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

[Steampunkette]

A lot of focus is put on the Psion when when all but 6 classes could warrant a variant rule, subclass, or new subsystem.

Artificer
Bard
Cleric
Druid
Paladin
Sorcerer
Warlock
Wizard

Only Barbarian, Druid. Fighter, Ranger, and Rogue could remain untouched if you are attempted to actually be faithful to any of the core ideas behind Dark Sun.

Then you get into the Cleansing Wars.

DarkSun isn't D&D set in a desert with some psionic stuff. Dark Sun changes a lot of the game and most of the lore doesn't make sense without those changes.

Artificer: Either gone -or- functioning as "Indiana Jones" type ruin-explorers who have some understanding of the ways of pre-Olive Athas. Constructs focus on lesser materials like bone and wood.
Bard: Revamped into a spell-less form with potions, poisons, and unguents.
Cleric: Really needs a "No or Light Armor" build shift and then either an Elemental Domain or a general understanding that any domain taken comes from the elements.
Druid: Probably cut, or significantly changed to essentially function as a "Specialized Elemental Cleric". Wild Shape gets big nerfs, or removed entirely.
Paladin: Oath of the Sorcerer King is the only option. That and Oathbreaker which are the heroic paladins for a change!
Sorcerer: Defiling and Preserving need to be put in.
Warlock: Either Pact of the Sorcerer King or some sort of "Ancient Entity" path that reaches across the eons of Athas. Probably Defiling by default.
Wizard: Defiling and Preserving needs to be put in.

 

[Maxperson]

I suspect 5e hit the caster with a nerf bat too hard, with the intention to end "quadradic Wizard, linear Fighter", once and for all. It might even be that 5e has now become "quadratic Fighter, linear Wizard", such as the Fighter multiple attacks multiplying increasingly high damage attacks.

Yep. I'm currently playing a Wizard who just hit level 8. I struggled with finding spells that were worth taking. If this doesn't get better, it will be the last Wizard I play in 5e. That will suck hard. Wizards have been in my top 3 favorite classes since 1e.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Artificer: Either gone -or- functioning as "Indiana Jones" type ruin-explorers who have some understanding of the ways of pre-Olive Athas. Constructs focus on lesser materials like bone and wood.
Bard: Revamped into a spell-less form with potions, poisons, and unguents.
Cleric: Really needs a "No or Light Armor" build shift and then either an Elemental Domain or a general understanding that any domain taken comes from the elements.
Druid: Probably cut, or significantly changed to essentially function as a "Specialized Elemental Cleric". Wild Shape gets big nerfs, or removed entirely.
Paladin: Oath of the Sorcerer King is the only option. That and Oathbreaker which are the heroic paladins for a change!
Sorcerer: Defiling and Preserving need to be put in.
Warlock: Either Pact of the Sorcerer King or some sort of "Ancient Entity" path that reaches across the eons of Athas. Probably Defiling by default.
Wizard: Defiling and Preserving needs to be put in.

Artificer as flavored should be excluded. Though a re-flavoring could allow it to fit as a class of the rhul thaun halflings with their life-shaped creations.
The “Athasian bard” are simply best handled as Assassins with the entertainer background and a poisoner kit. But there is design room for the PHB bard class with a new “college”, such as a specialized Veiled Alliance school for spreading propaganda to undermine the sorcerer kings.

The casting classes, arcane and divine, need major thought because it seems like the PHB/Volos/Tashas archetypes are all … needing some touchup. In my opinion, it might even be worth thinking about whether all of the wizard traditions have surviving centuries of Sorcerer Kings and society hunting them. Maybe three new arcane traditions, a Veiled Alliance, a Necromancer, and a solitary. With all casting classes, just present 1, 2 or 3 for each casting class.

 

[Yaarel]

Yep. I'm currently playing a Wizard who just hit level 8. I struggled with finding spells that were worth taking. If this doesn't get better, it will be the last Wizard I play in 5e. That will suck hard. Wizards have been in my top 3 favorite classes since 1e.

Hopefully this thread can help sort out the high quality spells from the low quality spells.

 

[Yaarel]

By the way, for my own personal tastes, I am less a fan of the post-apocalyptic genre. (Heh, I consider it an intellectually lazy imagination, by people who are being luddites fearful of the reallife accelerating technology.)

