Explorer's Guide to Eberron [Archive] - Wizards Community

Explorer's Guide to Eberron [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Elrinade
10-19-06, 01:53 PM I am thinking about getting the Explorer's Guide to Eberron but I just cant decide if I should. Is it a good book?
DarkWarriorKarg
10-19-06, 02:21 PM Yes. It's one of the better ones.
ccerose
10-19-06, 03:23 PM Here's how I rate the Eberron books in terms of the amount of use I get out of them:

Five Nations
Sharn: CoT
Explorer's Handbook
Secrets of Xen'drik
Player's Guide to Eberron
Faiths of Eberron
Races of Eberron (mainly for Kalashtar)
Magic of Eberron
Elrinade
10-19-06, 03:37 PM Here's how I rate the Eberron books in terms of the amount of use I get out of them:

Five Nations
Sharn: CoT
Explorer's Handbook
Secrets of Xen'drik
Player's Guide to Eberron
Faiths of Eberron
Races of Eberron (mainly for Kalashtar)
Magic of Eberron

Five Nations=Best?
Azazyll
10-19-06, 04:12 PM I would have said:

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

It's a toss up between the first two; they're clearly the best material published since the setting in terms of both fluff and crunch (although both have pretty minimal crunch). I really get virtually no use out of grab bags of adventure seeds, which is pretty much all explorer's handbook and Secrets of Xen'drik are. EH is slightly more useful for the artifacts (not in the game sense) of xen'drik and dhakaan in the back, and the occassionally useful transportation info in the front. I just tend to fudge that sort of thing myself. calculating the exact amount of time it takes to get places really draws donw the game in my opinion
Altar_Boy
10-19-06, 06:46 PM Explorer's Hanbook is an excellent buy for all DMs, not just Eberron ones. It comes with some great adventure sites. Even better, it explains how to make a good travel path (Starting point, midpoint, endpoint) and how to avoid the pitfalls of DMing travel with high-level magic users.

As a DM's world-guide, it doesn't add much. Get it for the adventures.
Edymnion
10-19-06, 08:09 PM I am thinking about getting the Explorer's Guide to Eberron but I just cant decide if I should. Is it a good book?No, its one of the most worthless ones, IMO.

All it is is a bunch of premade adventure locations and a little fluff on either end to make it look like a book.

Really, IMO, if you wanted everything pre-made for you, you just need to buy adventure modules.
Elrinade
10-19-06, 10:57 PM Premade adventures? AHAHH I AM GETTING IT! lol I just hope they have a good one for a lv 13ish party :-P
Edymnion
10-19-06, 11:51 PM Premade adventures? AHAHH I AM GETTING IT! lol I just hope they have a good one for a lv 13ish party :-PPremade adventure LOCATIONS. As in it details lots and lots of stuff about several differant locations. You still gotta provide all the plot, it just provides the settings.
DBlizzard
10-20-06, 12:42 AM I am thinking about getting the Explorer's Guide to Eberron but I just cant decide if I should. Is it a good book?
It's excellent, but not the best.

Essentially the meat of the book is a number of adventure locations to use as locations for your adventures. It's a great time saver for DMs that want to spend time on designing plot and characters and spend less time working on locations. A number of the locations are likely to be recurring in a given game (especially the earlier ones in the book).

If, as a DM, you prefer designing your own locations then it's not for you. If you prefer to spend more of your time on other areas, using these locations can save you time and generate adventure ideas.

It also has a reasonable chunk on travel in Eberron with information ships, airships, the lightning rail, caravans, etc. Much of it covers ground covered elsewhere, but in a bit more detail (although not huge amounts of detail).

