Rules and Mechanics
Eberron was specifically created with the 3.5 edition rules in mind. While it adds some new material -- including a new rule in the form of Action Points -- its emphasis is on using the existing rules in an integrated and thoughtful way. For specifics, see Keith Baker's comments below:
Action
Points
Existing Material
Basic
Classes
- New
Basic Class: Artificer
New Race: Warforged
New Race: Kalashtar
New Race: Shifter
Prestige Classes
- Converting Non-Eberron Classes
Alignment
Epic Level Play
Dragonmarks
NPCs
- New
NPC Class: Magewright
Favored Classes
Magic
Level
Clarifications and Preliminary Errata
In
Eberron, action points
have additional uses beyond just adding to a die roll; these additional
uses are generally more interesting than just "Woo hoo! +3 to my
Climb check!" The goal is indeed to allow characters to push themselves
to perform beyond their usual limitations in particularly challenging
situations. This reflects the idea that even low-level PCs are remarkable
individuals with the potential to be the great heroes of the world, and
they can perform feats beyond the capabilities of typical NPCs (though
the DM could certainly give the evil mastermind an action point or two).
Exceptional villains and critical NPCs could also be given action points
to make them a more challenging match for the PCs, but if you think of
a game as a movie, it would be Darth Vader who has an action point or
two, not every stormtrooper. …If you wanted to give everyone action points,
you certainly could; it's just not the intention of the mechanic.
WotC
has been emphasizing that Eberron *will* be compatible with all their
other non-setting specific material, and efforts have been made to make
that work in a logical manner. [Action points do not] require any significant
changes whatsoever. The standard classes will not be changed at all. Action
points are an enhancement, a free addition that gives you a new element
to play with. Now a wizard can spend an action point to save a spell he
has just cast, or a barbarian can use an action point to rage an extra
time. But neither of them *need* action points, and no changes are being
made to the specific classes to accomodate action points. No-one's saying
"You have to expend an action point in order to use a wand."
So again, action points do nothing to make Eberron incompatible with other
D&D material.
Eberron uses the standard classes, so you never have to use an action point to activate a class ability; action point just allow you to get more use out of existing class abilities. There may be AP-based feats, but of course it's up to the individual whether or not to select such a feat.
Dragon 315 had a fairly detailed write-up on action points, though they have evolved somewhat since then.
I
own the core D&D books. I want to be able to use the monsters and
systems in those books. But I would like to feel that these somehow make
sense -- that when my friend wants to play a psion, the world provides
him with story ties to help him develop his background. That when you
run into a pack of gnolls, you've got some idea what they are doing and
where they came from. The goal on the development end was not "cram
everything in there" but rather "try to give the monsters and
systems of D&D a logical tie to the story of the world."
You
own the Monster Manual, so you ought to be able to use everything in it;
Eberron tries to provide a logical basis for all the creatures in the
MM existing on the same world. Gnolls, kobolds, orcs, ogres, and all the
many goblinoids aren't just randomly wandering around in the wilderness;
they have a geographical and historical place in the world. This is what
Mat meant about the world supporting monstrous characters; if you do choose
to play an ogre, you have background material to draw on just as a human
player does (even if frankly, I think there are more than enough interesting
ECL 0 races). Even for monsters or races that are not given much focus,
it is a fairly simple matter to study the world and say "Well, this
is where that creature would be." From that point, it's up to you
as a DM - if you sort of like that creature, send the players to that
location, which enhanced travel makes possible. If you really like that
creature, come up with a "Flumph Invasion" storyline. If you
don't like it at all, ("I hate dinosaurs!") never send the players
there and just pretend it doesn't exist.
Just because Eberron has a place for existing material does not mean it's a directionless hodge-podge. In fact, quite the reverse - it is an attempt to take the hodge-podge that is the material in the core books and apply some order to it.
If you want the industrious abeil to be a potential threat to the nations of Khorvaire, put them in the Mournland. Personally, I'd say that they are exactly the sort of thing you'd find in Xen'drik: "While searching for the forgotten idol of Kalyn-Wa, we have stumbled upon a hidden city of bizzare bee-people. Their queen seems quite taken with Haleth, and we have been promised 'a prominent role' in an upcoming feast..."
In Eberron, the PC classes are less common than indicated by the standard DMG demographics table. Case in point, in Sharn -- the largest metropolis on Khorvaire -- the highest-level NPC wizard is a single 11th level character. By comparison, the standard table would generate at least 4 13th level wizards (if not higher level).
You'd use the "more common" number for magewrights in the big cities. This would also vary by race; among the Aerenal elves, there should be considerably fewer commoners and more experts and magewrights (though admittedly, this latter point is not presented in the CSB -- it's a level of detail you'd need to add yourself, though I'd expect it to be dealt with in sourcebooks that provide a tighter focus on regions or races).
I am curious to hear what people think about the artificer. So far, I've been having a lot of fun with it in my campaign. In particular, personal weapon augmentation allows a low-level artificer to be an extremely versatile missile combatant (or melee combatant, but mediocre BAB and HD make ranged a better option). Obviously you don't have the full text on any of the augmentations, but the little blurbs [in Dragon #316] give the basic ideas. And the combo of a warforged and an artificer -- or a warforged artificer -- is a great one to have in the group.
