Author Topic: Reasons to dislike Eberron  (Read 27710 times)

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glassgnawer

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Re: Reasons to dislike Eberron
« Reply #80 on: September 01, 2011, 06:15:04 AM »
Following on from a similar thread on Forgotten Realms.

What things turn people off of Eberron? A few times I've seen someone react in shock to how different it is from most settings, but grow to love it once they started playing. I know a lot of aspects took a while to grow on me. Other things I've seen:
  • "Magic isn't rare and mystical enough."
  • "I hate steampunk."
  • "Changelings/kalashtar/shifters/warforged are dumb."
  • "The art is too anime." (WAT)
  • "Airships/magic trains remind me of Final Fantasy."
  • "It gives psionics a place."
  • "I prefer having good and evil as objective forces."
  • "There aren't enough powerful NPCs to scare PCs into line."
  • "Why the hell do halflings ride dinosaurs?!"
  • "The Planar Shepherd PrC was in an Eberron book."

Basically, Eberron and similiar dungeon punk (not steampunk - at least according to the smart guys and gals at TVTropes) works are deconstruction/subversion of the fantasy genre. Let's face it - society/culture never progressing above medieval level in thousands years, and using only high-end magic (instead of cheaper, more accesible and easier to manufacture low magic) is, frankly, pretty dumb - or at least requires some willing suspension of disbelief. Especially if there are no external factors hampering developement of technology - like, global conspiracies, or even asspullish "we have magic, technology don't work".

And, simply becouse of that, Eberron doesn't appeal to everyone - players new to RPG (and fantasy in general) DO expect wise and powerful wizards, benevolent and beautiful elves etc. - it's the most common fantasy portrayal nowadays, and most prelevant by far as well. People that are fantasy geeks since the age of six (cheers, folks) may be at times a bit sick of these stereotypes, copypasted since the times Tolkien became popular (with some tropes even older, like wizard archetype), but less experineced and cynical players, faced with mongolian horde-like elves are in for a nasty shock.

Same goes with "objective good/evil" - less experienced players expect fantasy to be purely escapistic, without good guys screwing you for the greater good, or bad guys being right sometimes (or not always batshit insane, at least). I do NOT say that high fantasy settings (like FR) are for kids and noobs - hell, i kinda like high fantasy, despite layers of dirt and cynism i have accumulated since childhood. I do say though that without deep knowledge of fantasy tropes you won't enjoy Eberron, that is subverting many fantasy stereotypes. While most people can swallow fantasy culture becouse of its relative familiarity, Eberron and such are just too alien for them.

Oh yeah, that, and the fact that kalashtar are dumb ;)
« Last Edit: September 01, 2011, 06:25:15 AM by glassgnawer »
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Prime32

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Re: Reasons to dislike Eberron
« Reply #81 on: September 01, 2011, 07:28:27 AM »
First, +1 to glassgnawer for putting things into words better than I could.

The Inspired build insanely huge psychic monoliths all over the place, and no one knows what they do. Who's to say they aren't a fleet of ships equipped with "Mourning Cannons"? :p

You could argue that there's no evidence for that, but a big part of Eberron is that certain parts are deliberately left ambiguous so that you can use something suitable for your campaign. I recall one WotC thread on Cardinal Krozen where Keith Baker explained the guy's history but refused to state whether he was a good guy with extreme methods or a power-mad bully. He said he'd prefer having to figure it out each time he played an Eberron game. Likewise, the cause of the Mourning will never be explained.
I'm perfectly aware of the amiguity. And I loathe it. If I'm paying for a specific campaign setting, I expect specific details.
Even when the setting is based on the Cold War but with more factions, and thus a major theme is not knowing what's going on and who you can trust? The moral relativism, the shapeshifters and possession, the lack of gods, all of them are to reinforce this theme.

And hell, how is that different from the Touhou fandom where canon information contradicts itself, people write stories about one-shot characters with no names, no dialog, and blurry low-resolution sprites, and personalities and backstories vary wildly between works? Sakuya is a serial killer or a vampire hunter or an alien or the daughter of a magician or...

Quote
Yet the inspectors were initially unphased by the fact that the heroes beat the balmarian force. As their enemies, the Inspectors would surely know the power of the white star. They even take control of it.

