D&D General Dark Sun as a Hopepunk Setting

[Charlaquin]

 

[Gradine]

 

[Steampunkette]

It's going to take me a while to get use that name. Who came up with it and why?

Planetouched: Elementaari | Level Up

a5e.tools

Anthony Alipio came up for the Gate Pass Gazette issue 18.

 

[Charlaquin]

I do think it might be best to come up with an alternative to sorcerer king. It’s both very recognizably Dark Sun, and technically gender-specific, neither of which are necessarily problems, but as long as the serial numbers are being filed off anyway, may as well hit that one.

…Are Zevites not-Gith? That was the impression I got, but I wasn’t sure.

 

[Steampunkette]

I do think it might be best to come up with an alternative to sorcerer king. It’s both very recognizably Dark Sun, and technically gender-specific, neither of which are necessarily problems, but as long as the serial numbers are being filed off anyway, may as well hit that one.

…Are Zevites not-Gith? That was the impression I got, but I wasn’t sure.

Zevites are not-Gith, yeah. Zevanchist and Child of Zev are the heritages I wrote for them to be as Githy as they could get without being Gith.

 

[Chaltab]

I do think it might be best to come up with an alternative to sorcerer king. It’s both very recognizably Dark Sun, and technically gender-specific, neither of which are necessarily problems, but as long as the serial numbers are being filed off anyway, may as well hit that one.

…Are Zevites not-Gith? That was the impression I got, but I wasn’t sure.

yeah I think that's the idea. The gith of Athas being degenerated cavemen is kind of a dealbreaker on playing them.

 

[Corinnguard]

Planetouched: Elementaari | Level Up

a5e.tools

Anthony Alipio came up for the Gate Pass Gazette issue 18.

I have read that article before. I liked some of the names in the alternate names sidebar. Element-Born, Sylph, Oread, Ifrit and Undine. The last four because of Pathfinder, so I'll probably use them instead.

The Elementalist class from MoAR: Complete could fit in this setting idea. They could have come into existence at the same as the Elementaari.

 

[Gradine]

you don't want a repeat of Red Dawn.

 

[Remathilis]

A new hypothetical Darksun book could be done with a normal sized 5E hard cover.
That includes a 100 page psionist class.

There's not much in Darksun's ick factor that wasn't in BG3 for example.

Talking about original boxed set. If I was rebooting it I would be looking at that more than the rest of the product line (which isn't that popular with fans of original line anyway.

There's also a market for more adult oriented stuff eg Fallout, GoT, BG3, new Warhammer 40k.

They went MCU light with HAT and it bombed. Everyone's doing that it's played out.

Changing Darksun to much you're just going to be Spelljammer 2.0 (not well recieved).

Some people like chocolate. Poor more vanilla in you just dilute the chocolate down.

The issue is how much of the Player's Handbook remains valid?

The most liberal version of Dark Sun (based on both 2e and 4e) would only ban paladin, but a hard reading (traditionalist) would ban bard, paladin, warlock, and sorcerer. Extremist versions ban cleric, ranger, barbarian and monk (the latter three because they have abilities that make survival easier).

But you also have four subclasses per class, and a lot of them are planar, magical, or both. Even if you allow barbarian (for example), the world tree, zealot and wild heart barbarians could not be used as is. So barbarian only has one subclass option, or is Dark Sun making three new subclasses to replace those which don't work?

Then you have species. Again, a liberal version would have humans, dwarves, elves, halflings, dragonborn, goliaths, and tieflings, but even then not how many would need different traits to represent the Dark Sun versions? And that's again assuming 4e's more forgiving species just list is in play.

But wait, there is backgrounds and feats, both would have to be checked. You aren't going to have a farmer or sailor background, nor would Magic Initiate (wizard) be an option.

And that's not touching the equipment chapter or spells.

You know, I'm starting to think @Steampunkette is right for rebuilding the setting from scratch using Level Up. In all honesty, it probably will need a whole supplement's worth of new things just to give you Dark Sun players as many options as the standard PHB has.

 

[Zardnaar]

The issue is how much of the Player's Handbook remains valid?

The most liberal version of Dark Sun (based on both 2e and 4e) would only ban paladin, but a hard reading (traditionalist) would ban bard, paladin, warlock, and sorcerer. Extremist versions ban cleric, ranger, barbarian and monk (the latter three because they have abilities that make survival easier).

But you also have four subclasses per class, and a lot of them are planar, magical, or both. Even if you allow barbarian (for example), the world tree, zealot and wild heart barbarians could not be used as is. So barbarian only has one subclass option, or is Dark Sun making three new subclasses to replace those which don't work?

Then you have species. Again, a liberal version would have humans, dwarves, elves, halflings, dragonborn, goliaths, and tieflings, but even then not how many would need different traits to represent the Dark Sun versions? And that's again assuming 4e's more forgiving species just list is in play.

But wait, there is backgrounds and feats, both would have to be checked. You aren't going to have a farmer or sailor background, nor would Magic Initiate (wizard) be an option.

And that's not touching the equipment chapter or spells.

You know, I'm starting to think @Steampunkette is right for rebuilding the setting from scratch using Level Up. In all honesty, it probably will need a whole supplement's worth of new things just to give you Dark Sun players as many options as the standard PHB has.

Well 5E isn't good for Darksun. I think they should focus on the mechanics eg defining, survival, hard bans and errata for spells eg water and metal ones.

Darksyn specific archetypes say 1 or 2 each class. Psionics or replacement.

A chapter could cover what's allowed in classic, revised or modern Darksun.

Traditionalist would he fairly minimal. I would say wind it back to the 1991 set. Post kalak eg 4E is easy enough to include in revised part.

It's the mechanics that make running 5E Darksun a pain.

Alternatively use 5E as a base and spin it off as inspired by D&D stand alone RPG. 5E is espically crap at doing it anyway to much Magic, healing and easy mode survival eg goodberry.