Essential Eberron Books so far [Archive] - Wizards Community

Essential Eberron Books so far [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Morgengrauen
07-25-06, 05:53 AM I'am searching for two essential Eberron sourcebooks so far. What would you propose?

The Players Guide and Five Nations/Xen'drik? Races and Sharn?
ieattrollsforbreakfast
07-25-06, 07:08 AM It really depends on the focus of your campaign. All the Eberron books have been good, and some of them have been excellent, but which you should buy depends heavily on what kind of game you want to run.

Of the seven sourcebooks:

Five Nations
Explorer's Handbook
Player's Guide to Eberron
Magic of Eberron
Sharn: City of Towers
Races of Eberron
Secrets of Xen'drik

I would consider Five Nations to be the only 'essential' from that list, since it'll find use it pretty much every Eberron game. Secrets of Xen'drik and Sharn are both pretty good, but their focus is narrow, so if you aren't planning on taking your game to Xen'drik or spending significant time in Sharn, I'd give these a miss for now.
Magic of Eberron is, IMO, your worst option, as it doesn't add a whole lot as far as Eberron fluff is concerned. Explorer's Handbook is a great book, but isn't exactly essential.
That leaves the Player's Guide and Races of Eberron. I think both are reasonably good bets, so it depends on what you want. If you know you're going to be seeing lots of warforged, changelings etc. then get Races, but as general games go, Player's Guide might prove more useful.

So, in summary: Five Nations and PGtE/RoE

Now, if you mean 'essential' as in you're looking for pure quality, I suggest Five Nations and Sharn: City of Towers.
Splendide
07-25-06, 07:46 AM Sharn: City of Towers
-END-
Sereno
07-25-06, 09:39 AM IMO, the ONLY "required" Eberron expansion books:

1.) Sharn: CoT
2.) Secrets of Xen'drik
JayDubya
07-25-06, 09:59 AM If I had to pick two, and only two books besides the ECS?

Races of Eberron
Despite some errors, the flavor and feats and substitution levels and PrCs and items really expand and improve upon the game for anyone other than Human (this is particularly pertinent for me when the party my character plays in consists of Dwarf, Warforged, Kalashtar, Orc).

Secrets of Xen'drik is probably my favorite sourcebook so far, so much useful material to use for adventurers of all levels, even if, of course, it only deals with one continent. The thing about SoX is that there simply has been no real info on Xen'drik up to this point, whereas with things like S:CoT and FN we already had a wealth of information that was just expanded on further. Still, YMMV - if you don't think Xen'drik is cool or your players don't want to go there, this book won't be terribly useful. It's already inspired a lot of cool things in the game I'm playing in, but of course, we were already about to go to Xen'drik when it came out.

* * *

Though I have them all, and there's some useful stuff in all of them. If you don't spend much time in civilized Khorvaire, the Five Nations isn't too helpful. I do rather like the book, however, for all the flavor regarding the major players in the 4N+Mournlands, and some of the PrCs are very cool. The artwork is also pretty darn good. It's hard to have a campaign in which this book wouldn't be useful at all, but it would also be a heavily irregular and political game in which more than half the material was useful / used.

Sharn: COT is a cool book and I love the music CD (I want more music from that guy, Wizards!) but unless your campaign is very, very Sharn-centric, most of the material in it won't get used. All the stuff about design and laws etc could be expanded upon to a majorly urban campaign anywhere in Eberron with a little work. Every campaign should visit Sharn at least once, and this can make it a memorable experience.

The Player's Guide has some fun stuff in it, but all in all it's just little expansions of fluff for the ECS, and in some cases that is needed, like for Q'Barra and the Lhazaar and Valenar. Your milage may vary, but I found it to be incredibly helpful in many little subsections whereas a lot of the subsections are totally useless and redundant (but I'm glad I have it for the useful bits, and I can't neccessarily predict what bits will be useful in any given campaign, given player death and new character creation).

Magic of Eberron just expands options with some nifty Prestige Classes (and some not so nifty) as well as powers and magic items and spells, etc. It's kind of cool, but it's also rather lacking in overall quality. I do like many of the magic items and spells and monsters inside it, so I guess half of the book kind of makes up for the first half.

