A Review of the Player's Guide to Faerun [Archive] - Wizards Community

A Review of the Player's Guide to Faerun [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Sancus
03-25-04, 04:38 AM A Review of the Player's Guide to Faerun

I waited for this book on the edge of my seat, hoping that it would be great, and hoping that it wouldn't nerf my favorite abilities too much :) I ran to the store the moment they emailed me saying it was in, and got home with it in my hands. I was both impressed and disappointed. I'll start by discussing what I really like about the book, because some of my later criticism is fairly harsh, and I don't want anyone to think that I'm ragging on what is essentially a pretty good FR release.

Good Stuff: Feats, Regional and Otherwise
I really like what they did to the regional feats. Having them slightly stronger than normal feats, and restricting them to one only really highlights the flavour of the feats, and it encourages character builds that use the regional feat as a very integral component to the character, thus making it more likely that characters will have regional FR flavour.

I like the change to Innate Spell, making it use a spell slot of the spell's level, so you basically pay a feat and a slot for a spell-like ability of that slot's level usable 3/day -- I am much more likely to take this than the old Innate Spell. I also like making portal creation a Create Wondrous Item function, and then adding Portal Mastery which takes the costs down to 50%. This makes portal creation much more palatable to players. I know I would sure have been pretty strongly against taking a feat just to be able to make one or two portals in my entire PC's lifetime, the old Create Portal feat was really something useful for NPCs only. I also really like the changes to the Shadow Weave Magic feats. Removing the drawbacks not only makes the feats more attractive, but it reduces the amount of rolling necessary with a Shadow Weave character. It got really tedious before, when basically every single time your character's magic interacted with another spellcaster's magic, you had to make an extra roll. Woe to the Shadow Weave Magic user who casted detect magic in a Weave mage's tower. That's gone now.

I also like the concept of the Initiate of [God's name goes here] feats, that give a cleric a special ability similar to a domain ability and some fairly powerful additional spells(Note that many of these spells have been powered up from their MoF versions, and some didn't exist in MoF). It makes a cleric of a certain god more notably different from other clerics, much like regional feats highlight the difference in characters from different regions.

Good Stuff: Cosmology and Campaign Journal
The Cosmology of Toril chapter and the Campaign Journal were both much appreciated by me. The short writeups on each of the planes, which gods make their home in them, etc, were quite interesting and I know I'll be flipping back to this reference quite often whenever I'm playing in a game where I have some planar travel capability. The Campaign Journal is just nice to get all the stuff that's happened since the FRCS in one place, so that I don't need to go read 5 novels to refresh my memory :P

Good Stuff: Prestige Classes
The Prestige Classes are overall well done. I particularly like the Morninglord of Lathander, Eye of Horus-Re, and the Yathrinshee(although due the amount of multiclassing you need with this PrC, and the drow ECL on top of it, this is really more of a cool NPC PrC than something for players). The Netherse Arcanist is also pretty interesting, and quite powerful, though high level, of course. Some of the exalted PrCs are particularly interesting, the Celebrant of Sharess in particular being a sort of seduction-focused bard-like caster, with a couple of really powerful abilities like being able to full attack after a charge mixed in with enchantment/seduction oriented stuff. The Prestige Class chapter is mostly well done, with a couple glaring exceptions I'll cover below.

Now, the bad stuff.

Bad Stuff: Spell Section
I'll say one good thing about the spell section -- the index of all the FR spells published so far for 3e is a great little reference. Kudos for including it. Otherwise...

The spells section makes me think it was written by monkeys, or something. Honestly. The balance of the Initiate feats is haphazard at best, with more than one blatantly exploitable thing.(Yes, the Initiate feats are detailed in the spell section, not in the Feats section) An Initiate of Mystra can make a caster level check against DC 11 + caster level of an Antimagic Field to be able to cast in the field. So, uh, a high level cieric with this feat can cast a CL 11 scroll of antimagic field and then proceed to cast most of their spells freely while being basically immune to magic. You'd think that someone might have noticed an obvious exploit like that, and said something before the book went to print! In contrast, some Initiate feat powers are just plain silly and useless. Initiate of Nature grants the ability to turn plants... but wait, the Plant domain already grants that. And most clerics who are going to take this Initiate feat have the Plant domain... The power delta between the Initiate feats shows that if there was any effort for balance made here, it failed outright.