If they really believed the balmarians had thrown their best and still lost, then the Inspectors would've simply glassed the Earth and called it a day. They take Earth's heroes lightly and try to simply contain them because they beat "just" the septuagim.
Again, this is because they're idiots. They spend half the time arguing over petty things instead of doing their job, and probably expected Earth to surrender pretty quickly after they saw how awesome they were.
« Last Edit: September 01, 2011, 07:33:25 AM by Prime32 »
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The tier system in a nutshell:
[spoiler]Tier 6: A cartographer.
Tier 5: An expert cartographer or a decent marksman.
Tier 4: An expert marksman.
Tier 3: An expert marksman, cartographer and chef who can tie strong knots and is trained in hostage negotiation or a marksman so good he can shoot down every bullet fired by a minigun while armed with a rusted single-shot pistol that veers to the left.
Tier 2: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything, or the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.
Tier 1: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything and the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.[/spoiler]

Unbeliever

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Re: Reasons to dislike Eberron
« Reply #82 on: September 01, 2011, 12:10:32 PM »
Just to be clear, or to make a point that is totally irrelevant, I would consider Dungeon Punk at most a sub-genre of Steampunk.  That is, it's Steampunk w/ magic elements, or magic fueling the steam.  I think someone would look at you strange if you said "Full Metal Alchemist" wasn't Steampunk, or hell, "Castle Falkenstein" -- the iconic Steampunk game -- has a lot of magical elements.  Dungeon Punk is also really really specific, which also indicates that it's really a division or variation on something else.  

NB:  that I don't mind the Punk aesthetic in any of its flavors.  If I were to criticize Eberron, though, it'd be the execution of them, namely that I don't think they went far enough w/ it.  I would have preferred something 30% further along the Steam/Dungeon Punk continuum.

EDIT:  Eberron also doesn't have the Cyberpunk style dystopianism to it.  If anything, it evokes post-World War I Europe.  Although the tropers seem to have gotten confused by the varying usages of the term "punk" since Steampunk is not typically dystopian at all, or at least it's not a defining feature of the (sub- sub-) genre.
« Last Edit: September 01, 2011, 12:13:08 PM by Unbeliever »

Kajhera

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Re: Reasons to dislike Eberron
« Reply #83 on: September 01, 2011, 02:12:38 PM »
Steampunk used to be dystopian, but has, like cyberpunk, become adopted in many cases for its interesting aspects and aesthetics in many cases separately from that origin.

I read the introduction to the collection of steampunk short stories I'm reading.  :D

Edit: Also, some of the precursors of Steampunk weren't dystopian in the least, and demonstrated an impressive amount of ignorance, nationalism, optimism, imperialism, and brilliant young inventors who took over strange new lands with their steam-robot servants. Also involved much relatively clean violence. Steampunk was ... kind of a reaction to that possibly, albeit after it died out, but I didn't bring the book so I don't actually remember.
« Last Edit: September 01, 2011, 02:21:54 PM by Kajhera »

glassgnawer

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Re: Reasons to dislike Eberron
« Reply #84 on: September 01, 2011, 06:27:09 PM »
Just to be clear, or to make a point that is totally irrelevant, I would consider Dungeon Punk at most a sub-genre of Steampunk.  That is, it's Steampunk w/ magic elements, or magic fueling the steam.  I think someone would look at you strange if you said "Full Metal Alchemist" wasn't Steampunk, or hell, "Castle Falkenstein" -- the iconic Steampunk game -- has a lot of magical elements.  Dungeon Punk is also really really specific, which also indicates that it's really a division or variation on something else.  

NB:  that I don't mind the Punk aesthetic in any of its flavors.  If I were to criticize Eberron, though, it'd be the execution of them, namely that I don't think they went far enough w/ it.  I would have preferred something 30% further along the Steam/Dungeon Punk continuum.

EDIT:  Eberron also doesn't have the Cyberpunk style dystopianism to it.  If anything, it evokes post-World War I Europe.  Although the tropers seem to have gotten confused by the varying usages of the term "punk" since Steampunk is not typically dystopian at all, or at least it's not a defining feature of the (sub- sub-) genre.

