EverQuest Role-Playing Game

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EverQuest Role-Playing Game
Designer(s)	unknown
Publisher(s)	Sword & Sorcery Studios
Publication date	2002
Genre(s)	Fantasy
System	d20 System variant

The EverQuest Role-Playing Game is a role-playing game based on the EverQuest fantasy MMORPG. The game line is published by White Wolf under its Sword & Sorcery imprint. EQRPG shares many things with the MMORPG, such as setting, available races and classes, monsters, spells, items, and so on.

[edit] History

EQRPG was first published in summer 2002 under Wizards of the Coast's Open Gaming License using a system nearly identical to the d20 System; However, it was not a d20 system product, as it included rules for character creation and gaining experience, which are forbidden under the d20 license. However, the system is nearly indistinguishable from d20 in most respects.

In early 2005, a major revision in the form of the Everquest II Player's Guide was released. This began to evolve away from the d20 system, or at least its usual implementations, in various respects. A notable example is its approach to classes. There are only four character classes, called "Archetypes", available to starting characters, though these are fairly flexible compared to most d20 System classes. Each archetype has several more advanced classes, called "Classes" and "Subclasses", associated with it; these work much like prestige classes in standard d20 System games. Characters can freely mix the four basic archetypes, but may only take the more advanced classes associated with one of the archetypes; since these tend to give more and better abilities than the basic archetypes, this creates interesting choices between power and versatility.

Unfortunately for enthusiasts of the new system, the Player's Guide did not contain all the rules needed to play, even discounting the need for things like monsters; there are no rules for magic, which is used by half of the starting archetypes and an even larger percentage of the more advanced character types. The full magic rules were to be given in a separate book, the Spell Guide; thus both of these books were required in order to have enough rules to play an Everquest II campaign. A free download at Sword & Sorcery's web site did give basic spells for low-level characters, however.

After a year of delays, the Spell Guide was released with little fanfare on March 1, 2006 (the original announced release date was February 2005). It is available only in PDF format, and can be purchased for download exclusively at Drivethrurpg.com. As of March 2006, there do not appear to be any plans to release the Spell Guide in traditional book format; only this e-book version seems likely to be available for the foreseeable future. No further releases have been announced, leaving the future of both the Everquest and Everquest II game lines uncertain.

Some fans have been informed by freelancers and customer service representatives that future Everquest releases, if any, will have statistics for both the Everquest and Everquest II games, rather than being exclusively for one or the other.

[edit] External links

• White Wolf's EverQuest II Role-Playing Game homepage