Of my own observations, I've noted the following:
Most Usable
- Arms and Equipment Guide: Contains tons of skill modifying mundane equipment; great for low-level play
- Complete Warrior/Arcane/Adventurer/Psionic/Mage/Scoundrel: Tons of (N)PC options
- Draconomicon: The dragon and character options are excellent concepts that are also referenced directly within Dragons of Eberron.
- Dragon Magic: Fits a bit better than Races of the Dragon, especially with sections in Dragons of Eberron, but limiting as such.
- Fiend Folio: More monsters for higher-level play, especially with outsiders. Very minor conversions are needed for this book to be v3.5 compatible.
- Heroes of Battle: Perfect when used with The Forge of War.
- Monster Manual II-V: More monsters, some specific to Eberron (e.g. - Cadavar Collector). MMII requires some mechanical work with regards to conversions, but the monsters are very applicable.
- Player's Handbook II: More (N)PC options
- Tome of Battle: Contains great alternatives for pulp action combat.
Moderately Usable
- Cityscape, Dungeonscape: Applicable in a variety of places, but limiting in resourcefulness.
- Complete Divine: Usable, but too much Greyhawk
- Dungeon Master's Guide II: Mostly advice, but what crunch is available is very fitting, notably NPC traits, master and apprentice feats, weapon templates, and more.
- Frostburn, Sandstorm, Stormwrack: The books are very usable when applicable, but only if you focus on those environments. I don't know if I could say the same for the new races introduced in those books.
- Heroes of Horror: It's all usable to a good extent, but only if the players are interested.
- Libris Mortis: Everything can easily find a place in Eberron, but the undead theme only goes so far in a campaign.
- Lords of Madness: Leave out the stories and keep the mechanics.
- Magic Item Compendium: Great stuff; I love this book, but the book provokes players to to "shop" for items. I allow them to buy only items that require caster level 10 or lower to create. Everything else needs to be found or commissioned. This is a great tool for artificers.
- Magic of Incarnum: Player's Guide to Eberron offers some suggestions, but it still seems slightly shoehorned into the setting.
- Races of Stone, Races of the Wild, Races of Destiny: Eberron turns all of the races on their ears. While some are still appropriate, the deities and options associated with them are too ingrained in the book. These books also include monster class levels for races such as gnolls, ogres and other monster races that are playable in Eberron.
- Races of the Dragon: Dragoborn, spellscales, and kobolds all fit well into Eberron; half-dragon/draconic options, not so much. Some of the PrCs are very fitting for Eberron. For example, the Dracolexi could be specifically interested in Prophecy Marks.
- Savage Species: Appropriate for playing monstrous characters from Droaam or the depths of Sharn.
- Spell Compendium: Great collection of spells, but these spells have the potential to turn Eberron on its ear in terms of how the setting uses low-level magic pervasively.
- Stronghold Builder's Guidebook: The wondrous architecture is very fitting, but it's more of a DM's tool in those respects.
- Tome of Magic: Each section is pretty applicable in Eberron, but they are also somewhat niche, too.
- Weapons of Legacy: The backstories are the most difficult to adapt, but the concept is great.
Least Usable
- Book of Exalted Deeds: Too extreme for Eberron.
- Book of Vile Darkness: Too extreme for Eberron.
- Complete Champion: More Greyhawk than Complete Divine.
- Drow of the Underdark: Good, but almost useless since drow are vastly different in Eberron.
- Fiendish Codex I/II: No Abyss or Nine Hells in Eberron; makes most of that fluff unusable.
- Planar Handbook: The monsters are adaptable, but the character options are somewhat questionable given Eberron's cosmology. With a decent argument, it could be bumped up to moderately useful.
So, of all of the books you read, have owned or have used in your Eberron campaign, which books did you find most or least useful. Assume the Core Rules and Expanded Psionics Handbook are given.
I'll edit this as I think of more.
