Darksun thread

Actually, thanks to 4e's inclusion of Power Sources, it worked well with Dark Sun. The Templar was real good as well. Losing Healing Surges to starvation and the simplified "ration days" (I forgot what they're called) was nice and didn't bog the game down too much with minutiae or extra rules systems.

The more I think about it, the more it worked pretty well.

Defiling/Preserver didn't work quite as well I guess.

no

So uh, what do the people of Athas have against shoes and pants? It would seem in a world made out of searing sand, sharp rocks and constant beating sunlight those would be pretty important for survival. Wearing skimpy clothes in a desert climate is not advisable at all.

>healing surges are better at modelling exhaustion and the harsh condition of the desert taking its toll
>defiling actually has a meaningful mechanical effect (although the benefit is lackluster)
>clerics/wizards are not required for a party to function, primal being its own power source is a huge boon
>is not AD&D

So what did they do to defiling/preserving in 4e?

Totally unrealistic but it sets a tone pretty well. A lot of the art you can feel the misery and heat.

But yeah, there should be nekkid folk in cities (where they'd probably have tarps and stuff over all the streets, so it's be mostly in shadow) and then folk with cloaks and hoods outside.

Or they just magically evolved to not get sunburn?

I'm guessing they're just evolved to be tough. Natural selection after a total environmental apocalypse is probably harsh

Both AD&D and 4e have the fluff effect of killing vegetation/small creatures in an area around the caster.

4e Defilers drain life from everyone around to boost their spells.

AD&D defilers do a piddly initiative penalty that can be entirely ignored.

The 4e boost is weak, admittedly, but it at least has a mechanical effect that makes it so people have a real good reason to not want to be around/tolerate defilers.

I'm sure I read a 3.5 DS conversion, probably in Dragon. I THINK it had defiling as getting to apply metamagic effects to spells. Can't remember the cost of it though.

I recall an article in a Dragon for 3.5 Dark Sun, was pretty bad in every way possible.

How so?

It just failed to capture the flavor mechanically and was just generally not very compelling. I'm a huge Dark Sun fan and was looking forward to it and was just utterly disappointed.

Part, and maybe I'm a minority, I think the best Dark Sun is the more or less original presentation, with terrifying sorcerer-kings and an even more terrifying dragon. 2nd Edition moved the timeline forward and killed off most of the sorcerer-kings and the dragon and the 3.5e version moved it even farther away from the good bits.

4e rewound things and brought us back to the good times shortly after Free Tyr.

There is no possible world understood as an internally and externally (compared to out world) consistent concept in which: 4e > 2e. I am actually able to proof this using simple model theory.

I thought a bit about Dark Sun recently. I have run it before, but I didn't really know what I was doing at the time. Some things I'd definitely change would be to simply run it in AD&D, ditch the Dark Sun specific stat system, and disallow Half Giants.

Dark Sun also has an inherent problem where it presents itself as a gritty, dangerous setting, but seems to encourage high level play. So I'd have to be careful about not thinking of focusing on normal level content.

Those are escaped slaves or gladiators; the first are used to working under the harsh sun practically naked, and build up a resistance. The second group only fight for brief periods like that, where it's designed to show off their bodies.

Experienced desert travellers like Elves should wear more practical clothing. (That they often don't is a big flaw of the artists)

What I liked about 4e is how I could use some of the innovations to reinforce themes from before.

The Tieflings could be Ur Draxans, sent ahead (as some are at times) or having escaped. They're utterly secretive of their origins (and their monstrous nature refers to their surroundings, the Valley of Dust and Fire and it's gateway to the Elemental Chaos, and their horns call to mind the Dragon)

The Rhulisti life-shapers drew power from the Far Plane. The abominations associated with that dimension are the result of the Halfling's creations going feral after the centuries of abandonment.
And of course one of the ancient legends of Athas speaks of the comet known as the Messenger, which is also the title of the Far Realm entity Ulban... who takes the form of a comet.

I've never DM'd before but one night my group asked me to DM a darksun campaign and for the most part its pretty alright but a lot of it is just me using the wasteland as an excuse to not have a lot going on for the first part of the game. But I really want to add more flavor and variety in my Athas without it being a verdant world, any suggestions? Right now I have a sort of quarry town, a simple western-ish town, and what is basically the town of burly dudes. I have a few over-arching plot devices flying around for flavor though.