That's only the tip of the iceberg. Spells were changed for apparently no reason other than to change them. Elminster's Effulgent Epuration, instead of being a pretty useful 9th level variant on spell turning that negates(not turns) all spells(including area of effects and ranged touch spells), was turned into a vastly overpowered version of spell turning. You get 1 orb per caster level, as before, but each orb negates a targeted spell of ANY spell level! So instead of a useful variant on spell turning, it's now useful for just basically making yourself invulnerable to targeted spells. Great. The Simbul's Spell Trigger spells were heavily nerfed, all of them(even the 9th level version!) limited to making 3rd level spells as free actions, and chaining 2nd level or lower spells only. No idea why the Simbul spent her time researching 'em now :P

A number of the Initiate spells are clearly broken. Initiate of Nature's 4th level Thorn Spray gives you 1d6/caster level untyped damage on a regular ranged attack, and a 2d4 round sickening effect if the target fails a fort save. What happened to the divine spell damage cap for 4th level spells here?!? I don't mind 1d6/caster level damage, since it is a regular ranged attack, but last time I checked, a 20d6 cap on a 4th level spell of any kind was ridiculous, let alone a spell usable by clerics.

Mace of Odo is a 3rd level spell that can deal 10d6 force damage(no save, single target), OR you can choose to just have it sit around... and absorb a targeted spell of ANY spell level. 10d6 force damage, no save, is pretty awesome as it is for a 3rd level cleric spell, but the secondary effect bounces this spell's power into the stratosphere.

If you thought Battletide was strong because of it's 3.0-haste style effect, guess again. It's still just as bad, if not worse. As long as one target is taking a penalty from Battletide, each round you can cast a spell quickened FOR FREE, with a spell level limit of 1 + 1 spell level for each 2 levels beyond 9th. That's right, a 17th level caster of this spell can fire off a 9th level spell(5th level quickened spell) every single round without even needing the Quicken Spell feat. And they get the +1 attack and dodge bonus to AC and doubled movement speed of the 3.5 Haste spell on top of that.

Bombardment, an 8th level Druid spell, deals 1d8/caster level damage up to 20d8 in a 15ft-radius burst, untyped damage, reflex half and if you fail the reflex save you get Buried(as the buried effect on page 304 of the DMG). Uh, 8th level Druid spells are supposed to make a mockery of Horrid Wilting now? Where's my wizard's d8 hitdie, damnit?!

And of course, to add insult to injury of the continuing 3.5 nerf on spell saving throw DCs, Spell Enhancer gives a +2 caster level bonus instead of a +2 bonus to save DC's. Why is this a 4th level spell again?

All I have to say about the spell's section, is, man, what a mess.

Bad Stuff: Feats
There are a couple of not-especially-great feat changes in the book. Persistent Spell is now rendered basically useless with a flat +6 level adjustment instead of the much more sensible duration-scaled adjustment that Richard Baker had mentioned previously(unless you're an Incantatrix, see my PrC comments) because of cleric abuse. Of course, Spellcasting Prodigy took the obligatory nerf that it no longer affects your DCs.

Bad Stuff: Prestige Classes
While most of the prestige classes were well done, the revision to the Shadow Adept wasn't thought through all the way, it seems. The Spell Power was removed completely, but nothing replaced it. So now, the relatively mediocre benefits of Shadow Defense, Greater Shield of Shadow, and Shadow Double are not buffed up at all, but the very sweet plum of the 3 Shadow Weave Magic feats for free at 1st level remains. And it's much sweeter than before as those feats were improved, making this PrC an excellent target for a single level cherry pick. Given that one of the most well executed 3.5 changes to date has been the reduction of cherry picking opportunities amoung the core classes and various PrCs, this miss is particularly glaring.

The Incantatrix is the one single thing in the book that makes me almost want to cry, especially because this was my favourite Magic of Faerun PrC. A very well-intentioned, excellent idea of removing the anti-outsider abilities of the PrC and making it focused purely on metamagic is destroyed by completely careless and inattentively balanced abilities. This PrC is at least twice as powerful as the MoF PrC, and given how easy it would have been to fix the glaring, obvious errors that make it broken, it is truly sad that it was printed in this state.

