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rakkoon
2011-01-21, 06:03 AM
When creating roleplay characters some games state anything goes except Eberron. Is it just the flavour or are they somehow gamebreaking?

Ragitsu
2011-01-21, 06:23 AM
Probably stigma (due to bad word of mouth), combined with some genuine disliking of flavor.

jguy
2011-01-21, 06:29 AM
Wait, do they mean like no warforges, no dragonmarks, or no flavor from eberron? Do they ban Artificer class or just don't like the idea of halfling riding dinosaurs? I don't see the point of saying "No Eberron" if the game creator just doesn't set it in Eberron.

rakkoon
2011-01-21, 06:33 AM
I guess that you can play a Ninja or a Vistani but not a Warforged.
So it's not that the settings screws up the rest? We used to have a problem with my ki-strike that was too powerful in a traditional setting, thought it was something like that.

Gnorman
2011-01-21, 06:34 AM
What?! Eberron is the coolest thing to happen to tabletop gaming since the invention of the table!

I find this claim ridiculous at best and spurious at worst. What sane DM would say no the mafia gnomes, dinosaur-riding halflings, Mongolian ancestor-worshipping elves? Not to mention an entire race based on Wolverine, another based on Mystique, and another based on being awesome steampunk robots?

BLASPHEMY, I SAY!

Eberron is far from broken (other than artificer and/or Planar Shepherd abuse), so I call foul on this. It's the best setting since Planescape, and anyone who says otherwise will find themselves on the business end of a Talenta boomerang.

Greymane
2011-01-21, 06:48 AM
I've never run Eberron because nobody runs it in my area. I've scanned through the books, and frankly? I like what I see. Techno-Magical World is pretty cool. Also Cthulhu-Dragons.

My group tends to run Homebrew and Forgotten Realms, and I love them both to death, but I would love to give an Eberron game a spin someday, whether it's as a Kalashtar to fight against the Inspired, or using my house's Dragonmark to steer the magical train that rides on pure awesome (and the screams of bound elementals).

bokodasu
2011-01-21, 06:53 AM
What sane DM would say no the mafia gnomes, dinosaur-riding halflings, Mongolian ancestor-worshipping elves? Not to mention an entire race based on Wolverine, another based on Mystique, and another based on being awesome steampunk robots?

Um, all of them?

Seriously, though, when I ban Eberron (which I don't always do), it's because I don't want any of those things in my campaign. I know a few people who think it's overpowered, I guess, but more often than not it's non-fitting fluff.

Innis Cabal
2011-01-21, 06:59 AM
What?! Eberron is the coolest thing to happen to tabletop gaming since the invention of the table!

I find this claim ridiculous at best and spurious at worst. What sane DM would say no the mafia gnomes, dinosaur-riding halflings, Mongolian ancestor-worshipping elves? Not to mention an entire race based on Wolverine, another based on Mystique, and another based on being awesome steampunk robots?

BLASPHEMY, I SAY!

Eberron is far from broken (other than artificer and/or Planar Shepherd abuse), so I call foul on this. It's the best setting since Planescape, and anyone who says otherwise will find themselves on the business end of a Talenta boomerang.

I don't like the flavor of the world. I've never liked the flavor of the world from day one. I don't care for the word "Banned" but Ebberon content other then the Artificer class is not incorporated into my games and thus not allowed due to it not making sense in the world I DM.

Saph
2011-01-21, 07:01 AM
Um, all of them?

Seriously, though, when I ban Eberron (which I don't always do), it's because I don't want any of those things in my campaign. I know a few people who think it's overpowered, I guess, but more often than not it's non-fitting fluff.

This. The fluff has never really appealed to me. I'll allow material on a case-by-case basis, but the setting doesn't generally fit into the sort of gameworlds I run.

Godna
2011-01-21, 07:19 AM
I just hate the existence of loli-pope

BobVosh
2011-01-21, 07:28 AM
I've had nothing but bad experiences with Eberron. I don't like D&D mechanics with my magipunk settings. They don't feel right for the fluff. Either not deadly enough or not grandiose enough

EccentricCircle
2011-01-21, 07:31 AM
Eberron rules are fine in an Eberron Game obviously

for a more standard medieval fantasy setting technomagic and some of the more steampunk elements (awesome as they are) just aren't apropriate.
in the same way that worshipin one of the gods from forgotton realms or playing a ninja might not be in all settings

I always consider things on a case by case basis, my current campaign is not eberron, but is a slightly pulp themed jungle adventure game with a bit of steampunk, so some eberron stuff is fine in that case.
but when a player wanted to play a gunslinger in a dark ages game the answer was most certianly no. a warforged artificer would have gotten the same response.

Coidzor
2011-01-21, 07:32 AM
Um, all of them?

Seriously, though, when I ban Eberron (which I don't always do), it's because I don't want any of those things in my campaign. I know a few people who think it's overpowered, I guess, but more often than not it's non-fitting fluff.

Except even that doesn't make sense due to the amount of material that's not really tied to the fluff of the world.

Prime32
2011-01-21, 07:41 AM
Except even that doesn't make sense due to the amount of material that's not really tied to the fluff of the world."I am descended from lycanthropes"
"I am descended from doppelgangers"
"I am a low-power, intelligent golem"

I don't see why any of those couldn't show up in Faerun. Heck, there are far more guys capable of creating warforged in Forgotten Realms than Eberron.

Tvtyrant
2011-01-21, 07:41 AM
Except even that doesn't make sense due to the amount of material that's not really tied to the fluff of the world.

I still say Warforged have no place in a generic setting <_<

Prime32
2011-01-21, 07:42 AM
I still say Warforged have no place in a generic setting <_<They are in generic books like MM3 you know...

"There's a bunch of these guys trying to find a place in the world" is part of the setting, not the race. The race is just "lesser golem with good AI".

Do you say nimblewrights have no place in a generic setting?

Tvtyrant
2011-01-21, 07:45 AM
They are in generic books like MM3 you know... Do you say nimblewrights have no place in a generic setting?

Because "there's a bunch of these guys trying to find a place in the world" is part of the setting, not the race.

There are also Beguiler's in MM5, that doesn't put them automatically into my "generics" book. And Nimblewrights make (a little) sense, Warforged are a nutty idea. Who churns out low level soldiers on purpose?

Greenish
2011-01-21, 07:47 AM
Who churns out low level soldiers on purpose?Being mass produced for war is a setting thing.

Tvtyrant
2011-01-21, 07:48 AM
Being mass produced for war is a setting thing.

How does that argue for a generic D&D setting? My point was they make no sense in generics!

Prime32
2011-01-21, 07:48 AM
There are also Beguiler's in MM5, that doesn't put them automatically into my "generics" book. And Nimblewrights make (a little) sense, Warforged are a nutty idea. Who churns out low level soldiers on purpose?Warforged do not have an ability which increases their numbers in your campaign, nor one which obligates them to be soldiers. Heck, that wasn't even their original purpose in Eberron itself!

Why can't a lv20 wizard in a high-magic setting attempt to create artificial life?


I mentioned Nimblewrights because both are defined by being intelligent constructs. You cannot claim that one race makes no sense because it's an intelligent construct but another being an intelligent construct is fine. If warforged were described as the creations of lone wizards, and the Eberron fluff mentioned armies of nimblewrights, would you ban nimblewrights and allow warforged?

Coidzor
2011-01-21, 07:48 AM
There are also Beguiler's in MM5, that doesn't put them automatically into my "generics" book.

Well, it did for WOTC. :smalltongue:


How does that argue for a generic D&D setting? My point was they make no sense in generics!

But you were also saying that they don't make sense generically because of their reason for existing in Eberron.

But their reason for existing in Eberron is a setting thing, not a thing intrinsic to them as a generic entity.

Tvtyrant
2011-01-21, 07:54 AM
Okay, let me put it this way: MM1 had a group of sentient constructs already (Inevitables) and they were capable of mixing it up with generic monsters. A Warforged is as strong as a normal humanoid; why would anyone with the power to create sentient constructs make them so extremely weak? They don't have a production cost in Eberron or the MM3, so I can't argue for costs, but in a generic campaign anyone with construct creation powers is strong enough to get a better toy then that.

To the OP, it is because many of the innovations of the Eberron campaign do not jive with me. Warforged, airships, lightning rail, some of the classes. It is not how I would run a campaign and it doesn't feel right except maybe as technologies used by aberrations.

tzaan
2011-01-21, 07:54 AM
if someone sorted out their own fluff then what's the problem? I wouldn't let someone worship Cthulhu in Forgotten Realms or allow someone else to be a Harper Scout in Eberron...unless they changed the name and gave me a good reason.
Like someone else said- warforged exist separate to Eberron so you can use them at your discretion without feeling like you nicked it from the setting. Don't use warforged for the same reason you don't use Dire T-Rex's: they don't fit, not just because "it's eberron and thus broken"

If you read what Artificers are all about (tinkering with the fundamentals of magic)..well what's so wrong with that? Just take out the steampunk theme and you've a reasonable Mandarin/Doctor Doom-esque character (with the blasty rings and wotnot)

T.G. Oskar
2011-01-21, 07:54 AM
Oddly enough, in my case it's the opposite.

I love the Eberron fluff, if only because you can play several types of campaigns in the same world. There's a strong unifying point in the Last War and the magitechnological advancements, but I find the intrigue between the Five Nations, or the intrigue between the dragonmarked houses, or the pulp exploration in Xen'drik starting with the mess that's Stormreach, or the dystopic setting of Riedra quite different and yet somehow integrated to the same world. Heck, if I wanna do a pirate campaign, look no further than the Lhazaar Principalities! Or Q'barra if I wanna look for colonial American-esque campaigns. Or the Frostfell for Frostburn adventures. Or the Demon Wastes for horror campaigns. Plus just Sharn and Stormreach are HUGE.

