Anyway, while perusing his character sheet after the session I noticed that he actually is an undead. So my question is, does he still need to Eat/Drink? If so, have I opened a can of worms? I'm thinking (and I haven't put much thought into it so whatever) that since he's new, it wouldn't be that big of a deal if he got a free pass on the eating drinking thing, but since a survival day does include things like necessities to travel the desert, I could still make him need them (he just wouldn't dehydrate/starve after 3 days/weeks but then again he might combust).
Any thoughts on this? I figure maybe anyone who plays/has a warforged/shardmind in their campaign could lend me some insight on that situation.
Simply use these other threats against them. Also, unless the rest of the party is also capable of going on without food/drink, then running out of supplies still presents a problem for the group. If the rest of the party dies, the vampire is going to be by himself... in the Athasian desert. Easy prey for anything wandering by that decides he's worth attacking.
Undead are not living creatures, so effects that specifically target living creatures don’t work against them. They don’t need to breathe or sleep.
Nothing said about eating or drinking.
In my experience, with arcane nuclear wastelands, perverse Sorcerer Kings, mind enslaving cacti, and other threats; piddling over food and drink always seemed like a minor issue in the Dark Sun world.
Simply use these other threats against them. Also, unless the rest of the party is also capable of going on without food/drink, then running out of supplies still presents a problem for the group. If the rest of the party dies, the vampire is going to be by himself... in the Athasian desert. Easy prey for anything wandering by that decides he's worth attacking.
My opinion is that the basics of survival in all aspects are what drive everything within the setting. The ruthlessness of the SKs can partially be attributed to the lack of those very basic neccessities. There's limited resources for the cities themselves. There's even less for those in the wastelands. That lack of what is comepletely taken for granted in other settings is part of what differentiates Dark Sun from say, a desert region in Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk. The set-up creates a vast amount of moral dilemas for the players in addition to them attempting to achieve their own personal goals, something that very few other settings can honestly boast about having. Resource scarcity is behind the motivations of every cultural group on the planet. If there's no worry about it for your players, it rather makes those motivations seem much more distant and unempathetic. The raider tribe preying on the little desert village becomes just another band of bad guys and brigands, instead of a pragmatic group trying desperately to ensure they live out the next week (from the perspective of the players depending upon what themes you strengthen in your game). It lends rational to the motivations of even the SKs, who know how limited the cities themselves are and how few people they can support (in my old campaign, Free Tyr eventually failed as the city could not support itself in the population boom following Kalak's death; it wasn't destroyed by some big bad guy, it was destroyed by placing morals over survival).
In my experience, with arcane nuclear wastelands, perverse Sorcerer Kings, mind enslaving cacti, and other threats; piddling over food and drink always seemed like a minor issue in the Dark Sun world.
Simply use these other threats against them. Also, unless the rest of the party is also capable of going on without food/drink, then running out of supplies still presents a problem for the group. If the rest of the party dies, the vampire is going to be by himself... in the Athasian desert. Easy prey for anything wandering by that decides he's worth attacking.
My opinion is that the basics of survival in all aspects are what drive everything within the setting. The ruthlessness of the SKs can partially be attributed to the lack of those very basic neccessities. There's limited resources for the cities themselves. There's even less for those in the wastelands. That lack of what is comepletely taken for granted in other settings is part of what differentiates Dark Sun from say, a desert region in Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk. The set-up creates a vast amount of moral dilemas for the players in addition to them attempting to achieve their own personal goals, something that very few other settings can honestly boast about having. Resource scarcity is behind the motivations of every cultural group on the planet. If there's no worry about it for your players, it rather makes those motivations seem much more distant and unempathetic. The raider tribe preying on the little desert village becomes just another band of bad guys and brigands, instead of a pragmatic group trying desperately to ensure they live out the next week (from the perspective of the players depending upon what themes you strengthen in your game). It lends rational to the motivations of even the SKs, who know how limited the cities themselves are and how few people they can support (in my old campaign, Free Tyr eventually failed as the city could not support itself in the population boom following Kalak's death; it wasn't destroyed by some big bad guy, it was destroyed by placing morals over survival).
I understand the idea behind the scarcity flavor wise.
But how often have your players actually run out of food/water in a sitution where the DM wasn't specifically calleing it out as a plot point?
According to the fluff, the average Dark Sun denizen is an illiterate slave who fears magic, has never handeled a metal weapon, has never seen a Thri-Kreen, and will die in short order after going out into the desert even with supplies.
