Post/Author/DateTime	Post
TwoSix26 11-06-06, 01:26 PM	Just got it yesterday...made a quick read-through the PrCs and the feats, and am very impressed so far. Making my way through the Houses chapter now. If you have any questions, I'll do my best to answer them.
Rayous 11-06-06, 01:42 PM	prestige class entry requirements, what are they? Are they all as easy to get into as the silver key?
TwoSix26 11-06-06, 02:29 PM	All the PrCs have fairly low entry requirements, although Silver Key is definitely the lowest. I don't think any of the PrCs require more than 5 levels to get into. I think the most stringent is +4 BAB, some skills at 8 ranks, and a Least and Lesser Dragonmark.
Melvin the Mediocre 11-06-06, 02:38 PM	I have got to remember not to preorder. Now I have to sit and wait while everyone else is sitting down and reading :mad:
Recovering_Blackguard 11-06-06, 02:57 PM	My FLGS *thinks* they will get it in stock tomorrow. How did you get it yesterday??
TwoSix26 11-06-06, 03:11 PM	My FLGS *thinks* they will get it in stock tomorrow. How did you get it yesterday?? Walked into Borders and saw it sitting there. Believe me, no one was more surprised than I. BTW, Black Dog PrC is awesome.
Rayous 11-06-06, 03:17 PM	Why dont you give us a description of what the prcs do, or at the least what is the black dog prestige class.
Joni-san 11-06-06, 06:09 PM	Can you give us a basic rundown on the PRCs?
(Psi)SeveredHead 11-06-06, 06:10 PM	How much stuff is there on the War of the Mark?
TwoSix26 11-06-06, 06:19 PM	Sure thing, here's all the PrCs. I won't give away all the requirements and abilities (copyrights and all) but an overview of what's needed to get in and some ability highlights. Note: All the PrCs that have dragonmarks as a prereq. have the heir's mark ability, which acts like dragonmark heir in that PrC levels increase the caster level of all dragonmarks. Stacks with D. Heir, but can't go higher than a +5 increase. Also, every class that gains numerous abilities related to their dragonmark gains additional mark uses with level. Black Dog (5 levels) House: Ghallanda Reqs: Hide 8 ranks, 2 other skills 4 ranks, Least Dragonmark Summary: The Black Dog is a sleath-oriented class that focuses on poisons. Specifically, they can use their dargaonmarks to create different poisons, empower poisons they already have, and eventually be able to poison with a touch. Kind of like an innkeeper assassin, but blacklisted by their house if they're found out. Blade of Orien (10 levels) House: Orien (obviously) Reqs: BAB +3, Least and Lesser Dragonmarks Summary: A warrior PrC, BoO gains several abilities that increase the power of their dimension leap ability, including the ability to teleport items to you, teleport your friends, teleport your foes (fun in Sharn!) and eventually to make a shadow pounce-like full attack after dimension leaping. Expect to see this class on the CO boards. Cyre Scout (10 levels) House: Cannith Reqs: Survival 6 ranks, Least Dragonmark, Member of Cannith South (A nice early entry PrC, able to start it at level 4) Summary: Interesting class, a cross between an artificer and a ranger specialized in surviving the Mournland to retrieve lost Cannith magic. Gains the ability to use infusions with a compressed ranger-like progression (up to 4th level). It can also use the dragonmark to survive in the Mournland, gaining a sustenance ability, the ability to naturally heal for days at a time, and a capstone ability of magical healing working on you normally in the Mournland. Deneith Warden (10 levels) House: Deneith Reqs: Lawful only, BAB +4, Least Dragonmark Summary: A warrior PrC, the Deneith Warden reminds me of a cross between the consecrated harrier and the vigilante, without the spellcasting. It gains several abilities that only work against “known criminals” (which is defined very broadly). These include skill bonues to Bluff, Listen, Spot, Sense Motive, and Survival. It also gains the ability to use nonlethal damage at no penalty, the ability to make foes shaken or stunned by doing nonlethal damage, mettle, uncanny dodge, and a nice capstone ability, a bonus of +6(!) to Will saves whenever a known criminal is in sight. Duraak’ash (10 levels) House: Tharashk Reqs: BAB +4. Least and Lesser Dragonmark, Track or Urban Tracking Summary: Another Dragonmark boosting class, the Duraak’ash gains the ability to use his locate creature dragonmark ability on creatures he hasn’t seen, and combat bonuses against this located creature, including the ability to ignore any concealment. He also gains bonuses to Survival or Gather Information when tracking by expending a dragonmark use, favored enemy, trackless step, and the ability to track otherwise untrackable