Is Dark Sun Coming To D&D?

WotC staff are dropping cryptic hints about campaign settings again! A couple of week ago it was Spelljammer; this time, it's Dark Sun. At Gary Con this year, during a D&D panel, WotC's Mike Mearls said of the psionic Mystic class -- "we don't need that class until we do Dark Sun."

WotC staff are dropping cryptic hints about campaign settings again! A couple of week ago it was Spelljammer; this time, it's Dark Sun. At Gary Con this year, during a D&D panel, WotC's Mike Mearls said of the psionic Mystic class -- "we don't need that class until we do Dark Sun."


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He followed it up with with the usual note that he can't make product announcements and that all settings were part of the multiverse. You can hear the seminar on the Plot Points podcast. "Ben recorded a seminar wherein six game designers who worked on Dungeons and Dragons (Skip Williams, Jon Pickens, Zeb Cook, Ed Stark, Steve Winter, and Mike Mearls) talk about game design. During the talk, current lead designer Mike Mearls may very well have let slip what the next classic D&D game world he will be reviving next!"

Dark Sun was a campaign setting released back in the 1990s, and was a post-apocalyptic desert world called Athas, with psionics in abundance and dark survivalist themes. It made a reappearance in 2010 for D&D 4E.
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Morrus

Morrus is the owner of EN World and EN Publishing, creator of the ENnies, creator of the What's OLD is NEW (WOIN), Simply6, and Awfully Cheerful Engine game systems, publisher of Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition, and co-host of the weekly Morrus' Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk podcast. He has been a game publisher and RPG community administrator for over 20 years, and has been reporting on TTRPG and D&D news for over two decades. He is also on the socials.
C

Coroc

Hero
[MENTION=6684404]Superchunk77[/MENTION] #35 Great idea, you nail it, but both classes are cool for warlock. The templars shout for it , but your idea is such an easy solution for another Dasrksun dillema. I never did 4e darksun but isn' t it that it had no clerics at all?

Your solution would cover 2nd ed and 4e then for the elemental cleric.
 

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C

Coroc

Hero
[MENTION=6801060]Demetrios1453[/MENTION] and [MENTION=40158]Werebat[/MENTION] There were large size creatures in 2e many weapons did more damge to These and some did less. Halfgiants were categorized as large, thri kreen were not. Halgfgiants had twice the hid dice to compensate (A halfgiant warrior had 2d10 Hp / Level)

Constitution 20 and up granted Regeneration in 2nd ed so that was an additional potential advantage for those races who could rech this score.
 

dwayne

dwayne

Adventurer
Darksun, grayhawk, planescape, are my favorites so anyone of these would be great, but please no more forsaken realms so hate that overrated catchall setting.
 


Q

QuietBrowser

First Post
Coroc said:
[MENTION=6684404]Superchunk77[/MENTION] #35 Great idea, you nail it, but both classes are cool for warlock. The templars shout for it , but your idea is such an easy solution for another Dasrksun dillema. I never did 4e darksun but isn' t it that it had no clerics at all?

Your solution would cover 2nd ed and 4e then for the elemental cleric.
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4e handled the classes this way:
  • Defiler was no longer a variant wizard; instead, all Arcane classes have the option to use Arcane Defiling as an at-will utility that destroyed the land around them to reroll hit and damage results.
  • All Divine classes were out of the game; the role of healer instead was upheld by the other Leader classes (Bard, Warlord, Ardent, Shaman), and the Elemental Priest archetype was handled as a combination of access to the Primal classes (Shaman, mainly) and an Elemental Priest class-theme.
  • The Athasian Druid was presented as less a druid variant class and instead a new theme, the Primal Guardian.
  • Templars went from being a variant Cleric class to being both a new Warlock subclass, the Sorcerer-King Patron, and a new class-theme, the Templar.
 

C

Coroc

Hero
[MENTION=22424]delericho[/MENTION] #64

Were they were large as Monsters in bothe the Standard 2nd ed MM and the darksun MM, and wasn't there a Differentiation in Thri kreen and Thor kreen? I am pretty sure Thri kreen PCs in 2nd ed were medium. Otherwise they would have gotten some compensation mechanic like the halfgiants double hitpoints.
 

D

Dausuul

Legend
Coroc said:
Half Giant is far more complicated in 5E because you need to give him Strength of 20+ somehow and that is not covered by BA. Also you Need some solution for the size and the alignment shifts. A Goliath is a weak shadow of a half giant that is not at all a solution or even a valid approach.
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Allowing half-giants to go to Strength 22 is either a minor concern which can be addressed with some care and boundary-setting by the designers, or a game-wrecking threat that will turn 5E into 3E at its Christmas tree worst. In real life, it's the first. Here on the Internet, it's the second.

Size is more difficult because it allows them to use bigger weapons. A half-giant with a greatsword gets a +2 damage bonus over a human (2d8 instead of 2d6). Given that 5E relies heavily on "more attacks" rather than "more damage per attack" to scale by level, this is a pretty big deal. Not sure how to go about balancing that one. Penalty on attack rolls to counteract the benefit? AC reduction? And how do you adjust the penalty for the fact that most weapons only get +1 but a couple of big weapons get +2? Tough call.

The alignment thing is trivial. 5E doesn't even care about alignment 99% of the time.
 
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Paul Farquhar

Paul Farquhar

Legend
2nd edition didn't really worry about categorisation medium/vs large. That didn't become a big thing until 3rd edition. Things where as big as the they where. The half giants, at 11 foot+, where considerably larger than Tri-keen, which are only as tall as a human but have a much longer body.

I would think 5e would retcon both to medium though, making half giants 8 foot instead of 11. Giving half giants a racial +2 to strength cap wouldn't be difficult, barbarians already get something similar, and belts of giant strength break the cap. Muls could have +2 con cap.
 


Tales and Chronicles

Tales and Chronicles

Jewel of the North, formerly know as vincegetorix
I think its possible to create an interesting half-giant as a medium creature while keeping what makes a ''giant'' humanoid fun to play if you use features already present in the PHB and Volo's
- +2 Con, +2 Str, -1 Int
- Powerful build: extra size for carrying and lifting
- Long-limbed: +5' reach on your attacks
- you have long legs: Speed 35'

Then create a special features using the Enlarge spell as template:
- Gigantic Might: Advantage on Str check and Str saving throws.
- Heavy Handed: Enemies have disadvantage to escape your grapples and fists deals 1d6+str.
 

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