On the other hand, I can't really stand Faerun that much. They got some nice things in terms of Maztica and Kara-Tur representing Earth civilizations, but the looming menace of epic-level characters and the prevalence of such characters within the world shun me off a bit. Certainly, Eberron has the same: the Daelkyr, the Chamber, the Church of the Silver Flame. But they don't seem to be pretty epic, and the world allows the adventurers to feel really important, instead of just pawns in the intrigues of others.

Heck, that's quite probably the reason I like the setting; the way it plays with the settings you can participate at. Just the Five Nations represent very unique ways of seeing Earth cultures: I just have to perceive Karrnath as a sort of Sparta meets Soviet Russia with a monarchy instead of Communism, and Thrane just screams the Vatican in the age of the Borgia or Medici. The Wolverines, the Mystiques, the pretty psychics and the robots are just icing in the cake.

Plus I dig the Dhakaani fluff, and their treatment of the Drow (hunters >> matriarchy). Or the reinterpretation of the other races; mafia/spy tinker gnomes, tribal halflings, banker dwarves, elves who are either the Proud Warrior Race or a strong necromantic tradition, goblins with a very proud history of dominion, orcs with a strong shamanistic tradition and less prone to violence than the archetypal "horde orc"...

Still...that doesn't mean you can't adapt Eberron to what you wish to adapt it. Faerun is even harder to adapt, and it's still possible. If you don't want Warforged and high technology, just make House Cannith the wiped house (instead of House Vol), and work around it. And then again, there's just too many differences that make Eberron unfeasible for anybody; there's Greyhawk or Toril for that, which are a bit more classical in that sense. But, while I can understand Greyhawk, I simply can't seem to get Faerun to work as a setting.

Prime32
2011-01-21, 07:58 AM
Okay, let me put it this way: MM1 had a group of sentient constructs already (Inevitables) and they were capable of mixing it up with generic monsters. A Warforged is as strong as a normal humanoid; why would anyone with the power to create sentient constructs make them so extremely weak? They don't have a production cost in Eberron or the MM3, so I can't argue for costs, but in a generic campaign anyone with construct creation powers is strong enough to get a better toy then that.You might as well argue that Gepetto could have made Pinocchio seven feet tall with retractable buzz-saws. I'm sure he could, but there would be no reason to do so. A warforged is primarily an artificial human. They're the only construct with the PC potential to learn and grow without limit. Oh, and AI Is a Crapshoot (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AIIsACrapshoot).

Plus, warforged are highly convenient - they can follow far more complex tasks than a golem, and you can make a whole group of them for the same cost. And wizards can't build inevitables, only the plane of Mechanus can.

Coidzor
2011-01-21, 07:59 AM
To the OP, it is because many of the innovations of the Eberron campaign do not jive with me. Warforged, airships, lightning rail, some of the classes. It is not how I would run a campaign and it doesn't feel right except maybe as technologies used by aberrations.

And the vast majority of mechanics that aren't those things?

Let alone the fact that you're forgetting that airships are not an Eberronian innovation. They're far older than that.

Tvtyrant
2011-01-21, 08:05 AM
You might as well argue that Gepetto could have made Pinocchio seven feet tall with retractable buzz-saws. I'm sure he could, but there would be no reason to do so.

Plus, warforged are far smarter than most minions, and can advance by character class at PC rate. And wizards can't create inevitables.

They can't make Warforged either... Unless you refluff them to, in which case the same thing can happen to Inevitables.

And yes, Eberron isn't the only place to use those technologies; I don't borrow them from the others either. I'm not saying that they or Eberron don't have their place; I love Spelljammer afterall, I'm saying if I'm in a dark age level society where a village is a tavern and 5 houses and wizards are reviled I don't want there to be a swarm of Warforged paratrooping out of Airships on me. It breaks my sense of consistency.

Coidzor
2011-01-21, 08:07 AM
They can't make Warforged either... Unless you refluff them to, in which case the same thing can happen to Inevitables.

OTOH, Inevitables are rubbish as PCs even refluffed.


And yes, Eberron isn't the only place to use those technologies; I don't borrow them from the others either. I'm not saying that they or Eberron don't have their place; I love Spelljammer afterall, I'm saying if I'm in a dark age level society where a village is a tavern and 5 houses and wizards are reviled I don't want there to be a swarm of Warforged paratrooping out of Airships on me. It breaks my sense of consistency.

And the material published in those books which is of no relation to that sort of thing?

Characters can't acquire magic items without the DM's approval even when they're doing the crafting themselves. They can't take feats without DM approval anyway. So... Why?

Prime32
2011-01-21, 08:08 AM
And yes, Eberron isn't the only place to use those technologies; I don't borrow them from the others either. I'm not saying that they or Eberron don't have their place; I love Spelljammer afterall, I'm saying if I'm in a dark age level society where a village is a tavern and 5 houses and wizards are reviled I don't want there to be a swarm of Warforged paratrooping out of Airships on me. It breaks my sense of consistency.That doesn't happen any more. Only in the Last War, and they're coming from another nation more advanced than yours.

There are fewer of those villages in Eberron, and distrust of magic is lessened since magewright is a common profession (though true wizards could still be another thing).

EDIT:

And the material published in those books which is of no relation to that sort of thing?"Hey, can I take this feat which lets me throw boomerangs better?"
"No, that has no place in my setting!"

"Since I'm already a member of an exorcist organisation in your setting, can I take levels in Exorcist of the Silver Flame, and some spells like impotent possessor?"
"Don't be ridiculous!"
"But I can't actually exorcise things!"

Tvtyrant
2011-01-21, 08:16 AM
Okay, a few things.

1. No, I'm not for mass banning everything immediately. If someone from my group came up to me with a specific feat and said "I want this particular one" then I probably would let them have it. I still tell my group "No Eberron" because it reduces the influx of people bringing me the exact things I have mentioned.

2. The why is because many things in Eberron are exactly like that; I ran a game once that had 0 references to dragons, much less the actual things, so dragonmarks would kinda deviate. Eberron is based on a lot of tenets that do not match up with generic D&D; the lack of gods for instance.

3. I ban Drow too. Let the howls of rage begin!

Coidzor
2011-01-21, 08:20 AM
1. No, I'm not for mass banning everything immediately. If someone from my group came up to me with a specific feat and said "I want this particular one" then I probably would let them have it. I still tell my group "No Eberron" because it reduces the influx of people bringing me the exact things I have mentioned.

Except it makes you seem like you're blanket banning (thus still related to the topic and the questions directed at you) rather than actually allowing things with approval. So unless someone knows that you don't mean what you say, they'll interpret you as being explicit to your word. So, you can't really have your cake and eat it too here.


2. The why is because many things in Eberron are exactly like that; I ran a game once that had 0 references to dragons, much less the actual things, so dragonmarks would kinda deviate. Eberron is based on a lot of tenets that do not match up with generic D&D; the lack of gods for instance.

Dragonmarks aren't even actually references to dragons themselves, they're called that because of what the constellations they resemble are known as. And a character being dragonmarked doesn't necessitate that the campaign has to be about dragons. :smallconfused:


3. I ban Drow too. Let the howls of rage begin!

What?

LordBlades
2011-01-21, 08:30 AM
I think it's mainly because Eberron diverges from the 'standard fantasy world' archetype by a much larger margin than most other published settings.

Some stuff in Eberron is generic enough so that it works in many campaigns (warforged, shifters, artifcers etc.) but other things, like lightning rails, airships and the like aren't that easy to introduce in your campaign without introducing a magic-punk feeling that not all DMs enjoy.

Tvtyrant
2011-01-21, 08:30 AM
Except it makes you seem like you're blanket banning (thus still related to the topic and the questions directed at you) rather than actually allowing things with approval. So unless someone knows that you don't mean what you say, they'll interpret you as being explicit to your word. So, you can't really have your cake and eat it too here.



Dragonmarks aren't even actually references to dragons themselves, they're called that because of what the constellations they resemble are known as. And a character being dragonmarked doesn't necessitate that the campaign has to be about dragons. :smallconfused:



What?

I can do exactly that; my cake is keeping the stuff I don't want out of my game and the eating it part is not being bothered with "but he gets to use an Eberron feat, why can't I be a Warforged???" It happens more often then you think....

I'm aware, but there also aren't constellations that grant powers in generic, and I don't use astrology in my games. It would take me working a whole lot of refluff to get it in (I run themed games; so if there is going to be ToB there will probably also be Duskblade but not standard Monks/Fighters, if I'm running an aberration setting with stars I don't want to have to work in why actual physical stars grant powers, etc) and I'm not putting in that kind of effort when there are books that match generics more easily.

I ban a lot of stuff depending on circumstances; Eberron is the least generic setting and as such is going to be the hardest to work in. I ban Drows for the same reason; I might run a game without an Underdark, so having Underdark civilizations makes no sense.

Psyren
2011-01-21, 08:41 AM
"I am descended from lycanthropes"
"I am descended from doppelgangers"
"I am a low-power, intelligent golem"

I don't see why any of those couldn't show up in Faerun. Heck, there are far more guys capable of creating warforged in Forgotten Realms than Eberron.

In fact, hamishspence came up with a great and flavorful way to get Warforged into Faerun. I don't remember the details, but hopefully he'll chime in and reiterate it - I thought it was pretty cool :smallsmile:

Zen Master
2011-01-21, 08:49 AM
On the other hand, I can't really stand Faerun that much.

This I can very much agree with. In Faerun, I feel like I have NO elbow room. Any point of the map is described in exhaustive detail, there are so many NPC's of all levels you could populate the world with them - and it's simply not that easy to just say 'well, Cormyr - forget about Cormyr, everything the books tell you about this region of the map is wrong.'

Plus, and this is just as important, Faerun is just so bland. Which may be a selling point in itself - being generic - but I've never felt inspired by Faerun the way I frequently am by Eberron.

Also, playing in Faerun, you are always tempted to do openly stupid stuff - like use Elminster. Never ... works ... out =)

Goumindong
2011-01-21, 08:59 AM
Who churns out low level soldiers on purpose?

Everyone; all the time; always.

We call them "undead" when necromancers do it. "Mooks" when crime bosses do it and "the city watch" when townships do it.

