D&D 5E How would you wish WOTC to do Dark Sun

[Haldrik]

The first and easiest solution that comes to my mind is simply renaming the Sorcerer as Psion.

Personally, I like less to associate "psionics" with "flashy" elemental themes like Fireball. So, I prefer to divorce psionics from elemental magic. Therefore, for me, Sorcerer is the last class that might make sense for psionics.



To me, the most important psionic tropes are:

• Telepathy (mental communication, emotional manipulation, hallucinations and dreams)
• Telekinesis (force constructs, force damage, at-will powerful telekinesis)
• Teleportation-ESP (send the mind there clairvoyantly, then bring the body there without error, also divination and planar hopping)
• Shapeshifting (psychometabolism, including healing)

So obviously, I love using the Bard the primary psionic class.



That said, I know pyrokinesis is a modern trope. If the Psychic Soul is specifically all about elemental-kinesis, like pyrokinesis, I am ok with Sorcerer becoming the silo for this kind psionic tradition. If the Sorcerer is specifically a Pyrokineticist (Pyromancy) or a Hydrokineticist (Hydromancy), or an Elementalist generally, then I am ok with this kind of Psionic Sorcerer.

 

[Danzauker]

So, the "Avangion" is an epic (level 20+) transformation of a preserver arcanist, analogous to the draconic transformation of the Sorcerer king.

Weirdly at least one official source fails to describe what this transformation looks like.

Avangion (Monstrous Manual)

It has a somewhat ambiguous illustration accompanying the text. This image looks more humanoid in a wingsuit, while other images elsewhere look more Thri-Kreen insectoid in a wingsuit.

But the text itself seems to suggest that the form of the Avangion is made out of "light, water, and life-giving properties" (including plants?).

Maybe for 5e Dark Sun, the proto-avangion can be a relatively straightforward divine Soul Sorcerer, with shapeshifting options to become liquid water or incorporeal light, with the ability to spout watery wings for flight?

The avangion seems to be arcane, in the sense of being a Preserver. But it is ambiguously psionic as well, requiring psionicist levels. Likewise its affinity with the element of water and life, relates to divine. The magic source seems ambiguous. The 5e Dark Sun might do well to clarify its source, making it one, a choice of several, or an explicit blend.

IIRC there was a complete level by level transformation gallery in the supplement Preservers and Defilers.

 

[Haldrik]

All viable choices. After all the PCs are by definition exceptional beings, so while all your descriptions are more or less of exceedingly rare if not unique individuals, why should a player be barred by them.

The Divine Soul Sorcerer you describe is the closest thing I see for a to-be Avangion I can imagine.

I agree. Whatever the 5e Dark Sun makes "typical". The setting should give players latitude to create unique character concepts.

 

[Danzauker]

Personally, I dislike associating "psionics" with "flashy" elemental themes like Fireball. (I know pyrokinesis is a modern trope, but I dont have to like it. Let it remain pyromancy.) So, I prefer to divorce psionics from elemental magic. Therefore, for me, Sorcerer is the last class that might make sense psionically.

To me, the most important psionic tropes are:

• Telepathy (mental communication, emotional manipulation, hallucinations and dreams)
• Telekinesis (force constructs, force damage, at-will powerful telekinesis)
• Teleportation-ESP (send the mind there clairvoyantly, then bring the body there without error, also divination and planar hopping)
• Shapeshifting (psychometabolism, including healing)

So obviously, I love using the Bard the primary psionicist.



That said, if the Psychic Soul is specifically all about elemental-kinesis like pyrokinesis, I am ok with Sorcerer becoming the silo for this kind psionic tradition.

I know where you are coming from and I also was a little confused by the D&D interpretation of what "psionic" powers are the first time I met them. I used to imagine a psion like a Charles Xavier type. Nevertheless, D&D/DS has a different view from ours and pirokinetic is part of it.

Anyway, i was more referring on how the mechanics of sorcerers match to the psion more that the powers allowed. No one is prohibited to bar "spells" from the evocation school from the sorcerer's list to better suit their idea of what a psion is in their game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The post pentad status quo really wouldn't be all that bad as long as the deep lore abut Rajaat, the blue age, and so forth is kept obscure/ambiguous in published material. Maybe throw in the vague suggestion of a canonical retcon--but never commit one way or another. Moreover, with a soft reset that jumped the timeline past the book characters' deaths from old age, there'd still be plenty of thematic Darksun to go around.

