Eberron Sucks?

[Jerry]

Its part of the reason why, when they had a corrupt priesthood in Istar way back, it was somehow justified for the gods to drop a fiery mountain on everybody and strip clerical healing away, so that everyday people suffered and died in droves.

So why don't the Gods just punish the less-than-straight priests instead of plunging an entire continent into 300+ years of war, strife, and misery?

Or are the Gods of Krynn wrathful, vindictive types instead of the gentle, loving "do unto others..." type?

[Talisman]

I like Eberron. It's flavorful, no worse than any other D&D campaign setting (better in some ways, IMO) and Sharn, the City of Towers is awesome.

Although it did give us the undead that can literally take over the world in about a week. Shadows got nothing on forgewraiths.

[Maxus]

Its part of the reason why, when they had a corrupt priesthood in Istar way back, it was somehow justified for the gods to drop a fiery mountain on everybody and strip clerical healing away, so that everyday people suffered and died in droves.

So why don't the Gods just punish the less-than-straight priests instead of plunging an entire continent into 300+ years of war, strife, and misery?

Or are the Gods of Krynn wrathful, vindictive types instead of the gentle, loving "do unto others..." type?

That's the real kicker. The Krynn Pantheon has 7 Good, 7 Neutral, and 7 Evil gods (I will give them credit for leaving Law/Chaos out of the picture). The head of the Good Gods is Paladine, who seems to like to take a direct hand in things.

But when Paladine's High Priest got ideas above his station and got prideful and intolerant, Paladine didn't manifest himself as the Shining Warrior, Platinum Dragon, or even the Ancient Bearded Mage and give the Kingpriest a smack and tell him to knock it off.

And when the Kingpriest ignored all the signs he was told would happen, and someone failed his quest to convince him, the gods somehow reached the conclusion that all the mortals had lost the real meaning of religion and the best course would be to make a kind of a fresh start. Then they dropped a flaming mountain right on Istar, and turned a bloody huge country into a crater, all the clerics disappeared, and the gods remained silent for three hundred years. Maybe four hundred. I forget which.

Yet Paladine still claimed that the Kingpriest was on the side of Good, despite putting bounties out for less-popular races (like dwarves). Apparently, if you take Good too far, it becomes as harmful as Evil.

I suppose the major theme of Krynn's alignment is that Neutrality Is The Best Way To Go. If you wanted to dignify it as that.

[Jerry]

After researching Dragonlance:

How is being an intolerant, hateful zealot using religion as an excuse for bigotry "too much good?" He even had "Detect Thoughts-thump" style inquisitors!

And how is it the mortals' fault for not "getting" the meaning of Good? If they didn't comply with the Kingpriest, then they would get killed or imprisoned!

[Jacob_Orlove]

That's the real kicker. The Krynn Pantheon has 7 Good, 7 Neutral, and 7 Evil gods (I will give them credit for leaving Law/Chaos out of the picture).

If only.

All the LG organizations (Elves, Kingpriest/Istar, etc) get knocked for being exclusionary, proud, and full of dumb laws. Even the Knights of Solamnia get a lot of negative press for being so focused on rules and honor. Because CG is awesome, and LG is dumb!

Note: the 'dark elves' that get kicked out of the elven ivory towers explicitly include red robed Neutral mages, as well as the black robed Evil mages. At different times, this is used to degrade the Elves or the Neutral mages, but the "point" is that they're both bad people.

Meanwhile, all the chaotic evil power groups fail every time they try to do anything, because they are seriously super dumb and attack their own allies all over the place. As soon as the evil people get organized, the Knights of Takhisis take over the continent. Because LE is awesome, and CE is dumb!

The real "theme" here, if you can even call it that, is that the D&D aligment system is garbage, and the more of it you get in your setting, the worse your setting becomes.

[Voss]

After researching Dragonlance:

How is being an intolerant, hateful zealot using religion as an excuse for bigotry "too much good?" He even had "Detect Thoughts-thump" style inquisitors!

And how is it the mortals' fault for not "getting" the meaning of Good? If they didn't comply with the Kingpriest, then they would get killed or imprisoned!

Thats pretty much where the crazy comes in. It fills in the giant logical leaps that kind of stand out.

[Jerry]

Thats pretty much where the crazy comes in. It fills in the giant logical leaps that kind of stand out.

How do the fans and other authors explain it, then?

I'd assume that Paladine's decision was not out of malice (he could've taken the Kingpriest's spells away to give him an idea that he's wrong), but out of a sheer lack of judgment; that's not the kind of god that I want to worship.

[Jerry]

In the Dragonlance Core book, they described Silvanesti racists being "good taken to extremes." Since when is racism good?!

And I don't mean "I think that Asian people study hard" racism, I mean the "all other races are scum and deserve to be stripped of their rights" racism.

