Thank you for the feedback, it is very much appreciated!
1. Dwarven Focus seems a little off. a +1 bonus is nice and all, but that whole "1 level of exhaustion each week the dwarf doesn't follow his focus" thing is HARSH. WHat this would mean in play is that the game is always about the dwarf... and if it's not about the dwarf, the dwarf suffers. Why not just a flat penalty, say, -2? That's much less game-changing. Personally, though, I'd lay back on the dwarven focus stuff. It always seemed a bit weird to me.
Some of the material I left as is the way I found it, and a decent portion of the races material I left alone. I should have reworked some of that material, but I focused (ha!) on classes. Looking back at the 2E dwarven focus (which I actually didn't do until now), this could be completely re-written. The only draw back to the focus in 2E is if the dwarf dies before completing a focus the dwarf turns into a dwarven banshee "haunting their unfinished works". I may re-write the entire focus now as 2E dwarves only received a bonus on saves and proficiency rolls related to his or her focus. Good call.
2. I like your half-giant, but their weapon use ability could benefit from a rewrite for clarity.
Will do.
3. Halflings get waaay too many skills. Basically, a halfling bard could now begin play skilled in EIGHT skills! And I'm not sure why they get this ability. How does this link up to athasian canon? Were it me, I'd change the perception skill to insight (seems more athasian halfling to me), and get rid of the skill versatility ability and instead give them a speed of 30 feet and advantage on saves versus poison.
I'm not sure why either, and didn't even consider that occurring.
I like those options.
4. Why do MULS get perception as a bonus skill? That brings the number of races that have this up to three. I'd either give a mul athletics as a bonus skill, or give them another ability. Their inexhaustible ability is pretty neat, and thematic. I like.
Again, I'm not sure why either. Athletics makes more sense than perception. Once again, good call.
5. Thri-kreen are pretty amazing. I'd drop their free stealth skill, and completely lose the "sleepless" ability, instead saying something like "thri-kreen are awake during a long rest". Otherwise, you're giving them the ability to do two adventuring days while everyone else does one! That's WAY too powerful.
Awesome. This is exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for.
6. I do like seeing the Athas.org bard resurface once more. Not sure about the mechanics, but damn it's cool to see again.
I re-worked a lot of the bard material. Some of what is presented here was in a conversion I found (the Dark Sun 5th Edition Player's Handbook V2.0, which I linked to in the pdf) like the Trade Secrets feature, which I liked. I added the Poisoner feature with the table and poisons (some from the DMG, others I made up), and the Poison Mastery feature. The bard class is where I started since I have a player who is looking to play an Athasian Bard. I'm hoping it works well....
7. Psions. I'm notoriously anti psionic. I think Dark Sun can be run without psionics (and will do so, for my OWN conversion to 5e). PErsonally, Ithink you're biting off a huge chunk by trying to do psionics rules, but good luck to you.
Psionics was a huge selling point for 2E DS. There is a an entire 2E DS mega adventure (Dragon''s Crown) that deals heavily with psionics, so I felt we should have it here. And, yes, it is a big undertaking. I wanted to make it as integrated as possible with existing 5E material, so I decided on the the variant spell point system from the DMG as a base. With that I wanted the disciplines, like the wizard schools, so tried to give each discipline its own flavor. One thing with 3.5E psionics was the ability to augment, so I thought the sorcerer metamagic system was a good way to do that. I am disallowing sorcerer as a an Athasian class, so thought it wouldn't step on any toes there.
8. The defiling rules look pretty similar to what I'd do, but I'm not sure about nixing the current specializations in favour of a boolean preserver/defiler choice. Just not a huge fan of the effects on the game by doing so.... it makes the decision whether or not to defile already made for you, 95% of the time. If it's always an option for your diviner/abjurer/whatever, it's a lot more flavourful and fun.
Specialized wizards weren't allowed in 2E DS, so I figured they shouldn't be allowed here. I may have to reword the defiling rules to be clearer, but my intention was to allow all wizards to preserve or defile at will. If they defile they use the Wizard Feature: Arcane Defiling rule. A preserver
can defile if they choose to and use the Wizard Feature: Arcane Defiling and receive those benefits, as a defiler can choose
not to defile, and cast the spell normally. What the paths were intended to do was just make you better at one or the other.
9. Caravan Guard's mechanics don't make sense. Why not make the tool proficiencies "Land Vehicles", and either grant an extra language, OR something like "Artisan's tools (Cook)?" or Gaming TOols (your choice)?
10. Scribe is also broken - no background should grant common as one of the bonus languages. Change it to "one additional language of your choice".
11. Escaped Slave needs one more tool proficiency or language. Personally, I'd go with gaming tools, or some sort of profession tool (your choice). I'd also drop the word "untrained" from the background title.
Once more: good call. I'll look at those. They, also, were from the conversion I found earlier and threw them in without really modifying them.
12. Weapons seem good so far. I like em.
I totally lifted them from Cyber-Dave on the WotC DS boards, which I did credit him for in the pdf.
13. Might I suggest you add a rule somewhere that curbs the use of create water spells? A good thing to keep in mind.
Ah, yeah. There is mention of that as note under the Water Domain of the Cleric section, but you're correct, it should be stated clearly elsewhere.
All in all, it's a great start. I'm excited to see how this works in play!
Again, I really appreciate the input. I'm planning on running by the end of next month (July) and would like it to be as smooth as possible, so the feedback is invaluable.
Thank you!
