My opinions of Tribes of Mother Night, by Better Mousetrap Games.

                I was pretty excited about getting to read through Tribes of Mother Night, by Better Mousetrap Games.  The setting sounded interesting, and it used the F20 System, a variation of the d20 System that I wasn't familiar with.  That said, I'll tell you a little bit about Tribes of Mother Night.  It's a fantasy setting, complete with magic and monsters, and revolves around the interactions between two peoples, the Haeloti and the Ehkaet.  The Haeloti are a numerous people, and are named after Haelot, the sun god; they more-or-less run things, in one fashion or another.  The Ehkaet, by contrast, are a nomadic people who have the unique ability to assume animal form.  The two groups aren't overly fond of each other (and, beyond that, Haeloti of different countries tend not to be overly fond of each other), and that's where the conflict comes in.

                As I've said, it's an interesting-sounding setting; however, the book, itself, doesn't really do justice to what it could have been.  For one thing, the text (at least, so far as the setting, itself, is concerned) is peppered with clichés, spelling errors, and muddy language, and generally reads as if it were written by a middle-school student who didn't bother to have it proofread or edited.  In addition, the text often jumps from subject to subject without any kind of transition, and the author doesn't even break the text up into chapters (to be fair, there is a fairly exhaustive table of contents).  Not only that, but much, much more could have been done to flesh the setting out.  As it is, the Ehkaet are very clearly the misunderstood, downtrodden protagonists, while the Haeloti are the authoritarian, corrupt, and prejudice-ruled bad guys.  It's interesting that, for a game that uses prejudice as a central theme, so many stereotypes permeate the setting.  All of these things combine to make a rather unprofessional-seeming product that isn't exactly easy to digest, or really particularly interesting to read.

                Worth mentioning, also, is the section dealing with the F20 System, itself.  I found no egregious flaws with the system, though it does seem as though some skills are far more useful than others, even though they all cost the same number of Option Points to purchase (Running, for example, seems far more widely applicable than Art Appreciation).  What really struck me about this section of the text, however, was the fact that the writing was so much better, and that there seemed to be a number of references to things found only in modern-day Earth, not in a low-tech fantasy setting.  There were numerous references to concepts like the Olympics, SWAT officers, the CIA, and even Wal-Mart, and these seemed pretty anachronistic given the setting.  Further, this is the only fantasy setting I've seen in which weapons like brass knuckles and police batons are given stats.  In short, it seems as though the entire section on the F20 System was lifted from another text and pasted whole cloth into Tribes of Mother Night, with very little consideration given to internal consistency (though, thankfully, there were no modern firearms on the weapons list).

What I Liked: The F20 System seems interesting and somewhat flexible, though far more complex than the standard d20 System.  In addition, the core concepts of the setting, itself, have a fair amount of potential.

What I Didn't Like: Sadly, that potential is never realized.  Far more effort is put into detailing the world's creation myth than into detailing the state of the world and its peoples.  The writing is some of the least professional I've seen in a published product, and the entire text lacks any real degree of polish.

This week I review 93 Game Studios’ Basic Classes: The Apprentice.

                I’m a big fan of d20 Modern; I waited eagerly for it to come out, I read the SRD while I was waiting for Amazon to deliver the book, and I read the book again when I got it.  Big fan.  As such, when I get to review something for d20 Modern, I get kind of excited.  Enter Basic Classes: Apprentice, by 93 Game Studios.  The idea behind this product (or line of products, I suppose) is that d20 Modern needs more magic, and magic needs to be available from first level (rather than circa fourth level, as the vanilla product is designed).  Apprentice introduces a new basic class—the Apprentice—that represents a low-level caster, apprenticed, as it were, to a higher level caster.  The Apprentice can be either arcane or divine—or, indeed, both—and gains some rather rudimentary spellcasting ability while advancing up its ten-level progression.

                I’ll start with what I liked about this product.  The class, itself, seems well-balanced with the other basic classes, and I didn’t really notice any blatant balance issues with it.  It gains a few spells by taking specific Talents, and can also gain some magical resistance and crafting ability.  The Apprentice is a very skill-heavy class (as I’ve always thought spellcasting classes should be), evidenced by the fact that it gains eight skill points per level, has an a full Talent tree devoted to skill improvement, and almost all of its bonus feats (with the exception of two) are skill-boosting feats.

                As for the not-so-good, let me start with what struck me immediately: the writing isn’t very good.  The author is prone to spelling mistakes, grammar and syntax errors, muddled language, and somewhat trite prose.  It may not matter to some, but I found that it detracted from my overall enjoyment of the product quite a lot.  The class, itself, suffers from a specific problem, too.  Though this problem is not mechanical in nature (as I’ve said, it seems to be well balanced), it does make the class somewhat less attractive.  Simply put, the class doesn’t have much flavor.  If you take levels in the Apprentice class, you’re going to get a few spells, or some numerical bonuses.  Period, nothing else.  I certainly would have liked something a little more interesting from a ‘magical’ class.  Now, granted, this may not be a problem for everyone; the main reason that it bugged me was that, aside from getting a few spells, I couldn’t think of a single compelling reason to take levels in the Apprentice class.  And really, if I wanted spells, I’d wait a few levels and go for the superior spellcasting ability of the Mage.

What I Liked: Good balance, and a skill-focused magic-user.