Moderately usable
- Magic Item Compendium (great stuff, and I love this book, but the book provokes players to try to "shop" for items. I allow them to buy only items that require caster level 10 or lower to create)
Strangely, I LOVE that book for Eberron, because of the many quirky things in it. It works very well for an Eberron feel, because the items feel more like actual inventions. And the artificer also gets his mileage out of it.
Least Usable
- Tome of Battle (the flavor just doesn't fit at all, IMHO; it could work for anti-Reidran characters in Sarlona, but it's also one more system for the players to optimize while the DM manages his normal responsibilities)
For that... yeah, most of the flavour is completely useless... but the crunch is great. But that's more a matter of taste. I find it ties in nicely into the pulpy feel of Eberron, as you can have actual fighting schools.
And Iron Heart with its hobgoblin fluff could be lifted from Dhakaani directly.
Otherwise, I agree with your list, though I'd list Heroes of Horror higher and the Complete splats lower - but that's probably more a matter of play style.
Cheers, LT.
Moderately Usable:
Powers of Fearun. Before you lynch me, Powers of Faerun is about styling campaigns that deal with your PC(s) being members of the Court, moving up the ranks of the Church, being head of the Frontier, merchants, or ruling the road. All the examples are FR specific, but the advise and information is very, very portable. I imagine you could use the advice to "Moving up the Dragonmarked House" ladder too. Of course, your campaign needs to be one of the specifically applicable ones to benefit.
Least:
Races of the Dragon.
Fiendish Codexes.
Strangely, I LOVE that book for Eberron, because of the many quirky things in it. It works very well for an Eberron feel, because the items feel more like actual inventions. And the artificer also gets his mileage out of it.
Actually, I love the book, too. It's among my top favorites of my entire collection. I just found myself having to stop in the middle of a session during which the players were equipping their characters and realized they were flipping through it (and the DMG) like a Sears catalog. It wasn't the break in the session that bothered me (I actually needed the break) as much as it was the having to say no to some really cool items because of the caster level requirement to create them; I wanted to make sure they don't just go out and buy a stock supply of high-level items just because they have the gold coins to pay for it.
For any other campaign setting, MIC is just fine, but for Eberron, in which the demographics are a little different, I needed to remind them of the limit on caster level requirements to craft the item.
Least:
Races of the Dragon.
Fiendish Codexes [Ed. - Codices]
I actually like this book a lot, and have been working on incorporating it into Eberron. With the exception of half-dragons, the dragonborn fit very easily with the Argonnessen chapter presented in Dragons of Eberron.
I take out the flighty fluff about spellscales and make them the physical manifestation of the magic infused in the world of Eberron, however, they do not form entire cities as presented in Races of the Dragon.
Kobolds is directly in line with the Dragonshards article. In fact, the Eberron sidebar shares the same text as the Web article with regards to the three varieties of kobolds.
Regarding Fiendish CodexI/II, I used to be a huge fan of Greyhawk and would love the material in this book (as well as Drow of the Underdark), but I've since switched to and prefer Eberron.
For the most part I agree with you Amaril, but I have to disagree with your opinion on Tome of Battle. I don't use it much myself but I had a player who wanted to and I found that the fluff as written fit into Eberron quite easily. See my explaination here.
I could live with the fluff I guess, but the mechanics are just too overwhelming for me to dig into and balance from the DM side of things. Players have one character to worry about, and can optimize until they are blue in the face. DM's have to manage far too much to be able to balance against a new mechanic as effectively. Maybe I'm being overly prejudiced; I'll have to give it a second read when I have the time.
I'm gonna have to disagree on the ToB. The flavor fits the Elves and Hobgoblins flavor perfectly. Especially that Elf PrC in the book.
OK, I'm going to have to give that book another read.
