Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 claytoniantomb Nov 16, 2008 1:31:03	EDIT: I put my ideas for how to do preserving defiling in a new post on this thread. I haven't seen much of anything with people trying to resolve Darksun and 4th ed's handling of multiclassing falling short of requirements for some of the awesome transformations. The thing is, the Dragons are supposed to be level 20 psionists/level 20 wizards/x level dragons, which doesn't mix at all with the 30 level-capped, feat-powered multiclassing of 4th ed. I'm thinking that paragon and epic destinies will have to take care of this, but how would you handle it? Maybe we should just leave it at monsters being different and not allow PCs to try the dragon/avangions, especially considering the logistics nightmare that may come up when one tries to switch off these paths. But one of the pleasures in D&D comes in being able to get what one wants, with the help/guidance of the DM, and we have already seen the old requirements adjusted as necessary the last time editions changed. Basically, as we threw off the arbitrary "no demihuman dragons" rule, we can change the other requirements a bit. Also, any thoughts on defiling? I was thinking all powers with the magic keyword used on Athas should automatically take up a minor action in addition to their normal one unless one defiles. And there should be a small, scalable benefit as well, to sweeten the temptation to defile, like a d4 of extra damage per level.
#2 nowiwantmydmg Nov 16, 2008 2:29:16	I doubt defiling will be a player option when DarkSun is done for 4e. This edition is about balance afterall.
#3 claytoniantomb Nov 16, 2008 2:33:12	I doubt defiling will be a player option when DarkSun is done for 4e. This edition is about balance afterall. You can't have Darksun without defiling. Balance can come in other ways. All players can gain preserver-flavored class features as long as they don't taint themselves, for instance.
#4 decivre Nov 16, 2008 3:26:40	I see defiling being a class feature that might be substituted for another class feature... perhaps cantrips, but I think it would be interesting if Defilers in the new Dark Sun lost the use of spellbooks (I don't know if you've seen any of my other posts on Dark Sun 4th Edition, but I think that it should have a world reset and start from scratch rather than picking up from where it was). That said, I see the Athasian Dragon being an Epic Destiny, along with the Avangion. They might require being a Defiler/Preserver that paragon path multiclasses into a psionic class. As for how defiling would work, I've been working on something for quite some time already. I was actually thinking that on a mechanical level, it would effectively be an amplification to your abilities that requires the sacrifice of healing surges to use (representing the life-draining nature of defiler magic). I think the world-destroying nature of magic in Dark Sun would do to keep as a more flavorful thing, and they should avoid giving it specifics like they did before. Preserver magic would follow the same rules as the wizard class normally does.
#5 outlaw68 Nov 16, 2008 3:27:37	There are some good ideas for defiling on the Dark Sun boards. As for Psionicitis/Wizard multiclass being required to be a Dragon, that can be achieved though Wizard, paragon multiclass (there are several homebrew Psions etc getting around) - i have made the Dragons/Avangions as Epic Destinies. But i really do suggest checking out the Dark Sun boards and the Arena Forums on athas.org. EDIT - I have been working on a crazy amount of Dark Sun converting if anybody is interested in having a look, PM and i will email it to you (it is all in word format) - it isn't complete yet, but it isn't far from. It is probably 70% my stuff, and 30% stuff i have adopted from these forums and Athas.orgs forums.
#6 khift Nov 16, 2008 6:22:15	As for Psionicitis Psionicitis, eh? That sounds fairly serious! Characters with that disease should really get themselves checked out by a doctor. ...In other news, this sounds alot like a ritual. It would have to be one you would need to do multiple times over the course of the transformation, but I would think, mechanically, in 4e that is the best bet.
#7 Arawn76 Nov 16, 2008 6:29:00	Wizard or Psion multiclass into a developing Dragon/Avangion paragon class, sorcerer king PP perhaps? Followed by some sort of ascended dragon/avangion epic destiny. What's so impossible about that?
