I'm extremely excited about the new Dark Sun releases next year! I'm even more excited about it being based on the original boxed set.
Although the novels were a decent read, I never liked that the official adventure line went and destroyed the masterful setting the original box portrayed. The world was looking up, you were surrounded by hope, and there sure was a lot of green on the new map. Not that D&D need always be gritty, but that's what Athas was: Dark, brutal and beautiful.
The writing in the original Wanderer's Journal was REALLY good. It took me there and had the power to get any player who read it enticed into being abused by their DM in this dog-eat-dog setting.
I look forward to new Dark Sun material so much in fact that I'll actually buy and start buying and using the 4e books (assuming I like what I see in the new Dark Sun).
That brings me of course to worry about how this wonderful setting is handled. I ask that everything from 4e NOT be shoehorned into Athas. Dragonborn could be the Dray, but things like warforged, tieflings and possibly some of the new classes simply don't belong. Please good authors and developers, don't finger paint on TSR's Mona Lisa after restoring her.
I have a lot of friends and acquaintances who have the same opinions, so maybe I'm part of a sizable customer demographic. :-)
I'm very thankful to the crew at athas.org, not only have they enabled me to run a few 3/3.5 - but I'd wager that without them creating a rallying point for all of the fans to gather around this setting might have died.
Hopefully we'll get some appropriate miniatures too! It's rather easy to create an Athasian landscape with a sandbox, rocks and some light colored blocks for ruins. Finally I can get some appropriate miniatures for a full visualization.
We'll even get some new novels I hear.
I'd better get back to work. Just thought I'd share.
IMHO, if they put a Dark Sun twist to the tiefling, well it's cool and those who dont want it, just don't allow it. I'm more in the group Give some Options and DM will cut please dont copy-paste original box.
I'm sure Wizards will balance thing, stuff like dead gnomes or orc, wont come back. Warforged simply wont fit since they do not eat, drink or sleep. So they can be a problem in power balance. But i can see them as monster, wearing obsidian instead of metal but not as pc.
Those things dead in Original box, keep them dead, new 4E stuff give it a darksunish twist, i want to see Devas twisted as Pyreen 
You're probably right that it's a bad move to actually cut out options from the new system, as that could hurt both sales and the interest of new players.
I'd just hate to see some blurb like "Assimar exist all over Athas, but here they all wear yellow hats!"
We'll probably never see a copy-paste from the original boxed set as the focus has moved more to mechanics than story in D&D (no disdain here, it's easier to have an occasional casual game that way).
I'd just like to see a broad brush that covered the locations and setting well, but with a mechanical rules update that's more faithful to the original instead of a potluck monstosity.
I don't see everyone's fascination with devas as pyreens, as pyreens were in 2e and 3e these quite powerful beings, inately powerful. Devas are a PC race, inately balanced with other PC races, thus inately weak.
Pyreens ought to be monsters, not a playable race. Epic tier monsters, to be precise.
Pennarin: But if one dies, do it ressurect in a new life? Can be seen as a great way to see Devas in Athas. In Majority they are epic and powerful... but when one die for any reason, A PC can be create from the reborn Pyreen and a great story unfold.
You're probably right that it's a bad move to actually cut out options from the new system, as that could hurt both sales and the interest of new players.
I'd just hate to see some blurb like "Assimar exist all over Athas, but here they all wear yellow hats!"
We'll probably never see a copy-paste from the original boxed set as the focus has moved more to mechanics than story in D&D (no disdain here, it's easier to have an occasional casual game that way).
I'd just like to see a broad brush that covered the locations and setting well, but with a mechanical rules update that's more faithful to the original instead of a potluck monstosity.
I think they will use, on Athas they are rare but sometimes seen ;)
Campaign Setting are beautiful and very clean, but dont have so much mechanics (Monsters, Disease). I'm sure any fan of Dark Sun will like it.
Player Guide have a lot mechanic and will be a focus for those who play 4E. Maybe September 2010 for it.
