D&D 5E Mearls on other settings

[Coroc]

I'd love to have a Druid in a DS campaign. I'd love to have a character who I can describe the desiccated nature of the world to, the endless blackness they feel when near a defiler, etc.

I agree on the rest tho

Druids back I n2e did worship elemental spheres as well as the sphere of the cosmos. They did have the best spell selection but they could not wear any armor and were limited a bit with weapons if I remember correctly. A druid of fire is not diametrical to the (good) parties goals eventually, e.g. he just took up residence at lets say lava falls which create fertile earth and lands around it, so that is not a nature destroying class although by name it first may imply that. I see no problems at all to implement druids of any playable race into a 5e conversion of DS.

 

[Staffan]

Not so sure if these are enough, do they count if they aren't identifying the product? And the logos themselves could be lost @Dannyalcatraz can you help?

Obligatory "I am not a lawyer" disclaimer.

Even if the trademarks were lost, Wizards would still retain the copyright to the actual setting. It would only mean that someone else could make a different RPG product named Dark Sun, and sell it. That's pretty much what Sasquatch Game Studio are doing with Alternity - since the trademark lapsed they can make a new game called Alternity, but they can't use the actual material for anything other than inspiration.

The same with the logos - they are still protected by copyright until basically the end of time thanks to the Mouse's lobbying, even if they lose their trademark identification powers.

That said, and here's where I get a little fuzzier on how things work: Wizards are selling Dark Sun, Spelljammer, Mystara, and so on. They're not making new stuff, but the old stuff is still being sold on DriveThruRPG/RPGNow/DM's Guild. I'd be very surprised if that doesn't count as "using a mark in commerce".

 

[Staffan]

I don't think the Monk or the Barbarian really undermine the setting at all. The Monk seems to fit right in with the concept of Psionics (one of the 4E changes that I thought was great).

Psionic martial artists are at least as canon a part of the Dark Sun setting as planar isolation is. Both have their mechanical origin in splatbooks (The Will & The Way for martial artists, and Defilers & Preservers for planar isolation). Also, as others have mentioned - a setting like Dark Sun is precisely the kind of place where martial arts would flourish, because of the lack of proper weaponry.

Gladiator doesn't need to be its own class, really. A subclass of Fighter, most likely. Maybe a subclass of Barbarian? The "rage" would instead be "combat focus", and you could swap a couple of features to get the right feel.

A thing many people seem to forget about the Dark Sun warrior classes was that while the Gladiator came with a bright sign saying "new!", the Fighter was also changed. The Dark Sun fighter got numerous abilities focused on large-scale warfare - training troops, building fortifications, and so on. The gladiator then picked up the personal combat slack with proficiency in all weapons, specialization in multiple weapons, armor training, and improved unarmed combat. In later editions, from 3e onward, the fighter itself has been refluffed as being all about personal combat with any abilities concerning armies being removed or made optional, so essentially the 3e+ fighter is the Dark Sun gladiator (or at least he can be).

 

[Zardnaar]

I might write a DS specific fighter archetype with some leader abilities (non healing). .

 

[Aldarc]

Perhaps any Dark Sun conversion to 5e should consider implementing replacement "alternate class levels/features" that help groups who want to maintain the thematic coherence of the setting while also removing/replacing class features that make playing certain classes in the setting more problematic.