Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Arkenian 04-05-04, 12:37 PM	THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS: UNTIL THIS IS REMOVED PLEASE DON'T POST TO THE THREAD The Ask ?Authors? Thread is getting a touch full. This thread is designed ONLY for the purpose of collecting answers to questions related to FR from WotC authors, primarily from this thread. I sort out some categories of questions, such as ones relating to the weave and magic, then Elves and then Cosmology, then questions directly related to writing/novels etc. This post has lots of "are you planning to publish x?" questions in the first half, and more "big-picture" questions in the second half. After the general questions, there is a section specifically addressing 3.0->3.5 update issues and PGtF's role in this. Then technical rules questions, and then info on serpent kingdoms, then other upcoming supplements. This makes it easier to read, and (more importantly) easier to collect. Thanks to Dargoth for writing the original summary of the thread before the ask rich Baker thread. What do you view as the purpose of the "Ask Richard Baker" thread and its successor threads? Rich: The purpose of the thread, as I view it, is to talk about questions or comments you have on published product, or products we're about to publish. It started as "errors, omissions, and suggestions," and gave me a forum for telling you folks why we did some of the things we did in specific products. Let's move it back in that direction, and start a different thread for "things I want the FR business team at WotC to tell me," because we've been venturing into questions that are more rightly their responsibility than mine, and I don't want to speak for them. Ed. Note: There are several questions following on whether WotC is planning to publish XYZ in the future. Since we are all interested I include them all. However, Rich has requested that we refrain from asking such questions too much in the future. Auguthra the Mad: Don't the current design team for FR (such as it is) consider it just a tad disrespectful, to change things from previous editions? Rich: It happens all the time in the comics business. A new guy is brought in to draw/write Spiderman or Superman. Some people like it better, other people don't. Is it arrogant to ignore something that was done earlier, or subjectively decide that I've got a better take on something? Of course it is. But, frankly, that's exactly what I'm paid to do--to apply my best judgment toward reinventing and refreshing the game material, so that it will continue to appeal to new fans. That's going to make some people mad, and I'm sorry about that. With few exceptions (I do make mistakes) I don't contradict something without thinking it over first. We evolve the world to appeal to new fans. Overburdening a new product with pointless old continuity dilutes the new product. It makes the product inaccessible to new readers. Before you attack that statement, note the use of the word "pointless." In many cases, the old continuity has been dated by the evolution of the D&D game--rules and IP both. In a few cases, that old continuity represents a previous designer's joke that I don't want to perpetuate, or it's just plain silly. And sometimes things change because the authors (myself included) just didn't know about an obscure reference, or chose to look for places to show the readers something new and unexpected. These boards often see calls for more "fluff" in FR products, as it is the details that (in the opinion of some) makes the Realms the campaign setting that we all love. Good, old fashion Realmslore. Have the designers taken note of these things? Rich: First of all, don't use the Player's Guide to Faerun as a barometer for the whole line; it's deliberately uber-crunchy, because it had to address many "crunchy" artifacts of the change from 3.0 to 3.5. On the other hand, I think Underdark and Unapproachable East are good examples of products that offer a mix of crunch and fluff. We're not likely to get too much "fluffier" than those books. I like both books, because they each introduce lots of good Realmslore to go with the interesting mechanical options. The remaining books in 2004, and at least two of the books we're working on for 2005, are very much along those lines. Myself, I like the U-East and Underdark format. The percentage of crunch and fluff could vary somewhat, but otherwise it's a good format. DreadStar: The PGtF Web Enhancement seemed to have lower editing quality than other WotC products, how come? (Ed. Note: This answer is generally applicable to the editing process) Rich: We've got a four-step process for producing RPG material: design, development, editing, typesetting. Everything we do competes for those resources. Sometimes those of us working "upstream" have to just have faith that folks working "downstream" will do the best job they can with the time they've got. But not all projects are assigned time on an equal footing. So, something can be designed, but then given minimal (or even no) development time, and then light (or even minimal) editing time (although there's always at least some editing). The FR monster conversion appendix came up against the problem that development resources were "squeezed" when the Player's Guide to Faerun came around. So the PGtoF received a lighter development pass than I would have liked. That meant that something like a web enhancement tied to the book was simply dropped off the developers' priority list. Once we determined that the monster conversion appendix wasn't going to fit in the book anyway, the developers naturally prioritized their work elsewhere. Ditto the editors (although the appendix did receive some editing through the auspices of our web team). To summarize: We didn't have the resources to get it 100% right, but we didn't want this valuable material to go unpublished. So we got it as right as we could in the time we had. And that's something we do with every book or article we publish. Some books get more time and thus get more right, others less. But nothing we do is perfect, because we're human, and we're working in a business climate that does not allow us to lavish painstaking care on everything we do. We do the best job we can with the resources we're given, and most of the time, that result is really pretty good. [b][i]Purple Dragon Knight: Don't want to drag this into a long discussion on distribution processes, but could you help me understand why, in a nutshell, we have to wait more for this awesome book (he let me peek in, yesss!) when the bug is sitting in boxes behind the counter? Rich: To be honest, I know very little about what happens to our books after they leave the magic workshop. We've got sales and marketing departments that work with our various distribution channels, and I just kinda trust that they've got good reasons for doing the things they do. They don't tell me how many Hit Dice a particular monster ought to have, so I try not to tell them how they ought to do their jobs, either. That said... as I understand it, insisting on a single release date helps to reduce friction between competing distribution networks. The big bookstore chains don't like it when you guys can go buy our books in your FLGS days or weeks before they're ready to put 'em on display, and your FLGS doesn't like it when the big bookstore chain does the same thing to them. Release date are about not making any of our first-step customers (the distributors) mad at us because they think we're not giving everybody a fair shake. Kade_Millan: When can we expect another release of the FRCS? Rich: We have no plans to do that. Kade_Millan: I've heard rumors about an upcoming Forgotten Realms TV series or movie. Can you give me any more information (if it's actually happening, release dates etc) or direct me to a place that has? Rich: I have no idea what might or might not be happening with TV or movie licenses for the Realms. Every year it seems that a new "it's gotta happen" agreement appears, and every year it seems to fall by the wayside. I've seen 'em come and seen 'em go. My advice to you: Don't believe it's going to happen until you actually see it on the screen, big or small. Why isnt city/town X on the FRC poster map? Rich: Merely an issue of space. The poster map in the FRCS simply can't show every thing we've ever located in Faerun, and the FRCS text is already crammed as tight as we can make the words go. Maskyr's Eye is still there; we just haven't shown you a 3E map or 3E text that happens to cover it in more detail yet. Will wizards publish the big versions of the 3ed FR map that where published in Dragon Magazine? Sorry, you'll just have to track down those issues of DRAGON if you want the promotional map. We don't have any plans to make 'em into a product of their own. Will Wizards publish a "atlas" for the Forgotten realms using the 3ed cartography? Yes, we've considered some sort of atlas project on several occasions. On the creative side, we'd like to do something just like that. On the business side, well, lots of big maps are prohibitively expensive (for us, anyway). We're looking at ways to do good maps for less money, and when we find it, products like the sort of thing you're describing will be on our schedule again. The map book is tough--sometimes big companies have a harder time breaking format than smaller companies. We know you guys want a map book, though. We'll see what we can do. Ivy: In a similar vein to the map book, I wonder if a book such as "Dungeons of Faerūn" or "Ruins of Faerūn" or something similar might be more feasible? Rich: We've talked about a ruins-themed or dungeon-themed book, and they're both on our short list of things we'd like to do. Just not sure when specifically we'll be able to schedule them. Rich (2/04): I know of a couple of projects we're working on which may provide a little of what you're looking for, but they're far enough out that I can't discuss them yet. DUNGEON magazine publishes FR adventures from time to time. A few months back my adventure "Prison of the Firebringer" appeared in DUNGEON, describing the Dungeon of the Ruins. Will there be source books for Kara Tur, Al Qadim and Maztica? We don't have any plans to revisit Maztica, Al-Qadim, or Kara-Tur any time soon. If we were to revisit any of these areas, it would most likely be for a single sourcebook. Al-Qadim or Kara-Tur would be the most likely candidate for a treatment like that (but, like I said, don't expect to see anything like that before 2005 at the earliest, and even then it's not likely). Cernunnos: As a big Maztica fan, I was glad to see the inclusion of the Tlincallis/Stingers in Underdark. I was just curious, since the authors teased us with knowledge of a whole pantheon (9 major and 2 minor gods), but only listed 3 gods (Huoxopica, the main god; Ixtilli, Huoxopica's consort; Corantllil, god of Unceasing Activity). Was any more work done of their pantheon that didn't see its way into the book? Rich: No, we don't have any more info on the Maztican pantheon beyond that. FR has so many deities that we're hesitant to bring in more unless we really have a need to. JybraEel: Will there eventually be a suppliment of Diety Specific Paladins and Specialty Preists (Like from 2e) for the FR's? Rich (11/03): No such plans, really. However, we are considering a future product that might touch on the topic a little bit (possibly providing a handful of deity-specific prestige classes, or order-specific paladins). It's a ways off, though. As the Underdark source book doesn't cover the drow heavily, will we be seeing a "Drow of the Underdark" type supplement after the WOSQ series finishes, or will there be some sort of web enchancement to cover the WOSQ events in the RPG side of the realms? We've got no immediate plans to do that cwslyclgh: What are the chances of seeing a sourcebook similar to Lords of Darkness for good organizations in the realms in the future? Rich: No immediate plans for that, although we've kicked around the idea more than once. (We also like the notion of a "Hordes of Darkness" that would focus on the orcs, goblins, trolls, etc., of the Realms. But we don't have immediate plans for that, either.) PhilCW: With the great importance on commerce in the Realms, as well as the many power groups (Iron Throne, Rundeen, Zhentarim, etc) involved in mercantile activities, can we expect to see more information regarding the various merchant houses and so forth, as well as activities throughout Faerun published in future products? Rich: We've discussed a product like this before, but we don't have immediate plans to do it. Sovellios Darkshine: Any chance we will see a 3rd edition version of the Hereos or Villians Lorebook? Rich: We don't have immediate plans for it. It's a tough product, really. We're not sure how useful a Heroes' Lorebook is to most DMs, and the villains of the novels have a tremendous tendency to end up dead. Keldir: Can we expect any adventures/modules from third party gaming companies for the Realms or Dragonlance or any other WOTC campaign world? Rich: No plans for that for the Realms. However, Sovereign Press is publishing more Dragonlance material based on the Dragonlance hardcover we printed earlier this year. Finglas Leaflock: My question is, are there any plans to develop lythari as a race? Rich: Sorry, no plans at the moment to go into more detail. Races of Faerūn would have been our best shot at that for a while. Lashan: I am curious if the Vast is going to get any attention in new products by WOTC. Before, it was under the guidance of the RPGA Living City. With that being outsourced, does the "no development" plans still hold for the area? Rich: No current plans. That doesn't mean that we would never do it, it just means that we're not likely to in the next 2-3 years. RE: the Living City outsourcing, I just don't know off the top of my head whether that would influence our decision to do a product on the Vast, but it's at least a couple of years away no matter what, so I'm not thinking hard about it for a while. BobROE: Is there any chance we could see some sort of web update for PrC spell lists? (ie spells from Underdark that the bladesinger can cast, or spells from UE that the Prime Underdark Guide can cast.) Rich: That's a good idea, and a worthwhile web article. I'm afraid I won't write it (too many other irons in the fire), but I sure wouldn't mind seeing such a thing. Will Rangers and Druids go back to recieving there powers from nature instead of deitys? Rich: Boy, it seems to me that they're really close to that already. Just because a druid notes Silvanus as his patron doesn't mean that he's really just like a cleric of Silvanus. In fact, the reason we did this (now that I think on it some) was to encourage folks *not* to create clerics of Silvanus by saying that Silvanus is really revered by druids, not clerics Zanan: The FRCS FAQ would seem to indicate that in order to select a deity as your patron you need to be within "one step", does this really apply to non-divine sepllcasters? SKR: I just spoke with Skip [Williams] about the Sage Advice where he says(paraphrased) "Remember that clerics must follow the one-step alignment rule for selecting a patron deity, as do all other characters." We know that our intent was that as long as you weren't a divine spellcaster you should be able to pick any patron you want (although some alignment conflicts would make some deities bad choices), and so he thinks he dropped a pair of words from that. The last part should read "as do all other divine spellcasting characters. So if you aren't a divine spellcaster you can choose any patron deity. Rich: Yeah, Sean's take on this is correct. Although I'd point out that choosing a patron deity wildly at odds with your alignment (directly opposed, or thematically opposed) might call your alignment choice into question. I could see a LG elven monk with Corellon as a patron, but I wouldn't buy Bane as a patron for any good-aligned character--at least, not in my campaign. (Ed. Note: F&P gives specific listings of what alignments each deity takes clerics from, it is not always the basic one-step rule.) DreadStar: With "Deity-Specific Spells and Initiate Feats" The PGtF is limited to only a few gods and there are no Elf or Gnome gods on the list. Is there any plan to release an update for FR gods? Rich: No current plans for such a product. I don't want to commit to eventually creating an "Initiate of..." feat for every single deity in the FR cosmos. The idea behind the "Initiate of..." feats is that we can use these to restore the deity-only spells to clerics of specific deities, which runs counter to the interpretation we took in Magic of Faerun. But, darn it, ebon lash should be a Banite spell, not a spell any cleric can learn. The Initiate feats address that. Why doesnt Spellfire work the same way it did in 2ed? I'm not sure I can get this one exactly right; Sean Reynolds might have a better answer, since he wrote that portion of Magic of Faerun. But here are two quick thoughts that occur to me: 1. 