D&D 4E Dark Sun Conversion to 4E

So, I might end up running a Dark Sun campaign in 4th Edition, and I'm thinking about ways to convert. Here are the ideas I've come up with so far. Note that these involve some tweaks to the setting as well as the rules. Also, I'm disregarding pretty much everything except the original, non-revised boxed set; as far as I'm concerned, Dark Sun jumped the shark when the first adventure came out.

Criticism and suggestions welcome. Obviously, all this is tentative and may need to be changed when we see the actual rules.

Not sure yet what to do about psionics...

Races

• Humans, halflings, dwarves, elves, and half-elves use the standard rules.
• Dragonborn take the place of half-giants as the elite warriors of the sorceror-kings. Twisted and hideous creatures, created by the foulest of defiling magic in the image of their masters, the dragonborn are bred for discipline, loyalty, and ferocity above all. Still, there are occasional renegades, and a number of "free dragonborn" descended from the palace guards of slain sorceror-kings.
• Eladrin are not a separate species; instead, once in a while an eladrin child will be born to elf parents. They look like elves, and outsiders cannot usually distinguish between elf and eladrin, but an elf can tell the difference at a glance. Traditionally, an eladrin is an elf tribe's wizard.
• Tieflings are a strange race whose origins remain mysterious. Cunning and charismatic, they often rise high in the ranks of the templar. Rumor has it that they are somehow connected to the dead city of Giustenal, but what that connection may be, no one knows.

Classes

• Fighters, rogues, rangers, and warlords use the standard rules.
• Clerics call on elemental powers rather than gods, but otherwise use the standard rules.
• Paladins are now a more martial form of cleric; like clerics, they call on elemental powers. (Remember that 4E paladins have no special code to uphold; they're just divine warriors.)
• Warlocks now have two pact types. Some warlocks draw their power from sorceror-kings, or from the Dragon; this is the "templar pact." Others draw their power from the spirits of the land; this is the "druidic pact." (These will probably use the rules for infernal and fey pacts respectively.)
• Wizards are defilers by default; any use of a wizard class power destroys plant life in a radius of 2 squares around the wizard. If you are already in a defiled area, the radius increases by 2 squares. Halve these distances in fertile regions such as jungle or scrubland, and double them in especially barren regions such as salt flats or the Silt Sea. Wizards are otherwise unchanged, but see the Feats section for more information.

Feats

• Defiler Mastery: You are especially adept at the dark art of defiling. Once per encounter, when using a wizard power, you can defile with a radius of 4 squares (modified by terrain type) and gain +3 on one attack roll required for that power. By devoting yourself to defiling magic in this way, you close off forever the path of preservation; you cannot have both Preserver Mastery and Defiler Mastery.
• Preserver Mastery: You have learned to both give and take in the art of magic. You no longer inflict defiling damage when using wizard powers. This knowledge can also be turned to dark ends; once per encounter, when using a wizard power, you can defile with a radius of 4 squares (modified by terrain type) and gain +2 on one attack roll required for that power. However, each time you do so, you must roll Wisdom against a DC of 5 plus the number of times you have done so previously. If you miss, your Preserver Mastery is permanently changed to Defiler Mastery.

Equipment

• Normal equipment is made from bone, stone, obsidian, or ironwood.
• Metal equipment is treated as if it were magical, both in its cost and in its effect in combat. Bronze is equivalent to +1, iron is equivalent to +2, and steel is equivalent to +3. (For enchanted metal items, the plusses stack; a +2 steel longsword is equivalent in all ways to a +5 obsidian longsword.)
• Metal coinage is very rare and worth 100 times its book value. For most transactions, use ceramic pieces in place of gold pieces, and bits in place of silver pieces.

All in all I like it, the only issue I might have is the fact that taking 1 feat completely does away with the negative aspects of casting. I think that given the increased number of feats the characters are supposed to get in 4e you might want to make this a chain, or better yet make the preserver roll to see if they succeed in not killing plants. If the roll fails they have a choice of discontinuing the spell, or continuing and killing plants. If it passes great. The feat could be taken additional times to add positive modifiers to his roll.

Hmmm interesting, keeps close to the core PHB and the flavour of the setting.

Ive always wanted to run a Dark Sun game.

The wizards preserving/defiling could be done at 1st level with that 1st level trait that they choose.

