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

[Steampunkette]

Dark Sun needs a Psionic Class.

Not -just- some subclasses for Rogues, Sorcerers, and Fighters. Not -just- Wild Talents. But all three.

It's -the- setting for Psionics.

It'll also need a whole lot of different systems and class changes. Bards, for example, aren't spellcasting minstrels in Dark Sun. They're Assassins. You'd need more than a "Subclass" to take away their spellcasting and put Extracts into play. Travel mechanics that actually matter, or at least a way to make food/water much more narratively important and impactful. Defiling and Preserving wouldn't just be Wizard Subclasses. Preserving takes -longer-. 2e Spellcasting had each spell take a number of initiative counts equal to it's level before it went off, remember? Preservers spent WAY MORE TIME casting a spell before it finally took effect.

Part of why Defiling was so attractive. It was -faster- and ensured your enemies were still in Fireball Formation when the spell went off.

Honestly... 5e would need a big book to bring Dark Sun back in a meaningful way.

 

[TheSword]

Yeah I think you could release a curse of Strahd style dark sun book in July with what we have + a Wild Talent feat and some more psionic spells. Same number of monsters as in Tomb of Annihilation.

The follow it up a year or two later with a full sourcebook to Athas... a la Van Richten’s Guide.

That would be my preferred way too.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Honestly... 5e would need a big book to bring Dark Sun back in a meaningful way.

Unfortunately though for your needs... I don't suspect WotC would have any intention of bringing Dark Sun back in a "meaningful" way. At least not how you are defining it.

They might bring back a version of Dark Sun... one that introduces the basic tropes and locations at a baseline level for the tens of thousands of players out there that know absolutely nothing about it, but that's really it. And that shouldn't be any surprise, because that's really been the standard for everything in 5E-- easily digestible D&D that doesn't go too deep, because most players do not need it. And then they leave that depth for the other companies and people out there on DMs Guild who feel like they really need that depth.

 

[the Jester]

With the release of Tasha's Cauldron of Everything several months ago, I've come to the conclusion that 5e has everything it needs to release Dark Sun.
The common refrain is we need a dedicated Psion class - Humbug, I say. The interesting part of Dark Sun psionics was always their widespread presence, not the Masters of the Way. Dedicated power users are far more interesting along the Defiler/Preserver axis, as that plays into the core themes of the world. Masters of the Way... Just kind of skip over that, especially without extremely restrictive effect lists for what psionics can do.

Sorry, but no. Without robust psionics rules- and 5e absolutely doesn't have robust psionics rules- 5e does not have what it needs to do Dark Sun well. The little bit of psionics we have seen is not enough to do widespread psionics, especially for pcs.

 

[Sithlord]

Unfortunately though for your needs... I don't suspect WotC would have any intention of bringing Dark Sun back in a "meaningful" way. At least not how you are defining it.

They might bring back a version of Dark Sun... one that introduces the basic tropes and locations at a baseline level for the tens of thousands of players out there that know absolutely nothing about it, but that's really it. And that shouldn't be any surprise, because that's really been the standard for everything in 5E-- easily digestible D&D that doesn't go too deep, because most players do not need it. And then they leave that depth for the other companies and people out there on DMs Guild who feel like they really need that depth.

How many Tarzan movies even remotely resemble the Tarzan Edgar rice Burroughs wrote. Same with Conan. I just hope to find ideas to mine. By the way i would kill to see movies that would really stick with to the source material. Ain’t going to happen.

 

[ehren37]

You REALLY need a different psionic system other than just spells, but with a minor trapping difference. Arcane magic is basically an anathema to life in Dark Sun. You can channel it inward to drain yourself or let it leach from the environment, but psionics needs to be structurally different in implementation and scope to justify the changes required for preserving and defiling and the baggage than wizards need to deal with. Elemental clerics need to be very limited in spell selection. Magic in general needs to be toned down for the setting to work well IMO (ie, no tiny hut, no create water, etc).

 

[ChaosOS]

I'll agree with the notion that survival rules might legitimately be a bigger barrier to good 5e Dark Sun - spell bans aren't a terribly novel idea but work just fine, but you need to figure out what to do with things like Outlander.

However, I stand by that "Elemental Cleric" and "Assassin Bard" could just be subclasses. I'll go one further - "Defiler Wizard", with non-defiler wizards thus being cast as preservers.

