Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="woodelf" data-source="post: 1058874" data-attributes="member: 10201">Actually, weren't mind flayers of a sort in the original dark sun (box set, MC appendix, or Dragon Kings?).Ok, clerics:Definitely, spontaneous casting of spells of their element [and the two adjacent, at higher levels] would be the way to go, IMHO,  Also, i'd cut down the list of non-domain spells as much as possible, shoving everything you possibly could into the elemental domains.  And then make it a class ability to add more domains at higher levels.  By 20th level, a DS cleric should have access to all 4 domains for her element, be able to spontaneously cast any spell known of her domain or the two adjacent, and have increased save DCs and bonuses to their own saves.  This should be balanced by a restricted list of non-elemental spells.  They're elementalists, dammit!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":-)" title="Smile    :-)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":-)" />  And, if you iinclude epic level stuff, stick with the "becoming an elemental" thing for clerics.'Nother possible cleric idea: something about summoning/talking with elementals--see the Greenbond or Totem Warrior class in Arcana Unearthed for some mechanical ideas, if you need them.Or, maybe skip that and give druids a talking-to-the-spirits-of-the-land ability, instead of the shapechanging?No point in sorcerers1: you've got psions--basically the same niche2: [arcane] magic is an invention in Athas, rather than an inherent thing3: magic in Athas is about drawing on outside sources--psionics is about drawing on personal power4: the no spellbooks thing strikes me as a dealbreaker for DS, in terms of both balance and flavor5: you already have two styles of magic (preserver, defiler), they're just not the same two (prepared, spontaneous) of core D&DNow, on preservers/defilers:They *shouldn't* be balanced in raw power, but should instead be balanced in some other way.  RPing is part of it (a defiler (1) gives herself away when she casts and (2) is gonna be even *more* persecuted).  Not sure what else to do.  Anyway, i'd give the defilers some significant advantage--perhaps spontaneous metamagic use?  Or the first 2 levels of increase for powering metamagic are free?  Personally, i think that characters should basically be either pure preservers, or not--no middle ground.  That is, the guy who defiles all the time is a defiler.  The guy who never defiles is a preserver.  But the guy who just defiles once in a while is *not* a preserver--whatever benefits are gained, he doesn't get them.  Maybe mimic the darkside in WEG Star Wars: big power boosts, but you can't not do it after a while.Look at it historically: the sorcerers of Athas didn't choose defiling over preserving 'cause they *wanted* to destroy life as we know it.  They did it because the benifits outweighed the costs (at least in the short term, and to their perspective).  So, reflect this mechanically--you get some kind of tangible, game-mechanical benifit for being a defiler.  Preserver should be the road less-travelled, and a tough choice to stick to.  But with some cool (if more flavorful than powerful) advantages.</blockquote>

Verification