Hmm, can't quite agree here. Dungeon punk is where 'technology' is achieved purely through magical means - that is, say, a ship powered by a bound elemental. Steampunk pretends it follows laws of physics - like Warmachine jacks being powered by steam (usually at least) and only controlled by magical gizmos. Also, FMA had more dieselpunk aestethics with its quasi WWI technology and style. But that was just me being anal ;)

I agree that Eberron would be more fun with more faux-technology in it (regardless of nomenclature) - but i always felt that authors haven't exactly known how far they can go with the whateverpunkish flavour without upsetting the fanbase - compared to the later books Eberron CS was rather tame with its machinery - it seemed more like a background then a feature. In that regard i prefer already mentioned Warmachine, though frankly Eberron was better written (imo at least - Keith Baker ftw).  

And yay, my first +1 here ;)
« Last Edit: September 01, 2011, 06:31:10 PM by glassgnawer »
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Re: Reasons to dislike Eberron
« Reply #85 on: September 01, 2011, 07:42:08 PM »
And hell, how is that different from the Touhou fandom where canon information contradicts itself, people write stories about one-shot characters with no names, no dialog, and blurry low-resolution sprites, and personalities and backstories vary wildly between works? Sakuya is a serial killer or a vampire hunter or an alien or the daughter of a magician or...


You and I both know the answer to that question: We're batshit crazy.


[spoiler][/spoiler]

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Re: Reasons to dislike Eberron
« Reply #86 on: September 02, 2011, 06:10:18 AM »
I just wanted to chime in and say the reason I dislike it is the steampunk element.

It's not powerful to me, it's not me making another joke about psionics, I'm fine with ripping Eberron stuff out and reflavoring it. It's just steampunk, I don't get it and really don't care to. The entire steampunk setting is based on wtf stupidity to me and makes less sense than gravity or love. Eberron has applied the concept of magic to everything, magic powered air ships, magically generated electricity for trains, magically programmed cyborgs, magic this and magic that then ignore all of the ramifications. You can magically program highly advanced robots but you can't code a bug to open their CD tray? You can pick up and hurl several thousand tons of machine for public transport but where are the rail guns (or at least warforged shooting guns). Let's load up on the concept everyone has low level magic, then claim the 13th moon is invisible like no one has cast See Invisible. Hell, they have the ability to ignore gravity and you would think they know if there is a 13th moon or not by visiting the damn thing. But you can't! Steampunk isn't cyberpunk, the moment you start applying the knowledge presented you break the concept and drift into another fictional theme. The entire 4th wall is based on everyone being too retarded to use the stuff they made.

Sadly, this concept of ignorance applies else where as Eberron's theme is steampunk. You also have Din, Faore and Nayru, eer. Eberron, Khyber and Sibery whom created the world, but even double checking wikipedia sure enough one one of them is worshiped. Um... If most of the religions admit to three of them, why are the other two just plain ignored in favor of a bunch of lowlife quasi-deities? And did you ever stop to think about the Quori? They are effectively the BBEG race and they are focused on stopping the world, metaphorically freezing it so nothing can change. Thats right, your BBEG is literally Steampunk's line of discrimination made real. Got a creative thought? Some Quori dude appears and says stop that shit. Only instead of encouraging thousands of rebellious teenagers to do it behind their backs everyone grows up with the idea to just kill them. Them, the dream givers born from the psionic-elemental-plane-thing of dreams, because killing your dreams is the best way to avoid stagnation.

It all just comes off as a poor joke for a world and where asking what if you use this in a different manner prompts a mob armed with torches into chasing you. I'm sure there is people here that swear steampunk is awesome but just refuse to play cyber games, or hate anima for the drawing style and a couple of well known protagonists yelling a lot, or what ever. I'm just the inverse and the simplest way to fix Eberron's gaping concept hole isn't a hand wave while saying it's magic, it's simply not reading the flavor entires or world building. Like FF9's mistpunk problems are really the result of left over science from an advanced alien race trying to keep the world at war to harvest the planet or Bioshock's boiled water has allegiances and big daddy confusion are really Soldier G65434-2's nightmare as a result of being in the warp time/space drive while it's software, Shodan, was getting hit with rockets.
« Last Edit: September 02, 2011, 06:15:23 AM by SorO_Lost »
Tiers explained in 8 sentences. With examples!
[spoiler]Tiers break down into who has spellcasting more than anything else due to spells being better than anything else in the game.
6: Skill based. Commoner, Expert, Samurai.
5: Mundane warrior. Barbarian, Fighter, Monk.
4: Partial casters. Adapt, Hexblade, Paladin, Ranger, Spelltheif.
3: Focused casters. Bard, Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Martial Adapts, Warmage.
2: Full casters. Favored Soul, Psion, Sorcerer, Wu Jen.
1: Elitists. Artificer, Cleric, Druid, Wizard.
0: Gods. StP Erudite, Illthid Savant, Pun-Pun, Rocks fall & you die.
[/spoiler]