There are no other 20-level base classes [being introduced in the campaign setting book].
At low levels, they are good missile support; they can wear decent armor, have a moderate BAB, and can use personal weapon augmentation to add, say, bane to a crossbow. Once you reach the mid levels, spell storing item is an EXTREMELY versatile ability, effectively letting you manufacture a short-term, 1-shot wand of whatever on the spot.
[Describing the look and feel of artificer magic] is a flavor thing, so when it comes down to it, it's really up to you. In my game, when the artificer touches the warforged, he temporarily perceives its essence -- the web of energy that serves as it's blueprint (in a sense, warforged DNA, but magical instead of biological). Using repair he tries to restore the physical shell to this ideal; using inflict he does the reverse. I have a mystical glow associated with it, but don't actually have magical tools appear or make the artificer produce tools for the job.
With that said, I might do something entirely different for a wizard or sorcerer with repair. having them use a little hammer to perform sympathetic repair. As I see it, the artificer works on a fundamentally different level than the wizard. Where the wizard performs an invocation/ritual that triggers a magical effect, the artificer reaches out to the fundamental force of magic (whatever that is, which is certainly a point of arcane debate) and binds it to a physical object.
Most artificer spells have somatic components, and I tend to see these as being even more involved than wizard gestures; the character is literally weaving the energy into the enchanted item. You may say "Then why doesn't he have arcane failure?" The answer is that he is not trying to perform a single perfect gesture, as a wizard is; he is performing a string of gestures, pulling on different threads of mystical energy, and if he slips up with one he just needs to resolve the error with the following gestures.
But as an element of pure flavor, feel free to adjust this to suit your aesthetic tastes.
There
are a few [feats] that help you customize your character and make it more
appropriate for certain classes (after all, a fighter who can't wear armor
and only has a +2 AC bonus is at a slight disadvantage...).
There are certainly many more customization options beyond feats, but
I'm sure these will be revealed in time. As for not healing naturally,
the balance to this is that they can be healed through use of craft skills,
and a warforged can even repair itself... and given that they don't sleep,
if you don't mind the noise it can stay up through the night smoothing
out the dents.
There's a lot more to the warforged than what you get at first level (be
it feats or racial abilities). The ability to actually place armor enchantments
directly on a warforged is one example of this, but there are other things
that will let you evolve a warforged character in significant ways at
higher levels. To obliquely mention two, I'll just say "warforged
juggernaut" and suggest that people take a close look at the warforged
wizard on the
WAR cover from the last Gearing up for Eberron article. What's going
on with his right arm?
Of course, while the campaign setting book will go into more detail, it
will still only scratch the surface of the issues that could be explored.
I'm sure more will be done with warforged and warforged culture, be it
in sourcebooks, novels, or among players & DMs.
As a side note, the warforged have gone through about half a dozen overhauls
over the last two years. They have been playtested to Baator and back
again. They did begin as full constructs, and it had a lot of issues.
Game balance was certainly a factor in the decisions, but it was also
a question of trying to make sure that the characters were fun to play
(and frankly if one character is extremely unbalanced, that is going to
affect whether it's fun to play, at least for everyone else...). I'm quite
happy with the current version of the warforged, and I ran a warforged
character the one chance I had to play in an Eberron game. The first level
feats provide you with a fair amount of versatility in initial character
concept, and in the long term there are ways to embrace your construct
heritage, if that's what appeals to you. And hey, if you're going to hang
with the Lord of Blades, it better be what appeals to you.
Warforged have souls. They are sentient creatures. Why shouldn't mind-affecting
spells affect them?
Warforged are not just made of metal. They receive a reduced benefit from
healing spells... from a game balance perspective, if they could not benefit
at all from healing magic, it would really become impossible to have a
warforged character in a party unless there was an artificer along as
well, which is a drag if no one in a group wants to play an artificer.
Even the half benefit from healing is a fairly serious limitation, though
the Craft system helps offset it.
They may use Craft in place of Heal, but the mechanics of this process
are completely different. It's not just "make all the same checks as if
you were using Heal, but use your Craft ranks instead."
Speaking of which, they cannot wear armor on top of the +2 bonus. Why?
The same reason you can't say "My fighter is going to wear a breastplate,
and then put a suit of plate mail on top of that." Effectively, a warforged
IS a suit of armor. The starting feat determines what type of armor it
is. They aren't designed for it and they aren't as flexible as organic
creatures to begin with. If you want the benefit of heavy plate, get the
Adamantine Plating feat (+8 AC, DR 2/adamantine). It's possible that supplimentary
plating could be added in the future (which is to say, it's not something
you'll see now, but might be explored in a warforged sourcebook) but the
warforged is basically a living suit of armor, and wearing more armor
on top just won't work very well.
We have feats and the ability to have your character permanently enchanted
as two ways to physically evolve your character over time, and as I've
said, there are others. Beyond that, a lot of it is personality and backstory.
There may be a way for a warforged to become immune to mind-affecting
effects, which would solve the problem of fear and confusion...