 

[Rikka66]

Mearls mentioned the whisperer bard was intended to be the Dark Sun version. I think anyone expecting them to flip multiple classes on their heads and make multiple new ones is setting themselves up for a monumental disappointment.

 

[Weiley31]

They were on the right track with the Psi-Talent Die in the one UA, despite possessing the strangest quirk ever in regards to what you wanted to roll. Tasha's may not be the right track, but I still like the Psi-Energy Die. I still think that 5E's Psionics should develop alongside your class and it something that could've been achieved if they focused on each of the classes getting a set of Talents that corresponds to the class they are assigned to.

With that being said, the free Player's Guide to the World of Xoth actually has a Defiler style Druid subclass which has a kind of Defiler effect. Also if you need a Blighter of Tharizadun druid, that too. Soooooooooo that's kinda of an unofficial fixish for that. look I never said I was ever full of good ideas.

D&D 5E - Free 60+ page Guide to Sword & Sorcery for 5E D&D

The Player's Guide to the World of Xoth is a free PDF with more than 60 pages of sword and sorcery material for fifth edition that allows you to play in adventures inspired by the stories of Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith. Venture in the footsteps of Conan the Cimmerian, Satampra Zeiros...

www.enworld.org

As for the Psionics, well...............There's always this for now.

The Korranberg Chronicle: Psion's Primer - A Complete Psionics System - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild

The Korranberg Chronicle: Psion's Primer - A Complete Psionics System - Open your Mind's Eye with The Korranberg Chronicle - Psion's Primer A Complete Psionics System Within this book's pag

www.dmsguild.com

 

[Steampunkette]

Mearls mentioned the whisperer bard was intended to be the Dark Sun version. I think anyone expecting them to flip multiple classes on their heads and make multiple new ones is setting themselves up for a monumental disappointment.

Oh, I don't -expect- them to flip a whole bunch of classes on their heads. Far from it.

I would expect a 256 page book, like Ravenloft, with new mechanics, one race and a few "Reskin these Race" options, possibly a class, and a world overview.

Some of those new mechanics and descriptions would have to be:

1) Resource Management of Water: This is a -key- theme and driving motivator for many Athasian characters and even campaigns. Without a solid system to make it narratively and mechanically important, without being odiously so to the point people ignore it outright, Dark Sun will lose more bite than a defanged vampire.

2) Defiling and Preserving: Like water management, Defiling is an important narrative function of the setting. Up to and including breathtakingly large areas of Dead Zones. Perhaps a system where Preserving involves expending Hit Dice and eventually Hit Points to cast Arcane Spells stronger than Cantrips? Could have Water use restore hit dice expended in this manner, so that Arcane Casters are resource-hogs in the party! Then have Defiling do no harm to the caster, but it cannot be used in Dead Zones. Toss in a stigma tracker for defilement and voila!

3) Guidelines for appropriate characters in a Dark Sun campaign. Not just "You shouldn't play Paladins" but also Athasian Class Definitions to show that Bards aren't colorful musicians but are instead assassins so players recognize the shift in class fantasy. Possibly with a "Spell-less Bard" variant tested in UA, or rules for Bards being Defilers/Preservers, too! Toss in the Elemental Cleric subclass, have Warlocks find Athasian-Appropriate patrons (Or get their power from Sorcerer-Kings like Paladins), stuff like that.

4) Race options. Dragonborn as Dray, Mul as a Dwarf or Human Subrace or Lineage, Goliath Half-Giant subrace, perhaps. Gonna need to do a full Thri-Kreen, possibly with subraces.

5) Psionics. Either a full Psionics class, or turn Warlocks into Psionicists by making their only available Patron on Athas "The Will and the Way", introducing a Power Points mechanic to make their spellcasting and invocations -slightly- more flexible, and call Eldritch Blast "Mind Blast". The subclasses and the Wild Talents can stay as they are, of course.

While they -could- pawn this work off onto the DM's Guild and say "Just use this unofficial psionics class as official psionics for 5e" I highly doubt any company would be willing to do something like that. And without these things? It just wouldn't -be- Dark Sun.

I'd also like to note about the Korranberg Chronicles Psionics: The Empath is Yoda, and the Icon is a random character from a Persona game. The way they present psionics is very narrowly shaped by these ideas, and doesn't exactly "Fit" with Dark Sun's traditions. Honestly it doesn't even really fit Eberron's traditions, either. Don't get me wrong, though. I do -like- the ideas they've got for psionics. Might even suggest someone reframe the Icon character class into a "Truenamer" Vestige-Manipulator class 'cause that's kinda what it screams, to me.

