First impression: Eberron 4th Edition.

[alexandraerin]

I had a chance to look at the Eberron Player's Guide tonight. While I've got no interest in the setting, my first impression is that they did a better job of packing it with setting-independent/portable player content than they did the Forgotten Realms one: three new races, an artificer class that I'm more pleased with than I'd expected, a handful of new rituals, interesting new alchemy items, an alchemist paragon path (good idea and well executed), a handful of new magic items of multiple types, etc.

The "Dragonmark" feats strike me as a bit overpowered compared to other feats, especially as many of them include the full benefits of another heroic tier feat plus other stuff. Maybe there's something in the world setting I don't know about that would act as a counterbalance to this (no, "well, each mark is associated with a house" is not a drawback and neither is "well, once you've taken one of these essentially-two-and-a-half-feats-for-the-price-of-one feats, you can't take any others isn't a drawback either), but I would think twice before allowing someone to import them into my campaign. Or I would make them count for both the first and second level feat. I don't know. I'd have to look at them some more and think about it.

Perhaps a better way to handle it would have been to divide them up into multiple feats, an initial one that gives a bonus comparable/equal to a single feat and then locks you into only taking other feats of that Dragonmark... much the way feats are used to handle racial subgroups in the Forgotten Realms book, or the way that you can gain more powers for your familiar by taking further familiar feats as shown in Arcane Power.

Comments

[doradoradora.livejournal.com]

IIRC the dragonmark feats were meant to be a bit OP because they're also supposed to be extremely rare (and subject to extreme GM discretion). It's been a long time since I've been able to look at the Eberron material though, so I may be wrong.

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

Well, the way they're presented in 4E, it does mention that they're special and only very rarely seen outside the house/race lines, but it also explicitly says that player characters should feel free to take them anyway regardless of race because a heroic PC is by definition already a remarkable and anomalous individual. It's rare to find people who can snap off two arrows at a time to hit different targets, who can make people shake off sword wounds with a rousing cry of inspiration, or evoke magic with a snap of their fingers, but level one PCs can all do stuff that.

From the point of view of the 4E game design, it's an anomaly... a misstep in my opinion... to have these feats which are essentially double and triple powered feats... and just have them be regular single slot feats. The equivalent would be if there was a seventh attribute that was as important as all the other attributes are individually but also increased all three of your defenses the same and could be used for any attack roll, but the attribute still cost the same as the others in the point buy system with the explanation "well it's supposed to be rare to have a high value"... the 4th Edition moved away from putting things like that into DM discretion, with the idea of embracing the Big Damn Heroness of it all. There are options presented to DMs and there's always the possibility of house rules, but if something is listed as a heroic tier feat, it's a heroic tier feat.

It feels to me like they took a 3E idea and didn't think very hard about how to actually translate it into 4E. And maybe Eberron characters are just supposed to be a little overpowered compared to other campaign settings as a result of this, but it feels like something weird is going on when there's one feat you can take that gives you mastery of three languages and another feat that gives you mastery of FOUR languages plus bonuses to magic scrolls plus some ritual mastery, likewise a mounted combat feat and then another feat that gives you that feat plus bonuses plus rituals.

I don't think it breaks the game... it just means that almost every Eberron player will have a Dragonmark unless they're a die had "concept gamer" who won't take feats that don't fit their character concept, and if that's the intention... as well it might be, to tie back into the idea that this is the Big Damn Heroes edition... but they've just done such a great job of maintaining quick-and-dirty across the board game balance everywhere else, and this looks weird to me.

[doradoradora.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I had a total brain fart and was thinking back to 3.5 when I made that comment. XD; I haven't been able to familiarize myself with 4E Eberron at all. Don't mind me. >.>;

Though there's always the caveat that if something in the rules doesn't seem right to you as a GM, you can always change them.

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

That is true. Though in this case, what doesn't seem right to me mostly seems to be "Dragonmarks". Since I don't run prepackaged settings, I'm probably just going to disallow them outright.

It's just disappointing, when so much of the rest of the book works just fine in any setting. I know Dragonmarks are Eberron-specific, but if they were balanced with everything else, they could be more easily adapted to give players more options in any game.

But then I guess the Forgotten Realms handbook had the spellscarred stuff, which was similarly tied up in the setting.

It's still a good book. I didn't expect to like the artificer class at all, and I think it turned out well.

[doctoreon.livejournal.com]

an alchemist paragon path

Oh man. I'm excited. Any more details?

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

It's class non-specific, open to any character who has the alchemy feat. As I recall the base abilities include the ability to recycle alchemical items to pay the component cost for new alchemical items (at a 1:1 conversion), an encounter power to use an alchemical item as a minor action, a higher level encounter or daily power that lets them duplicate an alchemical item from the leftover residue when one's expended, bonuses to attack with alchemical items, and automatically learning new formulas at certain levels.

[doctoreon.livejournal.com]

That's pretty cool. Hopefully, it will be in the July 2nd update of the Character Builder. Although, I am having trouble figuring out how to learn the powers of the paragon and epic paths I've chosen. For some reason, even if I have both, I only get the base class powers. It's strange.

However, on the bright side, I do have the official stats of Drizzt as well as Raistlin at level 6.