What I Didn’t Like: Sloppy presentation and an overall lack of compelling flavor.

This is a review of Monkey, Ninja, Pirate, Robot: The Roleplaying Game, by Atomic Sock Monkey Press.

                After being on a steady diet of d20 products and World of Darkness for the past couple of years, Monkey, Ninja, Pirate, Robot: The Roleplaying Game, by Atomic Sock Monkey Press, was like a breath of fresh air.  MNPR:RPG uses a very flexible, rules-light system called the Prose Descriptive Quality system, or the PDQ system.  The basis for this system is that characters have a number of Qualities that define their abilities.  These Qualities are roughly analogous to skills in other systems, except that they can cover a lot more ground under their ‘penumbra', and you basically make up whatever Qualities you want, rather than choosing from a pre-defined list.  The GM has final say over whether a Quality is too broad (or too narrow), but this system offers a great deal of flexibility (and creativity) to players.  The PDQ system also has the advantage of allowing you to generate characters very quickly; I'd estimate that, once you have a concept, it would take mere minutes to stat out your character.

                The game, itself, takes full advantage of the PDQ system's flexibility.  While characters are more-or-less restricted to being either a monkey, ninja, pirate, or robot, the restrictions end there.  Want to be a ninja accountant who uses a frying pan in combat?  Go for it.  How about a robot lounge singer with laser eyes and hover jets?  You can do that, too.  If you wanted to eventually combine the abilities of a monkey and a ninja, to become a monkey-ninja, the game allows for that, too.  And it's all very simple.  There are only a few core rules in the PDQ system, and a few more that are specific to MNPR:RPG, so there's very little opportunity for the rules to become unclear, needlessly complex, or broken.  Balance is left primarily to the GM to arbitrate, rather than the system, itself.  You could take a Quality for using a sword, for example, but if you're a ninja or a pirate, that's probably already covered by your basic Ninja or Pirate Quality.  The system doesn't prevent you from doing this, or from taking a Quality even broader than Ninja or Pirate; instead, it's up to the GM to decide whether or not something is balanced.

                Now, this isn't to say that MNPR:RPG is perfect; it's not.  There are a lot of mistakes throughout that could have been caught with more editing and proofreading, but that's not a major problem, and it doesn't really make the game harder to understand, as the intent is always clear.  The biggest problem that I see with MNPR:RPG is that it's flippant and frivolous tone, while genuinely appealing, doesn't really lend itself to more serious games, or to ongoing campaigns.  Interestingly enough, the book does admit this, and even goes so far as to devote a few pages to discussing how tone impacts the longevity of the game.  Points for that, by the way.  In any case, though, once I had finished reading the book, I felt like I probably wouldn't play MNPR:RPG too often, but I'd really like the opportunity to use the PDQ system for a more serious and ongoing game at some point.

What I Liked: The PDQ system is flexible and simple, and encourages creativity and evocative descriptions of actions.  It's designed to keep gameplay fun, simple, and (most importantly) moving.  The book itself is presented with a great deal of charisma and humor, which makes it a lot of fun to read.  That, and you can't help but smile when you read a game about monkeys, ninjas, pirates, and robots protecting the world from alien invaders and fighting over sweet, sweet uranium.

What I Didn't Like: The artwork was a little bit too simplistic for me.  And by that, I mean that it is entirely composed of black-and-white stick figure drawings.  Literally.  There were a few editing and proofreading mistakes throughout.  The biggest flaw is probably the fact that the game isn't really suitable for ongoing campaigns (though if you tend to play quick one-shots a lot, this might not matter to you).

This is a review of Notebook Essentials: Swarms, Stampedes, and Skirmishes, by Throwing Dice Games.

                I've always liked the idea of swarms in D&D.  Basically, a single centipede, or beetle, or mosquito isn't going to make much of a challenge, even for a single first-level character.  Pack a bunch of them together into a writhing, hungry, ten-by-ten mass, and you've got yourself a party, though.  And that's a swarm: a group of small, usually mindless, creatures acting as one, much larger, creature.  Notebook Essentials: Swarms, Stampedes and Skirmishes, by Throwing Dice Games, takes that idea and expands it in the most logical of ways: by applying it to larger creatures.

                The product starts off by going over the basics of swarms and giving a few examples.  It goes on to offer feats for swarms and special abilities that multiple swarms can gain when they join together.  Then it moves on to stampedes.  A stampede is, basically, a swarm of large quadrupeds, like horses or bison.  The book also covers skirmishes, which are a way to treat an out-of-control melee of humanoids (or other, similar, creatures) as a single creature, rather than tracking each creature's initiative and actions.  Both new ‘creature' types offer ways to run different, very hectic encounters with a lot less bookkeeping and headache on the part of the GM.  I even got to run an encounter with a skirmish just last night (a barroom brawl, specifically), and it did a good job of capturing the flavor that I wanted for the encounter, while allowing me to minimize the number of individual creatures that I had to keep track of.  Definitely a plus in my book.  The book also offers some spells for dealing with swarms (or creating them), and even offers a sample epic swarm: the skull swarm, which is a swarm of demiliches.  Nasty stuff, trust me.

