Dark Sun... any good?

[Kinneus]

My group breezed through the much-hyped tembo pair (probably because we were level 9 and they were level 5), but I seriously don't know how a party's supposed to survive 4 stirge swarms. That seemed like some pure fourthcore stuff.

 

[Raunalyn]

This is really funny, because the Tembos gave us issues. I guess it was the way our DM was running them, but that little ability to attack, shift 4, then attack again had us hurting. Not only that, but the ability to drain a surge and then increase the damage of their necrotic aura was pretty nasty.

I don't think the creatures you fought were stirge swarms, though your DM may have changed them to fit his campaign. We fought something called Crawling Guardians. They were tough, yes, but our mage (*cough* me *cough*) pulled them into a small area using Visions of Avarice, then Wall of Fire to surround them. Every time they tried to move through the wall, I'd use a Thunderwave to push them back in, or the monk would use one of his abilities to move it back into the wall. The rest of the group took care of the Skeletons and the other monster.

 

[Spatula]

Also on the defiling front, getting to re-roll the damage for an AoE (which applies to all targets) is a pretty big deal.

That said, I would like to see some benefit, even a minor one, to defiling with at-will and encounter spells.

 

[Obryn]

IMO, it's exceedingly excellent. I have been running a Dark Sun 4e game since the setting came out a year ago, and it's just going incredibly smoothly.

The fluff is great - it reset the timeline to right after the events of The Verdant Passage, so Tyr is free and Kalak is dead, but that's about it. Where you go next is up to you. (In my own game, after some adventuring, I'm running them through the 2e adventure, The Road to Urik. It's going awesomely.)

I've used both Eladrin and Tieflings to some great effect in my game. I think they did a good job on the fluff, there. Not a single dragonborn has been encountered yet. In my game, I've made Goliaths a separate race from Half-Giants... Half-Giants are Large-sized brutes, much like in 2e, but are not a PC race.

Overall, as a huge fan of the 2e setting, I'm super-pleased at 4e's interpretation of it.

-O

 

[Argyle King]

• The gouge is too good

That's really the only complaint I've had about DS. Some of the options in the book seem to be a little too good compared to the non-DS counterparts. The gouge stands out because it's really good even compared to other DS options, but it's not the only element of the book which seems to raise the power curve a notch.

That being said, I highly enjoy the rest of the book. It's the first 4E product in a while which I've actually considered buying.