3rd Edition was careful to divide magical attacks into three broad categories: spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities. Supernatural abilities are things that couldn't happen without magic of some kind, but aren't the same thing as a spell. A banshee's scream or a medusa's gaze are good examples. If you're in an antimagic field, how would the banshee's scream kill you? Some of the calls we made on what was supernatural and what was extraordinary (something the creature could do without any magic involved) were pretty tough--dragon's breath leaps to mind. Supernatural abilities really aren't the same things as spells in the game system. They can't be dispelled or countered for example. We all agree that spellfire should eat spells, and if spellfire eats spells it probably ought to work fine against spell-like abilities. But whether or not it should work against supernatural abilities is harder to justify. If a banshee screamed at Shandril or a medusa looked at her, would spellfire absorb that? Maybe, maybe not. 2. Spellfire in 2nd Ed. was designed to be something super-good, a real jaw-dropper of an ability that just broke the rules. That's fine in the context of fiction, but not so much in game play. One of our basic precepts in creating FR 3rd Edition is that we wanted to move away from "Here are things that some NPCs can do that you will never be able to do." Quantifying things like the Chosen of Mystra template or the spellfire rules helps to break down the barrier between NPC super-stars and your own PCs -- and that's good, because your own PCs should be the super-stars of your own campaign. By "toning down" spellfire in FR 3E, it's now possible that a confident and competent DM could play around with allowing a spellfire-using PC in his game without breaking his game entirely. You wouldn't want it to be a feature of every game, but you don't have to tell your players, "No, that's for Elminster, it's not for you." Are WotC planning on doing more Tainted characters? In Unapproachable East, there are a couple of interesting new non-good characters, and some outright evil ones. For example, the blightspawned template and the Blightlords of Talona work together to show a "tainted" druidic circle that's causing big trouble in the U-East. There's also a template for shadow-walkers, those rogues who make a deal with Mask for power over shadow, plus a Shadowlord of Telflamm prestige class that builds on those powers. Oh, and we've also converted the dread warrior to a template in U-East, so you can make almost any character into an undead minion of some necromancer somewhere. How does the Underdark source book fit in with the ongoing War of the Spider Queen novel series? Underdark kind of stays away from War of the Spider Queen, simply because we didn't want to devote too much space in the game supplement to detailing exact events of a novel series that's half done. And, to be honest, we've told you a lot about the drow in previous underdark-themed supplements (Menzoberranzan, Drow of the Underdark, Drizzt's Guide), and we wanted to show off some new places and new features. Underdark does account for major events that have occurred so far (for example, the fall of Ched Nasad), but we danced around the question of exactly what's happening with Lolth or what's going to develop with that in books 4, 5, and 6 of the War of the Spider Queen. It's an imperfect solution, but the best compromise we could reach Why where Orogs changed [from 2E]? We chose to reinvent the race and recycle the name. In 2nd Edition, an orog was simply a 3 HD orc. In 3rd Edition, if you want a 3 HD orc, you should make an Orc War3 (or Ftr3, or Bbn3). So we thought about what would be a cool new take on the orc, and came up with the notion of the "deep orcs." Will there be stat blocks presented for the quasi-iconic characters that are featured in both the City of the Spider Queen interior artwork and the Underdark cover artwork? Hmmm, we don't have plans to post them, but I think that would be a fine web article. I'll mention it to Julia Martin. In case you're curious, here are some of our "quasi-iconics" who have appeared in art in our products: Araevin, a male sun elf wizard; Evendur, a male aasimar paladin; Belmora, a female shield dwarf cleric; Sanidine, a female earth genasi fighter; Falabrac, a male ghostwise halfling druid; Teherrun, a male tiefling rogue; Lirael, a female half-elf ranger. Mara, a female human barbarian. We've got a few others, but I don't think they've shown up in much of the art yet. The WOSQ novel Disolution had something interesting that I'd like to see implemented into the gaming side of the setting. Instead of saying that when you die you turn into a Larve, Imp, Pit fiend etc. Why not populate the FR specfic god realms with there own minions seperate to the Tannar'ri and Baatezu or at least make them advanced versions. For example in Disolution Quentthel is attacked by diffrent demons each representing an aspect of Lolth ie Evil, Spiders, chaos etc. That's an interesting notion about tying domains to particular outsiders. Id also like to see more 2ed divine spells converted to 3ed specficly more from the large list of Deity specfic spells found in F&A, P&P and DhD You will be seeing some more 2nd Ed spells brought up to 3rd Ed, in the Forgotten Realms players guide What are the star elves all wearing on their heads in their pictures in the Unapproachable east? Well, just like we prefer to allow our writers a little artistic license to show us what they think is cool, we writers and wordsmiths have to allow our illustrators some artistic license, too. Usually we're very pleased with the results. In the case of the star elves... ummm, the gnolls in the same pictures are really quite good! Why did Triel Baenre lose levels when she was converted to 3ed? Hmmm, when I wrote Condemnation, I think I'd been regarding Triel as a Clr20, just like in the Drizzt's Guide. Why or when we knocked that down in Silver Marches, I couldn't tell you (hate to admit it, as I edited that book). Sorry for the confusion. Do you think its too easy to Ressurect people? No, that's a place where the game needs to follow the D&D core rules. In D&D, it's deliberately easy to bring back a dead character because we (the game designers) don't want Joe (the player whose character got whacked) to quit the game in disgust because Nerferon the Astute was rent by a troll. It bugs me as a player/DM, because easy resurrection is something you don't see in much fantasy fiction. The big out for us on the novel side is a nice little 3rd Edition inclusion in the spells--the guy you're trying to bring back to life has to be willing to return. Many characters who are killed are presumably not unwilling to simply move on to their afterlife, and aren't interested in coming back. In the case of the vast majority of novel characters killed, presumably they're OK with not coming back to Faerun. Player characters don't necessarily fit this mold, but the protagonist of a novel isn't always assumed to be a "player character" in his own story, if you see what I'm saying. So, it's not a perfect answer, but it's the best one we have. Do you guys plan to write something a bit more official than a web article in Rand's travel logs on the fate of Evereska? Well, the next time we do a product that reasonably touches on it, we will. But it might be a while before we do another product that Evereska might feature into, so it's hard to say when that might be. I'll see what I can do. Are the Baldurs Gate series games Canon? Well, Baldur's Gate is an official licensed Forgotten Realms product. We do get the opportunity to review these materials. Part of being a good licensing partner is giving your licensee an opportunity to use their media and creativity to best effect while remaining true to the core values of your intellectual property. That means accepting the fact that sometimes people will do things with your property that you might not have done, as long as they don't do things that would actively damage or invalidate the core premises of the property. (Before you guys attack me on that last bit, consider that what Hasbro/WotC define as the core premises of an intellectual property might be different than what you would define.) That said, it's my *personal* opinion (and mine alone) that anything that isn't a 3rd Edition D&D sourcebook can be treated as "optional" in a FR game. Everybody's FR campaign is different, after all--you've bought different sourcebooks, you've run different adventures, your players made up different characters, you've read and been inspired by different novels. Getting hung up in arguments over what is canon and what isn't just is not relevant, since you decide what's canon for your own games. Why were the city breakdowns left out for a lot of places in UE? And is there any chance that in future products if you're going to continue to do that could you at least give us the population of the city/town any maybe the highest level character of each class? We decided to show a selection of city breakdowns, instead of making an effort to be exhaustive. It would've taken a lot of space to provide the full "city stat block" for every city mentioned in the product. And, to tell the truth, I'm not sure how valuable the full listing of Ftr4 (3), Clr4 (2), Com5, Com4(3), etc., really is. We've adjusted our format for Underdark to a looser, less formalized presentation that emphasizes the important stuff (the important characters, plus the city guard) without the exhaustive listing of everyone who lives in the town. Dargoth: While theres a PrCs, Feats and a template theres no sections for Mind flayers in Races of the Underdark or the Regions section of the book. Why not? Rich: They're discussed principally as villains, which is why they don't appear in the races chapter (except for a passing mention). A mind flayer is ECL 15 without class levels; that's pretty brutal. But trust me, plenty of sinister illithid badness appears in Underdark. Cunning Linguist: Where do Baneliches stand in the Black Hand Hierarchy? Seeing being a Banelich is given to those “chosen” by Bane, why should they follow Fzoul who is just another chosen, and not as strong as the most powerfull Banelich? Do they follow the Orthodox Banites who owe there allegiance to the High Imperceptor of Bane in Mulmaster? Or to the follow the new reformed church lead by Fzoul? Or do they follow this Dark Druid whom I have heard about on these boards? Does Bane still give out the formula for this Lich transformation, or has he started giving out Chosen templates instead? Rich: OK, just a matter of opinion here... It's still in Bane's interest to encourage the creation of baneliches. Having powerful spellcasters who owe their very existence to you sure seems like a smart way to accumulate magical muscle. As far as the exact relationship of baneliches to the rest of the church--I don't know. We haven't written the 3rd Edition product that really dissects the Church of Bane yet (although Lords of Darkness or Faiths & Pantheons would have been the right place to do something like that), so I simply haven't thought it out yet. Arrange it however you want it in your campaign, I don't think we'll be addressing it until 2005 at the earliest. I suppose I could see that the baneliches would not like Fzoul's ascendance at all, but if Bane says, "This is my guy, you listen to him," I think they don't go real far in expressing their disobedience. Bane's church is LE, not CE, so you don't always advance by hunting down your superiors and killing them. You simply do your best to demonstrate that you're the most competent evil guy around, and trust that the Big Man at the head of the whole thing will take notice and promote you accordingly. Wullenwever: Concerning the Underdark Web Enhancement (if you might be one who can answer these). There are a few issues that strike me as odd, perhaps you could lighten things up a bit? Rich: The web enhancement is made up of stuff that was in the raw design draft. It didn't get developed or edited in RPG R&D. I hate to suggest that it's not really "official," but I know that I never really set my eyes on it, so I can't really speak for its accuracy. When the FRCS (and thus 3.0 FR) came out, it was discussed that the idea of the drow equipment which dissolved in sunlight had been ditched. Why bring it back in Underdark via the Drowcraft enhancement? Rich: Note that there is a reason for drowcraft weapons, above and beyond the you-don't-get-my-treasure shtick. Because they confer a luck bonus, not an enhancement bonus, they stack *very* well with greater magic weapon. A drow who plans to spend a lot of time in his native faerzress doesn't really pay any attack or damage bonus to acquire the drowcraft property, and gets the ability to make his sword super-good with a greater magic weapon spell. DreadStar: Whats the reason for putting Hard Covers on books that are under 200 pages? The HC raises the price of the book without really adding more protection. Rich: It's a business decision that I don't really have much of a say on. We do it because we've got evidence that more consumers prefer hardbacks to softcovers. Ill: I have a problem with the metalline property from Underdark. It's not with the price or how powerful it is, as such. The problem I have with it is that it specifically contradicts the statement in the DMG, in the "Behind the Curtain: Special Weapons Materials" Sidebar regarding not imitating cold iron via magic. So why was it put in? Would the price change if it didn't allow cold iron? Rich: In truth, it's a deliberate sop to the folks who think they absolutely, positively, can't stand DR in 3.5. We don't think it's necessary or even a good idea, but we know that someone's going to insist on putting something like that in their game, and so we figured we'd better do some "pre-emptive" design and find a way to cost and present it appropriately. Sure, if you specifically disallowed cold iron, that would make the property much less useful. You'd probably leave it "set" on adamantine and switch to silver only when necessary. I'd house rule that a +1 property, if you knocked out cold iron. The Fall of Myth Drannor mentions a wizard named Tulrun the Tent. Is this the same wizard mentioned in Silver Marches? Eric Boyd: Yes. I wrote up a Polyhedron article (don't remember the issue) detailing the history of Tulrun that gives history and abilities, that stretches from the North to Myth Drannor and back to the North. It'll take a little bit of squaring