Archive for 'Eberron'

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In the next harrowing chapters, I plan on bringing the party a bit closer to their foe. In order to this, I’m planning on placing them on a lightning rail (read “train” for those not savvy on the Eberron setting) with the villain. This will work to give the game a sort of western / pulp fiction sort of feel. I’m planning on incorporating a couple of key encounters along the course of the lighting rail. The enemies will begin with a tradition group to harry them and press them on their objective and culminate with another encounter with their key foe. This will only be the second encounter with their foe, but it’s been a short span since the encounter with him.

The players will be forced to decide on some tough questions, mainly on whether to protect the artifact they’ve been in search of, or the innocent by-standards on the train.  This should be a very interesting session, as I will also be presenting them with a bit more background on the Eberron setting in general.  Lightning Rails, attacks from an air galleon and the potential for much, much more!  I am really enjoying the setting and it’s pulp tendencies!

While going through the adventures for the Chaos Star series you’ll see me fall back on these six guidelines for my adaption of the adventure:

1. Level up the encounters: Add between +3 or +8 levels to each encounter. Challenge for a 5th level party.

2. Modify the monsters to keep in the theme of “Cthulhu”: Aberrations with psychic powers or similar.

3. Level up the treasure parcels: 5th level Parcels less the ones already given out. Select items useful for the whole party.

4. Publish the new monsters for consumption. Creative Commons license for the items in a PDF on the site.

5. Give the encounters a similar feel for the players. Provide them with a “unified” foe.

6. Diversify content: How am I using Arcane Powers? How did I use Open Grave? Additional content brought in from DDI?

Having recently acquired a copy of the Eberron Player’s Guide, I’ve set about to see what I can incorporate into my Home Game.  Going through the book, there is a lot of interesting things to take in.  One thing that was quite noticeable (and somewhat of a disappointment) was the book’s overall size.  Weighing in at 160 pages, the EPG is one of the thinner 4th Edition books released.  The book’s layout and content though makes up for the lack of girth.0

The book looks quite interesting as far as content, especially as the majority of the book deals with information that is completely relevant to the Players and their Characters.  The book does a very good job of incorporating the newer 4th Edition components in to the original 3rd Edition setting. I was quite pleased with the incorporation of the previous story elements from Eberron and how they were adapted in to the 4th Edition.

Some of the more enjoyable points of interest is the inclusion of the the 4th Edition Races.  The EPG lays out information for the inclusion of the races from both the Player’s Handbook 2 (PHB2), the Forgotten Realms Player’s Guide (FRPG) and the  Dragon articles.  The setting history relies heavily on the goblinoid races, so the major focus from the EPG is on the monsterous races published in the Dragon magazine.

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