We call them armies when Kings do it.

The fact that things like warforged don't exist in settings like the Forgotten Realms, which have so much power running through them that its beyond imagining you would think that at some point someone would have said

"You know what would be nice, a relatively cheap intelligent golem that i could store pretty much forever and bring it out when the next "possibly world destroying war" happens because we all know its going to happen this stuff happens like every 3 years."

Or said "you know what would be great, if we had some sort of way to travel between the two towns and trade that did not involve carts because goodness what is my wizard academy doing anyway

Serpentine
2011-01-21, 09:12 AM
I still say Warforged have no place in a generic setting <_<My own setting is fairly generic, but Warforged have - or will have - a place in it. Specifically, the gnomes of the Goblin Isles are an ever-shifting mass of warring city/island-states something like medieval Europe if it were in the Caribbean. These gnomes are in the process of inventing a warforged prototype which will be their equivalent to African slaves - they will hang around and deal with the farms and the like while the gnomes themselves take it easy and/or go to war. It explains why they're relatively weak - they're manpower, not soldiers - and what strength they do have is explained by their also being an emergency defense force. At this point, if someone wanted to play one they'd need a very good background story to explain it, and they'll probably be accompanied by a gnome master.

In Vorpal Tribble's game (not particularly generic, but certainly not Eberron), I play a warforged who is, as far as I know, totally unique, which came about because of the incorporation of starmetal type stuff into its body. It was built as a hunting automaton. I don't believe warforged of any kind exist anywhere else in his world, but it just happened that my backstory fitted very neatly into his story.

So. To summarise, you have absolutely no right to tell anyone what does or does not have a place in their setting, generic or otherwise, because everyone will come up with their own fluff.

Me? I'll take anything on a case-by-case basis. The main thing that bugs me is the location-dependent things like feats. I'll generally ignore or replace those. Haven't had a proper look at dragonmarks - I thought they were tied to particular dragons, places or other setting-specific things, but if they're not I guess there's no particular reason not to allow it if someone wants it.

Tvtyrant
2011-01-21, 09:13 AM
{Teh scrubbyness}

Serpentine
2011-01-21, 09:20 AM
I have every right to not allow Warforged in my game; I'm not telling anyone what belongs in generic or not, I was telling the OP why I don't. And arguing for my point of view, because I have a right to it. I have yet to post a topic "Why Eberron shouldn't be allowed," and as such I am slightly insulted by your comment.You said "warforged have no place in a generic setting". Not your generic setting, any generic setting. You also asked a variety of fluff-based questions for which the apparent assumption was that there was no good answer for them, when in fact there are many good answers depending on the individual setting - generic or otherwise (and I wonder exactly what your definition of "generic" is...).
I'm saying you have no place to make such claims.

So I was, like, totally right :smallamused: :smallwink:

Tvtyrant
2011-01-21, 09:26 AM
You said "warforged have no place in a generic setting". Not your generic setting, any generic setting. You also asked a variety of fluff-based questions for which the apparent assumption was that there was no good answer for them, when in fact there are many good answers depending on the individual setting - generic or otherwise (and I wonder exactly what your definition of "generic" is...).
I'm saying you have no place to make such claims.

I would like to apologize, as I was in fact in the wrong on that point. I did scrub it before you posted as you may note for that exact reason.

Serpentine
2011-01-21, 09:27 AM
Kewl. I thought about scrubbing what you said after you did that, but I thought I'd see where you were going with it first.

Jayabalard
2011-01-21, 09:30 AM
I find this claim ridiculous at best and spurious at worst. What sane DM would say no the mafia gnomes, dinosaur-riding halflings, Mongolian ancestor-worshipping elves? Not to mention an entire race based on Wolverine, another based on Mystique, and another based on being awesome steampunk robots?Lots of them; probably due to them thinking the setting is terrible.

bokodasu
2011-01-21, 09:41 AM
This seems to come up a lot when people ban things. "But WHY, when you could just spend several hours combing through to find the things that do fit in your campaign, and several more hours re-writing the things that don't, and also many more hours arguing with your players when Player A gets to do reasonable-thing-Y, but Player V doesn't get to do broken-thing-Z."

Um, because I don't want to do that? Really, if a player tells me that there is only one possible character they could ever ever play and if I don't let them have this out-of-setting thing they will just simply DIE... well, I know other players, and there are other DMs. Why shouldn't everyone go find some other relationship that makes them happy?

Dusk Eclipse
2011-01-21, 09:44 AM
I agree that everyone people should be able to say what goes and what doesn't in it's own game; but I feel that saying no Eberron characters somewhat... counter intuitive.

Does he refers to the fluff, to the mechanics, to what?

Personally I love the setting; and I am thinking on trying to run a few modules adapted to the setting; besides my group plays with a "everything that is printed is Kosher, just ask before using" mentality, so this No-Eberron character business seems weird to me.

kamikasei
2011-01-21, 09:50 AM
This seems to come up a lot when people ban things. "But WHY, when you could just spend several hours combing through to find the things that do fit in your campaign, and several more hours re-writing the things that don't..."
This seems to point to a fundamental disconnect in how different people see banning/allowing material. I would expect anything taken from any source to be subject to approval based on both flavour and mechanics. Why is it up to a DM to produce an alternate version of everything found in an Eberron sourcebook so that the players can assume whatever they choose is fine, rather than up to the player to tell the DM what he'd like and the DM to say whether it should work as-is or might require some adaptation that they can do together as part of the process of working out a character's place in the game and in the setting?

edit: I could probably be clearer. Your post seems to me to describe a whitelist policy: rather than being judged case-by-case, all material from a given source is deemed usable or not; a DM has to make sure any source she allows is or can be incorporated as she'd like. If that's the case, why say "no Eberron (or whatever)" rather than "here are the approved sources, nothing from outside them please"? I find it hard to imagine a campaign where absolutely anything from a non-Eberron source is potentially viable but anything originally from Eberron is absolutely not.

Jayabalard
2011-01-21, 10:14 AM
edit: I could probably be clearer. Your post seems to me to describe a whitelist policy: rather than being judged case-by-case, all material from a given source is deemed usable or not; a DM has to make sure any source she allows is or can be incorporated as she'd like. If that's the case, why say "no Eberron (or whatever)" rather than "here are the approved sources, nothing from outside them please"? I find it hard to imagine a campaign where absolutely anything from a non-Eberron source is potentially viable but anything originally from Eberron is absolutely not.Probably because they actually use a combination of blacklists, whitelists, and greylists rather than just one type... and Eberron is probably not the only thing on the blacklist.

For example:

Core and several specific books are whitelisted; these are the books that the GM knows the best, and has evaluated. There may be specifically banned things in these books, or houserules that change how they work.
Several books (including everything Eberron) are blacklisted; it's not allowed, and the GM is not going to make allowances for it.
And everything else is greylisted; it's not allowed by default, but the GM is likely to make allowances for it isn't too difficult to work in.

HunterOfJello
2011-01-21, 10:18 AM
If you want a true traditional fantasy setting, then Eberron chrunch doesn't really fit in.

Also, some of the Eberron PrCs are obviously superior to previously made PrCs. Some of them are a bit over the top (Planar Shephard) and others are obvious recreations of old PrCs that replace the old classes completely (Phantom Knight).

Saph
2011-01-21, 10:23 AM
This seems to come up a lot when people ban things. "But WHY, when you could just spend several hours combing through to find the things that do fit in your campaign, and several more hours re-writing the things that don't, and also many more hours arguing with your players when Player A gets to do reasonable-thing-Y, but Player V doesn't get to do broken-thing-Z."

Um, because I don't want to do that? Really, if a player tells me that there is only one possible character they could ever ever play and if I don't let them have this out-of-setting thing they will just simply DIE... well, I know other players, and there are other DMs. Why shouldn't everyone go find some other relationship that makes them happy?

Heh. Yeah, I know the feeling. I've seen a surprising number of people claim with a straight face that if the DM refuses to allow book X (Eberron, Tome of Battle, psionics, or whatever else the player especially likes) then they're obviously a bad DM. The concept of 'legitimate difference of opinion' never seems to get much of a look-in.

I'll usually allow Eberron stuff, but if I decide that I don't want to have, say, Warforged in my Faerun game, then that's my decision. I'll explain it to a player if they ask, but I don't have much patience with the "I like this material and therefore you have to include it" attitude.

kamikasei
2011-01-21, 10:24 AM
Probably because they actually use a combination of blacklists, whitelists, and greylists rather than just one type... and Eberron is probably not the only thing on the blacklist.
Sure, but that's not what bokodasu described. "I ban it because I don't want to have to go through it in advance and make sure I can allow every single thing from it that a player might ask for, before they actually ask for any of it" isn't much of a combined system, it very much sounds whitelist-only, at least to me.

Half-Orc Rage
2011-01-21, 10:30 AM
I could see a setting where gnomes created warforged to protect their lands. Gnomes are supposed to be magically and technologically adept, but being that they are so small having a mass produced army to protect them would be helpful.

I could see where specific worlds might not allow Eberron races. If you are doing Lord of the Rings style games they might not fit. Then again, it's not any different than putting tieflings and dragonborn into your world when 4e came out, is it?

Skjaldbakka
2011-01-21, 10:31 AM
I occassionally work warforged, shifters, and/or changelings into other campaigns, but for the most part, I don't care for Eberron as a setting. I do allow a lot of feats from Eberron though, particularly the ones that allow flurrying with non-standard weapons.

Jayabalard
2011-01-21, 10:32 AM
Sure, but that's not what bokodasu described. "I ban it because I don't want to have to go through it in advance and make sure I can allow every single thing from it that a player might ask for, before they actually ask for any of it" isn't much of a combined system, it very much sounds whitelist-only, at least to me. I'm not sure where the text you have in quotes is from... but it does not look like a valid paraphrasing of anything posted by bokodasu in this thread.