                Overall, I'm pretty pleased with this product.  It's definitely a no-frills affair, weighing it at only ten pages (including the OGL declaration), with very little art.  However, it does have the advantage of getting right to the point.  The book gives you useful, balanced rules in a clear, straightforward, and easy-to-follow manner, which is more than I can say for a lot of fancier products.  It's not without its problems, but most of those are minor.  There are a few editing mistakes, the worst of which is an apparent copy-paste error (a new spell, greater summon swarm, seems to have been copied from the SRD's summon swarm; however, while the statistical information was changed, the body text seems to have been left the same).

What I Liked: This product expanded on a useful and evocative creature type in a very logical way, giving us two new very useful creature types.  The rules are clear and seemingly well-balanced.

What I Didn't Like: Not a whole lot.  There were some editing mistakes, but nothing major.  The skull swarm isn't really suitable for characters below, say, level 60 or so, and so it's probably not that useful, but I imagine it was probably included as a gag, anyway.

This is a review of Elements of Magic: Mythic Earth, by E.N. Publishing.

                I had heard a little bit about EN Publishing's Elements of Magic prior to reading Elements of Magic: Mythic Earth, so I was somewhat intrigued from the start.  As I read this book, however, my enthusiasm for it quickly grew.  Here was an e-book that was edited and proofread better than many print products that I've read, and with an interesting, flexible, and fun magic system that's pretty easy to plop into any modern or fantasy d20 game.  Allow me to explain where my enthusiasm comes from.

                The e-book starts with an introduction, as you'd expect, and then leads into a very intelligent discussion of myth, legend, folktale and superstition.  It not only discusses what these things are, exploring various types of myths, including the Monomyth and the Fellowship Cycle, but it does a very good job of explaining why myth can make a good game better.  This is not just a theoretical essay, it's a guide for breathing new life into your game, for adding resonance to quests that might feel somewhat generic otherwise.

                As interesting as this discussion is, however, the real meat of the product is the magic system, and it is very, very good.  Magic is broken up into a series of spellcasting skills—skills like Create, Attack, Illusion, and Charm, to name a few—which you gain access to by taking Tradition feats.  A Tradition feat represents the spellcasting tradition that you follow—again, to name a few: Stage Magic, Dreamtime, Necromancy, and Classical Fey—and give you access to certain spellcasting skills as class skills.  To cast a spell, you simply choose the effect that you want, including range, duration, and other particulars, and work with the GM to find an appropriate level and DC.  Then you cast the spell.  It sounds like magic might slow the game down, doesn't it?  It really doesn't.  Spontaneous casting, as described above, takes two full rounds to use.  To mitigate this, you can create ‘signature spells'; basically, spontaneous spells that you've created beforehand, that do the same thing every time you cast them, but only require a standard action to cast.  Thus, the flexibility is maintained, and the game is sped up considerably.

                Granted, the book is not without its problems.  There are a very few editing mistakes, and I can think of a few places where some errata is needed.  For example, the book explains that, in order to cast a spell of higher level than is normally possible, you must take Strength burn.  However, at certain points in the text, a different penalty (the fatigued condition) is referred to.  In another part of the book, a few Tradition feats are provided for standard fantasy d20 (the system is designed with modern d20 in mind).  However, one of these feats requires the use of action points, which are normally unavailable in fantasy d20.  However, little things like this do nothing to detract from the overall superb quality of this product.  Perhaps the best thing I can say about it is that I fully intend to use it in my own game, and I'm very, very excited about it.

What I Liked: Great writing, intelligent discussions, and excellent artwork.  Not only that, but the magic system is perhaps one of the most interesting, flexible, and balances systems I've seen for quite some time.  Also, for those looking for a little flavor with their crunch, there's a lengthy section on the default campaign setting for Elements of Magic: Mythic Earth, a setting called High Fantasy for modern d20.  It's well-written and very interesting, and gives you a lot of good examples of how to create spells via the system.

What I Didn't Like: Very little.  There were a few errors and items requiring minor errata, but nothing game-breaking. 

This is a review of Superior Synergy: Fantasy by Misfit Studios. 

Superior Synergy asks the question: why does skill synergy begin and end at five ranks?  It’s an interesting question, to be sure.  In a nutshell, skill synergies now have four ‘benchmarks’: one at five, ten, fifteen and twenty ranks.  Some are simply higher skill bonuses, while others allow you to use skills faster, or cause skill effects to last longer.  In general, the new synergy effects are easy to integrate, seem to be balanced, and are pretty useful on the whole.

            Slightly more interesting, but possibly less balanced, are feat synergies.  When you take certain combinations of feats, you gain bonus abilities related to the required feats, without having to spend another feat slot.  These abilities tend to be more potent than skill synergies, but not quite as powerful as true feats.  While they may seem somewhat unbalanced (and the author as much as admits to this), this concept is not without precedent.  In Wizards’ own Oriental Adventures there is a similar mechanic used to emulate mastery of a martial arts style.  Still, look at feat synergies with a careful eye.

            It should be mentioned that more effort could have been put into editing this work.  I noticed a number of spelling and grammar errors, though this hardly makes the book less useful as a resource.  Overall, I found this e-book to be worth using, and I plan to pillage it for ideas to use in my campaign.  However, those looking for something to add flavor to their game should look elsewhere; this work is almost one hundred percent mechanics.