#8 claytoniantomb Nov 16, 2008 9:57:43	Essentially, defiling is a tempting shortcut to power, and preserving is sacrifice required to not go down that path. Long yet simple, this is my take on arcane power on Athas, where I tried to make things balanced so being a preserver has a benefit as well: - All magic users are either preservers or defilers, though this distinction is lost on the general populace. All magic outside of cantrips (footnote 1), when not prudently used, strains the land with a defiling radius (in game terms, this means a close burst 1 that kills all normal plant life in the burst), but conscientious wizards, known as preservers, have developed some preserver skills to mitigate this damage to their surroundings and souls. To counter one’s personal defiling radius during the use of a power, one may use do one of the following (these techniques are known as preserver knacks): Concentrate, at the cost of mobility, by doing one of the following: #Lose a minor action for the turn (this option is not available outside of one’s own turn) #Lose a move action (this option is not available outside of one’s own turn) #Leave oneself open, granting combat advantage to all adjacent opponents until the beginning of your next turn #Increasing the time rituals need by one hour. Use one’s inner reserves of vitality, by doing one of the following: #Lose a healing surge #Lose, temporarily, 5 hit points, which will be regained after a five minute rest #Lose an encounter power #Lose a daily power. A power lost this way can be regained after a five minute rest #Lose an action point #Lose the ability to use cantrips until after an extended rest Other options include: #Other feats, powers, and side effects may provide additional options to stop a defiling radius #Some feats, powers, and effects caused by outside sources may effectively suppress all defiling radiuses in an area, making the need to suppress one’s own powers needless - One who uses a preserver knack is working in harmony with existence itself, which besides being morally wise, has a tangible benefit, called a harmonious aura. Anyone who uses a knack receives a harmonious aura, a special status, until the beginning of their next turn, during which the character gets a bonus of 4 temporary hit points added to any healing they give or receive. Harmonious auras don’t stack, nor can one gain more than one harmonious aura. - On the other hand, powers of the arcane descriptor, as long as their defiling radiuses are not repressed, are more potent and likely to strike enemies if not restricted by these preserving knacks, adding a +2 bonus to arcane powers’ attack rolls, and rituals cast without preserver knacks similarly are easier, giving the caster a +2 bonus to their arcane check. Increase these benefits to +4 at level 10, and +6 at level 20. - Defiling comes at a price to the soul as well as the land; all acts of defilement have the potential to give a player dark action points. Any time a player fails to somehow suppress their defiling radius and uses a power or ritual, they must make a taint check. The DC is 15 plus the current level of dark action points the character has. Failure nets the character a dark action point. - Unlike action points, dark action points cannot be spent, and do not typically give benefits (some feats, rituals, and powers may utilize them; however, points cannot be shed by such things in most cases). When one has dark action points equal to their wisdom modifier, they become tainted, are true defilers, and their alignment becomes evil. Even if the DM doesn’t elect to treat the character as an NPC at this time, the character will probably not last long among it’s fellow adventurers, depending on their morals and alignments. A tainted character has a penalty to wisdom checks (equal to their dark action points) to avoid doing evil when presented with the choice, though they may be able to perform good actions under the pretense of larger, evil plans their character has laid out. They suffer a similar temptation to defile when casting, and must make a wisdom check whenever they try to overcome their bad habits and use a preserver knack. - Tainted characters do not benefit from the harmonious aura status of their own preserver knacks until they manage to remover their tainted status. - Another consequence of tainted status is its tendency to make those who stoop to defiling stand out to the sensitive. Animals won’t like defilers, and those with the power to sense alignment through magical or psychic means will make perception checks at a reduced difficulty. The DC to sense if someone is a defiler is 15 minus the amount of dark action points the individual is tainted with. All characters have the chance to sense defilers’ tainted natures when they use the sense magic arcane skill check (in which they must be trained). Psionic NPCs often sense defilers at inopportune times. - Dark action points can be removed through acts of atonement. Each time a milestone is achieved or a level is gained, the character may make a wisdom check (DC=15+number of dark action points) to remove one dark action point. Certain rituals and actions may also be able to remove a dark action point, as the DM or adventure supplements sees fit to allow, but they will probably entail great risk or personal sacrifice. If a tainted character reduces their dark action points to 1/4 of their level, they are no longer tainted and may gain the benefits of the harmonious aura once again. The temptations and regrets of defiling will always be with them. - — 1: Performing cantrips in public on Athas is just as foolish as other forms of magic, of course, as the public has instinctive hatred of all magic and mages. Fellow adventurers may not like them either.
