D&D 4E Dark Sun Conversion to 4E

[Dausuul]

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.

Well, the point was not to make it particularly burdensome to become a preserver. Remember that the standard D&D wizard is effectively a preserver; requiring a feat to get to where the standard D&D wizard already is has the effect of nerfing the wizard. One feat isn't too bad, especially since 4E feats are both more common and less potent than 3E feats. But if it takes multiple feats just to reach the level you're already supposed to be at according to the Player's Handbook, that hits preservers pretty hard.

My idea with the Defiler/Preserver Mastery feats was to make it possible to be either a defiler or a preserver, without having a major impact on game balance; and at the same time, to provide an avenue for preservers to "turn to the Dark Side," an avenue which is constantly tempting but not crazy overpowered.

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.

Muls, maybe; might use hobgoblin stats for them. Thri-kreen, probably not, unless somebody really wants to play a giant bug.

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.

This is a distinct possibility... heck, dragonborn might replace both. It's quite possible that dragonborn could be both elite warriors in the sorceror-kings' armies and masters of the gladiatorial arena.

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

You think? Elves have all those ranger-type special abilities...

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.

Keep in mind that tieflings are not just "random race #5." They have a distinct flavor, reinforced by their special abilities. I thought it was a good idea to suggest a dark origin for them, hence the link to a mysterious dead city.

Personally, I'd do away with the Clerics in Dark Sun. I never cared for them much. But YMMV.

I'd prefer not to cut any of the basic races or classes out of the setting altogether. Elemental clerics are kind of a kludge though. Perhaps clerics and paladins draw power from the moons?

I've never felt that cannibal halflings made a great PC race. But I'm sure others feel differently on the matter.

Man, I love me some cannibal halflings. They may be my favorite part of the whole setting.

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 don't see healing as necessarily an important part of the templar class, though. In fact, it seems slightly inappropriate. Templars are agents of the sorceror-kings; they're not very nice people. The warlock flavor seems to fit them a lot better.

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'd like a WotC update too, but we're not gonna get it till 2010 at the earliest, and I'd rather not wait that long. Anyway, I'm not proposing this as The Universal Authoritative 4E Dark Sun. I'm looking for something that works at my gaming table, and maybe at other people's too. If you like some of my ideas, by all means use 'em, but I see nothing wrong with everyone having their own opinion on exactly what 4E Dark Sun ought to look like.

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.

That kind of messes with the math though, because it means defilers are getting +2 across the board. It also does away with the whole defiler/preserver distinction--you can use either one at will.

But maybe the Preserver/Defiler Mastery feats should instead be wizard class features, where you pick one at first level, as Vagabundo suggested.

 

[Elphilm]

Neat stuff!

Hmm. I know aarakocras are not a player race in the original boxed set, and so probably do not interest a lot of people, but I wonder how viable they would be as player characters in 4E. Aarakocras should basically have unlimited flight at 1st level, and at first glance that does not seem to mesh well with how powerful an effect flight is in the new edition. For example, dragonborn are likely to gain wings at Paragon levels at the earliest.

 

[frankthedm]

Older topic on this subject http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=215526

Dray were the name of the dragonborn like race of darksun

Dray are a race of intelligent draconic humanoids created by Dregoth, the undead dragon king of Giustenal. Through his experience as a Champion of Rajaat and an advanced being, Dregoth came to believe that the dragon was the next step in human evolution, and created the dray to explore this belief. His initial experiments were unsuccessful but eventually led to the creation of the first generation of dray. These, however, proved to be flawed, imperfect beings and were unlovely in the eye of their creator. Dregoth banished them to the depths of the earth beneath Giustenal and redoubled his efforts. The second generation of dray was the result and in their lean contours and sleek lines Dregoth finally found the loyal children that he so desired.

Psionics
The powers PCs would normally have from utility magic items instead manefest as psi abiltities.