I’ve been talking about the new Eberron Campaign Setting an aweful lot lately. Most of this is because it’s what I’ve been reading, and I tend to think a lot about what I’m currently reading. It is also because I have a fairly high opinion of Eberron, though. I suppose you could take that statement as a disclaimer of sorts, though you should also know (and probably do know, if you’ve read my rant on Eberron, Unearthed Arcana, and WotC) that I didn’t always have such a high opinion of Keith Baker’s new setting. When it was first announced, I disliked it quite a lot. Most of this was probably pure jealousy (my setting ideas, after all, did not get chosen in WotC’s setting search), though a lot of it was also because the information that WotC released initially didn’t exactly make it seem all that original or necessary.

At any rate, I’ve now read the book cover to cover and, as promised, I’m going to give you a review of the setting. I’m breaking this review down to a chapter-by-chapter analysis, and I’ll be picking out my favorite and least favorite parts of each chapter. I’ll follow this up with my general opinion on the work as a whole, including the quality of the artwork and editing, and the general feel of the entire setting. Anyway, on to it.

Introduction

The first part of the Eberron Campaign Setting does a pretty good job of giving you a quick overview of what the setting is all about. There is a discussion on the tone of Eberron, as well as a list of ten “Things You Need to Know”. The list is probably the most useful part of this mini-chapter, as it makes for a good introduction for players who aren’t familiar with the world. I very much like the idea that “If it exists in D&D, then it has a place in Eberron”. This doesn’t necessarily mean that everything in the core rules is explicitly placed in Eberron; instead, it means that it’s not hard to find a logical place for just about anything you want to drop in (if you don’t believe me, look at my article on using Arcana Unearthed in Eberron; this was not a difficult article to write). Also of note is the fact that there is a brief list of “Movies to Inspire You”, including titles like Brotherhood of the Wolf, Casablanca, and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Chapter One: Character Races

The chapter on races includes quite a lot of crunch, as well as a good dose of flavor. Each of the core races is described in this chapter, giving details on such things as their specific place in Eberron and how they interact with each other. Also included are four new races, the changeling, shifter, kalashtar, and warforged.

This chapter does a very good job of taking the standard D&D races and making them different. While it’s easy to play the old tropes, there is also plenty of room for new archetypes, such as the dwarven banker, the gnomish spy, or the dinosaur-riding halfling barbarain. My favorite change is that of the elves. Two distinct elven cultures are detailed, the Valenar and the Aereni. Valenar elves are fierce horse-warriors, and largely ignore the Treaty of Thronehold that ended the devastating Last War. The Aereni, on the other hand, are a strange and somewhat alien culture of semi-benevolant necromancers, ruled over by their positively-charged undead ancestors.

The new races are similarly interesting, though some seem to get less attention than others throughout the book (more on this later). Changelings are the descendants of humans and doppelgangers, and are capable of changing their appearance at will. Kalashtar are the product of a spiritual union between the extra-dimensional quori and their human hosts, and are a good way to integrate psionics seemlessly into your Eberron campaign, should you desire. Shifters are the descendants of humans and natural lycanthropes; though they cannot assume a full-on animal or hybrid form (at least, not initially), they do have the ability to shift into a slightly more bestial form once per day. Finally the warforged–quite possibly the most controversial of the Eberronian races–are a race of living constructs created as soldiers during the Last War. They have some fairly potent abilities and immunities, but there are also significant drawbacks to playing a warforged character.

Also included in the chapter on races is a section on Regions of Origin. While these regions have little mechanical impact, the choice of character region can significantly impact the way a character is role-played. For example, a human barbarian from Argonnessen is likely to be very different from a human barbarian from the Eldeen Reaches.

Chapter Two: Classes

The second chapter is similar in structure to the first, in that it details the roles of the various core classes in an Eberron campaign. Each class has a brief to long description, and each description points out new options available to that class. Also included is a short bit of fiction involving an “iconic” character of that class, followed by a descriptio of the specific character. A few small changes have been made to some of the core classes. For example, clerics no longer have to be of a similar alignment to their deities, allowing for corrupt clerics that still have spellcasting ability (and thus do not stick out like sore thumbs). Also of note is the fact that druids and rangers have region-specific lists of animal companions to choose from, so a druid of Aerenal will likely have a different animal companion than one from the Shadow Marches. Even the psionic classes are given a place in Eberron, though all four are lumped into a single entry.

The most significant part of this chapter, however, is the addition of a new core class: the artificer. Artificers are magical mechanics, capable of crafting magical items and creating short-term magical items with ease. They are an extraordinarily flexible class, giving the bard a run for his money as the quintessential fifth party member. Like all of the classes in the Player’s Handbook and the Expanded Psionics Handbook, the artificer is firmly grounded in the mythos of Eberron.

Chapter Three: Heroic Characteristics

This chapter is something of a hodge-podge, including rules for using Action Points, new uses for skills, a slew of new feats, and some more story-oriented stuff. The action point rules are well done (a step up from those presented in d20 Modern, in my opinion). For those unfamiliar with this mechanic, action points are a limited resource that is replenished (and increased) at every level. Points can be spent to improve die rolls, but they can also be spent to activate limited-use class abilities after these abilities have been used up for the day. Worth noting is the fact that NPCs do not gain action points unless they have a specific feat, Heroic Spirit, and even then they gain fewer than PCs do.

