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| #1ZardnaarJul 07, 2015 13:39:56 | Well the D&D design crew has put up some work in progress rules on psionics. Psionics has usually always felt like a bolted on system for D&D with 1 maybe 2 exceptions. That exception is the world of Darksun. Eberron also had psionics of course but that was more this world has psionics as opposed to this world is shaped by psionics which so far is more or less unique to Darksun. Now for some of you your idea of Darksun may be limited to the 4E take on it. Lets just say I have a rather negative view on the 4E Darksun for multiple reasons. To me it is kind of like comparing a remae of a popular movie. Most of the time the remake is inferior to the original. Another main problem I have with the 4E Darksun was they ignored the existing canon which it seems doesn’t tend to go down to well looking at the virtual retcons they are doing with the Forgotten Realms. I believe the 2E Darksun to be the definitive version.
Now there are some TSR worlds I do not like, Dragonlance and Ravenloft being two of them. You do not see me demanding that those worlds lore be trashed to make them fit some new imaginings of those worlds. Each campaign setting IMHO should be faithful to the edition it is most strongly identified with. This means that Darksun, Birthright, Spelljammer, Planescape, and a few others should be faithful to the oringal 2E settings. This doesn’t mean one has to use 2E mechanics just base it on the original work. IN several cases TSR era metaplot made significant changes to those worlds. If one wants to ignore that metaplot just rerelease the setting at the time of the original boxed set.
As to the argument about Darksun being broken? The Original Darksun was very broken by modern standards. And that was also part of the main appeal of the setting in addition to its not typical tolkeinesque fantasy world. Consider. 1. Ability scores were rolled of 5d4. 2. You got to start at level 3. 3. You had a character tree of multiple PCs you could level up off camera so to speak when your primary PC levelled up. I suppose they assumed a few PCs would die. 4. The races and most of the classes were rewritten to fit the campaign setting. Fighters and Thieves were the least changed classes from the 2E PHB. 5. Some races were “overpowered”. Thri Kreen and Half Giants in the original boxed set. Aarakocra also turned up as a playable race in the revised Darksun boxed set and yes they could fly.
Note I have argued for a large half giant as opposed to the Goliath rewrite they used for 4E. I would also like to point out that power creep over the years has resulted in the 5E core races being more powerful than the original 2E Darksun races which were already more powerful than the core PHB races. And races like Thri Kreen and Half Giants also had some very big draw backs such as requiring more water which on Darksun can be a death sentence. These days people often ignore things like food requirements but if you are playing Darksun I would argue that you really should probably enforce them as it is very integral to the setting IMHO.
Here is what the original Thri Kreen got in Darksun 2E as a racial package. +2 Dexterity, +1 Wisdom, -1 Int, -2 Charisma +5 AC (they could not wear armor) Restricted classes with level limits (clerics 12, druids 16, fighters 16, gladiators 15, psionicists unlimited, or rangers 12)
Very short life span (matters with spells like haste, wish etc) 4 arms+bite. This means a Kreen can have 5 attacks a round at level 1 each dealing around 1d4 damage. Note every race could make 2 or 3,4 attacks a round or more with certain weapons in AD&D using things like bows, darts, daggers. Paralyzing poison at 5th level (only worked 1 round on huge+ creatures) Profiecny in the chatka at level 5 Dodge missiles ability ability level 7.
And in game you were a giant bug which on Athas won’t get you killed as such but they were not exactly trusted in the city states of the Tyr region. In a game where everything is kind of broken the overpowered races do not come across as being that bad. The monstrous races could not use standard equipment such as armor. Also in older editions of D&D anyone could have multiple attacks with certain weapon and saving throws worked differently so the poison bite thing was not that great an ability. It seems when they try and fix stuff from a previous ediiton they sometimes make conversion a lot harder.
A 5E Darksun would not have to use the PHB races either and IMHO should not as the sub races things doesn’t really exist on Athas. As the DS metaplot unfolded it was revealed some races did have cousins from the ancient past in remote corners of Athas but this doesn’t mean they should be available as PC options. This would apply to Dray which were refluffed as Dragonborn in 4E Darksun despite the only thing they had in common was they were both draconic humanoids. Dregoth the progenitor of the Dray was not known to Athas at large so beats me why Dragonborn were wandering around in the Tyr region in the 4E boxed book.