In general, however, warforged are built to be combatants, and they are
certainly best suited to being fighters. You can take any class, but it's
true that clerics, sorcerers, et al suffer from the stat penalties --
just like half-orcs make poor wizards, sorcerers, or bards. But it can
still be interesting to play a half-orc bard, if you're more concerning
with story than stats -- it depends on your style of campaign.
It's true, if you're any type of fighter you really do need to take an
armor feat. Of course, in exchange for that penalty you gain immunity
to poison, disease, paralysis, nausea, sleep, fatigue, and exhaustion.
You don't need to eat, sleep, or breathe. If you get a Craft skill, you
can heal yourself. You get light fortification. You have the potential
to have +8 AC and DR 2 at first level -- and in my opinion, I'd say DR
2/adamantine alone is worth the expenditure of a feat for a low-level
fighter.
So sure, you basically have to expend a feat. But having played a warforged
fighter, I think it's well worth the sacrifice. And I actually DM'd a
warforged barbarian, who seemed to have a fine time with his choice --
immunity to paralysis can certainly be useful when you're charging headlong
into a pack of ghouls.
As for the armor issue, the point again is that the body of a warforged
has far more in common with a breastplate than a chain shirt. It's formed
of large sections of inflexible material. Like I said, if you want to
house-rule it in your campaign, go for it -- but the current rules make
sense to me. From a mechanics standpoint, don't forget that the warforged
can BE enchanted; your fighter may have +3 platemail, but I have +3 adamantine
plating & light fortification to boot. And bear in mind that you haven't
seen any new magic items yet. Just because the warforged can't wear armor
doesn't mean that you may not be able to acquire treasures that can improve
your defense or other abilities... and that's all I'll say about that.
In regards to warforged barbarians, bear in mind that warforged are immune
to fatigue! This means that you can rage without fear of the penalty at
the end, assuming combat lasts that long. Hence my seeing it as less of
an emotional rage and more of a temporary alchemical boost.
The use of a Craft skill for healing purposes takes hours, and its effiency
is directly tied to your skill check. It helps to offset the healing penalty,
but in the middle of a heated battle, it's no use. And that really is
the big drawback of the warforged -- if you have a group with no artificer
and only one healer (as I currently do), it does make life challenging
for the warforged fighter.
I think of cure spells as first and foremost restoring the motive force
and willpower of the warforged, allowing it to soldier on in spite of
physical damage (terminator style). Cure spells won't fix dents or scratches,
but they will give the character the strength to fight on in spite of
those dents. As I see it, a warforged could be at full hp and still look
fairly beat up -- you're just going to have to demolish him before he
finally gives up the ghost.
A warforged paladin or monk gains the full benefit from [lay on hands
and wholeness of body]. A warforged paladin can in fact use its lay on
hands to repair other constructs in addition to living creatures. Of course,
that -2 Cha will hurt.
[Most
Warforged were "made" with PC classes, giving them an advantage over the 1st-level warriors who
made up the bulk of most Last War armies.] I would also be inclined to make all warforged elite NPCs, with maximum hit points at first level and the elite ability array.
A quick comparison between the elite warforged and the standard soldier:
Warforged Ftr2; CR 2; Medium humanoid (living construct); HD 2d10+6; hp 21; Init +1; Spd 20 ft; AC 21 (+1 Dex, +2 heavy steel shield, +8 Adamantine Body); Base Atk +2; Grap +4; Atk +4 melee (1d8+2, longsword); Full Atk +4 melee (1d8+2, longsword); SQ Damage reduction 2/adamantine, warforged traits; AL N; SV Fort +6, Ref +1, Will +0; Str 15, Dex 13, Con 16, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 6.
Skills and Feats: Craft (armorsmith) +5, Intimidate +3; Adamantine Body, Cleave, Power Attack.
Human War1; CR 1/2; Medium humanoid (human); HD 1d8+1; hp 8; Init +0; Spd 20 ft; AC 16 (+2 heavy steel shield, +4 scale mail); Base Atk +1; Grap +2; Atk +2 melee (1d8+1, longsword); Full Atk +2 melee (1d8+1, longsword); AL N; SV Fort +3, Ref +0, Will +0; Str 13, Dex 11, Con 12, Int 9, Wis 10, Cha 8.
Skills and Feats: Craft (armorsmith) +1, Intimidate +4, Ride +3; Power Attack, Toughness.
With warforged using PC classes, you then get barbarians as skirmish troops, rangers as scouts, and so on. This assumes a 2nd-level warforged, but personally I have no problem with the idea that many warforged are 2nd-level or higher; there aren't that many of them, and they have always been an elite force as opposed to the bulk of the armies (1st-level warforged are thus experimental or economy models). However, I would still make high-level warforged just as rare as high-level humans; the PC warforged still has greater potential than most.
You could also say "As long as we're looking at 2nd-level fighters, why not look at a human fighter?" Certainly. But 2nd-level+ fighters (say, Valenar mercenaries) would also be a valuable and rare commodity. A kingdom would want all that it could get, and if it can make more, great. If you do the math, you'll see that the warforged can clobber a batch of the warriors, and even repair itself between battles. The arms race is the scenario I see: Cyre commissions the first warforged troop, and after seeing them in action the other nations say "Sign us up for a piece of
that!"
