Eberron Setting - Dislikes

[Serakus_DeSardis]

I just picked up the ebberon setting book a few weeks ago, and as I paw through the pages I keep finding alot of cool ideas, but the Official content is feeling very...restrictive. It seems like absolutely everything in the setting that would be fun to use has a major drawback that makes it unworthy of using. I may be over generalizing a bit.

A few examples...

Shifters - the ones that have long claws and can use them as natural weapons cannot apply the extra attacks from their class to their use. How does this make sense? And why is it such a stingy limitation, the weapons at best are 1d6, why would you deny the ability to have multiple attacks with them?

Warforged Reinforcements - once you take a reinforcement you are no longer able to benefit from consumables and heal type spells. This seems unnecesarily restrictive to me.


One could argue that these tow examples have a common point in that they are permanently affixed to the character, thereby limiting the DM's ability to make them helpless without their gear, but classes such as the soulknife have a static weapon that they can still use for multiple attacks, they cna even resist the effects of an anti-magic/psionics field and still manifest it.


Any ideas out there? any agreements? Arguements?
I do realize I choose to ignore such limitations, but I felt like griping.

[Nerd-o-rama]

I'm not sure of the balance decision on Shifter weapons, and I've never played a Shifter. Keep in mind, though, that you can use your natural weapons as a part of a full attack, counting as a second weapon. EDIT: actually, it counts as a natural attack, so you can use it without normal TWF penalties. Longtooth Shifters get their bit as an extra attack at -5, while Razorclaws can add their claw as an offhand weapon with all attacks at a -2. You also get a number a stat boost and potentially many other bonuses from Shifting outside just a natural weapon, and it's not like you can't just use a sword and keep your claws as a backup.

As for Reinforcement...well, I'm not totally sure what you're talking about here. If you're referring to Improved Fortification, it only prevents you from being healed by spells of the [Healing] subschool (though you still gain full benefit from Repair X Damage spells and the like), and besides, for that and a feat, you're wearing Heavy Fortification Armor at all times. I think it's worth it.

[Jack Mann]

That's how natural weapons work. No matter how high your BAB is, you don't get extra attacks with natural weapons. Otherwise, the Tarrasque would be getting eight extra attacks. It's not just razorclaw shifters.

[fireinthedust]

yeah. The setting ON THE WHOLE rocks. The only issue is that I didn't think of it myself (moh...)

The natural weapons is annoying, but I think it counts as a slam attack. In that case, just make up a feat (akin to unarmed strike) that lets them use it for all iterative attacks. As it stands it's initially a bonus weapon you have at (effectively) all times: when you're tied up, etc. At low levels, that's handy; if your primary feature is you're a combat monkey, you'd be taking feats to boot your weapons as it is; consider it like a free exotic weapon (can't be disarmed) and just take a feat for the iterative attacks.

I wasn't sure until I met one of the artists; then I read the book; the I read the other books (like Sharn: city of towers). it's a great book to steal from, but what's really nice is that it's a setting where rapiers are easy to fit in; it's kinda like the three musketeers meet Indiana Jones meet James Bond. You can tell virtually any story with it, in a way, and that's really nice.

I thought for a while that it was... cute and colourful; reading the stories helped change my mind. It really is a good setting. Five Nations is an especially good book.

[The_Pope]

Well, see, the thing with the warforged "reinforcement", if you're speaking of the Warforged Juggernaut class, the whole point is that you're becoming more of a construct and less of a living creature. So you sacrifice the ability to be healed by conjuration [healing] spells, but in turn gain most if not all the immunities a normal construct has. Which is a fair enough trade off, as you can just visit your friendly neighborhood artificer, plop down a sack of gold and say "Fix 'er up." whenever you get injured. Or hell, save yourself the trouble and either be an artificer (warforged artificers kick arse) or adventure around with one.

[Shisumo]

I just picked up the ebberon setting book a few weeks ago, and as I paw through the pages I keep finding alot of cool ideas, but the Official content is feeling very...restrictive. It seems like absolutely everything in the setting that would be fun to use has a major drawback that makes it unworthy of using. I may be over generalizing a bit.

A few examples...

Shifters - the ones that have long claws and can use them as natural weapons cannot apply the extra attacks from their class to their use. How does this make sense? And why is it such a stingy limitation, the weapons at best are 1d6, why would you deny the ability to have multiple attacks with them?

The restriction is there because they are natural attacks. It's not actually unique to the shifters, it's a repetition of a general rule.

Warforged Reinforcements - once you take a reinforcement you are no longer able to benefit from consumables and heal type spells. This seems unnecesarily restrictive to me.

I'm not sure what you're referring to with the term "reinforcement," but if it's either the Improved Fortification feat or the warforged juggernaut PrC, the restriction comes from the increased immunities you gain in exchange (immune to crits as a feat? yes please!), and possibly some flavor-driven logic suggesting that becoming increasingly construct-like should prevent you from having as many traits of living characters.

Edit: uh, yeah. What they said.

[PinkysBrain]

Shifters - the ones that have long claws and can use them as natural weapons cannot apply the extra attacks from their class to their use. How does this make sense? And why is it such a stingy limitation, the weapons at best are 1d6, why would you deny the ability to have multiple attacks with them?

Well they are natural weapons and they probably didn't want to screw with the rules ... on the other hand they introduced some weird pseudo TWF off hand attack you can make your claw, so they already failed at that.

Natural weapons are FUBAR in D&D (especially when combined with grappling). It would have been nice for Eberron to be the exception, but it's a little bit too much to expect IMO.