PS - I'm curious where others would place the following:
- Savage Species
- Dungeon Master’s Guide II
- Magic of Incarnum
- Planar Handbook
Magic of Incarnum... the mechanics are sound, but the fluff has got to be hammered out. It's, imho, lame. I would say that Incarnum could actually be magic being siphoned off of the Rajahs, out of the Mournland, or perhaps from Syberis/Eberron/Khyber itself, as opposed to Magic. I can't think of a good source.
DMGII is just advice.
Other than that it's nice if someone wants to play a native of Droaam.
DMG2- What Rechan said.
MoI- It's a neat idea, but the mechanics can be hard to keep track of (even harder than ToB imho). Watch out for the Totemist in specific, as they can be real monsters. It's also not very easy to fit Incarnum into Eberron. Dragons of Eberron mentions that the Dragons of Argonessan have a host of magical traditions that they never taught the lesser races, perhaps Incarnum is one of them?
Planar Handbook- really doesn't fit with Eberron's cosmology at all, saddly.
Dragons of Eberron mentions that the Dragons of Argonessan have a host of magical traditions that they never taught the lesser races, perhaps Incarnum is one of them?
That would be the best way of handling it, IMO. Better than sticking it just north of Xen'drik, with those stupid spiney-humans.
I'll note that DMGII still has some character options and magic items in it, including weapon templates, NPC traits, feats, and more.
It's also not very easy to fit Incarnum into Eberron. Dragons of Eberron mentions that the Dragons of Argonessan have a host of magical traditions that they never taught the lesser races, perhaps Incarnum is one of them?
I'd stickit RIGHT into Xen'drik, as kind of lost magic used by the giants. I mean the giants have ties with the very creation of species (elves, drow), have certain ties to the warforged (do they have a soul or not) and the quori (being born of the plane of dreams... they're pretty ephemeral and somewhat 'spirit-like') - it'd make sense that giants have at least dabbled in the manipulation of life forces, shaped into "animalistic templates".
Cheers, LT.
Least Usable
- Monster Manual II Requires too much conversion for use in a 3.5 setting.
I disagree. In fact, there's multiple creatures in MM2 present in Xen'Drik. The Abeil colony and the Forest Giant immediately spring to mind, and there may well be others.
Also, there are a great many wonderful constructs in this book that are perfect for Eberron. The Nimblewright makes a great .alt warforged enemy, ans the automatons and clockwork horrors are excellent as well. The aforementioned giants gives even greater diversity to Xen'Drik, and there are some lovely undead in there as well.
It's unfortunate that the 3.0 roster doesn't get much "cred" these days. When you think about it, most 3.5 releases are a look back on original material.
Amaril, your formatting is really impressive and I think you've put a lot of thought and effort into this. I don't agree with much of what you say, but I'll only trouble the thread with this ruling, which I think deserves discussion
Thanks, I've been thinking a lot about this since 4e was announced. It's sort of a reflection of what's in my library and what's still out there that might be of use in a v3.5 Eberron campaign. I am curious to hear about what things you disagree with. I'm open to fresh ideas and suggestions on how certain material might be more or less usable in Eberron.
I'll also be honest in noting that while some books have material that is very usable in Eberron (e.g. - the Race series), the majority of the book itself isn't very usable.
I disagree. In fact, there's multiple creatures in MM2 present in Xen'Drik. The Abeil colony and the Forest Giant immediately spring to mind, and there may well be others.
Also, there are a great many wonderful constructs in this book that are perfect for Eberron. The Nimblewright makes a great .alt warforged enemy, ans the automatons and clockwork horrors are excellent as well. The aforementioned giants gives even greater diversity to Xen'Drik, and there are some lovely undead in there as well.
It's unfortunate that the 3.0 roster doesn't get much "cred" these days. When you think about it, most 3.5 releases are a look back on original material.
To reiterate, by usable I mean readily adaptable, meaning I can drop it right into the setting without much work. Monster Manual II has very fitting monsters, it's just a nuisance to convert it.
