Dark Sun, 4th Edition

[breschau]

Here's an Amazon link to confirm. Couldn't find it on the WotC website.

That's so cool. Can I just tell you how much I love POD and pdf books. I know that there aren't as many people into Dark Sun as say, Forgotten Realms or Eberron. But with the ability to print on demand and release ebooks there only restriction is developer time. With POD and ebooks there's no reason any book or game product should ever go out of print. Most publishers make their constant stream of income from their backlist (the older books).

 

[Spatula]

Cleansing wars? What cleansing wars? There is no official timeline.

(In other words, I continue to advocate dumping everything except the original boxed set. Doesn't look like I'm alone in that, either. Dark Sun may have set the record for fastest shark jump in history.)

Not alone here, and I'm with you, but head over to Athas.org if it's still around for the other fanbase.

Anyway, I was wrong in that DS did use some regular D&D monsters beyond skeletons & zombies, but mostly desert-themed ones (genies) or those that worked for a desert setting (overgrown lizards & bugs).

Whimsical forest monsters? Tell that to the new dryad. Or the fomorians. Or the shadar-kai. I'm not seeing a lot of whimsy here.

Wow, a tree monster in a desert. And a new flavor of dark elves where there's no "light" elves to constrast them with. And giants - fomorians aren't fey, and DS has its own particular giants.

Any remake of Dark Sun is going to be a remake, not an exact replica. If you want an exact replica, just buy the old Dark Sun books on eBay. To me, at least, the important thing is to get the flavor and the feel of the world right; minor details can go by the wayside.

If the new Dark Sun comes with a list of deities, standard dragons in place of the Dragon of Tyr, and no defiling magic, I'll be up in arms. But if it happens to contain a few hobgoblins? Meh. Whatever.

Of course, what qualifies as "minor details" differs from person to person. Upthread, Klaus advocated getting rid of psionics in the setting, which is a critical part of it in my view (and if the 4e psion is not a better blaster than the arcane casters, as we have in 3e, it would work really well for the setting, too). Here you're for throwing goblins into a setting that doesn't have them, or anything even resembling them, much as Dragonlance does not have orcs (unless something has changed with DL). If someone came out with a 4e DL setting filled with orcs, I think the fans might not appreciate the sudden change. The weakest humanoid-type monster in DS was the gith, which had 3HD and psionic powers. One gith would eat a hobgoblin for a pre-breakfast snack.

We've been told that 4E will accommodate paladins of Asmodeus. As far as I can tell, a paladin in 4E is a divine warrior; not necessarily a lawful or good one, though the pregen paladin fills the traditional role. This fits with the general theme of stripping out alignment-based mechanics from the game.

Paladins would possibly make good templars, then.

2E's approach of making preservers and defilers mirror images of each other isn't likely to hold up in 4E, but I don't think that's a bad thing. Frankly, the 2E solution struck me as a bit lazy.

Any setup that has defilers and preservers as two seperate classes is a bit lazy, IMO. Preservers, by the setting fluff, should be able to tap into more power via defiling if they wish (and there should be consequences for doing so). The Dragon/Dungeon conversion got this much right, at least, even if I didn't care for the particular mechanic used there.

 

[breschau]

Paladins would possibly make good templars, then.

Any setup that has defilers and preservers as two seperate classes is a bit lazy, IMO. Preservers, by the setting fluff, should be able to tap into more power via defiling if they wish (and there should be consequences for doing so). The Dragon/Dungeon conversion got this much right, at least, even if I didn't care for the particular mechanic used there.

I don't know about paladins as templars. The were never described as meat-shield defenders. They were the bureaucrats and spell-slingers, more like clerics or even warlocks with a "sorcerer-king" pact. That fits much closer to the source material.

As for the preservers vs defilers, the split was their use/abuse of magic, the former taking time to replace the energy drawn out for a spell, while the latter didn't care and ripped it all out. There was description of the defiler being quicker at casting than the preservers. They really are a single class in the novels, with any preserver having the ability to defile. That's something that should be addressed in the rules. I don't like that preserver/defiler is a class distinction, it's only an in-game role-playing distinction.

They should both be wizards, but to defile is the standard casting time, whereas the preserver has to use an extra action to replenish the plants with their own life energy. It's clean, simple, and follows the source novels.

Sadira was a preserver in philosophy, almost always taking the time to preserve, but in a pinch she would defile. (Reinforcing the argument they're really a single class.) Making two classes and an entirely new casting mechanic for this split seems like over-kill when there are easier solutions. A single class (standard wizard) with the defiling area of effect for standard casting, and the cost of an extra action to take the time to preserve. Makes sense to me. Clean. Simple.

 

[pawsplay]

Dark Sun would be cool... but only if done with utmost respect. If it gets the FR treatment, no way. Some thoughts: psionics would already need to be robustly supported. Paladins would work fine as elemental paladins, since the new paladins have less alignment stuff and more general smiting. Templar would be a path. Defiling/preserving should be part of the setting, with specific class powers you could choose to make yourself more effective at one or the other.

 

[Kordeth]

Wow, a tree monster in a desert.

Replace "Tree Monster" with "Oasis Spirit" or "sand spirit" and the principle applies. It's not the specific examples of fey people are pointing out here, it's the fact that 4E fey are not "whimsical forest monsters." They, like the fair folk of legends, are inscrutable, powerful, and pretty much utterly alien in moral outlook. The core MM might very well focus on "forest" themed fey, but because that's where most "standard" D&D adventures will cross over into the Feywild. The Athasian Feywild would be a place of endless dunes so bright that even a glance would blind you, of cliffs miles high riddled with the tombs and barrows of ancient fomorian-kings, of Irem, the Lost City of Pillars. Look into some of the folklore of the bedouin tribes around Saudi Arabia's Empty Quarter and you'll have all the examples you need for an Athasian feywild.

