Dark Sun Special Rules and other stuff

[Najo]

I am starting up a 3.5 Dark Sun campaign and I am looking for some input from the community for some special rules. I want some streamlined and feel good rules for the following:

1. Weapon Breakage (for weapons made out of bone, wood, stone etc).

2. Piecemeal Armor (something very simple but realistic for wearing just pieces of armor)

3. Defiler casting and taint.

I am most interested in material referenced by David Noonan that was cut from his Dragon article by Paizo's editors. As for the defiling rules, I want something that is easier to use than the rules in Dragon or at Athas.org but has the feel of the Dragon rules (choosing defiling each time you cast, checking for corruption, becoming tainted by it and then slowly becoming more and more evil and eventually transforming into a T'liz (darksun's lich).

Anyrate, if anyone has some input that would be great. I would like the rules to be as close to what would come out of WOTC (well refined and fits onto the main system easily) and if anyone has any other special rules, equipment write ups, presitge clases etc coverted for the Brom era Dark Sun that would be great. Please share

 

[Arkhandus]

Do you have the issue of Dragon that presented Dark Sun for 3.5, with the Player's Guide to Dark Sun section (if I recall the name properly)?

And I don't think you can really find a mechanic for defiling magic that has the same kind of corruption effects as in that article, but simpler......that article's version of defiling wasn't really complex to begin with, so I don't know why you'd even want a simpler version.

 

[frankthedm]

I want something that is easier to use than the rules in Dragon or at Athas.org but has the feel of the Dragon rules (choosing defiling each time you cast, checking for corruption, becoming tainted by it and then slowly becoming more and more evil and eventually transforming into a T'liz (darksun's lich).

Defilesrs should not get more power. They are the ones using magic as they are supposed too on Athas. Preservers are the supposed to be giving up something. I'd recommend;

When you cast, if you do not wish to defile, you must choose one of these;

Preserve by using less power: suffer a -1 penalty to Caster level and spell DC.
Preserve by slowly drawing power The casting time for a standard action casting time increases to one round. A spell that takes longer than a standard action has one round added to the casting time

 

[Deekin]

I assume you have checked out Athas.org, right?

 

[frankthedm]

I assume you have checked out Athas.org, right?

He has and it sounds like he is asking for a second opinion on a few things.

Edit, since OP asked for Brom era things, here is the classic defiling areas converted to 5' grid squares.

Defiling radius* by spell level
Plants	0th	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th
Barren	20'	30'	40'	50'	60'	65'	70'	80'	85'	90'
Sparse	5'	10'	10'	10'	15'	15'	15'	15'	20'	20'
Lush	S	5'	5'	5'	10'	10'	10'	10'	10'	10'
Forest	S	S	S	5'	5'	5'	5'	5'	10'	10'
S: Only one square of the caster's space is defiled
*Each additional spell in that area adds 5' to the radius of the highest level defiling spell.

And here is a quick pick showing what those radii look like.

 

[Najo]

Defilesrs should not get more power. They are the ones using magic as they are supposed too on Athas. Preservers are the supposed to be giving up something. I'd recommend;

When you cast, if you do not wish to defile, you must choose one of these;

Preserve by using less power: suffer a -1 penalty to Caster level and spell DC.
Preserve by slowly drawing power The casting time for a standard action casting time increases to one round. A spell that takes longer than a standard action has one round added to the casting time

Ok, I like the simplicity of your special rules. Very clean. What is the down side to defiling? How does it corrupt you? Simple but effective rules for defiling taint please

 

[Najo]

I assume you have checked out Athas.org, right?

Yes I have. I appreciate all the work those guys have done, but I do not like the turn TSR took Dark Sun after the revised boxed set and after they killed off Borys in the Novels. Athas.org embraces that version of Dark Sun more than I like. Bring me back the Dark Sun that Brom's art inspired, that is the real Dark Sun to me.

 

[Najo]

Do you have the issue of Dragon that presented Dark Sun for 3.5, with the Player's Guide to Dark Sun section (if I recall the name properly)?

And I don't think you can really find a mechanic for defiling magic that has the same kind of corruption effects as in that article, but simpler......that article's version of defiling wasn't really complex to begin with, so I don't know why you'd even want a simpler version.

My main issue with Dave Noonan's defiling is I don't like the assume the taint rule (thought his work was great, and I am aware of his article he posted after Paizo added their changes to his work). I think the tracking of temporary and permament defiling damage is unecessarily complicated. I have been trying to re-write the rules and trim them down to some very fluid basic mechanics, what I have so far is:

1. Defiling powers up the spell (or take Franks approach which is good too)
2. The defiler must make a corruption check (caster level + d20 vs DC 10+spell level+defiler cost + defiler level)
3. If defiler fails the corruption check, they gain a permament defiler level.
4. If defiler level is over half their HD then they shift towards evil alignment, if it is greater than their HD they become evil. Along the way the suffer modifiers like in the defiler article.
5. If they perform the proper rituals and die with a defiler level greater than their HD they can become a T'zi.

I just feel it can be simplified a bit more, cleaned up like Frank did the perserver rules there.

 

[Najo]

Defilesrs should not get more power. They are the ones using magic as they are supposed too on Athas. Preservers are the supposed to be giving up something. I'd recommend;

When you cast, if you do not wish to defile, you must choose one of these;

Preserve by using less power: suffer a -1 penalty to Caster level and spell DC.
Preserve by slowly drawing power The casting time for a standard action casting time increases to one round. A spell that takes longer than a standard action has one round added to the casting time

Do you have something this simple for defiler taint?

 

[frankthedm]

Do you have something this simple for defiler taint?

Sorry, IMHO the Taint of a defiler is that they have blasted athas to barren wasteland, can never be good, and cause all wizards to be hated. Dark sun was not about using supernatural punishments for the unheroic, that was Ravenloft. Brom era Dark sun was about survival in a blasted land ruled by wicked sorcerer kings where the very concept of paladin had gone extinct long ago. Defilers even earned XP notably faster than preservers to boot. What balances that out? Nothing other than how much your allies are willing to put up / be seen with you.

Being a preserver means you are taking the moral high road on a world where that is not rewarded. If the DM wants to reward that, make the Veiled Alliance more helpful.

The revised Dark sun box set gave defilers a Charisma penalty when interacting with others to offset the faster advancement.
1st-5th level -2 Cha
6th-10th -4 cha
11th-15th -6 Cha
16th-20th -8 Cha