D&D 5E What do you want in a Dark Sun book (sans psionics)?

[shadowoflameth]

A good mechanic for Arcane Defiling and the Dark Sun monsters.

 

[rgoodbb]

A good mechanic for Arcane Defiling and the Dark Sun monsters.

<---- Did someone order a Cilops?

 

[SkidAce]

How so? Does removing the psionics change anything else about the setting? It feels pasted on to me, but I could be wrong.

You could remove it fine and play a John Carter of Mars or apocalyptic stetting. It would work fine. There would be some modifications to be made, but its doable.

But SHOULD you. I think not, its not as pasted on as you fear. It works within the setting and it fits. It permeates the society and there are reasons for it to be that way.

And I enjoy having a bandit with a random talent that changes the encounter slightly.

I highly recommend reading the setting guide before deciding.

 

[dave2008]

You could remove it fine and play a John Carter of Mars or apocalyptic stetting. It would work fine. There would be some modifications to be made, but its doable.

But SHOULD you. I think not, its not as pasted on as you fear. It works within the setting and it fits. It permeates the society and there are reasons for it to be that way.

That is my fear - I am hoping it is pasted on and easily removed.

I highly recommend reading the setting guide before deciding.

I will, however, I don't like psionics. So if I were to use the DS setting it would be without psionics. My question is if it is worth the effort to buy DS if I don't want to use psionics?

 

[Fenris-77]

That is my fear - I am hoping it is pasted on and easily removed.


I will, however, I don't like psionics. So if I were to use the DS setting it would be without psionics. My question is if it is worth the effort to but DS if I don't want to use psionics?

I think you could run DS without Psionics with only minimal fiddling. The biggest issue, IMO, would be converting monsters and NPCs that have psionics and recalculating CR, if that's your thing. I don't think the setting somehow doesn't work without psionics though.

 

[Parmandur]

If it just lore, that is not an issue for me.
I know JCoM, but what does Planetary Romance have to do with psionics?

Everyone on Barsoom had telepathic powers, including John Carter.

 

[Parmandur]

That is my fear - I am hoping it is pasted on and easily removed.


I will, however, I don't like psionics. So if I were to use the DS setting it would be without psionics. My question is if it is worth the effort to but DS if I don't want to use psionics?

Ah, for personal use: probably.

 

[dave2008]

Everyone on Barsoom had telepathic powers, including John Carter.

I didn't realize that, never read the books. Just familiar with them.

 

[dave2008]

The biggest issue, IMO, would be converting monsters and NPCs that have psionics and recalculating CR, if that's your thing. .

I think I can handle that - thank you for the input!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think you could run DS without Psionics with only minimal fiddling. The biggest issue, IMO, would be converting monsters and NPCs that have psionics and recalculating CR, if that's your thing. I don't think the setting somehow doesn't work without psionics though.

The setting makes zero sense with psionics, though, that's the big issue. The structure of societies, the way people operate and so on are all predicated on psionics being "a thing". It's similar with the FR and the gods - you take out the gods and you leave a weird giant hole in the setting and the history suddenly makes no sense, and how people relate to each other makes no sense, and there are all these weird empty buildings in the towns and so on. The politics of various cities falls apart.

(There's definite a campaign idea there, where it's the FR but suddenly the gods are gone and no-one remembers the names of the gods, or what their tenets were or anything. And maybe for extra fun, all the clerics, druids, etc. DO still have their powers, their uniforms, their holy symbols and so on, but now have to decide what they're going to do with all that, have to work out their own beliefs and so on. And obviously total chaos will occur, esp. as many societies in the FR are somewhat theocratic - with the Drow it'll be total screaming chaos.)

If you just want to run a vaguely post-apocalyptic, planetary-romance-ish take on D&D, I don't think you really need to Dark Sun for that.

It might still be worth it to steal the city-states and sorcerer-kings and so on, though, because you could probably re-work all that easily enough. I wouldn't go around representing it as a "Dark Sun" game though, not that you necessarily would, but some people would.