This seems to come up a lot when people ban things. "But WHY, when you could just spend several hours combing through to find the things that do fit in your campaign, and several more hours re-writing the things that don't, and also many more hours arguing with your players when Player A gets to do reasonable-thing-Y, but Player V doesn't get to do broken-thing-Z." THis is talking banning things, ie: black listing. It just means that Eberron is on the blacklist because bokadasu doesn't feel that it's worth greylisting or whitelist. An earlier post even mentions the reason that it's black listed: "it's because I don't want any [mafia gnomes, dinosaur-riding halflings, Mongolian ancestor-worshipping elves, an entire race based on Wolverine, another based on Mystique, and another based on being awesome steampunk robots] in my campaign."

It doesn't say anything about how other books are treated, so your assumption seems a trifle unfounded.

kamikasei
2011-01-21, 10:37 AM
I'm not sure where the text you have in quotes is from... but it does not look like a valid paraphrasing of anything posted by bokodasu in this thread.

THis is talking banning things, ie: black listing. It just means that Eberron is on the blacklist because bokadasu doesn't feel that it's worth greylisting or whitelist. It doesn't say anything about how other books are treated, so your assumption seems a trifle unfounded.
It's saying (as I read it) that the alternative to banning something is to "spend several hours combing through to find the things that do fit in your campaign, and several more hours re-writing the things that don't". That's what I'm paraphrasing. My point is that the work of finding things to fit or rewrite is not necessarily the responsibility of the DM, and you don't have to go through an entire sourcebook deciding how to treat each element within it just to assess an idea or request brought to you by a player.

Skjaldbakka
2011-01-21, 10:39 AM
I suppose pretty much everything is "greylist" for me unless I don't own a physical or digital copy of the book in question... which for tabletop games I will generally allow on the caveat that the player bring the sourcebook to games, or a photocopy of the mechanic in question.

bokodasu
2011-01-21, 10:48 AM
Ok, I see where the confusion is coming from. All that work stuff is what the anti-ban people seem to think DMs should do instead of just banning something; my argument is that a ban gets me what I want (people not trying to play stuff from the Eberron setting, not making evil characters, and generally playing the game that I'm trying to run), so their suggestion of me doing much more work for a similar-but-not-quite-as-good outcome is somewhat silly.

Realistically, players can come to me at any time and say, "hey, I have this great idea" and it could be a total cribbing from something I've banned and I probably won't notice, and we'll deal with it on a case-by-case basis. But when I say I'm banning Eberron? That means I don't want you to go through the Eberron book and cherry-pick all the cheddar and spend weeks arguing why it really fits really and telling me I'm mean for not letting you use it.

kamikasei
2011-01-21, 10:59 AM
I assume, though, that if you don't want people using material from Eberron it's for reasons beyond the simple fact that it's from Eberron. So if a player wants to use that material, adapted to address those reasons, what matter what sourcebook it's from? Where's the extra work beyond what you'd have to do with any player to fit their character in?

Maybe it's just a difference in player experiences. Some posts here paint a picture that seems bizarre to me of players coming to the table with whole characters already worked out before they have any information on the setting the DM has in mind, or of "Eberron characters" who are literally from Eberron somehow even in games in other settings with no interplanar migration. I can't really relate to those playstyles.

Jayabalard
2011-01-21, 11:04 AM
It's saying (as I read it) that the alternative to banning something is to "spend several hours combing through to find the things that do fit in your campaign, and several more hours re-writing the things that don't". That's what I'm paraphrasing. That's a partial quote, which leaves out the key clause "and also many more hours arguing with your players when Player A gets to do reasonable-thing-Y, but Player V doesn't get to do broken-thing-Z." ... which is a huge part of why many people ban a whole book outright rather than whitelisting.


My point is <snip>I thought your point was that bokodasu's "post seems to me to describe a whitelist policy" ... that is, after all, what I was disagreeing with (and I thought it was pretty clear that it was the only thing i was disagreeing with).


the work of finding things to fit or rewrite is not necessarily the responsibility of the DM, and you don't have to go through an entire sourcebook deciding how to treat each element within it just to assess an idea or request brought to you by a player.I don't think anyone has said otherwise. Certainly not me or bokodasu...

kamikasei
2011-01-21, 11:10 AM
That's a partial quote, which leaves out the key clause "and also many more hours arguing with your players when Player A gets to do reasonable-thing-Y, but Player V doesn't get to do broken-thing-Z." ... which is a huge part of why many people ban a whole book outright rather than whitelisting.
I don't really get it; if your players are annoying or unreasonable on questions of balance, that's a problem you're going to have pretty much regardless of sources used.

arguskos
2011-01-21, 11:13 AM
Heh. Yeah, I know the feeling. I've seen a surprising number of people claim with a straight face that if the DM refuses to allow book X (Eberron, Tome of Battle, psionics, or whatever else the player especially likes) then they're obviously a bad DM. The concept of 'legitimate difference of opinion' never seems to get much of a look-in.
Agreed. This right here is why I no longer participate in discussions of several prominent topics on this forum, because I got tired of hearing "you're wrong and are a bad DM". Me and mine have fun doing things our way, you and yours have fun doing it your way, what's the big issue?


I'll usually allow Eberron stuff, but if I decide that I don't want to have, say, Warforged in my Faerun game, then that's my decision. I'll explain it to a player if they ask, but I don't have much patience with the "I like this material and therefore you have to include it" attitude.
Also agreed. DMs have reasons for denying certain things, and players should have confidence enough to trust their DM to not blindly ban wide swaths of material without a clear and specific reason. Some DMs *do* mess up, that's not in question. Most though are trustworthy, and saying "my judgment of what's good in your game is better than yours, Mr. DM Guy" is insulting. Please, don't be that guy. :smallsmile:

bokodasu
2011-01-21, 11:25 AM
I assume, though, that if you don't want people using material from Eberron it's for reasons beyond the simple fact that it's from Eberron.

Ah-hah, another source of confusion. Eberron is a setting; if I'm not playing in that setting, I don't want stuff from it. (Generally.) I'd say the same things about Faerun or OA, or even, say, Sandstorm when we're playing in a Frigid Northlands setting.

Yes, the reason I'm banning the Eberron books is because they're Eberron books. They don't fit the game I'm running, and it's not like there isn't plenty of stuff that does. If there were only two splatbooks in the world, I might have a different take on things, but if you can't make the character you want with the stuff that ISN'T banned, then my game is not the game for you.

(Funny, I was just having a discussion with my mom about "you can't say 'you can't play'" which is a rule at my daughter's school. You're not allowed to tell other kids they can't play a game you're already playing. But you also don't have to change the game you're playing if they want to play something else. It seems applicable here.)

Worlok
2011-01-21, 11:27 AM
You can actually fluff Eberron material into almost anything, even though it tends to work best as something extremely exotic or ridiculously ancient in my opinion.

Warforged? Working population of Mechanus, the guys ("guys", mind! Do they get genders? I don't remember...) to actually build inevitables and work the clockwork factories of the gods... A cross of battle droids as per Phantom Menace, troubleshooters as per Paranoia and the scientists from The Great Dictator who have all that stuff misfire on them. Probably conceived as maintainance personnel or as pest-control against formians, or whatever. Intentionally kept underwhelmingly-powered in order to be vastly improved with whatever the Marut-producing assembly lines crank out, according to the requirements of the moment.

Or better yet, what the dwarven dead become for all their lawfulness. Make warforged a template. The smiths of the afterlife, machine-ified for their love of the stuff they are made from now. As I said, exotic or primeval.

Dinosaur-riding? Awesome! Halflings? Meh, but that's just me. Give me triceratops-riding ancient ogre armies any day, though. Probably as some sort of precursor empire. I will now try to build a campaign around that.

Dragonmarked houses? Why not. It's not exactly the greatest invention in all of gaming, but some sort of powerful political entity with heraldric / blood ties to magical creatures of great power is a perfectly serviceable staple in pretty much any setting that needs to get its politics-level up significantly. And it can work well with prophecies or a questline based around some sort of age-old bloodline or secret society.

Artificers? Well, I don't really like casting as per 3.5, somehow I'm a sucker for low-magic barbarian goodness. But still, masters of the magic item are an interesting concept, and they allow for a high level of specialised utility magic. I'd probably keep them NPC primarily, but still, some sort of mage-smith as the go-to-guy for information on a certain artifact, or a legendary alchemist, or kind of an arsenal-wizzie for those specialised anti-demon units... All of them can be done with the class as it is, even better than with a wizard as those tend to be associated with the ''I'm in a tower and RUUUULE YOU!'' kind of magic-user. From my point of view, that is.

Airships... Now, those have been done in other games and sources. In Morrowind-Bloodmoon, for example, there is one that is considered all revolutionary and ground-breaking and stuff - before it is found crashed and abandoned in the middle of a deep-frozen wasteland. But still, as something your setting's designated tinker types - Dragonlance gnomes come to mind - aspire to and experiment with, probably having a moment of glory when used for fast travel or as the cavalry in that battle with the great wyrm ancestor dragon who has been laughing at how puny all your species are, only to get battered, bombed and botch-slapped by humanoid ingenuity... It can work. Bonus points if it's based on blueprints from another plane or long-lost artificer coven, the acquisition of whom has been an element of the whole adventure.

None of the above is meant to be taken too seriously, it's just a little thought experiment on setting versatility. So, my opinion. Feel free to agree - or criticise - as you please. :smallbiggrin:

I think my point is that while including the whackier stuff speaks for you as an inventive, risk-taking DM, it is entirely alright to keep Blade Runner out of Conan. All a matter of opinion, with the trend here on the boards just happening to go towards not doing it.

Coidzor
2011-01-21, 11:28 AM
Also agreed. DMs have reasons for denying certain things, and players should have confidence enough to trust their DM to not blindly ban wide swaths of material without a clear and specific reason.

...What about the ones in this very thread who have blindly banned wide swaths of material without a clear and specific reason? Why should I as a person or as a player blindly give anyone that kind of benefit of the doubt?

arguskos
2011-01-21, 11:32 AM
...What about the ones in this very thread who have blindly banned wide swaths of material without a clear and specific reason? Why should I as a person or as a player blindly give anyone that kind of benefit of the doubt?
They've been giving you a valid reason: because it does not fit their games. Are you saying you know better for their games than they do? That seems unlikely.