I see where you're aiming at, Akriel, what with devas having this fluff thing about past lives...but you know as much as I (I hope) that there is no past lives concept on Athas. There's dissolution in the Gray, or undeath. That's it. Anything else is new and a deviation on the original DS concept, and must be judged by each customer, and each his own.
I think the devas can be given satisfying fluff to get them to fit.
Has Athas always been deficient in gods? Let's imagine there was an event in the past when deities projected their influence upon Athas. The gods fought with the primordials, but unlike standard D&D cosmology, in the Athasian cosmology the primordials are victorious. I'm just tossing out that this event happens in the Green Age.
As a consequence of the primordials victory, the Gray envelopes Athas cutting off the flow of souls to the realms of the gods. But there was one temple village devoted to a good god whose followers fought against the armies of the Champions of Rajaat; distraught at the thought of never achieving an afterlife but dissolving into nothingness. The followers were hopeful that their gods lack of communication doesn't mean their god is dead, but just cut off and trying to get back in contact some day. Instead of waiting for their god to return, every day their followers souls would dissolve into the Gray when they died, they perform an epic ritual that would defy the fate the Gray.
Upon death, any soul a person from this temple village would avoid the Gray and instead reincarnates at a site holy to their faith. While the ritual continues, no follower can have children. With each reincarnation, memories of their past become dimmer and dimmer.
Today, there few of these followers, who call themselves devas, have any memory where the original temple village was or if any devas still live there. After centuries of reincarnations, most devas consider themselves trapped in an unending cycle, cursed by memories of a naïve past that couldn't have imagined living in a world they are doomed to live in today. Many are resentful of their past, and resentful of those who are not cursed to relive life on Athas over and over.
While some devas have been broken and follow paths like defiling, seeking to destroy everything they can grasp, other devas have overcome the overwhelming burden of their memories and pursue paths of druidism to caretake the planet for future reincarnations.
i for one am disapointed in the return to the original box set. i found it rather too bleak and was unable to maintain a consistent running campaign. frankly my players kept getting bored wandering through the desert. once it was established that the dragon kings were defeatable they were more paranoid and the intrigues between the citystates made for a more interesting backsetting. i though the second box was a better setting as it provided depth and more interesting places to explore once the initial this isnt tolkeins fantasy anymore todo experience wore off.
That deva fluff is pretty sweet, Eric.
That deva fluff is pretty sweet, Eric.
*bows* Thanks!
I was initially opposed to having devas in the setting. The inherent link to an extraplanar celestial boss just doesn't belong with Athas.
But twist it up, turn the central unique aspect and primary power into something tragic, and I think I'd be pleased to let this in my games. I've read some awesome re-flavoring of warforged on a thread over on ENWorld that has turned me into a believer even those guys have a place in the setting.
But still! No 4e gnomes or 4e (half) orcs! :D
I've read some awesome re-flavoring of warforged on a thread over on ENWorld that has turned me into a believer even those guys have a place in the setting.
Linky?
But still! No 4e gnomes or 4e (half) orcs! :D
Never been a big fan of gnomes, so I wouldn't care enough to work on a retrofit of them for Athas, but I bet I could do something wicked-cool with the half-orcs (beyond re-casting them as muls, or stating they are one of many possible "mutant" templates).
Eric might be meaning that what is dead should stay dead, or cleansed, in this case.
I've read some awesome re-flavoring of warforged on a thread over on ENWorld that has turned me into a believer even those guys have a place in the setting.
Linky?
www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discus...
Maybe I'm easily impressed, but this description of warforged as tied to the will of their Sorcerer King maker just got me. Then how a warforged handles existence after their the Sorcerer King is gone has so many possibilities.
Pennarin's got it right. Gnomes and orcs were cleansed in the setting's history. IMO, They ought to stay that way. ;)
www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discus...
Maybe I'm easily impressed, but this description of warforged as tied to the will of their Sorcerer King maker just got me. Then how a warforged handles existence after their the Sorcerer King is gone has so many possibilities.