creatures, such as those with out pass without trace. Medani Prophet (5 levels) House: Medani Reqs: 2nd level divine spells, including 3 divinations, Least and Lesser Dragonmark Summary: Medani prophet is a divination focused divine PrC. Besides being a 5/5 divine spellcasting PrC, she also gains the ability to use the dragonmark to cast augury and commune and to increase AC, gains visions as DM fiat, and can look into the past of her surrounding area by expending a dragonmark use. Not overly powerful, but an interesting take on Medani paranoia. Nosomatic Chirurgeon (5 levels) House: Jorasco Reqs: Nongood, Heal 8 ranks, Least Dragonmark Summary: Now this is a weird one! It has 4/5 advancement in any spellcasting class (but the caster level is lost at 5th, nice for CO), but doesn’t require spellcasting to enter. If you can’t cast spells, you advance as an adept. The class is focused on the dark side of healing, namely that constant exposure to death and disease can drive a Halfling a little crazy. First off, he can spontaneously cast inflict spells as an evil cleric with spells and spell-like abilities, then gains a contagion spell-like ability, powered by the Mark of Healing. Later on, you can use this spell-like ability to infect someone with any disease you’ve successfully treated, including magical diseases! You can later combine an inflict with the contagion, and as a capstone, you become immune to all diseases, both natural and magical. Definitely my choice for prestige class concept I wasn’t expecting. Shadow Hunter (5 levels) House: Phiarlan, Thuranni Reqs: BAB +4, Least Dragonmark, proficient with martial weapons, Hide and Move Silently 4 ranks Summary: A stealthy warrior type PrC, the shadow hunter gains several abilities that improve her darkness ability from her dragonmark. She gains the ability to cast deeper darkness for 2 dragonmark uses, darkvision and the ability to see through magical darkness by spending a use, blind an enemy for a Dragonmark use, and finally gain concealment and HiPS for a dragonmark use. Can also detect others with a Mark of Shadow in their vicinity, playing up the internecine conflict aspect of the Shadow Houses. Silver Key House: Kundarak Summary: Go read the preview, I have a lot of typing to do. ☺ Storm Sentry (5 levels) House: Lyrander (tough one to guess from the name, I know) Reqs: BAB +4, Least Dragonmark, Balance and Tumbe 4 ranks Summary: Mechanically, this class reminds me of the shadow hunter, being focused on buffing up the gust of wind power of the Least Dragonmark. Can expend a dragonmark to use feather fall and shield, to give his weapon shocking or shocking burst, the ability to bull rush with gust of wind, and your gust of wind can affect larger creatures. Unbound Scroll (5 levels) House: Sivis Reqs: 3rd level prepared arcane spells or infusions, Least Dragonmark, Scribe Scroll Summary: The Unbound Scroll becomes extremely good at using, you guessed it, scrolls. Gains arcane casting or infusions at every level except 3rd. Gains a discount to XP and gold cost for scrolls equal to 5% per class level that stacks with Legendary and Extraordinary Artisan. Class level bonus to UMD checks for scrolls. Can expend dragonmark uses to gain caster level bonus to spells from scrolls, apply metamagic feats to scroll spells (limited by power of the dragonmark), increase the DC of a scroll spell, and most powerfully, can create a copy of a readied scroll that doesn’t use up the scroll. Can do this with scrolls of up to 6th level. Also, read carefully the resources section in the “Playing an Unbound Scroll” section. You can use the resources of the Ninth College (an organization described in the PrC description) to gain an additional 10% off the cost of making scrolls. Yes, this stacks. It’s explicitly stated as stacking with the feats and the class ability…very, very nice. Probably the mechanically strongest PrC in the book. Vadalis Beastkeeper (10 levels) House: Vadalis Reqs: BAB +4, Mounted Combat, animal companion or special mount. Summary: If I had to sum up this PrC in a few words, it would be “Magebred Ranger”. Gains ranger-like spellcasting over 10 levels, with a small but fairly nice spell list, nothing compared to a real ranger’s though. Vadalis beastkeeper levels stack with other classes to improve the animal companion or special mount (but only one class, no supermount here), skill bonuses on magical beasts, and bonus feats every 3 levels. He also gains the ability to apply the magebred template to summoned nature’s allies, apply the magebred template to his animal companion at no cost, and eventually become magebred yourself (increasing physical stats, speed, and gaining or improving natural armor).