I think the Explorer's Guide has probably been overall the least useful but I'm glad the material is there should I need it. Rich Burlew's humor makes it more bearable, while David Noonan seems to expand a lot on the Whisper of the Vampire's Blade adventure material, with full lightning rail designs and rules as well as airships and loading docks etc.
TeediousPrime
07-25-06, 10:26 AM If you're looking to focus on NPC building and character development, than Races Of and Magic Of. If you're focusing on writing adventures, then City of Towers and Xen'Drik.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Morgengrauen 07-25-06, 05:53 AM	I'am searching for two essential Eberron sourcebooks so far. What would you propose? The Players Guide and Five Nations/Xen'drik? Races and Sharn?
ieattrollsforbreakfast 07-25-06, 07:08 AM	It really depends on the focus of your campaign. All the Eberron books have been good, and some of them have been excellent, but which you should buy depends heavily on what kind of game you want to run. Of the seven sourcebooks: Five Nations Explorer's Handbook Player's Guide to Eberron Magic of Eberron Sharn: City of Towers Races of Eberron Secrets of Xen'drik I would consider Five Nations to be the only 'essential' from that list, since it'll find use it pretty much every Eberron game. Secrets of Xen'drik and Sharn are both pretty good, but their focus is narrow, so if you aren't planning on taking your game to Xen'drik or spending significant time in Sharn, I'd give these a miss for now. Magic of Eberron is, IMO, your worst option, as it doesn't add a whole lot as far as Eberron fluff is concerned. Explorer's Handbook is a great book, but isn't exactly essential. That leaves the Player's Guide and Races of Eberron. I think both are reasonably good bets, so it depends on what you want. If you know you're going to be seeing lots of warforged, changelings etc. then get Races, but as general games go, Player's Guide might prove more useful. So, in summary: Five Nations and PGtE/RoE Now, if you mean 'essential' as in you're looking for pure quality, I suggest Five Nations and Sharn: City of Towers.
Splendide 07-25-06, 07:46 AM	Sharn: City of Towers -END-
Sereno 07-25-06, 09:39 AM	IMO, the ONLY "required" Eberron expansion books: 1.) Sharn: CoT 2.) Secrets of Xen'drik
JayDubya 07-25-06, 09:59 AM	If I had to pick two, and only two books besides the ECS? Races of Eberron Despite some errors, the flavor and feats and substitution levels and PrCs and items really expand and improve upon the game for anyone other than Human (this is particularly pertinent for me when the party my character plays in consists of Dwarf, Warforged, Kalashtar, Orc). Secrets of Xen'drik is probably my favorite sourcebook so far, so much useful material to use for adventurers of all levels, even if, of course, it only deals with one continent. The thing about SoX is that there simply has been no real info on Xen'drik up to this point, whereas with things like S:CoT and FN we already had a wealth of information that was just expanded on further. Still, YMMV - if you don't think Xen'drik is cool or your players don't want to go there, this book won't be terribly useful. It's already inspired a lot of cool things in the game I'm playing in, but of course, we were already about to go to Xen'drik when it came out. * * * Though I have them all, and there's some useful stuff in all of them. If you don't spend much time in civilized Khorvaire, the Five Nations isn't too helpful. I do rather like the book, however, for all the flavor regarding the major players in the 4N+Mournlands, and some of the PrCs are very cool. The artwork is also pretty darn good. It's hard to have a campaign in which this book wouldn't be useful at all, but it would also be a heavily irregular and political game in which more than half the material was useful / used. Sharn: COT is a cool book and I love the music CD (I want more music from that guy, Wizards!) but unless your campaign is very, very Sharn-centric, most of the material in it won't get used. All the stuff about design and laws etc could be expanded upon to a majorly urban campaign anywhere in Eberron with a little work. Every campaign should visit Sharn at least once, and this can make it a memorable experience. The Player's Guide has some fun stuff in it, but all in all it's just little expansions of fluff for the ECS, and in some cases that is needed, like for Q'Barra and the Lhazaar and Valenar. Your milage may vary, but I found it to be incredibly helpful in many little subsections whereas a lot of the subsections are totally useless and redundant (but I'm glad I have it for the useful bits, and I can't neccessarily predict what bits will be useful in any given campaign, given player death and new character creation). Magic of Eberron just expands options with some nifty Prestige Classes (and some not so nifty) as well as powers and magic items and spells, etc. It's kind of cool, but it's also rather lacking in overall quality. I do like many of the magic items and spells and monsters inside it, so I guess half of the book kind of makes up for the first half. I think the Explorer's Guide has probably been overall the least useful but I'm glad the material is there should I need it. Rich Burlew's humor makes it more bearable, while David Noonan seems to expand a lot on the Whisper of the Vampire's Blade adventure material, with full lightning rail designs and rules as well as airships and loading docks etc.
TeediousPrime 07-25-06, 10:26 AM	If you're looking to focus on NPC building and character development, than Races Of and Magic Of. If you're focusing on writing adventures, then City of Towers and Xen'Drik.