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Pfox posted:Thri-kreen broke me of my elf addiction. I'm so glad this is the next setting to be released. Thri-kreen have a bit of an elf addiction problem themselves. They eat them.
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Sep 4, 2009 05:18
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Yeah the thing about Dark Sun dragons is there really arent any. No reds or golds or bronzes. Dragons are the evil result of life-sucking epic magical transformations which cause the death of thousands and the blighting of the world. Or you could be an Avangian. It was the good counterpart, and included as a path for PCs to pursue and counter the world-destroying influence of the sorcerer-kings (the dragons). Of course if anyone found out you were going this route (or the dragon path) you would be a target for all the others to destroy; they didnt want competition.  Not that any real games actually reached that level. Its hard to get a 20th level (2e rules) wizard when you died at 5th level because your half-giant buddy got thirsty and went berserk.
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Sep 4, 2009 05:40
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tendrilsfor20 posted:Also, someone dig up that post about resetting 4e Dark Sun in the Green Age, right when the genocides are starting off. I never got to play it unfortunately, we are still doing a Realms campaign. I did stick to canon when putting this idea to paper, so it will give a good idea of Dark Sun ancient history. Thankfully they got away from the "everything is core" concept for Dark Sun; they wont be forcing things in that dont belong. Still, the idea below could be used for a generic fantasy campaign with that DS feel. Just with less deserts and thistyness. Ritorix posted:Back when I played Dark Sun (in the 2e days) I always thought a Green Age campaign would be fun, but never got around to it. Sea of Silt - Silt is basically soil along with the ash and dust left over from defiling magic. When you kill off all the green growing things, that dirt washes right into the ocean. Eventually the water itself went away, only the dirt remained. So now besides the giants you have underwater (undersilt?) giant worm things that emerge and eat you. Its a great place to die. ritorix fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Sep 4, 2009 |
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Sep 4, 2009 19:03
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ManMythLegend posted:I'm going to repost my 4E coversion of Borys from the homebrew thread because I want to see was other sweet 4E conversions people have done. I will give a try at one of my old favorites: the tembo. In 2e, tembos were nocturnal pack critters with psionics and a level-draining bite. They had 4HD (hit dice), could dodge missiles, drain life, a bunch of defensive psionics, make 5 attacks per round (4 claws and a drain bite) and were basically a giant 'gently caress you' to players everywhere. Oh and their favorite food was children. So. I tried to keep it simple.  And thats what passes as a "natural beast" on Athas. ritorix fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Sep 4, 2009 |
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Sep 4, 2009 22:45
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tendrilsfor20 posted:Why is one of its powers a "Daily"? The only time I've ever seen a daily on a monster was on a Lich that theoretically would be encountering a party more than one time before an extended rest, since it specifically says that it runs when first bloodied to spend a healing surge and return later. Same thing, who cares. Its a 'once per fight' option. If they do run away they cant keep coming back in stealth and redoing it.
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Sep 4, 2009 23:14
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ManMythLegend posted:Does anybody know what the story behind this map of Athas is: Its a fan work. Someone wrapped the official and fan maps around a globe. You can make out the dead lands in the south (black), the kreen empire in the green west, and a lot of fan-made lands to the east.
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Sep 9, 2009 02:04
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Reveilled posted:How did a huge area like the Savannah avoid the same fate as the rest of the world regarding Defiler magic? The Crimson Savannah is dominated by Kreen, known for their short lifespan. While the land was initially depleted by defiling magic same as everywhere else, generations of kreen corpses have quickly rejuvenated the local soil. Ok not really. But for some reason kreen were excluded from the Cleansing Wars that eliminated orcs, goblins and various fey. So I guess their lands were avoided too. Its probably just a loophole in the setting. Theres a bunch of that in the 2nd boxed set, which is why it should be mostly ignored.
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Sep 9, 2009 21:51
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ManMythLegend posted:So apparently being magical doesn't automatically negate the fact that a weapon is made of sub-standard material. Dark Sun was harsher then I remember I guess. Nonmetal weapons broke if you rolled a 1 on a d20 after inflicting max damage with the weapon. We never played like that for enchanted items though. But the material penalties still applied, so a bone dagger +1 was as good as a normal metal dagger. All of Baxa's art from the Gladiator book was good. Also, hey lets fight a rampager with sticks. 