TLDR version. Darksun was not balanced in the 1st place, the original appeal was the setting itself and the whacked out races and classes that were different from the PHB anyway. |
| #2rampantJul 07, 2015 14:03:33 | Or hey, instead of being lazy and introducing a bunch of borked material, just have the Athas setting contain races , and possibly other material specifically for athas that is still balanced against itself but on a higher power tier overall compared to non-athas stuff. So an athasian character is going to be more powerful than a non-athas character regardless of race/class. |
| #3HebitsuikazaJul 07, 2015 14:12:59 | I don't see any good arguement here that Dark Sun should necessarily be unbalanced just because it was badly balanced in the first place. All of D&D was horrifically badly balanced in the first place. If you were an Elf until level 10, you were flat out superior to everyone else. If you were a human after level 10, you were still playable while everyone else was not.
There are only a relatively small subset of sad-masochists who that is fun for. You may be into that sort of S&M play style, but general audiences are not and the book needs to sell as many copies as possible. You are free to give your favorite race a +2 bonus to all attributes across the board in your home game if that's what you and your friends need to satisfy each other fully.
What I DO see here is an arguement that if a Dark Sun book is made, that it fundamentally replace the races and classes found in the core book with its own versions... or at least, in the case of the classes, an explaination of alterations to the classes in this world.
Although I have the feeling that doing that is utterly against WotC's fundamental design philosophy. Ever since WotC took over, the lines between settings has been blurred to the point of being nearly entirely erased and particularly in 4E it was emminently clear that if a race or class was popular in one setting, it was expected to appear in absolutely every setting more or less precisely as it was described in its most popular form.
And that is why we had Dragonborn, Shardminds, Shifters and Warforged in Living Forgotten Realm campaigns.
That means I highly doubt that an official Dark Sun campaign guide would note that the races in the core book and other supplements do not exist and give their own selection of races to choose from. It is far more likely that they would instead simply say that the most equivalent race now functions like the core handbook version and then create new fiction to shoe-horn in all their new races that previously weren't in that world. Meanwhile, after the book released, Thri-Kreen would become a common race found in every town in every other setting and accepted far more than all the denizens of that world that don't have PC racial write-ups.
But, even then, races and classes should fundamentally be balanced against one another by default. You can house-rule in crazy imbalance if you like. |
| #4Cyber-DaveJul 07, 2015 22:45:07 | -1 to the original poster. |
| #5MecheonJul 08, 2015 1:24:25 | I'm just going to point out one thing here...
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| #6AaronOfBarbariaJul 08, 2015 1:45:21 |
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| #7cbwjmJul 08, 2015 2:06:38 | I wouldn't be surprised, and I'd be perfectly fine with it, if the races of Athas are comparable with the PHB races but with their own sub-race options. I can definitely imagine that Athasian Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings would have their own subrace (probably written up like the deep gnome as a single race entry for ease of reference). Dragonborn and Goliaths being fit in as dray and half-giants suits me fine although I would expect that the dray would be rare as PCs but that would just be for my campaigns and likely only until someone asks to play one.
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| #8ZardnaarJul 08, 2015 2:19:44 |
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| #9ZardnaarJul 08, 2015 2:23:39 |
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| #10RazintarrJul 08, 2015 4:21:01 | I don't think broken is the right word. It implies that the system doesn't work anymore. But Darksun does work. A better word would be overpowered. The characters were overpowered, compared to normal characters, allowing you to play with high stats and psionics and all the stuff your DM told you you couldn't use because it would break his campaign. But the whole world was overpowered too. Your superhero characters still could be killed by giant bugs, cannibalistic halflings or carnivorous cacti. Not that that balanced it out. The scales tipped to the marauding monsters, as another defining traits of Darksun was that it was deadly. Which meant you had to be smart to survive, or lucky.