up to reconcile it with Silver Marches, but it is possible. Volo's Guide To All Things Magical mentions that a priestess called The Ice Queen used the Gatekeeper Crystal to shatter a mythal. Is this the same Ice Queen as Iryaclea (page 110 in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting)? Eric Boyd: Yes. She also shows up in the Epic Level Handbook, IIRC. Knightcrawler: Are there any plans to produce more PrC's to expand on the Champions of Faith in Faiths & Pantheons? Eric Boyd: While I certainly can't speak to whether or not there are plans for additional PrCs for the "core 30" gods of the Faerunian pantheon, I can speak to how we picked which PrC/god combos to do in F&P. In short, Erik & I went through the core 30 gods and tried to identify which faiths could not really be represented by a multiclass combination. For example, a devout follower of Torm can easily be represented as a paladin/cleric multiclass. However, for a follower of Sune, no such multiclass combination was obvious. This is not to say, in any way, that a very good PrC for a devout follower of Torm might not be designed some day. However, we had limited space for that section, and thus focused on the gods that really didn't match up well with multiclass combinations of the core classes. Wooly Rupert: Are wild mages and elemental mages, from the old Tome of Magic, still around? I had a blast playing a wild mage... Rich: Short answer: Not really. The elemental savant is probably your best bet for an elemental mage. Or try the wu jen from Oriental Adventures, if you like your spells divvied up by elements. I have a wild mage prestige class I've just written for a future product. I'm afraid it's a little ways off, though, and I can't say more than that. Ed. Note: One might speculate that the product in question is Complete Arcane Cassius Harkanor Why was there a prestige class for Myrkul in the Faiths and Pantheons, specially one are restrictive as the Horned Harbringer? Was this to be some future plot device and you were giving us a sneak peak? Eric Boyd: My intent in designing this class was to illustrate that you can have prestige classes for dead gods and that a prestige class can be tied to something other than an organization or "role". I also thought it was a cool use of a classic artifact. Neither the Horned Harbringer nor the Ocular Adept are "typical" religion-based prestige classes, which was in part the intent. As for whether WoTC will ever pick up this plot device I have no idea ... but never say never. Dargoth: Also when you next do a Regional supplement is there any chance you can go back to using the layout used in the Old FR adventures hardcover for the cities? Rich: I favor the system we began using in Underdark. We don't list out the whole population, but we do list out the numbers/levels of significant organizations such as militias, militant clergies, royals guards, and so on. I'm not 100% happy with the 3rd Edition notion of "power centers" and its implementation in our city stat blocks, but we're not likely to change it at this point. In the 3.0 supplements there was a firm policy that FR books required/used only material from the FRCS, and the core rule books. The 3.5 PGtF seems to be changing this, is this a broad policy change? Rich: Yes, we are changing that stance. We want to reward folks who have integrated systems like psionics or epic play in their games by including a very modest amount of psionic, epic, etc., material in future sourcebooks. We don't want this material to exceed more than 5% or so of any particular product, so that you can pick up a book and still get lots of benefit out of it if you're not a fan of the cap system book in question. So yes, this means that you will have small "unusable" sections in your books. We're sorry about that, but we think that in some cases (Vile Darkness material, say) it shouldn't be very hard at all to extrapolate the necessary material if you don't have the sourcebook in question. Elven High Magic is clearly epic spellcasting of some kind, and it doesn't make sense to portray it otherwise, not when we have a toolkit like the epic level rules at our disposal. Kronos_C: The Cavelord PrC from Underdark seems to be ideal for Barbarians and Rangers, and the flavor text says as much, but unfortunatly it has Knowledge (Local) 8 Ranks as one of its Requirements. But neither the Ranger nor the Barbarian have Knowledge (Local) as a class skill, is this some sort of mistake? Or is it intentional so you would have to take a level of Wizard/Bard/Rogue to qualify for this class? Rich: I agree it's very restrictive, but I can't say that it's a mistake. One level of rogue will certainly help you to knock out that skill requirement much faster, and lots of rangers don't mind a level of rogue anyway. Wooly Rupert: What does Qilué's status as Chosen of Eilistraee mean? Is it a title, or is it in fact something rather more, as with the Chosen of Mystra? Rich: Here's what I think it means: I think it means that Qilue has both a Chosen of Mystra template (which we've defined) and a Chosen of Eillistraee template (which we haven't yet defined). I believe that's our intent in 3rd Ed. FR. Since we haven't described the Chosen of Eillistraee template anywhere in 3rd Ed., I have no idea what it might or might not do (and I'm not going to take a shot at designing it in this post). IMO, it's about time we seriously lassoed the Chosen question and nailed it down--i.e., which gods get Chosen, how the Chosen templates differ from each other, how your PC can become a Chosen, and so on. That's a big hunk of a major sourcebook, though. (Ed. Note: It should be noted that other designers have held that "Chosen of Eilistraee" is only a title.) Yoritomo Katsui: What colour are the skin of Mountain orcs and Orogs? Rich: Mountain orcs are supposed to be just like Monster Manual orcs. Looking at the picture on p. 203, I'd say greenish-gray. Based on the illo in Races of Faerun, it seems orogs have similar coloration. Dargoth: Do the Shadow Druids still exist as an organisation in 3ed FR? (the Shadow Druids appeared in the Baldur gate PC game but where also PnP canon as they appeared in the Complete book of Druids) Rich: We haven't specifically gotten rid of them, so yes, I'd say they're still around. Capn Charlie: On page187 of the FRCS in the line directly under "Important Sites" it states that there is roughly 20,000 Mulhorandi soldiers in Unther. Is that per city, in total, or am I missing something? It also says the same thing on page 185 under the same heading, is that just reinforcing the fact that 20,000 of their citizens are away? Rich: I'm pretty sure that it's 20,000 total. And yes, I think it's just reminding you that a big part of Mulhorand's army is over in Unther now. Israfel666: What do you think about the Ur-Priest prestige class from the Book of Vile Darkness, and how it can be applied to the Realms? Rich: I see no reason that the ur-priest couldn't work in FR. The flavor text of the prestige class strongly suggests that they're stealing or borrowing divine power, so I don't see any hang-up over where they're getting their spells from. Dargoth: Do Deity Aspects (As seen in the monster section of the Minis handbook) exist in the FR? Rich: Yes. I know that there's some question of how aspects are meant to work with the things that have already been said about various FR deities, but they're in the FR game, the same way that any new "thing" from a core book--a prestige class, a magic item, a spell, whatever--is in the game. Master Fu: We going to see more about the Monks of the Dark Moon, perhaps in novels? Rich: Haven't used the Dark Moon monks yet, but I hope we will soon. Sometimes we just put things out there as "tools" for the "DM toolbox," and trust that some DMs will catch on to something and have a lot of fun featuring it in their games. Not everything needs a master plan. druid berrymore: Does Thorass correspond with the letters of the english language? Rich: I think it does. I wish I could say for sure, but the letters were generated by one of our artists, and I don't know precisely what he had in mind. I sure wish we'd included the English letters right alongside them, though--it would have made a lot more sense. Shardal: I was thinking that Doppelganger would be great NPC or PC as a Telfammar shadowlord and shadow-walker, but UE states that shadow-walker template can be only added to any "humanoid", so my question is can it be added also to any monstrous humanoid as well? Since Doppelgangers are listed as one of Masks favourite races it would fit perfectly to it. Rich: Strictly speaking, a humanoid is a humanoid, and monstrous humanoids aren't. This is tough, because there are lots of things that are "close" to humanoids, really--what's the difference between an ogre and a bugbear? In my campaign, I wouldn't let a strict interpretation of a rule get in the way of a cool idea. I would be very careful about allowing a PC doppelganger, because there's no end of trouble that could cause, but as an NPC opponent for the players...sure, why not? I've been wondering if we ought to create a monster feat somewhere called, for lack of a better term, "Human Enough." I'd limit it to giants, fey, monstrous humanoids, and probably native outsiders. Take the feat, and you can now call yourself a humanoid for purposes of qualifying for things. It would be an easier patch to implement than to go back and change the definitions of a number of prestige classes and templates, and it would set a cost for a creature to do something that's evidently difficult for things of its type to do. Just an idea. jsaving: Several of the new prestige classes can only be taken by worshippers of a specific deity (like the morninglord). Is this purely a 'flavor' issue or are there mechanical reasons why other clerics shouldn't be allowed to take them? Similarly, are there any balance problems with mixing and matching those prestige classes (for example with a cleric who levels up as a morninglord and then as a justicar)? Rich: I suppose the only mechanical reason is that you can only be a cleric of one deity at a time. To tell the truth, it never entered my head that a cleric might pick up a few levels in morninglord and then say, "OK, now I'm ready to ditch Lathander." Other than that, they're all cleric prestige classes, so it's not any more dangerous than someone picking up levels in warpriest, divine disciple, and consecrated harrier. jsaving: Initiate feats have similar deity requirements. Are there any balance problems with letting someone take more than one of those (for example being an initiate of Lathander and an initiate of nature) Rich: Same thing for the Initiate feats. I think there is a mechanical shut-down on taking more than one; if you have a feat that you no longer qualify for, you can't use it. So, if you got to Strength 13 with a Strength +2 item, and then you lost your magic item, you couldn't use your Power Attack any more. Ditto with the initiate feats. Changing patron deities should make the old feat unavailable, IMO. Dracnor_the_dwarf: Where can I find out what happened to Tilverton? The explanation for what happened in Tilverton can be found in Troy Denning's Return of the Archwizards novel trilogy, which came out a couple of years ago. The anthology Realms of Shadow also has a short story addressing Tilverton's fate. [b][i]jsaving: If a cleric decides to become a specialty priest (via. joining one of the special deity-specific PrCs) of his deity, is he considered to be "more dedicated" or "more devout" than a similar person who sticks with cleric? If so, is this because deities hold their specialty priests in higher esteem or is it because only the most dedicated worshippers choose to enter the specialty priest classes (or both)? Rich: I don't know if we've really succeeded in conveying this yet, but here's the philosophical angle I would take... specialty priests represent a narrow focus on a very specific part of a deity's portfolio or role, while clerics of that deity tend to be better at seeing the "big picture." Neither is really more dedicated or devout than the other; it's simply a choice of whether you view justice as the best/most important part of Tyr's portfolio, and therefore want to be a justicar, or instead think that law, mercy, good, war, and other aspects are equally as important.
Arkenian 04-05-04, 12:39 PM	Epic spells and Mystra ban We haven't spelled it out officially yet, but here's my opinion on Mystra's ban: You can't make a 10th-level spell. The ban specifically does *not* mean you can't metamagic up a 9th-level or lower spell. Nor does it prevent you from researching and casting epic spells. I think the ban's function in game terms is to say, "Don't invent a spell list of 10th-level spells that simply follow the spell progression patterns established for 9th level and lower spells." You might ask, What's the functional in-world difference between a "10th-level spell" and an "epic" spell? I suppose my answer would be, you need the proper feats and must pay the appropriate research costs to use epic spells, while a true 10th-level spell would actually represent a logical progression on the wizard spell table. If you had such a thing, any 19th-level wizard would be able to cast one. But, as matters stand now, epic spells aren't acquired through the simple extrapolation of the existing wizard spell progression. So, "in-world", I'd say that before Karsus' fall, the Netherese arcanists (and possibly all wizards in Faerun) enjoyed a spell progression that gave 'em 1 10th-level spell at 19th level, possibly an 11th-level spell at 21st level, and so on. The effect of Mystra's ban was to configure wizard spell progression to its current (3.0 PHB) state, and make super-powered spells something you could only get through epic feats and expensive research. That's just my two cents; we haven't written that down anywhere yet. It's an awkward "patch" to explain the effects of the edition change, so take it for what it's worth. Rich: We had some text that addressed how epic magic worked with the Realms backstory, but on looking through my copy of the PGtoF, it looks like it was cut. As I see it, Mystra won't (or can't?) simply disallow epic magic with an act of will because of the repercussions in the pantheon and the mortal world. However, she is a very powerful deity, and she might use other means to ensure that research into epic spells she finds especially dangerous somehow fails. More on Mystras ban: if an epic spellcaster spends the ressources and xps necessary to research a spell the gods of magic will allow it to work however destructive that spell may be, or that they don'T have the power to forbid epic spellcasting? Well, the "gods of magic" is coming darned close to saying "does the DM allow it, even if you've broken the epic spell seed construction rules", and I wouldn't want to say that the DM can't Rule Zero anything that's causing real grief in his game. So, the short answer is yes, if an epic spellcaster obeys the epic spellcasting rules, Mystra should let it go--but Mystra isn't stupid, and if someone were working on an epic spell like Slay All Gods, she might intervene. Mr. Wilson:If I understand this statement correctly, Mystra does not have a problem with Epic Level spells, and thus they can be researched and casted with no hinderance from her, correct? If this is the case, then why don't spell casters like El, Khelbon, Szass Tam, and the Simbul have access to epic spells? To say nothing of creatures like the Creeping Death, or even Larloch. Rich: Yep, that is certainly what I meant. Regarding the question of why some of our epic FR spellcasters don't have many epic spells -- well, I think we haven't quite got their epic interpretation down yet. Part of that is the problem of parallel development (we work on multiple projects at the same time). Are the Chosen of Mystra broken because they don't advantage of this feature? No. Would we specifically call it out as errata and try to implement a change? No. Did we miss the opportunity to make use of the best possible rules options? Yes -- but that doesn't mean the game doesn't work. Ed. Note: The PGtF says only: "These new epic spells contain some of the vast and powerful repertoire of the archmages of Netheril or the elven high mages. A few spells that are more generally use for epic spellcaster in Faerūn are included as well." The Simbul:Does Epic Spellcasting require the fufillment of any additional requirements, either based upon statistics or regional/cultural/educational character background, for a realms character to take the feat? Rich: No. The Simbul: Do epic spells still draw on the weave? Rich: Yes, epic spells still draw upon the Weave. (This is something I wanted to make sure we clarified, so I was a little disappointed to find that it had been axed for space.) I'm not sure what the right answer is for the interaction of dead magic and wild magic areas and epic spells. The Simbul: Do Epic Spells require the express permission of the appropriate deity (Mystra, Shar, and to a much lesser degree Corellon Larethian) in order to be cast or sucessfully developed? Rich: No (but it seems reasonable that the gods you name *could* intervene directly to smack down folks researching epic spells if they didn't think to ask permission first). The Simbul: Then, are their overarching limits with regard to the types of spell effects which can be wielded? Rich: See above. Beyond that, presumably the zulkirs haven't developed the Take Over the World spell yet because Mystra's quietly let a couple of 'em know that she's really not interested in seeing a Take Over the World spell developed. Even the previous neutral Mystra wouldn't have liked that much. Another Gnome: Do psionic abilities use the Weave as a medium in the Realms unless they're tied to Shadow Weave (as in the "Subpsionics" Mind's Eye article) or is there a third, psionic weave for psionics? Furthermore, do all spell-like and supernatural effects use the Weave as a medium unless they use the Shadow Weave? The answer to this question can now be found in PGtF pg. 172: Excerpting the key sentence (although there's several paragraphs) "While psionics does not require the Weave to function, psionic powers are magical in nature." They are, thus, subject to antimagic fields, but not DMZs Raistlin84: If elves can still create mythals and work on them, then is someone that discover the secrets of mythallars able to create one? Rich: My opinion: Yes, you could make one. It would be an epic spell (ritual variety) of some sort. The Karsus' Avatar spell was originally slated as an Epic Spell for the PGtF, presumably to illustrate the point about epic magic. Can you tell us anything about it? Rich: The Spellcraft DC is 240, so you're not going to throw it as soon as you crack 21st level. Also, the casting time is 6 hours, and the targeted deity becomes aware of the attempt as soon as you start and is free to interrupt you by any means at his/her disposal. Kade_Millan Will you be releasing (if you haven't already) material describing the Epic spells of the various Epic Spellcasters in FR along with any Epic items they might carry? Rich: No specific plans to do so. Might make a great Dragon article, though. (A few epic spells are found in Player's Guide to Faerun)
Arkenian 04-05-04, 12:41 PM	Is WotC working on a Manual of the Planes for the FR cosmology? The FRCS has some info on the FR cosmology. This is greatly expanded, along with planar statistics, in the PGtF. The MotP FAQ (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/er/20030221a)) could be viewed as a secondary source. Nothing else is planned. How does the Forgotten Realms cosmology fit in with the Manual of the planes? The 3E Manual of the Planes introduced the idea that each world might have its own unique cosmology, and Realms seemed well-suited to implement that notion. The fiction seems to generally support the notion of a unique cosmology at least as well as it does the 2E Great Wheel. (From the MotP FAQ (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/er/20030221a)): In general, you have two options for using the Manual of the Planes in an FR campaign. First, you can assume that the FR cosmology is the only cosmology that exists, which is the default assumption for FR campaigns. Or, you can assume that the FR cosmology is part of a larger multiverse that contains two or more cosmologies. If you take this option, you should assume that the Plane of Shadow provides the sole link between the FR cosmology and other cosmologies. You can, of course, choose other options, but these two involve the least work on your part and allow you to make the fullest use of future FR game material. Details on FR planes are found in PGtF, except for the following changes to Astral and Ethereal planes (also found in the FAQ): The Astral Plane: In the FR cosmology, the Astral Plane is a transitive plane, but it is finite, not infinite, and its various branches and tendrils give the cosmology its treelike shape. The diagram on page 157 of the FORGOTTEN REALMS Campaign Setting shows the Astral Plane’s branched structure. The Astral Plane is coterminous with every other plane in the cosmology, but because the plane is not infinite, direct interplanar travel in FR via the astral plane (such as via gate or plane shift)is possible only along an astral branch. The heavy lines on the diagram show these astral branches. Note that it is not possible to travel from one plane to another without passing through Toril (the Prime Material Plane) or using one of the interplanar structures found on pages 140&141 of the PGtF such as the World Tree or River of Blood. Some of the FORGOTTEN REALMS deities have forged minor astral links, however, between some Outer Planes and demiplanes; these are shown as light lines on the diagram (for example, between Arvandor and Brightwater). Details on planar links are found in the FRCS and the PGtF. The Astral Plane in the FR cosmology offers no connections with other cosmologies, not even to any Astral Planes that might exist in other cosmologies. In all other respects, the Astral Plane is identical to the Astral Plane described in the Manual of the Planes. The Ethereal Plane: The Ethereal Plane is coexistent with Toril, but it offers no links or access to any other plane. It is otherwise identical to the Ethereal Plane described in the Manual of the Planes. It is also a transitive plane, even though it can't take you anywhere. Thog: What were the reasons the FR design team had for changing the cosmology from standard D&D "Great Wheel" to the Great Tree model? Rich: Three big reasons, really: 1. The 3rd Edition Manual of the Planes formalized the notion of alternate D&D cosmologies, so the tools to do the job came into existence while the FRCS was in design. 2. The Realms pantheon doesn't have folks like Odin or Zeus in it, so why should the Realms multiverse include places like Olympus or Valhalla? 3. In general, we did not feel beholden to adhere strictly to the "take" on something offered by a previous edition. We didn't want to change things for the sake of changing them, but if we felt we had a way to improve some aspect of the IP, we were willing to do so. Some folks will argue that changing the cosmology was not an improvement, but we felt that resolving the logical questions implied by #2 above was a good enough reason to abandon the 2E Great Wheel cosmology. SKR: We put Toril at the center of the Faerunian cosmology because we wanted to explain why the gods and other outsiders were always passing through. Basically, it's easier to use existing connections (portals) than make your own, so unless you have access to the portal that connects Plane X to Plane Y, going through Toril is probably much easier than tracking down a gate spell or the equivalent. How does the Blood war fit into the Forgotten Realms cosmology? It's pretty clear from several FR sources that baatezu and tanar'ri fight each other at every opportunity (Hellgate Keep, for instance), so I'd presume that the Blood War, or some version thereof, is a part of the FR planar picture. In the PGtF we see that the blood war is fought largely along the River of Blood through an area where Yugoloths live known as the Blood Rift. Part of the notion behind the unique cosmology of the FRCS is that things that would normally happen between the planes have to pass through Faerun. The reason we did that is to provide DMs with plenty of excuses for bringing almost any planar monsters, creatures, developments, etc., right into the middle of his FR campaign. Whats the deal with Orcus in the Forgotten Realms? I wish I could say there was a sound, well thought-out, involved explanation for the vicissitudes of Orcus, but I can't. Orcus has been an odd fit in FR since the days of the Bloodstone Lands, and he fell victim to the "transplanar existence" of 2E--Orcus getting whacked somewhere else meant Orcus getting whacked in FR. So, I guess I can't provide a good explanation. I suppose Orcus proved tougher than Kiaransalee expected. He last appeared in Faiths&Pantheons on pg. 221 as a lesser deity. Zanan: There is a debate regarding Orcus' divine ranking as a Lesser Deity, which would put a returned god without much worshippers at an equal standing to Mask, Loviatar or his arch-enemy Kiaransalee, who can all boast with thousands of worshippers. How did Orcus manage this jump in rank and why doesn't he follow the outlines given in BoVD with regards to Demon Princes and divine rankings, i.e. maximum DR of 1 or 2? Rich: That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange eons even death may die. Or so said H.P. Lovecraft, anyway. Regarding Orcus's divine rank, well, just like Lolth is different from core D&D in the Realms, it's OK if Orcus is different from core D&D. It seems plausible that Orcus has the most worshipers of any demon or devil because of his position in the Bloodstone Lands. I'd sure believe that Orcus might have more worshipers than Savras, or Velsharoon, or maybe even Eldath or Istishia. GoodOlWillickers: I know spelljammer is no longer supported, but do you have any plans to make all the words like Faerun, Oerth and Krynn (since I hear you're bringing that back to life) on the same Prime with some means of travel between the "Crystal spheres?" Is there some reason why you completely dropped the entirity of the spelljammer setting? Rich: I wouldn't say that we've explicitly dropped it. We just haven't talked about it much. The FRCS discussion on "the Sea of Night" with its off-handed mention of flying ships and other worlds of is intended to refer to Realmspace. Kuje31: It is said in the FRCS, that only divine casters have to take a patron deity. However, the Sage has said in the WOTC faq for FR, that all characters, no matter if they are divine casters or not, have to take a patron deity. So is it all characters must have a patron or is it only divine casters? Rich: Without looking at the FAQ, my gut feeling is that the FRCS is right. Divine casters need patrons to get their spells. Other than that, any character is free to have a patron or not, as he or she chooses. It's just remarkably stupid to *not* have a patron, given the workings of death and the afterlife in Faerun. Savras: How come Savras is only a demigod? He has a broad portfolio including: Divination, which is a whole school of magic; Truth, which seems rather large and cool; and Fate, which seems to be the ultimate portfolio. Rich: Ummm, I guess I'm not sure what exactly to tell you. If it really bugs you that Savras is a demigod, well, you can certainly Rule 0 that in your game. I would suppose that the answer to the question "Why is he a demigod instead of a lesser god?" is simply, Savras was in a stick for a long, long time. (I also suppose that, in Faerun as in the real world, Truth might sometimes be overvalued. And if Fate is simply "you're the god of knowing what's going to happen but being completely unable to alter it because the universe has doomed you to impotence," maybe it's not such a great portfolio either.) Kuje31: Faiths and Pantheons changed the wording on what was written in the FRCS and Magic of Faerun, regarding whether Mystra is the Weave itself or not. So which is true, is she the Weave, just like Chauntea is Toril, and Selune is the moon. Are the rest of the gods, thier portfolios or are they seperate beings from thier portfolios? Rich: I hesitate to follow that statement to its logical conclusion. It makes the existence of multiple pantheons difficult to reconcile, at best. I'm going to take the Rule 0 dodge on this -- make it work the way that seems best in your campaign. (In other words, this is a big complicated question that I just don't have time to sort out today, and it isn't affecting many campaigns out there, so I'm not likely to tackle it soon. Gosh, guys, throw me some easy ones!) Wooly Rupert: The moon, Selūné, is actually a pretty nice place. But the late Lady of the Mists, Leira, had placed an illusion on the near side of Selūné, making it appear about as habitable as our own moon is. So, what happened to the illusion during the ToT, and what's the current status of it? Is Cyric maintaining the illusion, perhaps, and if so, what do the locals know or think about that? Rich: Boy, here's one that I just have to say: I don't know. For some crazy reason, it seems to me that Selune should inherit responsibility for "How does the moon look?" instead of Cyric. If Cyric were in charge of it, it would be a great big Black Sun, wouldn't it? He couldn't pass up the opportunity for promoting himself on a scale like that. This is one of those questions where I just prefer not to give a definitive answer. I haven't had to put something in print about it, and until I have to and therefore think about it seriously, I don't want to tie my hands with a quick answer Cassius Harkanor: Does Bast/Sharess no longer belong in the Mulhorandi pantheon? The Powers and Pantheons describe her as a Faerun/Mulhorandi deity (althouh with different names) but the new Faiths and Pantheons has her as a Faerun deity only? Is she a cross deity or a Faerun deity now? Rich: You know, I'm not sure about the Bast/Sharess question. I'm inclined to regard her as Faerun only, treating Faiths & Pantheons as more authoritative than a 2nd Ed. product. There's certainly a lot of overlap between them. When was the Dawn Cataclysm? Will there be more info on it in future products? Rich: No current plans. Eric Boyd: Godly events occur outside the normal timestream. Even if a godly event was a single "scene", the ramifications of such an event might manifest at various times over a very long time frame. Or not. The Dawn Cataclysm is an example of a godly event that occurred outside the normal timestream, yet the ramifications in the mortal world appear to have occurred over a period of centuries. As such, there never can be a "date" for the Dawn Cataclysm other than circa -100 DR to circa 800 DR, and even that might be too narrow. The Time of Troubles is an example of a godly event that occurred outside the normal timestream, yet the ramifications in the mortal world appear to have occurred over a period of months. I stress "appeared" because future ramifications may yet occur. As such, mortals can with false precision date the Time of Troubles to the summer of 1358 DR. And, before the question is asked, this is not a 20/20 hindsight fix to the Dawn Cataclysm question ... that's how Julia [Martin] and I intended it from the beginning. Yes it's a "conundrum" but that's OK ... mortal attempts to fix the gods to affairs of the mortal world are inherently