I too like the storyline, but there's only one problem: warforged don't have to eat or drink. They are the perfect counter to the athasian sun. They would be resistant to heat, starvation and poison. In other words, they counter almost everything that makes dark sun a struggle to survive. Its a cool concept for an NPC, but I'm not sure DMs want to single out individuals like this.
It also begs another question: if warforged are magic based, do they suck up life whereever they walk? Don't they continuously drain the landscape whereever they tread?
While I'm one of those against warforged in Dark Sun (above mentioned ease of survival reasons), two things come to mind. First I've never played Eberron so I have very little idea on how the warforged are created, but couldn't they simple be constructed through the use of psionics instead? Second, I don't ever recall wands, wondrous items or magic swords ever sucking up life after their creation - so why then would a warforged?
I don't ever recall wands, wondrous items or magic swords ever sucking up life after their creation - so why then would a warforged?
Unless they get re-charged. I suppose warforged must get "recharged" every so often. Wouldn't they defile the land whenever they eat?
I too like the storyline, but there's only one problem: warforged don't have to eat or drink. They are the perfect counter to the athasian sun. They would be resistant to heat, starvation and poison. In other words, they counter almost everything that makes dark sun a struggle to survive. Its a cool concept for an NPC, but I'm not sure DMs want to single out individuals like this.
Hardly a problem. Like most Dark Sun DM's I know who ran the setting for any length of time, we gave up on the rules for heat, water, and starvation because those rules were full of the suck. Plus, the party inevitably just devoted their spell slots for the low level magic that ended up countering it all anyway. Create water, create food and water, cooling canopy, endure elements . . . what struggle, again?
Maybe the WotC 4e developers have come up with some way to handle these issues that either aren't totally stupid, or aren't completely countered by low level powers, then we might be getting some honest presentation of the dangers of the Athasian environment. But truthfully, the Athasian environment was hardly the hurdle we all imagine it to have been in real game play.
It also begs another question: if warforged are magic based, do they suck up life whereever they walk? Don't they continuously drain the landscape whereever they tread?
Do magic weapons constantly drain the environment every time a wielder hits a target? Would magic armor suck up life where ever it is worn about?
4th ed has pretty simle clear rules for heat dangers and work great ;)
Basiclaly requires an endurance check DC22 (for typically high heat areas and 26 for stiffling heat) or lose a healing surge every 8 hours, iirc. DMG page 158
now, the loss of healing surges is one thing that makes 4th ed DarkSun brilliant! The loss cannot be cured by simple spells, and 4th ed you don't have tons of spells to fix every situation....All of which makes Athasian travel dangerous.
I'd run travel as Skill Challenges, another superb system 4th ed added
Fails cost Healing Surges, hostile encounters etc. and being a decent DM some good rolls I'd throw in helpful encounters, such as a lost carvan needing aid, bodies of dead folks with loot (and maybe plague) and the like ;)
SKill Challenges let everyone in group get involved, rather than leave it only to the "One expert" in group which messed up 3rd ed a bit, IMHO.
You should leave out Endurance checks when within 8 hours of leavign a safe haven, I think, on those checks, in general, as you're rested etc, exception being some really nasty terrain.
I've read some awesome re-flavoring of warforged on a thread over on ENWorld that has turned me into a believer even those guys have a place in the setting.
Back in the day I had a campaign where a declining empire of machines (a city-state and it's environs really) across the Sea of Silt turned out to be those left behind by the mechanical creatures responsible for the shortage of metal on athas.
It was all based on some Spelljammer monsters that traveled between worlds scavenging for metal and leaving each planet they passed stripped. I forget what they were called, but this was the civilization left behind by the stragglers. These machines were also low on metal after the millennia had passed being stranded on Athas and had turned to using humanoids for slaves.
My players' small elf tribe had found a rusted metal arm! Being greedy elves they could never settle for just that and made their way across the silt. They made it back with little more than half their original number and a few scraps of metal... and now the dying machines know of the iron mines of Tyr.