[Voss]

Ugh. The fans fanwank it pretty hard. Go on ENworld and post about Dragonlance. A guy named Cam Banks (who worked on a lot of the 3e Dragonlance stuff, apparently) will come and mindlessly defend it no matter what issue you raise.

The lack of judgement thing doesn't wash. Over the history of the setting, punishing large groups of mortals and the gods up and abandoning their worshipers (because they were bad, and later, for their own good, which gets kinda wacky, or various other minor reasons) happens repeatedly, and apparently the vast majority of people are OK with that. They really make Zeus look like a deity who will stand up for his worshipers and be there to support them no matter what. Older elves in the current age of the setting have had the gods abandon them at least twice, for reasons that don't make much sense. I really don't know why you'd want to be a cleric of these gods, but the books make the point that 'True Healing' is worth being repeatedly sodomized for. With petrified hedgehogs.

[Kaelik]

In the Dragonlance Core book, they described Silvanesti racists being "good taken to extremes." Since when is racism good?!

And I don't mean "I think that Asian people study hard" racism, I mean the "all other races are scum and deserve to be stripped of their rights" racism.

Don't you see, it's okay because they believe that all other races aren't good enough. So it's like, instead of Hitler being mad because other races weren't perfect enough, it's because other races aren't charitable enough. So the Asians/Jews/Blacks have to die because they don't do enough to help each other out.

It totally makes sense, I promise. You just have to accept that Jesus Christ is your personal savior, oh, and he showed up in America. And John Smith is awesome. Once you accept these things, you will understand.

[Jerry]

[Warning! Long post]

Ugh. The fans fanwank it pretty hard. Go on ENworld and post about Dragonlance. A guy named Cam Banks (who worked on a lot of the 3e Dragonlance stuff, apparently) will come and mindlessly defend it no matter what issue you raise.

Know from personal experience?
But seriously, I'm not surprised that he defends Dragonlance. He made the d20 Dragonlance books, after all.

The lack of judgement thing doesn't wash. Over the history of the setting, punishing large groups of mortals and the gods up and abandoning their worshipers (because they were bad, and later, for their own good, which gets kinda wacky, or various other minor reasons) happens repeatedly, and apparently the vast majority of people are OK with that. They really make Zeus look like a deity who will stand up for his worshipers and be there to support them no matter what. Older elves in the current age of the setting have had the gods abandon them at least twice, for reasons that don't make much sense. I really don't know why you'd want to be a cleric of these gods, but the books make the point that 'True Healing' is worth being repeatedly sodomized for. With petrified hedgehogs.

It sounds like it would be fun to run a Dragonlance game where a bunch of Neutrals are fed up with the forces of Good (and Evil) and decide to start making the Gods of Good start caring and explain the Cataclysm atrocity.
A major part will involve getting most of Ansalon to turn their backs on the Gods (Good and Evil and Neutral) and use Ambient magic. Only then will it truly be an "Age of Mortals."

P.S. If I were ever a victim of a violent, race-related hate crime, reading the "good taken to extremes" Silvanesti thing would have been enough for me to give up Dragonlance in disgust then and there.

I was a fan of it with the original adventure modules, until I found out just how ignorant the "Good" Gods and Elves were.

I seriously wouldn't mind playing a Dragonlance game with Silvanesti Elves and Good Gods being seen as close-minded fools that hurt more people through their poor "help." In fact, that's pretty much how I run my few Dragonlance games from now on.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

It's not fair to use Dragonlance to disparage the old alignment system, since they modified the definitions so much. I mean, according to the 3.5 DLCS, "neutral" in DLland means "individual choice over everything" (at least on the Good-Evil axis).

The races are arguably one of the worst things about Eberron. IIRC, they're all pretty much mechanically inferior. The warforged, in particular, seem to be the confirmation that WotC balanced 3.x by flavor text. It's like they sit around and say, "This sounds cool, so we must it suck mechanically to punish the munchkins for wanting to play it."

[shau]

The races are arguably one of the worst things about Eberron. IIRC, they're all pretty much mechanically inferior. The warforged, in particular, seem to be the confirmation that WotC balanced 3.x by flavor text. It's like they sit around and say, "This sounds cool, so we must it suck mechanically to punish the munchkins for wanting to play it."

And yet, many WotC forum posters will argue that they are overpowered.

[virgil]

I actually know a large number of people who consider the warforged to be an LA +1 race, or on the very cusp of it at best.

[RiotGearEpsilon]

They do come with a shitload of immunities. Being able to stampede in to a Cloudkill has its charms.

[Falgund]

In the Dragonlance Core book, they described Silvanesti racists being "good taken to extremes." Since when is racism good?!