That guy with the horns is clearly being objectified. This game is so full of misandry, no wonder no men play this game. #baka

What's this artist's name? Delitizzi? I recognize the style, very soft and pretty. He did good work for Planescape iirc.

Yup. Tony DiTerlizzi.

They did.
Iirc one adventure in the forgotten realms had someone open a portal to Arthas, with one of the weakest creatures escaping and causic havok because arthasian life is tough as nails compared to other planes.

you are right, but that is not a high bar to set.

Thanks pal, his tieflings looked great.

He's right you know.

4 is greater than 2, nerd.

>So uh, what do the people of Athas have against shoes and pants?

They start with more levels and higher stats, like a DS commoner can probably successfully fight off three cats while being stuck inside a thorny hedge.

Brom created Dark Sun's aesthetic and DiTerlizzi created Planescape's.

I agree. The 4e crunch just fit well with the Dark Sun fluff surprisingly well. I would have liked to see a supplement book with more Paragons and Themes for the game.

The one thing that came up during play that wasn't covered in the rules: Notes on magic items on the Power Source that made them.

I had a Druid and picked up +1 leather armor or something, a pretty generic magic item. It only then occurred to me: Who made this? If it was made by a defiler I'd rather destroy it than wear it, right? This isn't really covered at all... but this may be an autistic level of fluff clinging on my part!

Thrikreen master race!

That isn't a thri-kreen.

...

I'm desperately hoping for kreen in Volo's. Otherwise I'll have to wait for my DM to run a 4e/2e game and BEG for darksun to play a wandering swordsage type thri-kreen. She's gonna keep her larvae in a big basket on her back and call herself Mother Murder. Probably have them hunt and swarm people she doesn't like.

We started Elemental Evil set in Athas but he said it was exhausting to change all the names of places and the encounters to match it better. Wuss.

>no abdomen
Absolutely disgusting

Ehh, the newer version is more humanoid, which isn't as cool fluff-wise, but works better mechanically for a player race. I dig it.

People do crazy shit for fashion all the time. Hell, people wear sleeveless vests and assless chaps while they ride, and still complain about having to wear a helmet.

4e = 10.873
2e = 5.437

The math doesn't lie.

Well in part, 4e also had the idea of inherent bonuses. (Which was also a pretty good change)

So +1 stuff doesn't exist, and you can generally guess who made things by what they do.

What if the lack of an abdomen was why they became adventurers?

Leaving the pack behind because they got injured and knew that the pack was no place for a cripple who can't store food for more than a week.

AD&D does two things unarguably better than any other version of D&D: one is Dark Sun, the other is Ravenloft. It's because both these settings are supposed to be oppressive and cruel, and all the subsequent versions of D&D are kinder and more gentle to the players.

+X stuff is still handy if it's higher than your inherent bonus.

>can't store food
>equivalent to a death sentence in Athas
>decide to go adventuring, to die in a blaze of glory
I dig it.

And of course cityfolk might even assume all kreen are like this, because the only kreen who would visit a city are likely to be exiles.

Imagine when they encounter regular kreens
>They don't look like you; they got that strange ass thing.
>Are you making fun of my handicap? I'll gut you for that!!

3E Raveloft is actually a functional setting with more depth beyond it's AD&D incarnation as an incoherent grab-bag of horror tropes clumsily welded together and then superglued onto the greater D&D cosmology.

Dark Sun needs more dinosaurs. Why there aren't enough badass mutant dire athasian dinosaurs around?

Because it has fantasy dinosaurs.

For example, the Erdlu and Crodlu are basically Omnivorous Theropods.
Mekillots are Ceratopians.
Inix are Thyreophorans.

What depth did 3rd E ravenloft gain? I'm not familiar with the setting beyond "cursed plane prison with a mini realm for each convict"

>truncating to so few decimal places that you get a rounding error
Plebeian.

...

That's some sexy mandibles right here.

There are some really old Dark Sun adventures about Thri-Kreen abducting people, gladiator tournaments and an oasis that contains the last Athasian dolphin.

Athas isn't just a wasteland, it still has rocks and the Sea of Silt or forests that are protected by the Sorcerer Kings. I can't really give more than that. Try watching Conan The Barbarian movies for inspiration.