In fact, despite starting this thread as an original box purist, the memory of that steampunk post-apocalyptic goodness makes me want to drop in Warforged. They'd be there as pretty scary villains (I'm thining of the movie "9") instead of PCs, but worth the fight to Athasians looking for untold wealth.
"Clockwork Horrors" that's what they were ;) And yes they are nasty!
*Spelljammer fanatic* hehe
Though of course if you wanted really, extremely, bad-ass horrific, you could use Witchlight Marauders from Spelljammer....muaha!! ;)
Warforged as organic, obsidian, chitin or other materials would be fine, created in times past or by the Sorceror kings
Yes, Clockwork Horrors!
Mine (not warforged as they weren't yet published) were rusting machines with 'prosthetic' parts made out of traditional Athasian materials. I had humanoid machines that were built after the landing. There were also a few ravenous machine 'vermin' that were monsters to the civilized machines who wanted to devour them for their metal (they were originally injured/mad machines from the original harvesting of the planet).
It was meant to be very Cthulhu horror-like for the natives. Obviously it was WAY out of the vein for Athas, but that's what the far shores of silt were for I think. 
Besides, I never did hear a GOOD explaination on where all the metal from earlier ages went.
Spelljammer was cool in it's own quirky way, I only ever ripped it off for monsters and backstories though.
I figured Athas is INCREDIBLY old so the mines are played out, as I like Clark Asthon Smith stories and the like ;)
and things like So-uTs were designed to destroy metals, towns, tools etc to destory civilizations...
the so-uts would go for clockwork horrors like rabid, armour-plated, acid dripping, metal eating bears to honey! ;)
Good point about the So-Ut, but I'd think the base elements would still be there after a good devouring.
Thousands of years wouldn't exactly drain the Earth of metal, but this is after all another world. The problem could also simply be a technological problem for the Athasians, not having any good tools or knowledge of smelting.
I'd just always assumed the past was a 'standard' D&D world and the Clockwork Horror visit was just one more tragedy of the past that helped shape the world. This was before I'd finished the Prism Pentad so I didn't have all of the canon. One more reason ambiguous histories are good for the DM!
Hardly a problem. Like most Dark Sun DM's I know who ran the setting for any length of time, we gave up on the rules for heat, water, and starvation because those rules were full of the suck.
As well, I don't know why people are grabbing onto this "don't need to eat/drink/worry about heat exhaustion/etc" issue when the thri-kreen, who already exist on Athas as PCs and have from the start, functionally never needed to worry about it either. The warforged wouldn't be that much of a change from the "Oh hai! Iz ur desert? We luvs!" thri-kreen.
Even 3e's Sandstorm was not enough for DS.
The warforged wouldn't be that much of a change from the "Oh hai! Iz ur desert? We luvs!" thri-kreen.
Point!
Thri kreens were crossing my mind just after I made the post. And I can almost believe that kreen trying to speak the Trade language would come across as sounding like lol-speak, too!
Yes but warforged and thrikreen have their own issues.
Imagine: +6 armour of "Bite My Ass Ye Will Not!" is found ;) But guess who can't wear it...hehe
Kreen still need to eat the same amount as any other medium creature, are still subject to heat effects, and still require water - just not as much water. About the only thing going was they're lack of sleeping requirments, but still needed to remain inactive for a while. Warforged, from what I know, suffer none of that; plus as Silverblade mentioned kreen cannot use many item designed for humanoids. Your POV is starting to look a little weak.
Yes but warforged and thrikreen have their own issues.
Imagine: +6 armour of "Bite My Ass Ye Will Not!" is found ;) But guess who can't wear it...hehe
But this is exactly what 4e wants to avoid.
Imagine the scenario where the DM works day and night to produce a really wicked -wesome trek through the desert. The players meet poisonous scorpions, faces sandstorms, combat thirst, all the while fighting off the heat produced by the dark sun. So the DM turns to the party, and asks who would like to face the skill challenge first:
Warforged character: "I automatically succeed all that, because I'm immune to the sun, don't have to eat/drink/sleep and the poison has no effect because I have no blood."
