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Message: <blockquote data-quote="humble minion" data-source="post: 8048341" data-attributes="member: 5948">I'm actually a bit more tolerant than some about what post-2e material to allow into Dark Sun.  For me, it's about maintaining the spirit rather than the letter of the 2e lore (because remember, even the 2e lore was frequently confused, contradictory, and downright dumb in places, it shouldn't be treated as Holy Writ)The fundamentals of the setting, as far as i see it:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">survival is hard, especially as a result of heat, lack of water, lack of metal.  Slavery is common and life is cheap.  No escape, no respite, no easy answers.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">magic or quasi-magic that is not druidic, elemental, psionic, or templar in origin is rare, hard to learn, and widely despised.  And also - the power needs to come from somewhere, and it rarely comes without a price.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">many 'familiar' D&D creatures don't exist - orcs, celestials, vampires, minotaurs, standard-issue D&D dragons, goblins, sahuagin, etc etc.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">the majority of the setting's few cities are run by oppressive sorcerer-kings, and in general, it's a world in which kindness, mercy, and benevolence are in short supply</li> </ul>So I've got no problem with barbarians, for instance.  The only objection seems to be game-mechanical.  Treat non-metal weapons as default and metal weapons as quasi-magic items with special abilities, and the AC issue goes away.  Some of the barbarian subclasses that give magical abilities will need to go though.  I see no reason monks shouldn't exist either.  They aren't really in the DS lore up to now, but there's certainly no reason why they shouldn't be.  There's certainly thematic room.  Specialised gladiators.  Thri-kreen who focus on using their natural weapons and instinct rather than equipment.  Competitive or ritualistic unarmed combat styles in cultures like Draj or even Balic.  Hell, several real-life martial arts started as methods of unarmed combat for oppressed classes that were banned from owning weapons, why shouldn't slaves (for instance) in Athas have something similar?  Again, monk subclasses with flashy magical abilities would be no-nos, but i can certainly put monks in the setting without many problems.I personally prefer templars as clerics (because cleric templars mean the sorcerer-kings have control over healing/curative etc magic which helps enforce their monopoly on power over their cities) rather than warlocks, but there's no reason a smart sorcerer-king shouldn't have both types.  And i can even think of other possible warlock patrons.  Someone mentioned psurlons above, that could certainly work.  There's probably entities in the Black that would make a deal (Rajaat or his shadow giants, even).  Powerful undead - kaisharga or Athasian wraiths - would be another option. Hell, in one of the Dark sun novels a main character gets a wraith anchored to him by a gem stuck in his chest and it uses its powers on his behalf so long as he does what it wants.  (It's a pretty terrible book but it's canon!)  Sounds like a warlock to me...  Anyway, the sort of wild, non-Tolkienian sword-and-sorcery sort of stuff that DS is inspired by is full of people making dark deals with dread beings for power.  It shouldn't be common or routine, but i have no problems with it being possible.  What's more important than the existence of warlocks in DS is that warlocks fit into DS thematically.  So, for example, if a village sees your PC casting Colour Spray, for instance, they're not going to spend too much time wondering if you're a defiler, preserver, warlock, or whatever before stoning you to death and burning your body afterwards.  And the power to cast that Color Spray in the first place had to come from something, whether that's defiling, preserving, or (maybe) a bargain with some entity or other.Sorcerers and spellcasting bards are the two base classes I have the most trouble with.  If you held a gun to my head, then maybe sorcerers could represent people who made it to the Pristine Tower and were dramatically changed and given weird abilities as a result?  But really, when magic comes too easy, it's not very Dark Sun to me.  As for races - I personally don't like tieflings in Dark Sun, because I've always preferred Athas to be an isolated setting with no escape or way out, so with little/no interaction with other planes, and because tieflings imply fiends and the whole point of Athas is that the worst bad guys in the setting are humans.  And i think this was the original intention - but the Dark Sun book line is lousy with references to interplanar connections, everything from full-on githyanki invasions to sorcerer-kings who've wandered all over the entire Great Wheel (and for some reason actually came back home to miserable Athas afterwards rather than finding some nice quiet green Prime Material world and moving in permanently!)  So while I don't think they're a great thematic fit, there's precedent.  Bad precedent, but precedent!  Or you could reskin them as mutants/Towerspawn and change their stat bonuses and innate spells around a bit to be more mutanty and psionic, respectively.  Yuan-ti kinda fit thematically as monsters (psionic evil snake-people, hell yeah), but as PCs?  Maybe not.  Dragonborn you'd need to reskin as Dray and replace the breath weapon and elemental resistance, or else leave them out completely.</blockquote>

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