More Dark SUn tidbits by Rich Baker

[Phaezen]

From his blog post here

Some bits and pieces:

• Contributing authors include: Rob Schwalb, Ari Marmell, Bruce Cordell, Chris Sims, Logan Bonner, and Travis Stout
• Crunch elements include: muls, thri-kreen, gladiators, templars, defiling, world-suitable paragon paths and epic destinies, weapons, items, and of course, buckets full of freakish desert monsters.
• Core (PHB1, PHB2) classes will get "trappings" to make them feel appropriate to the setting

 

[Rechan]

Dang. Here I was betting Tr-Keen would be in PHB3.

I find it interesting that Gladiators and Templars will be in there, mechanically. Since we know there won't be new CLASSES, then I wonder what these will be?

 

[A2Z]

One of the things that used to bug me about the old Dark Sun set was that you basically threw out the 2e Player's Handbook and substituted the Dark Sun Rulebook for almost all of your character generation. This time around, a lot more of your Player's Handbook (and PH 2 and PH 3) are still going to be relevant, but just about any "core" character you build should still find plenty of Athasian trappings. Sure, you might be a dragonborn fighter, but we've got ways to make that guy feel like he's just as appropriate in the setting as your thri-kreen ranger or mul gladiator. I'll tell you more when I can!

Countdown to wailing and gnashing in 3...

 

[Shroomy]

The post is also the first confirmation that there were going to be two books. I never doubted there would be, but I've seen speculation to the contrary.

 

[alleynbard]

This sounds great. Thanks for the link. It made me very excited to see what they have in store.

 

[Andor]

At least he knows about the light grey on white issue.

And I think the concensus on Dragonborn in Athas was "What's the big deal?" I'm not a 4e or dragonborn fan but I have a hard time thinking of a setting where they are less problematical.

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

I haven't followed the news as closely as some, but how do we know there won't be new classes? The parallelism in the sentences (comparing a dragonborn fighter to a mul gladiator and a thrikreen ranger) strongly implies that gladiator and templar are both new classes. That could be misleading, but...

 

[Wik]

Yeah, I'm a bit confused by the "there won't be any new classes" bit, too. I figured there'd be one, and most peoples' talk was about WHICH class would be found in the DS book. My guess was for something like the Gladiator or Templar... I'd prefer templar. But I could see the Gladiator being the long-awaited Martial Controller (insult the opponent!)

You know, the more I think about it, the more I'm seeing extra Dark Sun material in the PHB3...

 

[Dausuul]

Countdown to wailing and gnashing in 3...

In 2...

(Ironically, Dark Sun is one of the few settings where I have no problem with dragonborn. I can't stand them in classic fantasy settings, but in a world where everybody rides giant bugs and halflings eat people? Sure, why not?)

 

[Kvantum]

Countdown to wailing and gnashing in 3...

Racial trapping for dragonborn so they fit in on Athas just fine: scratch out any reference to "Dragonborn" and replace with "Dray", limit racial powers to fire only. Boom, problem goes away.

And this is coming from a Dark Sun fanatic and 4e hater.