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Date Posted: 10:07:15 08/27/00 Sun
Author: Kaan
Subject: My magnificent return and the 3E FR scene

Hello all, good to be back!

(Waits for thunderous standing ovation to die down)

Thank you, thank you. I had a wonderfull vacation and rest assured I will be bragging about it during many sessions to come.

Now as I am the resident 3E whore I thought I would give you the 411 on the 3E FR scene. By that I mean I shall PLAGERIZE Eric Noah's site word for word so if you have been visiting his site regularly, at

http://www.rpgplanet.com/dnd3e/

you will already know everything I'm about to say:

The big ass FR hardcover containing everything you need to know will come out April 2001. Note that it is no longer a boxed set but a big assed book, kinda similar to the wait the Stardrive and Dark*Matter settings for Alternity were published. This big mofo of a book will set you back $40 and Sean Reynolds explains why:

"320 pages, full color, dense text (we over-wrote), information on lands that have never been covered before, new PC races, 53 new feats, 15 new prestige classes, 34 new domains, domain info on all of the living deities from the Faiths & Avatars trilogy.... All I can say is, when you get the book in your hands, you'll feel the price is justified. Did I also mention that the word count per page for the 1993 set was only about 650 words per page, where this book is going to run at least 900? So it's more like 440 pages (in page-equivalents of the 1993 set), not 320."

Some plagerized tidbits about it from Eric Noah's site:

-There will be a new page layout for the new products.
-Jim showed off some of the new concept art for the book. Looks very nice. The Simbul is a babe (of course!) Szass Tam looks creepy, Fzoul looks impressive. Artemis was pretty cool. There were a few others I don't recall (Elaith looked damn cool!), but I do remember that Manshoon looked strange, with some sort of face mask on. Other than that, the concept art was impressive.
-Zakhara, Kara-Tur, and Maztica are not going to be getting an update. It splits the fan base, and there are other regions that haven't been touched on at all that are closer to the "core" regions of Faerun that should be looked at.
-Ed asked if people would like to see information on merchants and trading in the Realms. He said it might be possible to work it into a Volo's article, but it would be a while in the future (about 2 years or so).
-Maps for the PDF products on the web will also be in the PDF format.
-Timeline will advance, and a rough conversion of Real World-Faerunian time has been worked out. For roughly every 5 years of Real Time, 2 years will pass in Faerun.
-The 3E FR team paid attention to some of the special things that characters in novels could do, in order to try and make it possible to create those characters without rule breaking.
-The main FR book will cover the "Top 40" deities used in campaigns, compiled from surveys Jim ran here on the list and elsewhere. There will be a section in the book that covers all the domains, favored weapons, portfolios, etc for all the deities, but only 40 will get an in depth treatment. They are probably going to do a deific expansion (Jim says preferably as a single large book), but not soon.
-No more 64 or 96 page products.
-As we know from elsewhere, the campaign book will be 320 pages, hardbound, with the map included..
-For the Open Gaming License-no Realms modules will be produced via OGL. Smaller adventures will be put in Dungeon magazine, which has been expanded, mini adventures might be included in some products as well.
-The D&D Core design team is working on high level characters right now.
-There are plans for a supplement specifically dealing with Faerunian Magic, tenatively called MAGIC OF FAERUN. It will be roughly 192 pages or so. Other seminars indicated that it will include lots of information on Gates, and gate networks.
-The magic level of the Realms will stay roughly the same level.
-The Red Wizards of Thay are going to be turning over a new leaf...kind of. They're going to be following a path similar to the Venitians in the 14th/15th century in our world, setting up enclaves in other cities and countries. There, they will produce some of the cheaper magical items (potions and scrolls), and basically trying to expand their reach through trade and guile rather than the brute force approach that hasn't gotten them anywhere.
-Villains are going to stop being stupid. (Big cheers for this one).
-Stuff that they're planning on releasing: February should see the Book of Monsters, with the D&D and FR logo's; April will see the HC release; there will be a Pool of Radiance 2 tie in, the Magic of Faerun book; they are also beginning to think about some things for 2002.
-Elminsters level being lower than Halasters-El doesn't care
-Halaster, and most other powerful mages, are insane in some way or another. They obsess on something, and concentrate on that. They also get used as tools by Elminster, the Chosen, and Mystra. Halaster knows this, and resents it, but also knows that it's only because of the efforts of Elminster and others that he has even his brief moments of lucidity...
-Southern magic (ie, Mulhurondi, requiring a specific spell to read) is gone. They thought that the idea of having to have a special version of RM to do it was a little strange.
- Will there be more geographic expansions? Eventually.
-Wild magic areas are going to be seen less frequently, relegated mostly to dungeons and DM decisions. One of the "in game" rationales that Sean mentioned was the fact that the Tormytes have been doing their best to remove them for the last 12 years or. Same for dead magic areas. Wild mages aren't going to be in the FR HC, but will be discussed, at least briefly, in then Magic of Faerun book.
-Will we be seeing more city states expand into kingdoms/empires, ala Silverymoon->Luruar and our own world history? Some changes of that nature will be discussed. It won't be RSE, but there will be some information.
-Why did they kill off Azoun? The overall storyline was heading that way, so they took advantage of the situation
-This years Dragon Annual will have Ed's commentary and expansion on the DEATH OF A DRAGON storyline.
-The FR Encyclopedia Project. The bean counters took a look at the project, calculated the cost, and ended up with a $1 million price tag. They're still collecting and collating the data, but they aren't sure what will happen with it.
-There might be more Cormyr novels-the title of the story has gone from the Cormyr Trilogy to the Cormyr Saga
-With 3E, some big characters *coughElminstercough* might change some, but not a lot. Some charaacters might change class (ie, some wizards may become sorcerors, some fighters -> barbarians, etc).
-Prestige classes mentioned for the FR HC: Archmages, Master Harpers, Purple Dragon officers, Red Wizards
-The timeline will jump ahead a few years (roughly, 1372), but not much more than that, as too big a jump creates too many problems with continuity and campaigns
-The original Undermountain was 12 levels, with 16 sublevels; there is plenty of room for expansion.
-Possibly a super-module aventure for returning to Undermountain.
-More history products? Not specifically dedicated to history, as they tend to 1) split the consumers, and 2) take away some of the mysteries.
-One of Rich Baker's dream projects: an Ancient Empires sourcebook, covering the Imaksari, the Narfell peoples, and all the rest.
-More Arcane Age products? Not as individual products, but some information could appear in other products.
-Currently, there are no more Volo's Guides on the schedule. Dragon Magazine may start including more info.
-RUINS OF ANAUROCH comic-there are two issues out (or at least Jim has seen the second one). Steven Schend is apparently going through the remaining issues and providing more dialogue.
-Possibility of including Volo-style sidebars in future products, discussing inns, taverns, etc.
-On the Elven Retreat-all the elves who were going to leave have left...and just because the elves of *Cormanthor* left doesn't mean elves everywhere left...
-There will be more information on Gates in the Realms in the future, in an effort to increase connectivity in the Realms, and to provide more use from the various geographical supplements.
-A game product on Sembia? It's a major focus in the HC.
-Realms Outer Planes-the Realms will have their own Planes setup, to reflect the natures and connections of the Realms deities.
Art: All of the art will be brand new. Those who saw the art clips at the FR preview know that this new look won't allow us to recycle the old art.
A New Look: We will be changing the FR art style to more closely match with Third Edition D&D. Those who were at Gen Con got to see a sneak peak at some of the iconic characters we've sketched out, and everyone seemed to like the changes.
Why not sell it for $20 like the PHB? If we could sell as many copies of the FR hardcover as we can the Player's Handbook, offering it for $20 would be feasible. Alas, such is not the case.
Geographic Expansions: ...the current thought as that we'll do one geographic expansion a year. The first year is the main campaign setting book, so we won't expand beyond that in the first year.
Not Just Collecting and Organizing Old Stuff: ...the main reason for relaunching the game was to revitalize it and fix what was broken. It wasn't to condense all the rules down into a few main books again or anything else