TwoSix26 11-06-06, 06:48 PM	How much stuff is there on the War of the Mark? There's 3 fluff pages on the War of the Mark, plus several feats for aberrant marks. (Including lesser and greater aberrant marks). The actual section on the War is about half a page, and doesn't mention a whole lot that wasn't covered in Sharn:CoT, besides strongly suggesting that the War was just as much about the Houses consolidating power, as it was about removing the aberrant "taint". It does mention that the amount of people with aberrant marks peaked in the century before the War, and the amount of aberrant marked people is beginning to rise again, just as before the War.
Neofish 11-06-06, 07:21 PM	First off, thanks for the info TwoSix. Black Dog (5 levels) House: Ghallanda Wow, I mean, wow! I didn't expect this one at all, that's an awesome PrC. Blade of Orien (10 levels) House: Orien (obviously) I kinda expected this, it's a good fit on how the natural abilities of Orien would fit into a combat roll, I like it. Cyre Scout (10 levels) House: Cannith That's cool, very falvorful but kinda specific. Deneith Warden (10 levels) House: Deneith Fits with the idea of Sentienal Marshals, I was kinda hoping for a sword and board style, dwarven defender type, but I guess the Justicar build fits better... Duraak’ash (10 levels) House: Tharashk This is FREAKING AWESOME, that's a scary concept, a tracker that can find you no matter where you are, and gets bonuses agaisnt you to boot!!! I see the Tharashk, Deneith, and Medani PrC all meshing together to make the perfect bounty hunting team. Medani Prophet (5 levels) House: Medani I really like this one, especially since you gain the ability to have "flashbacks" that's a cool concept. Nosomatic Chirurgeon (5 levels) House: Jorasco Wait, wait, wait.... Does this mean that Jorasco is willing to go out of its way to make people sick in injured in for them to pay for the house's healing services? That's really ruthless and dark, I love it! All in all, All the classes showin so far look fantastic, they really seem to be sticking to the flavor of the Houses. I really need to order this book, it looks like a winner.
TwoSix26 11-06-06, 07:53 PM	One last thing, TwoSix, can you tell us a little more about the new mark feats? Like the Mark of Vermin? Sure thing. You can group the feats into a couple of categories. A lot provide a bonus to a particular class feature for having or using a dragonmark. Most of these scale with the dragonmark power. For example, Dragonmark Rage gives you fast healing during your rage. You get fast healing 1 for a Least Dragonmark, but fast healing 3 for a Greater Dragonmark. Not all of them scale or even seem tied directly to the dragonmark besides requiring one. Evoker's Mark, for example, if you have SF:Evocation, you can empower any evocation spell by spending an action point, with no spell adjustment. There's also feats for non-core classes, like warlock and dragon shaman. Every particular dragonmark has a feat associated with it. Eye of Medani is a good one, it lets you reroll any Spot check once per day. If you have the lesser mark, you can ignore 20% of any miss chance an enemy might have. If you have the greater or Siberys mark, it increases to 50% miss chance ignored. Very cool concepts, and rewards characters for taking the more powerful marks. There's a few feats (Dragonmark Prodigy, Dragonmark Adept, Dragonmark Visionary) that give you additional spell-like abilities for your true dragonmark, in addition to increased uses of current spell-likes. Almost all the listed Sp abilities are from the Spell Compendium, so if you don't have it, these feats aren't so good for your game. There are 3 feats that require a Siberys mark. Mark of Stars is an incredibly powerful one, making you never surprised or flat-footed, and gaining a bonus to Reflex saves and AC. Lastly, there are several feats that improve abberant marks. Lesser Aberrant Dragonmark and Greater Aberrant Dragonmark give you new aberrant mark abilities (they aren't tied to your base aberrant mark choice, you choose from a list just like the original mark). Mark of Vermin is one of several feats that gives you an extra ability if you have an aberrant mark, it lets you cast druid or ranger spells on vermin as if they were animals, and speak with vermin once per day. Some other abilites for aberrants are DR 5/byshek (Mark of Xoriat), or the ability to turn your aberrant mark invisible and gain SR versus dragonmark abilities (Ward of Khyber).