#9 decivre Nov 16, 2008 15:34:57	I don't know about that setup claytoniantomb. Preserving was not necessarily a disadvantageous form of magic, and there was no need to take upon you weaknesses to use it in 2nd Edition. For all intents and purposes, it worked like normal magic from other campaign settings in most ways. Defiling magic was unique, and it worked by granting you more power (and a smaller experience chart) at the cost of destruction and the need to drain life to cast magic. Now, we obviously can't shrink the experience chart, and giving more powers directly would probably throw balance off a bit. I propose the best way to handle it is to have a series of defiler feats which can be taken that would grant amplifications at the cost of various things when the defiler feats are used (such as feats that makes your powers reliable at the cost of hit points or healing surges), and a class feature that emulates the "fast and easy" flavor of defiler magic (of all the classes in D&D, I think the defiler would be best to be designed around the 5-minute workday considering how it worked in 2nd Edition... of course it'll most likely be an NPC class anyways). That said, there are no alignment restrictions anymore, so defilers don't necessarily have to be evil (albeit they likely will be). There are no ways to detect alignment, and while there may still be ways to detect defiler taint, the alignment fluff is unnecessary.
#10 outlaw68 Nov 16, 2008 16:45:09	I propose the best way to handle it is to have a series of defiler feats which can be taken that would grant amplifications at the cost of various things when the defiler feats are used (such as feats that makes your powers reliable at the cost of hit points or healing surges), and a class feature that emulates the "fast and easy" flavor of defiler magic (of all the classes in D&D, I think the defiler would be best to be designed around the 5-minute workday considering how it worked in 2nd Edition... of course it'll most likely be an NPC class anyways). The defiling feats idea has been fleshed out over in the Dark Sun forum.. they work pretty well, it is what i am using in my campaign.
#11 decivre Nov 16, 2008 17:17:31	The defiling feats idea has been fleshed out over in the Dark Sun forum.. they work pretty well, it is what i am using in my campaign. I know they work well, because they worked pretty decently in 3rd Edition's Dark Sun. And what better way to represent the willing corruption of a defiler than by taking on feats with the defiler descriptor?
#12 claytoniantomb Nov 16, 2008 17:45:46	(sorry, don't see a delete button)
#13 claytoniantomb Nov 16, 2008 17:47:48	Feats don't work IMHO because defiling is supposed to be tempting for all spellcasters at all times. Oh, I'm immune to temptation because I never took that feat. Also, I don't have a 2nd ed book before me at the moment, but I am pretty sure part of the reason defiling was tempting is because it was faster... I think in combat terms...
#14 carios Nov 16, 2008 17:51:40	I've only read a small amount of Dark Sun material but it would seem to me that characters who regularly defile while casting spells would suffer enough RP-wise to compensate for a combat bonus. Wouldn't most other PCs turn on a party member who was a defiler? How many organisations who may be preserver friendly would instead hunt down a defiler?
#15 khift Nov 16, 2008 19:20:57	To be honest, defiling seems like an NPC only style thing. Like lichdom and death knight-dom. Gaining more power just because you do evil... it doesn't fit for the heroes, and it either breaks the balance of the game by granting more power to evil characters or it is worthless because it doesn't but implies it does. Either way, I believe defiling should be relegated to fluff when it comes to players and a special NPC only class or series of templates for NPCs and monsters.
#16 decivre Nov 16, 2008 21:29:02	Feats don't work IMHO because defiling is supposed to be tempting for all spellcasters at all times. Oh, I'm immune to temptation because I never took that feat. Also, I don't have a 2nd ed book before me at the moment, but I am pretty sure part of the reason defiling was tempting is because it was faster... I think in combat terms... No, they casted at the exact same speed. The significant advantages of defilers was the fact that they could potentially gain more (or less) spell slots in a day through defilement (which is why I recommend something that would grant your powers the reliable property through the loss of hit points or healing surges), they could slow or weaken other creatures that are caught in the defiling radius (represented as a +3 initiative penalty), something that might be done by other means in 4th Edition. The biggest advantage to being a defiler was the fact that you leveled significantly faster, something you cannot really do in 4th Edition.
#17 rauric Nov 16, 2008 21:46:17	A bunch of that flavor is going to be ignored due to game balance and issues with what 4E is all about. I believe they may explain away that aspect of magic. They will also (IMO) add in all classes (like paladins and druids) from all splatbooks even though those classes were not in the older version of the setting. It just seems the 4E way of handling things. 2E seemed to like to make its settings fill a niche or have a gimmick. 4E just wants to sell books to as many people will buy them. I am not blasting either edition when I offer my opinions on this, these are just my thoughts. Anyway I see defilers as a "monster" that will be thrown at the pcs. Its defiling mechanic will not need to be balanced as much for a "monster" than it would have been for a PC IMO.
