I know there was one in a dragon mag, and I think there's a darksun website. I've checked out a few other sources as well, but I was wondering what everyone's favorite, or if there was a consensus on which was the "truest" to the source.
Will we have a base 20-levels class Arthasian gladiator? (I imagine it with a AC Bonus like monk class, but with a sword, a shield, and light armour too).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Sun
A special feature in Dragon Magazine #319 (the May 2004 issue) and a parallel feature in Dungeon Magazine #110 provide an alternate interpretation of the setting for the revised Third Edition (3.5) Dungeons and Dragons game. (The rules for defiler wizards appear in Dragon #315, and additional monsters in Dungeon #111.).
In place of the higher dice for ability scores, the abilities of all of the player character races have been improved. Each (including humans) has an additional bonus to one or more ability scores, an innate psionic power, and often other bonuses. Every race has a level adjustment, meaning that a PC of the race counts as a PC of higher level than he actually is for purposes of balance.
Paizo rendition of Dark Sun
Noonan, David (January 2004). "Defilers of Athas." Dragon Magazine, p33.
Noonan, David (May 2004). "The Dark Sun DM's Guide." Dungeon Magazine, p60.
Noonan, David (May 2004). "Dark Sun Monster Supplement." Dungeon Magazine, p84.
Noonan, David (May 2004). "Dark Sun Player's Handbook." Dragon Magazine, p16.
Flipse, Chris & Sederquist, Jon (January 2006). "Dragon Kings." Dragon Magazine, p22.
ha
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Why not WotC allows comics of Dark Sun to knowing if DS can be a good franchise?
It lowers the stat generation to standard D&D and also reduces the power of the races themselves. One thing I loved about darksun was the higher power PCs. You started with 5-20 stats and then got +4 to most of the ones standard races got only +2 to. I'd rather every race had a LA or something, but keep the power level.
I'm either going to bump the stats back up and lower everything's CR by one or treat everyone as 1 level higher for XP rewards.
However, this also allows the true fans -- or "rabid fans", if you will -- to work on the conversion amongst themselves, without relying one the possibility of someone at WotC doing it "wrong" and mangling a setting whose flavor is already perfectly fine*. Now, the Dark Sun community can do it themselves, and having literally 10s of fans (ok, hundreds and hundreds :P ) working on it keeps the niggling little details straight.
*Just because I don't like it doesn't mean I don't understand the worry about the company messing it up! It also doesn't mean that the flavor is actually wrong, it just means I don't like it.
I gave up on my conversion attempts. I figure if my group wants to play Darksun, I won't have to convert anything that isn't being used.
If nobody plays a defiler I can just say "there's a defiler and it does damage to the poor plants, oh noes!"
. . . I hope nobody wants to play a defiler.
I am going to have a higher point buy or use the 6d4 drop lowest method that I liked in 2nd ed. Maybe lower CRs a bit. And pour dry yellow dirt on everything before I hand it to the players.
While good and amusing points, how exactly did that help?
My post count.
My post count.
. . .
The REAL conversion is been made by the folks at :
http://www.athas.org
There is a Core document, 3 full adventures (with one level 12 to 18), tons of supplements and such.
Have a look, I run my game with their material!
I am going to have a higher point buy or use the 6d4 drop lowest method that I liked in 2nd ed.
6d4 drop the lowest? That's an interesting method. I like 2d10 re-reroll 1s - it's pretty similar, with more variance.
I'm reading through the Athas.org PDF currently, I don't like some of it.
It lowers the stat generation to standard D&D and also reduces the power of the races themselves. One thing I loved about darksun was the higher power PCs. You started with 5-20 stats and then got +4 to most of the ones standard races got only +2 to. I'd rather every race had a LA or something, but keep the power level.
I'm either going to bump the stats back up and lower everything's CR by one or treat everyone as 1 level higher for XP rewards.