There is so much in Darksun that appeals to me, especially psionics. But it is basically post-apoc. One way to make Darksun more appealing to me, is to have "urban oases" here-and-there across the planet. I can focus my own games in one of these local settings, and enjoy myself, while understanding that the outlands all around are extremely harsh. I especially want a few cities that are utopian, to explore these kinds of concepts. (Compare how Star Trek, such as Next Generation, explores various utopian scenarios.) Full-on magical cultures, inspired by reallife accelerating technology is welcome. Other cities can be less than perfect. And of course, some of the Dragon King cities will be dystopian. Compare how the new Aevendrow and Lorendrow have remote civilizations, hidden away, and doing their own thing. Something like this in Darksun will help me gain more joy out of the setting. Hopefully it wont interfere with other players who love the survivalism of the post-apocalyptic Darksun setting.

 

[Maxperson]

By the way, for my own personal tastes, I am less a fan of the post-apocalyptic genre. (Heh, I consider it an intellectually lazy imagination, by people who are being luddites fearful of the reallife accelerating technology.)

There is so much in Darksun that appeals to me, especially psionics. But it is basically post-apoc. One way to make Darksun more appealing to me, is to have "urban oases" here-and-there across the planet. I can focus my own games in one of these local settings, and enjoy myself, while understanding that the outlands all around are extremely harsh. I especially want a few cities that are utopian, to explore these kinds of concepts. (Compare how Star Trek, such as Next Generation, explores various utopian scenarios.) Full-on magical cultures, inspired by reallife accelerating technology is welcome. Other cities can be less than perfect. And of course, some of the Dragon King cities will be dystopian. Compare how the new Aevendrow and Lorendrow have remote civilizations, hidden away, and doing their own thing. Something like this in Darksun will help me gain more joy out of the setting. Hopefully it wont interfere with other players who love the survivalism of the post-apocalyptic Darksun setting.

You can easily make that happen for your game. Heck, you can even limit the Halflings and put a city at the edge of the jungle and run adventures in the jungle, occasionally making forays into the wasteland.

 

[Yaarel]

You can easily make that happen for your game. Heck, you can even limit the Halflings and put a city at the edge of the jungle and run adventures in the jungle, occasionally making forays into the wasteland.

Youre not wrong.

Even so. It is nice to feel included and supported.

Darksun is several city-states across a planet wasteland. Each city is its own culture. The setting describes how each city works and how the cities tend to interact with each other.

It can be that some cities are democratic with freedoms and rights, even while others are tyrannical and antihuman.

Because of scarcity of resources, the utopian cities too will be under constant attack from desperate migrants and imperialistic tyrants. So the utopias would have to be extremely powerful, magically, to defend themselves, and the citizenry trained in magical combat. Probably, such a city tends to be psionic and environmentally friendly. Being hidden is an advantage. And how could there not be feelings of guilt, when the citizens can build a reasonable life for themselves, but must turn away many innocent people because of the scarcity of resources?

A DM can with reasonable ease plug in the regional setting of a utopian city-state within the planet setting. Even so, it seems like something that makes sense. I would love to see how designers treat such concepts.

 

[Remathilis]

A lot of focus is put on the Psion when when all but 6 classes could warrant a variant rule, subclass, or new subsystem.

Artificer
Bard
Cleric
Druid
Paladin
Sorcerer
Warlock
Wizard

Only Barbarian, Druid. Fighter, Ranger, and Rogue could remain untouched if you are attempted to actually be faithful to any of the core ideas behind Dark Sun.

Then you get into the Cleansing Wars.

DarkSun isn't D&D set in a desert with some psionic stuff. Dark Sun changes a lot of the game and most of the lore doesn't make sense without those changes.

A Dark Sun that isn't D&D in the desert and psionics should be its own separate game with it's own PHB, MM and DMG/setting guide, published like an OGL game like The One Ring.

Because your not fitting all of that into a 256 page book, so best now to start petitioning for a separate spinoff game.

 

[Minigiant]

A Dark Sun that isn't D&D in the desert and psionics should be its own separate game with it's own PHB, MM and DMG/setting guide, published like an OGL game like The One Ring.

Because your not fitting all of that into a 256 page book, so best now to start petitioning for a separate spinoff game.

4e Dark Sun was ~200 pages

 

[tetrasodium]

A Dark Sun that isn't D&D in the desert and psionics should be its own separate game with it's own PHB, MM and DMG/setting guide, published like an OGL game like The One Ring.

Because your not fitting all of that into a 256 page book, so best now to start petitioning for a separate spinoff game.

Rising was a great book consisting of 320 pages I think but they didn't include much that changed the core mechanics. Anime5e manages to completely rebuild 5e into a point but system with lots of differences including new races & new classes in 274 pages but they are talking about what sounds like a setting book in some of the updates. Those are two ways of doing it. Levelup5e has had a few preview pages with page numbers well beyond 320 pages for a third. These are not insurmountable problems