Customer Reviews

Forgotten Realms Player's Guide: A 4th Edition D&D Supplement (Forgotten Realms Supplement)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

If you read the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide called 'Paradigm Shift,' I gave it high marks because I thought they were going to organize it as such:
Campaign Guide - DM guide to Forgotten Realms that includes: Deities & geographical information.
Players Guide - Races & Classes, new spells and abilities, regional bonuses.

I felt that the Campaign Setting (ver. 3.0) had lots of races, deities, geographical info, etc. and went into more depth, but didn't cover so many regions. Therefore, I was totally happy that they were going to reorganize the books and fill it with more information over the span of two books. But a reorganization wasn't actually what happened. So here are the pro's and con's:

Pro's: I like the rituals section, it was big and had many cool rituals. I think the regional info is helpful (but misplaced) for making new characters. The drow and genesi are cool. The stuff they put in was cool and overall I do enjoy the book, despite my laundry list of complaints below.

Con's: There were only two new races. Drow and genesi. Where are the other races of Forgotten Realms? For example they could have added duergar, svirfneblin, etc. So it's not like they needed to go out on a limb to invent new races.
Also(if you think about it), there was only 1 new class; the swordmage. The swordmage wasn't bad, but it didn't wow me either. Adding a class called a Dark Pact warlock is not a new class. It's a rip-off... it's just another warlock. Whether the dark pact specialty is cool or not is irrelevant.. I was hoping for new classes. Then there is the spellscarred 'class.' I like spellscarred and will definitely use it, but it feels more like a multi-class rather than a class in-itself (if you follow the story line, spell scarring is a condition that affects you and you can pick up new abilities based on your infection). It can be played as a class... but really feels more like a prestige class, multi-class, etc. instead of a class in it's own right. EDIT: AFTER READING THE SPELLSCAR IN ENTIRETY, IT ACTUALLY IS SOLELY A MULTICLASS, NOT MEANT FOR A PRIMARY CLASS.
I felt they repeated a great deal of information in this book that could and should have been consolidated it into the Campaign Guide. Because of the lack of information revealed about this product before it's release, Wizards never made it clear that the Campaign Guide was for DM's only... so players who are into FR are probably going to buy both. Thus, it just doesn't make sense to have two books with regional information, cosmology, etc. The Almanac section repeated nearly everything already said in the Campaign Guide. The new information (such as the calendar, climate & geography, etc.) SHOULD have been organized into the Campaign Guide, not the players guide.
Also, I was expecting the same structural format as the Players Handbook. I thought I was buying a book that had races, classes, abilities & magic, rituals, just as the players handbook contains, but more specific to the Forgotten realms campaign. Regional information and paragon / epic paths are useful to a player, but only singularly so. Once a player picks their regional roots and picks a path, they are done with those sections of this book they don't need to read any more. This consequently takes up a full 30% of the book.

Finally, I felt a $29.95 sugg. retail price for a book of 160 pages is a rip-off. Overall, I am happy I bought it...it will definitely add to the fun of my game, but was a disappointing buy at the same time. I wouldn't say it sucks, but it certainly didn't meet my expectations either. I feel happier I paid less than $20 for it.

I must preface this with a bias warning. I want my "campaign setting" books to be detailed. I'm one who desire more information rather than less. I prefer my books to detail locales. I also like having things statted out and concrete, so that I know that when I speak of an NPC or location, both the players and I know that we're on the same page. Realize that if you are one who appreciate minimality for the purposes of artistic freedom, or who disagrees with me on any of these points, you probably would find your opinion of the book to be quite different. Now, onto the review.

Introduction
I find myself disliking the introduction. It draws upon the history of the Realms, yet a great degree of it's history seems to have recently changed. The 10 important facts about the FR seem contrived. Three deal with the spellplague, two deal with countries that were already threats and explains why they're threats now, and one handwaives why there's no longer about 10 species of elves. All-in-all, not really what I might consider important facts.