The Incantatrix now must perform Focused Studies at 1st level, picking a single school of magic(not abjuration or divination) that will act as a prohibited school. This is much simpler than the old strange method of forcing Abjuration specialization, and is much appreciated.

Instant Metamagic remains, at 7th and 9th level, and Improved Metamagic at 10th level of the PrC. The huge mistakes, however, are made at 2nd and 3rd level of the PrC.

Cooperative Metamagic allows you to ready an action on the spellcasting of an ally, and then make a DC 18 + (3 x fully adjusted spell level) Spellcraft check to apply one of your metamagic feats to the ally's spell in casting. The Incantatrix can use the ability 3 + int mod times per day. So, with a Spellcraft check(of high DC, admittedly) this Incantatrix can extend, and more disturbingly, persist an ally's spells a large number of times per day, for free. The ally doesn't even need to know Persistent Spell or use a higher spell slot. The Persistent Buff Cleric is stolen and returned in the same book, and this time at lower cost, as long as you have an Incantatrix in the party.

The 3rd level ability, Metamagic Effect, is similar to Cooperative Metamagic, in that you can apply a metamagic feat to a spell, however, this is to an existing spell effect. It is a Full Round Action. So our Incantatrix can cast a persistable or extendable spell on himself, and then make his spellcraft check and metamagic it after the casting. Lovely.

What's the simple fix for this obviously super-broken stuff? Make the number of uses per day expended equal to the slot level adjustment of the feat you're using! Using Persistent Spell? You expend 6 uses of the ability. This is quite feasible, as 3+ int mod is a LOT of uses per day. Unfortunately, it apparently did not occur to the designer of this version of the Incantatrix that you could abuse it in the above manner, or the simple fix to hold down the abuse.

That is the Player's Guide to Faerun. I hope that future Realms products are as good as this one, but I wish the developers would do a better job watching out for glaringly broken things.

Sancus
sancus@off.net
Tempus665
03-25-04, 05:17 AM Thanks! :)
Selgaunt
03-25-04, 11:45 AM Dude,

I would like to thank you! I wasn't sure if I should purchase this book, but now that you have explained it so well, My mind is made up!!!

Once again, thanks!!!
Sancus
03-26-04, 07:39 AM No problem :) Hope this helps out as many people as possible.
Felonius
03-26-04, 09:15 AM A very good review. Thank you for sharing your opinions. :)

There is another review at ENWorld here (http://www.enworld.org/reviews/index.php?sub=yes&where=active&reviewer=Selvarin&product=FRPGtF) .

- F
Halornn_Kaala
03-26-04, 02:57 PM I was very excited to see it come out, but was generally not wowed with the book based on my perusal at the store. Usually I can talk myself into a sourcebook if it looks fairly useful. I failed to do so with this one.

Halornn
terrellk11
03-26-04, 07:14 PM Does the PGtF revise/include the inforamtion regarding regions (i.e. preferred classes and bonus equipment)?
Laszlo Koller
03-27-04, 07:02 PM Sancus--I would recommend that you post your thorough review at the EN World (http://www.enworld.org) website, specifically the Reviews (http://www.enworld.org/reviews/) section. Thanks for taking the time for writing such a complete review.
Plunderer_of_the_planes
03-27-04, 08:48 PM I did get a chance to look at it today and really didn't see that it was worth the pricetag. I have most of the material it draws from I also haven't (nor will) fully converted to 3.5. The amount of new material versus the amount of rehash just killed it for me.

I'll keep an eye on ebay or on the used racks for a pre-owned copy. If It was a new player I could see the value of the book but as it stands now...I'll pass....
Teh Lurv
03-27-04, 11:13 PM Originally posted by Sancus
[u]Good Stuff: Cosmology and Campaign Journal
The Cosmology of Toril chapter and the Campaign Journal were both much appreciated by me. The short writeups on each of the planes, which gods make their home in them, etc, were quite interesting and I know I'll be flipping back to this reference quite often whenever I'm playing in a game where I have some planar travel capability. The Campaign Journal is just nice to get all the stuff that's happened since the FRCS in one place, so that I don't need to go read 5 novels to refresh my memory :P

I would put the Campaign Journal under Bad Stuff. I was dissapointed that the timeline only covered the events in the Return of the Archwizards and the War of the Spider Queen.