They should have removed the pseudo-TWF (which just plain confuses the hell out of people, since it overlaps with the rules for secondary natural attacks) and allowed you to choose to use a claw to perform a "normal" unarmed attack which does not provoke an AoO (all creatures with natural weapons should be able to do that IMO).

Warforged Reinforcements - once you take a reinforcement you are no longer able to benefit from consumables and heal type spells. This seems unnecesarily restrictive to me.

Artificers and sorcerer/wizards can still repair him, and instead of potions you can get oils ... I don't see this as a big problem, every party should have an artificer :)

[AtomicKitKat]

Haven't got that much contact with stuff from the setting(apart from Warforged and other stuff in MM3). My main gripe would be the whole "graft limits", but I go with one of the general concensus(es?) out there that anything about grafts in Eberron does not apply to older material(mainly because it renders the Fleshwarper PrC practically useless), plus I figure that Dragons are perhaps a little too magical(like Beholders aren't?) to allow you to have other stuff. Meh. WotC, kings of errata and arbitrary limitations with poor pre-release play-testing. All of which lead to each other, of course.

[Serakus_DeSardis]

Sorry about the reinforcement thing, I couldn't recall exactly what the feat was called. I don't have the books at work with me. There is a feat for adamantium and for mithril that are a permenent upgrade to the Warforged's body.

Natural Weapon limitation is incredibly illiogical.

If a level ten fighter can swing his two handed sword three times in a full attack, then why can't a shifter use his claws which he has possed his entire life just as many times? It doesn't make sense. Natural weapons are just that..natural...they should come with a bonus to attacks not an impedance.


My general point to all of this was that as I read through the Setting, I found that almost anything that piqued my interest came at such a huge cost it wasn't interesting anymore. It just as a whole seemed very restrictive to me. The mechanics, not the flavor. The setting's flavor is great.

[illathid]

Well, the feats your referencing, "Adamantine Body" & "Mithral Body," don't make you immune to healing. All they really do is improve your AC, and maybe some other little stuff.

I would say, mechanically, Eberron is no more restrictive than than any other setting, and probably less so. Clerics alignments do not have to be within one step from their deity, there are feats that allow monks and paladins to multi-class freely, 4 new PC races, and it's designed in such a way that any new material that is released from WotC can fit into the world.

[Thomas]

Well they are natural weapons and they probably didn't want to screw with the rules ... on the other hand they introduced some weird pseudo TWF off hand attack you can make your claw, so they already failed at that.

That doesn't sound right. The way it should work is that you can use your primary weapon (say, a longsword) to make your attacks (at, say, +12/+7/+2), and then you make another attack with the claw as a secondary attack (at +7, since you get -5 to it).

[Viscount Einstrauss]

My only dislike for the Eberron series is that so few people utilize it.

Also, that DDO wasn't as awesome as it should have been. But Dragonshards was cool.

[oriong]

The primary reason for the natural weapon restriction is because it would look silly. It's fairly reasonable for a monk to throw a flurry of punches and a fighter to whip around a sword or spear. But things like a bite attack are meant to be ripping and crushing, not chomping away like a buzzsaw.

The other problem is if natural weapons could be used with iteritive attacks it would basically destroy balance. Take a dragon. Most all dragons have BAB of 16 or higher once they hit Large sized or bigger. By that time they have a bite, two claw, 2 wings, and a tail slap. That's 5 attacks right there.

If they have iterative attacks then that's 4 bites, 2 claws, 2 wings, and a tail slap for 9 attacks, nearly double the number. Not to mention that they have quadrupled the number of their most damaging attacks.

Take a 12 headed Hydra: it's got 12 attacks already and +12 BAB, so it's number of attacks goes up to 14.

Natural attacks were designed for single attacks, or multiple attacks using multiple weapons. That's it, if they were allowed iteritive attacks it would be extremely unbalancing.

[Zincorium]

On shifters:
The main advantage of having natural weapons: Both your attacks with claws will be at your full attack bonus, with your full strength bonus added to the damage (as is always the case with primary natural weapons). And while the dice may only be a d6 at most, you also add an additional damage for every four levels, so at level twelve, your average damage for a claw attack from the razorclaw trait, without a size increase even, is going to be 5.5. That's the same average as a d10 bastard sword has.

What you lose in iterative attacks kind of bites, but since those attacks are going to be at around -5 and -10 penalties, I think the full strength bonus to damage with the offhand and the negation of the two weapon fighting penalties is worth it, especially when it doesn't take the feat to use effectively that TWF does.

On warforged:
It's been said, but healing spells are not the only option in the eberron setting. If you have say, a sorceror in the party, bribe them to take one of the repair spells as one of their known. If they have any slots left at the end of the day, well, hey, you can get healed. Also, warforged only get half the benefit of healing spells to begin with, so you're going to want to seek out an alternative anyway as opposed to draining all the cleric's spells every single time you get into combat.

[Ramza00]

Warforged Juggernauts can be healed by multiple ways psionic repair damage, the arcane repair damage, the artificer repair damage or similar abilities.

The only problem is the Warforged Juggernaut can't be restored from the dead by raise dead or true resurrection. It takes a limited wish, miracle, wish or someone casting the Humanoid Essence line of spells/infusion on the dead body and then casting raise dead/true resurrection.

[PinkysBrain]

That doesn't sound right. The way it should work is that you can use your primary weapon (say, a longsword) to make your attacks (at, say, +12/+7/+2), and then you make another attack with the claw as a secondary attack (at +7, since you get -5 to it).

That's how it can work and that's the only way it should have worked ... but they included a pseudo TWF way of using your off hand claw, where both your weapon attack and your claw attack are at -2.

As I said, that just confuses the hell out of people ... they should have never included it.