Chapter 1: Races
This chapter contains four sections: A two page section on the Drow, a three page section on Genasi, a seven page look at Other Common Races (the races which appear in the Players Handbook), and a Supporting Cast section (involving Gnomes, Goblins, Orks and other races you might meet in game). I find this section lacking in depth. In the PGtF (3.5), we met Faerunian flavored races from the PHB. Gold dwarves, Sun Elves, and Ghostfoot Halflings, for example. I feel that omitting these makes the Realms substancially smaller. No longer is there as much diversity as there was before. I realize that simply making a Dwarf and calling him a Gold Dwarf is a possibility, but I do like having a standardized reference which tells me what skills and special abilities they might have that are different than normal Dwarves. As a corellary, there is little attention payed to races previously described in the PHB.

Chapter 2: Character Classes
This chapter explains the Swordmages, Warlock (Dark Pact), and Spellscarred classes in the same fashion as the PHB describes other base classes. It goes on to describe Paragon Paths and even a new epic Destiny. Not much to say about it, good or bad. I suppose it strongly depends on wether you care for the classes or not.

Chapter 3: Backgrounds
This chapter expounds on places your character may have originated from. The Guide goes into some detail about the places, enough for you to get a taste of where you're from and even offers some possible motivations! It's not a bad section.. except... it's missing certain places where I think it might be normal for PC's to begin from. Sadly, I believe that they "saved" these for Dungeons and Dragons: Insider articles, so I feel a bit swindled for not getting those places. One other nitpick, I really liked the tables from the previous edition showing, at a glance, a location, what bonuses you might get from coming from there, and what available races are there, which is missing from this edition.

Chapter 4: Feats
A chapter of new feats! However, unlike the previous edition most of it's feats are almost exclusively made for new races/classes which debut in this book. I suppose most of this chapters' draw will be wether or not you care for the feats.

Chapter 5: Rituals
25 new Rituals of varying enjoyment. Use to taste, some seem pretty neat.

Chapter 6: Almanac
A chapter which claims to cover Deities of Toril, Lore of the Land, The Calender of Harptos, The Roll of Years, Languages, Coin and Commerce, Class and Station, Families, Learning, Adventurers, The Spellplague and Cosmology. It seems like it's chok-full of information, but that is slightly misleading as it is only 10 pages long. The Deities have been cut down dramatically (one part which I dislike), and it seems that some of the sections are page fillers. Do we need entire sections on how there are different classes, how families are generally like how they are in real life, how there's not too many formal schools in Faerun and explaining how not everyone you meet is an adventurer? The Spellplague section manages to tell you of the Spellplague without actually telling you about the Spellplague.

In the end it feels like it's a low page count, large text-size, picture heavy pamphlet that is supposed to direct you to the ACTUAL Players Guide to Faerun. I feel like if I mixed this book with the Campaign Setting and the Grand History of the Realms, I might have gotten a full books' worth, but for now, I just have a feeling of emptiness, of not knowing, and of not actually playing in the Forgotten Realms.

So 4e has created controversy. We can all agree on that. It's whether we like it or not that will determine how well we like the new Forgotten Realms material. If you are really into the 4e stuff then this is a pretty good supplement, and so is the Campaign guide. If on the other hand you were a die-hard Forgotten Realms fan that isn't really into 4e's premise then you might be dissapointed. So keep in mind those two determinants are framing my review.

If you love 4e: The player's Guide is a great 4e supplement. New races or 4e updates for old races. New classes and options. New powers etc. All very cool for those thirsty for new material. If you are familiar with FR and loved it or were indifferent, but are dedicated to 4e then the new setting is cool. It is a catacysmic setting based on the Spell-Plague. The Spell Plague was a magical disaster that descended upon the Realms drastically altering its races and their civilizations. The basic structure of the Realms is there, but the world has been altered to fit the 4e points of light amid a land of evil wildness premise. Lots to play with here and take the Realms into totally new areas.

