Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.0 Fantasy Roleplaying, Forgotten Realms Setting) (Hardcover)

The FRCS gives you the nuts and bolts of running a realms campaign, (geography, weather, races, cultures, calendars, alphabets and languages) and then proceeds to give you a meltdown-inducing amount of adventure ideas. Add to that the Realms sourcebook gives you a host of new rules (what gaming product can resist?) for new magic, new feats (based on a characters origin-nice), new races, new organizations, and my personal favorite: new prestige classes. I'm sorry, but if you can read the description of the Archmage prestige class without salivating, you simply aren't RPG material. The new Archmage is devastatingly stylish, well conceived and (of course) frighteningly powerful. Archmages gain access to extremely powerful abilities called High Arcana in exchange for sacrificing spell slots (nice idea, that). So an Archmage can permanently give up a ninth level spell slot in exchange for the ability to cast any spell they have memorized as an energy bolt doing d6 per spell level + d6 per level of Archmage. (e.g. 4th level Archmage converts a level 4 spell into energy that does 8d6 damage as a ranged touch attack-no save).

Rules to govern the Realms peculiar framework for magic, "the weave," are included. At first, they seem a little over-stylized, but they give the Realms another opportunity for role-playing flair, and provide an "in-game" way to describe magic and its effects. I particularly like the rules for the "shadow weave" as they offer numerous possibilities for villains and adventures.

The new map for the realms has been altered slightly (to maximize the use of the map surface) and the artwork has really been stepped up. It's a marvelous and inspiring map, and I'm hoping that WotC will feel compelled to sell it as a rolled up (fold-free) poster.

The amount of information on locales and personalities comes across like an all out assault on your faculties. There are hundreds upon hundreds of ideas, introductions, and other "mental fertilizer" for DMs of all persuasions. The individual entries are not very long, but you will find working knowledge and pointers on where to take a given setting for practically everything in Faerûn with a name. It is intended to serve as a jumping off point, and in this it succeeds brilliantly.

Non-player characters are placed throughout the sourcebook as examples of members of organizations, new races, or prestige classes. Examples are by far the best way to get this kind of multi-faceted information across quickly. The stats for Drizzt-Do'Urden are presented to illustrate the rules for the Drow as a player race, the new regional feat rules, and to give you an opportunity to use him as an NPC. The Realms setting often takes some heat for having powerful NPCs, and while this incarnation has its share of dangerous characters- the product doesn't suffer because of it. The NPCs exist in the sourcebook as ideas for the DM, and campaigns that would be disrupted by the presence of NPCs like Elminster should simply keep them far away from their gaming table.

Anyone who enjoyed the Realms before will want to have this book as part of their gaming library. Players new to the setting will find a world that is ready for whatever they want to throw at it. For DMs, the amount of information in this book and the amazing level of detail is inspiring (You want to know what the trade patterns are between Thay and its neighbors? Check.) Anything in this book can be used to start an adventure, which of course is the point.

If you're serious about your campaign-settings, buy one from folks who clearly take theirs seriously. The Forgotten Realms was always popular, but this product all but establishes itself as the gold standard of fantasy RPG worlds.

I can't say more than it has *everything*! So, if you at all interested in the Forgotten Realms, or if you are interested in seeing a setting with interesting prestige classes and magical forms, then you must get this book!

I divide this book into two halves really, the general section and the Faerun section. The first half is a general section where races, prestige classes, feats, and spells specific to forgotten realms are found. All of these could easily be used in other campaigns. The character region system actually adds a lot of personality to various regions of the realm and once again can be converted for other worlds. New races include Planetouched Genasi, Aasimar, and Tieflings while all the old races return with some unusual new sub-races. Over 50 new feats grace this book and several new cleric domains and spells of all sorts can be found in here. Finally, a few new monsters can be found towards the rear of the book, including the dreaded Dracolich template.

The next section of the book is largely dominated by geography of Faerun. However this is pretty in-depth and actually provides a great deal of information and even a few plot points are thrown in. Also in the last section of the book the gods are explained and there are a whole bunch of dieties. My main complaint here is that they only described a few of them in depth, the rest appear as names on a chart. Now of course there are a few specifics that can be found in the realms, from NPC's to such powers as spellfire, and all of them can be found in this book. Although some more notable NPC's are nowhere to be seen, but all the biggies are there (Elminster, the seven sisters, Szess Tam, etc).

The book itself is wonderful. I'm glad to see the demise of the box set as hardcover books have a longer life time then the little softcovers they put in the boxes. The art inside is on par and in some cases better then the core rulebooks and so far I haven't found many errors within. The prestige classes and races are neat and interesting for the most part and the new feats are wonderful. The gem of this book in my opinion however is the region system. By picking a region your character originates from you gain access to feats and equipment from those areas. This adds an indescribable amount of personalization to any game world as people from each region will differ.

On the downside the book is overly expensive. While it has 80 pages more than the DMG it costs as much as 2 of them at 40 dollars. Also they do not go into enough depth with the dieties. of the 100+ dieties they describe only about 30 of them in any detail. How am I supposed to know if I want to worship the Red Knight based on his stats in a chart??? I would highly suggest this book for anyone who plans on adventuring in Faerun or who would take the time to customize the neat stuff in here for their own realms. If you don't have the drive to do that or you aren't gaming in Faerun, the price tag would seem a bit high to pick this one up. If it weren't for that darned price tag I'd say this book would be on par with the psionics handbook and players handbook even if it is realm specific!!!