The feats are, on the whole, quite good. There are some warforged- and shifter-specific feats, as well as feats specific to certain druidic sects or monastic orders. There are some very intersting ones (like Favored in House or Right of Councel, both of which provide ample opportunity to role-play) and some that aren’t that good (Monastic Training and Knight Training, both of which lift multiclassing restrictions on Monks or Paladins; in my opinion, these restrictions shouldn’t even be there in the first place, and this is a somewhat sloppy fix). I was particularly pleased with the inclusion of Urban Tracking, as I’ve liked that feat a lot ever since I saw it in Unearthed Arcana.

After the feats comes a section on dragonmarks, unique magical “tatoos” that grant spell-like abilities to their bearers. Dragonmarks are gained by purchasing the appropriate feat, and are generally held by the various dragonmarked houses. These houses control trade and commerce on Khorvaire (the main continent of the game) through the edge that the marks give them.

The last section of Chapter Three is on religion in Eberron. Each deity and pantheon is given a brief description; I would have liked to see more information, however. The fact that this section is so short is probably the biggest shortcoming of this chapter, though it does provide enough informatio to whet your appetite.

Chapter Four: Prestige Classes

There are fewer prestige classes in the Eberron Campaign Setting than one might expect (only eight), but each is firmly grounded in the setting, and none of them seem superfluous. Classes range from the Dragonmark Heir, who makes greater use of her dragonmark and position in her House than most others, to the Weretouched Master, a shifter-specific class that allows a shifter to become more akin to his lycanthropic ancestors. Many of the prestige classes make use of action points, though only one of them specifically requires their use in order to activate class abilities. The Extreme Explorer is an Indiana Jones-esque class built around the use of action points, its philosophy seeming to be that it’s better to be lucky than good. While I have no specific problem with the class, itself, the name irritates me.

Most of the prestige classes seem well-balanced. However, there are a couple that should send up warning flags to DMs. The Heir of Syberis, while fine for the most part, has a problem when it comes to the Mark of Making. Upon actually gaining access to the Syberis Mark of Making, the character gains the ability to use true creation once per day as a spell-like ability (this spell allows the character to create matter permanently). While true creation normally requires an experience point cost, the Syberis Mark of Making (being a spell-like ability) does not. Some PCs might interpret this as a free ticket to create as much gold as they want from thin air.

The other major warning flag comes from the Weretouched Master. Upon attaining 5th level in this class, a shifter gains the ability to shift into the animal or hybrid form of his chosen lycanthrope. The problem is that, while the ability modifiers given do reflect those of the animals they represent, they are in no way balanced with one and other. The poor wererat gains a +6 to Dexterity and a +2 to Constitution, while the mighty werebear gains a +16 to Strength, a +2 to Dexterity, and a +8 to Constitution. DM beware.

Chapter Five: Magic

This chapter starts off by detailing the role of magic in the world of Eberron. Eberron is a decidedly high-magic setting, but not in the same way that, say, Toril is. Low-level working-class spellcasters are somewhat common, as are low-level spells. However, high-level magic (high-level being anything above 2nd level, generally) is considerably rarer and more wonderous. In addition, practitioners of divine magic are somewhat rare, particularly clerics. Most priests are adepts or experts; thus, it is uncommon to be able to go into the local temple and buy healing services. Most magical services are instead handled by the dragonmarked houses; for example, house Jorasco (which possesses the Mark of Healing) handles magical healing in Khorvaire. There are also a number of optional costly material components detailed, each of wich has a percent chance of enhancing a spell cast using it.

Next, Eberron’s cosmology is discussed, including descriptions of each of the planes. Eberron does not use the standard “Great Wheel” cosmology, opting instead for a sort of “orbital cosmology” in which the various outer planes orbit around the material plane, occasionally becoming coterminous or remote. Rules are also presented for demonic possession, as well as its celestial counterpart, channeling.

Finally, there are the spells. A list of infusions for artificers is given (infusions are like spells, but they are neither arcane nore divine and they can only be cast on objects or constructs), as well as new domain lists and a number of new spells for the core classes. They all seem quite good, and do a good job of integrating themselves into the flavor of Eberron.

Chapter Six: Adventuring Equipment

Eberron’s equipment chapter presents a few new exotic weapons, as well as some new alchemical items and specialty items. It also lists a number of magical services that one can purchase from the dragonmarked houses, including the price of a ride on the lightning rail (sort of like a magical train) or the use of a message station (sort of like a magical telegraph). There are also a number of new special materials, such as byeshk, soarwood, and flametouched iron.

Chapter Seven: Life in the World

If you’re a DM, you should probably keep your players from reading past this point. This chapter is really where the setting is defined, and it’s chocked full of a lot of good stuff. It’s also chocked full of a lot of secrets and adventure hooks that would ruin a lot of Eberron’s big mysteries, should a player read through it. It is also (deservedly) the longest chapter in the book, coming in at just under one hundred pages in length. There are notes on languages, education, the role of adventurers, and other general topics; however, the meat of the chapter is a series of segments (ranging from two to six pages each) on each of the various nations of Khorvaire. The chapter goes on to detail lands beyond Khorvaire, though they aren’t given quite as thorough a treatment. I guess that’s what sourcebooks are for. Finally, there’s a two-page timeline, starting in the distant past and ending at the start of the campaign. This entire chapter was, without a doubt, my favorite part of the book.

