Dark Sun 3.5

[Najo]

So, what would an outline or table of contents look like for the original (brom era) dark sun if it were done now days with 3.5 rules. What content would you expect to see in there? Share examples of that content like feats, prestige classes, magic items etc.

 

[Nebulous]

Although i owned several of the original supplements (including that wonderful Monstrous Compendium binder accessory) i only played a single adventure of Dark Sun. I usually DM, and it is a campaign i would like to run over most others. If a publisher could ever do Dark Sun again i would buy it up in a heartbeat, particularly if someone put out a good mega-adventure to go with it.

This is sort of off topic, but does anyone remember the old Dark Sun PC game Shattered Lands? It was quite a lot of fun at the time, and i had completely forgotten about it until just now.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I could really get behind Darksun as a campaign setting run with Iron Heroes rules. Part of my beef with 2nd edition darksun was taking weak classes (non-casters) and making them even worse by removing their gear. Who gives a crap that wizards cant wear armor when there wasnt decent armor to be worn?

 

[Wik]

I am going to keep my reply simple as I like to get back to my original question to the community - input on what the content of an official Brom era Dark Sun CS book would be.

I own all of the dark sun material, both pre revised and revised. I have print outs of the athas.org stuff. I own the Paizo material (defilers, 2 dungeons worth of monsters, 1 dragon wiht players guide, and the rules for the dragon kings issue). I originally ran Dark Sun for over 5 years, through three different campaigns with over 48 different players in that time. I have read most of the novels.

The brom era produced the prism pentad, most of Dark Sun's history came from those five books. The Dark Lens, the Cruelean Storm, the Origins of Rajaat and the Champions, the creation of Borys, the Cleansing Wars etc. All of which is good stuff.

Likewise, the ivory triangle cover Nibenay and Gulg's political situations and history in detail. Urik was covered in the Crimson Legion novel and Road to Urik adventure. Balic was covered in the novels and adventures too. Dragon Kings had more information on the cities and the history of Athas.

Almost everything the Revised boxed set had it got from the Brom Era materials and gathered it together and then added on to. Some of what it added was ok, some was really terrible.

As for the art, Brom worked at TSR during the Brom Era. They based the setting off of his sketches. Read the origins of the setting in the 30 years of D&D book, the Worlds of TSR book and the Dragon issue with the defilers. Brom was Dark Sun, and you can see it up till he no longer was doing art for them. All of the books were graced by his majestic, beautiful yet brutal, alien world of Athas. Then the revised stuff started creeping in and BAM, we have surfing halflings and living cybernetics (which shadowrun released bioware that same year)

As for the jagged cliffs, those were hanggliding halflings there. The surfing ones were at the Last Sea.

I can understand all that, and I'll make my reply to your reply short, to get back to the original question.

I'm a Dark Sun nut as well, and I can see where you're going with this. And I generally agree - the revised setting ISN'T as good as "brom era". That being said, it annoys me when people focus squarely on the bad things about the set, and then forget all the awesome good things found in it -

Things like the bandit states, Eldaarich and the city to the south whose name I always forget, and the Last Sea (I like it, I Really do).

All in all, I think the revised set did a fairly good job. It is still my favourite Dark Sun product. It was my first Dark Sun purchase (my first campaign setting purchase, too!) And yeah, I love it.

That being said, I think I got a little harsh last night, taking apart your post like that. Apologies, and all that jazz - I shouldn't post at, like, 1 am. Especially when I more or less agree with the general gist of what you're saying.

 

[Wik]

I could really get behind Darksun as a campaign setting run with Iron Heroes rules. Part of my beef with 2nd edition darksun was taking weak classes (non-casters) and making them even worse by removing their gear. Who gives a crap that wizards cant wear armor when there wasnt decent armor to be worn?

Great minds, and all that jazz. I've been thinking about doing that as well. THe only thing stopping me is the fact that the Iron Heroes rules require so much errata (unless i bought the revised rulebook, which ain't happening).

If I did run it, I'd make some big changes to Athas to accomodate the setting (get rid of elemental priests, and psionics, so that all magic is the same. And probably do something about the races, too).

We never had a problem with "weak classes" that were stripped of gear. In the most memorable 2e DS game I ran, our group looked like this:

Half-Giant Gladiator, Thri-Kreen Ranger, Elven Thief, Human Preserver, and Mul Fighter.

And pretty much every group would look like that (we did have a game with a Half-Giant Fighter, a half-elven defiler, and a psionicist... that was probably the most "gear light" group I ran for).

Everyone's different, though, eh?

 

[rowport]

As much as I like the Dark Sun setting, so far I have only convinced my group to try a one-shot at GenCon, not a full campaign. Maybe I will get lucky in the future.

Regarding the problem of fighting classes losing the benefit of heavy armor, I just gave an extra feat to the classes that would otherwise qualify for heavy armor proficiency, so that the heaviest armor used was generally a breastplate. Note that folks could *choose* to wear heavy armor if they wanted to do so, but to encourage the flavor, I applied the heat rules from Sandstorm so that heavy armor dudes get tired quickly as they overheat.

Sandstorm is a great resource in general for a Dark Sun game. I used Heat Endurance, some class variants, the Scorpion and lizard-rider prestige classes, and sandstorms (heh).

 

[Wik]

So, what would an outline or table of contents look like for the original (brom era) dark sun if it were done now days with 3.5 rules. What content would you expect to see in there? Share examples of that content like feats, prestige classes, magic items etc.

Alright.

We would first see race write-ups, done similarly to the Eberron campaign setting. Half-Giants and Thri-Kreen would either be Level Adjustment races (and we'd keep the "Start at 3rd level rule), or they would be monster classes. I actually like the idea of monster classes, but I'm the only one, probably. Muls could probably get away with LA +0, if you made them roughly comparable to the half-orc or something.