Teron Gorefiend 11-07-06, 12:48 AM	The Cyre Scout seems kind of off... besides the excessive narrowness of the concept, it seems kind of random for the Mark of Making to help healing. Mind you, I nitpick what I like; this is basically my way of showing my overall approval. Is there any psionic material? Would you say that the Lesser and Greater Aberrant Mark powers match up pretty well with the existing ones to form "themes" if desired?
TwoSix26 11-07-06, 09:12 AM	Is there any psionic material? Would you say that the Lesser and Greater Aberrant Mark powers match up pretty well with the existing ones to form "themes" if desired? No psionic material of any sort. The different marks match up very well, also...there's fire powers and fear powers at all 3 levels, for example. I don't have the book at work right now, so I'm going off the top of my head, I'll try to get a full list of power themes later.
ressurrector 11-07-06, 03:04 PM	I've got mine (amazon pre-order :D) Lesser spell likes include: bestow curse contagion darkvision death knell false life poision rage scare scorching ray sleet storm suggestion summon swarm touch of idiocy vampiric touch Greaters: Cloudkill Cone of Cold Confusion Dominate Person Enervation Fear Feeblemind Fire Shield Flamestrike Insect Plague Mass Inflict Light Wounds Phantasmal Killer Slay Living Nice eh?
Neofish 11-07-06, 04:15 PM	I've got mine (amazon pre-order :D) Nice eh? I was hoping for more evil/creepy self buff type stuff. Like Stoneskin, Evard's black Tentacles and Bear's Endurance, stuff like that, I dunno, bestow curse, poison, scare, and rage are good, so I guess it's not to bad.
Eled_the_Worm_Tamer 11-07-06, 05:44 PM	Any neat new toys for houce Pharlani/thurani?
mafiel 11-07-06, 07:25 PM	Ive read all of the book and like it a lot, lots of nice info, nothing too specific but enough to help flesh out the house . I only have one prob and thats witht he SIlver key Prestige ... at level 5 you get SR = 15 + Silver key leves ... i find that very strong for a 8 th level pc to get ... In general Prc are nice and i find fit well with the house that it represents. Nice work on this book ... exept for the one thing i mentioned .
Kid SixXx 11-07-06, 07:37 PM	I picked this up on Nov. 6. Probably the only good thing about driving through western Pennsylvania. Pretty good stuff so far. Most of the houses are fleshed out nicely. It was good to see the articles go into so much depth that the preconceived notions about how they function are finally wearing down. I now find House Kundarak to be about 100000% more interesting than I used to. Not enough on Aberrant Marks but we all knew that. Book needed to be at least twice as big.
ressurrector 11-07-06, 07:57 PM	Any neat new toys for houce Pharlani/thurani? Apart from the PrCs and Dragonmark feats for each? Not really. Though there's plenty of thematic spells that might be fun.
Azazyll 11-07-06, 08:51 PM	actually, of the three magic items, two are phiarlan/thuranni. Both rely on the scry ability exclusively (again). The spells were a real treat, things that allow you to turn your dragonmark into a whip, or an ooze creature, among other things. we continue to get infusions that directly effect dragonmarks. The feats are awesome, but feel a tad overpowered (I guess not more so than aberrant feats from LoM, when you consider the prereqs of having a bunch of dragonmark feats). All of the Prestige Classes look good. All of the material I have read looks good. we finally have a reason for the phiarlan/thuranni split, and it is very very good, will definitely use in my campaign. Still leaves a lot of room for personal ideas. I am actually overwhelmed by the amount of material and had to put the book down (something that has never happened to me before with a D&D book). It's that good. It is definitely the best book since the ECS. It has all of Keith's touches in it. It seemlessly blends fluff with crunch ideas in the fluff section (stuff like benefits for being a member of the house such as discounts and what favored in house can do). The spells and feats have a real "feel" to them that expands on the mystery and power of the dragonmarks. The abberant section may be short but it's sweet. the aberrant mark feats have a neat handicap to pay for boosting your number of uses of previous levels (just like true marks) and the higher caster level than true marks: you have to make a fortitude save or you are dazed for the next round. Overall, and 11 out of 10
ressurrector 11-07-06, 09:28 PM	I'm immediately going to try and let my dm for a non-eberron campaign let my artificier have a dragonmark. :D Possibly try and get heir of siberys
yossarius 11-08-06, 11:05 AM	:rant: I wasn't going to buy Dragonmarked right away, but after your description, I don't see how I can possibly put it off. Thanks alot. (Kidding, of course.)
oshmir sargon 11-08-06, 12:31 PM	Can anyone share some more information about the aberrant marks? Thanks.