imprecise and doomed to failure. Iakhovas: Wait, aren't there some simple basic questions we could ask that should have fixed dates? What was the date (in Dalereckoning) that Beshaba started granting spells to her first cleric? What was the date Amaunator stopped granting spells? When did Jannath tell her clergy that she wanted to henceforth be known as Chauntea? Eric Boyd: There most certainly was a specific date when a cleric first identified himself/herself as a cleric of Beshaba, not Tyche, and received spells. (The exact date has not been pinned down to my knowledge.) However, this event may have occurred before, during, or after Tyche was split into two gods. There most certainly was a date when the last cleric claiming to be a cleric of Amaunator received his last spells. (The exact date has not been pinned down to my knowledge.) However, this event may have occurred before, during, or after the death of Amaunator (assuming he actually died). There most certainly was a date when a cleric first claimed that she venerated Chauntea, not Jannath. (The exact date has not been pinned down to my knowledge.) However, this event may have occurred before, during, or after the time Chauntea decided her name had changed. I'm not trying to be smart here ... I'm simply trying to illustrate that there is no 1-to-1 correlation between the mortal realm and the godly realm. There also is no clear cause-and-effect relationship. For instance, did Araushnee rebel and Corellon banish her because the drow rebelled against their kindred or was it the other way around? Probably both and neither are true. Perhaps another way to explain it is as follows: The Dawn Cataclysm was a pantheonic transformation, not a historical event. Of course, if you dislike all the stated and implied "theology" in this answer and the deity books, feel free to disregard and make the Dawn Cataclysm a historical event in your campaign. Just be prepared to find a lot of chronological conundrums because there has *deliberately* never been any attempt to pick a date and keep all references consistent with it. Wooly Rupert: When someone who is Faithless dies, they get stuck in the Wall as punishment. So what happens when someone dies before they have a chance to make a choice? For example, a toddler is too young to even comprehend the concept of deities. So, do they get stuck in the Wall -- punished for not making a choice they can't comprehend -- or does someone else claim their soul? Rich: Heck, I don't know. My guess would be that the deity whom the soul shows the most affinity takes the soul. So, an infant whose parents were devout Lathanderites is probably looked out for by Lathander, even though the infant made no conscious choice to worship Lathander. The cosmos can be hard, but it's not actively malicious. Cunning Linguist: Im reading the new Underdark book, and it appears that Throrgar has a portal to a plane (Cocytus, the second layer of Pandemonium) not in the FR cosmology? Rich: This is a typo. We should have said the Supreme Throne (we think that's the most Pandemonium-like of the FR planes). Herr Doktor: There is a reference to the city of Sigil in the write up for the Abbey of the Sword. It's a keyed portal beneath the abbey that leads to Sigil according to the book. Is this a typo? Where is Sigil in the FR cosmology? Rich: No, I think it's a valid reference. I see no reason why Sigil's existence is at odds with the FR cosmology. It's the city that is nowhere and everywhere--more a reflection of Sigil's nature than Faerun's, I think. (Specifically, in the FR cosmology, Sigil sits off in the same sort of cosmic corner as Cynosure. It's a unique plane.) Kuje31: Is the Sigil in FR the same Sigil of the Great Wheel? Rich: My answer: Yes, it is the same Sigil. It might seem bizarre that Sigil, a feature of the Great Wheel cosmology, has anything to do with the FR cosmology. But, as I said before, I think this contradiction is a reflection of Sigil's nature, not FR's nature. Sigil is the place from which you can get to anywhere else. Realms characters who visit it might be startled to learn about alternate cosmologies for different worlds, I suppose. Yamo: Why are there planetouched in 3ed when theres no mention of them in previous FR products Rich: Well, it's probably not fair to describe this as a "continuity error" when we decided to make a deliberate and reasoned change to the setting. We included the Planetouched because FR has always had a lot of planar material. The notion of divine or infernal bloodlines and genie descent was certainly raised in spots like Old Empires, the daemonfey, and Calimshan. The 3E Planetouched races do make this aspect of the setting far more prominent than it used to be (perhaps even too prominent, really), but it's not completely without some justification in 2E material. Spuritarrantius: For Aasimar and Tieflings, does it matter what type of celestial or demonic parentage they had? Rich: The exact parentage doesn't matter -- although it does suggest some cool racial feats for these guys, like Marilith Blood or Planetar Spawn or something. Spuritarrantius: If you made a planetouched creature into a Shade, does their type still change to outsider, even though they are already a native outsider? Rich: Sorry to say it, but you can't make planetouched into shades. You can only apply the shade template to humanoids, and the planetouched are native outsiders, as you've observed. Chemosh: But in F&P it lists Volumvax the half-fiend shade, and LoD lists Shangalar the Black as a Tiefling Lich. This would seem impossible, am I missing something? Rich: Yes, you can only apply the templates to humanoids. So that means that we goofed in Faiths & Pantheons and Lords of Darkness. Good catches. However, all that said, a tiefling is really so close to a humanoid that I don't mind slapping templates on one as if it were a humanoid. (On the other hand, the half-fiend shade is a very busy pair of templates, so I would shy away from that one.) TechnoLurker: Are shades outsiders or native outsiders? Rich: Just outsiders. It's kind of interesting if you can blow shades into the Plane of Shadow with a holy word. Freakboy: I was wondering if you could tell me what the ECL for the Draegloth is or if you could point me to a source where I could find it? Rich: I'm pretty sure we haven't come out and given a LA for the draegloth yet. Here's my ballpark guess: +5. Remember, you've got 6 good racial Hit Dice, too, so a total ECL of 11 seems about right. That's just a guess on my part.
Arkenian 04-05-04, 12:42 PM	Whats the deal with Elven high magic and epic magic? Are they the same? Yes. A high-mage PrC is found in Races of Faerūn, which is based on the epic spellcasting rules. In the Player's Guide to Faerūn there are even a few high magic rituals statted out as epic spells. High magic- Circle magic as a bonus feat? I've gone back and examined epic spellcasting (Epic Level Handbook) and the elven high mage prestige class (Races of Faerun), and I don't think there's really a need to create a special "epic circle magic" feat. Basically, the ritual component of epic magic (see page 92 of the Epic Level Handbook) does exactly that. Is the elven high mage prestige class supposed to be infinate like other epic classes? I'll have to look over the elven high mage and get back to you, but I think the answer is yes, it's infinite. Other epic prestige classes in Epic Level Handbook (like Union Sentinel) are infinite, so the elven high mage should be too. I'd use your "wait two levels, wait three levels" model to extrapolate the class abilities. Why has the history of Elven crown wars changed in Races of Faerun? Rich: Why did the history of the Crown Wars change? The short answer: It's a mistake, for which I am mostly responsible. The reason the mistake occurred is that during the development of the Races of Faerun manuscript, one of the things I had to do was cut a whole lot of Eric Boyd's words because he overwrote some of his sections, such as the elves. No bad on Eric--his writing is fine, it's well-researched, and it's generally good stuff. It just didn't fit in the space I had available. So, most "errors" of omission probably stemmed from that fact alone. As far as tagging the Ilythiiri with responsibility for the Dark Disaster, I might have done that inadvertently while working with Eric's material, or he might have got in wrong in his design draft (not very likely, it's probably my bad). Will the new history of the elves detailed in Races of Faerun be considered canon or ill there be some eratta that corrects the mistake? Heck, I'm not sure. I don't know when the topic will come up again in another sourcebook. Off the top of my head, I think we should probably "reset" to the Cormanthyr version and not perpetuate the Races of Faerun mistake, but I hate to tell a future author to ignore a 3E source in favor of a 2E source. If I'm around when the topic comes up again, I'll make sure we use the right version. But that might be years away. Given that it took the elves thousands of years to decide to retreat to evermeet why has it taken them such a small amount of time to decide its failed? To be fair, as far as I can tell from the game product, the debate about the Retreat did not become prominent until after the fall of Myth Drannor (714 DR, IIRC). And not all elves have signed off on the idea that the Retreat is over. If 10 elves left Faerun during the Retreat, and 1 or 2 of them changed their minds during the last decade or so and decided to return, it doesn't mean that the Retreat failed or that all elves who did Retreat are going to go back. Bladesinger- can drow become bladesingers or not? Based on my reading of the Races of Faerun printing of the bladesinger class, yes. I don't see a good reason to say drow *can't* do it. In my own campaign I'd probably limit it to drow followers of Eilistraee or drow with lots of exposure to the surface world. Zanan: This question has been asked before, when the debate went along the lines that surface Elven and Drow, after some ten thousand years of separation should be quite different languages, and thus, by default, surface Elves would not understand Drow speaking to each other and vice versa. Can we assume that the "native" tongue of the Drow is Undercommon then, or is it still Elven, but the Drow's dialect? Rich: In the context of 3rd Edition, drowish = elven, except there's a thick dialect difference. Imagine a Jamaican and a Scotsman trying to hold a conversation. Trying to quickly discuss something complicated is probably very hard, but a day or two of casual contact and they'll get an "ear" for what the other guy is saying. Keep in mind, elven generations may be much slower than human generations. You'll play the "telephone" game with your native tongue much less frequently if some of the speakers remain alive for 500 or 600 years. Maybe that's really more like 1,000 years of human language drift. Some languages drift a lot in 1,000 years (English, for example, which was changed dramatically by the Norman invasion). Other languages don't drift so much. Yes, this retcons FOR2. And yes, most of the drow names and terms don't seem to "look" Elven. If it bugs you, Rule 0 it. Eric Boyd adds: Although I'm not a linguist, I actually think "language stagnation" would be exponentially more stable in long-lived races. Three reasons: 1. Speakers living longer means more resistance to change. 2. Long-lived races have a greater number of overlapped generations (i.e. elves might have 10 or more generations alive at the same time). This would certainly reinforce language rigidity. 3. I think most language change comes from the young, and the percentage of time spent as an "adult" seems to be greater in the long-lived races. (I'd have to doublecheck the age tables to be sure.) As such, there's probably less pressure to modify the language given the relative paucity of energetic teenagers making up new forms of speech. Cormanthyr: Empire of the Elves (p. 32) mentions that in -8600 Evereska was founded in secret by the surviving clans of former Shantel Othreier, Miyeritar, Orishaar and Eiellur as an elven safeheaven in the woods east of Aryvandaar. What were the names of the clans from each of the Elven communities that founded Evereska? Steven Schend: Well, I wrote that reference, and while I always wanted to do more with Evereska, I never had either the cause nor the time to name them. Thus the family names are wide open. And no, I don't think any major named families or nobles from those fallen realms populated Evereska (or if they did, they did so under assumed names to hide either guilt or riches or both). sanishiver: I noticed there isn't a Create Mythal listed in the Player's Guide. Was this ever under consideration? Perhaps something we might see as a web enhancement? Rich: I just spoke to James Wyatt, the guy who wrote the Epic portions of the book, and his answer is kind of interesting: Each mythal you make should be its own epic spell, independently researched. Since every mythal has its own unique set of powers, they're really not all that similar to each other, except in basic concept (I'm going to make a permanent magical field here). That said, we could've provided a sample "Create Mythal", or perhaps given you the chassis you can add options on to, but hey, the book's overflowing, and we'll have something to do tomorrow. Giilvas_Vyshaan: The elves have been being hit pretty hard lately, we going to see them get a chance to hit back? Rich: Well, you'll actually be quite pleased with the new novel trilogy I'm working on. The name of the trilogy is "The Last Mythal", and the first book is "The Forsaken House", which should be out in the middle of 2004. I can't really say more right now. Zanan: What are the patron deities of Ryld and especially Valas Hune from WotSQ? Rich: Ryld nominally venerates Lolth--like many males, he's not especially happy with that choice, but he's too smart to invite the sort of trouble that comes with picking someone else. Ditto Valas, although I think Valas is very Vhaeraun-curious. Cassius Harkanor: Will we see updated character profiles for the major players from the War of the Spider Queen novels? Some, especially Halisstra, have changed significatly. Rich: I wrote the initial set of characters in 3.0. The characters that were published in #312 were updated to 3.5 after they left my hands. However, I went ahead and updated the final batch of characters that will be coming out this summer (#322, I think). I don't have plans to go back and specifically update the older characters, but you'll see one character "repeated" and "updated" in the #322 batch because of changes taking place in the course of the ongoing story. Zanan: Given the upbringing and the -2 racial CON penalty to drow, I wonder why the Arachne PrC has a non-clerical Fort save. Most other PrC (e.g. the pretty powerful Auspicians, Dreadmasters, Nightcloaks, Stormlords etc.) have full clerical stats (AB & saves) plus all the special abilities, so why was there drop in the Arachne, since this is almost a double-penalty to them? Rich: It's hard to give an authoritative answer to that. Any prestige class is really a combination of advantages and disadvantages, most of which are really pretty arbitrary (although you hope that taken together they generally support the theme of the class). Basically, someone (deisgner, developer, editor) decided that the arachne was good enough with one good save, and would have been too good with two good saves. It's not terribly hard for a drow cleric to qualify for the class (the feats are the tough part), and the class features are pretty good--she gets a familiar, she gets a tough mount, and later on she gets to make new minions with her zin-carla ability. Sure, she'd *like* a good Fort save, but does she really need it?