That you dislike the reason doesn't make it any less valid as a justification for their games. If you feel the reason given is not one you'd personally use, ok then, don't use it. Whatever works for you is what works for you, and whatever works for bokodasu is what works for bokodasu. Don't assume they're the same, cause they're almost certainly not. :smallwink:

Corronchilejano
2011-01-21, 11:34 AM
...What about the ones in this very thread who have blindly banned wide swaths of material without a clear and specific reason? Why should I as a person or as a player blindly give anyone that kind of benefit of the doubt?

Because the DM sets the rules with the players, and since you can be a DM with few players but can't be more players without a DM, usually the DM sets the tone for what is acceptable for him.

Don't play if you don't agree.

Tavar
2011-01-21, 11:39 AM
Unless they're also banning Clerics, then I'd say most of the time it does fit the world, they just don't want to look at a whatever you're asking about. Which, well, it's annoying, but fine, I guess. But I don't like being told that it's because reason A, when it's really reason B.

Coidzor
2011-01-21, 11:40 AM
Arguskos: No, they haven't. I've had Tvtyrant try to say he both blanket bans Eberron and doesn't blanket ban Eberron and then never explain why he does so, with the best answer being "I don't like warforged." Which does nothing to answer the next question of why ban the entire books for one aspect that one doesn't like, because if that were the case then all books would end up banned because there's always going to be something about them that isn't liked.

For instance, healing via drowning.


They've been giving you a valid reason: because it does not fit their games

"I don't like the fluff" is not a valid reason for banning things that have nothing to do with fluff. It obviously is for things that are related to the fluff, hence why I don't care about the people who don't allow warforged or airships (but did point out that airships are not something Eberron invented).

After all, this thread was started to ask for reasons. and saying it doesn't fit their games without any further explanation is a cop out and does themselves a disservice and doesn't further the thread or the OP's understanding of the matter in the slightest.

@Tvtyrant:
I can do exactly that; my cake is keeping the stuff I don't want out of my game and the eating it part is not being bothered with "but he gets to use an Eberron feat, why can't I be a Warforged???" It happens more often then you think....

Do you really game with that many different groups of people? :smallconfused: Because I'm finding it hard to believe you've encountered enough harassment to justify a tactic that rewards people who know you well enough to not take you at your word on the matter but seek to get things past your ban list anyway so long as they're not the things that actually caused your banlist.

It seems simpler and less risk of being labeled a hypocrite by your players to just say what you mean and ban what you actually want to ban.


I'm aware, but there also aren't constellations that grant powers in generic, and I don't use astrology in my games. It would take me working a whole lot of refluff to get it in

Saying "oh, yeah, there's some constellations that sometimes are manifested in the forms of birthmarks with magical powers," is a lot of work. Also, take a look at what you just said there, because you're stating that because a system doesn't already exist you're banning the use of a system that does X thing.


(I run themed games; so if there is going to be ToB there will probably also be Duskblade but not standard Monks/Fighters, if I'm running an aberration setting with stars I don't want to have to work in why actual physical stars grant powers, etc) and I'm not putting in that kind of effort when there are books that match generics more easily.

And again, rather than banning what you actually take issue with, you ban the books they come from. Why?

P.S. The Dragonmarks are never explained in Eberron either. So why would you feel obligated to explain something at the setting/backstory level that was intentionally left as a mystery to maybe be filled in if a DM wanted to make a campaign about figuring that mystery out?


Because the DM sets the rules with the players, and since you can be a DM with few players but can't be more players without a DM, usually the DM sets the tone for what is acceptable for him.

Don't play if you don't agree.

To be sure, if a DM is unable to explain their rulings or flat out refuses to, then I would never play with them.

Edit: Admittedly, it's possible I'm overreacting to a perception of an embrace of the concept of DM privilege and inflating the importance of things that are inconsequential to what's been said.

kamikasei
2011-01-21, 11:46 AM
Ah-hah, another source of confusion. Eberron is a setting; if I'm not playing in that setting, I don't want stuff from it. (Generally.) I'd say the same things about Faerun or OA, or even, say, Sandstorm when we're playing in a Frigid Northlands setting.
Yeah, that's an entirely different approach to the game to mine. Fluff is fluff, and mechanics are used to represent fluff, not inextricably bound up in it. If a character would work in the setting, and the mechanics fit the character (and game - balance is of course a consideration too), then where the mechanics originally come from don't much matter to me. I'd feel like I was excluding potentially good ideas for no very good reason - trying to fit my setting in to the gaps left where other people hadn't done anything yet. And hell, it's not like WotC go to much trouble to make all content in every setting-specific book specific to the setting...

On the other hand, chances are that if a player is looking for a mechanic from Sandstorm for a character for a game set in the frozen north, the problem is that the character concept doesn't fit too well. Or that WotC put a generally useful mechanic in an environment book for no particular reason...

Coidzor
2011-01-21, 11:49 AM
And hell, it's not like WotC go to much trouble to make all content in every setting-specific book specific to the setting...

Most of the content in setting books is not actually tied to the setting but rather filler to help pad out the book's contents. Hence that there's cause for this discussion in the first place.

Greenish
2011-01-21, 11:55 AM
Haven't had a proper look at dragonmarks - I thought they were tied to particular dragons, places or other setting-specific things, but if they're not I guess there's no particular reason not to allow it if someone wants it.For crunch, dragonmarks basically get you a themed set of SLAs for a few times a day, the number and uses depending on how many of the chain (least, lesser, greater) you take.

Fluff:In fluff, they're inherent stuff that sometimes manifests on certain bloodlines, which have ages ago banded together to form houses for each different mark. Only races that can have (true) dragonmarks are the PHB ones (not even the fancy subraces), and only two marks (one of which is now extinct) can leap the race boundary (mark of finding can manifest on half-orcs and humans, mark of death on elves and half-dragon elves). A half-elf with a human parent and an elf parent couldn't have the mark of storm or the mark of finding, but a half-elf of the appropriate half-elf bloodline could.

Mind you, dragonmarked houses don't (probably) have actual dragon blood in their bloodline (the whole house bearing mark of death was erased from the face of the earth for giving birth to a single half-dragon). They have a connection to the Dragonic Prophecy, but that isn't really about (or by) dragons either.

Also, some of the Eberron PrCs are obviously superior to previously made PrCs. Some of them are a bit over the top (Planar Shephard) and others are obvious recreations of old PrCs that replace the old classes completely (Phantom Knight).Well, I wouldn't say Phantom Knight "completely replaces" EK, since EK is technically the stronger choice.

What the developers were thinking smoking when they wrote up Planar Shepherd, though, I'll never know.

Tavar
2011-01-21, 11:58 AM
Or that WotC put a generally useful mechanic in an environment book for no particular reason...

Like, say, the feats that let you get around elemental immunities/resistances?

Ravens_cry
2011-01-21, 12:05 PM
Most of the content in setting books is not actually tied to the setting but rather filler to help pad out the book's contents. Hence that there's cause for this discussion in the first place.
That is a somewhat cynical way of looking at it. I am not saying it isn't accurate, but I got into gaming from reading the 3.X books the local library had, reading the fluff and and looking at the pretty pictures. Books with nothing but blocks of statistics would have never have caught my interest. I wanted to play these worlds I was reading about, even if I had to do . . . Math to do so.
I really like the Eberron flavour, it is a real unique world that doesn't exactly fit into the genre. Yes, it is definitely Fantasy, but it isn't the generic Quasi-Medieval European Fantasy. That may be where some of the "hate" comes from. This isn't a Tolkien Rip Off, yet it isn't a mirror opposite either. It is truly something new and is one of Wizards best efforts in my view.

Keld Denar
2011-01-21, 12:26 PM
Honestly, I used to HATE Eberron. I was a purist who grew up in Greyhawk with a splash of Realms. Eberron was new and kinda alien, and honestly, I'm still not a fan of Action Points. But then I actually played around in it. Holy crap. One of my first Eberron games started with an in media rez a HALO airship drop on glidewings over the Karnathi no-fly zone on a mission for some guy we just called FURY. Talk about EPIC. Then there's this list (http://www.angelfire.com/dragon3/captainjarlot/), which makes me giggle with untapped adventure ideas. Seriously, there's so many different possibilities. Its detailed, without being stifling like the Realms tend to be, because it was designed primarily to be played in, rather than to serve as a setting for books the way much of the Realms is.


Ah-hah, another source of confusion. Eberron is a setting; if I'm not playing in that setting, I don't want stuff from it. (Generally.) I'd say the same things about Faerun or OA, or even, say, Sandstorm when we're playing in a Frigid Northlands setting.


Most setting stuff is refluffable though. Heck, even core has setting stuff. Look at Red Wizard of Thay in the DMG. Thay, a region in the Forgotten Realms. Who are they? A tyrannical magocracy who subjugate the Rashemi people. Very easily adapted to any other generic tyrannical magocracy who may or may not subjugate persons of differing nationality. In Greyhawk, that would probably be the Scarlet Brotherhood, in Eberron, probably the Karnathi? Similarly, the main books like CWarrior, CArcane, CDivine, and CAdv all contain setting specific stuff like Radiant Servant of Pelor, Shining Blade of Heironius, Purple Dragon Knight, etc. RSoP can be adapted to any benevolant sun god like Lathander or Sune in Realms. Purple Dragon Knight could be Crimson Drake Knight, or Knights of the Realm, or whatever Knight whatever whatever that exist in your hand made campaign. That stuff is allowed, even though it requires a little bit of refluffing...yet because the book says "Eberron" on the top of it, it can't be similarly adapted?

And thats not even TRYING...