Sereno 11-09-06, 09:02 AM	Medani Prophet (5 levels) House: Medani Reqs: 2nd level divine spells, including 3 divinations, Least and Lesser Dragonmark Summary: Medani prophet is a divination focused divine PrC. Besides being a 5/5 divine spellcasting PrC, she also gains the ability to use the dragonmark to cast augury and commune and to increase AC, gains visions as DM fiat, and can look into the past of her surrounding area by expending a dragonmark use. Not overly powerful, but an interesting take on Medani paranoia. Sounds cool ... kind of reminds me of Frank Black, Lance Henriksen's character from FOX's show "Millenium". He got psychic impressions at crime scenes and used the ability to hunt serial killers and other supernatural elements.
Just another user 11-09-06, 09:14 AM	Sure thing. You can group the feats into a couple of categories. A lot provide a bonus to a particular class feature for having or using a dragonmark. Most of these scale with the dragonmark power. For example, Dragonmark Rage gives you fast healing during your rage. You get fast healing 1 for a Least Dragonmark, but fast healing 3 for a Greater Dragonmark. Not all of them scale or even seem tied directly to the dragonmark besides requiring one. Evoker's Mark, for example, if you have SF:Evocation, you can empower any evocation spell by spending an action point, with no spell adjustment. There's also feats for non-core classes, like warlock and dragon shaman. Every particular dragonmark has a feat associated with it. Eye of Medani is a good one, it lets you reroll any Spot check once per day. If you have the lesser mark, you can ignore 20% of any miss chance an enemy might have. If you have the greater or Siberys mark, it increases to 50% miss chance ignored. Very cool concepts, and rewards characters for taking the more powerful marks. There's a few feats (Dragonmark Prodigy, Dragonmark Adept, Dragonmark Visionary) that give you additional spell-like abilities for your true dragonmark, in addition to increased uses of current spell-likes. Almost all the listed Sp abilities are from the Spell Compendium, so if you don't have it, these feats aren't so good for your game. There are 3 feats that require a Siberys mark. Mark of Stars is an incredibly powerful one, making you never surprised or flat-footed, and gaining a bonus to Reflex saves and AC. Lastly, there are several feats that improve abberant marks. Lesser Aberrant Dragonmark and Greater Aberrant Dragonmark give you new aberrant mark abilities (they aren't tied to your base aberrant mark choice, you choose from a list just like the original mark). Mark of Vermin is one of several feats that gives you an extra ability if you have an aberrant mark, it lets you cast druid or ranger spells on vermin as if they were animals, and speak with vermin once per day. Some other abilites for aberrants are DR 5/byshek (Mark of Xoriat), or the ability to turn your aberrant mark invisible and gain SR versus dragonmark abilities (Ward of Khyber). With all their feats playing a Fighter in eberron could be a lot of fun. I like that the PrCs are accessibile at low levels, it fit with the "high levels are rare" theme of Eberron, but what about examples NPCs, are they using a part of NPC classes like they should? or we have hundreads of 5th level mages and fighters going around like in the Sharn's web supplement?
Azazyll 11-09-06, 09:22 AM	between reurrector and myself, that's pretty much it on the aberrant marked front. There's some information in the back of the book on them, but I think you'll have to buy it yourself for that. Several feats in the book have either aberrant or pure mark (or just aberrant mark) as a prereq, but you can see those in the posted list of feats in the preview. No Aberrant prestige class, although the chat with Keith seemed to indicate that he was interested in doing more with them in a future dragonshard. I would also like to mention that the houses not covered by Keith were in general also handled very well. It seems the other two authors have real eberron potential (unlike some previous supplement authors). The book feels much more like it could have been written by one person than, say, five nations, which didn't even have a common layout between sections. This book, along with PGtE, seems to indicate a real up-turn in the quality of Eberron products, in terms of fluff, crunch, editing, and layout.