Prime32

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Re: Reasons to dislike Eberron
« Reply #87 on: September 02, 2011, 09:15:25 AM »
It's not powerful to me, it's not me making another joke about psionics, I'm fine with ripping Eberron stuff out and reflavoring it. It's just steampunk, I don't get it and really don't care to. The entire steampunk setting is based on wtf stupidity to me and makes less sense than gravity or love. Eberron has applied the concept of magic to everything, magic powered air ships, magically generated electricity for trains, magically programmed cyborgs, magic this and magic that then ignore all of the ramifications. You can magically program highly advanced robots but you can't code a bug to open their CD tray? You can pick up and hurl several thousand tons of machine for public transport but where are the rail guns (or at least warforged shooting guns). Let's load up on the concept everyone has low level magic, then claim the 13th moon is invisible like no one has cast See Invisible. Hell, they have the ability to ignore gravity and you would think they know if there is a 13th moon or not by visiting the damn thing. But you can't! Steampunk isn't cyberpunk, the moment you start applying the knowledge presented you break the concept and drift into another fictional theme. The entire 4th wall is based on everyone being too retarded to use the stuff they made.
IIRC, flying too high in Eberron causes you to travel to another plane. And there are forms of invisibility which can't be pierced by lv2 spells.

Warforged can't be magically programmed - they have to train them the old-fashioned way. As for railguns, it's possible they just haven't thought of them. The best design I could come up with for one involved walls of force, a ton of conductor stones, a custom magic trap, an antimagic field and magically generated winds, which would probably be too expensive to be practical. Easier just to use +1 catapults or launch bolt spells.

Quote
Sadly, this concept of ignorance applies else where as Eberron's theme is steampunk. You also have Din, Faore and Nayru, eer. Eberron, Khyber and Sibery whom created the world, but even double checking wikipedia sure enough one one of them is worshiped. Um... If most of the religions admit to three of them, why are the other two just plain ignored in favor of a bunch of lowlife quasi-deities?
In polytheistic religions, worshipping creator deities is rare since they don't do anything any more. Khyber is doing something, in trying to escape and kill everyone, hence he's more attractive as a patron.

Quote
And did you ever stop to think about the Quori? They are effectively the BBEG race and they are focused on stopping the world, metaphorically freezing it so nothing can change. Thats right, your BBEG is literally Steampunk's line of discrimination made real. Got a creative thought? Some Quori dude appears and says stop that shit. Only instead of encouraging thousands of rebellious teenagers to do it behind their backs everyone grows up with the idea to just kill them. Them, the dream givers born from the psionic-elemental-plane-thing of dreams, because killing your dreams is the best way to avoid stagnation.
I don't understand what you're saying. ???
My work
The tier system in a nutshell:
[spoiler]Tier 6: A cartographer.
Tier 5: An expert cartographer or a decent marksman.
Tier 4: An expert marksman.
Tier 3: An expert marksman, cartographer and chef who can tie strong knots and is trained in hostage negotiation or a marksman so good he can shoot down every bullet fired by a minigun while armed with a rusted single-shot pistol that veers to the left.
Tier 2: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything, or the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.
Tier 1: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything and the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.[/spoiler]

oslecamo

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Re: Reasons to dislike Eberron
« Reply #88 on: September 02, 2011, 09:47:05 AM »
Even when the setting is based on the Cold War but with more factions, and thus a major theme is not knowing what's going on and who you can trust? The moral relativism, the shapeshifters and possession, the lack of gods, all of them are to reinforce this theme.
Cold War demans the threat of mutual anihilation. Considering that nobody has any claims  of weapons of mass destruction, and you don't even have high level characters, it's really just your average post-war medieval situation with each nation rebuilding their forces because they just got out of an all-out war, which you just can't maintain forever. They'll all go back to butchering each other again when they catch their breath again.

And hell, how is that different from the Touhou fandom where canon information contradicts itself, people write stories about one-shot characters with no names, no dialog, and blurry low-resolution sprites, and personalities and backstories vary wildly between works? Sakuya is a serial killer or a vampire hunter or an alien or the daughter of a magician or...
1-At least Zun gives hints of what is happening. Sakuya is an alien/serial killer/vampire hunter (they're not really mutually exclusive BTW :smirk) because Zun on his holy drunkness hands out big hints in little words.

