I'm really happy with 4e. 3.5 had a lot of issues that really killed the fun for me after a while. I'm just not a super-optimizer type of player and frankly I like playing Fighters.
3.5 Fighters are NOT fun after a certain low level unless you multi-class, and at that point you aren't really a Fighter anymore.
So 4e's equalizing of all the classes is a real feature for me, but I'm getting away from my point.
I like the Adventurer's Vault because it really expands equipment options and provides Alchemy for characters. It's not a "read from start to finish" kind of book, but it's a useful book. No matter what character you're playing, this book has something you'll find useful. Not to mention that more magic items gives me more points of comparison for determining the appropriate level for my homemade magic items.
Monster Manual 2 provides more monsters (duh) for a GM to mix into encounters. Not just ne monsters, but new types of existing monsters (more gnolls, goblins, etc.) to help broaden encounters with that monster race. Many of these monsters are high-end Heroic Tier monsters, but since DMG 2 is going to focus on play for Paragon-Tier it should be expected that they would focus more on those levels of play. There's still plenty of lower-tier and Epic monsters though. Dretches make an appearance as Level 2 Brutes, and Dagon (yes, the godlike Deep One from Lovecraft's writings) is there for Epic characters to face. There are more, but those are just examples.
The Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide presents all the information needed for a 4e Realms campaign... ok, not really... not even close really, but it DOES give you a solid start for the campaign and a method of "resetting" 3.5 campaigns to make the transition to 4e smoother. They've killed off or demoted a LOT of the gods, presumably to make it easier for players new to the Realms to get started. The old list WAS very daunting... especially if you went for the gods from every continent and not just the "main" area covered in the 3.0 Campaign Guide.
The new setting is 100 years into the future after an event called the Spellplague (started when Cyric murdered Mystra at Shar's bequest and both the Arcane Weave and the Shadow Weave came apart) has reshaped Toril and the planes. A new realm called Abeir is introduced, a mirror of Toril created by AO to stop the war between the Gods and the Primordials (which I believe is new to help the Realms fit into the backstory 4e uses). When the Spellplague changed the planes it merged portions of Toril and Abeir together. Whole regions of Toril have been replaced by regions of Abeir, also allowing the Dragonborn to enter the world (which is why we've never seen them before; it works as an explanation as long as you don't mind a little cheese in your setting). The Netherese Empire is back, and they've conquered some of the regions around them, including Sembia. Cormyr has had to claim some of the Dragon Coast, and Myth Drannor has been restored to its proper glory. The Zhentarim aren't really the Big Bads of the setting anymore... the split in their ranks between Bane and Cyric has made them unable to compete with the Netherese, and they actually help resist them to some extent (because they'd rather Bane conquer the world, not Shar). The Red Wizards of Thay are pretty much gone... because most of Thay is now full of undead thanks to the efforts of one wizard's attempts to become a Lich going awry.
My major problems with the new Realms is the limited release schedule it gets. My wallet appreciates this, but having the Realms content limited to one Campaign Guide, one Player's Guide, and one adventure means that a lot of content is vague. In some cases this is good. I can fill in the blanks in regions, but it also means a lot more work for me. For example, I want to create an adventure in Cormyr. I want to do something in the Storm Horns. The entry on the Storm Horns mentions Eagle's Peak and Skull Crag, not to mention Castle Crag and High Horn... but the map provided doesn't list these locations. Not a big deal if you and your players are new to the setting but if I wanted to run something with Josh and Paul (who have both given me the impression that they're large Realms fans) I want to at least try and get the geography right! Why mention these areas if you aren't going to at least give me a dot on the map?
My other problem is the lack of information on the gods. The greater gods are detailed, and there's a list of lesser gods and exarchs, but little to no detail on them or which gods they actually serve. For example, Tempus is listed as an Unaligned Greater God with the Sphere of War, and whose domain is called Warrior's Rest. There is no mention of any gods who reside with him or exarchs who serve him in his entry. Looking among the list of lesser gods I see that Beshaba (Alignment: Evil, Sphere: Bad Luck) also resides in Warrior's Rest. I had to read the description of Warrior's Rest in the Cosmology chapter to discover that Beshaba is Tempus' lover. The Exarchs aren't any better; Garagos (Chaotic Evil, War), The Red Knight (Lawful Good, Tactics), Uthgar (Unaligned, Wildlands), and Valkur (Good, Sailors) all reside in Warrior's Rest... Now, I can expect that The Red Knight is an Exarch of Tempus, since they've always been connected. Garagos probably is too since he has the sphere of war just like Tempus (and since Tempus is Unaligned he probably doesn't mind having Exarchs of opposing alignments). But what about the exarchs of Wildlands and Sailors? Again, turning to the Cosmology section I see that Tempus regards the Red Knight as a daughter, but then it mentions that his other exarchs maintain their own realms... so does that mean taht Garagos, Uthgar and Valkur are exarchs of other gods?
I have no idea, and I wish I did. Since most of the Gods don't even get Channel Divinity Feats in the Player's Guide I can't even make use of them without needing to design new Channel Divinity Feats. I'd rather they had just died along with the other missing gods if there wasn't enough room to give me information on them.
Don't get me wrong. I like the book. It's beautiful and the changes are sufficient for me to feel like the Realms is a place I can make my own again instead of the "It's done, move on" feel I had in 3.5. I just wish there could be a few more supplements to help flesh it out a little more and prevent me from needing to put more work into the world. With the number of dieties in the Realms it could REALLY benefit from an updated Pantheon book describing the Greater Gods, Lesser Gods, and Exarchs in more detail, and maybe giving us a greater description of their realms. I don't want the glut of products from 3.5, just a few more to help me along my way (or else give me a REALLY GOOD set of guidelines for creating balanced Feats so I can at least create a few more Channel Divinity Feats for players who don't like the greater gods).
Maybe Dragon magazine has (or will have) future articles to flesh this stuff out. Maybe I should send them a pitch to write one. In the meantime I'll just need to pull out some of my 3.5 and 2nd Edition Realms material to fill in the blanks.
End of Demented Rambling.
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