Not sure. On the one hand, since all of the player-specific information will be in a separate book, they have more room to flesh some things out, which Hellcow says they're taking advantage of. On the other hand, since they're not planning additional Eberron sourcebooks, they might spend more time describing Xen'drik, Argonesson, and Sarlona, which - for those regions, at least - would be an increase in detail over the 3.5 ECS, but might take up room that would otherwise be spent on Khorvaire.
It would be nice if Mr. Baker would pop in and comment, but I guess the only real thing we can do is wait and see what the previews give us. As someone who's new to Eberron, it would be nice to have a lot of detail of the various areas. If they could pull it off for 3.5's Forgotten Realms, they can surely do it for Eberron. Here's hoping!
By the way, as a rule of thumb, the most surefire way to get Hellcow to comment on your thread is to talk about how the Silver Flame church is stuffed to the brim with corrupt priests. ;)
By the way, as a rule of thumb, the most surefire way to get Hellcow to comment on your thread is to talk about how the Silver Flame church is stuffed to the brim with corrupt priests. ;)
Surely under 4e rules they'd be Chaotic Evil they're so evil. Right?
don't kill me.
They're not planning additional Eberron sourcebooks.
No way....
WHY???
* Each year, release a new campaign setting, including a Player's Guide, a Campaign Guide, and a single setting-specific adventure.
* Future setting-specific supplements and adventures will appear in Dragon and Dungeon magazines.
* If there's overwhelming demand, maybe we'll do more sourcebooks, but we're not going to commit to that now.
I mainly am just interested in the geography of the setting.
In that case:
Eberron Campaign Setting, Five Nations, Secrets of Xen'drik, Secrets of Sarlona, Dragons of Eberron should cover most of the world.
Though notably Xen'drik has highly changeable and unreliable geography due to the past planar disruptions and the Curse of The Traveller laid upon the land.
Also pick up Sharn: City of Towers and City of Stormreach for detailed information on those two cities. Both are good books to go for anyway.
On the subject of the EPG having less fluff I'm going to say definitely. I believe that we will be seeing more focus on only the extremely important parts of the setting. Not the tiny little details that I crave.
I just hope this book spends more time discussing the actual nations of Eberron than the FRCG did.
Well since there are only 13-16 or so really important nations, rather than the 40ish in Faerun, we can likely get 3-4 pages per nation rather than their 2, and then get 2 pages on each other continents (and hopefully each nation/region in Sarlona!) then another 2 at least on each of the major Organizations.
Well since there are only 13-16 or so really important nations, rather than the 40ish in Faerun, we can likely get 3-4 pages per nation rather than their 2, and then get 2 pages on each other continents (and hopefully each nation/region in Sarlona!) then another 2 at least on each of the major Organizations.
Eberron does have less breadth, so the only way to fill the book up is to either make it shorter (dear god no!!!) or make the descriptions longer.
The ECG will be comparable in length to the ECS, but without the specific player necessary material. So expect and expansion from half page for limited subjects to two pages approximately. So by the sounds of things everything is being expanded.
The books will have significantly less fluff material than the existing set of 3.5 E sourcebooks.
As someone who's actually worked on the 4E ECG, I must disagree. The ECG is a single book and it's designed to make the world accessable to someone who doesn't own any of the 3E books, so obviously it doesn't included a greater depth of flavor than all of the 3E books combined. Nonetheless, it goes into a far greater level of depth on many subjects that the original 3E ECS did. Just skimming through, you get 4 pages on the Lords of Dust vs 1 page in the original ECS; a full two pages on each dragonmarked house (including House Tarkanan), along with more discussion of the War of the Mark and the Korth Edicts than the original ECS had; 10 pages on Droaam vs six in the original ECS; and for a trivial example, discussion of all three drow cultures (Umbragen, Sulatar, and Vulkoori).
There's limits to how much one can squeeze into one book. And I can't speak to the EPG. But there's lots of flavor to be found in the 4E ECS.
As someone who's actually worked on the 4E ECG, I must disagree. The ECG is a single book and it's designed to make the world accessable to someone who doesn't own any of the 3E books, so obviously it doesn't included a greater depth of flavor than all of the 3E books combined. Nonetheless, it goes into a far greater level of depth on many subjects that the original 3E ECS did. Just skimming through, you get 4 pages on the Lords of Dust vs 1 page in the original ECS; a full two pages on each dragonmarked house (including House Tarkanan), along with more discussion of the War of the Mark and the Korth Edicts than the original ECS had; 10 pages on Droaam vs six in the original ECS; and for a trivial example, discussion of all three drow cultures (Umbragen, Sulatar, and Vulkoori).
There's limits to how much one can squeeze into one book. And I can't speak to the EPG. But there's lots of flavor to be found in the 4E ECS.
:OMG! Wonderful!
:OMG! Wonderful!
Wonderful indeed!
Two pages for each Dragomarked House? Including House Tarkanan? The Korth Edicts? All hail the almighty Hellcow!!
No seriously, thanks a lot Keith!
Too busy with his Ravenloft fiction discussion I guess.
As someone who's actually worked on the 4E ECG, I must disagree. The ECG is a single book and it's designed to make the world accessable to someone who doesn't own any of the 3E books, so obviously it doesn't included a greater depth of flavor than all of the 3E books combined. Nonetheless, it goes into a far greater level of depth on many subjects that the original 3E ECS did. Just skimming through, you get 4 pages on the Lords of Dust vs 1 page in the original ECS; a full two pages on each dragonmarked house (including House Tarkanan), along with more discussion of the War of the Mark and the Korth Edicts than the original ECS had; 10 pages on Droaam vs six in the original ECS; and for a trivial example, discussion of all three drow cultures (Umbragen, Sulatar, and Vulkoori).