Eberron on the other hand goes "Yeah, there was this big explosion, and it was really big and explodey, and did I mention how big and explodey it was, and that's it, I'm too lazy to even give hints on why it happened. Thanks for your money suckers!"

2-It has catchy music and challenging gameplay where even no-name enemies and minor bosses will make you sweat and enjoy it.

3-It's called character development. Reimu goes from innocent shrine maiden of paradise to fantasy gangster because she grows bolder with each game as she stomps over the gods themselves.

SorO_Lost

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Re: Reasons to dislike Eberron
« Reply #89 on: September 02, 2011, 04:08:25 PM »
IIRC, flying too high in Eberron causes you to travel to another plane. And there are forms of invisibility which can't be pierced by lv2 spells.
lol.

Flying to the moon takes you to another plane eh? 13-1 planes, 13-1 moons, any questions? Certainly explains why the Quori are trying to move their plane closer...

As for railguns, it's possible they just haven't thought of them. The best design I could come up with was really complicated and just shooting stuff with magic was better.
But that is just the point now isn't it? Binding a couple elementals for antigravity flying sheets of metal called a "trailer" that is lead though the air by a small seat called "a truck" is a heck of a lot easier and more mobile than magically charged bullet trains or sailing ships with flight. Nothing that was invented was invented out of necessity and nothing that has been invented is applied in such a way to work better than it is now. It's steampunk's mainstay.


I don't understand what you're saying. ???
The Quori race are from Dal Quor, the plane of dreams, and yes they enter your dreams and have been doing so since you were born. Their goal is "establishing a static world, in which nothing ever changes and there is no light to threaten the darkness." (keith baker). Currently some are pretending to be allies (inspired), others are just out to kill you (dreaming dark), but they all are on the same team and all share the same goal of preventing anything from changing and the factions are just there as an excuse to be aggressive (like if the CIA were to get caught).

Keith is aware of how horrible steampunk is and decided to rationalize why things are so screwed up by creating an entire plane's worth of beings whose only goal in life is to prevent the world from changing. But he didn't do it with just anyone. He could have used some Amish parody or some ice elementals wanting to literally freeze the world but instead he does it in a way to create pun about you killing your dreams. Oh and then apparently squeezed in space travel by shoving the word plane shift in there. Kudos to Keith for trying to validate the world but it isn't going to change my views on steampunk.
Tiers explained in 8 sentences. With examples!
[spoiler]Tiers break down into who has spellcasting more than anything else due to spells being better than anything else in the game.
6: Skill based. Commoner, Expert, Samurai.
5: Mundane warrior. Barbarian, Fighter, Monk.
4: Partial casters. Adapt, Hexblade, Paladin, Ranger, Spelltheif.
3: Focused casters. Bard, Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Martial Adapts, Warmage.
2: Full casters. Favored Soul, Psion, Sorcerer, Wu Jen.
1: Elitists. Artificer, Cleric, Druid, Wizard.
0: Gods. StP Erudite, Illthid Savant, Pun-Pun, Rocks fall & you die.
[/spoiler]

Prime32

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Re: Reasons to dislike Eberron
« Reply #90 on: September 02, 2011, 04:49:06 PM »
IIRC, flying too high in Eberron causes you to travel to another plane. And there are forms of invisibility which can't be pierced by lv2 spells.
lol.

Flying to the moon takes you to another plane eh? 13-1 planes, 13-1 moons, any questions? Certainly explains why the Quori are trying to move their plane closer...
Actually, there's a sky-elemental plane...

Quote
As for railguns, it's possible they just haven't thought of them. The best design I could come up with was really complicated and just shooting stuff with magic was better.
But that is just the point now isn't it? Binding a couple elementals for antigravity flying sheets of metal called a "trailer" that is lead though the air by a small seat called "a truck" is a heck of a lot easier and more mobile than magically charged bullet trains or sailing ships with flight. Nothing that was invented was invented out of necessity and nothing that has been invented is applied in such a way to work better than it is now. It's steampunk's mainstay.
There is no form of elemental binding which grants "antigravity" without propulsion. And besides, elemental vessels need someone to keep the elemental from going out of control, so an object with multiple elementals bound into it would require an extremely skilled driver. Also, airships need large quantities of soarwood in their construction to achieve flight.