Throw in a chapter on treasure, a few prestige classes (most being quite interesting), and that's the book.
Mr. Wilson
10-20-06, 02:37 AM Here's how I would rate them, and note that this is just IMHO, and I am a DM:

Five Nations (provides a tremendous amount of fluff, though I wish they would have stuck with a common lay out for each nation)
Faiths of Eberron (great insight into religion on Eberron, something that was sorely lacking)
Player's Guide (nice bite sized nuggets of information, great for newbies)
Sharn: CoT (would be higher, if it wasn't focused so much on one city. Highly recommended if you play in Sharn, though)
Explorer's Handbook (it was OK, ran into some of the problems in the next book)
Secrets of Xen'drick (I'm not a fan of site based encounters making up an entire book, I had the same reaction to the Realms book, Mysteries of the Moonsea)
Races of Eberron (mainly for Kalashtar, the other stuff is questionable)
Magic of Eberron (too crunchy for me)
Frederyck
10-20-06, 04:36 AM It also has a reasonable chunk on travel in Eberron with information ships, airships, the lightning rail, caravans, etc. Much of it covers ground covered elsewhere, but in a bit more detail (although not huge amounts of detail).

A problem with the information on the prices on travel in that book is that it is far too expensive. The lightning rail, for example, is supposed to almost everyone to travel at least somewhere, but the prices quoted in the book put even steerage class way out of reach even for a middle class professional with a reasonable salary. And given that the "100 lightning rail encounters"-table shows us that poor monks, youths and farmers are supposed to use it, something is not thought through properly...
Kreistor1
10-20-06, 10:14 AM Premade adventures? AHAHH I AM GETTING IT!

Edy's right. Not quite pre-made adventures, but yes, pre-made locations that you can set adventures in. I find it (and SoX) are great time savers, offloading some of the area design, allowing me to spend more time on the encounters.

So, if that's what you like, then Secrets of Xen'drik is a good second choice.
ccerose
10-20-06, 03:11 PM Five Nations=Best?
Yes. I've gotten the most use out of 5N and the least from MoE.
DoveArrow
10-20-06, 03:47 PM I really like the EGtE a lot. It's a good read. That said, I have yet to use any of the material covered in that book in a campaign. Still, if you're planning on running an airship or a lightning rail combat, it's fantastic, because it has detailed maps of both.
DBlizzard
10-20-06, 09:56 PM A problem with the information on the prices on travel in that book is that it is far too expensive.
Bah, as if D&D economics ever really made sense.
Edymnion
10-21-06, 12:49 AM Bah, as if D&D economics ever really made sense.It does. I did an article on it for Regdars, but it hasn't been approved yet for some reason.

Basically, I did all of the work and math and proved that your average commoner is capable of saving up about 200 gp a year, after living expenses have been met, which means they are quite capable of buying some fairly expensive stuff by just saving up for it. Not unlike real life, where you spend years saving up enough for that new car or new house.
DarkPawn
10-21-06, 01:00 AM It does. I did an article on it for Regdars, but it hasn't been approved yet for some reason.

Basically, I did all of the work and math and proved that your average commoner is capable of saving up about 200 gp a year, after living expenses have been met, which means they are quite capable of buying some fairly expensive stuff by just saving up for it. Not unlike real life, where you spend years saving up enough for that new car or new house.

Or like me, you marry a doctor and don't worry about. ;)
CrossBlade
10-21-06, 08:01 PM I got Explorer's Guide JUST for the airships' details, descriptions and most importantly, engineering explination.
:mage:
(If that doesn't scream fanboy nerd, I don't know what does)
ieattrollsforbreakfast
10-21-06, 08:52 PM Out of all the Eberron books, the Explorer's Handbook is one of those that's seen most use from me. That doesn't neccessarily make it a better book to read, but it's definitely a good one to use.
While most of the other books focus on fluff on particular topics (Five Nations, Faiths of Eberron, Player's Guide, Sharn, Races of Eberron), the Explorer's Handbook is a tool to help DMs build adventures. If you want to come up with all the stuff yourself, then it probably isn't the book for you. The first two chapters (Travel and Tools of the Trade) are good even if you aren't going to use at least some parts of the adventure locales, but they probably don't justify the purchase alone.
The crunch is ExH is also pretty good, the PrCs are probably some of the best Eberron ones to date IMO.
ImmortalBlueMage
10-21-06, 11:17 PM It's also worth noting that the Explore's Handbook is probably the funniest book that Wizards has ever put out.
superdeadsmurf
10-22-06, 04:45 PM All of the Eberron Books are great in their own ways in my opinion, but it depends on what you are looking for from the book.
There are 4 general categories I would include:
Player Fluff: Role-Playing information, players want to be able to make believeable backgrounds, and know about the world somewhat.
Player Crunch: Classes, Prestige Classes, items, spells etc. What a player will use to build their character.
Dm Crunch: Includes Player crunch, as well as monsters, and more esoteric things like sample encounters and even Adventure Hooks.
DM Fluff: World building material mostly, information that is supposed to be unknown to PCs and things like that.

