2010: Is it Dragonlance? (hint)

[Dragonhelm]

Okay, folks, according to the Divine Heroes 2 preview, that isn't Ariakas, but rather a "male human paladin." So they pulled the old Tanis/Free League Ranger trick on us again.

To quote:

Male Human Paladin

Experienced Dungeons & Dragons players will have noticed a difference with the paladin when compared to earlier editions. The paladin is no longer restricted to being just Lawful Good but is now the divine crusader for their deity. This paladin strays a bit more toward the neutral or evil side of things. He's a decent choice for a PC that follows the Raven Queen or as a foe for your games. His 6th level utility power is Flare of Divine Vengeance, a daily power that triggers on being hit by the target of the Paladin's divine challenge. It grants a healing surge and a bonus to hit the target until the end of the paladin's next turn.

 

[Novem5er]

I'm not entirely convinced Darksun would work as an "adventure area." It assumes that metal and most other natural resources are incredibly rare if not practically non-existent, and that magic is killing the world around the people who use it. Being able to ride a ship to another part of the world for armor, weapons, and safer magic would trivialize the setting, and possibly compromise whatever setting it was anchored in. Eberron, with industrialized magic (and nearly everything else for that matter), is perhaps the worst setting you could possibly integrate it with.

Oh yea of little retcon faith

• bone and stone are what the locals use. Since the PCs are super-special, they use their normal weapons. Think mechanically... Dark Sun is going to have a whole new equipment and magic item list? That would invalidate other source books that WotC is making and might throw off the attack/defense/damage numbers.
• Life Draining magic? That's a story device that can be limited to the area around it, a la older Anarouch and the life drain spells. It serves as the central conflict of the new adventuring area. Heck, make Endurance checks every Extended Rest.
• Industrialized magic hasn't yet civilized Xen'drik... so it wouldn't alter Dark Sun either.

So... it's possible, especially if WotC keeps the idea that all source books are meant to be used in all settings.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

This. It'd be like running a post-nuclear-apocalypse game in which Chicago got nuked, and everyone within 100 miles of Chicago is living a Mad Max lifestyle with battles over food and gasoline and basic necessities, and the rest of the world survived fine and is ticking along just like normal.

Almost like Bug City from Shadowrun. Which I suspect you already knew.

Of course, there were also walls around it keeping the insect spirit infestation in. Mostly.

But I can't see how Dark Sun could possibly be imported into a small region of another world and be anything but silly.

It could conceivably be on another continent on the complete other side of the world from the setting's continent. This might be difficult on worlds like Eberron where the continents and coastlines are known in general.

Hrm, perhaps the Mourning flung the inhabitants of Cyre into an alternate Eberron, coexisting in time with the normal but vibrating at a slightly different frequency, and this new world is a postapocalyptic hellhole like Dark Sun? Hrm, that could be relatively cool, witih a bit of development.

Brad

 

[Dragonhelm]

Oh yea of little retcon faith

Sigworthy! LOL!

• Life Draining magic? That's a story device that can be limited to the area around it, a la older Anarouch and the life drain spells. It serves as the central conflict of the new adventuring area. Heck, make Endurance checks every Extended Rest.

The basic assumption could be that player characters are always preservers, thereby allowing defilers to be statted up like monsters. However, this cuts out a cool story element.

What you have to explain, though, is why a huge sun can be seen in Dark Sun and is burning this area of the world to a crisp, while the rest of the world doesn't see that. Just seems kinda convoluted to me.

So... it's possible, especially if WotC keeps the idea that all source books are meant to be used in all settings.

See, now this is a mark against Dark Sun as the setting. Materials don't just port in and out too easily. I can see moving some races to other worlds, such as what they did with the half-giant. I can also see porting the primitive weaponry of Dark Sun to other worlds. The problem comes with using mainstream D&D materials in Dark Sun. The setting as a whole has certain restrictions. Now, Dave Noonan did a pretty good job with Dark Sun in the pages of Dragon, which shows how new races can be ported in, such as what they did with the XPH races.

 

[Novem5er]

Almost like Bug City from Shadowrun. Which I suspect you already knew.

Of course, there were also walls around it keeping the insect spirit infestation in. Mostly.



It could conceivably be on another continent on the complete other side of the world from the setting's continent. This might be difficult on worlds like Eberron where the continents and coastlines are known in general.

Hrm, perhaps the Mourning flung the inhabitants of Cyre into an alternate Eberron, coexisting in time with the normal but vibrating at a slightly different frequency, and this new world is a postapocalyptic hellhole like Dark Sun? Hrm, that could be relatively cool, witih a bit of development.

