Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Zardnaar Aug 29, 2014 20:38:47	The other day on these forums there was a discussion about Darksun and one of the posters suggested refluffing some of the existing Cleric domains for Darksun clerics. I took this a little further and have spent the last few days thinking about how much Darksun one could play with just the PHB. Psionics are missing but one does not have to use Psionics IMHO or you can wait for those rules to exist.    Also please note that this thread is for an update of 2E materials mostly focused on the original boxed set. I am not to interested in getting every last bit of obscure DS lore right or worrying about things like paraelmental clerics, epic level classes in the Dragon Kings book and things like that. Also not that worried about the events of the Prism Pentad, the 12nd boxed set or 4Es adaption of the setting. This is mostly to keep things somewhat simple and to not worry about similar things that are somewhat redundant such as Sun/Fire clerics for example when both of them could use the light domain.   Anyway some thoughts. The original Athas was a brutal world by D&D standards. It was defined by a lot of restrictions and a lack of common assumptions in regard to a normal D&D word. Metal was rare, it was difficult to be an arcane spell caster and clerics had very limited access to the cleric spells. Paladin did not exist, there were no Gnomes and Orcs and it was revealed the reason was due to a holocaustic war and deliberate genocide. The Pristine Tower mutates existing races into new ones so I suppose one could in theory have other races but I personally would not allow it especially for those races that were wiped out.Note that the races would use Darksun related fluf weare just stealing them for a quick and easy conversion without having to rewrite all of the races and classes that the original DS did.   Humans. They exist and it is up to the DM to allow the variant human or not. I give my players the choice as to what human they want to use.   Elves. I think the wild elf fits the fluff of the original Athasian elf and they are faster as well. A wood elf could use its stealth ability to hide in desert sands as well. The high lf would not exist as Darksun does not use subraces and the bonus cantrip thing doesn’t’t really fit IMHO. If the high elf didexist there are pale skinned Elves in the Last Sea area but they would be cut off and unavailable as it is more or less impossible for them to leave that area anyway due to the Mind Lords. The Athasian Elf would be the Wood Elf.   Halflings. Athasian Halfling are vicious little so and so’s. They are not really that social to the Lightfoot Halfling doesn’t really fit so I would use the stout to reflect the Athasian Halfling. If lightfoot Halfling exist they could be used to reflect Halflings from Thamasku the last city left over from the Green Age. One probably would not want Halflings from that era available so it would likely rule out one in the classic era of Darksun unless Thamasku is an element in a DMs plot hooks.   Dwarves. At least Dwarves here are not Scottish. You could go either way with the Dwarves here I think but I would be inclined to go with the hill Dwarf as the Mountain Dwarf armor thing doesn’t make that much sense on Athas. The Mountain Dwarves strength bonus does fit a little bit better though. I would probably pick the Hill Dwarf to be the Athasian Dwarf but it is a tough one for me.   Half Elves. The 5E half if is not a great example for an Athasian Half Elf although the race is fine in normal D&D. While not a good fit I would just use it regardless maybe tweaking the fluff a bit. Half Orc. There are no Orcs on Athas, they were wiped out in the cleansing wars. The Half Orc could be refluffed easily enough as a Mul however as very few of its abilities scream Orc as such.   Gnomes. The Gnomes were wiped out in the cleansing wars. There are no Athasian Gnomes. You cannot be a Gnome.   Dragonborn/Drow/Tieflings. Easy enough here they do not exist. Tiefling could make a mutant I suppose, I do not buy into the 4E Dragonborn=Dray thing and they do not really fit the classic setting in any event as there is only 1 Dragon and I doubt Dregoth would let a Dray wander around Athas in any event. None of these races belong in Darksun IMHO of course.  Mul/Half Giant/Thri Kreen. These races do not exist in the 5E players handbook. One could probably refluff the Half Orc as a Mul but converting the other 2 could require a bit more work as you would have to do the races yourself.  I would lean towards Half Giant being NPCs refluffing an Ogre or making the Half Giant a class and race if you wanted a 2E style Half Giant.   Classes. Barbarian. Darksun predates the existence of the Barbarians Handbook in 2nd ed. I did allow the class in 2E as it fits Darksun very well. I do not like the class from 3rd ed onwards but it would fit into the setting with a minimum of disruption.   