If you're not too fond of 4e or were looking for a "faithful" FR supplement: you're out of luck. Both FR supplements are strictly 4e. They continue the present trend. They also have drastically changed the FR landscape, and setting. It has been custom tailored to fit the 4e concept. You won't find much at all about FR history or the past richness of its setting. It has been stripped bare and left as an FR shell filled with 4e concepts. Now having said that it does what it does well--it's just not really FR anymore; unless you are prepared to give it all up to move on to something completely different.

So, it all depends on where you're coming from when you decide whether or not to buy these new 4e books. Chances are if you love FR and are playing 4e you'll be open minded enough to go with the flow. But to really get that old taste of the FR you'll need to stick with earlier editions--or do your own updates. 4e FR material is not going to give you what you want. On the other hand if you're a 4e convert, or at least giving it a go then this is a pretty decent supplement as supplements go.

Whatever you decide, good luck and good gaming!

I'll admit, I bought this one for the Swordmage. Yep, one class caused me to buy this whole friggin' book. But, once I started leafing through, I found plenty more to keep me interested: a new warlock path, the 4e rewrite of the Genasi, new Epic Destinies, new Paragon Paths and some very, very useful feats. Now, I am not a Forgotten Realms fan. If anything, I actually despise Greenwood's seminal anglocentric setting. However, this book is full not just of game crunch, but some setting fluff that -- while I can't use it in my Points of Light campaign -- I can use to mine for ideas.

Now for some specifics:

The Swordmage, the first arcane defender published for 4e, is fantastic. I think that it would be a useful addition to any adventuring party and fills both the defender role and the "gish" archetype very well.

The Dark Pact given to Warlocks is themed around Drow and the Underdark, but could easily be re-written into any other campaign setting as the truly evil path of Warlock magic (if the Star Pact and Infernal Pact weren't evil enough for you already). This would be a great pact for villains or PCs in a villainous campaign.

The Paragon Paths presented mostly are tied to the realms, but a few just require a brief rewrite to be useful outside of FR. Of these, I think the War Wizard is the one most likely to see use in my campaign, but there are several others that I could see fitting in quite nicely.

The Epic Destinies don't exactly add much new content. Although my party's cleric is toying with the idea of being a Chosen of Pelor (just changing the name Amaunator to Pelor), that Epic Destiny doesn't really do much that the Demigod (from the PHB) doesn't already do (they changed one power, but kept the rest the same).

While the Genasi are, in my opinion, one of this book's greatest additions to 4e, this book also introduces the Drow as a playable race. Boo! I'm totally sick of all the Drizzt-fanboy-ism rampant in Realms players and DnD in general. However, the races section does give us a few hints at races that will become available as player races in the near future (most of which have been corroborated on the Wizards' website in one fashion or another): goliaths, devas (used to be aasimar), half-orcs, etc.

The feats are pretty great, too. Again, some are setting-specific, but enough are setting-agnostic that this book could be mined for some really great player options.

All in all, I think that the FRPG was a very good purchase and I can see it lending a lot of future awesomeness to my campaign. Even if none of my players use it, I can see me, the DM, using it for a number of challenges and villains as well as campaign information (again, the Genasi) and themes.

Overall, I would say that the product is acceptable for the price, but the bar is definitely being set lower than previous editions in terms of content. Only two new classes (and one new warlock pact) is a little weak, but the large number of paragon paths is great.

The Background section has a unique way to present information about each FR region to players, although the overall information is thin. Depending on what you're looking for as DM to help flesh out the world, this might be either good or bad.

The feats and rituals were mostly disappointing in my opinion. Regarding feats, there isn't much here if you are looking for feats for a character that isn't divine or isn't one of the two classes in the book. There are 24 rituals, of which only a few struck me as interesting or useful.

Agree with the other reviewer comments on the art.