Having the new races all be LA 0 was a conscious decision, and one I stand by. Many people have already said that they will start PCs off above first level to begin with. My point was that if the typical warforged soldier is 2nd-level, if you play a 1st-level warforged PC it is up to YOU to decide why you're 1st-level. You may be an experimental scout or "economy model". If you're not a fighter, it's easy to say that you're experimental in nature. You can use the war damage approach -- you were caught in the event that destroyed Cyre, and while you survived, it had an adverse affect that you are still recovering from. The choice is up to you; the fact is that you start out slightly inferior to the typical warforged. But they do not have the potential for advancement you do, just like all PCs.
A DM who wants the warforged to be powerful can make them higher level. But once you give them a level adjustment, you've taken an option away from the group; a warforged no longer has a place in a level 1 party. You can change them if you want to in your campaign; overall, I stand by what we have done with the race. There is no reason that the typical warforged has to be level 1, and by raising the level of the standard warforged soldier you address the question of their effectiveness on the battlefield.
And indeed, with the exception of small, elite units I would not expect to see an army comprised entirely of warforged. An individual warforged may not be a tank (that would be a warforged titan or jugernaut), but I would see it as being the equivalent of heavy cavalry: expensive, elite, and serving a specific function. And as I and others have pointed out, nations are willing to spend a great deal of money when it comes to getting a slight edge in battle. Setting the $5 million dollar toilet seats aside, look at the cost of some of our modern military equipment. How many soldiers could you outfit for the cost of one cruise missile? Yes, the missile serves an entirely different purpose on the battlefield than the foot soldier -- but so does the warforged soldier. Likewise, even if I could equip 20 soldiers for the price of one warforged, it may be that I have the gold and I don't have the 20 soldiers *to* equip, or that I would prefer not to send my people to their deaths if I can send an "unliving" creature in their place. Both thoughts reflect on Cyre, the nation that commissioned the first warforged -- although with warforged having souls, the second point would eventually be called into question.
The warforged -- the PC race -- first appeared 30 years ago, though variants of the warforged like the warforged titan were around before that.
The CSB does not present special options for warforged monks, but it's true that Diamond Body and Purity of Body are redundant for a warofrged character. I'll try to address this in the future.
Kalashtar live slightly long than humans; the once-immortal kalashtar spirit extends the lifespan of the host, with a final result of 75/113/150/+4d20 years. There are no special kalashtar soul feats in the campaign setting book (after all, if you've got the
XPH, you've got
lots of extra feats for kalashtar), but it's something I'd like to explore in the future. And no, there are no new psionic feats or rules in the book. The goal was to make sure that psionics had a solid place in the world -- but since some DMs will never use
psionics, we chose to focus the space on material all DM s could use. There's only so much you can squeeze into 320 pages, and we had to make some tough decisions.
Mindlink is 1/day. The quori nightmare is something that fell by the wayside for the reasons mentioned above; One way or another I imagine it will turn up in the future.
With all of the interesting psionic feats, I think that you can get a lot from a kalashtar without actually being a psion or psychic warrior; they can let you explore psionics even if you don't want to go overboard with them.
[The kalashtar's] extra power points are especially good for the character who wants to dual-class with
psionics, since it lets you continue to build your psionic power as you advance in level. So taking that 6th-level fighter/6th-level psychic warrior, at 12th level you have as many power points as a 9th-level psychic warrior.
In my opinion, [Trap the Soul, Resurrect, and Reincarnate] would work normally on a kalashtar character. The kalashtar has a bond to a quori soul, but the quori spirit is spread throughout all of its kalashtar descendents. It cannot be killed unless all of its kalashtar descendents are killed. Thus, not enough of the spirit is concentrated in the body to be affected by trap the soul. If the character is resurrected, he regains the bond he possessed in life; if he is reincarnated, he loses that bond, because his new body will be incapable of supporting it. Now, if a human is reincarnated as a
kalashtar, that's a trickier question; his spiritual bond might be chosen at random, or he might be physically kalashtar but lack the bond.
There has been discussion of a "shifter monk style" that would allow the shifter to gain enhanced damage while shifted -- representing the incorporation of claws into the martial traditions of the monk -- but this is not in the Campaign Setting book. A shifter trained in a style developed by humans would not be taught to use his claws to maximum effect. However, aside from the razorclaw, any other shifter ability would work fine. Long tooth gets you the second attack, beasthide increases your AC, etc.
It's also true that the "include everything in D&D" was
really only meant to cover the core books & psionics. There's nothing
peventing a DM from squeezing in his favorite stuff from FR or Greyhawk,
but that wasn't the original intent.
There
are PrCs, though not an overwhelming number; we actually trimmed our original
PrC list to focus on the ideas that were most central to the setting or
tied to particular groups within the setting.