Of note is the fact that there are very few NPCs of high level in the world. Most rulers of nations are between levels 5 and 12, and the most powerful characters in the world tend to be severely restricted in some way or another. This reinforces the idea that the PCs are special, and that they will truly shape the world once they start to accumulate power.

Chapter Eight: Organizations

If Chapter Seven contained spoilers, then Chapter Eight contains even more. All of the major organizations–both public and clandestine–of Eberron are detailed in this chapter, including their secret masters and goals. This includes each of the dragonmarked houses, as well as more sinister organizations like the Aurum and the Dreaming Dark. Each of these organizations could be used potentially as an ally or an enemy, though some lend themselves more to one role than another.

Chapter Nine: An Eberron Campaign

Most of this chapter is simply advice on running an Eberron campaign, pointing out how it might be different from standard D&D. There are notes on Creating a Party, Styles of Play, and Story and Pacing. More useful to an experienced DM, however, is the inclusion of two recurring villains, each with stat blocks at two different levels. Demise is a low-ranking necromancer of the Order of the Emerald Claw, and makes a fairly clear-cut villain of the mastermind variety. Halas Martain, on the other hand, as an adventurer and treasure hunter, and could make a good thorn in the sides of the PCs, but could also be an ally under the right circumstances. There is also a section on Plot Themes, such as Exploration, Scavenger Hunt, and Evil Mastermind.

Also mentioned are the NPC classes, and the changes that have been made. The only change made to the core NPC classes is the adepts now get to choose a cleric domain. While they don’t get any of the domain’s spells, they do get its granted power. More significant, however, is the inclusion of a new NPC class, the magewright. The magewright is a sort of working-class mage. He has a very limited selection of spells, and mainly uses them for enhancing his more mundane profession.

Chapter Ten: Magic Items

Eberron introduces a few new types of magic items to the mix. Dragonshard items utilize the magical gems known as dragonshards to create potent magical items. They can be used to enhance the powers of a dragonmark, bind elementals for the creation of airships or lightning rail cars, or create the common magic items found throughout Eberron. Warforged components are magic items meant to be integrated into the body of a warforged character in some way. Wondrous locations are “items” that are far too large to move, and exist primarily as plot devices. Eberron also has its share of traditional magic items and potent artifacts.

Chapter Eleven: Monsters

Like any good campaign setting, Eberron has its share of unique monsters. Some are fairly weak and make good low-level threats, such as the dolgrim, while some are extraordinarily powerful, like the daelkyr (which can have as many as 50 hit dice). Each of the monsters if firmly grounded in the world of Eberron, and has a specific place and backstory. One of the more interesting creatures is the Living Spell, a template that can be added to a spell rather than another monster in order to create a unique creature.

The chapter goes on to detail specific places for various iconic D&D monsters, such as giants, goblinoids, orcs, rakshasas, and mind flayers. Each of these creatures has a specific place, and it might not be exactly the place you would expect. Furthermore, Eberron’s tendancy to muddy the waters of alignment means that it’s entirely possible for you to meet monsters that “play against type”. For example, it is entirely possible to meet an evil, scheming gold dragon, while one of the oldest and most benevolent of the druidic sects is made up primarily of orcs.

Chapter Twelve: The Forgotten Forge: A 1st-Level Adventure

The Eberron Campaign Setting even goes so far as to include a sample adventure, and the adventure itself is even quite good. It’s part mystery and part dungeon crawl, and does a good job of introducing player characters to the various elements of an Eberron campaign.

Final Word

I like Eberron. A lot. It has its share of problems; it has a few seemingly unbalanced rules (noted above), and it lacks a full-size, full-detail map of Khorvaire (you have to make do with maps of the individual countries, which are both small and somewhat inaccurate in terms of distance). However, aside from these few small problems, I have an overwhelmingly positive opinion of the setting. The writing is top-notch, the editing is very good, and the artwork is original and full of flavor. It does a very good job of creating a setting that is “D&D, but different”, and I, for one, can’t wait to start up a campaign.

Eagle Games

Overview

Age of Mythology is a board game based on the popular PC real-time strategy game of the same name. I should probably preface this review by saying that I have absolutely zero contact with the PC game, and only minimal contact with its precursor, Age of Empires. As a rule, I enjoy turn-based strategy far more than I enjoy real-time strategy; I enjoy being able to take my time and plan out my moves rather than having to frantically click on small, moving units. I think that, because of this predilection, I am particularly susceptible to the lures of strategic board games.

At any rate, Age of Mythology is, indeed, a strategic board game. The basic idea is thus: you explore in order to find resources, you gather those resources, and you spend those resources in order to build buildings, recruit soldiers, and advance through the Ages. The goal is not to destroy your opponent, but rather to have the most impressive civilization at the end of the game.

Gameplay

The gameplay of AoM is primarily card-driven. That is, there are seven different Action Cards, three of which you can play each round. Each player has his or her own board, which is used to hold resource tiles, building tiles, resource cubes, and plastic miniatures representing the various units in the game. In order to win the game, you have to amass the most Victory Points by the end of the game.