Overall an acceptable supplement, but I would only recommend it if you are going to play FR. Sometimes supplements (see Magic of Faerun (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.5 Fantasy Roleplaying)) transcend their main focus to be worth purchasing regardless of their context, but IMO this one doesn't.

I liked it! I am normally not the type of person who likes to let folks use the "new races" but have to say they write up on the Genasi was very good and IMO they should have used the Genasi instead of the Tiefling for the replacement of the Gnome.

The short history of where races come from was very interesting and helpful for those folks that are running the realms.

New classes hmm well putting the sword mage in as a defender well good luck with that. Did not see the need for another Warlock "pact" class it seems a little redundent. HOWEVER I really liked the Spellscarred talents as a kind of multi classing feat really nice.

Paragon Paths were done very well and seemed to fit very well into the story lines that exist.

A little over a third of the book was devoted to places in the realms and once again liked that.

Finally the Feats and Rituals were a nice addition and I found most of them useful for future gaming.

I was hoping this supplement would contain tons of content for players however all you are really getting is 2 new races, 3 classes and a multi-class.

The paragon paths are interesting, but are more background based than adventuring based.

Could have done without the region descriptions as they are already in the FR campaign guide. This should have been replaced with more feats, rituals, and maybe some realm specific expanded powers for the core classes. Or something else to make playing the Forgotten Realms campaign setting feel more "unique".

All in all I am dissapointed in the lack of new races and classes, but I guess that is what the Players Handbook II is for....

Seems a lot of reviews have been done on this product already. I'll just add my 2 cents to this. Firstly, I agree with some of the other reviews that the suggested retail price for this product is a complete rip-off, I'm glad I bought it at discount from Amazon, if you have to have it, try used or some shops that gives big discounts, you'll feel better after that.

Overall the book has been short of its full potential, I might even say a tad disappointing. Compared with the 3.5 edition of Players Guide to Faerun, the information in this 4th edition version is quite limited. To someone who has already played 3.5 D&D and in the FR world, then there isn't much meat in it. There is only one new character class the Swordmage, which is quite good I might say that 2 of my players immediately killed off their characters to make a new Swordmage character!

After the first 50 pages or so, the book kinda goes downhill. They added the Spellplague multiclass option, if you're like me and a former 3.5 player, then you won't be interested in this. Multiclass in 4th ed bites - but that's a whole other topic.

The second half of the book is mostly detail on the world, again albeit on a different player's angle compared to the Campaign Guide. Now they could have skipped a lot of this, it is boring and unnecessary. In fact they could have made just one book.

The individual artwork is good, I don't remember noticing any repeat art from older books. But the quality is just not as good as any 3.5 books, I liked that the older books had thicker paper, and the pages were designed to look worn and that was unique. In fact the entire 4th edition series I think reminds me of school textboooks in terms of print quality and overall design.

Overall, a useful book if you want the new class details or some new feats. Otherwise, skip it or buy 2nd hand, I certainly felt that it is lacking.

The player's guide is the second part of WOTC's re-introduction of the Forgotten Realms. It follows their new marketing paradigm...lots of mechanics, but little substance and flavor. Granted this book is for the players. The GM is recommended to buy the Campaign Setting. The mechanics are good. I like 4e mechanics, but I am not a fan of the big font, white spaces, and low page count in these books.

I wasn't really sure whether I wanted to buy this book, since I have never run or played in a Forgotten Realms campaign. However, after previewing the book at a local store, I decided that the book had enough generic or easily-adaptable material to enrich my homebrew campaign. About 1/3 of the book provides a player's-eye "tour" of the various regions within the Forgotten Realms. This information is indispensable if you're playing in the (4e) Realms. The new classes -- swordmage, and the dark pact for warlocks -- and races -- drow and genasi -- can easily be incorporated into any campaign setting, as can at least half of the paragon paths, feats, and rituals. A subscription to D&D Insider will get you the same information in the D&D Compendium, but I like having physical books on my shelf as well. A must-have for playing in the Realms; nice to have for other D&D campaigns.