And I don't mean "I think that Asian people study hard" racism, I mean the "all other races are scum and deserve to be stripped of their rights" racism.

In a way, that's an illustration of Good vs Evil as opposing forces without morality implication (ie Us vs Them). And thus "Extreme Good" consider "Somewhat Good" as being "Them", ie "Evil". And also an illustration of why this definition of alignments cannot work ...

[RandomCasualty2]

They do come with a shitload of immunities. Being able to stampede in to a Cloudkill has its charms.

About the only time they're overpowered is against level draining undead, since they're immune to energy drain. a 2nd level warforged is going to have pretty much no trouble taking down a specter.

Still, in spite of that, they pretty much suck. The worst part is how they get half healing from spells and don't heal naturally at all. Meaning that you're going to be spending double the amount on wands to heal one. Considering the warforged is invariably going to be your tank... that's bad.

[Jerry]

It's not fair to use Dragonlance to disparage the old alignment system, since they modified the definitions so much. I mean, according to the 3.5 DLCS, "neutral" in DLland means "individual choice over everything" (at least on the Good-Evil axis).

I guess that you're right; I meant to be talking about DL alignment, not standard D&D alignment.

[RiotGearEpsilon]

[quote="RandomCasualty2]Still, in spite of that, they pretty much suck. The worst part is how they get half healing from spells and don't heal naturally at all. Meaning that you're going to be spending double the amount on wands to heal one. Considering the warforged is invariably going to be your tank... that's bad.[/quote]

Given that you can spend on wands specifically for the forged, it works out about the same in the long run.

[Jerry]

So, with all these Artificers making wands, wouldn't the value of wands reduce in value, enough for House Cannith to corner the market on magic weapons?

Or is it such that for some inexplicable reason only PC Artificers do this?

[ubernoob]

So, with all these Artificers making wands, wouldn't the value of wands reduce in value, enough for House Cannith to corner the market on magic weapons?

Or is it such that for some inexplicable reason only PC Artificers do this?

Profit margin?

[Koumei]

They do come with a shitload of immunities. Being able to stampede in to a Cloudkill has its charms.

I think the list of immunities is what triggered it. Remember, they're being compared with humans (and while I'd rather the feat and extra skill points most of the time, the list of immunities looks like a bigger list of impressive racial traits) and the like.

Indeed, they're also being compared to Tieflings and Genasi, and Tieflings shouldn't walk in with an LA, and Genasi are weak compared to your average core race.

So it's sort of a "WotC bias and incompetence" thing. If it were just another weird race or monster-as-race, then it'd have an LA stapled to it, because "it has immunities" (or indeed "because it's not Humanoid. CHARM PERSON OMG!" - no really, I've seen that justification for LA +1 on anything). But because someone there has a huge hard-on for warforged, they let it slide and gave it the +0 that it mechanically needs.

Think of the Draonborn - weaksauce racial abilities no-one really cares about, but because there's a big list of random things, and "OMG FLIGHT AT 12th LEVEL!" or "BREATH WEAPONS?!? BROKEN!", people panicked and called for a level adjustment. Never mind that it's not that good a race. But WotC WOULD have happily slapped it with +1 or more if it was introduced right at the beginning when they were saying "Yeah, planetouched, +1 across the board!" and if it weren't for dragons inducing far too many erections at WotC.

I like to think that, if introduced now, Planetouched would just be regular "play as-is" races too. Although there was that funny FR rule of "Change them from Outsider (Native) to Humanoid (Extraplanar) to play them as LA +0". Because there are Planetouched with +2 or more LA. And going by the rules as written, this means one could swindle some impressive abilities.

Or not. They mostly suck.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

That post brought back fun memories of playing a water genasi and going over my racial abilities. The highlight was the save bonus (or was it the auto-success on saves) against [Water] spells, which didn't come into play against any spells in the core rules or the FRCS.

My reading of the warforged was that construct traits are basically a wash, light fortification is cool, but the other features of the organic armor and the ability adjustments just about kicked you in the nuts. Basically, you have -2 to Wis and Cha, so forget being a cleric, druid, or paladin. You have a 5% chance of spell failure, so no point in being an arcane caster. I think you also got an ACP, so forget about rangers and rogues. Basically, all you could do was take one of the improved armor feats and try to be a tank. Except (ignoring the fact that being a tank doesn't pay after a certain level), you're not as good at it as a half-orc because your bonus is to Con, not Str.

But it has all that freakin' text under Construct Immunities, so it must be super powerful.

[Kaelik]

Option B) Play a Gimp Wizard, IE Psion. Sure you aren't awesome, but at least you aren't playing a Fighter.

[ubernoob]

Option B) Play a Gimp Wizard, IE Psion. Sure you aren't awesome, but at least you aren't playing a Fighter.

Shapers make sweet warforged.