If Darksun wasn't overpowered and deadly, it wouldn't be Darksun.
I would love to see a 5th edition version of Darksun. And I'm sure I will. Darksun has a great fanbase, so even if Wizards doesn't recognize that and bring out Darksun, there will be great fan-built modules and adventures made for it.
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| #11Ralif_RedhammerJul 08, 2015 7:50:22 | There were three things that counterbalanced the advanced abilities of the PCs in 2e Dark Sun, though. One, it was a relatively low magic setting. Two, steel was rare. Everyone started off with inferior bone and obsidian weapons that had the potential to break on you. And three, you didn’t start out with much money to buy gear, if I recall correctly. |
| #12GhostStepperJul 08, 2015 10:33:39 | The only way original DS was "overpowered" was relative to other characters in other settings. Compared to the default assumptions of the setting, the characters weren't so overpowered. |
| #13DwarfslayerJul 08, 2015 13:08:10 |
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| #14ZardnaarJul 08, 2015 13:17:30 |
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| (Reply to #14)Marandahir |
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| #16DwarfslayerJul 08, 2015 15:44:29 |
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| #17UchawiJul 08, 2015 16:32:22 | A new setting sets new expectations, so in that sense I don't mind messing with established biases built into the game, like magic can do anything. I did not mind the moon cycles in Krynn messing with wizards. It changed expectations. I would love a setting that allows martial characters to be more flexible. |
| #18ZardnaarJul 08, 2015 17:57:09 |
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| #19MarandahirJul 08, 2015 20:04:48 | I didn't say that was what 2e did. I said that this is what is practical for 5e. Back in 2e, Clerics and Druids were part of a single chassis of Priest. They've drifted much farther away since then. It really, really doesn't make sense to make an Elemental version of the Cleric. Especially since the core thing about Clerics is "divine magic" – which DOESN'T WORK IN ATHAS. |
| #20ZardnaarJul 08, 2015 21:46:20 |
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| (Reply to #13)rampant |
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| #22The_JesterJul 10, 2015 13:27:11 | Breaking balance seems like a poor way of doing Dark Sun.
If some of the options (classes, races) are more powerful, it makes some PCs better, meaning the players of other races are left out. And it means fewer options to choose from when picking characters, as you have to go with the new, unbalanced options. If the classes and races are more powerful, then standard monsters are underpowered and harder monsters have to be used, leading to rapid level gain. If Dark Sun monsters are compensated for the PC boost and are more difficult than their CR suggests, then those monsters are unusable in other campaigns.
Really, Dark Sun should just involve the DM being a dick and having more hard encounters, especially with wandering monsters in the deserts. More fights that the PCs just cannot win and instead have to avoid or run away from. Maybe an xp penalty or slower experience track to offset the harder monsters. |
| #23shintashiJul 11, 2015 9:52:06 | dark sun races should be based on the Aara-coca-cola Race XD. I just watched Mad Max and life isn't fair in Dark Sun.
Looking at the template for Thrikreen, they are CR 1. Bird man is CR 1/4. That's telling. nobles and guards are CR 1/8, so thats a good starting point for estimating what normal races are without special class abilities. Gray Dwarves are also CR 1. I've had them in my AD&D games, and they had similar impact to the more broken versions of Drow. Drow in 5e are about as powerful as Elves were in AD&D, and their 1/4 CR entry is about the same power level as a starting player character with a level. So we can assume a generic Race + Class is the same as saying 1/8 + 1/8 = 1/4.
analysis and solution?
Every Dark Sun Race is built on CR 1, instead of CR 1/8 or 1/4.
Dark Sun should also have an expanded experience Table to 30th level, and introduce prestige "advanced classes" like Avangions and Dragon Kings.
