I know it comes quite a while after the product came out, but I wanted to give two thumbs up to "Secrets of Xen'drik". I previewed the book in store and bought it right away on the base of what I saw. I have been reading it for a couple of hours and it is really well done.
The locales are nicely described, the adventure seeds are a great idea and the format is quite useful, the character options are more balanced than in other Eberron books. And the language is well over the WotC average.
So far I am getting a blast out of it and very much like the tone, very much in line with some of the best Eberron publications so far.
As I was enjoying it so much, I checked out who the authors were, an - OMG - two names I know and value (I already knew of Keith Baker, but hadn't paid attention to the others) : Amber Scott and Jason Buhlman!! Once again Paizo contributes to make a great WotC Product!
So, back to reading. And thanks to Jason and Amber for a great book!
Bocklin
'Tis indeed a fantastic book! I kept reading going "Sweet! I would *love* to use this!"
Thirded. An excellent piece of work all around. One of the finest WoTC published books in a while. I hope they continue to tap the staff of Paizo for material, because there have been some great books from you guys on top of some great periodicals.
Agreed! I really enjoyed this book! I find myself pooling through it all the time! Besides all the super content, I find the style of the book and the excellent writing captures a lot of the mystery and fun of D&D in general and totally gets my psyched to play!
Awesome job on this book Jason and Amber (and Keith of course, if he visits these forums).
Agreed! I really enjoyed this book! I find myself pooling through it all the time! Besides all the super content, I find the style of the book and the excellent writing captures a lot of the mystery and fun of D&D in general and totally gets my psyched to play!
Awesome job on this book Jason and Amber (and Keith of course, if he visits these forums).
Definitely. There's such a great crunch to fluff ratio in this book. There's a lot of practical ideas to implement like adventure outlines, encounter plans and maps, Stormreach itself, stats for Scorrow and other monsters and alternate rules (like psionics) are not ignored completely, nor do they take up more of the book than necessary. Perfect balance, and I hope it's a sign of things to come. Even better, I'm left with the impression that there is more than enough room to expand things in any direction I like. Just enough of everything to make any DM confident enough to work off of the material.
I am glad to see I am not the only thinking that way! I do hope that future WotC products learn from "Secrets of Xen'drik" in terms of format, style and crunch/fluff ratio.
WotC publications have been so uneven in quality lately, that I find myself having to think thrice before buying FR books (and that means something for me!) and really thinking hard before buying anything else...
So "Secrets of Xen'drik" was really a timely puff of fresh air!
Bocklin
So "Secrets of Xen'drik" was really a timely puff of fresh air!
Make it a "gust" even...
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Actually (and no offense to the contributors, this is intended as constructive criticism) I thought was interesting, but left me a little unsatisfied. Personally, I lke the old format that WotC used to use for its 3E FR supplements (not many of those lately, it has to be said). Basically, a chapter each on various specific areas, and some little snippets for adventure hooks, but really most of the volume comprising descriptions of the land, peoples and politics. Then they suddenly veered off majorly with Mysteries of the Moonsea, where it became a series of mini adventures (and most of them a bit ho-hum, IMHO).
Secrets of Xendrik seems a bit similar to the latter approach than the former. Admittedly, it is better than Mysteries of the Moonsea, but I still found it a little light on detail and keener to promote the mini-adventures. It's an approach I don't really like - I like the adventures to suggest themselves from the desciptive text and link back to that, not be rammed down my throat and not really tied in so much to the fluff of the setting.
That said, I think this is a policy change at WotC, where they dipped their toe into the waters of adventure writing after a long absence, rather than the fault of the authors. And I also understand that it was not intended to provide a gazeteer to the continent of mysteries anyway, as it would be less, y'know, mysterious that way. Secrets of Xendrik has much to recommend it. I just found it, I dunno, less evocative than I hoped.