Player's Guide to Faerûn (Forgotten Realms)

Dungeons & Dragons Edition 3.5

by Richard Baker, Travis Stout, James Wyatt

This invaluable new supplement for the Forgotten Realms campaign setting provides a wealth of new and previously scattered material in a single volume. Players and Dungeon Masters alike will benefit from expanded material, including everything from race and regional info to new magic items and spells. Optional rules for expanded gameplay cover such topics as epic-level play and use of psionics. This title also both updates Forgotten Realms roleplaying gameplay to the D&D v.3.5 rules and informs players as to the latest events and changes throughout the setting via background story content.

Genres: Role Playing Games, Forgotten Realms, Fantasy, Gaming, Dungeons and Dragons, Reference, Games

191 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

A best-selling author and award-winning game designer, Richard Baker is known for his novels in the Forgotten Realms setting and his work on the Dungeons & Dragons game. His Realms novels include Condemnation (book 3 of the War of the Spider Queen), the Last Mythal trilogy, and the Blades of the Moonsea trilogy. He is currently working on a new military-themed science fiction series centered on the character Sikander North; Valiant Dust, the first book in the new series, debuts in November 2017 from Tor Books.

A native of Ocean City, New Jersey, Rich graduated from Virginia Tech in 1988 and went on to serve as a surface warfare officer in the United States Navy. When he's not writing fantasy or science fiction, he works in game publishing. He's the founder of Sasquatch Game Studio, a small game company based in Auburn, Washington.

Rich currently resides in the Seattle area with his wife, Kim, and their daughters Alex and Hannah. His interests include gaming (naturally), history, hiking, racquetball, and the Philadelphia Phillies.

Reviews

[Yoko 5000 · Rating 2 out of 5]

First of all, PGFaerun (2004) offers 3.0-to-3.5 update to the FRCS (2001), so it is pointless to have this book without it. To put it in another way, this book is more like "FRCS 2" rather than genuine "player's guide".

First 60-70% of the book is all about data stuff. New feats, PrCs, spells, magic items... typical 3E stuff, ya, and these are quite crunchy (regional feats in particular which I never used). Some of them are quite unbalancing if not game breaking.

It is followed by Epic level material and cosmology/planes info, then small section of campaign hooks and the Realms' metaplot appears. This is the section I enjoyed the most but it is only 6-7 pages long with almost no art accompanied, so it left me with "is this it? I need more!" feeling. I guess one can go on to read The War of the Spider Queen series ("Dissolution") and Return of the Archwizards series ("The Summoning") but will I ever do that though? Bah, not likely.

There's not much more about it. Not a bad thing to have in your collection but won't get much use unless you are really really into 3.5 version FR campaign.

[Juho Pohjalainen · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's not Spellplague yet, but it's not too great either.

[Panczito · Rating 1 out of 5]

Zlepek informacji które powtarzały w innych podręcznikach. Zbędne lanie wody. Kilka słabych pomysłów na przygody których nigdy nie wykorzystałem

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great stuff for those looking for a lot flavour and information on the Realms. It offers ideas and background feats to flesh out a character's back story.

Other extra stuff, the typical stuff, include more of the Realms' pantheons, its cosmology, prestige classes (a couple more suited to NPCs), feats, spells, and magic items.

There are also sections that provide upgraded stat blocks of monsters from other older publications, as well as rules and options for the adaptation of material from books from the Psionic's Handbook, Book of Exalted Deeds, and Book of Vile Deeds.

All in all, a book full of flavour, history, and hooks into the Realms.

[Will · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting flavor material, but really only useful for someone who is truly immersed in the Forgotten Realms setting.

[George · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's some broken shit in this book. I like.

[Abraham Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

nice dnd book.