I was looking forward to reading what events have transpired from the date in the FRCS to the PGtF in other parts of Faerun. Even the timeline of important events doesn't cover anything beyond the scope of the two book series.
Mutablegenus
03-28-04, 10:37 AM yes terrel it does revise that...
Shemeska the Marauder
03-29-04, 01:25 AM Thanks for the review Sancus *tips razorvine tiara*

I've got the book as of this weekend thanks to my players who got it for me as a birthday present. Even though we don't play in FR (it's a 3e Planescape game), two of the PCs are from Toril and I keep up on the world (plus we've had side plots back on Toril once or twice in the past year and a half).

I enjoy the book, it was good for what it was intended to be, but as with all books has its flaws. The artwork was great, especially the races artwork. The air genasi and tiefling pictures are wonderful!

The editing needed some work since the gold and gray dwarf pictures are switched in placement with the correct name. Also, the same problem happened with the human ethnic groups, switching Illuskan, Mulan and Rashemi as I recall. Minor stuff, but it surprised me that it slipped through.

Oh well, the back cover artwork had some very nice Osyluths on it. (Let the 1e/3.5e name of 'Bone Devil' rot in Phlegethos for all I care, hah!)

The detailing of the unique FR cosmology was a step in the right direction for what I've made pretty clear was a step in the wrong direction in the first place. However since they made it a seperate ground of planes they've at least now given details, and some plausible details to the cosmology. Some portions are way way too overly complicated like seperate Astral planes for the Faerunian pantheons versus the Zakharan pantheon versus those of Kara-Tur.

Suffice to say I'm happy with my Planescape detailed to the extreme Great Wheel cosmology w/ Toril still happily sitting in the prime material plane as one of innumerable spheres. However while I won't be using it all, they did a fine job working on the cosmology overall in the PGtF.

*applause where applause is needed*

(And oh, thanks for more Yugoloth mentions in the book. Any Yugoloth mention in any 3e book is a good thing.)
Arduin
03-29-04, 04:57 AM It looks good, though your bad points of course hits harder than the good.

It's really a shame when you buy a product, only to be forced to make houserules on the printed material.
theorcrist
03-30-04, 07:09 AM I AM NOT BUYING IT!!...because my players probably will he he he...

Let them pick something up for a change!