Lightning rails are an extremely fast and efficient method of travel, and smaller versions tend to fly off the tracks.

As for "sailing ships with flight", early cars looked like horse-drawn carriages minus the horse. It's partly the designers having preset ideas on what an airship should look like, and partly a safety feature in case the airship malfunctions over water.

Quote
I don't understand what you're saying. ???
The Quori race are from Dal Quor, the plane of dreams, and yes they enter your dreams and have been doing so since you were born. Their goal is "establishing a static world, in which nothing ever changes and there is no light to threaten the darkness." (keith baker). Currently some are pretending to be allies (inspired), others are just out to kill you (dreaming dark), but they all are on the same team and all share the same goal of preventing anything from changing and the factions are just there as an excuse to be aggressive (like if the CIA were to get caught).

Keith is aware of how horrible steampunk is and decided to rationalize why things are so screwed up by creating an entire plane's worth of beings whose only goal in life is to prevent the world from changing. But he didn't do it with just anyone. He could have used some Amish parody or some ice elementals wanting to literally freeze the world but instead he does it in a way to create pun about you killing your dreams. Oh and then apparently squeezed in space travel by shoving the word plane shift in there. Kudos to Keith for trying to validate the world but it isn't going to change my views on steampunk.
Part of this is to prevent rebellion, but another part is that il'Lashtavar is basically "the spirit of the era" and if the world entered a new era he would reboot and take the quori with him.
My work
The tier system in a nutshell:
[spoiler]Tier 6: A cartographer.
Tier 5: An expert cartographer or a decent marksman.
Tier 4: An expert marksman.
Tier 3: An expert marksman, cartographer and chef who can tie strong knots and is trained in hostage negotiation or a marksman so good he can shoot down every bullet fired by a minigun while armed with a rusted single-shot pistol that veers to the left.
Tier 2: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything, or the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.
Tier 1: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything and the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.[/spoiler]

Midnight_v

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Re: Reasons to dislike Eberron
« Reply #91 on: September 02, 2011, 04:54:19 PM »
Quote
but instead he does it in a way to create pun about you killing your dreams.
I haven't studied eberron at that level, but it certainly sounds interesting, is there a link to what SorO_lost is saying?
Is there a "secrets of" book that covers all this?

What else... so... at root most of the dislike of Eberron is based on not liking its "Steampunk~esqe" elements?
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veekie

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Re: Reasons to dislike Eberron
« Reply #92 on: September 02, 2011, 05:44:39 PM »
^^
Pretty much. Its fairly fine as far as the actual gameplay element goes. Its a stylistic dislike, more than what you can or cannot do in the game(though again, if you're intent on rocking a late teens level PC you'd be treading largely unexplored grounds)
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[spoiler]
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
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[/spoiler]

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Re: Reasons to dislike Eberron
« Reply #93 on: September 05, 2011, 06:31:00 AM »
Quote
but instead he does it in a way to create pun about you killing your dreams.
I haven't studied eberron at that level, but it certainly sounds interesting, is there a link to what SorO_lost is saying?
Is there a "secrets of" book that covers all this?
You can snag some of the information from Wikipedia it's self, it's where I got their goal from as ECS kinda just says their evil evil evil. Anyway, you can crack open your ECS book and find things like.
1. The Quori entry flat out states they are living embodiments of dream and nightmare.
2. Planar description for Dal notes: "When mortals dream, they psychically project their minds to Dal Quor, the plane where dreams play out.".
3. Beyond Khorvaire talks about the Inspired controlled nation of Riedra. Under Organizations you can read about Dreaming Dark agents are ranked higher than the Riedra agents too.

I have no clue where the fly to other planes stuff is at, you'll have to ask Prime about that. I can say the following is within the Planar description: "In the process, Dal Quor itself was thrown off its orbit.". That's no moon... ;)

What else... so... at root most of the dislike of Eberron is based on not liking its "Steampunk~esqe" elements?
Yeah it is style dislike on my end entirely. Steampunk is iffy'er than hell. It sports technology superior to our current stuff and very much on par with scifi stuff hundreds of years in the future despite being focused on a 1970s version of technology. For instance computers, if any exist, must use those old transistor things, even though microchip processors were invented in the mid 60s, and yet Steampunk can have robots and drones far more advanced than we can code now.