Converting
Non-Eberron Classes
However, the cultures in Eberron are not designed to mimic terrestrial cultures, and classes based on our history are going to carry some of that flavor with them -- or else, feel left out in the cold without that culture to support them. Ditto for classes specifically designed with another world in mind, like Red Wizards. My question is what the person playing the samurai wants. If they just like the mechanics of the samurai class, OK -- though again, it's not something represented among the cultures of Khorvaire, so you'll be something of an outsider. But if what you want is the whole experience of being a samurai -- preserving family honor, engaging in iatsu duels with other samurai -- Eberron as it stands isn't going to provide that. Again, if you want to add in a samurai culture, there's nothing to stop you -- but it's not supported within the current history.
Can you do it? Sure. But if you do want to stay close to a setting's feel, as you say you do, I'd say you'll need to judge it on a case by case basis. In general, a hunter of the dead might not make sense; undead were actually used in the Last War, and why wasn't the order of undead hunters there to stop this? On the other hand, if you're an Aerenal elf, it's actually already defined as being a part of your culture... run with it.
Alignment
is still a part of Eberron. Removing alignment completely would have a
lot of mechanical implications and would have more of an impact on importing
or exporting material to and from other settings than, say, action points.
With that said, we are taking a slightly different approach to alignment.
The first has already been mentioned in one of the articles, and that
is that there are very few things that have mandatory alignments. Wererats
aren't always evil and gold dragons aren't always good. The second is
a broader look at alignment -- using more of a scale of shades of gray
as opposed to pure black and white. What does it mean to have an evil
alignment? One of the main elements is the willingness to put your own
needs ahead of the needs of others. Well, by that definition, how many
people do you know who are evil? In a big city, you're going to find an
awful lot of evil people. So you're a paladin, and you discover that the
innkeeper is evil. First off, you can't just cut him down where he stands;
being "evil" is not a crime. The question you have to wonder
is just how evil is he? Odds are, he's just greedy and selfish; he'd be
happy to overcharge you for your meal, but he won't murder you while you
sleep. Then again, you never know...
It's worth noting that human evil is one of the forces the Silver Flame
strives to combat -- but that is generally a philosophical battle as opposed
to a physical one, the work of the church ministry as opposed to the church
militant.
At the same time, there are some foes out there that are very black and
white. This allows the DM to pick the style of place best suited to his
or her group. If they like ethical and moral dilemmas, then urban adventures,
corruption within governments and churches, and a number of the more complex
conspiracies are ideal things to use. If the players prefer straight-up
action, they can fight to keep groups like the Order of the Emerald Claw
from seizing ancient artifacts and posing a threat to the world as we
know it. The goal of Eberron is to embrace multiple different playstyles.
As a whole, it's "pulp/noir" -- but it's up to you to decide
the balance between the two.
…I suppose I am defining good and evil here to a large degree in terms
of empathy: do you care at all about other people? A good person does;
a neutral person may, depending on how it impacts them; an evil person
does not.
But, of course, the point is that these things are colored in shades,
instead of being black and white.
True,
the Monster Manual does note that it is possible for an "always"
alignment to change, but that "these creatures are unique or rare
exceptions." We're just taking that a step farther. As things stand,
you *could* run into an evil gold dragon, but it would come as a surprise.
In Eberron, you don't have the expectation that the dragon is good to
begin with -- you're going to have to find out by interacting with it.
Mainly, the point I was trying to make before is that detect spells won't
necessarily be helpful, because knowing that someone is evil doesn't tell
you just how evil they are. The paladin may be able to say "I don't
trust this guy..." But it's not the case that everyone who possesses
an evil alignment is a villian (or, potentially, that everyone with a
good alignment is a hero).
The one case where fixed alignments are slightly more common are extraplanar
entities. If a being is a living embodiment of an idea or concept, it
follows that it will usually have a certain alignment (i.e., most angels
are good). However, you can always have fallen angels and redeemed fiends,
so even that can't be taken for granted.
An important point here is that you don't have to be good to worship a good deity, as noted by the fact that the Silver Flame has problems with corruption in its ranks. And indeed, most of the people of Eberron are neutral.
With most people (clerics and fiends notwithstanding) a spell like detect evil will tell you that someone is evil, but not how evil they are. Likewise, if I'm the King of Breland, I may want an evil man to be my spymaster; a ruthless man may make a more effective spy than a good one. If you tell the king "Half you court is evil!" he might say "If they get their jobs done, it's no concern of mine."
So detect alignment spells may be used to get a sense of a person -- but no, it's not like you're going to be arrested for being evil... It's possible [that detect alignment spells could be used to screen people from organizations]. The point is that there aren't that many alignment specific groups; a variance in alignment is an expected part of the mortal condition.
Another good point: just because someone behaves in a manner that is clearly evil doesn't mean that they see themselves that way. They may consider themselves to be the only people who have the guts to do what needs to be done for the greater good.