#18 claytoniantomb Nov 16, 2008 22:05:32	(which is why I recommend something that would grant your powers the reliable property through the loss of hit points or healing surges), they could slow or weaken other creatures that are caught in the defiling radius (represented as a +3 initiative penalty) I'm not on board with that sort of solution because defiling doesn't, at least at lower levels, hurt creatures in the area, nor the caster. Just plant life and soil gets scorched. Whatever form it comes in, I'm starting to think defiling should perhaps be a class feature for all magic users. I really feel it needs to be a temptation for the PCs. This is a desperate and evil world we are talking about, where the evil way out looks like the smart way.
#19 decivre Nov 16, 2008 22:37:19	A bunch of that flavor is going to be ignored due to game balance and issues with what 4E is all about. I believe they may explain away that aspect of magic. They will also (IMO) add in all classes (like paladins and druids) from all splatbooks even though those classes were not in the older version of the setting. It just seems the 4E way of handling things. 2E seemed to like to make its settings fill a niche or have a gimmick. 4E just wants to sell books to as many people will buy them. I am not blasting either edition when I offer my opinions on this, these are just my thoughts. Anyway I see defilers as a "monster" that will be thrown at the pcs. Its defiling mechanic will not need to be balanced as much for a "monster" than it would have been for a PC IMO. I don't know about this one... unless they do a major rewrite they will have to leave out a bunch of classes. Clerics work different enough that they would probably be better represented by classes from the elemental power source when it is released. All arcane casters save for wizards will probably not exist. That said, Dark Sun back then was considered an advanced campaign, and not one for the faint of heart. It wouldn't surprise me if they tried to capture that by putting the limitations in the campaign guide (if they do release Dark Sun... which they better) but providing information for people who want to inject other classes should they so choose. I'm not on board with that sort of solution because defiling doesn't, at least at lower levels, hurt creatures in the area, nor the caster. Just plant life and soil gets scorched. Whatever form it comes in, I'm starting to think defiling should perhaps be a class feature for all magic users. I really feel it needs to be a temptation for the PCs. This is a desperate and evil world we are talking about, where the evil way out looks like the smart way. Actually it does. Defiling causes extreme pain to all creatures within the radius... it doesn't actually drain a significant enough amount of life from non-plants to deal damage, but in 2nd Edition it granted a +3 initiative penalty. Dragon magic actually does drain from non-plant creatures, but that's way down the line. Read the Revised Campaign Setting for info on it all, or Defilers and Preservers (where I got the info). Defiler magic had slightly different rules prior to the Revised Campaign Setting.
#20 claytoniantomb Nov 17, 2008 1:14:47	I'll have to take your word for that, but still, an initiative penalty is hardly going to have much of an effect after battle is started, and usually it would affect your allies more than monsters, because your allies are often close at the beginning of a battle.
#21 decivre Nov 17, 2008 2:02:40	I'll have to take your word for that, but still, an initiative penalty is hardly going to have much of an effect after battle is started, and usually it would affect your allies more than monsters, because your allies are often close at the beginning of a battle. The initiative penalty only occurs if you defile as you cast. If you defile at the time of preparation, then the effects of defiling on living creatures does not actually matter in combat.
#22 claytoniantomb Nov 17, 2008 2:07:28	hmmm. Sounds pretty boring.
#23 decivre Nov 17, 2008 3:02:20	hmmm. Sounds pretty boring. Defiler magic wasn't meant to have dramatic game-altering effects tacked onto it. Defiler magic had larger game world ramifications and roleplaying effects than it did mechanical ones. Mechanically the benefits were rather minor*. In the game world, however, it had the catastrophic effect of tearing all life out of the nearby environment, leaving a circular scar which would take years to replenish and heal. The entire planet of Athas is a testament of just how dramatic defiler magic can alter the landscape. Dark Sun is a setting in which hope is a myth, and people have largely accepted that everyone is doomed. Defiler magic is key to that theme. Not everything that's important in a roleplaying game needs to have uber-powerful in-game mechanics, especially focal plot elements. *: Minor doesn't apply to every advantage of being a defiler. There's still the fact that you level up definitively faster in comparison to a preserver in 2nd Edition. Moreover, the ability to slow your enemies and gain significantly more spells per day had its uses. Plus, the psychological effects of watching someone defile the earth to cast a spell often had huge effects on morale.