Arkenian 04-05-04, 12:50 PM	Telagaunt: Out of curiosity Rich, out of all the characters you've wrote about, is there a specific one you find most enjoyable to write about? Also, any regrets on writing something about a character you wish you had made differently? Rich: Jack Ravenwild was the most enjoyable so far. It's not even close. It was just fun to write City of Ravens. Nothing springs to mind in the regrets department, at least not yet. Cernunnos: What is the one Realms product(s) that you, personally, REALLY want to do? Rich: Personally? I'd like to do a big, detailed geographical sourcebook on the Moonsea. We haven't ever done very much with that. I'd also like to do some more FR adventures, particularly themed around some of those famous dungeons. ("Prison of the Firebringer" was fun, but I'd like to do more of 'em.) Srinshee: What does the "L." stand for in L. Richard Baker? Rich: It's Lynn Richard Baker III, to be precise. My dad went by Lynn, though, so I go by Rich. Dargoth: Rich, were you on the Mini design team? Rich: I just pitched in and helped out for a couple of months. My job was to be the "advocate" for Lawful Good--build lots of LG warbands, really examine LG figures and determine which seemed to be too good or not good enough. I helped a bit with sets 2 and 3, and that's about it, really. Dargoth: So, Rich, what's your favorite mini? Rich: I found the cleric of Lathander to be a darned useful mini for LG. Good cost, good spells. As far as looks, I think I like the black dragon best so far. Alac Luin: OK, besides dealing with deadlines and publishers, do you enjoy your job? Rich: Sure! Most days it's a lot of fun. Sometimes the business gets in the way, but by and large it's a good way to make a living. Cernunnos: How is the decision made on what is getting written up next? I know the marketing dept. has to be involved, but do they decide what would sell good and then hand the assignment over to the development team, or do you guys submit ideas to them for approval? Rich: Generally, the R&D folks submit ideas to our business managers. Sometimes it works the other way. Other times we give 'em a slate of ideas to pick from--say, a list of the three or four best places for the next geography sourcebook--and they'll let us know which one they want to do. Cwslyclgh: So how does a "non-Employee" submit articles for the web site? Rich: I've asked Julia Martin about this, and her response is, "Sorry, we don't take unsolicited submissions." That sounds pretty hard, but it's not unusual--Julia would be swamped if she took everything that folks sent at her. She wants to see professional writers. Your best way to break in is to get yourself published in a magazine like DRAGON, DUNGEON, or POLYHEDRON. Check out Paizo publishing's website for information on how to get yourself published in the magazines. I know that's a lot of work, but our web producers want to work with writers who have a proven track record. The Simbul: What are the requisite skills and vocational requirements to work as a game designer/developer/playtester/etc for WoTC/Hasbro, or where can such infomation be found? Rich: That's actually not an easy question, because we have a great variety of backgrounds. If you're mostly interested in writing RPG materials, I can be a little more specific. First, you'll find that anything that trains you as a writer is helpful. Myself, I've got a B.A. in English. I'd also completed a novel when I applied for the job. Even though I never sold the book, simply making the attempt made me a writer instead of a wishful thinker. Secondly--and this is the tricky part--you have to get your foot in the door. You really can't start up cold by writing for WotC (I did, but that was 12 years ago and the business has changed since). We're always looking to pick up new freelancers who have proven their design skills by writing for the magazines or for other d20 publishers. (Monte Cook discusses this in this essay on his site. (http://www.montecook.com/arch_lineos70.html)) (Sean K. Reynolds discusses this in this essay on his site. (http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/gaming/getanindustryjob.html)) Purple Dragon Knight: Aside from Dragon, Dungeon or Polyhedron, what would WotC consider a valid experience? Do you have any recommendations on opportunities or venues for an aspiring gaming industry worker? Would graduate-level education count in any way in terms of writing experience? Would university education in the field of translation, or fluency in other languages also weigh in the balance? Rich: Well, the Open Gaming License means that there are dozens of small game companies out there looking for writing talent. Someone who publishes good material with a d20 company certainly counts as a professional writer in WotC's view. We'd weight credits with another company about as well as we'd weight credits with Paizo. Obviously, I have no idea what exactly you'd need to do to get a chance to write for someone else's company, but an hour or two of web surfing ought to net you some contact info and submission guidelines for a half-dozen d20 publishers. It's something of a longshot, but you can keep your eyes on the Wizards website in the job postings area. If you want to go straight to game design, that might be hard to do without some professional credits on your resume, but there are plenty of folks here who got a foot in the door by hiring on in another department. (Unfortunately, we do most of our translation work out of house these days, but it's a big company, and things change daily.) Right now, we've got a couple of people in our Organized Play and Customer Service departments who are working on freelance design assignments for RPGs, mostly because they're in the same building and we know 'em. Faraer: I was wondering if it was possible to license a third party to publish the Realmslore books that don't fit the publishing plan and could be very profitable for a smaller company. Presumably this has been considered and rejected. But would you comment on the possibility? Rich: That's an interesting idea. To my knowledge, we haven't approached anybody (or been approached by anybody) serious about it. It would have to be a good deal for WotC and a good deal for the other party too, of course. I really can't say more than that. I know there's lots of people interested in <topic x> and it would make a cool article, possibly as part of a free-lance ongoing web article? Rich: Here's what worries me from the creative side: the continuous creation of a large body of material that we would feel beholden to in future product. Unfortunately, there isn't really a central clearing house where we carefully inventory and inspect each bit of Realmslore before it gets published. No one person could possibly have the time to function as that hypothetical Realms Controller, even if I could persuade our business folks that such a job would be a good idea. So, what this means is that I can't count on freelance game designer X (or heck, even myself) having access to or familiarity with this novel that was written 10 years ago, or that series of Poly articles, or something Ed told some folks at GenCon last year. In that climate, I'm very hesitant to encourage the generation of a brand-new mass of Realmslore someplace where I'm not going to see or review it before it becomes official. Much as I would like to oblige, I just don't want to do something like that until I think we can do it right. Cernunnos: I've seen WotC give semi-official or official sanction to "abandoned" campaigns (such as the very excellent athas.org). Is there any chance they'd allow the fan community to semi-officially expand the parts of Abeir-Toril that aren't seeing any support, namely Zakhara, Maztica, Hordelands, and Kara-Tur? Rich: We're not likely to give out other pieces of FR to any kind of sanctioned fan site. Sorry. Razz: Why Not? Rich: We have solid business reasons and intellectual property protection questions that make us uncomfortable with sanctioning more fan-managed sites for materials we're not actively publishing. Among other things, I don't like to offer someone the chance to create "official" material that I might later have to ignore if we were to return to that particular setting. (See above question) Cernunnos: Something I've always wondered about Rich... how exactly do you guys do research for new stuff? (as far as keeping up continuity/mining old products for good ideas). Do you guys keep some kind of Realmslore database, or do you just slog through all the old books? Is an effort made to look up stuff printed in the magazines? Rich: We examined the notion of a true database at one point, and abandoned the idea when we realized it would be prohibitively expensive. So, here's the general process. For Product X, I will identify 1-2 key predecessor products that I want the freelance author to read thoroughly and avoid contradicting without good reason. I'll ask Phil Athans up in the book department if there's anything going on with the novels that needs to be respected or incorporated in Product X. If I know there's a lot of Realmslore about topic X, I'll often ask someone like Eric Boyd or Ed Greenwood if they know of other sources we ought to look at--magazine articles, tangential references in other sourcebooks, whatever. And then we'll pass it through the filter of "What old material needs to be repeated, what do we want to repeat, what do we NOT want to repeat, and what's just not important enough to waste space on in our new book?" Sirius_Black: Mr. Baker, I know you can't get into specifics about numbers. However, can you tell me what method is used to determine if new fans are coming to the FR world and purchasing these products that are being designed to appeal to them? Rich: To be honest, that's a question for our business team, not a game designer. I can shed a little light on it, however: Our numbers indicate that we've got about 3 times as many folks buying 3rd Ed. FR as we had buying 2nd Ed. FR. Secondly, we've got good reason to believe (customer feedback, reports from the RPGA, etc.) that a large number of folks who buy FR books don't play FR campaigns. They're buying them to loot the FR books for artifacts (feats, spells, classes, etc.) usable in a straight D&D game. I think that's a darned shame, and they don't know what they're missing, but that's how it is. I really can't go into more detail than that, but you can see that those two facts have some serious implications for FR line planning. (Ed. Note: See also this allegorical story by Sean K. Reynolds (http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/gaming/forgottenrumsstory.html) on this topic) DreadStar: Is there going to be more Dragon magazine stuff in WotC books like we saw in Complete Warrior? Rich: We carefully review DRAGON stuff we bring into the core game. In some cases, we redevelop it pretty extensively. I don't believe there is any DRAGON material in the Player's Guide, but I can't speak for the Complete Divine--I don't have it in front of me. I am working on one of the next books in [the "Complete X"] series, and I used a little DRAGON material in that book, but not much--only 1 or 2 prestige classes, some spells, some feats. (Ed. Note: We have reason to believe that this book he refers to is Complete Arcane) sanishiver: Rich, while reading through the Underdark hardback I noticed that in addition to Cook, Tweet and Williams, both you and Pete Adkinson are listed as creators of ”the new Dungeons and Dragons game”. Would you mind shedding some light on those areas of Third Edition both you and Mr. Adkinson worked on? Also (assuming you’re at liberty to say), why weren’t you and Mr. Adkinson credited on the covers of each of the original Core Books? Rich: When we first started on 3rd Edition, the design team was me, Monte Cook, and Skip Williams. Peter Adkison was a very interested kibbitzer who often sat in on our design meetings, and frequently contributed ideas. About 6 or 8 months into the job, we had an internal reorganization. The job of Creative Director for Alternity was open, so I decided to change hats and go take over that product line. Around the time I switched jobs, Peter chose Jonathan Tweet to head up the 3E team as lead designer. He'd been following our work closely, too, and Peter wanted to get Jonathan's talents seriously engaged on the project. Jonathan, Monte, and Skip did the work of taking our various design drafts and turning them into a finished PHB, DMG, and MM. That work came after I moved over to Alternity, and Peter didn't actually write drafts, so that's why we don't have cover credit. That said, there are a number of features I contributed in early drafts that survived (with some evolution and development) all the way to publication. The most significant of these were the barbarian, druid, paladin, and sorcerer, the notion of feats, and the first draft of a number of the fighterish ones, and many spell descriptions (particularly high-level cleric and druid spells). These aren't exclusive contributions--we all pitched in and contributed on many fronts, and the other fellows helped me create and polish these first-draft features, just like I helped them work on other early features of the game. AngryMonkey: Just how much attention to the boards do the designers pay when it comes to revising old works? Rich: We watch a few boards very carefully for game balance issues--usually the Character Optimization board over in the D&D area. I keep half an eye on the FR boards to see if folks are talking about things that may be broken. We try hard not to make mistakes in the first place, but when we do, we'd rather own up to them and fix material rather than pretend we didn't do anything wrong.
