Let's move on to the setting books.
My questions:
FR:Champions of Valor: Details the Harpers, holy orders, knighthoods, and the forces of Good in the Realms. Is it any good in terms of fluff and crunch for the subject matter?
Power of Faerun: Does it give good ideas and advice on how to be a major power player in the Realms?
Mysteries of the Moonsea: Is this a good setting book, or just a string of adventures? If the latter, are the adventures any good?
The final 3 adventures:
Cormyr: The Tearing of the Weave, Shadowdale: The Scouring of the Land, Anauroch: The Empire of Shade. Do the adventures give a good closure to events in the 3rd Edition Realms? How much material does it provide beyond an adventure? I hear that the PCs get a hold of the Nether Scrolls, and need them to save the world. Sounds cool, but even a good idea can get ruined by bad writing.
Eberron:The Forge of War: Does this book detail adventures set during the Last War? Does it give ideas for military campaign a la Heroes of Battle? What can it provide for my Eberron games?
My setting recommendations:
FR:I mentioned the
Campaign Setting and
Silver Marches in an earlier post. Both of these books provide a lot of awesome stuff for an enterprising DM/player (Silver Marches is more of a DM book, though it fleshes out societies for native characters).
Underdark: This details the underground catacombs and civilizations beneath Faerun's surface. Great material regarding the Drow, Underdark cities, and how different and alien a world this is (ever tried venturing into the Lowerdark). Take this book, some options from Oslecamo's Improved Monster Classes, and Green Ronin's Plot & Poison or Drow of the Underdark, shake and stir, and you've got an all-monster campaign that can take place entirely in the Underdark! This idea is made of win!
Eberron:Sharn: City of Towers: Oh man, this the standard by which city-based sourcebooks should be judged! Ever wanted to have a chase scene on airships and griffons? How about a good old-fashioned dungeon crawl in the Undercity? You've got all that and a bag of chips for a pulp-style
City of Adventure for your PCs to explore!
Magic of Eberron: Great assortment of magic items and spells for your games. Eternal Wands and Schema are basically reusable wands and scrolls; highly recommended money-savers for long-term campaigns.