Council of Wyrms Later, Wizards could use the notes from Dragon Kings to create a Coucil of Wyrms book, updated using the Wyrmling as the starting point, and implementing the Spell casting option, except what they might do is have a Sorcerer class that rolls lower dice for hit points than normal, like reducing dice steps by 2, so the Wyrmling rolls d4s instead of d8s, and the ancient rolls d10s instead of d20s, but in exchange, they have 17th-20th level sorceror spell casting abilities. |
| #24Cyber-DaveJul 11, 2015 13:57:19 |
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| (Reply to #24)arnwolf666 |
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| #26shintashiJul 11, 2015 15:04:00 | actually, if i recall, the way the water economy was set up, water clerics were practically demigods. I don't think it mattered that all their water spells were suffering a lot of resistance, the fact that they had any water at all made them like Texas millionaires. only problem is the city Templars had a copyright claim on all things clerical, so i seem to recall elemental clerics being hunted down like dogs. Not sure, but weren't preservers under the same kind of trouble? or was it defilers?
Defilers: necrotic damage radius when casting spells. Yick. |
| #27rampantJul 11, 2015 15:08:10 | Defilers who were or worked for the dragon kings were allowed. Anyone else got ganked by the templar, I don't recall what the official policy was on non-rebellious preservers was but I'm not inclined to think the templars made a lot of distinctions when it came to arcane casters that weren't operating under the Dragon Kings' auspices. |
| #28Cyber-DaveJul 11, 2015 15:12:16 |
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| #29ZardnaarJul 11, 2015 17:11:19 |
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| (Reply to #28)arnwolf666 |
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| #31OrethalionJul 12, 2015 11:32:49 |
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| #32rampantJul 12, 2015 11:45:30 | I think you shouldn't try to frack with the power curve to induce rarity or difficulty.
What you could do is make water spells powerful but costly, and I mean like extra spell slots or HD, stuff that actually matters to a cleric. |
| #33OrethalionJul 12, 2015 11:45:52 |
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| #34rampantJul 12, 2015 11:56:42 | In what way? I mean yeah in pre-3 you had to roll really well to get good classes, and sometimes races form what I hear, but I don't think that's a thing anymore. |
| #35OrethalionJul 12, 2015 12:17:51 |
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| #36MechaPilotJul 12, 2015 12:39:05 |
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| #37OrethalionJul 12, 2015 12:42:36 |
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| #38rampantJul 12, 2015 16:09:32 | Oh that's what you were talking about, ok see that's fine, nerfing create water is fine. I thought we were talkign about a deliberately underpowered sub-class or somethign like that. |
| #39Jordan175Jul 12, 2015 18:13:32 | You seem to forget the concept of custom settings. In my years of playing D&D, apart from encounters I have never played in the official pre-made settings. One DM might build a world where Humans and Dwarves are so friendly that Muls are a common sight. Another might make Thri-kreen the dominant species on the planet. Races and classes have to be balanced compared to the core PHB because they are not necessarily going to stay in their specific setting. |
| #40OrethalionJul 12, 2015 18:31:03 |
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| #41GrazelJul 13, 2015 19:36:48 |
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| #42ZardnaarJul 14, 2015 22:30:29 | The original Darksun did nerf create water but the water clerics also had an ability where they could create a portion of their elements for free. A Decanter of Endless Water also did not exist on Darksun and things like Swords of Dragon Slaying did not exist on DS or were very very rare IIRC.
It was mostly for the flavor of the settings. Spells that created water or metal did not exist or got nerfed.
This is the original water cleric spell list. Create Water (1st)
Sphere of the Cosmos level 1-3 Animal Friendship (1st)
This was the enitre Cleric spell list (water) in 2E.
And they could cast every other cleric/druidic spell up to level3 form the PHB as it was in the sphere of the cosmos. I think the spheres got errated later as Druids got access to all spells from the sphere of the cosmos but not the higher level elemental spells. Cleric spells were powered by the elements, Druids by the spiritis of the land.
Magic stuff that is a no.
A final group of items so contradicts the environment of Athas that they either do not exist, or have been changed. potion of dragon control, scroll of protection from dragon breath, bag of tricks, bucknards everfull purse, decanter of endless water, horseshoes (all), stone horse, hammer +3 dwarven thrower, elven chain, and any item having to do with aquatic settings or lycanthropes.
Stuff that got changed from the DMG. Potion of Giant Control: Affects any giant.
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