Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Feb 07, 2009 21:51:32	What are folk's opinions on whether Dark Sun characters for 4th ed should use the old methods for character creation: 4d4+4 (or similar) so you caa get up to 20? I think that's unbalancing, nowadays *shrug* Should all PCs get "Wild Talent" to get some psionic power? Bit ambivalent on that. I hated the WIld Talent feat in Expanded Psionic Handbook as it was next to useless and made no sense. it should have been instead, the optional psionic feat that gave you a real psionic power, which is placed in an odd part of the book, sigh.
#2 mouthymerc Feb 07, 2009 22:59:56	What are folk's opinions on whether Dark Sun characters for 4th ed should use the old methods for character creation: 4d4+4 (or similar) so you caa get up to 20? I think that's unbalancing, nowadays *shrug* I don't see the need. The scaling system of modifiers is much different than it was in 2E. Seems to me to be much more in line for the type of effect with modifiers they were trying to get by expanding the attribute range in the first place. Should all PCs get "Wild Talent" to get some psionic power? Bit ambivalent on that. I hated the WIld Talent feat in Expanded Psionic Handbook as it was next to useless and made no sense. it should have been instead, the optional psionic feat that gave you a real psionic power, which is placed in an odd part of the book, sigh. Personally, I could see a feat which did something similar to the half-elf ability Dilettante. Choose an At-will power, change its power keyword to psionic, and use it as an encounter power. Might even allow a player to change the key attribute used for the attack roll. By the time the PHB with psionics comes out, there will be a plethora of at-will powers to choose from.
#3 Barbarossa_Rotbart Feb 08, 2009 4:52:22	What are folk's opinions on whether Dark Sun characters for 4th ed should use the old methods for character creation: 4d4+4 (or similar) so you caa get up to 20? Yes. Dark Sun characters are mor powerfull than normal characters. (And they should also start on third level.) Should all PCs get "Wild Talent" to get some psionic power? Yes. This is also a fundamental part of the setting. Every character should get one psionic at-will power as an encounter power.
#4 Pennarin Feb 08, 2009 7:58:51	Have you looked at 4e stats lately? They easily go over 20. Download the Character Builder from WotC, build a level 1 PC, choose for the program to distribute your stat points for you, and you'll probably get a 20 in there for your main score. I did. Yes. Dark Sun characters are mor powerfull than normal characters. (And they should also start on third level.) This was more a gimmick than anything else. You sidestepped the boring first two levels of play and got to the good part with the nice choice of powers and spells. 4e level 1 characters are already pretty powerful as they are. Yes. This is also a fundamental part of the setting. Every character should get one psionic at-will power as an encounter power. This would make the game easier for the players, not reflect how harsh the setting is. But this is an old argument. Go for that if you really want to, it's a pretty great cool factor in any case.
#5 Barbarossa_Rotbart Feb 08, 2009 8:39:40	That was even possible in 3e for most races except humans. But all of you have made a simple mistake in your train of thoughts. The maximal ability score does not matter, but the average ability score does. The average was still just 10.5 in 2e if the normal method of rolling your ability scores with 3d6 is used. The 4d6 method used since 3e increases the average to 12.24, but that is below the average 2e ability scores of athasian characters which was 12.5 for NPCs and 14.5 for PCs. Another difference between Dark Sun and other Campaign setting was, that the unmodified ability scores could reach 20 in Dark Sun, while 18 was still the unmodified maximal ability score for first level characters. And that did not change in 3e, in 3.4 and even in 4e. BTW you made another mistake in saying that the change range of Ability modifers supersede the need for higher starting ability scores. But that did also affect the normal campaigns where they kept the 3d6 method while changing the ability modifers.
#6 Pennarin Feb 08, 2009 8:50:02	Are you really comparing 2e, 3e, and 4e stat values? Why? They are not equivalent.
#7 Barbarossa_Rotbart Feb 08, 2009 10:18:53	They are! In all editions of D&D 18 was (and still is) the highest unmodified ability score you can have in the beginning. There is no difference between rolling 3d6 (or 4d6 discarding lowest) or the customizing scores method (you cannot buy unmodified scores above 18). In all editions 10/11 is considered average. That was in D&D 1e and AD&D because 10/11 is the average score you get by rolling 3d6. That is in 3e and 3.5 because with that score you get an ability modifer of +0. The same applies to 4e.
