- Need to be hybrid psionic/arcane class to have access to the avangion/dragon king epic destiny.
- I allow Dray to be played by veteran gamer, but wont allow Eladrin and tieffling
- I wont allow the divine class, the bard, artificer and the swordmage class (bards in dark sun are sneaky assassin and not spellcaster)
- No primordial in my darksun, I feel that anything more godlike and terrible than the Dragon and Rajaat is kinda weird in darksun.
- I have nothing against using the primal chaos instead of the elemental planes, I don't feel this change hurts the setting.
- I use the old school curency : Lead Bead for CP, Ceramic Bit for SP, Ceramic piece for gold piece, silver piece = 10 ceramic piece and gold piece = 100 ceramic piece.
Any other idea?
By the way, sorry for my terrible english.
Another Idea:
Racial Class Restrictions:
No Dwarf Wizards for example.
;)
- I allow Dray to be played by veteran gamer
This part I don't get.
The rest of your changes make sense, though. I would also allow PHB-Multiclassed Psionic/Arcane character access to the Dragon-King and Avangion destinies.
And only letting 1 or 2 player per group to play Dray give the race a kind of rarity.
I also want to change the half-giant back to being a half giant as opposed to a goliath, as well as creating some rules for dwarven banshees and getting rid of a much of the heavy armour.
Seriously, plate mail of any kind is rubbish in this setting. I hate the pictures of excessively clothed people in the DSCS book. The Prism Pentad art is forever pure Darksun!
I'm also going to change defiling to relflect the three kinds of Athasian magic: plant based, animal life based and sun based.
You could just downplay the "spells" as being less flashy and more about impressive fighting ability and the ability to influence people. You could for instance not allow defiling with bard powers.
Bards maybe don't fit the idea of the minstrel quite well, but there is a theme for that. The bard class can simply be either used with the theme, or be a separate diplomat, performer or similar type of guy.
Maybe I am not old school enough...
Although I did play a 2nd edition dark sun game, but it was just one campaign.
Why hybrid psionic/arcane? Why not themes or multiclassing?
Finally, primal chaos?
The "Bard" class of Dark Sun 2e is now the Athasian Minstrel theme and Bards are simply Arcane Leaders. If you rename the Bard class "Arcane Warlord" (or anything else), the conflict disappears. As such, there's no actual purpose to removing Bards.
Why hybrid psionic/arcane? Why not themes or multiclassing?
Finally, primal chaos?
The hybrid psionic/arcane thing is because in 2nd ed to become a Dragon/Avangion you had to dual class as a Psionicist/Defiler (dragon) or Psionicist/Preserver (avangion). I'm going to do a similar rule in my game, but multi-classing can also fulfill the requirement.
The only thing I don't agree with the OP on is the elimination of primal power source. This fits easily with 2nd ed Dark Sun with primal characters filling the niche of elemental clerics in 2nd ed. Also, there were Druids in 2nd ed so there is a precedent for that.
Also, they use GP for simplicity sake in the DSCS. They mention that metal coins are very rare and most currency is ceramic, just like 2nd ed.
Dual-classing was just a mechanic, no more indicative of fluff or story than arbitrary level limits on certain races.
I'm planning a darksun game and I want to stick to the old canon with the minimum of houserules. Here are my changes to the book:
- Need to be hybrid psionic/arcane class to have access to the avangion/dragon king epic destiny.
This makes no sense. Why is multiclassing, or an appropriate theme, not enough? By picking something like templar and a psionic class, or a wizard class and the noble adept or wilder theme, you will have both arcane and psionic power source powers.
You might want to check out the various homebrew half-giants I have floating around in this forum. I have been trying to homebrew a half-giant that is balanced to 4e rules, but "feels" bigger than the Goliath does.
Granted their very strong social skills, bards are naturals at hiding amongst people who'd hate them. I think they are great candidates for a sort of specialist wizard frequently appearing in the Veiled Alliance.
I'm 100% conviced that multiclassing into a psionic class or psionic theme is ok to become an ascended being (hybrid being too big a limit for most players)
I have nothing against primal power source in dark sun, don't you think that Shaman, warlord and Ardent are enought choices for leaders (I could probably let go a bard player with the veiled alliance Sarlax's explanation).
Opps.. I mispelled the elemental chaos : primal chaos :S sorry for the confusion
doesn't change the game much.
I mean this in a good way.
Goliath = Half-Giant is not going to be a problem.
Swapping "this game mechanic rule" for "that game mechanic houserule"
usually involves a minor weakening of a PC.
If you give a PC a bonus feat like Skill Focus,
you make up a minor portion of the difference.
Renaming the money values is fine, so long as the RenamedMoney has the same value.
The 4e game assumes a geometric money value rate.
If you ditch that, you're basically throwing Chaos at the game.
Who knows what happens to that kind of game?!
That said ... if all the sudden some of the PCs start dying
well, this is Dark Sun ; that's supposed to happen.
You can always hand out an extra Raise Dead ritual scroll.
Big Bad Evil Guy can always come looking for the sucker who took the deal.
(evil grin)