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Sancus 03-25-04, 04:38 AM	A Review of the Player's Guide to Faerun I waited for this book on the edge of my seat, hoping that it would be great, and hoping that it wouldn't nerf my favorite abilities too much :) I ran to the store the moment they emailed me saying it was in, and got home with it in my hands. I was both impressed and disappointed. I'll start by discussing what I really like about the book, because some of my later criticism is fairly harsh, and I don't want anyone to think that I'm ragging on what is essentially a pretty good FR release. Good Stuff: Feats, Regional and Otherwise I really like what they did to the regional feats. Having them slightly stronger than normal feats, and restricting them to one only really highlights the flavour of the feats, and it encourages character builds that use the regional feat as a very integral component to the character, thus making it more likely that characters will have regional FR flavour. I like the change to Innate Spell, making it use a spell slot of the spell's level, so you basically pay a feat and a slot for a spell-like ability of that slot's level usable 3/day -- I am much more likely to take this than the old Innate Spell. I also like making portal creation a Create Wondrous Item function, and then adding Portal Mastery which takes the costs down to 50%. This makes portal creation much more palatable to players. I know I would sure have been pretty strongly against taking a feat just to be able to make one or two portals in my entire PC's lifetime, the old Create Portal feat was really something useful for NPCs only. I also really like the changes to the Shadow Weave Magic feats. Removing the drawbacks not only makes the feats more attractive, but it reduces the amount of rolling necessary with a Shadow Weave character. It got really tedious before, when basically every single time your character's magic interacted with another spellcaster's magic, you had to make an extra roll. Woe to the Shadow Weave Magic user who casted detect magic in a Weave mage's tower. That's gone now. I also like the concept of the Initiate of [God's name goes here] feats, that give a cleric a special ability similar to a domain ability and some fairly powerful additional spells(Note that many of these spells have been powered up from their MoF versions, and some didn't exist in MoF). It makes a cleric of a certain god more notably different from other clerics, much like regional feats highlight the difference in characters from different regions. Good Stuff: Cosmology and Campaign Journal The Cosmology of Toril chapter and the Campaign Journal were both much appreciated by me. The short writeups on each of the planes, which gods make their home in them, etc, were quite interesting and I know I'll be flipping back to this reference quite often whenever I'm playing in a game where I have some planar travel capability. The Campaign Journal is just nice to get all the stuff that's happened since the FRCS in one place, so that I don't need to go read 5 novels to refresh my memory :P Good Stuff: Prestige Classes The Prestige Classes are overall well done. I particularly like the Morninglord of Lathander, Eye of Horus-Re, and the Yathrinshee(although due the amount of multiclassing you need with this PrC, and the drow ECL on top of it, this is really more of a cool NPC PrC than something for players). The Netherse Arcanist is also pretty interesting, and quite powerful, though high level, of course. Some of the exalted PrCs are particularly interesting, the Celebrant of Sharess in particular being a sort of seduction-focused bard-like caster, with a couple of really powerful abilities like being able to full attack after a charge mixed in with enchantment/seduction oriented stuff. The Prestige Class chapter is mostly well done, with a couple glaring exceptions I'll cover below. Now, the bad stuff. Bad Stuff: Spell Section I'll say one good thing about the spell section -- the index of all the FR spells published so far for 3e is a great little reference. Kudos for including it. Otherwise... The spells section makes me think it was written by monkeys, or something. Honestly. The balance of the Initiate feats is haphazard at best, with more than one blatantly exploitable thing.(Yes, the Initiate feats are detailed in the spell section, not in the Feats section) An Initiate of Mystra can make a caster level check against DC 11 + caster level of an Antimagic Field to be able to cast in the field. So, uh, a high level cieric with this feat can cast a CL 11 scroll of antimagic field and then proceed to cast most of their spells freely while being basically immune to magic. You'd think that someone might have noticed an obvious exploit like that, and said something before the book went to print! In contrast, some Initiate feat powers are just plain silly and useless. Initiate of Nature grants the ability to turn plants... but wait, the Plant domain already grants that. And most clerics who are going to take this Initiate feat have the Plant domain... The power delta between the Initiate feats shows that if there was any effort for balance made here, it failed outright. That's only the tip of the iceberg. Spells were changed for apparently no reason other than to change them. Elminster's Effulgent Epuration, instead of being a pretty useful 9th level variant on spell turning that negates(not turns) all spells(including area of effects and ranged touch spells), was turned into a vastly overpowered version of spell turning. You get 1 orb per caster level, as before, but each orb negates a targeted spell of ANY spell level! So