The player then proceeds to practice rolling dice for the entire session.
After 4 hours, the rest of the party, just narrowly avoiding death and having fun, arrive at the treasure: A cave full of +"6 armour of Bite My Ass Ye Will Not!" is found. The player playing the Thri-Kreen, while having a bonus to the previous skill challenge, but still not having a "walk in the park" session is pissed because he still had to face the entire challenge but gets no reward.
The players need to work as a party to make it through combat and through skill challenges. Excluding particular characters, because of their race, class, or whatever, means that they don't have any satisfaction in playing the game. They might as well not be there.
This was always my number one complaint about the setting: Dark Sun exemplified races so much that players of different races tended to NOT work well together. Elves always run faster and farther than other races, half-giants are bigger and massively stronger, halflings eat others, etc... In effect, players of different races work as individuals. That quest to win that +6 armour of "Bite My Ass Ye Will Not!" doesn't interest the Thri-Kreen because he can't wear armor, neither does the quest to talk to the Veiled Alliance interest the half-giant because he's too stupid to ever understand magic.
Anyways, a lot of this has been done away with by 4e. Which is better, no? If Thri-kreen can't wear armor, why not make armor extremely rare? If that half-giant wants to be intelligent, and wants to take the ritual magic feat or multi-class to sorcerer, why not? The party can then participate and have motivation in each and every scenario - in effect, pay attention to the adventure and combat all the wicked-awesome skill challenges together.
Bear in mind that dehydration is presumably going to be an effect, and warforged are not immune to effects. They'd still lose healing surges or whatnot from lack of moisture - the only difference being that when they ran out of hit points from it they'd just go inert instead of dying.
And as for a humanoid armor being present in a treasure parcel...wtf? This is 4e: the other, humanoid PCs can take the armor, or the DM can change his mind at any time and include something appropriate for the kreen. In 4e DMs are encouraged to ask the players what they actually want for treasure...
Living Construct are not immune to poison or heat. They do not need to eat, drink or sleep BUT will lose healing surge (they tend like everything to Overheat when it's too hot and also need 4 hours of passive stuff to ''rest''.
You assume that Thri-Kreen will not wear armor in 4E / have a similar mechanic. Warforged in 3.5 weren't having standard armor but now they have, so many thing can change in 4E.
I'm sure that in dark sun, we will see in applications the rule for ''low or no magic item'' in the DMG2. Athasian People will probably receive a Awesome Bonus to Defenses in level 4/9/14/19/24/29 and Attacks at level 2/7/12/17/22/27. And if you encounter a magic items that beat that bonus, good to you, but i wont bet my life on that. Magic items quantity / dark sun parcels will change a lot from standard DMG1.
Big Goon, it is the DM's responsability to know what his players have to work with - yeah that sounds like a wonderful Al'Qadem adventure but this is Dark Sun, a big part of the allure is the alien nature of the setting.
The more I'm hearing about this "everything must fit together" idea WotC has the less I like it. As I've said before if you want to play a robot in D&D go play in Ebberon, leave Dark Sun alone.
I'm sure that in dark sun, we will see in applications the rule for ''low or no magic item'' in the DMG2. Athasian People will probably receive a Awesome Bonus to Defenses in level 4/9/14/19/24/29 and Attacks at level 2/7/12/17/22/27. And if you encounter a magic items that beat that bonus, good to you, but i wont bet my life on that. Magic items quantity / dark sun parcels will change a lot from standard DMG1.
I read that chapter. I'm not sure what to expect. Will the AV3 list a bunch of "alternate" rewards for players, such as training rewards, divine boons and legendary boons?
Bear in mind that dehydration is presumably going to be an effect, and warforged are not immune to effects. They'd still lose healing surges or whatnot from lack of moisture - the only difference being that when they ran out of hit points from it they'd just go inert instead of dying.