There are two points to the "gray" alignment of Eberron. The first is that you can't rely on creatures filling traditional alignment roles -- so you can have a good wererat or an evil silver dragon. The second is a general encouragement to look at alignment in this broader sense. In my mind, the Lord of Blades is evil. He sees himself as good, and he is doing good things for the warforged. But if it served the needs of the warforged, he would burn down a building full of teary-eyed halfling orphans without a moment's thought. In the case of the lycanthrope purge, at least the potentially innocent lycanthropes still carried the curse and could infect others; like it or not, they presented a threat. The
Lord of Blades will kill humans who present no threat to prove a point or accomplish a goal. To me, that equates to evil: all that matters are his own personal goals. He may have empathy for a specific group, but he is willing to inflict horrors on all others to protect the interests of his followers (and frankly, I wouldn't see him freeing other oppressed people, though I can see how you could take him in this direction).
But... OK, he's evil. He'll do bad things. But let's say you find a warforged slave labor camp in Karrnath and you discover the
Lord of Blades is planning on attacking it. What do you do? Sure, the Lord of Blades is "evil". But the commanders of the camp may be just as despicable. Do you fight him? Do you help him free the warforged and then fight him? Do you try to free the warforged yourself in such a way as to preserve the lives of the human overseers (who the
Lord of Blades will surely kill) - even if you're undermining the rightful authority of the King of Karrnath? Again, that's where the gray factor comes in: there won't always be a right answer.
Now, there's no reason you couldn't run the same story in any D&D setting. This is nothing unique to Eberron. It's just there are a lot of similar situations that can come up in Eberron --
villains who may have good reasons for their terrible actions, good organizations that may be corrupt or misguided.
[The Lord of Blades] may act in a way that is perceived as good by a large number of people. But the fact that he will inflict horrors without a second thought is what makes him evil overall. Good characters can take evil actions -- evil characters can do good. The question in my mind is one of remorse and preference. If the character
has to slay an innocent for the greater good -- it's possible that both a
Lawful Good or Lawful Evil character. But I would expect the Lawful Good character to agonize about it and try to find another way, while the
Lawful Evil character just shrugs and does it.
I suspect that the Lord of Blades' followers come from all alignments. And that's my point: this is a world where for the most part, good and evil can not only work hand in hand, but have to do so every day. There are forces that are clearly black and white -- villains that are simply bad and allies who are clearly good, and if you hate moral ambiguity you can focus on those aspects of the world. But many of the power players in the world are less easy to categorize. Sure, any one member of the group has a specific alignment, but the actions of the group itself may be harder to predict. You're going to have a hard time finding someone more noble than the Keeper of the Flame -- but that doesn't mean you won't run into soldiers of the Silver Flame engaged in a
reprehensible act. Likewise, you could encounter a group of warforged acting on behalf of the Lord of Blades who are all lawful good; they'll just handle their task in a different manner than he would.
Yes, epic gaming is supported, and the campaign setting book provides suggestions for epic level gaming in the world. There are challenges that are suitable for epic level characters. The point is that are no NPCs of these levels within the civilizations of the world. Going back to the pulp flavor, one of the aspects of the pulps is that the heroes are truly remarkable individuals, and that they possess the potential to shape the world. There is no Gandalf or Elminster out to protect civilization: you're the best it has to offer, and only you can overcome those epic challenges.
[Couldn't
high-level PCs just take over the world?] If that's the campaign you want to
run... But just because you can defeat any force on the battlefield does not mean you can maintain control over lands you have conquered. If dealing with administration and maintainance of lands, internal politics, vassals, and all that is your idea of a good time, go for it (and I'd recommend picking up
Dynasties & Demagogues by Atlas Games). With the chaos following the war, it's a perfectly good setting to try it, and hey, there are other forces out there who ARE trying it. And you'll still need to deal with the Lord of Blades,
Xoriat, the Inspired, etc. if you want to be a conqueror. And last but not least, the absence of powerful good NPCs is intended to allow the PCs to rise up as heroes. If the PCs rise up as
villians, well, as a DM I'd be likely to have a few new NPC heroes appear to oppose them -- the party the players might have been.
I'd also point out that in most civilized societies, the ruler governs based on tradition as opposed to personal power. Even in fantasy, well, check Lord of the Rings: Do you think Denethor could have lasted five minutes against Legolas or
Gimli? But it's not like they just walked in and cut him down where he stood. If you don't respect the traditions of a nation, why should they accept your authority?
Actually, the issue of how a society can enforce the law when there are powerful PCs around is one of the subjects of [Atlas Games']
Crime & Punishment. And if you don't like the master inquisitive or investigation elements of Eberron, C&P provides a different style of investigator (Yes, I'm the author, and no, I don't get royalties).
In deciding what we could squeeze into the
Campaign Setting book, stats for epic level threats were not a priority, because we had a lot of material to cram in and it's going to be a while before you're ready to fend off extraplanar invasions.
So yes, greater dangers are out there, and there will be challenges even for epic-level characters. The point is that the world will need epic level heroes if these threats are to be dealt with once and for all -- and right now, there isn't an Elminster out there to take care of them.
...[On the other hand,] it would be inaccurate to say that a mid-level character can handle everything in the
CSB. Don't go messing around with one of the Daelkyr or an undying councilor. However, as far as full stat blocks go, the majority of
NPCs are low-to-mid-level. Higher level NPCs generally receive overviews (the Lord of Blades is listed with his class levels, but doesn't get the full stat block) -- so if your party cruises up to epic levels in the blink of an eye, you will have a foundation to work
with.
