handbook for the first 2 chapters, which are primarily Crunch based off of travel times and other logistics. Magic of Eberron had some things that could be useful for a prospective DM. The Daelkyr Half-blood race, the PrCs and the new spells and monsters are always useful. Admittedly, it's another Mostly Crunch book, but I liked it. When I get home I'll scour it and point out fluffy bits. I may be a fan boy, but eventually, when I get the money, I'm going to own all of the Eberron books....I'm working on it slowly.
garner_adam 06-24-07, 08:10 PM	SaberXtreme, There's also a book that I've found very useful for my Eberron Campaigns but is not an Eberron Book. Heroes of Battle helps a lot with a war torn setting. Not to mention the setting is primed for a few major battles any ways.
Moosh Nailo 06-24-07, 08:14 PM	Magic of Eberron is great. Good fluff, good crunch, and a bunch of cool new ideas anyone can use.
Kaizer_Ryu 06-24-07, 08:59 PM	Five Nations has a good amount of fluff mixed with crunch. I've got most of the Eberron books, and it ranks in the top three when roaming Khorvaire. FoE, D'marked, and S:CoT are awesome for DM's looking for Fluff, and I agree with Rechan about PGtE for your players. ExH has a few useful things here and there, so I agree with gensuke626 (not bad, just limited usefulness). I haven't read through FoW yet, but what I've seen so far has my fan-boyish side in a tizzy. MoE has a lot of crunch, mostly built for the use Artificers, but IMHO it's potential is best served by the plot ideas it can spawn.
PoeticJustice 06-24-07, 09:35 PM	It all depends... Is your group open to the idea of playing an Eberron game? Can they be convinced? Races of Eberron does a marvelous job of convincing players to jump ship. Is your group already on board with Eberron? Sharn, 5 Nations, and Dragonmarked are probably the way to go. These books deal with small details about their various subjects that wasn't included in ECS. Do you spend a lot of time (4+ hours/session) making game material. If not, Secrets of Xen'drik, Explorer's Handbook, and Secrets of Sarlona do a lot of work for you. Is your group Eberron-literate? Do they want to be? I think the easiest way to bring a hesitant group to speed is by buying another copy of ECS.
Rechan 06-24-07, 11:59 PM	Doh, I COMPLETELY forgot about Five Nations.
Ath'kethin 06-25-07, 09:07 AM	Do you spend a lot of time (4+ hours/session) making game material. If not, Secrets of Xen'drik, Explorer's Handbook, and Secrets of Sarlona do a lot of work for you. I didn't find this to be so much the case with Secrets of Sarlona. SoX was kind of a disappointment to me, because it really idn't give so much information on how Xen'drik worked as a bunch of places you could go an prople you could meet while you were there. Secrets of Sarlona, on the other hand, gives a comprehensive overview of the countries, governments, and people of Sarlona, making it incredibly easy to run a campaign there. It's like a mini-ECS, for the other continent, and in my opinion one of the absolute best Eberron suppliments. Of course, its usefulness is limited if you don't have a heavy Sarlonan edge to your game, but still.
Wymarc 06-25-07, 09:55 AM	If your going to spend a lot o time in the locations, Secrets of Xen'Drik, Secrets of Sarlona, and Sharn: City of Towers are all very good books. The Five Nations is an excellent book unless you are going to spend no time in the 5 nations (unlikely).
SaberXtreme 06-25-07, 10:42 AM	What Exactly is the difference between the ECS and the Players guide to Eberron? Is there any more crunch or is the PGtE just a stipped down ECS?
Kaizer_Ryu 06-25-07, 10:46 AM	What Exactly is the difference between the ECS and the Players guide to Eberron? Is there any more crunch or is the PGtE just a stipped down ECS?PGtE allows your players to get a comprehensive overview of Eberron minus the spoilers. Things about the world that the average person whould/should know. The ECS has countless things that might spoil the surprise, so WotC tried to make the PGtE largely spoiler-free. I think they did a good job.
Fabius Maximus 06-25-07, 12:28 PM	For pure reading pleasure, I'd say Faiths of Eberron beats all other D&D supplements. Staying in the limits of the setting, Secrets of Sarlona is marginally worse, followed by Five Nations. Sharn is good, too, but a bit to fractured (and lacking an index).
