D&D 4E How would you re-envision Darksun with 4e?

[FreeXenon]

Back to the Original Boxed Set!

 

[Klaus]

Back to the Original Boxed Set!

I sense a consensus...

 

[frankthedm]

Use the warlock class to represent templar.

Hmm, this idea, does intruge me.

 

[Najo]

Hmm, this idea, does intruge me.

Yeah, me too. Pacts made with Sorcerer Kings has potential.

 

[Kirnon_Bhale]

Oooohh.... I like the Warlock = Templars angle. I would love this to come to pass.

 

[FreeXenon]

I also find this intriguing.

 

[Spatula]

Preserver/Defiler would be a new class.

I think this misses the mark (as it did originally, having 2 seperate classes). "Preserver" should just be the baseline mage. Mages should have the option to defile to increase the power of their spells, but the power becomes addicting, to the point where if you do it too much you have trouble not using it. No need for seperate classes, IMO.

This allows for a preserver to "fall to the dark side," makes the fear against mages legitimate (true defilers are more powerful than normal for their level), and still restricts that power for PCs (who in most cases will not wish to be unable to cast spells without defiling).

RE: dragonborn: I forgot about the Dray... They are rather secluded, though. In any case, the idea of big, strong, lizard guys in Dark Sun isn't out of place (wherever they may come from), but there's already two big, strong races.

Templars as warlocks - the templars are warrior priests, though. Not blasty-types.

 

[Zaruthustran]

Templars as warlocks - the templars are warrior priests, though. Not blasty-types.

True, but we don't yet know how 4E warlocks will play out. Sure, 3E warlocks were blasty-types but they also had creepy, thematic powers. I imagine that 4E warlocks will likewise offer more than just Eldritch Blast. It'd be fairly simple to implement; just publish a special "Sorcerer King Pact" line of powers and abilities, and have that replace the standard Fey, Star, and Infernal (or whatever they'll call it) pacts.

Heck, have each SK offer one or two unique powers or abilities so that templars of different SKs will be distinct.

As for the blast itself, I think it fits the setting. Who better to project the power of SK's than Templars who can, literally, project the SK's power via a damaging blast?

 

[Silverblade The Ench]

It's been a long time, but didn't the Tribe of One novels include an order of female psychic monks?

OMG, the novels were dire (well most of them) in that they totally wrecked Athas as it was presented to us: killing half the sorceror kings, the main NPCs of the entire setting, and having major errors etc :/

Keep to the original box set, to hell with all the stuff that messed with the time line.
Dune Trade, some other "splat type books" were very good though.

Sorceror kings should be demigods in scope, way way beyond the power of any PC less than lvl 30 (4th ed) to kill.

The rules should force folk to not wear heavy armour, temperatures on Athas get to 60 C, and worse! Outisde the shade/water of a city, or spells of comfort, heavy armour should be a slow death sentence.

Brom, oh heck yeah, he is great, the "Belgoi overlooking caravan" pic of his is one of my fave ever pieces of art!

Athasian bard as a specific class, or, paragon apth for rogues. They are nothing liek normal bards.

Major inclusion of psionics.

TOTAL abandonment of the horrible, VILE, stupid ,*foams and rants*, dumb, "official" history of Athas from the novels! Blerg! Omg that stuff was...bad. Instead, leave the history blank....no one knows the history except the sorceror kings, and the DM!

In my games, I had it that in times long past, the illithids plotted to put out the Sun. They spread psionic ability amongst all humanoids, and slowly siphoned off tiny portion of this, but a tiny portion from millions, is a lot...as an accident of this, defiling was born as a pisonic/wizard experimented.

When the illithids had enough power, they tried ot put the Sun out, but it screwed up, the Sun swelled into a red giant, was going to go nova, the gods intervened to stop this, but the resulting catastrophic energy release basically "burned out" the Athasian Astral Plane/planes and thus the gods.

Meanwhile, the imbalances triggered by psionics and defiling had lead to catastrophic war, so as the gods died, So-uts (who are living weapons designed to destroy metals and thus weaken enemy armies/civlizations), armies of all types, mostly got wiped out as well...magic went wild from the near-nova...defilers had ruined much of the land etc.

From this chaos and catastrophy, emerged eventually the sorceror-kings and their cities


That I think makes a lot more bloody sense than demi-god psionc halflings in a space ship from the novels...meh!

 

[PeterWeller]

I think this misses the mark (as it did originally, having 2 seperate classes). "Preserver" should just be the baseline mage.

I agree, except that I think Defilers should be the baseline. Defiling is the norm for Darksun mages (at least that's how the fluff made it sound), and Preserving requires you to be more careful and hold back, weakening yourself so as not to destroy the environment further. That being said, it's probably easier to make Preserving the baseline from a gameplay perspective.