#8 Tectuktitlay Feb 08, 2009 12:35:34	No, DS characters should not start at 3rd level. 1st is perfectly fine. No, DS characters should NOT be more powerful than characters from other worlds of the same level. Rather, more baseline NPCs on Athas are forced to survive, ergo adventure to a degree, and thusly tend to be a couple of levels higher. The rest are dead. And therein lies the difference in population levels between Athas and other worlds: Other worlds tend to have the same number of tough characters and survivors, but a lot of simple country and city folk who've been able to make it in the world without nearly the same pressures, and remain alive, make up the bulk of the populace. On Athas, those masses don't exist, having died in a multitude of horrible ways. No, all Athasian characters should NOT start out with a free Wild Talent on top of everything else. Rather, I would quite simply give Athasian characters a "Wild Talent" section in the book, with powers and abilities on par with Backgrounds, that an Athasian can choose to replace a Background with. In other words, Athasians can either choose a Background as normal, or a Wild Talent, but cannot have both. This allows for fluff-related reasons for both existing. Folks with a Background likely have an extremely minor Wild Talent, and should be encouraged to create Wild Talents for themselves that have no mechanical function in-game. For example, Grok the Champion Gladiator can manifest the ability to change his eye color at will, while Meeria of the Wind Runners can manifest a minor breeze that affects only her; Both have Backgrounds instead of Wild Talents. Meanwhile, Darren of Urik can move objects with his mind, and has a Wild Talent very similar to Mage Hand, whereas Ferral the Mul has a Wild Talent allowing him to reroll Jump checks at-will and choose the result; Both have Wild Talents instead of Backgrounds.
#9 Barbarossa_Rotbart Feb 08, 2009 15:45:17	And because Athas is much more deadly than other worlds, the characters tend to be "better" (=having higher ability scores) and to have more experience than characters from other worlds. A harsh and brutal world will create people who fit in this world. In AD&D an athasian Character at the beginning of her career had more experience (starting 3rd level instead of 1st level) and the average of her ability scores was 4 points higher than the ones of that beginning character from another world like the Forgotten Realms. And in most cases she was a psionic wild talent. That's part of the flavour of the setting. And it would not be Dark Sun if we remove all of that from the setting.
#10 Cyber-Dave Feb 08, 2009 15:59:11	Giving all characters a free "Wild Talent" (whatever shape that might take in 4e) I am fine with. Starting them off at 3rd level? No. Higher stats? I don't really find that necessary with 4e either. Those are my 2 cents.
#11 Tectuktitlay Feb 08, 2009 17:20:00	And because Athas is much more deadly than other worlds, the characters tend to be "better" (=having higher ability scores) and to have more experience than characters from other worlds. A harsh and brutal world will create people who fit in this world. Nope, the peak physical characteristics remain the same, the members surviving to the next generation differ. Higher ability scores? No. More likely to see NPCs of higher level with tougher scores? Yes. Thus, my reasoning in the previous post. A DS party of 7th level characters facing off against a FR party of 7th level characters should be on par with one another. The key here, however, is that a much smaller percentage of the populace in the Realms makes it to 7th level. Thus, it would more accurately be something like this: A party of five 7th level characters on Athas would, relative to the percentage of the populace, be facing off against something like a twenty-man party consisting of a few 4th level characters, more of 3rd level characters from the Realms, and a bunch of 1st and 2nd level characters. A party of five 7th level Realms folks would, relative to the percentage of the populace of their respective worlds, be facing off against a solo character of approximately 12th level. And so on. All those low-level folks that are protected fundamentally by the mere existence of large, extensive and established, connected civilizations don't exist (for long) on Athas. The peak physical extremes of a human, elf, dwarf, etc, remain the same with some extra specialization (i.e. adaptations to desert environment, lack of fey magic in exchange for the ability to run faster and longer, etc). In AD&D an athasian Character at the beginning of her career had more experience (starting 3rd level instead of 1st level) and the average of her ability scores was 4 points higher than the ones of that beginning character from another world like the Forgotten Realms. And in most cases she was a psionic wild talent. No, an Athasian character started at 3rd level by simple virtue of necessity. A 1st level character could too easily die, not from monsters or NPCs attacking them, but rather from environmental hazards. Wild Talents were potentially busted, and repeating them in remotely CLOSE to the previous form (i.e. where a person could, at starting level, have 100+ PSPs, and a half-dozen powers including but not limited to Id Insinuation and Disintegrate) would utterly break the game, as it did back then. Was it fun? Only the first time. When we first played DS and rolled up a character with insane Wild Talents, it was pretty cool. Until he completely and utterly dominated the campaign without having to try. He simply had more and better options than anyone else at that level, or for many levels to come. That was immediately nipped in the bud in our campaigns. No way, no how, is a Wild Talent allowed to have more than one power, or an overabundance of PSPs, much less a plethora of both simultaneously. Sorry. Uh-uh. When the Wild Talent has more options AND power than a psion of higher level, it is indicative of something being horribly wrong with the system. That's part of the flavour of the setting. And it would not be Dark Sun if we remove all of that from the setting. No, starting at 3rd level and having more raw everything than any other campaign setting is NOT the flavor of Dark Sun, merely a mechanical convention that is quite separate from the flavor of the setting itself. The flavor of the setting is a post-apocalyptic world on the brink of destruction, with civilizations of incredible power and sophistication having risen and fallen many times over for millennia. It is a desert wasteland brought about by ecologically devastating forms of magic brought to bear to a stunning degree on an unprepared world in a genocidal war steeped in fundamental madness. It is a world that has gone from blue wonder of technology to green age of psionic mastery to the rise of magic and the fall of civilization. All of that flavor and fluff is completely separate from the bulk of mechanics save a small handful (i.e. defiling magic and the like) that could be reinterpreted rather easily in most mechanical frameworks. You could take Athas, the Dark Sun campaign, and transport it into nearly any RPG system worth a darn without missing one iota of the flavor of the world. No, well and truly, there is zero need for higher stats, free power creep, and starting at 3rd level in a 4E version of the campaign. No need whatsoever. Certainly, not for flavor reasons. Personal taste, perhaps. Flavor? No. Mechanical necessity? No.