Rechan 06-25-07, 02:42 PM	Sharn is good, too, but a bit to fractured (and lacking an index). There's a Sharn index on Keith's website.
HxHunter 06-25-07, 09:03 PM	Dragonmarked is pretty good, I like crunch.
Edymnion 06-25-07, 09:08 PM	I consider the following to be the "core" of Eberron: ECS (Duh) Player's Guide to Eberron (ignore the sidebars) Dragonmarked Faiths of Eberron Five Nations
Fabius Maximus 06-25-07, 09:19 PM	There's a Sharn index on Keith's website. I know.
SaberXtreme 06-25-07, 09:26 PM	PGtE allows your players to get a comprehensive overview of Eberron minus the spoilers. Things about the world that the average person whould/should know. The ECS has countless things that might spoil the surprise, so WotC tried to make the PGtE largely spoiler-free. I think they did a good job. So there's nothing in the PGtE that the ECS doesn't already have?
Rechan 06-25-07, 09:34 PM	So there's nothing in the PGtE that the ECS doesn't already have? I wouldn't say that. I don't have any hard and fast examples, because I'm going through with the ardruous task of reading and comparing each right now, but I will say this: PGtE is much more organized if you're looking for a specific topic. The ECS is a BIG BOOK, and you can have information about Topic X scattered in several chapters - such as a lot of info on the Silver Flame in the Thrane chapter, not in the religion chapter. PGtE is more encyclopedic, having entries on each topic.
DragoonDarkfire 06-25-07, 09:53 PM	I really like Magic of Eberron. By far it has the best crunch out of all of them.
Adamaro23 06-26-07, 03:53 PM	For players i'd suggest: Faiths of Eberron, and Magic of Eberron, PGtE For DMs i'd suggest: Five Nations, and Dragonmarked This way, players will be able to know more a bout themselves. And you'll be able to know more of Khorvaire and it's main orginizations. But if you plan on running a game away from khorvaire, i'd aslo recomend: Explorer's Handbook, Secrets of Xen'drik, and Secrets of Sarlona.
OneWinged4ngel 06-28-07, 03:32 AM	Player's Guide to Eberron is anything but spoiler free. It reveals the secrets of many of the main conspiracies in the ECS, such as the Blood of Vol. I found it HUGELY disappointing in that regard. To all those people who are saying it provides no spoilers, have you actually READ the book? "It benefits this secret organization to manipulate sects in..." and "But really, behind the scenes, Vol and her lieutenants orchestrate..." etc etc. That's not "non-spoiler" information in any sense. At all. The book doesn't deliver on any such promises of being spoiler free. :rolleyes:
gensuke626 06-29-07, 07:50 PM	PGtE has some interesing Feats, PrCs and fluff to help you flesh out the world of Eberron. Some sidebars aren't all that great and basically are just there to give (OPTIONAL) ideas on how to integrate some non PHB classes into Eberron. It's worth picking up IMHO, but it's not my favorite book. Edit- By the way...I went back and checked the Explorer's Handbook's chart on lightning Rail distances and prices and found out that they were off by a good amount. The distances listed in Five Nations is much much better, but Five nations doesn't give a detailed point to point chart for the Karrnathi lines... I did go through and manually measure them though....
Ath'kethin 06-29-07, 08:30 PM	I immediately fell in love with the ECS when I read it. Welcome to the club. Good to have you. Which supplements do you all feel are best in terms of fluff and fleshing out aspects of the campaign setting? Which are best for prospective DMs? As others have mentioned, this really depends on what style of game you want to run, and what interests you in the ECS. I will say, however, that a more recent release that doesn't seem to have received much coverage is Secrets of Sarlona, which is in my opinion one of the the best supplements that has come out so far for Eberron. However, to use it would require a very different campaign style (and focus) than a Khorvaire- or even Xen'drik- based campaign, and you do pretty much need the XPH to make full use of SoS. Regardless, I thought it was was one of the better reads of the Eberron sourcebooks so far, and if you're not a big fan of all the myriad intelligent races in D&D, and are a fan of psionics and a slightly more oppressive Eastern European feel to your campaigns, Sarlona may might work well for you.