Also, I did include a few 3.0 supplements including Arms and Equipment Guide, Fiend Folio (regarded unofficially as 3.25), Stronghold Builder's Guidebook, and Book of Vile Darkness. Most other 3.0 books were either updated in various supplements, were FR books, or weren't worth utilizing in either 3.5 or Eberron specifically (e.g. - Enemies and Allies, Deities and Demigods, Manual of the Planes, Oriental Adventures).
PS - Shuffled a few other things around, namely Draconomicon, Dragon Magic, and the core Race series.
The whole book is very pulp and is very fitting to Eberron IMHO.
Also, while an equal playing field is important, I advise DMs not to let the 3.5 update from invalidating old material. I can't vouch for every monster in MM2, but a lot don't really need to be converted unless the use psionics or other heavily modified rules (haste is the only one that really comes to mind).
The point is that the majority of monsters are still roughly within CR and compliant enough to 3.5 rules for the 5 rounds it'll take the party to kill them anyway.
I pilfered Edymnion's thread a while back about the Draconic Prophesy - and he uses Truespeak as the words of the prophecy, and puts Truenamers as students of the prophecy and of the original language that Syberis, Eberron, and Khyber used to create the world. He even links it to the mourning, and the giant's smashing away of Dal'Quor. Very cool stuff. I pilfered every single word of it for my last Eberron campaign, and it worked beautifully. It's almost a "direct drop" into the setting.
Shadow magic - eh... not so much. Meh.
Binders? Man!! I had a new Silver Flame inquisition on my hands with those guys... very easy to do!
Also the book of Exalted deeds has given me resource enough for a planned encounter where one character winds up channeling a Coutal (sp?)
I'm partial to using the book of exalted deeds and the books of vile darkness in Eberron...it offers ideas and options for some of the cults of the dragon below, the mockery, and some drug alternatives to Dreamlily being the only urban problem.
Also the book of Exalted deeds has given me resource enough for a planned encounter where one character winds up channeling a Coutal (sp?)
Those are actually pretty good uses for those two books, but I think they are still too specific to consider the books to be widely usable.
MIC has also seen a lot of use, for very much the same reasons as other people have.
I've also picked out a handful of base classes from various books (the Complete series, HoH, DM, PHB2) to add to the list in the ECS ones with similar short descriptions, but not really used any material beyond that.
Other than that, I've not used much material beyond what's in the core and Eberron setting books per se, but rather taken inspiration from them to work into something I envision to be fitting of Eberron.
After playing in my homebrew setting for quite some time I learned a harsh lesson about what material to allow (especially when it comes to prestige classes), and I've more or less told my players to ignore the "if it exists in D&D, it has a place in Eberron" line. Because there's only so much work I'm prepared to do to fit something into the setting.
Here are my following thoughts on some of them:
Arms and Equipment Guide: I love this book, but half the material has been updated in other sources. The mundane stuff is great at low levels though. I think this should get a bump down to moderate usefullness.
Complete Warrior/Arcane/Adventurer/Psionic/Mage/Scoundrel: I think you are right on, these have to be some of the best books out there.
Draconomicon, Races of the Dragon, and Dragon Magic: They are great books, but given the way that dragons are portrayed it can be tricky to use some of the material. Dragons of Eberron did do a lot to make them both more viable though. If you are running a dragon heavy game then they are more useful.
Cityscape, Dungeonscape: I have to disagree on these. Cityscape is a great way to help with Sharn (not that it needs it) or to create other citys such as Wroat. Dungeonscape is great for players and DMs alike. Eberron maybe a bit less focused on traditional dungeons than other settings, but they still come up pretty frequently, at least in the games I have played in.
Complete Divine and Complete Champion: Definately to much Greyhawk, but other than that they have lots of good material feat and spell wise.