Bard: The 2nd ed bard was very different from the 2nd ed Bard. IN 5E the “Bard” class as such would not exist and would be replaced with the Assassin subclass probably with the performer back ground. The 5E Bard cannot be used.   Cleric. Clerics existed in the original Darksun and I did not like the 4E take on them. They are still a priest class drawing on the elemental power source in 4E terms so I suspect the designers were to lazy to design a proper Athasian Cleric. I would refluff the existing domainsto fit the 5E cleric into Darksun   Light Domain becomes fire   Tempest Domain becomes air   Nature Domain becomes earth   Life Domain becomes Water   War domain is used by Templars.   A Water domain does not exist as such. As a place holder water clerics use the life domain although it is not a good a fit as the other domains IMHO. In the original Darksun Templars were also a priest class and they had better armor and weapons. In 5E they could use the war domain and back grounds to represent the different city states Templars.   Druid: The Druid class existed in 2nd ed and both subclasses are probably fine although if I had to pick one the Circle of the Land is the best fit.   Fighter. A fighter is just the fighter. The Eldritch Knight would have to follow rules for defiling as in 2nd ed you could have a fighter//mage. The Battle Master could fit as well and I would fold the gladiator class into the fighter class and use the performer back ground if you like.   Monk: Monks are rare on Darksun and they are not really the Monk class as such but more like cloistered monks of Europe focusing on psionics. The DM should make the call if Monks can be used or not but personally I lean towards no and they were not one of the original classes in either of the 2E boxed sets so I lean towards no monks.   Paladin: Paladins do not exist on Darksun according to the original boxed set and that is good enough for me. No Paladins exist on Athas.   Ranger. A very good class suitable for Darksun. Either subclass of the ranger is also fine IMHO.   Rogue. The thief subclass exists and the assassin is actually a Darksun Bard. The Arcane Trickster would have to follow the rules on defiling.   Sorcerer. Did not exist in 2nd ed but it is not that drastically different from a wizard. However their lack of a spell book is a slight advantage on Athas. I would leave it up to the DMs discretion if this class exists or not but the Draconic Bloodline does not fit the Athasian setting at all and the wild mage one is not much better and IIRC wild mages did not exist on Athas at all in 2E. Personally I would say no to this class for those reasons. I would likely allow a Sorcerer in a 3rd ed setting though.   Warlock. This class did not exist in 2E either. I would leave it up to the DM to call this one but The Fiend subclass does not fit Darksun at all, the Archfey is a little bit difficult to fit while the Great Old One is about as suitable a subclass for an Athasian Warlock can get as having a Sorcerer King or Rajaat as a Patron could make sense in terms of the setting. Once again the Warlock would have to follow the rules on arcane magic in regards to defiling including the pact boons. I would likely say yes to the Great Old One subclass, no to the fiendish one and maybe to the Archfey as Darksun does have Elemental spirits for example but they are unlikely to grant arcane magic so it is iffy IMHO. Might be able to refluff the warlock clss as a Psion using it as a place holder though IDK and it would require some work.   Wizard. The wizard and all the sub classes exist on Athas, one would have to come up with some rules on defiling though.  And that’s my thoughts on 5E for a classic Darksun game.
#2 Fantasyfilmsman Aug 29, 2014 20:49:29	The Water Domain could possibly be Tempest with some changes?  I'd have to get out my old Dark Sun stuff to really check though.
#3 Zardnaar Aug 29, 2014 21:20:29	Fantasyfilmsman wrote:
#4 pukunui Aug 29, 2014 21:15:41	I think you could easily do psionics simply by letting casters ignore all spell components. If you want to do it like the 3.5 version of psionics, have them make a spellcasting check to suppress the psionic displays.
(Reply to #3) Fantasyfilmsman	Zardnaar wrote:
#6 Brock_Landers Aug 30, 2014 2:41:11	Monks are offical 2nd Ed, they are called "Sensei", but, yeah, you are right, they are a sort of cloistered type.   I find sticking with the original Boxed Set/Book is best, no Time of Troubles/Spellplague, Age of Mortals, Grand Conjunction, Unhuman Wars II, Prism Pentad, Faction War for me, thanks.
#7 Zardnaar Aug 30, 2014 3:26:01	Brock_Landers wrote:
#8 Mecheon Aug 30, 2014 3:40:06	Zardnaar wrote:
#9 Zardnaar Aug 30, 2014 4:41:54	Mecheon wrote:
#10 Uskglass Aug 30, 2014 5:57:15	Thinking about re-skinning half-orcs as muls. Perhaps without Darkvision, but a bonus feat instead (Resilient maybe). Wouldn't know what to do for half-giants.Thri-Kreens are a bugger too. Agree the setting doesn't necessaritly need psionics to work, but maybe I'd select suitable cantrips to have as wild talents.