Defiling
Defiling should be the default assumption on arcane power sources. Arcane PCs should be expected to defile. Being a preserver means you are taking the moral high road on a world where that is not supposed to be rewarded. If someone chooses to preserve, they can chose to either

Increase action time one step: Minor>>Standard Standard>>Full round

Reduce power: Have a -2 to hit and -2 damage with the Arcane power if applicable

"Reduce power" could actually balance out since the inferior weapons the other classes are using should also be suffering penalties to hit and damage.

 

[Kordeth]

Psionics
The powers PCs would normally have from utility magic items instead manefest as psi abiltities.

That's a fairly nifty idea. Pick one magic item of your level or lower, you can use that item's power as a psionic power. I like it.

Defiling
Defiling should be the default assumption on arcane power sources. Arcane PCs should be expected to defile. Being a preserver means you are taking the moral high road on a world where that is not supposed to be rewarded. If someone chooses to preserve, they can chose to either

I have to disagree purely from a mechanical standpoint. Preserving should be the baseline as far as the rules go, defiling should give you greater power at the cost of, well, defiling. Not only is it in keeping with the portrayal of the rules in the 2E boxed set, it's much, much easier to design around.

Increase action time one step: Minor>>Standard Standard>>Full round

There are no full-round actions in 4E.

Reduce power: Have a -2 to hit and -2 damage with the Arcane power if applicable

"Reduce power" could actually balance out since the inferior weapons the other classes are using should also be suffering penalties to hit and damage.

This flies in the face of one of the core design philosophies of 4E: Reward players for being awesome, don't penalize them for sucking. Ditch the concept of global penalties; it serves no real purpose except to make the math weird and from a player-psychology perspective it's not fun to have an arbitrary penalty because of something completely out of your control.

 

[smathis]

Older topic on this subject http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=215526

Psionics
The powers PCs would normally have from utility magic items instead manefest as psi abiltities.

Defiling
Defiling should be the default assumption on arcane power sources. Arcane PCs should be expected to defile. Being a preserver means you are taking the moral high road on a world where that is not supposed to be rewarded. If someone chooses to preserve, they can chose to either

Increase action time one step: Minor>>Standard Standard>>Full round

Reduce power: Have a -2 to hit and -2 damage with the Arcane power if applicable

"Reduce power" could actually balance out since the inferior weapons the other classes are using should also be suffering penalties to hit and damage.

Those are both really great ideas.

But instead of increasing action "time" one step. Maybe increase frequency? at-will --> per-encounter --> per-day --> ???

 

[Dausuul]

That's a fairly nifty idea. Pick one magic item of your level or lower, you can use that item's power as a psionic power. I like it.

Agreed, this is an excellent idea. Maybe you get one at 1st level, and then one at each multiple of 5 (5th, 10th, et cetera). Of course, that's assuming there are such things as 1st-level items.

I have to disagree purely from a mechanical standpoint. Preserving should be the baseline as far as the rules go, defiling should give you greater power at the cost of, well, defiling. Not only is it in keeping with the portrayal of the rules in the 2E boxed set, it's much, much easier to design around.

Yeah, I played around with the possibility of some sort of "preserving penalty" (take a move action to preserve?), but ultimately decided it was better just to hand out a spiffy per-encounter power for defilers and make preservers spend a feat. And the more we discuss this, the more I like Vagabundo's solution; pick your path at 1st level, no feats required.

 

[smathis]

This flies in the face of one of the core design philosophies of 4E: Reward players for being awesome, don't penalize them for sucking. Ditch the concept of global penalties; it serves no real purpose except to make the math weird and from a player-psychology perspective it's not fun to have an arbitrary penalty because of something completely out of your control.

Good point. Being a Preserver always sucked, though. It took a special kind of nobility of character to portray them in Dark Sun.

That said, you're probably right about the penalization thing. Still, I like the idea of defiling being the default and preserving being something a wizard chooses to do because it's what he wants to do -- rather than just another set of kewl powerz.

 

[Kordeth]

Good point. Being a Preserver always sucked, though. It took a special kind of nobility of character to portray them in Dark Sun.