#24 elondir Nov 17, 2008 8:14:06	Dark Sun is about five things: environmentalism, psionics, powergaming, deserts, and lots of really big insects. It's a lot like that segment "Den" from Heavy Metal - lots of hairless over-muscled dudes riding wasps across the wasteland to get the Loc-nar (obsidian orbs) for the evil queen (of Gulg?). I think there's even a nightmare beast in that segment ("they speak of a beast that prowls these catacombs with teeth six inches long... correction, sixTEEN inches.") I see templars and defilers as being NPC-only; they had that Thief XP advancement in 2e, and I never liked the 3e version from Dragon magazine. Preservers are just core wizards. However they do it, they have to know that players quite often like to play evil characters, so alignment restrictions are not the way to go. I don't see how the super-powered characters will fit in 4e. Half giants and thri-kreen will probably get even more nerfed than they were in 3e.
#25 claytoniantomb Nov 17, 2008 8:34:36	Once again, I think it's gotta be available to everyone, unless the DM says nay. Recent editions are about options. Speaking of which, I think monsterous races are much easer to use these days. Stupidity and alien mindsets should be acted out, says I.
#26 rauric Nov 17, 2008 9:02:15	@Decivre, I just think they will come up with some reasons why there are new races. The world will still be similar but it will fit into 4Es ways of doing things. I am sure gamers who hate the changes of some of it can just ignore it like any other RPG.
#27 star_gazer_02 Nov 17, 2008 9:34:12	I don't see how the super-powered characters will fit in 4e. Half giants and thri-kreen will probably get even more nerfed than they were in 3e. One of the defining themes of 4e is that "Awesome comes from flavor, not mechanics." I hope that a WotC DS product follows that simple prescription.
#28 decivre Nov 17, 2008 16:23:17	@Decivre, I just think they will come up with some reasons why there are new races. The world will still be similar but it will fit into 4Es ways of doing things. I am sure gamers who hate the changes of some of it can just ignore it like any other RPG. There's already a way they can... I mean it's theoretically possible to explain away any race being there thanks to the Planar Gate. It can grant access to any plane outside of those within the confines of Athas... theoretically to other campaign settings. However, there's really no way for them to reintroduce other fantasy races outside that method... most of the intelligent life on Athas was slain by the Champions of Rajaat, such as kobolds, ogres, trolls, orcs, gnomes, wemics, lizard men (which might have included dragonborn if they did exist at some point), pixies, goblins, and centaurs. All of them were wiped to extinction, and potentially more (I don't know if they've ever specified an upward limit on the number of Champions that existed). So it's possible to plug in any character with a "you step out of the Planar Gate into Athas", but they won't be able to plug new races in without some dramatic world-altering shift, potentially greater than the one that occurred on Forgotten Realms.
#29 Tectuktitlay Nov 17, 2008 17:43:11	It's Dark Sun. Any race can be a long-lost holdout from the Pristine Tower, with Athas-appropriate fluff. Literally any race you can think of, be it mammalian, reptilian, amphibious, insectoid, amoebic, whatever. The sheer number of spontaneous mutations in the novels alone by the Tower is ample evidence that any sort of species would be possible. It's like an ongoing Tower of Babel, but for genetic code rather than language. Add in the Planar Gate, add in the Nightmare Gate, add in the Crimson Monolith, and just about anything you can think of is accessible, albeit with a Dark Sun twist.
#30 rauric Nov 18, 2008 7:56:50	There's already a way they can... I mean it's theoretically possible to explain away any race being there thanks to the Planar Gate. It can grant access to any plane outside of those within the confines of Athas... theoretically to other campaign settings. However, there's really no way for them to reintroduce other fantasy races outside that method... most of the intelligent life on Athas was slain by the Champions of Rajaat, such as kobolds, ogres, trolls, orcs, gnomes, wemics, lizard men (which might have included dragonborn if they did exist at some point), pixies, goblins, and centaurs. All of them were wiped to extinction, and potentially more (I don't know if they've ever specified an upward limit on the number of Champions that existed). Are there any other continents on Athas that might hold those "extinct" races? Perhaps that info of their demise was wrong and they all went into hiding, maybe in the underdark or some other area. I do not think they will touch 2Es Realms Space Athas Space concept. I think every setting will be it's own universe and the DMs can link them if they choose.
