Dark Sun, 4th Edition

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Really, if there's an old setting that's better suited to the 4th Edition rules, I don't know what it is.

As much a fan I am for Dark Sun, Mystara is better suited.

And I voted yes.

 

[Blue Monk]

I both love and hate the setting. I love the brutal landscape, ancient societies with low metal, and god like kings. Magic is illegal. I hate how the setting seems to run in circles. The world is dying so if you fix it you are not playing in the harsh setting any more, and if you don't fix it the world will die. The map for the Tyr region is small. There are a lot of inconsistencies between the novels and even the setting materials. There are no Dragons except those sorcerer/psionists that transformed themselves. Oh yeah, and Dwarves have no beards!?

Sure it is fun to play weird races, like thrikreen, cannibal halflings, and elven raiders.

But I also know there are many hardcore DS fans that hate change or any rehashing of the rules or story. There are also fans that argue when is the best time to begin a campaign.
Before the dragons death or after when the city of Tyr freed its slaves.

Change the cosmology, tweak the magic rules, or create a new sorcerer king and there will be many DS fans gnashing their teeth, but buying any printed material they can get their hands on so they can run the campaign their way.

No is my vote. Then after the psionic rules come out then yes will be my new vote.

 

[breschau]

I both love and hate the setting. I love the brutal landscape, ancient societies with low metal, and god like kings. Magic is illegal. I hate how the setting seems to run in circles. The world is dying so if you fix it you are not playing in the harsh setting any more, and if you don't fix it the world will die. The map for the Tyr region is small. There are a lot of inconsistencies between the novels and even the setting materials. There are no Dragons except those sorcerer/psionists that transformed themselves. Oh yeah, and Dwarves have no beards!?

Sure it is fun to play weird races, like thrikreen, cannibal halflings, and elven raiders.

But I also know there are many hardcore DS fans that hate change or any rehashing of the rules or story. There are also fans that argue when is the best time to begin a campaign.
Before the dragons death or after when the city of Tyr freed its slaves.

Change the cosmology, tweak the magic rules, or create a new sorcerer king and there will be many DS fans gnashing their teeth, but buying any printed material they can get their hands on so they can run the campaign their way.

No is my vote. Then after the psionic rules come out then yes will be my new vote.

Good points.

Personally I like the original series of novels best, and the original box. I hated the revised edition and the changes made. I prefer to play before the novels, so Tyr has her slaves and Kalak is still in charge. Let the characters be the heroes. Others disagree. It's like the era notes in Star Wars, the setting is essentially the same pre-Crimson, during Crimson, and post-Crimson (basically), but here's what's changed.

Don't flame me about the Storm and the Dragon and all that, I know. I know.

Just don't let the fans do it, make the WotC designers work it.

 

[Spatula]

I can see 4E fey fitting quite well into the Dark Sun setting; remember, everything in the 4E Monster Manual is designed to be suitable for use as an opponent to the PCs.

What does that have to do with anything?

All fey creatures were killed in the cleansing wars or whatever (official timeline). Aside from that, they're whimsical forest monsters that don't have any place in a brutal setting. And aside from that, DS doesn't use any standard D&D monsters aside from some basic undead. Like I said, it's alien, in a post-apocalyptic way. All the "old" monsters died off or survived via favorable mutations (psionics).

And what's wrong with paladins? As long as they were idealistic, Lawful Good holy warriors, paladins didn't fit into Dark Sun, but the 4E paladin has no such strictures. Heck, paladins could take the place of templar.

So what's the 4e paladin then? The pregen sure looked like a Good holy warrior to me. Paladins are holy knights in shining armor with a chilvaric-style code of conduct. DS has no holiness, no knights, no shining armor, and no chilvary.

 

[Pale Jackal]

My original reply did not take into account that there's setting-specific classes and races, such as the lovely thri-kreen (well, I liked them when I was young) and oh so amazing (conceptually) defiler.

So if there was a decent bit of crunch in the setting book, I'd totally buy it, though really, I'd only purchase one Dark Sun type book (probably), so my "yes" isn't a yes for a whole line of products.

D'oh, should've just edited my original post.

 

[vagabundo]

WOTC should do a load of one offs to test the waters for material such as this. Let the market decide what is viable.

A DS adventure with a softbook of DS classes and basic setting. Make sure to reboot it to the original boxed set. If it sells like gangbusters then you have an option to release a sequel module and some DDI updates.

That got my vote.

 

[Steely Dan]

If Brom isn't involved, it won't feel the same.

…I can just convert all my original DS material to 4th Ed, it can actually be more fun that way for us tinkerers.

It is a perfect Pointy Lights world.

 

[Steely Dan]

As much a fan I am for Dark Sun, Mystara is better suited.

Hollow World maybe, IMO, but Mystara has all these sweeping empires – Alphatia, Glantri etc.

 

[med stud]

I would like to see it. I bought a used copy of the first edition of Dark Sun and I really enjoyed it. I agree with many here that Dark Sun is as made for the core concept of PoL. I also think the 4e rules would fit very well.

Since the power curve is flattening, it seems like even pretty high level characters have reason to fear armies. Limited access to teleportation style magic would mean that travelling plays a larger part, which cuts in nice with the Athasian environment, IMO a selling point for the setting. Racial abilities make it easier to balance half giants and thri kreen. More access to powers and less reliance on magic items is also a nice since Dark Sun is a world where I think it's appropriate for even high level characters to be on the poor side. Avangions, dragons and living elementals are very easy to make into Epic destinies.

Adding wild talents will also be very easy; every character starts with a psionic power, at will, per encounter or per day. You don't have to calculate PSPs or having to multiclass with psion to get that touch.

Really, I think if 4e doesn't come out differently than it looks now, it will be the edition that will be the best suited to Dark Sun.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I would note that WotC is already reprinting the first two Dark Sun novels this fall in trade paperback format (with the original Brom cover art), so that suggests that they may be considering it for a relaunch.

Do you have a source on this? I couldn't find it anywhere.