That said, you're probably right about the penalization thing. Still, I like the idea of defiling being the default and preserving being something a wizard chooses to do because it's what he wants to do -- rather than just another set of kewl powerz.

Defiling should be the default from a setting perspective, because it's easier and quicker. From a rules perspective, it's a lot easier to say "when you use this free-action at-will Defile power, magic is easier because X."

I suppose the alternative is to make preserving an at-will power that causes you to not defile the world around you, but it still feels like there needs to be more of a game-mechanic difference between the two. Then again, Dark Sun never really established what the benefits of Preserving were, beyond "not speeding the inevitable destruction of the world."

 

[smathis]

You think? Elves have all those ranger-type special abilities...

Yeah but I think it remains to be seen how those woodsy abilities would work on Athas, where Elves are pretty much nomadic Desert Gypsies. If the fluff of the 4e racial abilities is easy to tweak and the Elven racial abilities could fit into that role, I'd say go for it. Barring that, my preference would be Eladrin.

Keep in mind that tieflings are not just "random race #5." They have a distinct flavor, reinforced by their special abilities. I thought it was a good idea to suggest a dark origin for them, hence the link to a mysterious dead city.

Oh, yeah. I understand that. I'm talking more about the presentation. Maenads just appeared one day in the city of Tyr walking out of the desert. Within a short span of time, they became valuable advisors to the King. You could do the same with Tiefings.

Just say they came walking out of the North/South/wherever from a city called Bael Turath. No one knows much about them, other than they shared some secret knowledge with the Sorcerer King upon their arrival and now have the King's ear.

That basically casts the Tieflings in the same sort of role as Maenads in DS. But I think it fits.

I'd prefer not to cut any of the basic races or classes out of the setting altogether. Elemental clerics are kind of a kludge though. Perhaps clerics and paladins draw power from the moons?

Fair enough. I understand about not wanting to cut stuff out. Maybe clerics can worship entities out in the desert -- like the Djinns in Arabic folklore.

Man, I love me some cannibal halflings. They may be my favorite part of the whole setting.

I'd recommend keeping them. But as monsters (maybe use the Gnome?) I played in a game with a player who played a cannibal halfling. It was very annoying. But I'm willing to put forward that was as much the player as anything. Still, the idea of having a cannibal in the party kind of dampers the Epic feel I like to milk out of Dark Sun.

I don't see healing as necessarily an important part of the templar class, though. In fact, it seems slightly inappropriate. Templars are agents of the sorceror-kings; they're not very nice people. The warlock flavor seems to fit them a lot better.

I still say paladins. But we can agree to disagree. Templars healing works, especially if they're healing themselves. Otherwise, I think it gets hard to justify the Paladin in the setting. There aren't any holy orders. And clerics are mostly hermits that live out in the desert and worship things like Mud and Fire.

Maybe Paladins can be recast as Psionic Warriors?

I'd prefer that they would take over the Templar class. But YMMV.

 

[Dausuul]

Defiling should be the default from a setting perspective, because it's easier and quicker. From a rules perspective, it's a lot easier to say "when you use this free-action at-will Defile power, magic is easier because X."

I suppose the alternative is to make preserving an at-will power that causes you to not defile the world around you, but it still feels like there needs to be more of a game-mechanic difference between the two. Then again, Dark Sun never really established what the benefits of Preserving were, beyond "not speeding the inevitable destruction of the world."

IMO, the main benefit of preserving is that you can cast spells without everybody going, "Whoa. All the plants just disintegrated. Somebody around here is throwing spells. Who's standing at the center of the circle of ash?"

Plus you can join the Veiled Alliance, and the number of people who want your head on a stick is reduced to "the sorceror-kings and their minions," down from "absolutely freakin' everyone."

The problem is that the drawbacks of defiling are pretty much all RP-based, whereas the advantages tend to be game-mechanical, and balancing RP drawbacks against mechanical advantages is always a dangerous thing.