#31 claytoniantomb Nov 18, 2008 8:42:56	I like the underdark refugee concept. It would be cool to see how the traditional evil and good races ended up when they were competing and cooperating to survive.
#32 decivre Nov 18, 2008 18:34:47	Are there any other continents on Athas that might hold those "extinct" races? Perhaps that info of their demise was wrong and they all went into hiding, maybe in the underdark or some other area. I do not think they will touch 2Es Realms Space Athas Space concept. I think every setting will be it's own universe and the DMs can link them if they choose. Kinda hard to do that, considering the oceans are gone. I mean there's a lot of unexplored land in Kreen territory, but I doubt there'd be enough to validate a sudden resurgence of so many races, especially ones that are supposedly extinct (the Champions spent upwards of a millenia hunting down every last member of any specific race they were assigned to slay). That said, they could still use the Planar Portal to explain races coming from the astral sea or elemental chaos. Another option somebody else mentioned was the pristine tower, which often creates random mutations. That new dragonborn character could have been a human who just happened to travel too damn close. I think the most important question would be how to retcon in the Feywild if they went that direction. I could see the Shadowfell being an extension to the Black or even the Hollow. There really isn't a place for the Feywild, though.
#33 star_gazer_02 Nov 19, 2008 16:18:10	Not so hard, there are a several ways to introduce new races in DS: 1. The Pristine Tower can make you pretty much whatever you want. 2. Lizardmen exist, even on Athas' base continent. They're traders up in the northeast. 3. The oceans are gone but replaced by even more impassable seas of dust. There could be several other continents quite easily. 4. Nobody knows what's beyond the 'Kreen empire. Most people familiar w/ DS hate that silly Gate/Mirror thing of Dregoth's and either ignore it entirely or ret-conn it to a delusion of his. Part of what makes Athas, well, Athas is the fact that it's cut off, alone - and there's nobody and nowhere to turn to for help.
#34 decivre Nov 19, 2008 17:34:10	Not so hard, there are a several ways to introduce new races in DS: 1. The Pristine Tower can make you pretty much whatever you want. 2. Lizardmen exist, even on Athas' base continent. They're traders up in the northeast. 3. The oceans are gone but replaced by even more impassable seas of dust. There could be several other continents quite easily. 4. Nobody knows what's beyond the 'Kreen empire. Most people familiar w/ DS hate that silly Gate/Mirror thing of Dregoth's and either ignore it entirely or ret-conn it to a delusion of his. Part of what makes Athas, well, Athas is the fact that it's cut off, alone - and there's nobody and nowhere to turn to for help. The pristine tower is a viability for adding in any race. Lizardmen do not exist anymore... the only remaining lizard race are the pterrans, which (just barely) avoided extinction at the hands of Sielba. It's possible that there are other continents, but it'd be a hard call to claim more races, considering the efficiency with which the Champions of Rajaat worked (at least the ones that succeeded). The area beyond the Kreen empire was explored previously, but the kreens took the area over shortly after the sorcerer kings returned to the tablelands and cut off common people from traversing the land. I believe the sorcerer kings have full knowledge of what's over there, it just isn't common knowledge. That said, the Planar Gate is not an easy device to use, one way or the other. While I agree that most DS fans aren't particularly fond of it, in that same vein most DS fans aren't particularly fond of adding more races to the game either. If you're willing to make one concession and start plugging in new races, you might as well make another concession and use one of the easier in-setting devices built for the job to do so.
#35 outlaw68 Nov 19, 2008 18:27:07	There are lizard men living in the last sea according to the Mind Lords supplement.. or did this change after the release of Mind Lords? or are we talking only the original incarnation of the setting?