If you read in the book it states that the MEANING of a particular number has changed in 3rd (ie: positive bonuses come sooner) -- 4d4+4 would be far too good on average, and the challenges would be easier cuz the pcs are more powerful, and Athas wouldn't look very savage as it is supposed to be.
The athas.org material is exceptional IMO. I don't see where you are getting that the power of the races is reduced?
ON the whole I like the athas.org races but, I am however adding "inborn power" as they do in Dragon to each race of 2 power points and a 5 or 6 power list customized for each race to choose from.
I also give humans a +2 bonus to one stat of their choice. I give half elves bonus skill points like humans get.
I assume the athas.org stuff is the combined work of an online community. No disrespect intended, of course; such things are a labor of love-- I respect that. For some things though, fewer cooks in the kank stew is what I prefer ;).
I prefer the conversion from Dragon and Dungeon Magazines. Mostly because it's the work of a single designer (David Noonan, in this case). Our group had never been exposed to Dark Sun previously, so we've gotten some good use out of the material.
I assume the athas.org stuff is the combined work of an online community. No disrespect intended, of course; such things are a labor of love-- I respect that. For some things though, fewer cooks in the kank stew is what I prefer ;).
S'got more flavor than the dragon and dungeon stuff I think. It's no more hodgepodge than any of the campaign settings done by WoTC in 3.5. In fact theres less stuff for it. And theres appendices for the PrCs and a really nice arms and equipment guide. I like the banning of the paladin, monk, and sorceror, and I like that all the races aren't LA + races in athas. The modified bard is really cool and very true to the concept of the athasian bard from the second edition boxed set. The monster manuals are great. Some of the books write from a perspective of people living on athas and give incredible insights into the workings of all the cultures of the Tablelands. I strongly recommend looking at the http://www.athas.org stuff before dismissing it. The new full revision 7 of the core for 3.5 darksun should be out soon. Also, get the old 2e stuff too if you can get your hands on it, really helps to fill in the details. Even if you don't use it, it makes for good bedtime reading.
Dark Sun was cool, too bad I lost my box set of it. I have the hard cover book still but with out the box set it's kind of useless.
Which books you missing? I have several parts of an incomplete Expanded and Revised box campaign box. I believe I have the Will and The Way, and The Mystery of the Ancients and some maps. I sold the Age of Heroes to someone. Also you can download all the Darksun stuff for reasonable prices at websites, and lots of boxed sets have been going on ebay for cheap. I got my complete expanded and revised box for something like 15 bucks. I'm totally addicted to darksun at this point. I can't see myself going back to other settings except for maybe the 3.5 Planescape conversions based on the old 2e boxes.
The Taint variant play nicely too... 'taint replaces alignment' builds a harsh, amoral world simply and easily, while tying into the whole 'corruption' defiling theme.
Actually, a lot of the savage feel of Dark Sun can be had with the E6 variant. Terrors of the desert get really, really scary when player characters are limited like that.
The Taint variant play nicely too... 'taint replaces alignment' builds a harsh, amoral world simply and easily, while tying into the whole 'corruption' defiling theme.
Dark Sun is widely recognized as a tougher setting. In 2nd edition for instance, everyone started at 3rd level and stats ranged from 5 to 20 (rather than the typical 3 to 18).
I finally found a PDF of the E6 rules. Getting a 'tougher' setting by going the other way (down rather than up) is an interesting idea.
The Taint variant play nicely too... 'taint replaces alignment' builds a harsh, amoral world simply and easily, while tying into the whole 'corruption' defiling theme.
Can you elaborate on the concept of "taint". It sounds like something from Heroes of Horror or The Book of Vile Darkness. Thus far I've ruled that there are no alignment restrictions and I do not ever care to here in words the notion of alignment in game, or a description from a PC of his or her alignment out of game -- it is all your actions, not a two letter word that shows your ethical outlook. Chaotic evil druids and lawful good barbarians are perfectly fine as far as I'm concerned. When detect alignment is cast a description of average ethical behaviors is given in a short paragraph, instead of a two word designator.