Brad

Hmm, interesting idea about an "alternate Cyre". However, the new world map of Eberron shows a vast desert located on western Xen'drik. My Eberron knowledge is limited, but this seems like a rather large area that hasn't been used or detailed.

Even if Dark Sun isn't officially put in Eberron, it could be developed as a "drop in" expansion to any campaign world. If there's an open desert area that already exists in a published campaign world... well, that's just good cross-product design.

 

[Leatherhead]

Oh yea of little retcon faith

Sounds to me like you want Al-Qadim or another Sandstorm book rather than Darksun. Once you take out the "death spiral" the word goes from apocalyptic to just another sandbox.

So... it's possible, especially if WotC keeps the idea that all source books are meant to be used in all settings.

They don't mean all of every book at the same time. It takes much more work to place Thay and Thrane on the same map than it does to have an artificer and a swordmage in the same group.

Which also brings up another point: You are tying to shove an entire world onto another entire world. Ravenloft and Sigil weren't anywhere near that big to begin with, and even when integrated with the Points-of-Light setting, they are separated from the main world on different planes.

 

[Hawke]

Wow... Cyre on a planet they believe the Moruning has happened everywhere else.. they are the sole survivors... echos of destroyed buildings and artifacts slip into existence and you run around trying to figure out what happened, with the assumption that Cyre's leadership may have used a weapon that "worked too well"... or perhaps some ruins elsewhere turn up evidence otherwise. Perhaps in Cyre they determine who really did it and then try to figure out it why backfired and slowly come to a realization that they could get back with the right circumstances and let the world know the Truth.

I do not like Dark Sun as a "drop in." While desert-stuff might work well, the whole idea of a truly godless world where magic works differently is a true pull of the setting that makes it different than some desert cities. If you're going to release Dark Sun as a product, they'd need to keep it to the important "different" roots...if the DM wants to rip pieces into his campaign, go for it! I just want to see it treated differently.

 

[Leatherhead]

It would be easier to place Dragonlance in Forgotten Realms to be honest. Both worlds have the same general theme.

All you would have to do is add two moons (not like anyone adventures on the moons anyway), one of which is invisible enough that you could refluff it as Shar. Mechanically, there wouldn't be any real changes to magic, because that is imbalanced. FR already has Gond and an island of tinker gnomes, and magic guilds, and knights for that matter. Transpose halflings into kender, add in gully dwarves, sprinkle with draconians, and Integration has been achieved.

 

[Dragonhelm]

It would be easier to place Dragonlance in Forgotten Realms to be honest. Both worlds have the same general theme.

All you would have to do is add two moons (not like anyone adventures on the moons anyway), one of which is invisible enough that you could refluff it as Shar. Mechanically, there wouldn't be any real changes to magic, because that is imbalanced. FR already has Gond and an island of tinker gnomes, and magic guilds, and knights for that matter. Transpose halflings into kender, add in gully dwarves, sprinkle with draconians, and Integration has been achieved.

I'm going to disagree here, as Dragonlance has some pretty specific themes, a limited amount of deities, and a world that has moved to a new place in the 'verse (amongst other things).

What I thought about at one point was merging the Realms and Greyhawk. At one point, I was thinking separate continents. Then I got the Hollow World idea and thought Greyhawk could go on the inside. This would break Spelljammer continuity, but this wouldn't be the first time that's happened.

 

[Dausuul]

I think people are overestimating the difficulty of importing 4E core material into Dark Sun. Almost any race can be Dark Sun-ified with very little trouble. I mean, look at the races they imported back when the original Dark Sun came out. Delicate forest-loving elves and fat hobbity halflings - can you imagine any races less suited to life on Athas? That didn't stop them from turning elves into long-legged thieves and halflings into cannibals.

Divine classes need an alternative to traditional gods, but again, they faced the same problem in 2E. That's why Dark Sun has elemental powers, sorceror-kings, and spirits of the land. For equipment, simply say that regular equipment is made of bone, wood, stone, or obsidian; metal gear is so rare as to be effectively magical. All bronze equipment is at least +1 and all steel equipment is at least +2. Copper pieces become bits, silver becomes ceramic, and gold becomes copper.

t could conceivably be on another continent on the complete other side of the world from the setting's continent. This might be difficult on worlds like Eberron where the continents and coastlines are known in general.

This could work, but then why bother? If the two settings are separated by a giant ocean and have no knowledge of each other, what is gained by putting Dark Sun on the same planet as Eberron? All you're doing is restricting what you can put into Dark Sun, with no benefit.

IMO, this kind of world-melding is best left to the individual DM. If you want your world to be a Dark Sun/Eberron hybrid, go for it. But the designers shouldn't try to shoehorn the rest of us into Eberron.