Going to take a shot at Mhuls or Thri-keen? I guess it depends on if there are any good playable monster races that could match up.

Really nice; I like what you've done with it, and especially like how you worked the Warlocks into the Templar and Druid roles!

Great stuff.

I'd recommend a few more tweaks to the setting.

Have Dragonborn replace Muls. Do away with Half-Giants. Half-Giants were always just these big, burly wandering dudes who happened to hook up with a settlement once in a while. Muls sounds much more like what you describe.

Make Eladrin the default Elves of Dark Sun. Fits better with their desert traveller types, IMO.

Have Tieflings take the place (roughly) of Maenads or maybe Pterrans. Sure, both those are later additions to the setting. But Tieflings would fit well as the race that just one day showed up out of nowhere, migrating from some unknown land.

Personally, I'd do away with the Clerics in Dark Sun. I never cared for them much. But YMMV. Warlocks would fit their role in Dark Sun rather nicely. But rather than being these elemental avatar-type people the Warlocks would make pacts with what few magical beings are still hanging around. You might get rid of the Fey pact or change the flavor a bit. The Stars pact and any sort of Demon pact would be nice. Add an Elemental Chaos pact and a Dragon pact and you'd be good to go, I think.

Ditto with 4e Elves. Unless you want to make 4e Elves like the Cannibal halflings in Dark Sun. I've never felt that cannibal halflings made a great PC race. But I'm sure others feel differently on the matter. Maybe the 4e Elves would make more sense in the role because the Halflings in 4e are river/swamp people and Athas doesn't have much of either?

As far as Paladins, I'd move them into the place of the Templars. They get all their powers from the Sorcerer-King they serve.

I think you've got a good start with the Defilers/Preservers. Maybe give Defilers some at-will/per-encounter/per-day abilities to help power their spells and you're set. I think some sort of at-will radiant damage would be a nice at-will power for Defilers.

Regarding Thri-Keen. I'd say keep them as a monster. No sense in them as a PC race. Again, YMMV.

Keep us posted on how it goes.

I was on board for some of your quick fixes: coinage, wizards are default defilers, and the gear.

I like the fix for dragonborn, that's a good idea, but I wouldn't want the half-giants to go. I would prefer keeping as much about the original as possible. I would go with dragonborn are the super-elite, a very rare breed of palace guards.

I agree that the feats don't work, especially the idea of permanent change over. Keep the defiling radius of course, but I think there should be some other fix.

At first I was down with the Warlock being templars. Not any more. In the source material the templars healed, they're clerics. They mimic the warlocks pact, but it's required and they can only choose one, so it's more a written part of the class than something cool they chose.

I do like the inclusion of the tiefling, dark and mysterious. That's great. Eladrin too, nice.

This is a decent start, and I like some of your ideas, but this is why I would prefer WotC to do the update. In the span of 7 posts we've got 5 different directions to go. Each one of us will have slightly different ideas about how to bring over the setting, and each of us will have different pet favorites we have to keep exactly like the source. I'm at least waiting for the books to start my conversion.

I like everything you've got here except for the defiling/preserving mechanic--if we assume that most PC wizards will want to be preservers, which is IMHO not an unreasonable assumption, you're basically forcing every one of them to pick this feat at 1st level. It's a throwback to the 3E "all rogues need Weapon Finesse ASAP" design, and it's one of those things 4E is built around avoiding.

A better way to do it, I think, would be to make Defile an at-will class feature of the wizard, which gives, say, a +2 to the attack roll of your next spell but withers all plants within a close burst 1. You could even add effects to other spells that conveys an extra benefit if you Defile your way through it.

Dragonborn replaces the dragonmen [thier name escapes me].

If ogres have a racial write up in the 4EMM, it might be best to tweak those stats for half giants.

Because good armor is so rare in Dark Sun, I would give a standard 1/2 level bonus to AC (assuming that there isn't one already), and a class bonus based on role (maybe +4 for defenders, +2 for leader and strikers).

I don't think that preserving/defiling should be a feat, but a standard feature of the wizard class. You can differentiate the two types of wizards with build specific feats and powers.

I would keep elves as the default and remove eladrin (although I would consider having hidden eladrin enclaves in the mountains).

It's my post; of course it's my opinion!

Ken