Each turn is broken down into phases. First, you place Victory Points (represented by red wooden cubes) on one of the four victory conditions; only three Victory Points may be allocated each turn, and each of the first three players in that turn places one point. Second, you draw your Action Cards. Cards may be drawn in any combination up to your current maximum (dependant on your current Age), from each of two decks available to you. One is your Permanent Action deck, which contains one of each Action Card. You may peruse this deck at your leisure, and take whichever cards you want; this allows you to always perform the actions you need to, when you need to. The other deck is the Random Action deck; this deck contains the same actions as the Permanent deck, except that they are more powerful. For instance, the Permanent Build card allows you to build a single structure, while a Random card might allow you to build three or four. Further, some Random cards have associated God Powers, special abilities that can be played in order to break the rules in small ways. The disadvantage of the Random deck, of course, is its randomness; you have no control over what cards you get from it. The third phase consists of card play; each player gets to play three Action Cards from his or her hand. Fourth is resource spoilage; each player may only hold five of each resource (gold, wood, food, and favor) between turns, with all excess going to the bank. Finally, the starting player rotates.

The Action Cards are really the heart of the game, as they allow you to perform the actions you need to perform in order to succeed.There are seven actions: Explore, Gather, Trade, Attack, Build, Recruit, and Next Age. The Explore card allows you to uncover more resource tiles, but has the potential to help your opponents, as well. The Gather card allows you to collect resource cubes, but again, may help your opponents. Trade allows you to trade in your resource cubes for resource cubes of other types, in any combination or quantity, provided that both you and the bank have enough cubes. Attack allows you to pit your own units against those of another, targeting either their City Area (to destroy building), their Production Area (to steal resource tiles), or their Holding Area (to steal resource cubes). Build and Recruit are fairly straightforward, each allowing you to purchase more buildings or units, respectively. Finally, playing a Next Age advances you to the next of four Ages (Archaic, Classical, Heroic, and Mythic). The advantages of advancing in Age are threefold: first, advancing an Age will increase your maximum hand size by one; second, you will gain access to new Hero units; third, the Wonder (a special building that immediately ends the game) can only be built in the Mythic Age.

Combat consists of both strategy and a fair bit of randomness. When an Attack card is played, each player secretly selects which of his or her own units will participate, up to the maximum presented on the Attack card. Next, they form hands of Battle Cards, using only the Battle Cards that correspond to the units selected. Each player chooses a Battle Card to participate in the current portion of the battle, and this determines which unit fights which other unit. Each unit has a combat value, as well as various bonuses or special abilities that can increase its combat value, depending on who or what it is fighting. The combat value refers to the number of six-sided dice that the unit rolls, and each six rolled counts as a victory. The unit with the most victories wins and gets to continue in the battle, while the loser is destroyed.

Overall, the gameplay is quite a lot of fun. There is a definite sense that no single strategy will win all the time, and no single strategy dominates the game. Combat can drag on for a while at times, depending on the size of the battle, and can be quite random.It is entirely possible for a lowly spearman to defeat a mighty frost giant, even though the giant is rolling maybe eight more dice than the spearman; upsets like this happen from time to time, and it’s not unusual for a string of them to happen at once. Generally speaking, though, these faults do not detract from the game.

Presentation

You get a very well-designed game for your $45. There are two boards for each civilization (Norse, Greek, an Egyptian), as well as eight dice to use for battles. The plastic miniatures are easy to identify and plentiful, and all of the cards are well laid-out and quite attractive. Being color blind, I was a little put out by the colors chosen for the various resource cubes. Gold is yellow and favor is blue; these did not bother me. However, the food cubes (green) and the wood cubes (brown) are often difficult for me to distinguish, and the victory cubes (red) can sometimes blend in with the food cubes. However, this is not a problem that everyone will run into, and can be easily circumvented by simply asking which is which (provided your other players are honest and not color blind).

While I’ve heard complaints about things being left out of the rulebook, I never ran into this problem; it seemed to me that everything was well-explained and easy to understand, and none of the games that I’ve played have suffered from any rules problems. Finally, a reference card is included, which presents game setup information and unit information for each civilization (including cost). In addition, the player boards indicate the costs of all buildings, as well as hand size by Age.

Final Word: Not a perfect game, but very close in my opinion. A few minor complaints hardly serve to detract much from the overall game, which is engaging and fun, if you can find players willing to play for two or three hours.

Atari

Overview

Heroes is a fantasy-themed, hack-and-slash adventure with light RPG elements, very much in the style of Baldur’s Gate:
Dark Alliance or the Diablo series. Having been a fan of both BG:DA and Diablo II, and also being a great proponent of D&D and roleplaying in general, I was understandably excited about Heroes when I heard about it. When I thought about it (before its release), I had visions of some unholy union of Dark Alliance and the old Tower of Doom arcade game, visions that made me very, very giddy. Now that I have it, though, what do I think about it? Before I answer that question, let me explain the game that is Heroes to the uninitiated.

The storyline of Heroes is about as straightforward as they come. Long ago, in the kingdom of Baele, there was a wizard, Kaedin. Kaedin was powerful, but more importantly, he was Evil, with a capital ‘E’. He wanted to take over the world, or some such thing, and in order to do so he set about killing and burning everyone and everything in sight. In desperation, the movers and shakers in Baele called for heroes to come to their aid and fight against Kaedin. Four heroes answered the call: a human fighter, a dwarven cleric, and elven wizard, and a halfling rogue. They fought, and finally defeated, Kaedin, but in so doing they, themselves, were killed. Bummer.