The realities of ganmeplay, however, is that the average Dark Sun PC is a litterate freeman (often with greater than average personal wealth), usually travels with at least one arcane spellcaster, usually has a Thri-Kreen/Cannibal Halfling/former Templar amongst their number, and is likely to come across a metal weapon, and regularly survives in the desert.
So if you want to challenge the PCs, you're better off using the realities of gameplay as opposed to the implied fluff.
It also makes it so that half the party doesn't try and immediately find the nearest tavern and get drunk, when they finally find an oasis/city.
It's not a big thing, but as the other folks have pointed out, it makes the desert survival in the harsh wastelads a bit less of a challenge point. So long as you can accomodate this, you'll be fine.
I understand the idea behind the scarcity flavor wise.
But how often have your players actually run out of food/water in a sitution where the DM wasn't specifically calleing it out as a plot point?
According to the fluff, the average Dark Sun denizen is an illiterate slave who fears magic, has never handeled a metal weapon, has never seen a Thri-Kreen, and will die in short order after going out into the desert even with supplies.
The realities of ganmeplay, however, is that the average Dark Sun PC is a litterate freeman (often with greater than average personal wealth), usually travels with at least one arcane spellcaster, usually has a Thri-Kreen/Cannibal Halfling/former Templar amongst their number, and is likely to come across a metal weapon, and regularly survives in the desert.
So if you want to challenge the PCs, you're better off using the realities of gameplay as opposed to the implied fluff.
How often? At our table, it was a real concern. While it wasn't the kind of concern that netted tons of xp, garnered better lootz, or made anyone uber-awesome killing machines stringing from one combat scenario to the next, it did something a bit more fulfilling: added to the role-playing itself, to character development, to NPC interactions, and to the enjoyment of the people playing. A lot of implied fluff exists in the game that can easily be tossed out the window in favor of just a few dice rolls. It really depends on how rich of a game you want to be playing. It's easy enough to relegate your sessions into an pen and paper CRPG or MMO tabletop game by nixing out all that implied fluff. The sarcasm I think shows which kind of game I myself favor, but that doesn't mean that one approach is better than another. Most of our group had already been a bit burned on the 'kill things, take their stuff so we can kill more things.' With Dark Sun's intrinsic set-up the fluff allowed for what ended up for us as a more in-depth role-playing game with a higher emphasis on the characters, the world, and the fluff. All from someone being thirsty . . .
. . . and thirst brings things back around to Sir Omega's concern: it depends on how important those aspects of survival are to the living members of your group. Is it something tracked and played out, or something often ignored by your group? If ignored or not focused on at all, then it shouldn't be a real worry. If it is a focus, then it may be something to flesh out a bit more. I think it is fair to presume that as a vampire, he does require sustenance of some sort, but likely will not die from lack of of food (traditionally entering a catalyptic slumber). I am unsure if 4th even has anything concrete for dehydration/malnourishment at all. You can come to an agreeable form of 'weakened state' for the vampire who hasn't eaten in a few days. Food might even be a much greater concern to the vampire who can only drink of fresh blood and so cannot simply stockpile rations up like the rest of the party. All things you can expand upon or ignore in your game. Understanding that you are dealing with a newer player, I would ask the player how much of a concern is it to them and go from there. If feeding on people is part of his character concept and draw factor for wanting to play a vampire, then you may want to expand on it. If the player couldn't care less and just wants to be a broody vamp dude, then ignore as much of it as you deem fit in comparison to how you treat food and water with the rest of the group.
Edit: This thread has some interesting ideas in it as well regarding introducing a vampire to Athas forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?572119-Vamp...
So my question is, does he still need to Eat/Drink?
Any thoughts on this? I figure maybe anyone who plays/has a warforged/shardmind in their campaign could lend me some insight on that situation.
I started a Dark Sun campaign last September. I limited races to pretty much the "classic" ones, but allowed others if there was a good (story) justification. So, one of my players wanted to play a Shardmind, and came up with a great backstory.
I wanted to emphasize the brutality of travel over the desert wastes in my campaign, since that was one aspect I wanted to recreate from my 2e days. Normally, I hand wave rations and water, but here, I was pretty specific as to how many survival days the PC kept. And I threatened the loss of them through encounters and skill challenges when travelling.
So, we eventually decided to change the Living Construct feature to still require "eating", refluffed as the Shardmind had to "consume" the energy of organic matter. We still used a survival day as the basic unit of survival, even though it was technically just food. Eventually, we planned on dropping that requirement (i.e., he didn't have to eat) sometime in Paragon, as a "story" thing.