#12 Barbarossa_Rotbart Feb 09, 2009 9:21:55	I disagree with most of your post. Level: There was a big difference between Atahs and the other worlds in the earlier editions. There are no commoners (= level 0 characters) on Athas, because they would not survive on that world. Therefore every character has at least one level. And one rule of D&D is that the PCs are more powerfull than the commoners. So they started with three levels in AD&D (to allow multi-classed to start withtwo levels in each class) instead of one as it is common on worlds where the mass of NPCs is level 0. Ability scores: Please explain why the athasian characters rolled their ability scores in AD&D with 5d4 + racial modifiers instead of 3d6 (+ racial modifiers) giving them ability scores between 5 and 20 instead of 3 and 18? One thing that changed between AD&D and 3e/3.5/4e is that there is no limit for the scores anymore. So your agrument of the peak physical characteristics is very weak. In D&D you can easily reach ability scores above 20, but for an athasian it is much easier because he is much more adapted to the asthasian enviroment than everyone else. That's called survival of the fittest. Giving them "normal" ability scores would remove some of their fitness to survive the world of Athas. Wild Talent: I agree that this was unbalanced in AD&D, but you have much more possibilities to prevent that in 4e. And I tell you again, the wild talent is a part of the Dark Sun flavour.
#13 mouthymerc Feb 09, 2009 10:50:31	Ability scores: Please explain why the athasian characters rolled their ability scores in AD&D with 5d4 + racial modifiers instead of 3d6 (+ racial modifiers) giving them ability scores between 5 and 20 instead of 3 and 18? Because they wanted characters to have better modifiers. The earliest you picked up a modifier in 2e was an attribute of about 15-16. This equates to a +3 modifier in 4E (and 3E, for that matter). The designers felt that increasing the stat range would make for more robust characters. With modifiers starting earlier this modification is now unneeded. In other D&D settings, having a modifier was more rare, but in Dark Sun it was more the norm. This particular fact carried over when the did 3E. Since modifiers have become the norm, there is no need to increase the stats as it just becomes inflation with no reason.
#14 Barbarossa_Rotbart Feb 09, 2009 11:15:06	That might be true but it also changes nothing.
#15 Pennarin Feb 09, 2009 12:37:17	Increasing the power of PCs makes it easier for them to face encounters, not harder. Athas becomes an easier land to live in. Increasing the challenge of encounters makes it harder for PCs to succeed. Athas becomes an harsher land. Doing both at the same time comes down to changing nothing at all. One thing DMs could do, in 4e, is add a few minions or one more monster in an encounter, busting the XP budget by 10-15% or so...making it effectively tougher and more draining on healing surges. This doesn't throw the system out of wack, yet makes it more challenging. In any case, I don't see how increasing the stats, or adding free powers (wild talents) could help express how DS is a harsher land. That is usually reserved for fluff; otherwise adding that stuff - in fact - just makes it easier for the PCs to face challenges.
#16 Pennarin Feb 09, 2009 13:08:43	Btw, there was nothing inherent in Dark Sun 2e that made it harder to play with than in other settings. The harshness of the setting was fluff-based, and was supported only at the behest of the DM, who could make things harder for the PCs in any number of ways. This could be true of any setting, or any DM's interpretation of a setting, but it was a marketing point for DS, nothing more. Many DS DMs have expressed fond memories of having their PCs start as slaves, escaping in the desert with no water. That's harsh, yes, but would Forgotten Realms players accept to do that, or simply appreciate the challenging situation? Probably not, since FR was not marketed as a harsh setting where even water is scarce, bla bla bla.