Athasian Dwarven Stats
+1 Constitution: Dwarves are stout and sturdy.
Speed: Dwarves do not suffer a speed penalty for being encumbered or wearing heavy armour. Dwarves have a base speed of 25 feet.
Dwarven Resilience
Dwarven Toughness
Low-Light Vision
Dwarven Focus: Due to their focused nature, dwarves select 1 weapon and their damage dice increases by 1 step for that weapon. In addition they gain training in one profession and can use this to make enough ‘sid to live an appropriate lifestyle for their profession. See the skills section for further details.
Languages: Dwarven and Common
Desert Elven Stats
+1 Dexterity: Elves are nimble.
Low-Light Vision
Fast: Elves have a base speed of 35 feet.
Keen Senses
Elven Weapon Training
Distrustful: Naturally distrusting of outsiders, elves are immune to charm effects and have others have disadvantage when attempting to persuade, lie or intimidate an elf.
Child of the Sands: Elves can attempt to hide in any desert terrain using nothing but their clothing to blend into the sand dunes.
Languages: Elves begin play speaking Elven and Common.
Ridge Forest Halfling Stats
+1 Dexterity: Halflings are quite nimble.
Speed: Halflings have a base speed of 25 feet.
Halfling Weapon Training: When a Halfling attacks with a blowgun, carrikal or a datachi club they are proficient with, increase the damage die by 1 level. They are 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12, 2d6.
Eat Anything: Halflings are able to find sustenance from even the stringiest parts of dead creatures. A Halfling can eat the leftovers of a creature after it’s been skinned and get enough meat for 1 day and two quarts worth of water. A Halfling can also eat uncooked meat without ill effect.
Halfling Nimbleness
Naturally Stealthy
Languages: Halflings begin play speaking Halfling and Common.
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Where I haven't detailed an ability it's the same as in the playtest (Humans are identical to those from the playtest).
What do people think thus far? Are the abilities I've swapped out for "Dark Sun" ones largely balanced overall? Once I get feedback on these I'll work up stats for gith, half-giants and muls.
Thanks for your hard work!
)Don't forget the Half-Elfs and Thri-Kreen
I haven't I've got rules for thri-kreen, but I'm waiting on half-elves until WotC releases official rules for them.
Dragonborn and I do like Genasi there too. Eladrin and Tiefling, well, I have accepted them for the 4E edition, as the controversial 3rd edition pushed Maenads and Wild something or others on us.
I won't be releasing rules for Dragonborn, Eladrin or Tiefling as I have no interest on them being in Dark Sun (also WotC will release official rules for these anyway). I may release rules for "plane-touched humans" but I'm not sure what format they'll take at this stage.
I'm hoping for WotC to release rules on "Element Specific Casters" (so a caster who specialises in Fire Magick or a caster who specialises in Shadow Magick). If they don't do this, I'm likely to just create my own magicker class.
Thanks again! I need to compile your other work to run the playtest in Dark Sun!
Let me help with that.
Sorry for posting this thread and then immediately making a new one. But one of my players said he wanted to see some of the flavour of Dark Sun so I wanted to produce a PDF as a preview for him.
Thanks again! I need to compile your other work to run the playtest in Dark Sun!
Let me help with that.
I've been thinking about the dwarven stats vs the gith stats. I like the idea that gith have evolved from elves and in doing so have become hardier. As such I think the "Gith Toughness" trait is a good one that represents this in a manner other than a straight stat booster.
However it means gith and dwarves have the same trait which I don't like. At the same time I really like the flavour of Athasian dwarves having resistances to spells (this is a 2nd edition flavour). I'm not a fan of just giving it to them for saves though. They're already immune to poisons, giving them a boost to saves vs spells is just too powerful. Plus it's not very flavourful.
I finally came up with the idea I've included below.
Athasian Dwarven Stats
+1 Constitution: Dwarves are stout and sturdy.
Speed: Dwarves do not suffer a speed penalty for being encumbered or wearing heavy armour. Dwarves have a base speed of 25 feet.
Dwarven Resilience
Dwarven Resistance: You have resistance to damage from spells. Any spells that damage your HP or restore your HP have these effects halved.
