D&D 5E How To Darksun

[Zardnaar]

I never considered Dark Sun to be low magic. Gritty? Certainly. The entire setting was out to kill you in horrible ways, but even the most bestial of opponents had magic tricks, sorry psionic wild talents. Athas always felt equal parts John Carter and Conan with a little super hero thrown in. Dark Sun was over the top. Ability scores went to 21. You started at 3rd level and had super powers, sorry wild talents again. Wizards could level as fast as rogues if they merely turned the world a little more ashy. I loved it.
5e seems a good fit for Dark Sun but needs some serious fluff adjustment. Without the addition of psionic classes and wild talents, the base classes are going to have to fill in. Paladins and Hexblades make good fill ins for Psychic Warriors Bards can make ok psions maybe a new oath for paladins Oath of Fealty to the Sorcerer King?
Giving the variant human free feat or asi at first unless a large race is pretty elegant actually. Thrikreen and Half giants will not over shadow and it echoes the advanced starting level of 2e Dark Sun

I tweaked the default human for darksun. The extra feat thing is also for elves Dwarves etc got the idea from groups that grant a bonus as I level 1 anyway.

 

[Dispater]

Sorry, the DS setting -is- low magic. All wizards are hunted on Athas. Defilers are universally shunned. Preservers have to live in hiding. The only reason Sorcerer Kings exist is they are too powerful to topple. Otherwise there'd be a revolution (and there's already been one in in Tyr).

Psionics are a plenty true but Wild Talents are just subtle little tricks, like a cantrip-level effect. And as a DM you can scale back the level of psionics to your liking. Too powerful psionic characters will often be seen to be in direct confrontation with the SK's who are powerful psionicists themselves, and will only want magic/psionics-powered PCs in their cities for a reason.

 

[Zardnaar]

Sorry, the DS setting -is- low magic. All wizards are hunted on Athas. Defilers are universally shunned. Preservers have to live in hiding. The only reason Sorcerer Kings exist is they are too powerful to topple. Otherwise there'd be a revolution (and there's already been one in in Tyr).

Psionics are a plenty true but Wild Talents are just subtle little tricks, like a cantrip-level effect. And as a DM you can scale back the level of psionics to your liking. Too powerful psionic characters will often be seen to be in direct confrontation with the SK's who are powerful psionicists themselves, and will only want magic/psionics-powered PCs in their cities for a reason.

Wild talents in the original Darksun could e very powerful. To the extent you could have a wilder more powerful than the actual psion at low levels.

Generally I think wild talents should be scaled down, basically to cantrip levels and everyone gets one (maybe 2 or 3 randomly though not players choice) for free.

2E spells and magic rated Darksun higher than low magic, there is a bit of it and it was very powerful. It gritty magic and hard to acquire/risky but its power is higher than the PHB.

 

[Remathilis]

[MENTION=7635]Remathilis[/MENTION] #14 I ran MotRD quite fine as a little sidekick in my greyhawk campaign. Of course you have to alter a few things, but since this is mainly a RP - orientated with a Little bit of riddle solving adventure - it is absolutely easy to convert. (I am only talking about the actual MoTRD adventure not the other two in the boxed set or the Setting as such but also the modern classes introduced therein are easy to reshape in 5e but that would derail the thread to much)

What i did (and that's about the only thing in MotRD which is easy to do with 2e mechanic but close to impossible in 5e) is to make the red death an unattackable thing, a force of fear and instant death for the Players foolish enough to engage it in direct combat. Which is the RAW Intention in the 2e adventure also.

I was talking about the setting, but if you want to discuss running D&D in 1890s Earth, I'll start a thread on it.