Races of Stone

[Fellfrosch]

Read it here: http://www.timewastersguide.com/view.php?id=1025

I hate the series more than I hate this individual book. Maybe I was too harsh.

[Spriggan]

love the blurb though.

[42]

So the book isn't going to help me create my dwarven bard who works as the court jester and likes long walks on the beach?

[Spriggan]

I would like to see a book deal with closterphobic Dwarfs.

[Spriggan]

I think I should take Fell asking me to reveiw Races of the Wild as an insult....what did I ever do to him?  Though at least the racial info is better then Serpent Kingdoms.

[Mr_Pleasington]

Despite my previous statement to buy all things Eberron, I'm skipping Races of Eberron.

The 'Races of X" books have no info I find interesting, plus the Eberron game I ran is effectively over.

[Spriggan]

Once my Heroes Unlimited campain is over I think Fell wants to run an Ebberon game for a bit, I have to admit despite my being tired of D20 I do look forward to trying it but I'm in no hurry to start since I do want a break from D20.

Back to the races of X books, one of the postive things about running a site like this is Fell gets all the books, on the down side we have to read them even if they're not all that good.  Sometimes it can be just as painful as paying $30 for one of these books.

[Mr_Pleasington]

I will say that I enjoyed Libris Mortis, but none of the Races books.

I love Eberron, buy my tolerance of d20 has dropped again.  We played through a heavily modified combination of The Forgotten Forge and Queen with Burning Eyes before delving into Shadows of the Last War.  Good stuff if Fell's looking for adventures.

[Spriggan]

Libre Mortis is in a different line, with Draconomicon and the new Lords of Maddness, and isn't too bad.  Though I think they're starting to scrape the barrel now days, they've gone through all most all the FR books they can (and this will probaly be the last year for them) and have done about all they can with classes/races (crosses fingers) so now they're just left with stupid stuff like weather.  I think Wizards has had too agressive of a release schedule with trying to get at least 2 products out a month, now they've just got Ebberon and D&D 4.0 (you know it's going to be announced sooner then later, I would expect next years GAMMA) so they can start the whole process over again.

[42]

There are several things I would like to see done by WotC.

A lot of it would be updating and revising old material. Course, they sold off the licenses for a lot of the old stuff.

Releasing different limited editions of the core books woud be a way to keep producing more product without spending a lot on R&D. Like releasing the various versions of the Monster Manuals in one compiled uber-book. Then do a couple LE leather bound editions. Maybe a triple combo edition of the core rules.

I would like to see a book on Cohorts, Companions, and Familiars. Basicly a book that deals with NPCs and all the supporting characters. It would probably have a lot of fluff, but I can think of some crunchy stuff to make it worth while.

I really don't have to much against fluff in rule books as long as it is entertaining fluff. Most fluff in the current books is just presented in a trivial manner that becomes irritating. Fluff presented by way of examples and story-telling is much more interesting to read.

But I think it really comes down to WotC needs to start making adventure modules again. Not whimpy modules either. Big modules that take like a year to complete. Unfortunately, I think the focus on minitures has killed a lot of the creativity at WotC.  Hence, modules that encourage good role-playing guidance are hard to find.

[Spriggan]

I just finished Races of the Wild, and while I'm not going to give my review in this thread I'm going to say a few things.  First off these books are hurt by their Genericisim (if that's even a word), I liked races of Farun (done years ago) and part of the reason why is that everything in it (even stuff about elves, dwarfs and Gnomes) pertained just to that setting and had some substance to it.  Secondly Wizards does not take enough advantage of Racial Feats.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Races of Destiny was apparently a cut above the others then by having a couple of useful bits.

[Fellfrosch]

I'm actually pretty excited about Races of Eberron, for the same reason that Races of Faerun was good--they are mostly new races, and will be presented in the context of a setting. Those two facts are going to produce original, interesting info that a group can actually use. Or so I suspect.