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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 9832660" data-attributes="member: 2067">I think that developing a system would be over-complicating it. Could be viable! "Defile within 5 feet of you/spell level when you cast a spell unless you use a Bonus Action"...kind of aesthetic, but I'm OK with this happening more in the story than in deep mechanics. "Defile" here means killing bugs and vegetation and killing the soil maybe even causing some mild discomfort for creatures (a sudden dehydration, a reeling nausea, a nosebleed, etc.). It's the kind of thing that'll be obvious. All that's missing is a sense of preserving being a "lost art" -- it should cost a bit for your character to know how to preserve. Maybe as little as costing one of your known Cantrips, or a skill proficiency or something. Alternately, we could go big and have preserving be a whole FEAT that gives some bonuses in addition to letting you preserve. Could even be an origin feat, letting it be a little weaker than other feats but still something that requires a pro-active investment. There's a few ways to deal with environmental hazards, and you could probably apply them all:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">You create custom spell lists for Dark Sun characters that exclude those spells. If you're playing DS, you use the DS-specific spell lists.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">You ramp up what the environment consumes (ie: on Athas you need to drink 2 gallons of water and eat 2 lbs of food/day, so each thing only counts for half as much)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">You design the environmental challenges to take into account those mitigating effects (for instance, Goodberry doesn't help you if travel on a road in Dark Sun's harsh environment simply gives you Exhaustion every day as part the rules for exploration on Dark Sun; Create Water won't prevent the fire/radiant damage done if you're exposed to the sun during high noon)</li> </ul>The key thing is to imagine the environment as part of the challenge that any group must overcome. The wilderness IS the boss battle, and I want to be making tactical decisions about how to get from Point A to Point B and dying in the wilderness if I get those decisions wrong or roll low on some dice. I also want, as part of my wizard play experience, to have to hide what I'm doing, or to use my power/influence to get away with it.As much as the wilderness can be a boss battle, Not Being Evil is also a fun boss battle, where I can make choices to avoid it, but it's a challenge, and I can lose (in the moment, anyway, choosing the expedient, but destructively wicked option). This is kind of where the slavery comes in, but I don't think you NEED slavery for this conflict. It is a big easy way to highlight it, perhaps -- that you can own hirelings, and your Bastion might be built by exploited bricklayers. In a good version of Dark Sun, I am fighting monsters, and I am exploring dungeons, and I am fighting myself (against convenient evil), and I am fighting The Frickin' Sun Itself. I can imagine that in 5e without a whole revolution, If WotC is smart and finds the same kind of fun in DS that I do. A version that suffers from the same issues that 4e DS suffers from would still be "fine," probably. The character and villain options are quite charismatic.</blockquote>

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