Arkenian 04-05-04, 01:57 PM	Kuje31: Do newer sourcebooks, still overwrite older 3e sourcebooks, like the FRCS, or Faiths & Pantheons, etc.? I know you said the Player's Guide does this, but I was curious if the other books, that came out since the FRCS, does this also. Rich: Generally, yes they do. For example, if we printed version 1 of a spell in Magic of Faerūn, and then printed version 2 in Unapproachable East, it's our intent that version 2 specifically replaces version 1. We usually try to flag these sorts of changes by saying that the older version is being replaced. Is <specific thing from 3.0 sourcebook> going to be updated to 3.5? Rich: As far as the other books go: Yes, it would be nice to specifically address each item and revise or not revise it, but we didn't have the space to do that in the Player's Guide. If we don't address something, we're saying that you can continue to use the 3.0 versions of those items. Freakboy: I noticed that on the table of contents list for the players guide to faerun, that some of my favorite spells weren't listed as being updated. If a spell isn't included in the players guide, can I assume that it is ok as written in the 3.0 material for 3.5. Or do I need to make some adjustments to those spells? Rich: In general, if we don't specifically update a spell, it's OK as is. Once the updated version comes out, we expect that most folks will be using it. In the Player's Guide, we tried to catch all the spells that were significantly impacted by 3.5 or that just needed updating based on a couple of years of being in play. Will you be adding domains from <D&D non-FR supplement of your choice> to FR gods? Rich: As I said before, I'm hesitant to add domains to FR deities each time another domain appears in a core D&D book. By adding domains without taking something away, we're breaking the rules describing deities. If we add a domain and take something away, then we've got to worry about who in the FR audience actually has the Draconomicon (for example) and can use the deities as we've redefined them. Neither alternative appeals to me. Wullenwever: I recently skimmed the 3.5 MM and found the entries of some of the FR Player races to be different from the FRCS (the wood elf missing the -2 Cha modification, the duergar having ECL +1, the aasimar having daylight as a spell-like ability instead of light , drow changed weapon proficiencies). Which is correct? Rich: The Monster Manual 3.5 is correct Zanan: Underdark requests an Intelligence of 13 for a drow character if he wants to use his spell-like abilities. Now, as far as I know, all spell-like abilities (even that of gnomes) are based on Charisma. Is do drow base DCs on Int scores? Rich: In a case like this, the "most right" source is the 3.5 Monster Manual. Drow spell-likes are based on Charisma, and there's no Charisma score minimum to use them. The extra sentence in Underdark is wrong, our apologies. It was said that after Monsters of Faerun goes out of print, the monsters presented therein would find their way into future products. Where are these updated? Draconomicon covers most of the dragons. The PGtF Web Enhancement (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20040313a) covers the rest. Why are PGtF regional feats more powerful than "normal" PHB feats? The FRCS ones were not, doesn't this invite power creep? Andy Collins: I wasn't integrally involved in PGtF, but I was a big proponent of "powering up" the regional feats, and here's why: 1. It more clearly delineates the difference between regional feat and non-regional feat. Look at the FRCS and tell me honestly that you can say "this feat is clearly a regional feat" and why--the power level is indistinguishable from a typical feat, meaning that any feat concept that isn't extraordinarily flavorful and specific might as well be a general feat (or even a general feat in the core game as opposed to a campaign setting). With slightly upgunned regional feat choices, you can clearly tell the difference between, say, Fleet of Foot (FR regional) and Dash (core general), and it's far less likely that a core rulebook will want to "steal" FR regional feats (such as with the Stealthy feat, which started out as an FR regional feat and was added to the 3.5 PH). 2. It makes region selection more significant. A dwarf wizard from the Galena Mountains who selects the Dauntless feat is simply tougher than any other wizard, thanks to the extra hp. A Street-Smart human from Calimshan is simply better at surviving on the streets than someone who couldn't select that feat. And so on. If we're going to go to the trouble of having a regional system for FR, the designers feel that it's important for it to be meaningful beyond simply choosing a name and an accent. :p Why change the Incantatrix? Rich: Basically, we didn't like the way the Magic of Faerun incantatrix had to pick up an extra barred school and become a super-abjurer. The 3.5 rebalancing of spell schools made that notion difficult to implement. And we also wanted to make sure that the incantatrix was first and foremost the spellcaster who intuited/manipulated other folks' magic. Wullenwever: Concerning PrC from older Realms products, such as LoD, MoF, or F&P, that aren't specifically revised in the PGtF. Will they see print again in other products? Rich: Regarding prestige classes from older products, if we didn't specifically revise it for the PG to F, you can still use the old version. Ditto spells, feats, etc. The Shadow Thief from PGtF is very similar to the FRCS Guild Thief, is it an update? Rich: The Shadow Thief is a more specific version of the guild thief from the FRCS. The guild thief was really generalized, and we should have grounded him specifically in the setting by making him the Shadow Thief of Amn. Kershek: Since we have already converted to 3.5 and are still using 3.0 FR material, do you forsee a difficult second transition once the PGtF is released to convert to 3.5 FR? Rich: I don't think the transition will be difficult, but every player is going to want to take advantage of the new regional feats. Any player should be able to tweak their character in half an hour or less. (I guess a sorcerer using FR prestige classes and many FR spells will need to reconsider some of his spell choices, which might take a while.) Dr_Draco: Is the Psionics info in the PGtF compatible with the Expanded Psionics Handbook that comes out right after it? Rich: Yes, we were careful about that. It should be fine. The Stormwalker: I was wondering if there was any chance of seeing some 3.5 versions of the racial feats from RoF? Why weren't they in PGtF? Rich: Generally, we feel that Races of Faerūn is solid for 3.5. Since the book is only a few months old, we didn't want to completely re-do a bunch of material we just sold to you guys. If we started picking up *some* of those feats in Player's Guide, we'd want to pick 'em all up, and that's too much. Cassius Harkanor: Is the PGtF considered a core rulebook (such as the FRCS) or is it an optional book (such as Races of Faerun)? Rich: We regard it as "core" for future FR products. In other words, we're going to assume in future product that you're building your characters using the feats, spells, magic items, etc. in the Player's Guide. After it's published, we're going to expect that folks are building their shadow adepts with the Player's Guide version, not the FRCS version. That said, I don't know if it's strictly a "must-buy." A future product like Unapproachable East or Underdark would not have been greatly affected by whether you have the Player's Guide or not. As always, your mileage may vary. Why was Spellcasting Prodigy changed? Rich: We're pretty sure we need to fix it. The problem with save DCs is a problem of accumulating +1's and +2's from many different places. Heck, even the sun elf would likely not fly through our development process these days--that's how badly we want to keep DCs in the range of the reasonable. The only reason we're not revising the sun elf is game inertia. What the change means is that a low-level character will probably *not* gain any immediate benefit, since he's already getting a bonus 1st-level spell for having an Int of 12 or better... unless he actually has a spellcasting score of 18 or 19, in which case this feat will wind up giving him *2* bonus 1st-level spells, instead of 1. I kind of like the notion that to be a real prodigy (or at least, to get real benefit from this feat) you need to have a very high spellcasting ability score. Even if you don't have Int or Cha 18 to start with, you'll find times when you like having this feat, most likely around 9th or 11th level, when you might pick up a bonus 5th or 6th level spell you otherwise wouldn't have gotten. At higher levels, this feat has a good chance of giving you two bonus spells--one at your highest level of spellcasting, and another down in the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd level areas. Look at Table 1-1 in the PHB. Caldavien: Why make all specialists take 2 prohibited schools (except divination) instead of giving the choice as before? Rich: The effort was made in 3.5 to balance the schools better. The original theory of "this school is huge, so you gotta give up more to specialize in it" doesn't apply when the schools are closer to each other in variety and power. Arkenian: I'm concerned that the change of spell power and related things from +1 DCs to +CL is causing as many problems as it solves. Do you have any comments? Rich: You raise some of the same points we were concerned with ourselves. We've examined the question closely, though, and we feel that caster level bumps are OK for the system. For better or worse, we're pretty far along on the "caster level over spell power" track for 3.5, so we won't reverse course on it. If you think it will be an issue for your campaign, there are other things you could try (only helps spell penetration, adds +10% to spell effect per +1 CL, stick with save DC booster, there must be other ideas). Razz: Well, it seems what you guys conisder super-high save DCs means that the characters you use to playtest with have really super-low saving throws. My PCs have much higher saving throws, especially with all the PrCs and such, and I'm having a hard time threatening them. Any comments? Rich: That may be the case (we generally design toward single-classed characters with cloaks of resistance, not heavily multiclassed characters designed for maximum saves), but it still does not affect our design standards for 3.5. It's not just about whether or not you can threaten your players with a saving throw. It's also about PCs who generate super-high spell save DCs destroying encounters that should challenge them. That damages the game, too. Our goal is to create an accurate benchmark game, with the understanding that individual campaigns may vary from that benchmark. If your players destroy the benchmark, you know that you can throw more at them. If the benchmark wrecks your party, then you know to treat CRs and ELs as tougher than we suggest. It sounds like you're in the first group; from our point of view, it's better for you to tune your campaign than it is for us to move the benchmark. Remember, we see the results of many, many campaigns, and they don't all report the same results as you do. Try having your spellcasters make more use of spells that don't allow negating saves. Villain by Necessity: I noticed that the artificer from Magic Of Faerun is not listed in the player's guide for FR. Is there a 3.5 version available? Rich: We haven't created any 3.5 update for the artificer yet. All we would really change with the class is to clean up the prereqs and class skills (Alchemy isn't a separate skill anymore, after all), but it should otherwise be usable as is. Laertes: Is the Raumathari battlemage Prc adapted to 3.5 rules? Especially the sublime sword class ability? Rich: No, there's no change necessary for the Raumathari battlemage. It's fine for 3.5 as is. If we had it to do over again we might tinker with sublime sword a bit, but it only gives away a +1 DC boost, and doesn't improve from there, so I think it's OK. Xyr: One of my players wants to take the Shou Disciple class from Unapproachable East in my 3.5 game, will this be a problem? Rich: Should be fine. Unapproachable East anticipated 3.5 for the most part. Arravis My question is on the new update to the Bladesinger prestige class from Complete Warrior. I know it's unlikely, but was reducing the class ability, Song of Celerity, to once a day a typo/mistake? I liked the Races of Faerūn version. Rich: I'm pretty sure that the Complete Warrior version is exactly what the developers of that book wanted it to be. Bladesinger is still a pretty good class, BTW. It's very strong on the basics (full BAB, two good saves, d8 HD) and the spell progression should look a lot more attractive to someone with arcane spellcaster levels than it used to in 3.0, when you received an alternate spell progression. I don't doubt that there are other ways to build a multiclassed fighter/wizard, but it's not terrible. Dargoth: Will the PrCs from F&P be updated to 3.5 and appear in Complete Divine? Rich: A small number of them are going into Complete Divine. Generally, we don't want to repeat FR classes in core books unless they can easily be made campaign-neutral and have some interesting rules/mechanics behind them that a core game would benefit from. So, for example, the Black Flame zealot can easily be "de-Realmsed" by adding a sidebar that says "If Kossuth isn't in your campaign, an evil deity with the Fire domain would do just fine." sanishiver: Any chance we’ll see a web supplement that updates some (or all) of the NPC stats in CotSQ to 3.5, and that (hopefully) makes use of information from Underdark? Rich: I'm sorry to say we have no plans for that at the time. Check around the boards, I wouldn't be surprised if some other fans have suggested conversions. Jem Purplefeather: Will we get to see some 3.5 revised character statistics for various Faerūnian NPC Heroes/Villains? Why weren't they in PGtF? Rich: We'd like to update all these guys to 3.5, but the FR Player's Guide wasn't really the place to do it. First of all, that's not necessarily player information. Secondly, the FR Player's Guide wound up being so over-packed that including any NPC writeups was just not possible. We have a couple of upcoming products that these guys might be good in, but it'll be a while before I can talk about those. Kezghan: What should the 3.5 DR of Bazim-Gorag, from Prison of the Firebringer, be? Rich: I'd go 15/lawful, it's a step up from a death slaad.
Arkenian 04-05-04, 02:19 PM	Specific technical rules questions aren't really what this is about, the authors usually prefer to address "big picture" or "why" questions than "how does this work?" questions. So here's the answers on FR-related/product questions. General DnD rules questions belong in other forums. The Arcane fire (su) abilty of the Archmage creates a bolt of raw magical energy. Is the damage from such a bolt the same as a spellfire bolt (50% fire soackable with various fire immunities, 50% raw magical energy unsoakable? The damage is untyped, nothing ablates it. And there's no save. (Like a lot of spells with a ranged touch attack, the attack roll represents your chance of getting out of the way.) It would be nice if arcane fire and spellfire were a little more alike or a little more different, though. Can an Epic level spellcaster who is becoming an Archmage use the extra 10th or 11th or whatever spell slots given to him by the Improved spellcasting feat, to meet the requirements of Arcane spell like ability? Nothing in the archmage description or the Epic Level Handbook description says you can't, so I would say yes, you could do that. That said, the archmage ability was designed with a very basic sketch of epic level rules in mind, and I'm pretty sure the Improved Spellcasting feat was not necessarily designed with the archmage ability in mind, so there might be some difficult interactions there. There are probably nastier candidates than chain lighting; damage is just damage, after all, even when it's in large quantities. zerodegreeskelvan: What exactly does a Spellsinger's (from Races of Faerun) spellsong ability do? Does it allow a bard to use, say, a 3rd level spell slot to cast a 2nd level spell that he may not himself know but is part of the Bard class spell list? Rich: Reading it literally, I'd say just that -- you can cast lower-level enchantments that you don't know (as a Spell Known) but happen to be on your class spell list, which is kind of nice for bards and sorcerers who are constrained by their spell choices. zerodegreeskelvan: How does the save DC formula for Spellsinger (from RoF) work? Rich: I'm pretty sure that the save DC formula is supposed to start with a "10", which would mean you get +2 DC on the spell you cast with spellsong -- again, a pretty nice benefit. Gez: Races of Faerūn was supposed to be 3.5-compliant, but it lists the favored class of gnomes as illusionist; should FR gnomes keep the old favored class of illusionist instead of the new of bard? Rich: Our bad, we missed that. The rock gnome's favored class should be bard, just like the "standard" gnome from the PH. jasamcarl: Is it intended that the drowcraft weapons [having the drowcraft weapon enhancement from Underdark] be vulnurable to certain light producing spells such as daylight or sunbeam? Rich: Sunbeam and sunburst explicitly state that they damage creatures harmed by sunlight, while daylight doesn't say that. I'd agree that drowcraft weapons are forced to make the save if their bearer gets zapped by a sunbeam or caught in a sunburst, but not daylight. Thane Goldstone IV: Isn't the caver feat from Underdark