Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

If you are a hardcore Forgotten Realms fan, you will probably enjoy this book. Others would be well advised to spend their dollars elsewhere. The supposed new spells advertised on the cover are not entirely new at all; one has been around for fifteen years. Plus, the new feats and prestige classes cater only for the FR afficionado, not for anyone else.

This Accessory gives a lot of info to go on a adventure around thay, Aglarond, Rashemen and other places with full detail.
Just enough to make your players have a rough time being on the land of the red wizards =D.
A great book !!! a must have indeed.

In the tradition of The Silver Marches this book does a excellent job of detailing the areas of east of the Sea of Fallen Stars. I personally like the The Silver Marches book a bit better. (But I am sure thats just my preferance for adventuring local.) There are, the now, traditional prestige classes, that are well done. Over all I would say it is worth the purchase if you plan on having your players travel that far east.

I am not sure were some of the reviewers get their ideas, but this book is an ideal reference book. It does go over materials that are already written, but thats the idea. The book is not suppose to create material or change what was already written. If you dont want to collect all the old materials on the East by the original TSR authors, this book is perfect.

Very informative of details within the area, especially like the maps of the regions. A must if you wish to base your campaigns in this area. A definate fine addition to my D&D library.

For a more thorough review of this book, check out the review I posted on my Yahoo groups site: "sanantoniodandd." My one complaint about this book is that it does not quite have enough crammed between its pages. The artwork and design are spectacular and, as the title of this review indicates, The Unapproachable East contains enough intriguing campaign information to make most DMs and players agree that it is a far superior adventuring locale than, say, the overplayed and ultimately boring Dalelands and Cormyr. The bad guys are tough: just the way I like them, and, unlike the remainder of Faerun, in this isolated portion of the Realms, you are not likely to have one of the Chosen pop up at the last moment to save the day.

Overall, this is an essential component of any Forgotten Realms library.

"Unapproachable East" is an excellent Source Book, full of yummy background info and flavour elements. The details and info on the various sub-regions presented are quite refined and are very interesting. The maps are perfectly made, while the Feats and Prestige Classes are of excellent quality and help you give the right tone and regional "feel" for your character.

I remain disappointed at the artwork and will therefore limit my review to 4 stars.

stef_bocklin