DBlizzard 06-29-07, 08:54 PM	Because of the frequency of these thread, I decided to start a meta-thread on ENWorld for discussing the various pros & cons of the various books for beginners (players & DMS). It's here (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=200166).
Edymnion 07-01-07, 02:59 PM	Because of the frequency of these thread, I decided to start a meta-thread on ENWorld for discussing the various pros & cons of the various books for beginners (players & DMS). It's here (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=200166).So, why did you make it on ENWorld instead of here? All this means is that I'll never read it now, because I wouldn't be caught dead on ENWorld...
Euangelion 07-01-07, 03:58 PM	I'll stick my neck way out and say that trying to keep things like vampire monarchs and half-dragon elf liches secret is nigh impossible. The vast majority of the time the people playing in Eberron campaigns are already going to know stuff like that, so it really makes sense to include it. The only way to make it more secretive would be to give the DMs a lot more intentional leeway with those parts of the setting (such as along the lines of the cause of the Day of Mourning). But that itself raises too many issues to make it feasible as more and more sourcebooks come out. By the way, I agree with Edy's list, except with the personal caveat that Five Nations is a train wreck. Proceed with caution, and be ready to change anything that doesn't make sense (mindless quori, only 1 moon, no Thranish NPC with a stitch of flametouched iron anything, etc., etc., etc.) It's still a vitally important sourcebook, which makes its myriad flaws that much more irritating. Have fun!
DBlizzard 07-01-07, 09:11 PM	So, why did you make it on ENWorld instead of here? All this means is that I'll never read it now, because I wouldn't be caught dead on ENWorld... Honestly because these sort of threads tend to get better responses at ENWorld. Also, two of the last three threads asking about this were on ENWorld, I don't know why the ENWorld hate, but I find the community has a better feel and is moderated much more to my tastes. The only thing it lacks is an Eberron specific feel (which I can get from the barely travelled Worlds of D&D).
Trannic 07-02-07, 01:18 PM	well, I own all of the Eberron books and think they are all worth while. However, as many have said before, it depends on where your campaign will run. I agree that PGtE is a general must have for the players, and I think that Faiths of Eberron is also a very good choice for fleshing out the religons in Eberron. After that, my three favorite books, and the one's I would recommend are Secrets of Sarlona, for the awesome detail of the largely, up 'till now, unknown continent, Forge of War, for the simple fact that the war had the biggest effect on the current atmosphere in Eberron, and Dragonmarked, since the houses are among the most powerful cabals driving industry.
Furion Thamior 07-03-07, 01:35 AM	Player's Guide to Eberron is anything but spoiler free. It reveals the secrets of many of the main conspiracies in the ECS, such as the Blood of Vol. I found it HUGELY disappointing in that regard. To all those people who are saying it provides no spoilers, have you actually READ the book? "It benefits this secret organization to manipulate sects in..." and "But really, behind the scenes, Vol and her lieutenants orchestrate..." etc etc. That's not "non-spoiler" information in any sense. At all. The book doesn't deliver on any such promises of being spoiler free. :rolleyes: I agree with this. I was pretty irritated by it, since I was going to recommend the book to a few Eberron-illiterate players of mine for a future campaign.
OneWinged4ngel 07-03-07, 02:55 AM	I agree with this. I was pretty irritated by it, since I was going to recommend the book to a few Eberron-illiterate players of mine for a future campaign. Yeah, seriously. You cannot use the book as a good introduction to Eberron. It really doesn't work well. I often end up picking out sections from several books (and posts from Keith, and dragonshards) to give to players. PGtE is one of my least-used sources. For example, the part on the Blood of Vol is AWFUL (at least, in filling the advertised role of the book). It tells you about the conspiracies and people behind the scenes, but gives next to none of the information a player needs to play a Blood of Vol cultist (such as explaining their beliefs beyond "they have undedz," and explaining the culture of the publically known religion, rather than the conspiracy behind it). In this way, it fails UTTERLY at being a useful PC resource. Heck, it has almost as much DM-only type stuff as the ECS! Some other things are just lame, though. For example, the subraces sidebars look like they threw darts at a map then BSed a story in there (same as they did for the new MM Eberron-adaptation entries).