Greenish
2011-01-21, 12:34 PM
A tyrannical magocracy who subjugate the Rashemi people. Very easily adapted to any other generic tyrannical magocracy who may or may not subjugate persons of differing nationality. In Greyhawk, that would probably be the Scarlet Brotherhood, in Eberron, probably the Karnathi?If I had to fit a magocracy into Eberron, I'd probably go with Aundair. They're not that far from it, really. If you don't use psionics, Riedra would be a magocracy.

MeeposFire
2011-01-21, 12:56 PM
Some classes really benefit from setting material that does not have to be in that setting. For instance monks benefit greatly from Eberron and I can not imagine playing a 3.5 style monk without access to Eberron books.

Squark
2011-01-21, 01:28 PM
Gah, My mom's computer just logged me off for some strange reason, losing my post in the process. I don't have the time to recreate it, so I'll just summarize- Some things in Ebberon (Like Shifters, Changelings, a couple of PrCs and a good number of feats) can be used with pretty much existing fluff in all but really abnormal settings, so if they're not broken beyond belief, you should probably let the player use them. For more complicated stuff, consider letting the player help you integrate it into your campaign, rather than just banning it (They are after, all, the players! It is very much their game too). Dragonmarks, Kalashtar, and some of the bigger Magictech stuff (Lightning Rails, especially. Elemental Airships and Elemental Galleons are easier, because they can easily be the unique creation of one wizard. A network of Lightning powered Mag Lev trains is a bit harder to crank out without a force of thousands of magewrights and artificers cranking out the conductor stones).


Obviously, though, much of the setting is hard to integrate in low magic settings (Although, if your party includes a pair or more of full casters, I really don't see how it can be low magic. But that's just me).

Prime32
2011-01-21, 01:43 PM
Some classes really benefit from setting material that does not have to be in that setting. For instance monks benefit greatly from Eberron and I can not imagine playing a 3.5 style monk without access to Eberron books.In particular, the Tashalatora feat is from Eberron. Since psionics was built into the setting from the beginning, a lot of the psionics material for 3.5 comes from Eberron books.


On the dragonmarks...
Eberron has something called "The Prophecy", which spontaneously manifests as strange writings in caves and such. These are fragmented and extremely difficult to understand, but can be used to predict the future. It is often referred to as the Draconic Prophecy for two reasons:

Eberron's creator deities are commonly depicted as dragons. (note that sorcerers in Eberron generally claim descent from these dragons)
Dragons are obsessed with the Prophecy, being one of the few races with the intelligence and longevity to have a shot at understanding it. It has in fact brought the different colours together in a way which does not exist in most settings. Other immortal races, like demons and deathless, also take an interest in it but are not as strongly associated with it.

A few thousand years ago, the "lesser" races started manifesting birthmarks resembling symbols from the Prophecy. The dragons were completely baffled by this development, their reactions varying from "kill them all, they don't deserve to have it" to "infiltrate mortal society to better study it".

Meanwhile, the guys who had developed marks realised that the powers they granted were damn useful. The "War of the Mark" eventually resulted in the number of dragonmark types being cut down to 12, each passed down a single family bloodline. These new houses used their abilities to gain a monopoly on trade in the areas their mark corresponded to. For instance, the halfling family who can manifest the Mark of Healing control all doctors and hospitals, and people usually don't go to clerics for healing unless they're an active member of that church.

Occasionally a non-standard ("aberrant") dragonmark will show itself on someone descended from a pre-war dragonmarked, or someone with parents from two of the dragonmarked houses (something which is forbidden). These people are generally persecuted by the main houses, who claim that their powers come from Eberron's Satan equivalent, but mainly they just don't want anyone establishing a new dragonmarked house as competition.

Greenish
2011-01-21, 02:12 PM
While dragonmarks are a major part of Eberron setting, the actual feats aren't that special, and could easily fit many types of characters.

More on dragonmarked fluff:
The "War of the Mark" eventually resulted in the number of dragonmark types being cut down to 12, each passed down a single family bloodline.War of the Mark was aberrant dragonmarked vs. dragonmarked houses (11 at the time, mark of death having been wiped out earlier, while House Tharask hadn't been established yet).

Occasionally a non-standard ("aberrant") dragonmark will show itself on someone descended from a pre-war dragonmarkedNot necessarily. Aberrant dragonmarks aren't really bloodlines, by my understanding. They can pop up just about anywhere, and even appear in subraces unlike true dragonmarks.

These people are generally persecuted by the main houses, who claim that their powers come from Eberron's Satan equivalent, but mainly they just don't want anyone establishing a new dragonmarked house as competition.Well, there's also the fact that aberrant dragonmark powers are often offensive, and at the time of the War of the Mark several of them were earth-shakingly powerful (Tarkanan, for example, single-handedly destroyed Sharn).

Squark
2011-01-21, 02:31 PM
Ten houses, actually. House Kundarak existed, but the dwarves where so insular the other Houses didn't actually identify them as a house until after the war. And abberant marks can also appear if house bloodlines are mixed, which is why that's strictly forbidden. And, let's be fair. Tarkanan didn't destroy Sharn by himself- His lover, the Lady of Plague, helped. But yeah, if two people can destroy an entire city, you can understand why Abberant Dragonmarks are feared. However, since the Houses are not exactly moral paragons themselves, the organization Abberant Dragonmarked people founded, House Tarkanan, can be interpreted either as heroes standing up to the Dragonmarked Monopoly, or as a bunch of vicious thugs with sinister motivations (The fact that the house's leader calls himself the Son of Khyber doesn't help. Seriously, would you trust a guy who called himself the Son of Satan?)

Tvtyrant
2011-01-21, 05:37 PM
Arguskos: No, they haven't. I've had Tvtyrant try to say he both blanket bans Eberron and doesn't blanket ban Eberron and then never explain why he does so, with the best answer being "I don't like warforged." Which does nothing to answer the next question of why ban the entire books for one aspect that one doesn't like, because if that were the case then all books would end up banned because there's always going to be something about them that isn't liked.

For instance, healing via drowning.



"I don't like the fluff" is not a valid reason for banning things that have nothing to do with fluff. It obviously is for things that are related to the fluff, hence why I don't care about the people who don't allow warforged or airships (but did point out that airships are not something Eberron invented).

After all, this thread was started to ask for reasons. and saying it doesn't fit their games without any further explanation is a cop out and does themselves a disservice and doesn't further the thread or the OP's understanding of the matter in the slightest.

@Tvtyrant:

Do you really game with that many different groups of people? :smallconfused: Because I'm finding it hard to believe you've encountered enough harassment to justify a tactic that rewards people who know you well enough to not take you at your word on the matter but seek to get things past your ban list anyway so long as they're not the things that actually caused your banlist.

It seems simpler and less risk of being labeled a hypocrite by your players to just say what you mean and ban what you actually want to ban.



Saying "oh, yeah, there's some constellations that sometimes are manifested in the forms of birthmarks with magical powers," is a lot of work. Also, take a look at what you just said there, because you're stating that because a system doesn't already exist you're banning the use of a system that does X thing.



And again, rather than banning what you actually take issue with, you ban the books they come from. Why?

P.S. The Dragonmarks are never explained in Eberron either. So why would you feel obligated to explain something at the setting/backstory level that was intentionally left as a mystery to maybe be filled in if a DM wanted to make a campaign about figuring that mystery out?



To be sure, if a DM is unable to explain their rulings or flat out refuses to, then I would never play with them.

Edit: Admittedly, it's possible I'm overreacting to a perception of an embrace of the concept of DM privilege and inflating the importance of things that are inconsequential to what's been said.

I said it doesn't fit my game, the same thing he was talking about. And in fact that was exactly how I phrased it at the time; though your ability to insist that I haven't given you reasons is fun. I also said that one of the reasons is that I don't want to incorporate things that do not match part of the plot of the story; as in the Dragonmarks. Now your right, I could spend massive amounts of time refluffing parts of the world to make a concept make sense within context, but I also choose not to because it requires me to refluff massive parts of the world. I give everything in my game's a background and a context; if the ability has no context it doesn't fit.

I have moved 3 times in the last 6 months, I have been switching groups like crazy recently. If it was a group I had long term connections with they would know what things don't fit, and so I wouldn't have to ban anything. However people tend to get irritated more often if they come up to you with a fully fleshed out character and being told no then being told not to flesh out certain types of characters from the beginning. As I said, if someone came up to me with something and was heart set on it I would probably allow it, but I prefer to cut that off before it starts.

I'll be honest, I haven't really liked the tone of this conversation, and this will probably be my final post on it. But I personally spend tremendous amounts of time making worlds that have a interlocking background; throwing in "stars that give you powers" requires me to either ignored the fact that there is no reason for them to do so, or requires me to rework the whole system to explain why a fireball floating in space gives someone powers. Or find an alternate way of granting those powers to people which makes sense in context and explains why everyone doesn't have those powers. Warforged require me to have a background where someone would want to make Warforged, then remove most of the status ailment monsters from my lists as they are useless against Warforged, then explain why the whole world hasn't been conquered by hordes of them going all von nueman on each other, and finally requires me to have a convincing explanation why Warforged are allowed but not: "Insert other creature, object, ability that makes no sense in context here." I could go through the whole Eberron book and highlight the 90% of it I wouldn't allow, and then find ways to work the other 10% in to my story, and then tell my players that this certain set of things are okay, and then explain why only those work instead of the other things, and then have maybe one of them pick something from it. Or I can say "no Eberron" which does almost exactly the same thing with much, much less effort.

And I'm not exactly sure why your targeting me specifically out of the people who have all said essentially the same thing, but there above is the full drawn out explanation of why I usually just ban Eberron outright. I don't find it to be worth the massive effort it takes to make it fit into the cosmology, history and feeling I am trying to create. A specific example here could be the Shifter race; one of the options of Shifters is to gain a pair of wings and fly. Lets say I want to use a gorge as a physical block in the path, and of the three bridges that used to span it, each going to separate doors, the middle on is out. The party thus has the choice of going through the left or right door to work around to the treasure, while the straight path which lured them into the dungeon in the first place because it was "safe" is cut off. Shifter flies across the gap, walks to the magic item, picks it up, and then takes a nap to get his/her powers back. Now I could rewrite the dungeon to be completely different, but I usually make dungeons as plug ins when I have free time, which I don't always have between sessions.

