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I started playing D&D...about year and a half to two years ago - so let me begin by saying I'm in no way a very experienced player. Well, not by the standard of people who have played since 1st Ed. In fact, this 1 and 1/2 to 2 years has actually consisted of a single campaign, mainly due to the separated actions of the other players and I. But, moving on.

My group and I all have only played 2nd Ed AD&D (except our DM, who is one of those experienced players I talked about) but I recently looked into 4th Edition to think about play in another setting after discovering the Eberron Campaign Setting, which I think, is just so great. But I really disliked the rules for 4th Ed, and so turned to 3.5 which so far seems alright in terms of rules, except I'm a bit indifferent about everyone leveling up on the same line...again moving on.

A couple of the current group have decided to give this setting a try, with me as the DM (just to make clear, I've never DMed before, though I have been Keeper in CoC) - I think I've got a relatively good grasp of the rules, and a vice-grip on the actual campaign setting which I'm really enthusiastic about. Seeing as there's no way I'm writing a campaign for a setting I've never DMed before, let alone played in before, not to mention having never DMed at all before, and never having played the Edition before - so I intend to do the adventure at the end of the ECS, and then Shadows of Last War, looking to do the follow-up campaigns afterwards.

My question is basically, do you think that this is a good start? Do you think that they are particularly difficult adventures to handle as a DM? Do you think they're a good introduction to Eberron? And what is the relative length of Shadows of Last War (I haven't purchased the book yet as really we're doing the Forgotten Forge to see if we can get into the game first)?

Most campaign settings are a pain to deal with. Eberron is a good setting mind you, and I have no problems with it, but to be a DM of a setting, you have to read up on the history, background, technology, and geography of the world to even have a chance at running it right.

Too much like homework.

Personally, I would suggest creating your own world. Hell, you can even use the Eberron map, but make your own history and background and geography for the continent of Khorvaire instead of running off of theirs. Believe me, it's a helluva lot easier than reading the eberron book cover to cover.

The basic Eberron line of adventures are pretty DM friendly and pretty well thought out. It was one of the first adventures I DM'd and it went quite ok.

Thanks for your advice, both of you. But Siberys, the funny thing is that I've already read the Eberron Campaign Setting cover to cover And I wouldn't feel confident creating a world when, well just refer to the long list of reasons of why I'm not writing a campaign myself either Could someone tell me what's the relative length of Shadows of Last War?

I know it starts at 1st lvl, and I think the last one (Eyes of the Lich Queen?) takes you to around lvl 12.
There's also a list of (short) adventures available from Wizards. They're set in Greyhawk, but after playing through the Eberron adventures and reading the books, you can probably swap some names and place the adventures in Eberron.
Here's the link: Original Adventures

Thanks for the link GawainBS - turns out Shadows of the Last War is probably 2-4, seeing as it says it starts as Level 2, and the next one starts at Level 4. I have one last question, the rewards in the Forgotten Forge seem absolutely humongous

- To refresh your memory it was 1000 gold, 1 suit of scale mail, 1 small masterwork chain shirt, 3 small steel shields, 1 heavy mace, 1 longsword, 1 masterwork rapier, 2 sunrods, 100sp and 100gp (which can both be handed into a collector for twice their value), 4 gold ingots worth 50gp each, 3 potions of cure moderate wounds and 1 potion of mage armour -

Now, this idea of that being alot may be created from the most money anyone in our campaign ever got was 1000gp and that was because he managed to steal something that DM could never have predicted that he would, but really I can't think of a fantasy world where this much money wouldn't be enough to live comfortably on for the rest of your life.

2nd lvl characters are so rich they can retire, actually.

We played that adventure, and all of my players were on par with the wealth by level table, so there's no problem.

Remember, they need wealth as much as XP to be equivalent to the respective CR's.

From exp

I DMed 3.5 in Eberron before, it worked pretty good for me. In my opinion, Sharn is WAY to generic to start out, even if it's a good place to get starting gear/quests. That doesn't mean abandon it, (though in my campaign it got sacked) but don't go with the book's suggestion of having a ****load of quests there. After a five hour session (my party played 3-8 hour sessions average) my party was tired with Sharn and could've cared less about all the city offered. After that, they never wanted to return, depite how much they enjoyed the battle. Definitly though, 3.5 in Eberron is an excellent combination.