D&D 5E 5e has everything it needs for Dark Sun

[DEFCON 1]

@dave2008 has it right... the assumption is that you can take 5E as it currently stands... and make a DS setting book the exact same way they've made Eberron, Ravenloft, Theros, Ravnica etc.-- by adding in specific subclasses, ancestries, and extra rules to fill in the missing gaps. So of course there would be a player thri-kreen ancestry, and either all-new or adapted half-dwarf and half-giant ancestries. There would probably be preserver and defiler Wizard subclasses. Maybe they might add in a Sorcerer-King warlock patron, and maybe an additional psionic sub-class (beyond the fighter / rogue / sorcerer ones already in the game.)

You add that stuff and your standard continent area map with details on the major areas, some of the big NPCs, and a whole bunch of monsters and WotC will produce a book that's basically as top-level as all the other books they have done. Good for a taste of the setting, some ideas for how adventures and campaigns could be run there... but little to no deep details that come from most of the DS material from editions past. That can all easily be done.

Will it be what the Dark Sun purists want? Of course not. But the DS purists don't need anything deeper, because they probably already own all the old stuff that they can just re-purpose it for a new game. The only thing this campaign book would do is highlight this setting into the minds of new players who don't know anything about it. And thus when a DS purest says "I'd love to run a game of Dark Sun for you"... all these new players that have started D&D with 5E have at least a foot to stand on as far as understanding what they are getting into.

But there is absolutely no reason for a purist to think that any new DS book WotC publishes is going to give them everything they believe is necessary to run effective campaigns there. It is numerically impossible just based upon page count alone.

 

[DEFCON 1]

What this analogy misses is that Ravenloft genuinely does have all the rules it needs (including those in Ravenloft), whereas DS would have to simply shrug and ignore a major aspect of the setting.

Heh... I am willing to bet there are Ravenloft purists out there who in fact don't believe this new book has all the rules Ravenloft needs for an effective campaign. Because those 2E books had a crap-ton of new rules for all kinds of stuff, of which almost none of it is included in Van Richten's. The only difference is how many of those rules a person feels are necessary or not necessary to have.

You have a certain level of mechanical heft you feel is necessary to actually have a 5E Dark Sun campaign setting book, whereas others would think that heft was unnecessary. You believe Van Richten's has all the heft necessary to run Ravenloft, whereas there are others probably out there who believe WotC missed the mark and left too much out. Neither of you is right... and neither of you is wrong. And it's because there is no consensus, WotC feels fine producing the single campaign books that they do... because they'll be perfectly useable to a large enough sampling of the D&D population for what they need.

 

[Sithlord]

I wonder how many people played dark sun 2E without psionics. I know a few tables that did.

 

[see]

It obviously does not. You'd need vastly expanded Psionic subclasses even without Psion,

Huh? 2E Dark Sun didn't need a bunch of psionic class variants, why would 5E Dark Sun need them? Unless you were a member of the psionicist class, your only psionics in 2E was a wild talent, which is trivially simulated with "hey, you can cast this one spell off this list of 'psionic powers' without components".

No rules about preservers/defilers.

Yeah, here's preservers/defilers rules, based on a rough into-5e-translation of the fact that the benefit of defiling in 2E was you advanced in level somewhat faster:

1) By default, you're a preserver, just like every 2E preserver used the core AD&D wizard rules.
2) You can choose to defile when you cast an upcastable spell. When you do so, you kill plants in a 10 foot * spell level of slot used radius, and the spell's power is increased as if you used a one-level-higher slot.
3) If you choose to be a pure defiler, you always defile, even when using non-upcastable spells. As your additional bennie, you get a free spell slot of [your highest castable level or 5th level, whichever is lower].

No rules about elemental clerics

That's easily-enough handled as a set of cleric domains.

I wonder how many people played dark sun 2E without psionics. I know a few tables that did.

We didn't play "without psionics", but we didn't have any PC members of the psionicist class, because the CPH psionicist was a wonky mess.

 

[Sithlord]

Huh? 2E Dark Sun didn't need a bunch of psionic class variants, why would 5E Dark Sun need them? Unless you were a member of the psionicist class, your only psionics in 2E was a wild talent, which is trivially simulated with "hey, you can cast this one spell off this list of 'psionic powers' without components".

Yeah, here's preservers/defilers rules, based on a rough into-5e-translation of the fact that the benefit of defiling in 2E was you advanced in level somewhat faster:

1) By default, you're a preserver, just like every 2E preserver used the core AD&D wizard rules.
2) You can choose to defile when you cast an upcastable spell. When you do so, you kill plants in a 10 foot * spell level of slot used radius, and the spell's power is increased as if you used a one-level-higher slot.
3) If you choose to be a pure defiler, you always defile, even when using non-upcastable spells. As your additional bennie, you get a free spell slot of [your highest castable level or 5th level, whichever is lower].

That's easily-enough handled as a set of cleric domains.

We didn't play "without psionics", but we didn't have any PC members of the psionicist class, because the CPH psionicist was a wonky mess.

I agree with everything u said. But, don’t say wonky like it’s bad thing

 

[ph0rk]

It does not have decent psionics - but that isn't a roadblock, rather that's something cool and general to put in the book - which is sort of in keeping with other books for 5e.


A real psion class would be a really cool thing, though I suppose the players that are really emotionally invested in sorcerers being whatever their are will gnash their teeth.

 

[Sithlord]

Really imho. The sorcerer should be the psion.

 

[ph0rk]

Really imho. The sorcerer should be the psion.

Too late, people are really stuck on them being crappier sparkly wizards who never went to school.

All they really need is spell points and alt casting stats.

 

[ChaosOS]

To clarify my view; I think RftLW having a brand new class was an extraordinary occurrence, and also notably eats up a ton of page count. I'd much rather have a few subclasses, Wild Talents, and then the necessary setting rules for things like defiling. And as others have noted, the simple reality is any setting book couldn't replicate the full breadth of old lore, any book is going to be an invitation to pick up old stuff off the dmsguild
Sidebar; I overall like the dragonmarks-as-subraces, even if I think the Spells of the Mark is a bit of an awkward feature (currently playing a Deneith Psi Warrior and a Jorasco Diviner Wizard in two different campaigns)

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Huh? 2E Dark Sun didn't need a bunch of psionic class variants, why would 5E Dark Sun need them? Unless you were a member of the psionicist class, your only psionics in 2E was a wild talent, which is trivially simulated with "hey, you can cast this one spell off this list of 'psionic powers' without components".

Because there's no Psion. If there is, it becomes less of an issue. But if you think what we have is "sufficient" to support a 2E-style DS, then you're fooling yourself.

Too late, people are really stuck on them being crappier sparkly wizards who never went to school.

All they really need is spell points and alt casting stats.

Yeah, we got the worst possible version of Sorcerer for 5E, because of the terror of upsetting Pathfinder/3.5E players. In the playtest they had a far sexier version, and Psion-style approach would also have worked well. Instead we get this pathetic 3.5E retro version. Lame.

idebar; I overall like the dragonmarks-as-subraces, even if I think the Spells of the Mark is a bit of an awkward feature

I mean, it's one of the worst-implemented mechanics in 5E and is the result of a godawful last-minute panic compromise. The version in earlier playtests of Eberron was far better, and if Eberron had come out after or closer to Theros, they'd have just done Dragonmarks as one choice in some sort of "Boons" menu all Eberron PCs got.