I thought effects only applied to attack power effects. So that a sleep spell still effects them, but a sun overhead won't make them want to drink water.
Just went and looked it up. When playing Dark Sun, use the Dragon version of the warforged, not the EPG one.
Just went and looked it up. When playing Dark Sun, use the Dragon version of the warforged, not the EPG one.
Huh? Use general or DS-specific acronyms only, please.
And why?
I think that's Eberron Player's Guide. I don't know the difference between the two... because I haven't read the EPG yet.
The difference is that the Eberron one says "Warforged never have to make checks to avoid the effects of starvation and thirst," whereas the Dragon one doesn't.
Wrong! 4th ed Warforged are only immune to starvation, thirst and suffocation! ;)
They are not immune to environmental effects OR poisons, they do get a +2 save vs ongoing damage or Death saving throws.
They are living constructs, and balanced for 4th ed, so, no immunities bar the lack of need for air, food and water.
Now, tieflings with thier innate fire resist should, I think, be the ones to ignore Athas' heat...but not lack of water. Dehydration is the killer for Athasians, who're mostly adapted to the great heat on their homeworld (those temperatures would kill most Earth Humans, I'd believe)
4th ed Warforged are only immune to starvation, thirst and suffocation! ;)
Okay... I was wrong about poison. But they are still immune to starvation, thrist... machines. Which means that they would have a much easier time on Athas - having to worry about the heat only OR the dm will have to design specific challenges for them.
Probably means we'll see a party of warforged carrying parasols around athas 
And again, a party has other characters in it, characters that usually aren't cookie cutters of one another. Rare are the all-kreen parties, all-mul parties, etc. DMs can also veto anything if they're worth their salt. So a warforged able to walk faster, rest for less, not eat or drink or breathe or suffer temperature extremes...is still stuck with other characters that do.
And if there's any decent roleplaying in yer games, that dfference becomes an issue...in many ways thri-kreen find it hard to dnerstand how clutchmates need to sleep, folk maybe jealous or scared of a warforged, etc
...and in what way would it be problematic to roleplay a kreen that is flabbergasted at finding his clutchmates asleep? considering that's how kreen are supposed to act.
Right now you appear to be stating that any significant differences between the races of the party members - such as a too fast kreen or elf, or an half-giant with Large-related issues (such as extra water comsumption, costly equipment, having to deal with 4e's Squeezing rules), or an aarakocra that can fly - is an issue, and (here I'm drawing a logical conclusion) should be avoided.
the other races are least, Humanoid...thus tend ot share many traits and thus, understandings.
www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discus...
Maybe I'm easily impressed, but this description of warforged as tied to the will of their Sorcerer King maker just got me. Then how a warforged handles existence after their the Sorcerer King is gone has so many possibilities.
I too like the storyline, but there's only one problem: warforged don't have to eat or drink. They are the perfect counter to the athasian sun. They would be resistant to heat, starvation and poison. In other words, they counter almost everything that makes dark sun a struggle to survive. Its a cool concept for an NPC, but I'm not sure DMs want to single out individuals like this.
It also begs another question: if warforged are magic based, do they suck up life whereever they walk? Don't they continuously drain the landscape whereever they tread?
You know after reading this and some others things about races balance, like that is very probable that the mighty Half giants super strenght o to hell, so then it makes absolutly no sense that the mighty armies of Sorcerer Kings are made out of Half Giant, but the warforgd would take quite good that spot of the ultimate guard in DS, dont you guyus think?
So glad this setting is finally coming back, should be very interesting to say the least in 4e.
Just had to post a quickie with the new account, don't mind me.
So glad this setting is finally coming back, should be very interesting to say the least in 4e.
Just had to post a quickie with the new account, don't mind me.
God, just saw the name!
Yes, people, everyone, please, don't mind him at all =D
Nathan P Guest?? hm?? what's the beef with is name??
Nathan P Guest?? hm?? what's the beef with is name??
Nothing. Cept the whole raised from the dead thing. I have it on good authority he was eaten by a Grue. ;)