instead of a useful variant on spell turning, it's now useful for just basically making yourself invulnerable to targeted spells. Great. The Simbul's Spell Trigger spells were heavily nerfed, all of them(even the 9th level version!) limited to making 3rd level spells as free actions, and chaining 2nd level or lower spells only. No idea why the Simbul spent her time researching 'em now :P A number of the Initiate spells are clearly broken. Initiate of Nature's 4th level Thorn Spray gives you 1d6/caster level untyped damage on a regular ranged attack, and a 2d4 round sickening effect if the target fails a fort save. What happened to the divine spell damage cap for 4th level spells here?!? I don't mind 1d6/caster level damage, since it is a regular ranged attack, but last time I checked, a 20d6 cap on a 4th level spell of any kind was ridiculous, let alone a spell usable by clerics. Mace of Odo is a 3rd level spell that can deal 10d6 force damage(no save, single target), OR you can choose to just have it sit around... and absorb a targeted spell of ANY spell level. 10d6 force damage, no save, is pretty awesome as it is for a 3rd level cleric spell, but the secondary effect bounces this spell's power into the stratosphere. If you thought Battletide was strong because of it's 3.0-haste style effect, guess again. It's still just as bad, if not worse. As long as one target is taking a penalty from Battletide, each round you can cast a spell quickened FOR FREE, with a spell level limit of 1 + 1 spell level for each 2 levels beyond 9th. That's right, a 17th level caster of this spell can fire off a 9th level spell(5th level quickened spell) every single round without even needing the Quicken Spell feat. And they get the +1 attack and dodge bonus to AC and doubled movement speed of the 3.5 Haste spell on top of that. Bombardment, an 8th level Druid spell, deals 1d8/caster level damage up to 20d8 in a 15ft-radius burst, untyped damage, reflex half and if you fail the reflex save you get Buried(as the buried effect on page 304 of the DMG). Uh, 8th level Druid spells are supposed to make a mockery of Horrid Wilting now? Where's my wizard's d8 hitdie, damnit?! And of course, to add insult to injury of the continuing 3.5 nerf on spell saving throw DCs, Spell Enhancer gives a +2 caster level bonus instead of a +2 bonus to save DC's. Why is this a 4th level spell again? All I have to say about the spell's section, is, man, what a mess. Bad Stuff: Feats There are a couple of not-especially-great feat changes in the book. Persistent Spell is now rendered basically useless with a flat +6 level adjustment instead of the much more sensible duration-scaled adjustment that Richard Baker had mentioned previously(unless you're an Incantatrix, see my PrC comments) because of cleric abuse. Of course, Spellcasting Prodigy took the obligatory nerf that it no longer affects your DCs. Bad Stuff: Prestige Classes While most of the prestige classes were well done, the revision to the Shadow Adept wasn't thought through all the way, it seems. The Spell Power was removed completely, but nothing replaced it. So now, the relatively mediocre benefits of Shadow Defense, Greater Shield of Shadow, and Shadow Double are not buffed up at all, but the very sweet plum of the 3 Shadow Weave Magic feats for free at 1st level remains. And it's much sweeter than before as those feats were improved, making this PrC an excellent target for a single level cherry pick. Given that one of the most well executed 3.5 changes to date has been the reduction of cherry picking opportunities amoung the core classes and various PrCs, this miss is particularly glaring. The Incantatrix is the one single thing in the book that makes me almost want to cry, especially because this was my favourite Magic of Faerun PrC. A very well-intentioned, excellent idea of removing the anti-outsider abilities of the PrC and making it focused purely on metamagic is destroyed by completely careless and inattentively balanced abilities. This PrC is at least twice as powerful as the MoF PrC, and given how easy it would have been to fix the glaring, obvious errors that make it broken, it is truly sad that it was printed in this state. The Incantatrix now must perform Focused Studies at 1st level, picking a single school of magic(not abjuration or divination) that will act as a prohibited school. This is much simpler than the old strange method of forcing Abjuration specialization, and is much appreciated. Instant Metamagic remains, at 7th and 9th level, and Improved Metamagic at 10th level of the PrC. The huge mistakes, however, are made at 2nd and 3rd level of the PrC. Cooperative Metamagic allows you to ready an action on the spellcasting of an ally, and then make a DC 18 + (3 x fully adjusted spell level) Spellcraft check to apply one of your metamagic feats to the ally's spell in casting. The Incantatrix can use the ability 3 + int mod times per day. So, with a Spellcraft check(of high DC, admittedly) this Incantatrix can extend, and more disturbingly, persist an ally's spells a large number of times per day, for free. The ally doesn't even need to know Persistent Spell or use a higher spell slot. The Persistent Buff Cleric is stolen and returned in the same book, and this time at lower cost, as long as you have an Incantatrix in the party. The 3rd level ability, Metamagic Effect, is similar to Cooperative Metamagic, in that you can apply a metamagic feat to a spell, however, this is to an existing spell effect. It is a Full Round Action. So our Incantatrix can cast a persistable or extendable spell on himself, and then make his spellcraft check and metamagic it after the casting. Lovely. What's the simple fix for this obviously super-broken stuff? Make the number of uses per day expended equal to the slot level adjustment of the feat you're using! Using Persistent Spell? You expend 6 uses of the ability. This is quite feasible, as 3+ int mod is a LOT of uses per day. Unfortunately, it apparently did not occur to the designer of this version of the Incantatrix that you could abuse it in the above manner, or the simple fix to hold down the abuse. That is the Player's Guide to Faerun. I hope that future Realms products are as good as this one, but I wish the developers would do a better job watching out for glaringly broken things. Sancus sancus@off.net