Each of the books covers these in small amounts. Some books have little crunch material, others have a lot. Some have a lot of Fluff(s), but that fluff sucks.

Breakdown of Eberron Books, with scores of goodness for both player and DM roles.

Sharn: CoT - 9/10 DM; 4/10 Player- an overall great book, but not for players.
Easily the best Eberron book for DM Fluff, the DM crunch included is sparse but good. Player Fluff is there, but only small amounts would be useful for subsets of characters. The PC cruch is fairly thin, even the PrCs are a little on the boring and weak side for players anyway (they're kinda nice for the DM)

The Five Nations - 7/10 DM; 6/10 player - A good book.
The fluff is good quality and there is lots for both the DM and the player. Lots of good Adventure hooks, but otherwise the Crunch of both varieties are sparse, but what is included is actually quite useful.

Magic of Eberron - 7/10 both player and D - A good book, but with some problems.
Lots of Player and DM crunch, but most of it is fairly useless in play. I don't think I've really ever wanted to use any of the material from this book much, other that the psiforged (and because the way it was made, it is not very great)

Races of Eberron - 5/10 DM; 8/10 Player - Good, but use fluff with caution.
3 of the 4 races chapters are almost completely useless (The kalashtar excepted, which gives the bulk of the DM goodness to the book) to both players and DMs, though there are snippits of good ideas in there. However the greatest use of this book is chapter 5 character options. This is an extremely useful set of crunch for both DMs and Players, and the good bulk of it is actually pretty good.

Player's Guide to Eb. - 6/10 DM; 8/10 Player - Good, but watch out not everything is (nessesarily) correct!
Another player Centric Book, but this time it is the fluff that is important, not the crunch. The Player score goes down quite a bit if that player is a complete eberroniphile, since they will know quite a bit of the information already. The crunch is thin in here, and the bulk is not very useful. This books offers little for a DM who owns all the other books already other than as a fluff reference to hand to your players. Also most DMs will have to rule that many of the sidebars in the book are ... well, wrong.

Faiths of Eberron - 6/10 DM; 6/10 Player - Fairly average book, suspect crunch.
This has a lot of filler fluff unfortunately, and focuses a lot on the average worshiper more than the adventurous one. DMs and cleric players will enjoy the fluff here, players playing a character not particularly devout will not get any use, but it may entice them to play a lay member of a religion. The Crunch is suspect, with two of the PrCs being completely broken (one being fixed easily)

and Finally

Explorers Handbook - See below on why there are no scores here
This in an odd book, it is very low on both DM and Player fluff, but super packed with crunch, even when it doesn't look like it.
There is a lot of DM material here, straight out adventure hooks, rules material for travel and vehicles, and adventure sites/encounters.
There's good PrCs (very interesting ones actually) and some nice magic items too, but nothing spectacular. Not much in the way for player's fluff here. Player's Score 5/10
It's very much a DM's book, but not a DM's book that every DM will want to use. If you're into crafting your own adventures from scratch and spending a lot of time on everthing, you probably don't want this book and therfore making the "Dm score" 3/10 (except maybe for inspiration and the rules material bring it to like 5/10), but if you're usually time strapped, and only have an hour or two to prepare for any one game, this is a great book if you've already played through the published adventures- then it become a 7 or even 8 out of 10.