AslanCross
2011-01-21, 08:04 PM
I love Eberron. I dislike Forgotten Realms. I ban setting-specific content from Forgotten Realms. It's more of a preference than anything (though you do have things from FR like the Cheater of Mystra).

Prime32
2011-01-21, 08:40 PM
I'll be honest, I haven't really liked the tone of this conversation, and this will probably be my final post on it. But I personally spend tremendous amounts of time making worlds that have a interlocking background; throwing in "stars that give you powers" requires me to either ignored the fact that there is no reason for them to do so, or requires me to rework the whole system to explain why a fireball floating in space gives someone powers.Eberron does not have stars that give you powers. Dragonmarks have been explained multiple times already. And even if it did, that would be part of Eberron, not the powers. :smallconfused: There are already feats which grant SLAs a limited number of times per day, some of them even Faerun specific. They just don't have "dragonmark" in the name. The fluff? "You have powers related to communication". That's it.


Or find an alternate way of granting those powers to people which makes sense in context and explains why everyone doesn't have those powers.Why would everyone have those powers? :smallconfused: Is everyone a sorcerer in your setting?


Warforged require me to have a background where someone would want to make Warforged, then remove most of the status ailment monsters from my lists as they are useless against Warforged, then explain why the whole world hasn't been conquered by hordes of them going all von nueman on each otherDo you have an explanation for why shadows (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/shadow.htm) haven't taken over the world despite their immunity to normal weapons and defences, flight through walls faster than most creatures can run, and ability to replicate at an exponential rate while preventing their victims from being returned to life? If it's so hard for anyone to make a warforged, why are you worried about warforged making more warforged? They have penalties to mental stats!


And I'm not exactly sure why your targeting me specifically out of the people who have all said essentially the same thing, but there above is the full drawn out explanation of why I usually just ban Eberron outright. I don't find it to be worth the massive effort it takes to make it fit into the cosmology, history and feeling I am trying to create. A specific example here could be the Shifter race; one of the options of Shifters is to gain a pair of wings and fly. Lets say I want to use a gorge as a physical block in the path, and of the three bridges that used to span it, each going to separate doors, the middle on is out. The party thus has the choice of going through the left or right door to work around to the treasure, while the straight path which lured them into the dungeon in the first place because it was "safe" is cut off. Shifter flies across the gap, walks to the magic item, picks it up, and then takes a nap to get his/her powers back. Now I could rewrite the dungeon to be completely different, but I usually make dungeons as plug ins when I have free time, which I don't always have between sessions.
You don't account for PCs having the ability to fly? Seriously? :smallconfused: Any spellcaster can have that from 3rd level. Heck, a 1st-level wizard could just send his familiar to grab the item, or use mage hand to pull it over. And he wouldn't have to wait 24 hours before flying back either. Shifters suck at flying.

Czin
2011-01-21, 08:54 PM
I occassionally work warforged, shifters, and/or changelings into other campaigns, but for the most part, I don't care for Eberron as a setting. I do allow a lot of feats from Eberron though, particularly the ones that allow flurrying with non-standard weapons.

But some DMs may see Gnomes as one foot tall barely intelligent ankle-biting vermin who dress like stereotypical garden gnomes. The creators of the Overlord series went with this idea and I found it so amusing that in every campaign after playing overlord 2 gnomes became like this, and I fluffed them into what was then the current campaign by saying that over the course of their adventures in the infinite layers of the abyss, a new breed of creatures had driven the gnomes they knew into extinction by wrecking all their machinery and drowning them in a tide of angry, one foot tall, red cap wearing, bearded men that are only barely being held back by the brave efforts of the Kobolds, Skaven (yes I took them from warhammer, sue me), and Goblins.

Greyhawk style gnomes (because, as far as my knowledge goes, prank loving tinkerer gnomes first appeared in greyhawk) don't appeal to everyone.

Greenish
2011-01-21, 09:00 PM
Greyhawk style gnomes (because, as far as my knowledge goes, prank loving tinkerer gnomes first appeared in greyhawk) don't appeal to everyone.What does that have to do with banning Eberron material? :smallconfused:

Prime32
2011-01-21, 09:12 PM
What does that have to do with banning Eberron material? :smallconfused:I presume because Eberron gnomes are equal parts "prank loving tinkerer", Manipulative Bastard, and badass?
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/eb_gallery/82087.jpg
"Maximise Spell Trigger, bitch!"

Czin
2011-01-21, 09:14 PM
I presume because Eberron gnomes are equal parts "prank loving tinkerer", Manipulative Bastard, and badass?
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/eb_gallery/82087.jpg

Eberron simply takes Greyhawk's gnomes to an extreme, thus I can cover them under the blanket title of "Greyhawk Gnome". I see Greyhawk's gnomes as a dated concept in the face of Overlord's much funnier ones, and Eberron's as silly and pointless when Dwarves in my setting already cover the steampunk, human-like, and short aspects. Most of Eberron's stuff are banned in my games since there is almost always something else filling that role, the only eberron creatures that ever got in were very heavily refluffed warforged.

Greenish
2011-01-21, 09:20 PM
Eberron simply takes Greyhawk's gnomes to an extreme, thus I can cover them under the blanket title of "Greyhawk Gnome". I see Greyhawk's gnomes as a dated concept in the face of Overlord's much funnier ones, and Eberron's as silly and pointless when Dwarves in my setting already cover the steampunk, human-like, and short aspects.What does that have to do with banning Eberron material? :smallconfused:

I mean, you changed the flavour of one the races that appears in PHB and in most other D&D settings, cool. That has preciously little to do with the topic.

Czin
2011-01-21, 09:23 PM
What does that have to do with banning Eberron material? :smallconfused:

Eberron gnomes are but one of many Eberron things I don't allow. Daelkyr? Sorry, warhammer esque daemons occupy your role, get out. Warforged? I already have intelligent clock/steampunk machines, get out. Storm Elemental powered airships? The advent of the hot air balloon and the discovery of helium and hydrogen renders it obsolete, out with you. Living spells? Mkay, sounds cool. Dragonmark? I'm sorry but no. Dragons who worship the forces of madness (the Dragon below?) My setting's dragons are glued onto a high horse that would prevent them from acknowledging a non dragon as an equal, much less worthy of worship, so no. Kalashtar/Quori? Bah, I find the idea of a separate plane for dreams corny and overdone. Ancient Giant Empire? Sorry, I'm sorry, but my papers clearly say that all Giantkind was devoured by Daemons when they first casted a gate spell due to a gigantic mishap in the spellcasting process. Drow? I'm sorry but I just think that Warhammer's dark elves are so much cooler; Debauchery for the win!

true_shinken
2011-01-21, 09:27 PM
Okay, let me put it this way: MM1 had a group of sentient constructs already (Inevitables) and they were capable of mixing it up with generic monsters. A Warforged is as strong as a normal humanoid; why would anyone with the power to create sentient constructs make them so extremely weak? They don't have a production cost in Eberron or the MM3, so I can't argue for costs, but in a generic campaign anyone with construct creation powers is strong enough to get a better toy then that.

...What? Inevitables are not made by wizards on the material plane. They are
'born' in Mechanus. I can't really see your logic. You have 'created by something mortal' x 'created by something immortal and primordial'. Is is a surprise the latter is stronger? :smallconfused:

Greenish
2011-01-21, 09:31 PM
Eberron gnomes are but one of many Eberron things I don't allow. Daelkyr? Sorry, warhammer esque daemons occupy your role, get out. Warforged? I already have intelligent clock/steampunk machines, get out. Storm Elemental powered airships? The advent of the hot air balloon and the discovery of helium and hydrogen renders it obsolete, out with you. Living spells? Mkay, sounds cool. Dragonmark? I'm sorry but no. Dragons who worship the forces of madness (the Dragon below?) My setting's dragons are glued onto a high horse that would prevent them from acknowledging a non dragon as an equal, much less worthy of worship, so no. Kalashtar/Quori? Bah, I find the idea of a separate plane for dreams corny and overdone. Ancient Giant Empire? Sorry, I'm sorry, but my papers clearly say that all Giantkind was devoured by Daemons when they first casted a gate spell due to a gigantic mishap in the spellcasting process. Drow? I'm sorry but I just think that Warhammer's dark elves are so much cooler; Debauchery for the win!Yes, we get that you don't play Eberron, but do you ban everything published in an Eberron book just because it's published in an Eberron book?

Czin
2011-01-21, 09:35 PM
Yes, we get that you don't play Eberron, but do you ban everything just because it's from an Eberron book?

I ban most Eberron stuff because the fluffological (yes I made that word up) niche they fill is already filled or doesn't exist in my setting, which is best described as a mish-mash of Greyhawk and Warhammer Fantasy. If you have a very good reason for something from Eberron (or Faerun for that matter) to exist in my setting (or perhaps role play a way for something from Eberron to cross the boundaries between universes and end up in my setting's cosmology and do so very well), then yes you'll be able to use it, if you don't, well then you're SOoL.

Tavar
2011-01-21, 09:39 PM
So....the reason that you don't use it is that you already use things that fill the same spaces. Okay, that's not what the issue is. Unless the things you use have vastly different mechancis, then there's no issue.


Though, how does a hot air balloon render something like an air ship obsolete?

true_shinken
2011-01-21, 09:43 PM
Though, how does a hot air balloon render something like an air ship obsolete?
I think it's the other way around. He wants balloons and airships would render them obsolete.

Czin
2011-01-21, 09:46 PM
Though, how does a hot air balloon render something like an air ship obsolete?

It's easier for people in a setting where magic can often result in being eaten by Daemons to just build a technology using helium using zeppelin than to try summon something from the elemental plane of storms which may very well be hijacked by Daemons who will redirect the summon to the warp and physically manifest; which results always ends very badly, like stop the Blood war between Demons and Devils for a hundred years because so many of them got stomped by Daemons who hijacked a pit fiend's wish so that both sides can recover from their losses bad. Conjuration Magic (which is needed to summon the elementals needed to power an Eberron airship if I read the MM3 correctly) is considered much worse than Necromancy due to the sheer risk of accidentally allowing Daemons a free ride from the warp into the great wheel.

