Dark Sun, 4th Edition

[Spatula]

Tainted humans are just another take on dark elves? Really? So Tieflings are just dark elves?

Shadar-kai aren't humans, or at least the ones in the FF are not. They're shadowy fey.

 

[SSquirrel]

Shadar-kai aren't humans, or at least the ones in the FF are not. They're shadowy fey.

They've been reconcepted for 4E. World & Monsters says that they were a race of humans who made a pact w/the Raven Queen to serve her. So they're in the Shadowfell now I think.

*The joking moral of the story here is:That's SO 3E!"*

 

[Klaus]

For Dark Sun, the Feywild would not be a contiguous plane, but rather a name for the collective pocket "domains" where the Spirits of the Land dwell. Druids venture into these pocket domains to converse with the Spirits of the Land they serve.

Clerics, in turn, draw their powers from the Elemental Chaos, choosing one element of all others (but still retaining minor proficiency with the other elements).

The Shadowfell, in Athas, is reached at night, when the restless banshees (undead dwarves) roam the land, moaning their failed foci. You might not cross over entirely, but the crumbling nature of the Shadowfell is strong near the remnants of Athas' previous age.

 

[The Little Raven]

For Dark Sun, the Feywild would not be a contiguous plane, but rather a name for the collective pocket "domains" where the Spirits of the Land dwell. Druids venture into these pocket domains to converse with the Spirits of the Land they serve.

Clerics, in turn, draw their powers from the Elemental Chaos, choosing one element of all others (but still retaining minor proficiency with the other elements).

The Shadowfell, in Athas, is reached at night, when the restless banshees (undead dwarves) roam the land, moaning their failed foci. You might not cross over entirely, but the crumbling nature of the Shadowfell is strong near the remnants of Athas' previous age.

This man has smarts!

 

[ferratus]

I think it would just be best to dispense with plane-walking entirely in Dark Sun. The original Dark Sun cut huge numbers of monsters from the setting, and most of those match up pretty well with the new planes. Dark Sun needs giants, desert creatures, insects, carnivorous beast and abberations as its monsters. Even undead aren't particularly noteworthy, except for perhaps the Athasian fast zombie.

Warlock and Paladin are the trickiest classes to fit into the game. I think a case could be made for both of them being Templars, which might mean that a new hybrid class to replace both of them might be in order (a leader/blaster). Clerics are out, but now you can use Warlord to compensate. The Druids aren't in the core rules, so I guess it is a question whether or not someone considers druids essential to Dark Sun. I would perhaps wager that they aren't, simply because it detracts from the theme of magic killing life.

Psionics would be interesting in a 4e context given that it was promised that psionics would have a niche that wouldn't replace other spellcasters. So perhaps it will largely be based on telepathy, psychic attacks, body buffs, and soulknife-like abilities.

I can't see any way of integrating tieflings and Dragonborn into Dark Sun. Dragonborn might be possible if they were more like lizardmen, but Dragons are unique creatures in Dark Sun, so the whole theme and backstory of the Dragonborn race simply doesn't fit.

 

[Dausuul]

I think it would just be best to dispense with plane-walking entirely in Dark Sun. The original Dark Sun cut huge numbers of monsters from the setting, and most of those match up pretty well with the new planes. Dark Sun needs giants, desert creatures, insects, carnivorous beast and abberations as its monsters. Even undead aren't particularly noteworthy, except for perhaps the Athasian fast zombie.

Warlock and Paladin are the trickiest classes to fit into the game. I think a case could be made for both of them being Templars, which might mean that a new hybrid class to replace both of them might be in order (a leader/blaster). Clerics are out, but now you can use Warlord to compensate. The Druids aren't in the core rules, so I guess it is a question whether or not someone considers druids essential to Dark Sun. I would perhaps wager that they aren't, simply because it detracts from the theme of magic killing life.

Psionics would be interesting in a 4e context given that it was promised that psionics would have a niche that wouldn't replace other spellcasters. So perhaps it will largely be based on telepathy, psychic attacks, body buffs, and soulknife-like abilities.

I can't see any way of integrating tieflings and Dragonborn into Dark Sun. Dragonborn might be possible if they were more like lizardmen, but Dragons are unique creatures in Dark Sun, so the whole theme and backstory of the Dragonborn race simply doesn't fit.

One thing to remember is that WotC learned well the lesson of TSR--namely, that it's idiotic to splinter your core brand amid a dozen incompatible settings, and then dump all your effort into developing those settings. WotC's strategy has been to develop mainly "core-compatible" books (the Complete line, generic monster-books like the Fiendish Codices and the Draconomicon, adventures with unspecified setting, et cetera), and limit the amount of setting-specific development.

The flip side of this is that if a setting makes most of that "core" stuff invalid, then players who adopt that setting are effectively cut off from participating in WotC's main source of sales*. Again, that's a lousy business strategy. So if WotC does make a 4E version of Dark Sun, I think we can be confident that it will have a place in it for 90-95% of the stuff in the core books. Certainly I'll be amazed if any of the eight core classes or the eight core races get the axe.

That doesn't mean they'll look exactly the way they do in the Player's Handbook. The dragonborn may be creations of the sorceror-kings, their most feared enforcers; tieflings may be the spawn of black magic gone awry; eladrin may be a solitary, wandering race of wizards, whispered of in hushed and fearful tones. But they probably won't be cut from the setting entirely.

So it's probably a good idea to keep that in mind when deciding whether you want a 4E remake of Dark Sun. Me, I'm okay with it; I actually think a lot of the 4E stuff works much better in Dark Sun than it does in a traditional setting (e.g., dryads looking like particularly cantankerous treants). But we shouldn't expect that WotC will put adherence to the details of the original setting at the top of their priority list.

*D&D sales, that is. The M:tG division undoubtedly brings in so much cash that the whole RPG division is little more than a blip.