More Dark SUn tidbits by Rich Baker

[Nahat Anoj]

Confirmation of no new classes in the Darksun books is given in this James Wyatt interview on Newbie DM. Scroll down to the last question.

Finally, tease us with something we can expect in 4th ed. that we don’t know yet.

I suppose this is a nice way of coming full circle from the start of the interview. You should expect the unexpected! I don’t ever want the design team to fall into ruts or do things because that’s what we’ve done before. For example, when we started Dark Sun design, we had a lot of discussions about what class we should include in the book, because we had introduced a class in each of our previous two campaign setting Player’s Guides. But first we had to ask the question of whether a new class was the right thing to add to the game in Dark Sun, and ultimately we decided no. So instead, Dark Sun is going to offer an entirely new mechanic that will take you by surprise. Stay tuned!

Emphasis mine, naturally.

 

[Rechan]

Dagnabbit, ninja'd.
http://newbiedm.com/2009/09/14/1d12-questions-with-james-wyatt/

 

[AllisterH]

Templar and gladiator will probably resemble the gladiator article from Dragon #368 if I have to guess....

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

Racial trapping for dragonborn so they fit in on Athas just fine: scratch out any reference to "Dragonborn" and replace with "Dray", limit racial powers to fire only. Boom, problem goes away.

And this is coming from a Dark Sun fanatic and 4e hater.

Have to agree, dislike 4e a lot love, love Dark suns, Dragonborn with some work do infact fill in well for dray. This is one area where there really is no issue. There were two races of dray so there is a lot of ways you could spin this.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

I'd be more inclined to expect Gladiator to be a Fighter build, along with Tempest and Battlerager.

 

[Simm]

Another way they could go, is to build the templar and gladiator as "cross class only" classes, like they did with spellscared in FR. I could see it working out well, after all they're closer to professions than life paths.

 

[Dragonhelm]

Glad to see the thri-kreen and mul, but where's the half-giant? I wonder if they're redefining things and going with the goliath.

Really, that's something to consider. Even though they're going back to the original boxed set, how much of the setting will be a reboot? It doesn't seem logical to expect the setting to remain exactly the same.

 

[WalterKovacs]

Another way they could go, is to build the templar and gladiator as "cross class only" classes, like they did with spellscared in FR. I could see it working out well, after all they're closer to professions than life paths.

The part about "entirely new direction" is interesting, as it doesn't seem to necessarily be the same as spellscared multiclassing. A new build would make it like the Dark Pact warlock build from FR as well.

Perhaps something along the lines of a less feat-intensive multiclass, like a single feat that allows you to include powers from this class on your list, similar to the skill based utilities.

 

[Wik]

I forgot to say this before, but did anyone else notice that Mouseferatu is one of the design team? I said this in another DS thread, but that's really good news for me.

 

[CasvalRemDeikun]

Glad to see the thri-kreen and mul, but where's the half-giant? I wonder if they're redefining things and going with the goliath.

That's how I would have done it. They probably have something in store for either the Half-Orc or Goliath to make the Half-Giant. Mul and Thri-Kreen don't have anything analogous to them in existence yet, so their presence in the book is all but required since they are hallmark races of the setting.

I can't say that the lack of a new class makes me consider buying the PG (as I have for the other two settings, though I also bought the ECG), and if defiling is the new mechanic, I can't say I would find much use at all out of the book. Right now, the book sits at a pass for me, but that can change. The CG is a pass regardless (not interested in the setting).