like Self-Sufficient (from the PHB), but restricted (and thus less useful)? Rich: You're right, it's lame. Its only virtue is that it stacks with Self-Sufficient, if you want to bury two feats into Survival and Heal checks (not that anyone would). I don't know how it got through, but my guess would be that Underdark was being written while the 3.5 Player's Handbook was finishing up, and I just missed the fact that it duplicated Self-Sufficient. Our bad. Zanan: The spell "Shelgarn's Persistent Blade" from Magic of Faerūn says it will automatically flank a target if there are allies fighting the same opponent. Does this affect the 3.5E Improved Uncanny Doge ability of both rogue and barbarian or the equivilant ability in 3E? (i.e., does the spell flank the target with such abilities or not?) Rich: My take on it is that uncanny dodge gets you off the hook for being flanked by the spell. I suppose you could ask an interesting question about whether a multiclassed rogue/wizard can use Shelgarn's Persistent Blade to overcome a lower-level rogue's uncanny dodge, but darned if I know what the answer would be. (I'd probably default to no, he can't.) Cunning Linguist: If a Grimlock takes the Cavelord PrC, on his second level, would he gain lesser cavesense and have 120 foot Darkvision? Rich: My off-the-cuff answer is that the racial feature of having no eyes trumps the class feature of gaining darkvision, so I would say the grimlock cavelord doesn't get darkvision. It's unfortunate we weren't more clear about that, since it's an obvious class/race combo. Kronos_C: The Grimlock has Racial Hit Die and gains Skill Points from them, but his racial Skill List includes Spot. Isn`t this kind of pointless? Grimlocks are Blind and have Blindsight, why would they need Spot? Rich: That's a bit of style weirdness, really. The basic rule for monsters is that any skill that appears in their monster description is considered a racial skill. Our style for skill presentation in monster stat blocks is that any skill that has a non-obvious number attached to it (skill ranks, racial modifiers, synergy bonuses, or feats) gets listed in the monster's skills. Grimlocks have Alertness, ergo their Spot score goes into the skill list. Myself, I'm not 100% sure that grimlocks don't make Spot checks. If a rogue pressed up against a stalagmite and held real still, could he use his Hide skill to hide from the grimlock? I'd guess so. And Spot opposes Hide checks. There's language in the blindsense description to the effect that you *usually* don't need to make Spot checks to notice and locate enemies within range of its blindsight--but there are exceptions. Hardhead: Is it intended that the Twin Sword Style regional feat in PGtF and the Two Weapon Defense PHB feat stack? Rich: No. I didn't actually write this feat, but I believe it was specifically designed to encourage you to take one or the other. Because it's a regional feat, it's okay if it's a bit more powerful. Purpleblade: If a sorceror/specialist wizard multiclass character gains some Red Wizards levels, do his sorcerer spells in his specialist school gain the benefits of Spell Power? Rich: The Red Wizard's spell power ability affects all spells he casts, from whatever class. The last sentence in the paragraph "Spell Power" in the Red Wizard description is simply a reminder, I think. Herr Doktor: In Races of Faerūn, Orog are an ECL 2 creature (LA 2). The Underdark supplement lists them as an ECL 3, though it provides no updated statistics or anything of that sort. Was it decided that the Orog was stronger than an ECL 2 and so its ECL was boosted, or is it a typographical mistake? Rich: I'm pretty sure that Races of Faerūn is right on this one. Sorry for the confusion. The Simbul: Why is Alustriel Silverhand the only Chosen of Mystra listed with the Name and Song Attunement supernatural ability listed in her stat block? 2E sources and 3E novels all suggest that all chosen have it. Rich: Boy, I thought all the Chosen got that, too. It appears to be something we just didn't include in the template, most likely an oversight. So it's strange that Alustriel got it back. Can't explain how it happened, but I think you're right, the Chosen should definitely have it based on the novels. Xyr: Is it possible for a sorcerer/bard to use the Arcane Preparation feat to prepare spells from other source (a spellbook from a wizard for example) or is it only to add metamagic feats to a known spell? Rich: Arcane Preparation gives you the ability to "lock down" some of your spell slots ahead of time, so that you can cast metamagicked spells without taking extra time to do so. That's it. Herr Doktor: I know that the new racial ability modifiers of wood elves as described in the Monster Manual are supposed to override the ones in the FRCS (+2 Str, -2 Int instead of +2 Str, +2 Dex, -2 Con, -2 Int, and -2 Cha), are MM3.5's Gray Elves supposed to override FRCS sun elves? Rich: No, sun elves are not gray elves, and you should stick with FRCS/RoF. You're right that for Wood elves you should go with the Monster Manual 3.5. Herr Doktor: Shade is a template in the back of the FRCS. In Races of Faerūn, however, it does not seem to describe a template. Are the shades in Races of Faerūn simply the standard gifted shadovar and one should still use the template from the FRCS when making elf or other types of shades? Or can the non-template race in Races of Faerūn simply be stacked atop any other race? Rich: The shade description in Races of Faerun is arranged that way to match the other descriptions in the book. It's still a template. Only the captains and lords of the Shadovars actually have the shade template, and get the powers listed there. The rest are just humans. You can use the FRCS shade monster description to make shades out of any humanoid. Kronos_C: The Voldoni have Immunity to polymorphing listed as one of their racial traits, yet their favored class is druid. Wouldn`t their immunity prevent them from wildshaping, and so nerf one of the druids primary abilities? Rich: Volodni have immunity to polymorphing because they have the plant type. I asked around the office, and we decided that folks who have racial immunities to things and class abilities to do them anyway (say, a lich with a polymorph spell, or a treant or volodni druid) have learned to voluntarily suppress their immunity and use their ability normally. Arkenian: Does a red wizard non-diviner (Say an RW evoker) have 3 oppositions or 4 in 3.5? Rich: I'm pretty sure that it's simply, +1 barred school more than you previously had. So, a diviner would increase to 2 barred schools, anybody else would increase to 3 barred schools. monk-ki: Fey'ri alter self ability; It says that they can change into any humanoid. does this include monsterous humanoids? (I don't think so, but just maybe). I also have noted that lycnathropes in their hybrid form are humanoid, so can a fey'ri turn into a hybrid form? Finally, if he were to change into a merman or aquatic elf, would the fey'ri be able to breathe water? Rich: "Humanoid" means specifically, a creature of the humanoid type. So a monstrous humanoid is definitely out. I'd be inclined to say that lycanthrope is out, too, because it's a humanoid [shapechanger], but I have to look closer to quote you chapter and verse. And yes, the fey'ri could breathe water by turning into a merman or aquatic elf. Meraxes: In 3.0 many monsters (like the Doppelganger, for example) had formchanging abilities that were similar to alter self, but were changed to an ability called Change Shape in 3.5. Is there any intention to make a similar modification to the fey'ri formchanging ability? Rich: We haven't specifically addressed that yet, but that's a good question. I think fey'ri should have doppleganger-like change shape, rather than alter self. Change shape has the advantage of leaving the character's physical stats unchanged, so you don't have to redesign your character every time he takes a new appearance. The drawback is that you can't find super-strong, or super-dextrous, or super-con forms to change into to improve your stats. I think that fey'ri shapechanging is supposed to be more about disguise, and less about combat. Meraxes: So is their ability sufficient to qualify for the warshaper PrC from Complete Warrior? Rich: Yes, that interpretation would seem to suggest that the fey'ri qualify for warshaper just fine. Zechi: The FRCS spell "anyspell" from the spell domain says a cleric can prepare one of his spells as an arcane spell. Does this mean my cleric gains the class feature to cast 2nd level arcane spell and would qualify for a prestige class with the requirement: able to cast 2nd level arcane spells? Rich: No, I don't buy it. "Anyspell" is a divine spell. But that's a very sneaky argument. Bocklin: How am I to understand "vs. Fire effects" in the feat Bloodline of Fire(PGtF)? Is it against all spells with the "fire" descriptor or all kind of tests involving fire? For example if the player tries to start or put out a fire in circumstances requiring a check/save, does it apply? Or if I ask for a Reflex save to avoid a fire trap? Rich: I'd say that "fire" is anything that deals fire damage (the energy type) or anything that has the fire descriptor. So no, I wouldn't give you a bonus on a check to put out a burning hut, but I'd probably give you the bonus on checks to avoid catching on fire. Kuje31: In the FR FAQ the Sage indicated that by the standard rules clerics (but not other divine casters) cannot worship a demi-human deity unless they are of the appropriate race. Why are clerics so restricted then? All divine casters in FR get thier powers from the gods. What makes clerics so left out? Rich: Short answer: No, I can't easily explain it. IMC, you'd have to propose a darn good explanation why your character worships the deity of another race--I wouldn't distinguish between clerics, druids, paladins, or whatever. I'm sure Skip had a good reason, though. Xyr: Can Twin Sword Style (PGtF) be used with the elven thinblade and elven lightblade from Complete Warrior? Rich: Good question. A very strict reading of the feat would indicate "no," but I think you could be a little generous and say yes. Someone's paying feats to use those exotic weapons, so I don't think they're "too good." And they seem to fit the Twin Sword thematics. [b][i]Meepo the Iconic Kobold: What is the LA of a shade? In the original FRCS, it was +2, then errated to +5. When Races of Faerun came out, it was +4. Now the WE for the Player's Guide to Faerun says that the FRCS shade is +5. So, should a player creating a shade go by the LA in the Races of Faerun or from the WE? Rich: Darn, I hate when this happens. I think it's supposed to be +4.
Arkenian 04-05-04, 04:09 PM	Serpent Kingdoms is on the official WotC schedule for a July release. The catalog entry is here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=products/fracc/965660000). Savras: In the upcoming Serpent Kingdoms, what is the amount of information will be given on countries? Rich: There's some honest "geography" in Serpent Kingdoms. Places like Tashalar, Thindol, Samarach, and other realms inhabited by/important to the serpent folk are described, much in the same format that Thay or Thesk are discussed in Unapproachable East. Dargoth: A while ago you said there would be 3-4 FR books a year: 2 general and 2 regional. So my question is this, Obviously the Players guide to Faerun is a general book, but is serpent Kingdoms the 2nd General book or the first Regional book for 2004? Rich: We consider Serpent Kingdoms a general book, not a regional book. Although it really blurs the line between the two. We are working on a regional book for later in 2004, but it's too early for me to say much about that. Ed. Note: That is now believed to be The Shining South Dargoth: Is there any chance we can see a "Dracoling" race in Serpent Kingdoms? A Dracoling would be a Aasamir/Tiefling equievalnt for Dragons/Half Dragons Rich: Interesting notion, and interesting analogy. Unfortunately, Serpent Kingdoms is a little far down the tracks to get a new PC race added. But it's a good idea. Sirius_Black: I heard they're going to really kick the Yaun-ti up a notch. Have them become a more powerful evil presence in the Realm with much more influence. This true? Rich: Well, they're the villainous stars of "Serpent Kingdoms." If you don't get some great ideas for featuring yuan-ti as the prime mover villains in your FR games from that book, you're just not trying. You'd be surprised to find out just how far their influence extends... Mr.Waesel I hear Serpent Kingdoms will contain more info about the race that created the Nether Scrolls, and more info on them as well. Is this true? Rich: Yes, and maybe. Thog: Are the Saurial going to be included in it as a PC race? Rich: Yes, the saurials are covered in Serpent Kingdoms -- for now. The book is quite long and will likely have to be cut significantly. Cernunnos: Can we expect to see anything about the saurian creator race too? (other than the previous mentions that the yuan-ti are descended from them). Rich: Be warned that the book is something like 50,000 words long, and I can't predict what may or may not be cut, as I'm not working on it personally. I do know that the saurian creator race is a major part of the book, and you'll find out lots about those guys you didn't know before. That'll stay in, I think. Arkenian: Can you give us any sort of sneak peeks into the insights on the saurian creator race Serpent Kingdom gives? Rich: I'm hesitant to say very much about the saurian creator race, simply because Serpent Kingdoms is still "in the works." Here's a couple of tidbits, though: they're called the sarrukh, and they're individually very powerful (14 racial Hit Dice, I think, and most will have character levels too). Cernunnos:How is work progressing on Serpent Kingdoms? Any other tidbits you can tease us with? Are the sarrukh still in it? Rich (3/04): Serpent Kingdoms is pretty much done with editing. I know the sarrukh are still in it, but I couldn't tell you much otherwise (I haven't seen the developed, drastically cut down to fit, edited manuscript yet).
Arkenian 04-10-04, 08:06 PM	So, what IS coming up for FR products? Rich (11/03): Serpent Kingdoms is coming in a few months. It naturally details some of the regional info where serpent races (such as yuan ti) are prominent. So you'll see info on Tashalar and the Black Jungles, etc., that's never appeared anywhere else. (More on Serpent Kingdoms in its own section above) We're working on a regional sourcebook focused on the South. It should be out within the year, although I remind you that if we haven't printed the appropriate catalog yet, we may delay or cancel products. We're also going to be working on a Waterdeep book soon. (See next question) Finally, we've just started work on a project I'm personally excited about. It's a ways off yet, and the exact timing is still hazy. It's themed around the various fallen empires of Faerun. That's all I can say this far out, don't press me for more details. (Rich has hinted about this product a few times before, I include what we've got) Will there be a source book on Waterdeep/Undermountain? Yes. We have some plans to do that in the future. Most likely we'd package Waterdeep and Undermountain together in some way, simply because we don't get the opportunity to produce more than 3 or 4 products a year, and we simply can't devote multiple product slots to covering a single spot--even something as interesting as Undermountain. Can't say much more than that right now; it's a ways off yet Rich (12/03): We haven't started working on it yet, so I can't say for sure. If it were completely up to me, though, I'd make Undermountain 40 to 50 percent of the [Waterdeep] book. Ed. Note: It is believed that Waterdeep will be a first-trimester 2005 product with Ed Greenwood and Elaine Cunningham's names on the cover. Will there be a source book on ancient Netheril? We've got no specific plans to cover Netheril, per se. However, we do have a product idea earmarked for a little ways down the road that might touch on the topic, among other things. As far as what aspects of 2E lore on the topic we might change, I really couldn't say until we started working on that product and started examining the source material closely. The PGtF includes a Netherese Arcanist PrC and a few epic-magic spells appropriate for netherese magic. Dargoth: By the way if you do eventualy do a Anauroch regional sup how about including a map of Netheril before the fall? Rich (10/03): We might be able to sneak something like that into another product we have in mind, which is too far away for me to say much about right now. I'll have to wait a couple of months before I can start really dropping hints about Product X. Cernunnos: Is the fallen empires book going to be set in the past (a la Netheril box set), or is it going to cover present-day Realms and the "ruins" of these empires (or is the focus still up in the air)? Rich: No, we wouldn't set it in the past. We're much more interested in how the past impacts present-day Faerun. Setting the product in the past just divides the campaign setting into exclusive, restricted mini-settings. Dargoth: Let us assume hypothetically that WOTC were to make an Old Empires source book, if they did such a book would Murghom and Semphar be included? Rich: At least tangentially. They might not rate full chapters of their own. Murghom's got a better chance than Semphar, simply because Murghom is on the map and Semphar isn't. There was originally scheduled to be a monsters section in the PGtF, will we see these monsters in a future product or web enhancement? Rich: Most of the monsters cut from Player's Guide will be incorporated into a 2005 FR product.