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

[Coroc]

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 buy DS if I don't want to use psionics?

it is doable but lots of work if you want to use published material.
it would be like removing magic from FR

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah, but also choosing your race and providing new mechanical options like a magic item or bonus feat.
I think it was planned as bigger than it ended up being.

But it was a selling feature. And it’s not like the Eberron patron system is mechanically heavy,

It's more heavy.

I think it ended up where they wanted it, it's cool but pure fluff, unlike Group Patrons or the Guilds.

 

[Coroc]

I don't see an issue with not calling it psionics and just having it be something else. Or just dropping it entirely and having magic in general be much more rare. Going lower magic in a setting predicated on gritty survival doesn't seem problematic to me.

I agree that Preserving and Defiling are fundamental to the setting, but I'm starting to wonder if having an alternative way of gaining powerful magical effects actually backgrounds the ecological trope more than is necessary. If there is no other way to do magic, that makes the Veiled Alliance's efforts to maintain humane magic all the more heroic.

renaming it could be the least problem, but that is just refluff.
thing is, ds has everybody and his mother be have at least some minor psi power often
the reason is mutation by the unfriendly environment so it has got a good in game explanation

 

[toucanbuzz]

I think Muls PC were all males, and Thrikreen all female...

Muls and Kreen could be either sex. Muls were simply born sterile and there's a handful of female muls mentioned in 2E supplements. In the supplement Thri-Kreen of Athas, reproduction has a page. Kreen are male and female, but have no physical differences discernable to "dra" (people). The only time male and female are treated differently in their culture is when the female is to lay eggs.

Halfelves, was the animal companion a 4e thing?

It's from 2E. The Dark Sun half-elf could befriend a "local animal, no larger than man-sized" at 5th level and have one such animal as his companion. Translation: something you get attached to that the DM can easily kill.

 

[Remathilis]

I’m still curious about what side setting agnostic mechanic or subsystem they could add to the book, as an additional selling feature.
Like factions in Ravnica, patrons in Eberron, heroic chronicle in Wildemount, and the books of Theros.

Maybe something related to multiple characters, like what 2nd Edition did. Advice on how to manage it and when you can switch and how treasure/ magic is handled.

Or an alternate resource tracking system, to use for food/ water, which gives variant rules for gathering food.

Dark Sun was also planned as a world of warfare with the Battle System rules being used. It might be the place to add the mass combat rules.

I think psionics would be the setting agnostic element.

 

[Jester David]

I think psionics would be the setting agnostic element.

Right. But we’re getting psionic content this fall in a book that doesn’t sound very Dark Sun based on the UA. So it won’t be unique to the setting. There’s no new feature, which WotC thinks is needed.

 

[Remathilis]

Right. But we’re getting psionic content this fall in a book that doesn’t sound very Dark Sun based on the UA. So it won’t be unique to the setting. There’s no new feature, which WotC thinks is needed.

We might be getting it, depending on the feedback and the project. It's also possible that the psionics of Dark Sun might be more through than the subclasses we've seen (new powers/spells, feats, or even the mythic psion class). I wouldn't rule out DS being a far more full-throated support of psionics than whatever were get this year.

 

[Jester David]

We might be getting it, depending on the feedback and the project. It's also possible that the psionics of Dark Sun might be more through than the subclasses we've seen (new powers/spells, feats, or even the mythic psion class). I wouldn't rule out DS being a far more full-throated support of psionics than whatever were get this year.

I expect Dark Sun in 2021 or 2022 with a mystic as a centerpiece class, like the artificer I’m Eberron.
But giving people psionic again, even with a new class, isn’t a new agnostic mechanic. Despite having a new class that could work in any setting Eberron still had the patron system.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

My opinion is the new class will be not the psion/mystic, but the gladiator, with the subclasses:

Beast Trainer
Blind Fighter
Arena Champion
Convict
Professional Gladiator
Jazst
Montare
Reaver
Gladiatorial Slave

The gladiator would use special attacks: the martial maneuvers, ki powers what need a special reload, in the middle between at-will and once-encounter.

 

[Hoffmand]

Kalidnay was a terrible idea, along with the 'let's drag Soth into Ravenloft' thing they pulled back then

I see 'em throwing in Genasi because they're an easy fit to Dark Sun's various stuff and, if including Dray, I'd be looking more at what Wildemount did with Dragonborn rather than the base, but I don't see many expansions beyond that.

(I mean there is my hope that gnomes end up the default 'lost ancient race with mysterious technology' for Athas because that'd be hilarious, but, yeah.)

Oath was perfect form ravenloft. The perfect candidate for a major domain lord.