#36 Tectuktitlay Nov 19, 2008 19:23:22	There are lizard men living in the last sea according to the Mind Lords supplement.. or did this change after the release of Mind Lords? or are we talking only the original incarnation of the setting? Nope, Lizardmen are still alive in the newest version, being my favorite incarnation of lizardfolk EVER. Seriously, semi-aquatic, chameleonic lizardfolk who can pull an octopus/cuttlefisk and change their coloring down to actual patterns and potentially words on their skin? Who are isolated at the bottom of the Last Sea, and secluded from the rest of the world, within a region itself secluded from the rest of the world? Sweet. And they outsmarted a sorcerer-king? And the sorcerer-king they outsmarted long afterwards repented, and may someday far in the future become a full avangion who will be overwhelmed with joy upon discovering he actually failed in his mission of genocide? Cool. I do agree with Decivre that Athas needs to retain a lot of the grittiness. I like Free Tyr and the concept, and even killing Borys was fine. However, it needed to be made abundantly clear that killing Borys and leaving that power vacuum left the world in a different state of shambles. I didn't like the concept of an Age of Heroes so soon after the Age of Sorcerer-Kings. Perhaps Free Tyr as a symbol of what might be a long, long time from the present, and a dangerous place that shows that humanity not under the control of a near-omnipotent sorcerer-monarch can be a whole different den of evil and despair. Plus, to have Free Tyr be the city standing between the Tyr Region and the Crimson Savannah? Watching the halflings of the Jagged Cliffs going extinct, and become food for the kreen if they're not careful? Oh yeah, that is begging for centuries of turmoil, warfare, pain and suffering, alien invasion, and so much more. But having these glimmers of hope in the background, like Oronis, and the surviving lidardfolk, the killing of a few sorcerer-monarchs and The Dragon of Tyr, and so on? That worked for me. Kind of Dark Sun's own "points of light" in a world very much populated by gritty, brutal, bloody Darwinian principles in action, fueled by magic and psionics.
#37 outlaw68 Nov 19, 2008 19:42:22	I do agree with Decivre that Athas needs to retain a lot of the grittiness. I like Free Tyr and the concept, and even killing Borys was fine. However, it needed to be made abundantly clear that killing Borys and leaving that power vacuum left the world in a different state of shambles. I didn't like the concept of an Age of Heroes so soon after the Age of Sorcerer-Kings. Perhaps Free Tyr as a symbol of what might be a long, long time from the present, and a dangerous place that shows that humanity not under the control of a near-omnipotent sorcerer-monarch can be a whole different den of evil and despair. Plus, to have Free Tyr be the city standing between the Tyr Region and the Crimson Savannah? Watching the halflings of the Jagged Cliffs going extinct, and become food for the kreen if they're not careful? Oh yeah, that is begging for centuries of turmoil, warfare, pain and suffering, alien invasion, and so much more. But having these glimmers of hope in the background, like Oronis, and the surviving lidardfolk, the killing of a few sorcerer-monarchs and The Dragon of Tyr, and so on? That worked for me. Kind of Dark Sun's own "points of light" in a world very much populated by gritty, brutal, bloody Darwinian principles in action, fueled by magic and psionics. I love the Dark Sun points of light idea. That would be very cool!
#38 Pennarin Nov 19, 2008 22:28:48	The lizardmen did not outsmart Keltis the Champion...the Mind Lords interfered by hiding the lizardmen from Keltis' epic detection spell.
#39 Tectuktitlay Nov 20, 2008 1:51:05	The lizardmen did not outsmart Keltis the Champion...the Mind Lords interfered by hiding the lizardmen from Keltis' epic detection spell. Right you are. Heh. Ah well, it has been awhile since I've read MLotLS.
#40 decivre Nov 21, 2008 2:59:27	I have to say that I didn't know the lizardmen survived the culling. I really need to read the books (I haven't read most of the novels, just the setting books for D&D... and even those not completely). However, my biggest reason that I feel the game should be reset to before the liberation of Tyr is because it sets Wizards up for creating a heroic/paragon/epic campaign based on the world of Dark Sun. The heroic tier would be about freeing Tyr, the paragon tier about slaying Borys, and who knows with the epic Dark Sun tier?
#41 claytoniantomb Nov 21, 2008 3:39:55	Paragon characters wouldn't stand a chance. Even most epic characters would find him to have many daunting contingency plans; in the old books, he teleported away before being killed. I'd like to hear peoples 2 ed. era experiences fighting him. Anybody beat him?
#42 mouthymerc Nov 21, 2008 7:51:20	I would think that the sorcerer-kings would fall into the Epic levels at the least. Me, personally, would create them in the vein of Orcus, beyond Epic levels. And Borys would be beyond them, if I had him still around.
#43 Cyber-Dave Nov 21, 2008 9:02:35	Yea... I kind of think heroic levels in Dark Sun would just be about surviving, paragon levels would be about freeing the city states, epic levels would be about taking on a Dragon King...