Those of you who have been to amazon may have seen the setting ready for pre-ordering. Some official Wotc comments on it:

About specialty priests: Each of the gods will have their own class for cleric, but this isn't a prestige class (just a cleric done for FR like those portrayed in the PH are done for Greyhawk). Harpers, Zhents, Red Wizards, and others make good candidates for prestige classes.
About coverage of Maztica, Zakhara, Kara-Tur, and other areas of the world: We'll be giving a brief (paragraph or so) coverage of these areas, but we won't be devoting a great deal of space to them. There's so much core information we have to cover in this product, that there just isn't room for us to give extensive coverage to these fringe areas.
About the cover seen at Amazon.com: I'd like everyone to keep in mind that this is just prototype art used for the catalog. We're still lookng at options for changing the cover treatment, internal layout, and a logo change. ...We're currently looking at the logos to see if we can come up with something better than we have now. If we can't, then we'll stick with the current logo. But there are some very good reasons to change the logo: 1.) It establishes a new look for an old brand that hasn't been significantly updated in years. 2.) It lets people immediately identify a new Third Edition Realms product. 3.) It gives us a chance to bring the cover treatment up to current standards and set a benchmark for other campaign worlds to follow.
Description: 320 pages; full color; fold-out map included.

But that ain't all, folks. In addition to the basic campaign book there will other things. For instance, February will see the release of a "Monsters of Faerun" book. This will be more along the traditional $20 dollar range. A hand dandy plagerized list of monsters that will be in it:

Aaracokra; Aballin; Abishai; Alaghi; Asabi; Banedead; Baneguard; Banelar; Bat, Deep (Bonebat); Bat, Deep (Night Hunter); Bat, Deep (Sinister); Beast of Malar; Beast of Xvim; Beholder Mage: Prestige Class; Beholder-kin, Death Kiss; Beholder-kin, Eyeball; Beholder-kin, Gouger; Bullywug; Chitine; Choldrith; Chosen One; Cloaker Lord; Crawling Claw; Curst; Darkenbeast; Dark Tree; Deepspawn; Demon, Ghour; Demon, Yochlol; Doppelganger, Greater; Dragon, Brown; Dragon, Deep; Dragon, Fang; Dragon, Shadow; Dragon, Weredragon; Dragonkin

That is most of the complete info I have on the upcoming stuff. Also slated to be released: A magic of Faerun book(No date info yet); A Dieties and Demigods book sometime in 2002. Well that's it.

Now talk amongst yourselves and bask in the glory that is 3E. Or just talk amongst yourselves.

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