(were it me, I'd drop the huge stats that were found in Dark Sun; their original intention was to give each PC some bonuses due to high stats, which typically showed up around 15 or so. Since a character in 3e gets a boost at a score of 12, I don't think the 4d4+4 method is necessary anymore).

Then we'd go to classes, with variants for many classes that subbed out spellcasting. Bards would become psionic, or maybe more rogueish (which is what they did in the Brom Era). Sorcerers and Wizards would be as is, although I'd add a feat that they could take that would allow them to add Bluff and Sleight of Hand to their skill list, so they can conceal somatic components - I'd also drop the familiars entirely, and have some ability replace them (if you want a familiar, you can burn a feat).

Druids would get a bit of a change, using the shapeshifting variant from PHB 2. And I'd mess around with their spell list a bit (or do what Eberron did for druids, and have feats add spells to their spell list, depending on what focus you chose for your druid; a volcano druid who took, the feat would have different powers than a silt sea druid). I'd also drop the "tied to the land" feature that druids in 2e DS had - I hated that, and it stopped me from playing druids on Athas.

Clerics would have to choose an element, and select their domains from a list approved for that element. As I was saying earlier, Shugenja could be a good replacement for clerics, if you added some more support spells. Templars could easily just be clerics with a different spell list, although I'd personally want something.... more.

I wouldn't make a gladiator class, although I wouldn't object to one, either. If there was one, I'd say d12, feat every third level, a little bit of unarmed combat abilities, the ability to switch weapon focus feats focus to a different weapon (like the warblade), and some gimmick ability (gets better as fight goes on, gets better as he gets more wounded, or some sort of debuff intimidation attack).

I *would* like to see a Trader class, or at least a noble/aristocrat class. SOmething to remind players that DS isn't just about killing stuff. That there's a huge political undercurrent.

Obviously a bunch of psionic classes.

Feats... I'd add a bunch, obviously. I'd like to see background feats for each city-state (Urik Military training - You fought in Hamanu's armies. You are proficient in a martial weapon of your choice, and gain a +1 bonus on Fortitude Saves, for example). A few feats that could indicate rank (so that a templar with the right feats would have a high status within the templar hierarchy, whereas a PC templar that focused on metamagic feats might not gain as high a status, making templars a bit different from other divine casters). Obviously some feats that tie PCs to organizations like the Veiled Alliance, specific Trading Dynasties, the Order, the Villichi (I think a Villichi feat, taken at 1st level only, would be AWESOME).

Crazy rule variants I'd like to see:

1) Wild Talents rolled on a random table. Loved that.
2) Weapon Breakage on a natural 1 - give a flat percentage that it happens when a 1 is rolled, though, because we lost so many weapons originally to this rule, that our PCs would carry several weapons into combat, which just got silly. A Mul with 5 claymores is kind of dumb.
3) Defiling Rules that are simple. I believe I already mentioned how I'd do it.
4) Piecemeal Armour rules. A bit complex, but whatever.
5) A nitpick - in original DS, it was pretty much a given that you'd use bone weapons - they were some of the cheapest weapons, definately the best non-metal weapon, and the lightest. I'd like to see a bit more of a balancing between the weapons, so that wealthier PCs could have debates over which material is better - bone or stone. I'd also like to see more materials to choose from.

Obviously, there would be new spells (which I'm not a huge fan of) and magical items (Potion Fruits, revisited!) New Prestige Classes would be good, if they made only a few. Just off the top of my head, I can think of:

Master Gladiator
Tribal Leader (leader of a slave tribe, a warrior who buffs other warriors with shouts)
Dynasty Trader (which would work if there wasn't a trader core class)
Templar Emissary (more or less a way to justify Templar PCs - I made every templar PC in my game an emissary)
Giant-Slayer (from Balic region)
Assassin (Hell, this could be "bard", and get rid of the bard core class!)
and a psionic PrC of some sort.

As for setting details itself, I'd set the game right after Tyr became free, because it is a good campaign element. I've run games both before and after Tyr's liberation, and there's just so much more that you can do when Tyr is free (whether or not you're actually in Tyr). I'd also give each city at least two pages, and done in a similar way to the Eberron Campaign setting (only without the massive spoilers). Terrain info on each terrain type, as was done in both settings, would be great. And then quick, half-page comments on most of the major areas - maybe a bit longer for some important areas.

Anyways, that's how I would do it.

 

[irdeggman]

Techincally, the "windsurfing" halflings were found on the Jagged Cliffs, and they were a little cheesy (although I remember loving them when I was 15 or so... we played a Jagged Cliffs campaign that was a lot of fun). The Last Sea was an entirely different place, that had nothing to do with Halflings.

Yeah the Last Sea had surfer druids dude.

 

[Tetsubo]

I've always wanted to see a 3.5 version of the halfling's biotech. I think it was by far the most interesting part of the DS universe...

 

[megamania]

When I did my version of 3.0 on Darksun I did a number things different from the others. Clerics had to choice one domain then an element and an alignment. Any domain worked. This third domain was more about their personality or interest.

Air Cleric
Air
Good
then Travel for one that wished to use wind to aid in travel
or Celerity for one that was graceful like the wind

Use TOHR-KREEN I hate 3.0/3.5 Thri-kreen. Those are ant-men NOT Mantis Warriors

I was never happy with the creation of Avangions / Dragons in 3.0/3.5. How does one reach 40th + levels?

Rules about the Pristine Tower mutations would be nice. I had created a list of possible templates and had players roll percent die. Then with careful storytelling, your character, injuried and bleeding, will begin to mutate.