Unapproachable East (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.0 Fantasy Roleplaying, Forgotten Realms Setting) [Hardcover]

Richard Baker (Author), Matt Forbeck (Author), Sean K. Reynolds (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2003

Explore a Mysterious Land of Might and Magic.

Tales from beyond the Easting Reach are told with awed voices and hushed tones. Known to most of Faerun as the homeland of the Simbul, the hathrans, and the Red Wizards, the Unapproachable East is filled with dark secrets, insidious plots, and untold adventure. Discover the people, politics, cities, and societies of the region, along with the monsters, nefarious organizations, and other perils that await unwary travelers in this treacherous corner of the Forgotten Realms game setting.

* 12 new prestige classes
* 21 new spells
* 19 new monsters

To use this accessory, you also need the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, the Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Master's Guide, and the Monster Manual.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Richard Baker works as a game designer and Managing Developer for the roleplaying game line at Wizards of the Coast, Inc. His most recent author credit is Condemnation, the third novel in R.A. Salvatore's War of the Spider Queen series.

Matt Forbeck is the cofounder of Pinnacle Entertainment Group and worked on Deadlands and the creation of the superhero roleplaying game Brave New World. His most recent credits for Wizards of the Coast, Inc. are the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook and Races of Faerun.

Sean K Reynolds has worked on most RPG product lines from Wizards of the Coast, Inc. His most recent credits include contributing to Magic of Faerun, the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, and Races of Faerun.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast (May 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786928816
• ISBN-13: 978-0786928811
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #461,751 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Matt Forbeck has worked full-time as a writer and game designer since 1989 with many top companies, including Angry Robot, Atari, Boom! Studios, Games Workshop, High Voltage Software, IDW, Image Comics, Mattel, Penguin, Playmates Toys, Random House, Simon & Schuster, Ubisoft, and Wizards of the Coast. He has designed board games, collectible card games, roleplaying games, and miniatures games and has written comic books,computer games, magazines,novels, nonfiction, screenplays, and short fiction. His work has been published in over 10 languages.

His projects have been nominated for 24 Origins Awards and won 13. He has also won five ENnies. He is a proud member of the Alliterates writers' group, the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers, the International Thriller Writers, and the International Game Developers Association. He lives in Beloit, Wisconsin, with his wife Ann and their children: Marty, Pat, Nick, Ken, and Helen. Visit Forbeck.com for more details about him and his work.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Unfairly maligned, this is a good FR sourcebook., February 8, 2004

By 

Terrence Walsh (Strongsville, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Unapproachable East (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.0 Fantasy Roleplaying, Forgotten Realms Setting) (Hardcover)

I decided to write this review because I think some of the other reviewers here at Amazon have given this title short shrift.

The Unapproachable East is a great place to set a Forgotten Realms adventure which is different than your typical "Medieval Western Europe" type fantasy world. Admittedly, the book is not as good as the Silver Marches supplement, but it's pretty close. One reviewer mentioned that the artwork was as good as some home-printing jobbie. I disagree. There is some artwork that is stylisticly different than that we have seen in other WotC FR supplements. Some pieces are outstanding such as the Simbul's Palace and some are quite memorable such as the Ring of Grey Flames. Overall, I liked the art.

Content is also good. Here is a list of the chapters:

1. Introduction
2. Prestige Classes
3. Regions and Feats
4. Magic and Spells
5. Magic Items
6. Monsters
7. Adventuring in the East
8. Aglarond
9. The Great Dale
10. Rashemen
11. Thay
12. Thesk
13. Border Areas

As you can see, the content is pretty well balanced between background campaign information and "guidebook" overviews of the various areas. There is a good amount of plot hooks and plenty of places for a DM to set up a FR adventure that is different from the norm. I paid full price for this book when I bought it at a brick and mortar, and feel that it is well worth the value. There is plenty of material to read and enjoy even if you never use a bit of it for gameplay. It is much better than the 1st edition D&D compilation "Dreams of the Red Wizards". I don't give it five stars because it is not as much value for the money as the FR campaign setting (more pages +map) or the Silver Marches supplement (lower price +map) which I consider the best two FR products so far.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not as good as Silver Marches., August 30, 2003

By 

"jthursby1" (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unapproachable East (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.0 Fantasy Roleplaying, Forgotten Realms Setting) (Hardcover)

This book is not as detailed as the Siver Marches sourcebook, but it is still a good addition to FR line.

This book covers the regions of Aglrond, The Great Dale, Rashemen, Thay, and Thesk. With some information on surrounding areas too. All of them are detailed farely well. It is enough to get started with adventuring in the East. Although I will probably stay away from Thay.

It has seven new races that populate the east. They are Star elfs, Gnoll, Hagspawn, Spirit Folk, Taer, and Volondi. None of them in my opinion would make a good PC race. With the exception of the Spirit Folk.

The book also contains twelve new prestige classes. The only one I got excited over was the Black Flame Zealot. They are fanatical assassines for the church of Kossuth.

The spells and magical items have a big chunk of rehashed material from other books. I like the monster section though. It contains a a redone dread warrior, JuJu zombies, and some new trolls.

Al in all I thought it was a good book. I give it a 3.5 (rounded up). I think you get the most use out of the material covering the regions. I just wish WOTC would focus more on coming up with new stuff instead of copying material from old sources.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good read, but real content/page ratio is low, December 16, 2007

By 

jakeb91 (SF Bay Area CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unapproachable East (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.0 Fantasy Roleplaying, Forgotten Realms Setting) (Hardcover)

Unapproachable East is a fascinating setting, and this book provides a good overview. I especially like the material on The Great Dale, Aglarond, and Rashemen. There is a clear effort to give equal treatment to nations other than the most famous of the bunch, Thay.

The flaw in this book is the ratio of content/page count. Now the only other FR sourcebook I own is the FRCS, so perhaps this is par for the course, but this book includes a statistics block listing the classes/levels of every inhabitant of most towns/villages. Who cares that the village of Kront has 22 level 2 Commoners and 133 level 1 Commoners? This is, in my opininon, a waste of page space. This sort of detail (in the event it is ever required) is easily generating using the guidelines from the DMG. In fact, I half suspect the authors wrote a computer program to generate these blocks. This is just one example of filler content. As a second example, the "Important Characters" blurb for each town/village is little more than a list of randomly generated names.

This level of meaningless detail steals page space from the real content of the sourcebook; there are only a paltry 13 pages on "Adventuring in the East".

Don't get me wrong, this sourcebook contains some solid information. Another review criticizes this sourcebook for replicating material from other sources, such as spells. The flip side of replicating material is that the consumer isn't forced to buy those other sourcebooks. In fact, the real content/page ratio could have easily been improved by including replicated material from some other sourcebooks.

My recommendation is to buy this sourcebook, but only at less than full price.