D&D 2E Definitive Darksun

[Zardnaar]

So back in the day we played Datksun. But we only had the original boxed set. We didn't know about the events of the prism pentad or the rest of the DS material.

Ran in again using 3.5. Didn't feel right even with the rules from Athas.org.

So looking at running it again using original 2E stuff. I'm looking at ignoring the events of the Prism Pentad. If Kalak dies I want the PCs to do it or at least be involved/organize it.

Anyway printed out the player stuff from the original set plus Dune Trader and earth, air, fire, water.

In dead tree format only have Dragon Kings and revised boxed set.

Basic idea is use material from 1991-93. I only want to print off the player facing stuff. I'll be using the City State of Tyr, Ivory Triangle and Veiled Alliance pdfs but not planning on printing them. DM stiff I'll use at home, paraphrase it or print out just what I need.

Considering using optional rules like critical hits and some of the complete books eg Fighter and Tome of Magic.

Adventures will be more inspirational than used as written. Let's face it 2E Adventures espicially Darksun ones are not good.

So what's the best material you need? Context I also have to carry it (3 copies of 2E PHB, complete psionists+fighter books).

Thoughts?

 

[Voadam]

I really liked the first boxed set and the world it set up. I was quite disappointed the Prism Pentad took the promise of the setting and had novel protagonists take away the toppling of a number of Sorcerer Kings from the PCs, it seemed a natural mega adventure concept that would have been fun to run.

I got a lot of use out of Dragon Kings, but more as a general 2e sourcebook, my longtime wizard character loved protection from time and improved haste.

The big PC sourcebook you have not listed is The Will and the Way for Dark Sun specific psionics expansion. The psionics handbook stuff was enough for my limited Dark Sun purposes but everybody gets psionics in Dark Sun so having more variety is nice if you are fairly familiar with the base Complete Psionics material.

There are also PC sourcebooks for Dark Sun Elves and Thri Kreen which are a bit more niche as well as the Complete Gladiators Handbook which focuses more on arenas than PC options.

On the DM side I am big fan of the Dark Sun Monstrous Compendium appendices Terrors of the Desert and Terrors Beyond Tyr. The monster palette goes a big way to saying powerful psionic desert post apocalypse Dark Sun specific D&D.

I am not familiar with the modules so I cannot recommend or steer you away from any as resources.

 

[Zardnaar]

I really liked the first boxed set and the world it set up. I was quite disappointed the Prism Pentad took the promise of the setting and had novel protagonists take away the toppling of a number of Sorcerer Kings from the PCs, it seemed a natural mega adventure concept that would have been fun to run.

I got a lot of use out of Dragon Kings, but more as a general 2e sourcebook, my longtime wizard character loved protection from time and improved haste.

The big PC sourcebook you have not listed is The Will and the Way for Dark Sun specific psionics expansion. The psionics handbook stuff was enough for my limited Dark Sun purposes but everybody gets psionics in Dark Sun so having more variety is nice if you are fairly familiar with the base Complete Psionics material.

There are also PC sourcebooks for Dark Sun Elves and Thri Kreen which are a bit more niche as well as the Complete Gladiators Handbook which focuses more on arenas than PC options.

On the DM side I am big fan of the Dark Sun Monstrous Compendium appendices Terrors of the Desert and Terrors Beyond Tyr. The monster palette goes a big way to saying powerful psionic desert post apocalypse Dark Sun specific D&D.

I am not familiar with the modules so I cannot recommend or steer you away from any as resources.

Think I've got all of that on pdf.

Kreen and Elves a bit niche. I'll see what people actually roll up if no one plays a psion it's DM material.

 

[Enrico Poli1]

Besides the DS Boxed Set, the essentials for me are Dragon Kings; The Will & The Way; Earth, Air, Fire & Water; Dune Trader; Monstrous Compendium DS Appendix.
I also love Valley of Dust & Fire.
The only good adventures are Dragon's Crown and Merchant House of Amketch.

 

[Mark Hope]

My core stuff is the original boxed set plus pterrans and aarakocra, loads of kits, Dragon Kings, Dune Trader, Veiled Alliance, City-State of Tyr, Will and the Way, and other bits added for flavour. I use fighting styles from CFH, with more we homebrewed, made my own kits, added some non-core races (ssurrans, gith etc), and compiled all the spells and psionic stuff in one place. I also reworked psionics but I don't really like the end result and will be working on that again. I put my houserules and other stuff together in individual books - you can check them out here if you like:

Dark Sun 2e Hacks : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Hacks from the To Tame A Land stream for playing Dark Sun 2e

archive.org

Also, I ran the initial run of adventures and streamed them - if you can sit through watching other people playing D&D (weirdly, I can't ) you can catch those here:

 

[AnderNGmx]

I put my houserules and other stuff together in individual books - you can check them out

thanks for these, i will read them this week