*Note, I have not read Secrets of Xen'drik yet, so no score is included. As the book is purportedly similar to Explorer's handbook, but not quite as good, it likely about 1 score lower on all fronts in the 3 categories included.
Edymnion
10-23-06, 12:57 AM Player Crunch: Classes, Prestige Classes, items, spells etc. What a player will use to build their character.Just as an oldschool 3e DM (Is 3e old enough yet to be able to consider those that played the original 3.0 back in the days before the splatbooks to be oldschool?) still see PrC as being squarely in the DM Crunch section.

PrC are DM world building tools, to be included or excluded as fits the setting and the DM's game in particular. They are not advance classes that the PCs should just expect to be able to get into.

PrC are in the DMG, not the PHB.
HarmonysRage
10-24-06, 02:14 AM My list as a DM:

ECS
PG2E & SCoT (Equal use)
MoE
SoX & FoE (Equal use)
5N & EH (Equal use)
RoE

But then my list is based on where I've gotten the most inspiration to do more with my game. Not crunch. Hell, not even direct use. And not by my personal favorites, just where I've gotten the most use.

Just sporadic, mad inspiration! As it were, I've gotten more out of Eberron through the environmental series and Heroes of Battle & Horror than about half of these min you. Though I own almost ALL core D&D products and all Eberron products.
The Brat Prince
10-24-06, 02:44 AM Is 3e old enough yet to be able to consider those that played the original 3.0 back in the days before the splatbooks to be oldschool?

Well since I got the 3e PhB for Christmas like, my sophomore or junior year of high school and I'm now a senior in college, I think 3e is old enough to be considered "old school" maybe, not sure.

Anyhow, as both DM and Player, I've gotten a lot of use out of the Explorer's Handbook. I tend to ignore the prices and such for most of the travel stuff, since I'm of the "don't worry about random day-to-day expenses" school of DMing. But the adventure locations have saved me quite a bit of time and the PrCs are pretty darned nifty for both NPCs and PCs. I'd recommend picking it up.