Bear in mind that Daelkyr can advance up to 50 HD, and a 50 HD Daelkyr would be a somewhat different beast than the 20 HD version statted in the CSB.
Dragonmarks do not require action points. It is an interesting idea, but remember that only PCs have action points, whereas there are houses of folks with
dragonmarks. So you can use dragonmarks even if you don't like action points.
It is worth noting that the majority of dragonmarks are in the hands of
NPCs, who do not level as quickly as PCs
Dragonmarks are not just munchkin fodder. In the three groups I've run, dragonmarked characters have always been in the minority -- 1 of 5, 1 of 6, and 2 of 6 respectively. Dragonmarks offer new options to players and play a role in the story of the world, but it is not the case that 133t uberd00ds need dragonmarks or their characters will
suck.
As you get the lesser and greater marks, you also gain additional uses/day and CL for your lower-level marks.
Most of the "named" NPCs are presented in [class/level summary] format [like Jaela Daran in the
Organizations web article]. Where the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting was a summary of a setting that had already been around for over a decade, we've had to squeeze as much information about an entirely new world into one book, and sacrifices had to be made. There are NPCs with full stat blocks, but they are primarily lower-level NPCs that might appear in a campaign from the begining -- recurring villains your characters might face from an early level, as opposed to the Devourer of Dreams. Taking Jaela as a good example, her power is limited away from the Flame (so she won't run out adventuring) and it is unlikely that your group of low-level characters is going to decide to run in and attack her -- so the general sense of what she is capable of should serve for now.
In the future, you will probably see more of the NPCs mentioned in the book get full treatments -- the Lord of Blades in Dungeon, a number of the Brelish NPCs in the Sharn sourcebook, and so on.
There are many more dangerous villains in the world [than the 12th-level
Lord of Blades]. The Devourer of Dreams springs to mind, not to mention the Daelkyr, the Lords of Dust, and let's not forget that there are dragons out there (along with many other forces that haven't been mentioned in any of the previews). ...I would also expect the Lord of Blades to scale with the PCs; unlike the other forces I've mentioned, the Lord of Blades is less that 30 years old himself, and he's still growing in power.
The goal with the magewright was always twofold. I've always seen arcane magic as a form of science -- the manipulation of a force of energy that responds to incantations and the interaction of gestures and materials. If these formulas are reliable, it seems logical to me that these practices would eventually become more widespread. Now, you may take the approach that it doesn't have to be logical, it's magic, and that's fine with me -- I'm not trying to convert people from other viewpoints, just explain where I'm coming from.
At the same time, I still wanted some of that sense of wonder associated with magic, and that's actually what led to the creation of the magewright. The idea is that anyone can learn to grasp the fundamental principles of arcane magic and cast a spell or two: that's the magewright. But the wizard posseses a gift for magic that the average person simply can't grasp. Anyone can study physics, but there's only a handful of true geniuses out there. So only the true wizard can weave the most powerful spells; further, only the wizard has the versatilty to case any spell he can acquire, as opposed to the specialized magewright (who learns all his spells using Spell Mastery).
(Of course, then you also have sorcerers, but they're in the same category of power and rarity as the wizard.)
The goal has always been to say that people understand the concept of magic, and that basic magic is part of most advanced civilizations, and yes, this should have a definite impact on things. But powerful magic remains rare and exotic, and people will still be impressed and afraid of the wizard who can turn his enemies to stone or cross the world in the blink of an eye.
As for the choice of Spell Mastery over the innate powers of the sorcerer, that was a very intentional choice. The abilities of a sorcerer are innate. At least in my campaign, you can't just decide to become a sorcerer; either you have the potential or you don't. The magic of the wizard is a form of science; it relies on formulas and incantations. It's something that can be studied. The magewright has been trained to perform a few of these formulas, but he does not have the skll and aptitude to just pick up a spell book and perform any ritual he finds; for him, mastering arcane magic is a challenging and difficult task. THe flexibility of the wizard is what makes the class remarkable, and makes PCs wizards stand out in the world.
All of the racial characteristics of the PHB races are as they are in the PHB [including favored classes].
(Actually, it's a very minor point, but Talenta halflings treat the tangat, sharash, and Talenta boomerang as martial weapons, while the Valenar elves treat the double scimitar as a martial weapon. And for what it's worth, the tangat is supposed to be a hafted weapon; the pictures on page 17 and 204 show halflings with tangats.)
If you wanted to house-rule it, I could certainly see the Valenar having ranger as a favored class -- but that would be up to the individual DM.
With that said, wizard certainly makes sense for the Aereni, and I can see an argument for leaving it with the Valenar; magic is still part of their heritage, and it would mean that their martial tradition is likely to include fighter-mages.
As for the other races, most are still reasonably solid. Bard is ideal for the culture of Zilargo. While they may be merchant princes, the Mror dwarves do have a strong martial tradition. Halflings... I could almost see ranger there, too, but the same argument can hold here as for the Valenar: the Talenta halflings value stealth, speed, and cunning tactics, and where a valenar ranger might have a spell up his sleeve a Talenta ranger would temper his skills with rogue levels.