I think the designers did a good job at making things seem, not only amoral, but morally ambiguous in many cases.
Dark Sun is widely recognized as a tougher setting. In 2nd edition for instance, everyone started at 3rd level and stats ranged from 5 to 20 (rather than the typical 3 to 18).
I finally found a PDF of the E6 rules. Getting a 'tougher' setting by going the other way (down rather than up) is an interesting idea.
http://athas.org/products/ds3
Check out this one too:
ds3.20030717.pdf (16.4 MB pdf)
uploaded: Tue Feb 05 09:09:38 -0500 2008 by flip
3.0 rules, but It actually has some artwork in it, some of which isn't bad.
It plays very simply in the game. Once exposed to a source of taint, the character becomes tainted, which will grow gradually worse unless treated and can result in the death of the character. I tamed it down a little bit, and use sparingly because strong taint in a harsh, low-level setting can be really crippling to a character.
In my game, rulers of the only city in the Known World are fairly badly tainted. This is due to the source of their civilization, a stone tablet containing runes describing construction techniques, agriculture, how to work metal, simple machines, the wheel, government, etc. is a relic from a bygone era which is dedicated to an otherplanar demon. Hence taint is essentially tied to civilization.
I only used the planes of Shadow and Dream, and made the plane of Shadow tainted, which is where this arch-fiend dwells. The God-King, tainted to the point of insanity, is of course following the instructions for an ultimate ritual engraved on the tablet, which calls for the sacrifice of thousands of beings. He believes that the completion of this ritual will result in a planar rip from which will pour forth water, the only river; and of course the increased population and agricultural production from this event will gain him untold power, wealth, and prestige.
What completion of the ritual will actually bring, I haven't decided yet. Perhaps a flood of shadows. Perhaps it will summon the creature of darkness itself. I don't know if it will get that far; the plan involves the subjugation of several barbarian tribes (to be sacrificed) and the player has been conducting guerilla warfare in the desert to prevent this from happening.
The player has a point of taint himself, from the time he visited the God-King. Early in his career he distinguished himself by special, uncanny powers and some unlikely victories, so the God-King declared him a holy man and offered to make him a great general... and showed him the tablet. A few more points ot taint could drive him, mentally, over the edge, causing him to abandon the cause of righteousness.
Yeah taint is fun. Try it.
):I read over one of the playtest version of the rules for 3.5 Dark Sun from Athas.org. The problem with rules being made by people who like the setting is that... well, they Really Like the setting. Because of this some aspects can have far more information than is really necessary.
I found their defiling rules a bit complex. The defiling rules in the "Defilers of Athas" article in Dragon Magazine were much simpler (use defiling points to power Metamagic effects), and fit with the flavor of the original setting (and kind of reminded me of how Dark Side points are gained in Star Wars; just defiling once makes you show up as a Defiler to those who have the ability to sense such).
I also agree with the Dragon/Dungeon magazine's decision to essentially 'reboot' the setting to more or less how it started; the Dark Sun world is a vastly different place since the death of the Dragon of Ur Draxa (that's one of the things I hated about the setting, your characters were "clean up crew" to the ones from the novels who were the real heroes).
Also, the original setting kind of lost its flavor to me when I first learned that just over the mountains was GRASSLANDS! Overrun by super-intelligent Thri-Kreen who just maybe keeping humanity in the desert portion as some kind of prison (I'll hit wikipedia later to see if this long held assumption was true or not).
That being said, the "Rise of Dregoth" is a good idea to pursue; and something I would put for later in a 'rebooted' Dark Sun campaign if I ran it.
In the end, I would pick out the best parts of the Dungeon/Dragon magazine reboot, and the best parts of the Athas.org material, as well as a generous helping of my own house rules to run a DS campaign.