Flash forward about 250 years. A bunch of evil clerics try to revive Kaedin in order to steal his powers, as evil clerics are wont to do. Unfortunately for them, they botch the job, and instead they bring Kaedin fully back to life. In a rather ungrateful move, Kaedin destroys the clerics who brought him back to life, then goes back to his old ways of killing and plundering for the sake of world domination. In desperation, the powers that be of Baele decide to resurrect the four fallen heroes that originally defeated Kaedin, and charge them with doing it again. Having little choice in the matter, the newly-revived heroes agree. That’s where the game begins.

As a story, it’s pretty formulaic and forgettable. Luckily, hack-and-slash adventures are very rarely about the story. It would be fair to say, in fact, that they are generally all about the hacking and slashing of various hostile beings. So it is with Dungeons and Dragons: Heroes. The game consists largely of moving from area to area, slaying everything in sight with either weapons or magic, and collecting all sorts of loot that you can keep and use, or sell for other, better loot. By now, you might think that I don’t like Heroes very much. You’d be wrong, though.

Gameplay

As an adaptation of D&D, Heroes not only falls short of the mark, but doesn’t even seem to really know where the mark is, or that it’s supposed to be aiming for said mark. However, as a hack-and-slash, Heroes is a whole bucket-load of fun. The controls are tight and the on-screen mayhem is pretty constant. Although it might become somewhat repetitive in single-player (I wouldn’t know, I haven’t played the game alone yet), multiplayer is a blast. I would argue, in fact, that anyone who does not play this game with at least one other person is missing the whole point. Heck, the game even sports a disclaimer, on both the disk and the manual, announcing that the game is “Best Played Together”.

On to the specifics of the gameplay, then. Perhaps one of my favorite things about this game is the way the controls work. It breaks down as follows. The left thumbstick moves your character, while the right thumbstick controls the camera (clicking it brings up the auto-map). The left trigger blocks, while the right trigger brings up the button configuration menu. Here’s the part that I like. The four main face buttons are the ones you’ll be using most often. A is always mapped to your standard melee combo, X and Y are mapped to ‘Power Moves’, and B is mapped to useable items. While the right trigger is depressed, you are able to specify which Power Moves and items you would like to equip, and which buttons activate them. In this way, you are able to use the dozens upon dozens of special attacks and abilities that the game eventually thrusts upon you. Finally, the white and black buttons use health and ‘mystic will’ potions, respectively. I cannot stress enough how much I like this configuration. It’s easy to learn, allows easy access to all of your moves and items, and allows you to really let loose on all those virtual hobgoblins and such.

The various playable characters each play differently from one and other, and each is a powerhouse in his or her own right. The fighter is absolutely unstoppable in pure melee combat, the wizard has a number of destructive and highly useful spells, the cleric balances melee prowess with defensive magic, and the rogue excels in ranged combat and indirect attacking. Each character has a whole laundry list of abilities that can be bought with ‘level-up points’, and each character’s abilities support his or her own style of smiting. Better still, some of these abilities lend themselves well to multiplayer. The cleric’s Heal spell, for example, heals the entire party at higher levels, while the rogue’s ability to open locked chests without the use of keys cannot be overstated in its utility.

As I’ve said, the game is quite a lot of fun to play when you’ve got a buddy or two to play with. The cooperative nature of the game works quite well, and I have-on many occasions-completely lost track of time while hacking my way through a dungeon with friends. However, the gameplay is not perfect. The game makes sure that you level up at a fairly steady pace, and this is both boon and bane. On the one hand, it’s exciting to level up and get new abilities. Every time you get more points, it’s like a little, personal Christmas. As satisfying as this is, though, the more powerful you get, the easier the game gets. It seems as though Atari put a lot of thought into making sure that the level-up rate was steady, but didn’t put as much thought into increasing the game’s difficulty in a proportional way. While I’m sure the game does get more difficult toward the end of the game (relative to the beginning of the game, at least), it doesn’t really feel all that difficult. In fact, towards the end of the game, everyone in my party had somewhere around fifteen Raise Dead Amulets (the game’s primary method of handling player death), and nobody was really having to use them all that often. Not only that, but the game’s bosses seemed distinctly more difficult nearer to the beginning of the game than they did toward the end.

Graphics/Sound

The graphics in this game certainly get the job done, although there seems to be a distinct lack of flare. When compared to something like Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance, I can’t help but wonder why the graphics in Heroes aren’t as good. After all, Heroes is a reasonably recent release, and an Xbox exclusive to boot. Dark Alliance, on the other hand, has had time to mature, and was a PS2 port. It seems that more work could have been put into the game’s graphics, though it doesn’t really detract from the game that much.

Similarly, the sound is pretty average. All of the sounds that you’d expect to be there are: the clanking of steel on steel, the thunk of an arrow hitting home, the growls of hostile creatures. It all does a good job of supporting the gameplay, though nothing really stands out. The voice acting is on the reasonably good side. I didn’t notice anything stellar, but I also didn’t cringe when any of the characters talked. The music is good, if a bit forgettable. It succeeds in setting the adventurous tone well, but it isn’t one of those rare few game soundtracks that I find myself humming while not playing the game.

Final Word: This is a thoroughly enjoyable, if somewhat flawed, hack-and-slash. With four very different playable characters, it has a good amount of replay value, and the multiplayer mayhem is a blast. If you want a game with a good story or strong RPG elements, though, this game may not be for you.