The take in my headcannon:
Dregoth will have laid to waste and occupied Raam (and most people think he's the original dragon). Sadira will be the faux sorcerer queen of Tyr--less evil but still an eccentric dictator. Tectuctitlay's "son" Atzetuk will be the new divine ruler of Draj, by dint of extreme psychic powers. Balic will be a strife-riven disaster, but with Andropinis still exerting weird extra-dimensional influence. Hamanu, Nibenay, and Lilali-Puy will all be right where we left them. And there's omnipresent religious strife between Dregoth and Lilali-Puy's cultists. All of that is a straight line from 2e's "Beyond the Prism Pentad", with only minimal effort to curtail the metaplot's sunshine and rainbows.





As @Delazar says, the elephant in the room is easy enough to lampshade. Not every class needs to have a clearly explained and justified canonical origin.

Give all the arcane classes a handwave by stating that Athas is OLD and tons of abstruse sorcerous traditions have accreted over its history. Your PC can be a Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, or Wizard, but the people of Athas don't have names for those classes; they only know the difference between defilers and preservers. Have a unified set of defiling rules that any arcane PC can use--including arcane tricksters and eldritch knights--and introduce a couple of defiler archetypes that leverage those rules. It never needs to become setting-relevent that the bard PC can use instruments as a spell focus, just handwave him/her as some weird kind of preserver and never have the party meet another one.

Also, allowing an eldritch knight in a Darksun party has the potential to make the setting themes stronger, not weaker. One more PC would have to resist the temptation of defiling and worry about being outed as a magic user--where before those things might only have mattered to the wizard player.

Most other classes are a much easier lift, and a few variant features--like the one @Delazar used for his paladin player--could be introduced to make them work. Again, with the caveat that a PC can be one but that, like the races excluded from Ravnica and Theros, they have no canonical place in the setting.

Yeah, my homebrew is largely set in a nation that has outlawed arcane magic, and they make no distinction between bards, sorcerers, warlocks, wizards, and any other magical class except clerics (who they're fine with) and druids (about whom the jury is still out).

 

[Micah Sweet]

IIRC there was a complete level by level transformation gallery in the supplement Preservers and Defilers.

Also the Dragon Kings book for 2e.

 

[Danzauker]

Also the Dragon Kings book for 2e.

Could be that, I don't have it right here.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I wonder about after DS to publish something like a mixture of spin-off and spiritual succesor. It isn't Athas but a different place, maybe a new plane for Magic: the Gathering. This world is discovered, visited and explored by a planewalker born in Athas, and a preserver in the beginning, but after to fight against some strange plants monster (from the Far Realm) become a defiler (she thinks her work is like to create a firewall). When she tries to discover an alternative to defiler magic, she finds an option....and this doesn't kill flora with necrotic damage, but the effects are different, and in the end the "taint" cause troubles, for example taint elementals.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I think it all comes down what people are looking for when it comes to Dark Sun. What is the core element that needs preserving (no pun intended)? Right now, Dark Sun seems to be several things people want:

• Post-apocalyptic meets pulp dying world where hope and resources are in short supply. Vance meets Howard by way of Burroughs.
• A D&D hardmode where PCs might be super-munckiny (24 strengths! Free Wild talents!) but still die quickly from dehydration, inferior weapons and armor, and monsters that make the Tomb of Horrors look like a Disney dark ride. Bring extra character sheets.
• An "anti-D&D" s setting where everything is flipped on its head. Cannibal halflings! Bards that poison you rather than spell cast! Psionics instead of magic! No orcs, no goblins, and dragons are psionic-magical God-Kings! There is not one word of lore in D&D that is true about Dark Sun, no assumption can be made, and nothing, and I mean nothing, is like it is described in the PHB.
• Fidelity to the original vision of the setting, without additions or subtractions, with or without the metaplot advancements. Nothing that wasn't in the original setting back in the 90's.
• A collection of new options (Races, subclasses, psionics) and rules (advanced survival, defiling) that can be ported to other games or used in homebrews.