And a new flavor of dark elves where there's no "light" elves to constrast them with.

Umm...shadar-kai aren't dark elves. They also aren't associated with the Feywild, but with the Shadowfell.

And giants - fomorians aren't fey, and DS has its own particular giants.

Did you read the article on fomorians on the D&D site, or Worlds & Monsters? Fomorians most definitely are fey, and W&M even makes a specific point of the fact that the "Giant" creature type is no longer "anything that's Large and human-shaped."

Of course, what qualifies as "minor details" differs from person to person. Upthread, Klaus advocated getting rid of psionics in the setting, which is a critical part of it in my view (and if the 4e psion is not a better blaster than the arcane casters, as we have in 3e, it would work really well for the setting, too). Here you're for throwing goblins into a setting that doesn't have them, or anything even resembling them, much as Dragonlance does not have orcs (unless something has changed with DL). If someone came out with a 4e DL setting filled with orcs, I think the fans might not appreciate the sudden change. The weakest humanoid-type monster in DS was the gith, which had 3HD and psionic powers. One gith would eat a hobgoblin for a pre-breakfast snack.

I don't remember if any hobgoblin stats have been released for 4E yet, but given what we've seen of other monsters I really don't think the argument "humanoids are too puny for Dark Sun!" applies. You can argue that they don't fit the setting, but saying that humanoids are too weak for the hyper-deadly Dark Sun world is erroneous 3E style thought.

Paladins would possibly make good templars, then.

Given that paladins are no longer "sacred champions of shiny goodness and chivalry" and are instead "divinely-powered tanks," they are in fact the obvious choice for replacing the Templar class. 4E paladins could even draw their power from the elements, just like clerics, and be a viable PC class.

Any setup that has defilers and preservers as two seperate classes is a bit lazy, IMO. Preservers, by the setting fluff, should be able to tap into more power via defiling if they wish (and there should be consequences for doing so). The Dragon/Dungeon conversion got this much right, at least, even if I didn't care for the particular mechanic used there.

I agree. Defiling and preserving should be options built off of the wizard class. It's been ages since I read the old Dark Sun magic rules, but I'd probably key them directly into wizard spells. At a guess, I'd maybe make "Defile" and "Preserve" at-will class features that modify how your other spells work, then liberally sprinkle defiling and preserving spells throughout the wizard class's power list to cover the more extreme examples like sucking someone's life force out to power a spell.

 

[arscott]

If the 4e sorcerer is going where I think it's going then the distinction should be pretty simple:

Preserver = Wizard
Defiler = Sorcerer

Races & Classes describes the Sorcerer as someone barely in control of their magic, whose magical effects might bleed out into their environment (So, say, if a sorcerer cast a fire spell at someone, then the sorcerer might be momentarily surrounded in flames that burn nearby creatures).

That's basically the defiler in a nutshell--heck you could probably reduce the "defiler magic kills plants" so that it only affects rituals and setting/specific spells and still keep in flavor with the setting.

I don't really see preservers being able to defile to get more powerful spells, and the setting mechanics never supported this (It only showed up once or twice in a novel, right?). They're people who have trained much longer than the defilers, so they should be able to take advantage of that training.

Sort of like the difference between an orc with a greatclub and an elf with a rapier. The orc is as dangerous as the elf. And he probably hasn't spend nearly as much time training as the elf has. But if you gave the elf the club, he'd probably be less effective than he is with his blade.

 

[SSquirrel]

As for the preservers vs defilers, the split was their use/abuse of magic, the former taking time to replace the energy drawn out for a spell, while the latter didn't care and ripped it all out. There was description of the defiler being quicker at casting than the preservers. They really are a single class in the novels, with any preserver having the ability to defile. That's something that should be addressed in the rules. I don't like that preserver/defiler is a class distinction, it's only an in-game role-playing distinction.

They should both be wizards, but to defile is the standard casting time, whereas the preserver has to use an extra action to replenish the plants with their own life energy. It's clean, simple, and follows the source novels.

Been awhile since I pulled out my DS books, but I thought casting times were the same and such, the faster was a reference to it being a quicker path. This was shown by the faster XP table, similar to Black Robe mages in DragonLance. Maybe I'm remembering wrong, wouldn't be the first time

 

[Spatula]

The core MM might very well focus on "forest" themed fey

And I was indeed talking of throwing out the standard MM monsters.

Umm...shadar-kai aren't dark elves.

They aren't called "dark elves" because D&D already has those (drow). They're another take on the same concept, though.

Did you read the article on fomorians on the D&D site, or Worlds & Monsters? Fomorians most definitely are fey, and W&M even makes a specific point of the fact that the "Giant" creature type is no longer "anything that's Large and human-shaped."

I skimmed it but clearly forgot that bit.

I don't remember if any hobgoblin stats have been released for 4E yet, but given what we've seen of other monsters I really don't think the argument "humanoids are too puny for Dark Sun!" applies. You can argue that they don't fit the setting, but saying that humanoids are too weak for the hyper-deadly Dark Sun world is erroneous 3E style thought.

What's 3e got to do with anything?

 

[The Little Raven]

They aren't called "dark elves" because D&D already has those (drow). They're another take on the same concept, though.

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

 

[Spatula]

I don't know about paladins as templars. The were never described as meat-shield defenders. They were the bureaucrats and spell-slingers, more like clerics or even warlocks with a "sorcerer-king" pact. That fits much closer to the source material.

They were warrior-priests. They had access to all divine spells in 2e but had slower spell progression and better weapon & armor training than elemental clerics. The paladin would probably work for some kinds of templars, the cleric for the more caster-oriented kinds, and NPC stats for the pure bureaucrats.