Tempus665 03-25-04, 05:17 AM	Thanks! :)
Selgaunt 03-25-04, 11:45 AM	Dude, I would like to thank you! I wasn't sure if I should purchase this book, but now that you have explained it so well, My mind is made up!!! Once again, thanks!!!
Sancus 03-26-04, 07:39 AM	No problem :) Hope this helps out as many people as possible.
Felonius 03-26-04, 09:15 AM	A very good review. Thank you for sharing your opinions. :) There is another review at ENWorld here (http://www.enworld.org/reviews/index.php?sub=yes&where=active&reviewer=Selvarin&product=FRPGtF) . - F
Halornn_Kaala 03-26-04, 02:57 PM	I was very excited to see it come out, but was generally not wowed with the book based on my perusal at the store. Usually I can talk myself into a sourcebook if it looks fairly useful. I failed to do so with this one. Halornn
terrellk11 03-26-04, 07:14 PM	Does the PGtF revise/include the inforamtion regarding regions (i.e. preferred classes and bonus equipment)?
Laszlo Koller 03-27-04, 07:02 PM	Sancus--I would recommend that you post your thorough review at the EN World (http://www.enworld.org) website, specifically the Reviews (http://www.enworld.org/reviews/) section. Thanks for taking the time for writing such a complete review.
Plunderer_of_the_planes 03-27-04, 08:48 PM	I did get a chance to look at it today and really didn't see that it was worth the pricetag. I have most of the material it draws from I also haven't (nor will) fully converted to 3.5. The amount of new material versus the amount of rehash just killed it for me. I'll keep an eye on ebay or on the used racks for a pre-owned copy. If It was a new player I could see the value of the book but as it stands now...I'll pass....
Teh Lurv 03-27-04, 11:13 PM	Originally posted by Sancus [u]Good Stuff: Cosmology and Campaign Journal The Cosmology of Toril chapter and the Campaign Journal were both much appreciated by me. The short writeups on each of the planes, which gods make their home in them, etc, were quite interesting and I know I'll be flipping back to this reference quite often whenever I'm playing in a game where I have some planar travel capability. The Campaign Journal is just nice to get all the stuff that's happened since the FRCS in one place, so that I don't need to go read 5 novels to refresh my memory :P I would put the Campaign Journal under Bad Stuff. I was dissapointed that the timeline only covered the events in the Return of the Archwizards and the War of the Spider Queen. I was looking forward to reading what events have transpired from the date in the FRCS to the PGtF in other parts of Faerun. Even the timeline of important events doesn't cover anything beyond the scope of the two book series.
Mutablegenus 03-28-04, 10:37 AM	yes terrel it does revise that...
Shemeska the Marauder 03-29-04, 01:25 AM	Thanks for the review Sancus tips razorvine tiara I've got the book as of this weekend thanks to my players who got it for me as a birthday present. Even though we don't play in FR (it's a 3e Planescape game), two of the PCs are from Toril and I keep up on the world (plus we've had side plots back on Toril once or twice in the past year and a half). I enjoy the book, it was good for what it was intended to be, but as with all books has its flaws. The artwork was great, especially the races artwork. The air genasi and tiefling pictures are wonderful! The editing needed some work since the gold and gray dwarf pictures are switched in placement with the correct name. Also, the same problem happened with the human ethnic groups, switching Illuskan, Mulan and Rashemi as I recall. Minor stuff, but it surprised me that it slipped through. Oh well, the back cover artwork had some very nice Osyluths on it. (Let the 1e/3.5e name of 'Bone Devil' rot in Phlegethos for all I care, hah!) The detailing of the unique FR cosmology was a step in the right direction for what I've made pretty clear was a step in the wrong direction in the first place. However since they made it a seperate ground of planes they've at least now given details, and some plausible details to the cosmology. Some portions are way way too overly complicated like seperate Astral planes for the Faerunian pantheons versus the Zakharan pantheon versus those of Kara-Tur. Suffice to say I'm happy with my Planescape detailed to the extreme Great Wheel cosmology w/ Toril still happily sitting in the prime material plane as one of innumerable spheres. However while I won't be using it all, they did a fine job working on the cosmology overall in the PGtF. applause where applause is needed (And oh, thanks for more Yugoloth mentions in the book. Any Yugoloth mention in any 3e book is a good thing.)
Arduin 03-29-04, 04:57 AM	It looks good, though your bad points of course hits harder than the good. It's really a shame when you buy a product, only to be forced to make houserules on the printed material.
theorcrist 03-30-04, 07:09 AM	I AM NOT BUYING IT!!...because my players probably will he he he... Let them pick something up for a change!