Dungeon Master's Guide II: As I mentioned above, this book has to be judge from a DM's perspective. It has lots of great general advice for improving a game. It does not have a lot of material that is particularly great for Eberron, but as a general tool any game can be improved by it. I think it needs to be moved to very useful.
Frostburn, Sandstorm, Stormwrack: I think you are right about them being limited to certain situation, but when those situation arise they are invaluable. Stormwrack in particular is great for Eberron. Lhazaar, Zillargo, Shargons Teeth, and airships are all areas that this book can improve. It at least should recieve a boost in usefullness.
Heroes of Horror: I have to disagree a lot here. This has to be one of the best books out there. Even if you are not going for a horror setting a lot of the stuff can add a new level of darkness. Even if you just want to make one villan extra creepy or a dungeon extra horrific, this is the source for it. Corruption is a great way to emphasis the whole shades of grey concept in Eberron by giving even good heros a touch of evil. This is definately a very usefull book.
Libris Mortis & Lords of Madness:Between the Emerald Claw and Dalkyer these two are indispensable. Aberations and Undead are the two monster types that a game is most likely to revolve around after Dragons. I admit I may be biased as they are my favorites to fight. I myself use them more than any of the monster manuals.
Magic Item Compendium: I think by virtue of the existance of Arifacers this book needs to have a very useful rating. I know a lot of people are against having players loaded down in magic items, but that is the player's perogative. I understand the whole idea of not letting PCs purchase items with a caster level higher than 10, but keep in mind that some fairly cheep items like Beads of Force have high caster levels. I would suggest using a price cap rather than a level cap. All of my loathing for 4 Ed. aside, I do hope that they fix than problem.
Races of Stone, Races of the Wild, Races of Destiny: These books definatly are less useful in Eberron than in most games, at least as far as the background material goes. The feats, items, and racial substituion levels are still good though. A lot of the background material still works though for most of the races as long as you keep the specifics of Eberron in mind. Mainly it is the mythic origins and deities that have to go.
Spell Compendium: Players love it, DMs hate it. As a DM I recomend screening all spells that players want to use from it. Forbid some and make others require special training, such as you must worship the Silver Flame to learn certain spells.
Book of Exalted Deeds: I think that this book can fit well in Eberron. Even with the shades of grey idea that is so prevelant, that does not mean heros stop being good. In fact, it can make thing even more interesting by having exaulted characters face moraly ambiguous enemies. I've found that it is player adittudes that make this book hard to use than anything else. I would recomend it for moderate usefulness.
Book of Vile Darkness: Much like Heros of Horror, I think this a great book for DMs. Much like the Book of Exaulted Deeds, I think people look to much at the shades of grey and think that means that real evil is suppose to be kicked to the curve. I disagree. Often the more things are in the shades of grey, the more evil they are in the end. This book offers ways to make villans truely memorable. A cleric of the Keeper making human sacrifices in front of the PCs is something that will be remebered for a while. I think this book should be very usefull as a tool for a DM.
Planar Handbook: This one can be a bit tricky given Eberron's unique set of planes, but that can be worked around. It is mostly just a mater of figuring out which of the regular planes corespond to Eberron's and addapt it from there. Ferina = Plane of Fire, Mabar = Negative energy plane, etc. The Manual of the Planes is probably less usefull than this.
Those are my thoughts on some of the books. A few of them I think seem less useful for Eberron at first glance, such as the races books, but can be easily addaped.
Here are my following thoughts on some of them:
...
I read through this quickly and I think you have some interesting and fair arguments and ideas. I'd like to take the time to read through it again at some point and respond when I have more time. In general, I think some of the comments need to distinguish whether the book is useful as is, meaning the book can be picked up and used widely, or if the book has the potential to be useful for specific adventure and campaign styles.
Other comments such as DMGII are true, but they are true of any game, not just Eberron. The idea of the thread is to evaluate the usefulness of the books for Eberron specifically and out of the vernacular box.
In the meantime, I'd like to see what others think.