It's Dark Sun

[carmachu]

"We are going to try very hard not to shoehorn 4e conceits into Dark Sun" -Bill

\Its a great place to introiduce newish/old races from teh setting, and psonics.

But if they try and let anything goes there its ruined. Dark sun had specific items and races, its doesnt work importing everything from all the currently released books.

 

[the8bitdeity]

Its a great place to introiduce newish/old races from teh setting, and psonics.

But if they try and let anything goes there its ruined. Dark sun had specific items and races, its doesnt work importing everything from all the currently released books.

I think some clever ideas can work around the harsh requirements to make it fit the 4E design philosophies. For examples, perhaps mundane weapons are bone, early magic items are obsidian, mid-tier magic items are brass/weak metal, and only the highest level items (+5) are magical iron.

I think going back to the old concepts of penalties would be counter productive.

If a DM wants to reinforce how HARD it is to hit with a bone weapon, they can basically up the defenses of monsters by a point or two. (As a DM in 4E Dark Sun I won't have any Easy / Normal encounter levels. All encounters should be Hard / Insane)

The feel remains the same, but the book keeping involved has become significantly reduced.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Equipment
I actually think 4e handles this much more elegantly than 3e was wont to. You could make 3e fit, but 4e does it by default, with the option of "just give the PC's bonuses and don't worry about magic items" already a part of the system.

Where the challenge is sort of going to lie is in keeping the option of all those cool item abilities in there, without the items themselves, but I don't think that would be too hard.

The idea of making "default weapons" bone and whatnot and "high bonus" weapons metal is a really good one.

. Perhaps a even harsher one (Feywild is nature extreme, so that would mean really harsh in Dark Sun).

That's kind of it though: Dark Sun is already a world with the harshness turned up to 11. If you have an idea for a region or adventure location that is EVEN HARSHER THAN NORMAL, you should be able to put that into standard Dark Sun. You shouldn't need to send it off to it's own little pocket dimension. Things suck. If things suck worse, that's OK. If there's an entire region that is on fire and spewing poisonous ash for miles around, why not just put that in Athas proper? Things can suck as bad as you want them to suck right there in Athas.

 

[deadsmurf]

I think the world axis cosmology can work, heavily altered, as suggested. The Elemental chaos works just fine as is. I like the idea of a feywild where the Formorians are winning, and a desert shadowfell... you thought having the sun beating down on you all day was bad... wait until thats gone too.
Having the Astral sea can be a bit of a problem - my inclination would be to blow it up... The astral sea is gone. Some of the denizens survived by making it to the world, or escaping to one of the other planes (so you can get your marut or devil etc when you need it) but across the board they are gone forever, bringing the gods with them.

Eladrin are mostly Formorian slaves, or escapees who have made it to the world, some have joined the bands of their kin, the elves, others are just trying to survive.
Dragonborn = dray. Pretty easy that.
Gnomes are extint... or thats what they want you to think. There are small groups of gnomes underground and they have become extremely xenophobic and keep practising the magics that destroyed the world. Others escaped back to the feywild only to be enslaved by the formorians.
Drow are twisted magical experiements on eladrin... see Eberron. Done by Formorians likely.
Genasi fit pretty well, they're elemental beings from the far too accessible elemental chaos.
Goliaths are Half-Giants, if they aren't I have no idea how to really dark-sunify them - they would just seem like tack-ons.
Shifters - aren't really nessesary, and likely won't be mentioned in the books.
Devas are the last vestiges of the old gods on Athas, a few angels made use of a ritual to become mortal in the last moments before the astral sea went kaboom.
Half-orcs - I'm not sure orcs and half-orcs are really nessesary to the world, and are likely going to be "thought to be extint, you are likely the last of your race"
Warforged - could be created by the sorceror kings, see the post a couple pages back with obsidian bodied 'forged. Rare.
Changelings - pretty much as is, works cool in any setting.
Kalashtar - not nessesary, psionic mutation if anything.

In any case, I doubt we'll see a 'Do not use these races or these classes in the setting' and it will be 'Other races don't exist unless you and DM can come up with an interesting story for them in this blasted world, and if you include them, they are likely to be extremely rare.'

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Put me down as cautiously cautious. Not much can be said until details start to come out. Their talk of keeping it the same as the old school Dark Sun moves me up from irate to cautious, for what it's worth ;p

 

[Nork]

Note, I didn't say that the amoral police state aspect of the setting was a bad thing. It was more of 'way way too much of a good thing can be a bit of a bad thing'.

I was merely saying that moving the "amoral police state slider" from 11 out of 10 to 'only' 9 out of 10 would likely make it a somewhat easier setting to run in practice, as long as you don't turn the slider down to like 6 out of 10.

Which is what I found to be the problem with the original boxed setting, in practice it just felt over-tuned. Especially since your average player character has serious pre-dispositions towards escalating a parking ticket into a 19 hour long running gun battle with the LAPD and the National Guard if left to their own devices.

I did feel that the revised setting was under-tuned. They just over did it with toning things down, so the return to the 'original setting' is a good thing in my view. That being said, the revised setting 'wasn't too bad', they just missed the mark a little (ok, missed it by a whole lot of 'a little').

If they had just left it with Tyr, and Tyr wasn't happy post Kalak either, then it would have been good IMO. In a nasty world, you've got to run things in a nasty manner just to make ends meet, and Tyr now had to face the problem of 'there isn't enough to go around fairly, so whose mouth are we going to take the food out of...'. Plus there is the whole Lord of the Flies aspect to explore as well.

 

[Knightfall]

I only have one thing to say regarding this news - o/


Congrats on being one in a million (billion)!

He's not the only one.

 

[Stogoe]

I'm pretty sure there will still be an Astral Sea, there just won't be any divine realms left standing. The ruined wastes of the gods' strongholds are too tempting an epic challenge to ignore.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The Planes
I actually see Dark Sun as being a world adrift in the Elemental Chaos.

There's no Astral Sea.

There's no Feywild, no Shadowfell.

There's just earth, fire, wind and water, all around.

That kind of fits with the "primordials" angle mentioned in the interview. Elemental forces replace the divine. Psionic forces replace the arcane.

 

[JVisgaitis]

Greatest announcement EVER!!!!!!!!!!! I so can't wait...