Just don't think they're what Athas needs.

 

[Sithlord]

Really really needs a Templar as warlocks with their patrons being the dragon kings

 

[Steampunkette]

Really really needs a Templar as warlocks with their patrons being the dragon kings

Definitely a good solid narrative choice!

Maybe as a more "Magic-Focused" Templar Sub-Order right next to Paladin-Templars as a more "Martial-Focused" Templar?

I could definitely see them doing something like that. Or even have it so that different Sorcerer-Kings favor Warlock Templars or Paladin Templars making one or the other more common in their city-state?

 

[Sithlord]

Definitely a good solid narrative choice!

Maybe as a more "Magic-Focused" Templar Sub-Order right next to Paladin-Templars as a more "Martial-Focused" Templar?

I could definitely see them doing something like that. Or even have it so that different Sorcerer-Kings favor Warlock Templars or Paladin Templars making one or the other more common in their city-state?

i like warlock, but I can definitely also see an oath to the dragonking. Yeah we can mix that up depending on which dragonking from whatever city.

 

[Remathilis]

Dark Sun 5e = 4e Dark Sun lore changes + VRGR/ERLW style presentation. If we're lucky, we get an Artificer style psionics class that acts like a spell-point sorcerer with appropriate spell list. That's it.

If Ravenloft taught us anything, it's that WotC ie not afraid of stripping a setting to bare studs and rebuilding it to suit their current design paradigm. They are not beholden to prior edition lore and are willing to bend the setting to match the game rather than the game to match the setting.

As to addressing psionics, they might do a new class as described above, or more subclasses, or making a Dark Gift like system. But I don't imagine it will be anything like a new mechanical system the Mystic was trying for.

 

[Steampunkette]

Dark Sun 5e = 4e Dark Sun lore changes + VRGR/ERLW style presentation. If we're lucky, we get an Artificer style psionics class that acts like a spell-point sorcerer with appropriate spell list. That's it.

If Ravenloft taught us anything, it's that WotC ie not afraid of stripping a setting to bare studs and rebuilding it to suit their current design paradigm. They are not beholden to prior edition lore and are willing to bend the setting to match the game rather than the game to match the setting.

As to addressing psionics, they might do a new class as described above, or more subclasses, or making a Dark Gift like system. But I don't imagine it will be anything like a new mechanical system the Mystic was trying for.

Oh, it -absolutely- won't be the Mystic! That ship sailed.

But they have settled in on the new "Psionic Dice" model. If they make a new psionic class they'll probably expand that from a "Wimpy" version used as subclasses to a "Meaty" version used by the full class. Kinda like how Eldritch Knight spellcasting is much weaker than a full on Wizard's spellcasting, but the basic mechanics are the same.

Perhaps making the true Psions into "Cantrip Casters" who get a pool of Psi Dice equal to their Proficiency+Int Mod that they can use to add damage or effects to the "Psionic Talents" they get to learn, or Expend entirely for a special effect.

Probably have the dice increase in size as you gain levels so their talent-cantrips grow in power to a greater degree than a Wizard's cantrips, but since they never get full-powered spellcasting it sort of evens out in the middle, somewhere.

As far as narrative "Stripped to the Studs"... Ech. I vehemently disagree. The old lore is there, repackaged in the new lore, and reflavored to favor the action-horror direction 'cause they finally realized that D&D isn't actually great at doing slow-build gothic horror.

 

[NaturalZero]

If Ravenloft taught us anything, it's that WotC ie not afraid of stripping a setting to bare studs and rebuilding it to suit their current design paradigm. They are not beholden to prior edition lore and are willing to bend the setting to match the game rather than the game to match the setting.

As a huge Dark Sun fan, I'd be thrilled if they treated 5e DS like they did 5e Ravenloft. Pretty much every concept and story hook was enhanced.

 

[Remathilis]

As far as narrative "Stripped to the Studs"... Ech. I vehemently disagree. The old lore is there, repackaged in the new lore, and reflavored to favor the action-horror direction 'cause they finally realized that D&D isn't actually great at doing slow-build gothic horror.

