Just discovered Dark Sun -- have questions!

[Staffan]

The idea of halfing cannibal raiders with bone weapons sounds cool

They're NOT cannibals, dammit!

 

[Henry]

They're NOT cannibals, dammit!

Unfortunately, we don't have an equivalent real-world term for it, since humans are the only sentient species in the world.

What is a term for someone who eats other sentients, anyway? Anthropophages? Sentiphages?

 

[Desdichado]

Actually, since the other races are all descended from halflings, I think they could very well legitimately be called cannibals after all...

 

[Dragonblade]

First, it was a bit of a slap in the face to the Athas.org people, who have been working for years to create a faithful conversion of the setting. The fact that is was a bad faith attempt (AFAIAC), elevates the level of insult.

Secondly, it was crappy. I don't care so much that they sorta reset the setting. Its like any setting with different "Ages" (dragonlance, greyhawk, Thieves World, etc), you pick which era you want to play in. So fine. It was kinda stupid and not needed...but okay, i'll deal. Its the fact that they homogenized the setting. They threw everything back in that was removed for setting flavor in the first place. They threw in a bunch of races that didn't need to be there, but were Kewl (i guess they were. meh). They sacrificed the setting's uniqueness in exchange for just another watered down generic setting that allows everyone to use their 406 supplements of feats and prestige classes and didn't much care that it made Dark Sun look like a two-bit Wh$re. Rather than reanimate it into a shameless parody of its former self, i'd have much rather preferred they left it staked out for the crows.

I generally agree with your first statement, even though I didn't personally care for the athas.org conversion. Its not the direction I would have taken things. For example, I don't agree with the philosophy that every PC race needs to have a watered version thats playable from level 1 or 2. Half-giants should have an ECL of +8 or something. Power-wise, they should roughly be on par with playing a minotaur right out of the Monster Manual.

I do like the fact that Paizo moved the setting ahead 300 years and I appreciate that they tried to bring back the setting. I completely disagree with their approach, though. Like you said, they threw out all the elements that made Dark Sun unique and turned it into just another vanilla fantasy setting, complete with all the core classes and so on.

 

[Desdichado]

I'm saying this as a bit of an outsider looking in, but I think those who think that allowing paladins into Dark Sun turns into "just another vanilla fantasy setting" are using just a wee bit of hyperbole.

Just a tad, anyway...

 

[Christopher Lambert]

I'm saying this as a bit of an outsider looking in, but I think those who think that allowing paladins into Dark Sun turns into "just another vanilla fantasy setting" are using just a wee bit of hyperbole.

Just a tad, anyway...

The people at Athas.org are like that. No sorcerers, they say (there's nothing in the original literature against them).

 

[Crothian]

The people at Athas.org are like that. No sorcerers, they say (there's nothing in the original literature against them).

I'd imagine that is because there was nothing at the time like them. There is also nothing in the literature for them. They weren't an option back then so of course there will be zero mention of the class. :\

 

[Desdichado]

Well, the sorcerers are a bit silly. There were no sorcerers in any setting prior to 3e, so what makes Dark Sun so special?

 

[Saeviomagy]

I'd imagine that is because there was nothing at the time like them. There is also nothing in the literature for them. They weren't an option back then so of course there will be zero mention of the class. :\

Well, actually if you read the books, then a lot of the wizards function identically to sorcerors - they cast spontaneously, certainly not from pre-prepared lists. Or at the least, there's no mention whatsoever of them running through their mind to see if they prepared anything appropriate this morning, and there never seems to be a situation where they don't have the appropriate spell on-hand. Seems to me they're sorcerors.

 

[Crothian]

Well, actually if you read the books, then a lot of the wizards function identically to sorcerors - they cast spontaneously, certainly not from pre-prepared lists. Or at the least, there's no mention whatsoever of them running through their mind to see if they prepared anything appropriate this morning, and there never seems to be a situation where they don't have the appropriate spell on-hand. Seems to me they're sorcerors.

Well, they can't be something that didn't exist at the time. And the books for many setting had this problem, so I attribute it to bad writing across the board and not some clairovoyance by the auther to include possibilities for a class that will exist 5 years after the book was written.