Also, as a sidenote, I agree that it's one of the more comical books WotC has pumped out. Any book in which a sidebar recommends that you "offer a prayer to whatever deity you find most comforting in your time of need" as a way to survive an airship crash is okay by me.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Elrinade 10-19-06, 01:53 PM	I am thinking about getting the Explorer's Guide to Eberron but I just cant decide if I should. Is it a good book?
DarkWarriorKarg 10-19-06, 02:21 PM	Yes. It's one of the better ones.
ccerose 10-19-06, 03:23 PM	Here's how I rate the Eberron books in terms of the amount of use I get out of them: Five Nations Sharn: CoT Explorer's Handbook Secrets of Xen'drik Player's Guide to Eberron Faiths of Eberron Races of Eberron (mainly for Kalashtar) Magic of Eberron
Elrinade 10-19-06, 03:37 PM	Here's how I rate the Eberron books in terms of the amount of use I get out of them: Five Nations Sharn: CoT Explorer's Handbook Secrets of Xen'drik Player's Guide to Eberron Faiths of Eberron Races of Eberron (mainly for Kalashtar) Magic of Eberron Five Nations=Best?
Azazyll 10-19-06, 04:12 PM	I would have said: Player's Guide to Eberron Sharn City of Towers Magic of Eberron Faiths of Eberron Five Nations Races of Eberron Explorer's Handbook Secrets of Xen'drik It's a toss up between the first two; they're clearly the best material published since the setting in terms of both fluff and crunch (although both have pretty minimal crunch). I really get virtually no use out of grab bags of adventure seeds, which is pretty much all explorer's handbook and Secrets of Xen'drik are. EH is slightly more useful for the artifacts (not in the game sense) of xen'drik and dhakaan in the back, and the occassionally useful transportation info in the front. I just tend to fudge that sort of thing myself. calculating the exact amount of time it takes to get places really draws donw the game in my opinion
Altar_Boy 10-19-06, 06:46 PM	Explorer's Hanbook is an excellent buy for all DMs, not just Eberron ones. It comes with some great adventure sites. Even better, it explains how to make a good travel path (Starting point, midpoint, endpoint) and how to avoid the pitfalls of DMing travel with high-level magic users. As a DM's world-guide, it doesn't add much. Get it for the adventures.
Edymnion 10-19-06, 08:09 PM	I am thinking about getting the Explorer's Guide to Eberron but I just cant decide if I should. Is it a good book?No, its one of the most worthless ones, IMO. All it is is a bunch of premade adventure locations and a little fluff on either end to make it look like a book. Really, IMO, if you wanted everything pre-made for you, you just need to buy adventure modules.
Elrinade 10-19-06, 10:57 PM	Premade adventures? AHAHH I AM GETTING IT! lol I just hope they have a good one for a lv 13ish party :-P
Edymnion 10-19-06, 11:51 PM	Premade adventures? AHAHH I AM GETTING IT! lol I just hope they have a good one for a lv 13ish party :-PPremade adventure LOCATIONS. As in it details lots and lots of stuff about several differant locations. You still gotta provide all the plot, it just provides the settings.
DBlizzard 10-20-06, 12:42 AM	I am thinking about getting the Explorer's Guide to Eberron but I just cant decide if I should. Is it a good book? It's excellent, but not the best. Essentially the meat of the book is a number of adventure locations to use as locations for your adventures. It's a great time saver for DMs that want to spend time on designing plot and characters and spend less time working on locations. A number of the locations are likely to be recurring in a given game (especially the earlier ones in the book). If, as a DM, you prefer designing your own locations then it's not for you. If you prefer to spend more of your time on other areas, using these locations can save you time and generate adventure ideas. It also has a reasonable chunk on travel in Eberron with information ships, airships, the lightning rail, caravans, etc. Much of it covers ground covered elsewhere, but in a bit more detail (although not huge amounts of detail). Throw in a chapter on treasure, a few prestige classes (most being quite interesting), and that's the book.
Mr. Wilson 10-20-06, 02:37 AM	Here's how I would rate them, and note that this is just IMHO, and I am a DM: Five Nations (provides a tremendous amount of fluff, though I wish they would have stuck with a common lay out for each nation) Faiths of Eberron (great insight into religion on Eberron, something that was sorely lacking) Player's Guide (nice bite sized nuggets of information, great for newbies) Sharn: CoT (would be higher, if it wasn't focused so much on one city. Highly recommended if you play in Sharn, though) Explorer's Handbook (it was OK, ran into some of the problems in the next book) Secrets of Xen'drick (I'm not a fan of site based encounters making up an entire book, I had the same reaction to the Realms book, Mysteries of the Moonsea) Races of Eberron (mainly for Kalashtar, the other stuff is questionable) Magic of Eberron (too crunchy for me)