I don't think we're disagreeing as much as you think we are. They took the setting down to the fundamentals and then added the stuff they wanted back in a new or updated way. They didn't feel beholden to make the kitchen the same size or layout because that's what it was like before, they put in a new kitchen that kept elements of the old but did so in a new way.

Dark Sun is going to be the same. So is Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Planescape, and any other legacy setting. It shouldn't surprise anyone going forward.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

The elemental clerics would need new domains.

 

[Steampunkette]

I don't think we're disagreeing as much as you think we are. They took the setting down to the fundamentals and then added the stuff they wanted back in a new or updated way. They didn't feel beholden to make the kitchen the same size or layout because that's what it was like before, they put in a new kitchen that kept elements of the old but did so in a new way.

Dark Sun is going to be the same. So is Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Planescape, and any other legacy setting. It shouldn't surprise anyone going forward.

They definitely renovated the kitchen, but that kitchen still has a stove, an oven or two, a standing mixer, and refrigerator. They're just newer appliances with a couple more bells and whistles. Y'know. Got an Icemaker, this time!

The only really "Big" changes to Ravenloft are that there's no central map where all the realms are connected, and the majority of people there are soulless puppets acting out their day to day lives so we don't have to consider why the Dark Powers are tormenting a bunch of innocent civilians just because the ruler of their nation was a complete and absolute prong in life. Everything else is changes to individual domain stories to tell interesting and varied morality plays.

They're not going to do that for Dark Sun, though. Why? 'Cause there's no need to heighten the "Nightmare Logic" aspect of the setting in order to make it more oriented toward Action-Horror. But as I've noted in a different thread... they might make it more "Mad Max: Fury Road" than "Conan the Barbarian Enters the Thunderdome". More Action-Survival than previous editions. Maybe they'll focus on threats to survival beyond combat like they did describing each type of Horror and assign different survival threats to regions?

They're probably not going to remove Thri-Kreen from the setting just because they'd need a thri-kreen race. They're probably not going to erase Psionics from the setting because they don't want to make a Psionics System. They're not going to erase Defiling or Preserving, either.

Why? 'Cause those things are -fundamental- to the setting in the same way Monsters and Mists are fundamental to Ravenloft.

Will they change up the names and genders of the Sorcerer-Kings? Oh, probably. Will they alter the different City-States to fit WotC's current political ideology? Absolutely. Will they make the game more action-oriented? 100%.

But roads connecting the domains isn't what makes the Domains of Dread into Ravenloft. Neither is the suffering of innocent souls. (Yeah, I know, you dislike the "Zarovich is the first Vampire and the Morninglord is gone" but that's less about the setting as a whole and more about Strahd's story... or... more accurately... THIS Strahd. 'Cause the other Strahd and the Morninglord and everything still exist in one of the other versions floating around the Shadowfell... though it should be noted that in this version Jander Sunstar tried to kill Strahd when Strahd wanted another servant.)

 

[see]

Dark Sun needs a Psionic Class.

Yeah, I still disagree.

Psionics existed, sure, but all real power was in the hands of the sorcerer-kings and their minions, and the psionic powers of the former were largely offstage in any event. Heck, the setting later wound up with that all-controlling Order added specifically to make sure there weren't any powerful pure-psionicists running around being influential. Psionics as experienced outside the hands of a psionicist-class PC (which plenty of us never played) was either monster powers or wild talents.

Bards, for example, aren't spellcasting minstrels in Dark Sun. They're Assassins.

We already have assassins in 5e, and instead of calling them bards to fit into long-dead TSR Code of Conduct rules, they're just called assassins. 5e Bards don't need to be reworked to fit into Dark Sun, they can just be marked "not available in this setting".

Preserving takes -longer-.

No, it didn't.

2e Spellcasting had each spell take a number of initiative counts equal to it's level before it went off, remember?

And it took defilers exactly as long. Don't believe me? Let me quote the Dark Sun Campaign Setting boxed set's Rules Book, p.59, emphasis added:

Spells cast by defilers use all the necessary verbal, somatic, and material components. The absence of any of these precludes the successful casting of the spell. The range, duration, casting time, area of effect, and saving throws remain unchanged.

The only initiative effect of defiling was the pain penalty inflicted on other characters in the defiling radius (and oh, man, would it be insane to try to adopt that directly into 5e initiative rules), there was no rule making defiling casting faster than preserving casting.