Is Dark Sun Coming To D&D?

WotC staff are dropping cryptic hints about campaign settings again! A couple of week ago it was Spelljammer; this time, it's Dark Sun. At Gary Con this year, during a D&D panel, WotC's Mike Mearls said of the psionic Mystic class -- "we don't need that class until we do Dark Sun."

He followed it up with with the usual note that he can't make product announcements and that all settings were part of the multiverse. You can hear the seminar on the Plot Points podcast. "Ben recorded a seminar wherein six game designers who worked on Dungeons and Dragons (Skip Williams, Jon Pickens, Zeb Cook, Ed Stark, Steve Winter, and Mike Mearls) talk about game design. During the talk, current lead designer Mike Mearls may very well have let slip what the next classic D&D game world he will be reviving next!"

Dark Sun was a campaign setting released back in the 1990s, and was a post-apocalyptic desert world called Athas, with psionics in abundance and dark survivalist themes. It made a reappearance in 2010 for D&D 4E.

[FONT=&quot]Save[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Save[/FONT]​

 

[Werebat]

Also - if 3.5 Dark Sun handed out freebie psionic abilities to every race, then Kobold Avenger is wrong when he says:

"The closest thing 3e did to the Athasian characters are more powerful is set the default starting level at 3rd level rather than 1st level."

And Dark Sun crossovers? How can those happen without ruining the setting? "Oh, look, some Zhentarim mage made a portal to Athas. I wonder if there might be a market for metal weapons in that desert world? Probably wouldn't screw with the setting or its economy or anything..."

Whoever it was up there was said that strength based fighters would need a boost in Dark Sun was right. Put your Large half giant in metal armor (if he could somehow scrape together the fortune he'd need to in order to buy a suit of it) and watch him pass out from dehydration and heat exhaustion before he even gets to where the combat IS. Meanwhile his nimble elven rogue companion has great AC and does plenty of damage with his bone short swords.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Visiting is possible, but it also never happens. In my homebrew games, some natives from Athas could cross a no-return portal toward other plane. This would allow creatures from Athas to be in another places, but the original world wouldn't be altered.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

LOL so some people have their panties in a bunch over Large half-Giants but they are just fine with Aarakocra PCs who can fly all the time?

LOLOL! Masterstroke!

The analogy had occurred to me also. The official line is that DMs should only permit Aarakocra if having a character with flight from 1st level isn't going to break the plot. Likewise, large Half Giants could be permitted if the adventure the DM has planned doesn't include essential 6 foot doorways or tight passages. Otherwise the DM could ban them, or rule that PC Half Giants are particularly small specimens at 8' tall (given that they are hybrids, a large range of sizes seams plausible).


As for the issue around strength vs dex when heavy armour isn't practicable, this can easily be solved by giving half giants the +2 max strength cap I suggested earlier, assuming there was no option available for an equivalent increase in the dex cap.

 

[MechaPilot]

It may be coming, but I see no convincing evidence that it's coming anytime soon.

 

[MechaPilot]

Again with the at-will flight is OP stuff, huh? I've never understood that assertion. I've DM'd games with at-will flight before and it was never OP.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Also - if 3.5 Dark Sun handed out freebie psionic abilities to every race, then Kobold Avenger is wrong when he says:

I don't remember the complete details, but I think I remember it more or less stated that Human characters had to spend 1 of their 3+ feats as 3rd level characters on the psionic feats if they didn't have a class level in a psionic class.

The other races just got modified to have psionics

 

[CapnZapp]

Is Dark Sun coming to 5e?

No, not anytime soon.

There will be no Dark Sun, until the Psion Mystic class is ready. And that isnt anytime soon.

Why is it okay that they drag their feet on new content?

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Now that I dug into the 3.5e Dragon Magazine Article in question about Dark Sun, it actually adjusts every race including Humans to have a Level Adjustment of at least +1, and then says that characters start at ECL 4, which would make most characters actually at 3rd level. In that case they did adjust every race but still made it "balanced" outside of the setting by applying the Level Adjustment rules. Some would argue that Level Adjustments make characters weaker later in a campaign as they end up being at least a level behind.

4e made the sort of optional 4e mechanics of themes (which were usually a bonus power at 1st level, plus the option to select the themes powers at later level) to be mandatory for Dark Sun characters, and allowed 1 bonus at-will psionic wild talent available at the DM's discretion. Going the way of adding themes to the system, 4e sort of introduced power creep on itself.

 

[guachi]

Mystara or bust

I have that on the bumper of my airship, The Princess Ark II

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I think what muddled the idea of Humans having to use one of their feats on psionics in Dark Sun, was based on some informal developer comments from someone like Bruce Cordell about they'd deal with Dark Sun before Dragon Magazine had that article.