Frederyck 10-20-06, 04:36 AM	It also has a reasonable chunk on travel in Eberron with information ships, airships, the lightning rail, caravans, etc. Much of it covers ground covered elsewhere, but in a bit more detail (although not huge amounts of detail). A problem with the information on the prices on travel in that book is that it is far too expensive. The lightning rail, for example, is supposed to almost everyone to travel at least somewhere, but the prices quoted in the book put even steerage class way out of reach even for a middle class professional with a reasonable salary. And given that the "100 lightning rail encounters"-table shows us that poor monks, youths and farmers are supposed to use it, something is not thought through properly...
Kreistor1 10-20-06, 10:14 AM	Premade adventures? AHAHH I AM GETTING IT! Edy's right. Not quite pre-made adventures, but yes, pre-made locations that you can set adventures in. I find it (and SoX) are great time savers, offloading some of the area design, allowing me to spend more time on the encounters. So, if that's what you like, then Secrets of Xen'drik is a good second choice.
ccerose 10-20-06, 03:11 PM	Five Nations=Best? Yes. I've gotten the most use out of 5N and the least from MoE.
DoveArrow 10-20-06, 03:47 PM	I really like the EGtE a lot. It's a good read. That said, I have yet to use any of the material covered in that book in a campaign. Still, if you're planning on running an airship or a lightning rail combat, it's fantastic, because it has detailed maps of both.
DBlizzard 10-20-06, 09:56 PM	A problem with the information on the prices on travel in that book is that it is far too expensive. Bah, as if D&D economics ever really made sense.
Edymnion 10-21-06, 12:49 AM	Bah, as if D&D economics ever really made sense.It does. I did an article on it for Regdars, but it hasn't been approved yet for some reason. Basically, I did all of the work and math and proved that your average commoner is capable of saving up about 200 gp a year, after living expenses have been met, which means they are quite capable of buying some fairly expensive stuff by just saving up for it. Not unlike real life, where you spend years saving up enough for that new car or new house.
DarkPawn 10-21-06, 01:00 AM	It does. I did an article on it for Regdars, but it hasn't been approved yet for some reason. Basically, I did all of the work and math and proved that your average commoner is capable of saving up about 200 gp a year, after living expenses have been met, which means they are quite capable of buying some fairly expensive stuff by just saving up for it. Not unlike real life, where you spend years saving up enough for that new car or new house. Or like me, you marry a doctor and don't worry about. ;)
CrossBlade 10-21-06, 08:01 PM	I got Explorer's Guide JUST for the airships' details, descriptions and most importantly, engineering explination. :mage: (If that doesn't scream fanboy nerd, I don't know what does)
ieattrollsforbreakfast 10-21-06, 08:52 PM	Out of all the Eberron books, the Explorer's Handbook is one of those that's seen most use from me. That doesn't neccessarily make it a better book to read, but it's definitely a good one to use. While most of the other books focus on fluff on particular topics (Five Nations, Faiths of Eberron, Player's Guide, Sharn, Races of Eberron), the Explorer's Handbook is a tool to help DMs build adventures. If you want to come up with all the stuff yourself, then it probably isn't the book for you. The first two chapters (Travel and Tools of the Trade) are good even if you aren't going to use at least some parts of the adventure locales, but they probably don't justify the purchase alone. The crunch is ExH is also pretty good, the PrCs are probably some of the best Eberron ones to date IMO.
ImmortalBlueMage 10-21-06, 11:17 PM	It's also worth noting that the Explore's Handbook is probably the funniest book that Wizards has ever put out.
superdeadsmurf 10-22-06, 04:45 PM	All of the Eberron Books are great in their own ways in my opinion, but it depends on what you are looking for from the book. There are 4 general categories I would include: Player Fluff: Role-Playing information, players want to be able to make believeable backgrounds, and know about the world somewhat. Player Crunch: Classes, Prestige Classes, items, spells etc. What a player will use to build their character. Dm Crunch: Includes Player crunch, as well as monsters, and more esoteric things like sample encounters and even Adventure Hooks. DM Fluff: World building material mostly, information that is supposed to be unknown to PCs and things like that. Each of the books covers these in small amounts. Some books have little crunch material, others have a lot. Some have a lot of Fluff(s), but that fluff sucks. Breakdown of Eberron Books, with scores of goodness for both player and DM roles. Sharn: CoT - 9/10 DM; 4/10 Player- an overall great book, but not for players. Easily the best Eberron book for DM Fluff, the DM crunch included is sparse but good. Player Fluff is there, but only small amounts would be useful for subsets of characters. The PC cruch is fairly thin, even the PrCs are a little on the boring and weak side for players anyway (they're kinda nice for the DM) The Five Nations - 7/10 DM; 6/10 player - A good book. The fluff is good quality and there is lots for both the DM and the player. Lots of good Adventure hooks, but otherwise the Crunch of both varieties are sparse, but what is included is actually quite useful. Magic of Eberron - 7/10 both player and D - A good book, but with some problems. Lots of Player and DM crunch, but most of it is fairly useless in play. I don't think I've really ever wanted to use any of the material from this book much, other that the psiforged (and because the way it was made, it is not very great) Races of Eberron - 5/10 DM; 8/10 Player - Good, but use fluff with caution. 