Low-Light Vision
Dwarven Focus: Due to their focused nature, dwarves select 1 weapon and their damage dice increases by 1 step for that weapon. In addition they gain training in one profession and can use this to make enough ‘sid to live an appropriate lifestyle for their profession. See the skills section for further details.
Languages: Dwarven and Common
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Now the dwarven resistance means it takes half damage from any damaging spells and half healing from any healing spells. Given this is a low magick campaign, I don't think that's too bad. It has no effect on buffing spells (such as Shield of Faith) but also has no effect on save or sucks/save or dies.
What do people think about the above mechanic?
So yeah, I like it.
Tieflings on the other hand are hard to reconcile with DS 2e canon...
BTW, nice work JohnLynch on the conversions.
For what's it's worth, I think the 4e "Dragonborn" do just fine interpreted as dray (as suggested by the 4e Dark Sun campaign guide). So, I would suggest that even 2e purists could be ok with including stats on dragonborn.
I would beg to differ.
In 4e, dray are bulky mercenaries, known the world over, and their main ability is to breath fire. Most don't even reside in Guistenal, being outcast from that ruined city.
In 2e-3.5e dray are lanky, non-firebreathing, isolationists (only a rare few venture outside the environs of Guistenal - even the so-called outcastes).
So, yeah, change their background, appearance, and all of their abilities (and name for that matter - as dragonborn was never a name for them)...and I guess you're right.
For what's it's worth, I think the 4e "Dragonborn" do just fine interpreted as dray (as suggested by the 4e Dark Sun campaign guide). So, I would suggest that even 2e purists could be ok with including stats on dragonborn.
I would beg to differ.
In 4e, dray are bulky mercenaries, known the world over, and their main ability is to breath fire. Most don't even reside in Guistenal, being outcast from that ruined city.
In 2e-3.5e dray are lanky, non-firebreathing, isolationists (only a rare few venture outside the environs of Guistenal - even the so-called outcastes).
So, yeah, change their background, appearance, and all of their abilities (and name for that matter - as dragonborn was never a name for them)...and I guess you're right.
@Squidfur I concede most of your points and more generally that there some differences in story between 2e and 4e dray. I just reread the dray sections from the "City by the Silt Sea" to make sure my memory is correct.
Nonetheless the differences between 2e and 4e dray seem to me to more a matter of degree. I read a 4e dragonborn monster entry and I just imagine the creature as slightly lankier than illustrated. I imagine that 4e dray mercenaries had always been present in the 2e world but had just been unnoticed amid all the various races of Athas while the bulk of 1st and 2nd generation dray still remained under Guistenal. I'm on the fence if I prefer my dray with or without breath weapons (firey or not).
Obviously, these are all just mental contortions on my part to connect two separate visions for the same approximate imaginary world.
To the point of this thread, all the above is to say that I'd be happy to see a D&D Next background for dray. Tieflings on the other hand I probably wouldn't use in any of my Dark Sun games regardless of edition.
In regards to the original post, I feel that the dwarven focus is a wee bit too underpowered (given the wider range of similar weapon feats for halflings and elves, and the substantial D&D Next advantages of humans). I like the 2e notion of the focus as an all-consuming obsession that drove the dwarf ever onward (and if he died with his focus incomplete he could rise as a specific kind of undead). Maybe a circumstance bonus of some sort to rolls dealing with a dwarf's focus?
on a side note i am glad that at least a few of us are getting a head start on this. DDI support will come to a stand still not that i ever use the 4th edition rules but i enjoyed the eye on dark sun articles and i have used the updated fluff and setting for sure and will continue to do so. Mike and company mentioned on more than one occasion that they do not handle that aspect and are not sure what DDI plans will be in the works, " right" so iam waiting at most for maybe two months then will cancel the subscription. I know a campaign specific next will be a long time coming and ill bet ya it will not be dark sun they do mention it a few times as an example but in passing only. I would like for us to maybe come to a consensus of sort which i know will be extremely hard but it would be nice to draw on each others knowledge at least as far as the basics , races and their racial feats, backgrounds maybe even specialties. I wont even ask about psionics and forget defiling. thanks allot.