As things stand, 3rd level spells are on the high end of what most people expect to deal with (or can afford), and most people would expect to go to a city (or at least a town) for that sort of thing. With that said, in the case of remove disease, bear in mind that since most spiritual leaders are not divine spellcasters, you aren't necessarily going to a cleric or adept for this; you're more likely to go to a house of healing maintained by House Jorasco, the bearers of the dragonmark of healing. If there is an adept around who can remove disease, that's fairly impressive and something people will expect to travel a ways to find. However, he'll probably only do this for followers of his religion. He may take donations if that's what the church needs at the moment, but he might consider the offer of gold for an act of devotion to be insulting; he may instead require some sort of act of piety on the part of the person healed (or on the part of a parent in the case of a child). (Although, to be honest, this is perhaps something I stress a little more that is said in the Eberron CSB).
The dragonmarks do add a limited set of magical abilities to what are commonly available to the public, so that's where you hope that you can find a Jorasco house within a few day's ride. On the other hand, they charge for their services -- so the commoner may have to rely on a mundane Healer instead of remove disease... which is why there still are diseases in the world.
Magewrights are as a rule students as opposed to innovators. The question of a character with high levels in Spellcraft/arcana developing new spells he can't use is an intriguing one, and something I'd have to think about, but it may make sense; such a character understands the principles of magic, but has never learned to actually manipulate the forces.
One other way to think about magewrights is that a magewright represents many different professions. Because of the limited spell selection, "magewright" itself is not an occupation. Instead, the character would be an augur (identify, augury), a wardsman (alarm, arcane lock), a tinker (mending, make whole), a lamplighter (light, continual flame*), a glossolalian (comprehend languages, tongues if high enough level), and so on. The most common magewright spell would be magecraft, simply making the magewright better at his basic craft; prestidigitation would probably be next in line, being useful for innkeepers, chimneysweeps, and launderers alike. By comparison, a 3rd-level wizard with a big spellbook could take on any of these tasks. So the magewright isn't supposed to be versatile; it's someone who's learned a spell or two to assist their chosen profession.
As one last quick side note, the Sharn book does deal with the idea of urban adepts, presenting a variation of the adept that is less of a shaman and more of a halfway point between the extreme limitations of the magewright and the full versatility of the cleric or wizard... the expert to the magewright's commoner.
*Continual flame is missing from the magewright spell list at the moment. I'm about 99% certain this is an error, since the use of mystical lighting is an established part of the world. However, it is possible that it was intentionally removed during the editing process for some reason, and I'm checking into that now.
I would be surprised in you ever see stats for the gods. The Silver Flame and the Path of Light are not anthropomorphic to begin with, and people just don't interact with the gods on that level (and if the gods themselves interact with each other in this manner, it is a mystery to mortals).
Giving stats to [the progenitor dragon] Eberron would be pretty odd. ...It's the world. You're standing on it. Fighting Eberron would be like fighting the ocean, the mountains, and the air, literally. You might be able to commune with it via commune with nature, but it's not an anthropomorphic force. At the moment, the only deities you can expect to find (general) stats for are members of the Undying Court, because you can go and talk to them or fight them... but even there, the divine power of the Undying Court comes from the court as a whole, not its individual members.
Clarifications and Preliminary Errata
Can a character take one of the Artisan feats multiple times to reduce item creation costs?
The footnotes [for "Exception Artisan" and related feats] are in error. You are not supposed to be able to purchase the feat multiple times.
Can
characters without the new Research and Investigation feats still use the
related skills for similar results?
According to Bill Slaviscek, who designed these two feats (and developed D20 Modern): "To use the skills in the specialized ways outlined here, you need to have the appropriate feat. That doesn't mean that your character can't muddle through tomes in a library or figure something out at a crime scene, but he or she can't do it with the competence and expertise provided by the training granted by the feat."
In a sense, you're talking about the difference between a trained crime scene investigator and an untrained but observant person; the idea of the clue is part noticing the detail and part being able to recognize its importance. I could see [the] idea of allowing an "untrained" check against low DC clues; the example of a character without Track being able to spot tracks but not follow them effectively is a good one. The character with Investigate is supposed to possess a specialized skill that goes beyond simple Search; most trapfinders will have extremely high Search skills, but that doesn't make them master inquisitives. So use your own judgment, but make sure that you don't invalidate Investigate in the process.
Can
Daelkyr really use their slam attack more than once in a turn?
The MM says "In general, a creature attacks once with each natural weapon it has" -- in this case, the daelkyr is an exception to the rule. Personally, I would see the "slam" of the daelkyr as the unarmed strike of the monk, especially since the dolgaunts practice a monastic tradition; I'd allow the daelkyr to make the attack with fists, elbows, knees, or feet, and to inflict lethal or nonlethal damage. However, it does not possess a flurry of blows or other monk abilities; it's simply a deadly and skilled unarmed fighter.
How
much mithral or adamantine can be stripped from the corpse of a dead
warforged?
The short answer is that you cannot recover a meaningful amount of adamantine from the body of a warforged. The warforged will certainly be examined in more detail in the future, so a more detailed explanation will be forthcoming.