3 of the 4 races chapters are almost completely useless (The kalashtar excepted, which gives the bulk of the DM goodness to the book) to both players and DMs, though there are snippits of good ideas in there. However the greatest use of this book is chapter 5 character options. This is an extremely useful set of crunch for both DMs and Players, and the good bulk of it is actually pretty good. Player's Guide to Eb. - 6/10 DM; 8/10 Player - Good, but watch out not everything is (nessesarily) correct! Another player Centric Book, but this time it is the fluff that is important, not the crunch. The Player score goes down quite a bit if that player is a complete eberroniphile, since they will know quite a bit of the information already. The crunch is thin in here, and the bulk is not very useful. This books offers little for a DM who owns all the other books already other than as a fluff reference to hand to your players. Also most DMs will have to rule that many of the sidebars in the book are ... well, wrong. Faiths of Eberron - 6/10 DM; 6/10 Player - Fairly average book, suspect crunch. This has a lot of filler fluff unfortunately, and focuses a lot on the average worshiper more than the adventurous one. DMs and cleric players will enjoy the fluff here, players playing a character not particularly devout will not get any use, but it may entice them to play a lay member of a religion. The Crunch is suspect, with two of the PrCs being completely broken (one being fixed easily) and Finally Explorers Handbook - See below on why there are no scores here This in an odd book, it is very low on both DM and Player fluff, but super packed with crunch, even when it doesn't look like it. There is a lot of DM material here, straight out adventure hooks, rules material for travel and vehicles, and adventure sites/encounters. There's good PrCs (very interesting ones actually) and some nice magic items too, but nothing spectacular. Not much in the way for player's fluff here. Player's Score 5/10 It's very much a DM's book, but not a DM's book that every DM will want to use. If you're into crafting your own adventures from scratch and spending a lot of time on everthing, you probably don't want this book and therfore making the "Dm score" 3/10 (except maybe for inspiration and the rules material bring it to like 5/10), but if you're usually time strapped, and only have an hour or two to prepare for any one game, this is a great book if you've already played through the published adventures- then it become a 7 or even 8 out of 10. *Note, I have not read Secrets of Xen'drik yet, so no score is included. As the book is purportedly similar to Explorer's handbook, but not quite as good, it likely about 1 score lower on all fronts in the 3 categories included.
Edymnion 10-23-06, 12:57 AM	Player Crunch: Classes, Prestige Classes, items, spells etc. What a player will use to build their character.Just as an oldschool 3e DM (Is 3e old enough yet to be able to consider those that played the original 3.0 back in the days before the splatbooks to be oldschool?) still see PrC as being squarely in the DM Crunch section. PrC are DM world building tools, to be included or excluded as fits the setting and the DM's game in particular. They are not advance classes that the PCs should just expect to be able to get into. PrC are in the DMG, not the PHB.
HarmonysRage 10-24-06, 02:14 AM	My list as a DM: ECS PG2E & SCoT (Equal use) MoE SoX & FoE (Equal use) 5N & EH (Equal use) RoE But then my list is based on where I've gotten the most inspiration to do more with my game. Not crunch. Hell, not even direct use. And not by my personal favorites, just where I've gotten the most use. Just sporadic, mad inspiration! As it were, I've gotten more out of Eberron through the environmental series and Heroes of Battle & Horror than about half of these min you. Though I own almost ALL core D&D products and all Eberron products.
The Brat Prince 10-24-06, 02:44 AM	Is 3e old enough yet to be able to consider those that played the original 3.0 back in the days before the splatbooks to be oldschool? Well since I got the 3e PhB for Christmas like, my sophomore or junior year of high school and I'm now a senior in college, I think 3e is old enough to be considered "old school" maybe, not sure. Anyhow, as both DM and Player, I've gotten a lot of use out of the Explorer's Handbook. I tend to ignore the prices and such for most of the travel stuff, since I'm of the "don't worry about random day-to-day expenses" school of DMing. But the adventure locations have saved me quite a bit of time and the PrCs are pretty darned nifty for both NPCs and PCs. I'd recommend picking it up. Also, as a sidenote, I agree that it's one of the more comical books WotC has pumped out. Any book in which a sidebar recommends that you "offer a prayer to whatever deity you find most comforting in your time of need" as a way to survive an airship crash is okay by me.