Whichever you think is most important colors the rest of your choices on what to adapt. For example, the first point is the most important than the Barbarian class is a natural fit; tough armorless primal warriors seem a shoo-in for the setting. Yet If the second is the most important, barbarians are a no-go because they allow PCs to have excellent ACs easily, and having a good AC is a privilege for those cunning enough to survive low levels with bone armor and stone weapons. Similarly, if fidelity is most important, there is no way you can possibly accept sorcerers, warlocks, tieflings, or any other element that came post 2e as part of the setting since it ruins the very notion of DS's relation to magic and the planes, but if you want more options, then you want warlocks to get new Pact options, not banned altogether!

WotC will have to decide IF they are doing this, which parts are the most important and in what measure. If they want the setting beats and options but don't care about it being hard or keeping true to the setting, you get a 4e-ish style book that is mostly refluff, reflavor, and some new options to go with it. If they want to satisfy the original purist who want Dark Sun to be D&D are its most brutal and strange, they are either going to have to create a book that doesn't use 50% or more of the current options in the core, let alone doesn't generate leads to supplemental books OR they are going to have to re-write the game to accommodate all the changes. You MIGHT be able to get away with "paladins are unknown, check with your DM" but there is no way you are pulling off "In Dark Sun, you cannot be a barbarian, bard, monk, sorcerer, paladin, or warlock. Additionally, you cannot be an eldritch knight, arcane trickster, beastmaster, have any cleric domain but life, light, and nature, or specialize in any school of wizard magic except preserver or defiler."

So again, what is the most important parts you want to emphasize? What trade-offs are you willing to make?

So personally, I don't find many of your points here that contradictory. Because largely, they deal with different aspects of the game, chiefly being;

• Theme of the world
• Crunch (rules) of the setting
• Lore of the world

I think theme-wise, most people seem to agree that the setting should harken back to the original 90s publication; some people do seem to like how Dark Sun worked in 4E, but I think people who want DS to have "all the classes and races of 5E" are a minority here. Yes there should be thematic ways and adventure options to run "D&D hard-mode" but this also doesn't need to be the default.

Crunch-wise, I think we do need to recognize some classes, like clerics and paladins, just don't work here. Some races even-more so; there are no gnomes, and although there were options for tieflings here in 4E they really don't fit the minimalist theme here. However, making clear that some races don't fit a setting is not unprecedented; the recent book for Theros has only this to say on the base PHB races;

A diverse assortment of peoples dwell among the lands of Theros. Aside from humans, the races in the Player's Handbook are unknown on Theros, unless they're visiting from other worlds.

A single sentence makes clear that the standards of normal D&D races do not apply. It is not difficult to imagine a similar line (or a page or two) being used to explain how some classes either don't exist or require moderation for use in Dark Sun. The book will certainly provide a suite of new subclasses for use in Dark Sun so people can play as most of the classes, and even the spellcaster classes will largely work with a Dark Sun approved spell list (Preserver/Defiler does not require it's own subclass, just rules explaining how spellcasting creates a cost on the player or environment).

Obviously magic will need some modification to account for how defiling/preserving works, but I also don't think it requires that much modification if there is also a page of "Dark Sun approved spells" (listing the spells from other books that are usable in Dark Sun, and new ones specifically designed for the setting). Psionics will make an appearance of some kind, either as its own class or as subclasses (probably the latter based on UA, but it hardly matters).

As for the lore, most agree that the Prism Pentad is terrible and should be ignored (except for @LuisCarlos17f , but have you even read this series?). Even 4E rebooted to right after Kalak's death, and I think that same date works for 5E. Hell, maybe include the original module that kills Kalak, updated for 5E, in the setting book as an introductory adventure.

None of this requires more than one book. It would make a hefty book, but I doubt it needs to be any larger than Eberron's.

TLDR: You're making a false choice between either a minor 4E book or a completely new game system, when it is not required to make Dark Sun both functional and true to the original's themes in style and gameplay.

 

[Coroc]

...
A diverse assortment of peoples dwell among the lands of Theros. Aside from humans, the races in the Player's Handbook are unknown on Theros, unless they're visiting from other worlds.

...

And oddly, no discussion ever why some one can not play his half-tiefling-half hobbit in Theros. Zilch. Nada.

What is it, that makes some people on the forum here want to "defile" the classic DS setting with their "modern" "anything-has-to-go" expectations, and with other settings like Theros no one even complains?

Maybe some one could start a survey:

"Why do you complain on classic Darksun restrictions and keep quiet about Theros? Please do also answer, if you do not intend to play either of those settings."