Pallin Rahl 11-09-06, 12:45 PM	Just curious... what kind of Warlock Feats are in there? (I'll probably be buying the book anyway, I'm just darn curious now :P)
Azazyll 11-09-06, 02:33 PM	Just curious... what kind of Warlock Feats are in there? (I'll probably be buying the book anyway, I'm just darn curious now :P) there are only two warlock feats. both require either an aberrant or true mark (Tharashk apparently has some dragon-below warshipping warlocks). One causes your eldritch blast to do extra damage against dragons and dragonblooded, the other lets you spend an action point to render a creature damaged by your blast flat-footed if he fails a save. not very exciting for warlocks, but the expanded aberrant marks are very warlock-flavored. In my game, I allow warlocks to take aberrant dragonmark as a feat instead of the detect magic ability at second level.
cancerousmango 11-09-06, 02:54 PM	I am a very visual person, and this book is the single best book in the series so far in terms of art. I always wanted overhead views and cutaways of cities and vehicles. Finally, an Eberronian motif off of which to base everything. Huzzah all you hard working artists. And finally, no Wayne England art!
Kryptonian Scion 11-09-06, 03:00 PM	I am a very visual person, and this book is the single best book in the series so far in terms of art. I always wanted overhead views and cutaways of cities and vehicles. Finally, an Eberronian motif off of which to base everything. Huzzah all you hard working artists. And finally, no Wayne England art! I sat there staring at the usual Wayne Reynolds art at the beginning of the book for 5 or 6 minutes. I always enjoy the pieces included in each Eberron book by WAR, but this one is my favorite so far. Not sure why, it was just very alluriing to me.
JustX 11-09-06, 10:56 PM	How does the entended progression work with feats like Aberrant dragonmark Gift?
ressurrector 11-09-06, 11:41 PM	The extended progression of Aberrant Dragonmark/Lesser abberant mark/greater abberant mark states it works in a similar fashion to the extended progression of the normal dragonmarks. Just wondering, anyone else given thought to a Dragonmark Heir based PrC for aberrant marks?
Flame_Drake 11-10-06, 12:08 AM	The extended progression of Aberrant Dragonmark/Lesser abberant mark/greater abberant mark states it works in a similar fashion to the extended progression of the normal dragonmarks. Just wondering, anyone else given thought to a Dragonmark Heir based PrC for aberrant marks? Both Save-vs-DM and Kinger have made awesome interpertations of an Abberant Heir class, I'll see if I can fetch up the links. Drake
ressurrector 11-10-06, 12:48 AM	Both Save-vs-DM and Kinger have made awesome interpertations of an Abberant Heir class, I'll see if I can fetch up the links. Drake Sweet, was thinking I'd have to make a version myself, just so my players can get freaked out :D
Perun 11-10-06, 02:04 AM	Are there any pics of the aberrant marks or the feat-boosted marks in the book? Regards.
Orion Polaris 11-10-06, 02:06 AM	Wow...I was going to spend my "leisure" part of my budget this month on a bunch of Time Spiral boosters, but this book sounds too good to let it slip by. I think I'll grab this book instead. I'm sure Wizards won't mind.
ressurrector 11-10-06, 03:03 AM	Are there any pics of the aberrant marks or the feat-boosted marks in the book? Regards. Yes, they're a blackish-red, and otherwise look like the true dragonmarks, although of a more angular shape.
Khyberblade 11-10-06, 09:03 AM	can i get word on the extra damage from the storms riposte feat ? cheers
ressurrector 11-10-06, 04:37 PM	1d6 for least 2d6 for lesser 3d6 for greater/siberys
Llochlyn 11-15-06, 06:04 PM	About the blade of Orien, I guess you don't need Dragonmark Heir levels anymore to get more uses and increase to the size of your dragonmark ? Also : At what level does the shadow pounce ability appear ? (Yes, I'm a CO denizen, you guessed it)
ressurrector 11-15-06, 08:20 PM	10th level ability It's also good to note that you are treated as having 5 levels in the Dragonmark Heir PrC, but you don't get any of the improved dragonmark feats, or increased usages. You have to buy the extra feats like a normal PC.