In any case, trading Eberron airships for 20th century Zeppelins is more than a fair trade in my mind. I just think that those cigar shaped balloons look really majestic and stately, fantasy airships tend to look silly since they tend to just be flying boats.

Tavar
2011-01-21, 09:49 PM
Well, that's definitely not what he said.

Plus, there's some other really weird things going on. For instance dragon's don't worship the Dragon Below.

Plus, there's the fact that he's not really talking about the same issue.

Czin
2011-01-21, 09:50 PM
Well, that's definitely not what he said.

Plus, there's some other really weird things going on. For instance dragon's don't worship the Dragon Below.

Plus, there's the fact that he's not really talking about the same issue.

http://eberron.wikia.com/wiki/Dah'mir You were saying?

Tavar
2011-01-21, 09:52 PM
http://eberron.wikia.com/wiki/Dah'mir You were saying?

....
Sorry, I didn't realize that all members of a species are carbon copies of one another.:smallsigh:

Plus the fact, you know, the Dragon Below is a Dragon. At least, that's the story.

Czin
2011-01-21, 10:00 PM
....
Sorry, I didn't realize that all members of a species are carbon copies of one another.:smallsigh:

Plus the fact, you know, the Dragon Below is a Dragon. At least, that's the story.

I never intended my post to say that all dragons were part of the Dragon below cult, what I did say is that the concept of any dragons following a cult outside of the draconic pantheon (the draconic social norm that goes across all kinds of dragons save for those who have been forced to do otherwise by outside forces) to not fit in my setting, while some of Eberron's dragons (though the fact that the existence of the gods is debateable at best in Eberron may have something to do with it) deviate from draconic norms and chose to worship what's supposed to be the trapped (or perhaps dead) form of one of the big three progenitor dragons (or perhaps it's just a metaphor for what's essentially the underdark mixed with hell) rather than religiously studying their prophecy.

Tavar
2011-01-21, 10:07 PM
...
So you're problem is that instead of venerating a draconic god, some of them venerate a draconic god?

Czin
2011-01-21, 10:12 PM
...
So you're problem is that instead of venerating a draconic god, some of them venerate a draconic god?

Khyber was not a god but simply a big powerful dragon, who may simply be a metaphor and never have really existed, or just very much dead. Divinity is an actual tangilable thing in my setting. Rather than my setting (called Zarvhax) Tiamat simply being the biggest and strongest chromatic dragon, there is a real, physical, observable, measurable, quality to her that puts her above and beyond any non-divine chromatic dragon, that quality is the divine spark. Khyber was at best, just a really, really, really big dragon, he didn't have the spark so to speak, but to be fair, real divinity doesn't appear to exist in Eberron, you may be called a god by some if you're sufficiently powerful enough but that's about it.

Sir_Chivalry
2011-01-21, 10:19 PM
Khyber was not a god but simply a big powerful dragon, who may simply be a metaphor and never have really existed, or just very much dead. Divinity is an actual tangilable thing in my setting. Rather than my setting (called Zarvhax) Tiamat simply being the biggest and strongest chromatic dragon, there is a real, physical, observable, measurable, quality to her that puts her above and beyond any non-divine chromatic dragon, that quality is the divine spark. Khyber was at best, just a really, really, really big dragon, he didn't have the spark so to speak.

So the part about having a religion and the aberrations and the fiends and the creation myth and such doesn't make Khyber divine? Does Khyber need to do a song and dance to be a god, because that seems to check the boxes.

And whatever makes up divinity in Zarvhax, Khyber is still one of the most powerful divine entities in Eberron. Your world's divine nature does not disallow different divine natures.

Tavar
2011-01-21, 10:21 PM
....
You work in strange ways, don't you. The book says A, you houserule it to say B, and because houserule B contradicts setting feature C, A contradicts C. Even if A and C don't contradict each other, and in fact often support one another.

Also, this is all tangential to the original question, which dealt with mechanics rather than fluff.

Czin
2011-01-21, 10:28 PM
....
You work in strange ways, don't you. The book says A, you houserule it to say B, and because houserule B contradicts setting feature C, A contradicts C. Even if A and C don't contradict each other, and in fact often support one another.

Also, this is all tangential to the original question, which dealt with mechanics rather than fluff.

The Divine spark is represented by divine ranks mechanics wise, if you don't have 'em; you're not really a god, just someone powerful enough to fool the peasantry.




So the part about having a religion and the aberrations and the fiends and the creation myth and such doesn't make Khyber divine? Does Khyber need to do a song and dance to be a god, because that seems to check the boxes.

And whatever makes up divinity in Zarvhax, Khyber is still one of the most powerful divine entities in Eberron. Your world's divine nature does not disallow different divine natures.

Khyber is neither a part of the Sovereign house nor the Dark Six and the former is the only confirmed pantheon, and there is debate as to whether the Sovereign House actually exists due to their sheer inactivity.

Tavar
2011-01-21, 10:34 PM
Except, from what I remember, Kyber has never been officially stated, thus there's no basis to rule one way or the other.


And can you show evidence that the Dark Six are real? I thought neither pantheon had conclusive proof either way.

true_shinken
2011-01-21, 10:38 PM
The Divine spark is represented by divine ranks mechanics wise, if you don't have 'em; you're not really a god, just someone powerful enough to fool the peasantry.
So you're only a god if you have a statblock? :smallconfused:

Coidzor
2011-01-21, 10:44 PM
And can you show evidence that the Dark Six are real? I thought neither pantheon had conclusive proof either way.

That's the point. The gods, if they exist, are inaccessible. This doesn't really have much mechanical impact beyond allowing clerics in that setting to be of a wider range of alignments. Because most mechanics pertain to characters who are servants of said deities. And deities are primarily a fluff thing, rather than a mechanical thing, with the impact of most being limited to what domains their clerics can take.

0Megabyte
2011-01-21, 10:48 PM
Actually, in Eberron, no gods have been confirmed at all. But if there are entities with divine rank, then Khyber, Eberron and Syberis are a better bet than most.

Remember that Syberis's body, in the legend, became the ring around the planet, that Eberron's body became the continents, and Khyber became the local equivalent of the Underdark.

Syberis's blood became dragons, all manner of living things came forth from Eberron's body, and Khyber's blood became the fiends.

Or not.

Basing it on the legends, anyway, if those aren't to be considered gods (whether gods are real or mythological) then the gods of the Greeks definitely shouldn't be defined as gods. They never did anything so grand in their stories.

Czin
2011-01-21, 10:56 PM
So you're only a god if you have a statblock? :smallconfused:

Mechanics wise that's how the divine spark could be best represented. Fluff wise, the divine spark is like a second soul. Or that's what I could make out of my late former DM's notes (long story short, I was DM for friday night games at my house, he was DM for a bigger saturday night game at his home, then a few months ago he got in a fatal car accident, his meticulous note keeping and preparation between campaigns meant that the idea he had for the next campaign, though rather rough and incomplete, was preserved on paper that I found as I helped his family clear out his house, thus Zarvhax was born) I do my best to interpret them. As far as he went, he was not a fan of most any established D&D setting save for Planescape and Greyhawk, he tolerated Faerun to some extent but in his words "do not even bother looking at the Eberron subsection for the Mastodon creature, that setting is irrelevant at this table."

true_shinken
2011-01-21, 11:02 PM
As far as he went, he was not a fan of most any established D&D setting save for Planescape and Greyhawk, he tolerated Faerun to some extent but in his words "do not even bother looking at the Eberron subsection for the Mastodon creature, that setting is irrelevant at this table."
Well, "I don't like it" or "my former GM didn't like it" is a lot easier to say than what you've been saying for the last few posts.

Czin
2011-01-21, 11:09 PM
Well, "I don't like it" or "my former GM didn't like it" is a lot easier to say than what you've been saying for the last few posts.

I think his ghost would start haunting me if he ever found out that I snuck in a warforged charger into his campaign as (in fluff terms) an item of curiosity captured during Baron Levawitz's extrauniversal expedition. It was the only warforged I liked the look of. :smallbiggrin:

Tavar
2011-01-21, 11:11 PM
Still doesn't answer why Khyber wouldn't have it. He's not stated anywhere.

Of course, the new reason is simpler. And again, not allowing major fluff/mechanical changes into a setting is certainly just and fair by a DM. But that's not really what the issue is here. Many parts of a setting book aren't that tied to fluff. Why disallow something like that? That's the question as I see it, at least.

137beth
2011-01-21, 11:37 PM
I personally love the Eberron setting...though I really dislike action points. I have played pure Eberron games, as well as a variation game set mostly in Eberron, but with action points removed and all features relating to action points replaced with something else.

I can understand why some people don't like the fluff, and I can understand why a Warforged may not fit in some settings. But I really can't see why an arbitrary ban should be placed on anything coming from an Eberron book, even if it could fit in a generic setting.

Dusk Eclipse
2011-01-21, 11:52 PM
I personally love the Eberron setting...though I really dislike action points. I have played pure Eberron games, as well as a variation game set mostly in Eberron, but with action points removed and all features relating to action points replaced with something else.

I can understand why some people don't like the fluff, and I can understand why a Warforged may not fit in some settings. But I really can't see why an arbitrary ban should be placed on anything coming from an Eberron book, even if it could fit in a generic setting.

And now I must ask, what is your deal with action point? just curious; personally I think they give something to game and using them have saved my character's skin more than once.

Blackfang108
2011-01-22, 02:08 AM
I think his ghost would start haunting me if he ever found out that I snuck in a warforged charger into his campaign as (in fluff terms) an item of curiosity captured during Baron Levawitz's extrauniversal expedition. It was the only warforged I liked the look of. :smallbiggrin:

I think it sounds like it would be totally worth it.

Sorry for your loss, btw.