A major rule of Steampunk is Thou shalt show external gears and boiled water like porn. Trains, airships, robo limbs, even your gun must be enhanced by steam and moving gears or you failed. People in tux/dresses or anything with leather and brass and it must present a certain look with no regard to functionality. You wear leather caps for helmets, lead aprons with leather gloves and boots over copper decorated clothing while using metal tools to with capacitors because energy arcs are not only harmless but are a proven source of making you a bad ass. Plates protecting intricate clockwork designs are a hells no like a bra at a nudest beach. Some of the biggest WTFs stem from this. Recall how people went nuts over Twilight's undead are cold rather than room temperature or vampires have 26 chromosome and humans don't so how the hell can they mate and other stuff? Yeah, Steampunk is full of little inconsistencies like that and fans overlook them as if they don't exist.

Ever notice how the central plot is always about the role of technology within society? Like Bioshock's a man chooses vs commies, Boneshaker/Wild Wild West/The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is copyright infringement makes you an evil overlord, Eberron has Quori whom hate magic-based-steampunk to a point they banned it from Riedra and seek to create a stagnate world free from it. Hellboy 2 mixed things up I guess, it was an elf wanting to control robots for revenge but Steampunk is mixed in there and not the central theme.
Tiers explained in 8 sentences. With examples!
[spoiler]Tiers break down into who has spellcasting more than anything else due to spells being better than anything else in the game.
6: Skill based. Commoner, Expert, Samurai.
5: Mundane warrior. Barbarian, Fighter, Monk.
4: Partial casters. Adapt, Hexblade, Paladin, Ranger, Spelltheif.
3: Focused casters. Bard, Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Martial Adapts, Warmage.
2: Full casters. Favored Soul, Psion, Sorcerer, Wu Jen.
1: Elitists. Artificer, Cleric, Druid, Wizard.
0: Gods. StP Erudite, Illthid Savant, Pun-Pun, Rocks fall & you die.
[/spoiler]

veekie

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Re: Reasons to dislike Eberron
« Reply #94 on: September 05, 2011, 07:51:32 AM »
Yeah, I think we can agree to disagree on the stylistic elements. The Quori mind, are as much embodiments of dreams and nightmares as fiends are embodiments of all the evils of the world. They're made of the stuff but then you're made of meat.
The mind transcends the body.
It's also a little cold because of that.
Please get it a blanket.

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Epigenentheto, apoleia keraune hos timeis pteirei.
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[/spoiler]

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borsniel

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Re: Reasons to dislike Eberron
« Reply #95 on: September 10, 2011, 11:58:37 PM »
just chipping in here, as a DM i much prefer the fact eberrons lack of details about the great mystery of the world, i find it allows me to run many different adventures with different flavor. one time the great explosion was the result of arcane experimentation and the pcs had top stop it. another time it was the cause of an intersecting plane. just gives me a ton of room to move and unlike when i run FR games i dont have PCs going "but thats not the way that works"

PhaedrusXY

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Re: Reasons to dislike Eberron
« Reply #96 on: September 11, 2011, 12:48:05 AM »
and unlike when i run FR games i dont have PCs going "but thats not the way that works"
This. 1 word sums it up: midichlorians.
[spoiler]
A couple of water benders, a dike, a flaming arrow, and a few barrels of blasting jelly?

Sounds like the makings of a gay porn film.
...thanks
[/spoiler]

Sinfire Titan

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Re: Reasons to dislike Eberron
« Reply #97 on: September 11, 2011, 12:51:15 AM »
This. 1 word sums it up: midichlorians.

What are those?

FUCKING YEARS OF RAGE THERAPY WASTED BECAUSE OF GEORGE LUCAS!


[spoiler][/spoiler]

PhaedrusXY

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Re: Reasons to dislike Eberron
« Reply #98 on: September 11, 2011, 12:58:52 AM »
This. 1 word sums it up: midichlorians.

What are those?

FUCKING YEARS OF RAGE THERAPY WASTED BECAUSE OF GEORGE LUCAS!
:lol
[spoiler]
A couple of water benders, a dike, a flaming arrow, and a few barrels of blasting jelly?

Sounds like the makings of a gay porn film.
...thanks
[/spoiler]

borsniel

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Re: Reasons to dislike Eberron
« Reply #99 on: September 11, 2011, 01:31:31 AM »
nice one  :D