There's limits to how much one can squeeze into one book. And I can't speak to the EPG. But there's lots of flavor to be found in the 4E ECS.
I :inlove: You!
:OMG! Wonderful!
It is. I've been ahming and aahing about getting a couple of books. One main one is Secrets of Sarlona. My current campaign won't be heading to Sarlona at all and I've got 4 other campaign ideas which have nothing to do with Sarlona. However I've been afraid if I don't get Secrets of Sarlona I'll basically never be able to have a campaign that goes there because at best I could expect a page write-up (based on FRCG). However if we're getting decent write-ups on stuff like Sarlona, it isn't as dire I get a book with uncertain utility.
It sounds to me like they learned a lot from FR. Rather than doubling up on stuff twice, which is how the FRPG and FRCG felt they seem to have figured out how to differentiate the two books better. That should mean the Eberron guide is filled with a lot more goodness equivalently (but hopefully leaving things ambiguous like the original bits for inserting your own stuff in).
Good point. By releasing the EPG first the ECG doesn't need a write-up on the good and unaligned gods at all. Instead we can simply expect DM-only information on those religions instead of having to get the basics explained in the ECG and then have DM-only information. With the basics reproduced in the EPG making it a waste in the ECG.
However if we're getting decent write-ups on stuff like Sarlona, it isn't as dire I get a book with uncertain utility.
Well, the 4E ECG has 8 pages on Sarlona and the Dreaming Dark, including a good map of Sarlona. It's much more than we gave in the 3E ECS... but at the same time, it's obviously less information than you get in the full Sarlona sourcebook.
I'm kind of hoping for it since Eberron has always broken with D&D's main stance of "Evil is Evil and Good is Good".
Well, the 4E ECG has 8 pages on Sarlona and the Dreaming Dark, including a good map of Sarlona. It's much more than we gave in the 3E ECS... but at the same time, it's obviously less information than you get in the full Sarlona sourcebook.
Sure, definitely. But its enough that if you can't get the Sarlona source book down the road when it is actually useful, you'll still have some useful information. For example I wouldn't even attempt to do a campaign set entirely in Relmaur from the Forgotten Realms. 1 page of information is just a bit too brief ;)
As someone who's actually worked on the 4E ECG, I must disagree. The ECG is a single book and it's designed to make the world accessable to someone who doesn't own any of the 3E books, so obviously it doesn't included a greater depth of flavor than all of the 3E books combined. Nonetheless, it goes into a far greater level of depth on many subjects that the original 3E ECS did. Just skimming through, you get 4 pages on the Lords of Dust vs 1 page in the original ECS; a full two pages on each dragonmarked house (including House Tarkanan), along with more discussion of the War of the Mark and the Korth Edicts than the original ECS had; 10 pages on Droaam vs six in the original ECS; and for a trivial example, discussion of all three drow cultures (Umbragen, Sulatar, and Vulkoori).
There's limits to how much one can squeeze into one book. And I can't speak to the EPG. But there's lots of flavor to be found in the 4E ECS.
Wow, thanks Rich! That pretty much answers what I was inquiring about originally! This sounds much better than I had hoped and it seems like they really did learn from the Forgotten Realms fiasco. Now obviously I would never expect the guide to contain as much detailed information as a dedicated book for each area, but as a person who never read any of the 3e Eberron books, it sounds like I'll have more than a enough info as a new-comer to get the gist of things!
Having seen how sparse the Forgotten Realms book was compared to it's 3e incarnation left me kind of worried that Eberron would get the same treatment, but this does not seem to be the case. Thanks again for the detailed reply. Here's hoping I enjoy Eberron as much as Greyhawk and the Realms!
On the topic of religions...since the Eberron Pantheon is Rather small compared to, say, the Faern Pantheon, does anyone think we're going to see Channel Divinity feats for the Dark Six?
No. They pretty much outright say they won't be giving us any.
I'm kind of hoping for it since Eberron has always broken with D&D's main stance of "Evil is Evil and Good is Good".
Blood of Vol and Traveller should be getting them. That's fairly evil (at least from the impression I've gotten from the earlier books and posters here).
No. They pretty much outright say they won't be giving us any.
Blood of Vol and Traveller should be getting them. That's fairly evil (at least from the impression I've gotten from the earlier books and posters here).
The Traveller isn't really evil. He's always seemed to be more like Coyote mixed with Pele and Father Christmas. And I've always sort of viewed the Blood of Vol as being more of a neutral religion, only made evil because they oppose the sovereign host.
And I've always sort of viewed the Blood of Vol as being more of a neutral religion, only made evil because they oppose the sovereign host.
Or the actions of its corrupt higher ups, Vol, and the Emerald Claw, which we know as Evil as players. Somehow (like the Silver Flame) these bad apples ended up making the millions upon millions of average worshipers and the aims of the entire faith look bad.
Wow, thanks Rich!
Keith, actually. But I appreciate the sentiment and hope you enjoy 4E Eberron!
Keith, actually. But I appreciate the sentiment and hope you enjoy 4E Eberron!
I couldn't help but laugh at this post. :D
Hellcow=Win
Keith, actually. But I appreciate the sentiment and hope you enjoy 4E Eberron!
Whoops, my mistake....that's what happens to the sleep-deprived brain!
Sorry!