Dragonblade said:
The new Dark Sun section is sort of a mini players guide. They talk about the basics of playing a Dark Sun campaign using the PHB races and classes and then add notes on how Dark Sun clerics differ from regular clerics etc.
In my opinion it completely sucked. And the reason it sucked is because all of the classes and races are taken directly out of the PHB with minimal if any mechanical changes to fit Athas.
For example, in classic Dark Sun there are no paladins and Bards do not cast spells, among other things. Well there are paladins now! And Bards cast spells like it was no big deal. Like the world isn't a blasted wasteland from the excesses of rogue wizards.
Hey Noonan! Get a clue! There are no paladins on Athas!!!!!!! Did you even read the original boxed set? And Bards on Athas do not cast spells!!
Half-Giants are referred to in the Expanded PsiHB so they tell you to look there, but I can tell already that Cordell has done his part in screwing over this Dark Sun fan. Half-Giants are only a +1 Level adjustment race. Sorry but, I don't see that as staying true to what half-giants were really like in classic Dark Sun. Half-Giants should have a +8 or +10 to Strength to accurately portray them as they were in the original Dark Sun setting. Somehow, I don't think that is what their strength bonus is going to be.
When they converted Dark Sun over from 2nd Edition, they should have focused on keeping the setting and the feel as intact as possible. Dark Sun was never a balanced setting in the first place. Trying to shoehorn the setting into the Balance Rules All paradigm of 3rd Edition just totally kills the setting. Besides there are other ways to balance Dark Sun versions of the PHB classes or even use Half-Giants at their full potential and still maintain balance in the game. But Noonan didn't want to actually think so he just tossed in everything from the PHB or the new PsiHB whether it belongs on Athas or not.
Guess what, WotC isn't going to make an imbalanced setting, just not going to happen. "Shoehorning" Athas into 3e by actually paying attention to balance issues isn't ruining a setting, it's making it playable. One of the reasons people stopped playing 2e and 3e was so succesful is that it actually paid attention to games being balanced.
The magazine article even notes that Paladins are extremely rare on Athas, if you don't want them, don't use them in your game. If you haven't noticed, 3rd Edition has always been about providing options for people's games, not just saying "you can't because we say so" for anything. Arbitrarily restricting classes isn't fun, tell the DM why they shouldn't be there, and leave it to the DM to decide if he wants to have any as PC's in his game.
Also, this isn't a slavishly uncreative recreation of Dark Sun. If people want a painfully arcane and convoluted recreation of the setting, full of arbitrary rules which exist only because "it's always been that way here", it's not going to be very fun or entertaining to someone who isn't a long-term fan of Dark Sun.
I never knew much about Dark Sun. I started playing in 2e, but after Dark Sun was discontinued, and never got to play in a 2e game. Dark Sun was almost a cliche among my friends for an overpowered game. I don't have a problem with anything in there, because I was aware of the concept of the setting, but I didn't walk in with a decade of preconceptions on how it *had* to be. Between this Dragon, the one last December with the Preserver/Defiler rules & the matching issue of Dungeon, it had everything I expected.
Dragon Kings, Check. Preservers & Defilers, Check. Lots of Psionics, Check. Roguish Elves & Feral Halflings, Check. Hot & Barren, Check. Templars & Elemental Clerics, Check. Psionic beasts and unique undead, Check. Half-Giants, Thri-Kreen & Muls, Check.
The 3.5 Dark Sun in Dragon is also set ~300 years after the prior Dark Sun materials, to allow for any differences in the setting. You could just assume that Paladins started emerging in small numbers in the last few centuries, and that a spellcaster multiclassed as a Bard, developed bardic magic, and slowly spead it among bards until after a few hundred years the average bard has some limited arcane magic.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