In any case, I found that not having to breathe was still immensely helpful say against sand traps and sand storms (and I'm sure other situations). Since he didn't need to sleep either, he became the natural watchman every night. Both of those abilities were pretty valuable in Dark Sun, and the player was (fortunately) fine with it.
I understand the idea behind the scarcity flavor wise.
But how often have your players actually run out of food/water in a sitution where the DM wasn't specifically calleing it out as a plot point?
According to the fluff, the average Dark Sun denizen is an illiterate slave who fears magic, has never handeled a metal weapon, has never seen a Thri-Kreen, and will die in short order after going out into the desert even with supplies.
The realities of ganmeplay, however, is that the average Dark Sun PC is a litterate freeman (often with greater than average personal wealth), usually travels with at least one arcane spellcaster, usually has a Thri-Kreen/Cannibal Halfling/former Templar amongst their number, and is likely to come across a metal weapon, and regularly survives in the desert.
So if you want to challenge the PCs, you're better off using the realities of gameplay as opposed to the implied fluff.
How often? At our table, it was a real concern. While it wasn't the kind of concern that netted tons of xp, garnered better lootz, or made anyone uber-awesome killing machines stringing from one combat scenario to the next, it did something a bit more fulfilling: added to the role-playing itself, to character development, to NPC interactions, and to the enjoyment of the people playing. A lot of implied fluff exists in the game that can easily be tossed out the window in favor of just a few dice rolls. It really depends on how rich of a game you want to be playing. It's easy enough to relegate your sessions into an pen and paper CRPG or MMO tabletop game by nixing out all that implied fluff. The sarcasm I think shows which kind of game I myself favor, but that doesn't mean that one approach is better than another. Most of our group had already been a bit burned on the 'kill things, take their stuff so we can kill more things.' With Dark Sun's intrinsic set-up the fluff allowed for what ended up for us as a more in-depth role-playing game with a higher emphasis on the characters, the world, and the fluff. All from someone being thirsty . . .
I didn't ask how much of a theoretical concern water/food was or how the concept of water/food scarcity affected roleplaying.
I asked how often you actually ran out (without DM contrivance) which is when it actually has an impact on how the game is played.
Because a vampire in a party that never actually runs out of water/food (pretty much every dS game), and thus never actually faces the consequences of running out of water/food is not going to have make any difference in that regard.
I didn't ask how much of a theoretical concern water/food was or how the concept of water/food scarcity affected roleplaying.
I asked how often you actually ran out (without DM contrivance) which is when it actually has an impact on how the game is played.
Because a vampire in a party that never actually runs out of water/food (pretty much every dS game), and thus never actually faces the consequences of running out of water/food is not going to have make any difference in that regard.
At earlier levels (between around 3-12), every other level it would be brought to focus in some way (trips taking longer than expected, raids/theft of what resources the players had, charity on the part of the PCs biting them in the ass at times, enforced on an army march between Draj and Raam, amongst other examples over several campaigns). Later in levels, it would still crop up.
Sorry if you thought it was all esoterics and not something someone would actually play out in any degree; which is also why it is ultimately left up to the DM and how they arbitrate and run their game. If you never delt with it, all the better for your table. Just don't presume all games play out the same, moreso with someone asking advice
Anyway, while perusing his character sheet after the session I noticed that he actually is an undead. So my question is, does he still need to Eat/Drink?
Yes. There is nothing in the description of the undead keyword or the vampire class that removes this need. Therefore, vampire PCs still need to eat and drink.
Anyway, while perusing his character sheet after the session I noticed that he actually is an undead. So my question is, does he still need to Eat/Drink?
Yes. There is nothing in the description of the undead keyword or the vampire class that removes this need. Therefore, vampire PCs still need to eat and drink.
They may not need to eat and drink food and water, but they should need something.
two options: 1.) The vamp draws sustenance from party members. This can be spread out over a party or drawn from one memebr. The amount of draining basically causes the party/member to consume one extra survival day. So while teh vamp itself is not comsuming the additional days worth of supplies, they are effectively draining the party and should ponny up.
2.) The vamp needs some kind of "exotic" thing to prevent him/herself from going feral. that something could be represented by a survival day dosage. So while they don't need survival days like a normal character, they still need to track and expend resources, or suffer the debilitating effects of their thirst.
My thougths.