Dark Sun Preview at Pax East

[Rex Blunder]

We played in a Dark Sun delve at PAX, fighting, among other enemies, a savage halfling and some githyanki guards. I grabbed a couple of the 1st-level pregen character sheets (human warlock and goliath fighter) and noted a few fun Dark Sun-specific rules.

Some highlights:
-Wacky critical fumble rules! On a 1, you can choose to have your weapon break in exchange for rerolling your attack. So, rolling a 1 is actually better than rolling a 2!
-Templates, which look like paragon paths for heroic tier. Everyone gets more encounter powers!
-Inferior weapons and armor - our defenders were wearing hide and chiton armor instead of metal armor.
-My warlock was a "defiler", which meant I could reroll my daily power in exchange for doing damage to my allies. Also some story implications?

There was some other stuff too. I've got a full writeup at blogofholding.com.

(Edit: I see Critical Hits has better scans of all the sheets, minus the bizarre doodles...)

 

[filthgrinder]

We played in a Dark Sun delve at PAX, fighting, among other enemies, a savage halfling and some githyanki guards. I grabbed a couple of the 1st-level pregen character sheets (human warlock and goliath fighter) and noted a few fun Dark Sun-specific rules.

Some highlights:
-Wacky critical fumble rules! On a 1, you can choose to have your weapon break in exchange for rerolling your attack. So, rolling a 1 is actually better than rolling a 2!
-Templates, which look like paragon paths for heroic tier. Everyone gets more encounter powers!
-Inferior weapons and armor - our defenders were wearing hide and chiton armor instead of metal armor.
-My warlock was a "defiler", which meant I could reroll my daily power in exchange for doing damage to my allies. Also some story implications?

There was some other stuff too. I've got a full writeup at blogofholding.com.

It was the same mod that was run at DDXP. I got a chance to play it at PAX on friday night. It was pretty fun. We only had 5 people through it, but four of us had played together, so we ran pretty fast. It did leave me completely pumped for Dark Sun however, I can't wait.

Also, Tycho mentioned at the first Q&A panel that they are going to be doing more D&D podcasts, and he will be running a Dark Sun game for a podcast, and he was excited about it. That should be pretty great.

 

[darjr]

Thanks for the preview character post. I've got players chomping at the bit for DarkSun. Keep asking 'are we there yet'.

And the news about those podcasts is just way cool.

 

[Rechan]

My warlock was a "defiler", which meant I could reroll my daily power in exchange for doing damage to my allies.

Bah. Prefer my houserule.

 

[Knightfall]

I've got a full writeup at blogofholding.com.

Best. Blog. Name. Evar!

 

[skinnydwarf]

I played Dark Sun at PAX as well, and it was a blast. I was the Goliath Gladiator, which was a lot of fun since I've been enjoying Spartacus: Blood and Sand on Netflix.

(Spoilers ahead)

Spoiler

The arena fights were cool, especially the first one with the two halves of the party divided by a wooden wall. Near the end my goliath leaped onto the wall, roared at the crowd to get them jazzed up, and hurled his iron bastard sword at the remaining monster (not that the other players didn't have it under control, it was just cool). I rolled a 1, which because my weapon was metal meant I could re-roll and maybe hit, and it would only break on a 1-5. Of course I rerolled, and got a 6- missing and just barely not breaking my precious metal weapon. The ever fickle crowd booed me down.

I played 4E for about 12 straight hours on Saturday, and while I've never been against 4E, I'm becoming a bigger fan. The Encounters season sounds sweet, and I'm glad I got to start at PAX. My Tiefling Psion will now be delving into Undermountain...

 

[Rechan]

HELL YEAH Spartacus: Blood and Sand!

Spoiler

I'm really curious what the arena battles were/monsters fought were. I'm making a gladiatorial-themed intro session to teach some guys the 4e system.

 

[filthgrinder]

HELL YEAH Spartacus: Blood and Sand!

My group made a bunch of Spartacus: Blood and Sand jokes during the game as well. I came with a group of 4 (including me), so I felt sorry for the DM and the other player for having to deal with our shenanigans.

 

[Zaukrie]

Defilers do damage to their allies, correct? So, why would that be evil/bad/the kind of guy we want to fight against? Do we think defilers will still be destroying the world?*

*it's possible I missed story elements late in the fluff of earlier editions that would explain this away already....

 

[awesomeocalypse]

having another defiler in the party will make hellish rebuke one of the best at-wills in the game.