Wizards in a rough patch?

[Ranger REG]

Except that Eberron is all-inclusive on purpose.

You're right, it was designed with 3e in mind (with a few additions like action points).

Dark Sun was exclusionary.

That begs a question, is Dark Sun too integrated with 2e? Are they inseparable?

 

[tetsujin28]

That begs a question, is Dark Sun too integrated with 2e? Are they inseparable?

I don't think so, seeing as very successful games have been run with systems as disparate as Hero and Burning Wheel. I think it could certainly work with 3.5, but it'd be a highly-modified version thereof. Which wouldn't be a bad thing.

 

[Vocenoctum]

It was trying to put the kitchen sink approach back into Dark Sun. I think that's what most people didn't appreciate.

Well, to be fair, the DS fans didn't appreciate it. It wasn't what was expected, so it's labeled "not Dark Sun". I can appreciate the thought, but I think it had much on it's own merit, even if only for the monsters.

That might well be. But it wouldn't allow for the concept that defilers and preservers can be easily mixed up. I'm not really sure whether so many different spellcasting classes are really needed. With all the psionics in the setting, it gets a bit much for my taste.

Defilers and Preservers were already seperate classes. I like Defilers as Sorcerer's because it makes magic "easier" for them. The problem being that Sorcerer's get spell levels slower, so they're not getting it "faster".
I can see preservers needing to study arcane techniques to preserve the area, whereas Defilers simply draw power and use it.

Core bards are not really needed, and the paladin just doesn't fit at all. Bard and sorcerer have the problem that they interfere with the whole defiler/preserver story. This is a main theme of DS, and it gets severely watered down with even more spellcasting classes everywhere.

I agree that bards are best removed, but I think paladins are not so far out of whack myself. That's mostly from the DS Novels I read though, plenty of folks seemed self sacrificng and such. If monk's can have a code of conduct, so can warriors.
But, they're not essential, they don't really add anything, so paladins are easily lost.

That's right, there are ways around the problem. It's just not exactly the same, which was my point. Most write-ups I saw make me ask myself why anyone would want to go the path of a defiler. It was supposed to be the easy way to more power

the other way would be to simply have only Wizards, all of them defilers. Then have a line of Defiling metamagic feats that make the Waste more, and a line of preserver feats that mitigate the drain of the magic.
IIRC from the novels, preservers could "slip" into defiling magic when they got sloppy. I had the game material, but remember the novels more vividly.

 

[tetsujin28]

That's mostly from the DS Novels I read though, plenty of folks seemed self sacrificng and such.

The novels were the beginning of the end for DS.