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Sep 10, 2009 23:38
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Athas was a pretty harsh landscape. Hey look an oasis, I'm thirsty.  About that Silt Sea...  Even the cacti fought back.  Sloths? Yeah, we got sloths. No, you cant outrun them. 
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Sep 11, 2009 00:14
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Ticking Timebomb posted:On the other hand, 1st level PCs in this edition are much tougher than they ever were at 3rd level in 2e. I dont know about that, a 2nd edition Dark Sun character was pretty drat beefy compared with the other settings at the time. 2e could be min-maxed heavily, and once the 24-strength half giant gladiators with multi-specialization and armor optimization showed up to the party, wild talents in tow, combat was pretty much over. Inferior weapon and armor materials barely made a dent in that power curve, and that only at the lower levels. A -1 to hit and damage for using a bone item wasnt much of an obstacle when you had over 20 str. Casters had their advantages too, I've been putting one together for the DS pbp. I had forgotten how overpowered some of the 2e psionics stuff was. Strong characters, compared with the vanilla setting, were part of the DS appeal. I imagine they will preserve that through a .campaign file for the Character Builder that allows for higher stats or the like. The balancing side of that elevated power curve is adding difficult challenges for those beefy characters to face (and die fighting). Thats where I think 4E DS will have to do a lot of the design work. 4E already has power creep, making even-level encounters trivial compared to when 4E came out (or maybe thats just me). Hopefully 4E DS can make even the typical encounters into something more significant than just chipping away at party healing surges. Healing surge manipulation from the environment could help (dehydration, defiling, overheating). So would a revised encounter XP table, neutering the loot-centric reward tables and the Wish List concept.
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Sep 12, 2009 05:25
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From the publishing perspective, no new class means a ton of page space in the Player's Guide for...something else. The swordmage ate up like 30 pages of the FRPG. Of course Deities will be skipped too. So they have a lot of 'extra' space to fill with DS-specific goodies. Like lots of new/modified races. Or wild talents or defiling or lots of setting-specific new gear. But none of that would be a big surprise, its all reasonably expected as part of DS. A surprise would be something like a detailed character tree system, gladiatorial rules for every class, or an expanded epic-level game for advanced beings.
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Sep 15, 2009 23:05
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Ah hell I almost missed it! Someone tried to start a 2e PBP earlier and it fizzled out. Better luck this time.
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Oct 1, 2009 02:28
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ManMythLegend posted:I don't see a submission in there young man. Just for that, you get a halfling.
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Oct 1, 2009 05:21
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So the concept of warforged in 4E DS just doesnt fit. How are you supposed to have a harsh low-resource setting when a player doesnt need to drink, eat or breath? Its going to be four players battling it out over that last full waterskin while a warforged yawns and says 'whatever guys, work it out.' Walk along the bottom of the Silt Sea, trek across a desert for weeks, who cares when all environments are equally survivable. I'm sure it will work out fine in the PBP with a good DM and players, but hopefully Wizards either adds some resource requirements ("you need to lube up!") or ditches the race for official release. ritorix fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Oct 1, 2009 |
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Oct 1, 2009 22:36
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Blowupologist posted:As for metal, there are plenty of ceramic materials out there that would make sense as a body. Looking through the original DS monster book (1992!), they actually had full golem creation rules. Ash, chitin, obsidian, rock, sand, and even wood golems. Lots of variety.
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Oct 3, 2009 04:46
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PeterWeller posted:Metal is scarce on Athas because most of it was mined out to make weapons and armor during the Green Age and the Cleansing Wars. This. The limiting factor for metal in Dark Sun is the lack of raw materials, they were literally all used up. Tyr has the last iron mine which is how it gets away with a small army of well-equipped elite soldiers. Even Tyr's slaves are more useful, given proper tools one slave in Tyr does the work of several slaves in Urik or elsewhere. Kalak was so rich he used his vast wealth from the mines to fund his ziggurat, and for decades he pulled slaves out of the mines to finish the project. A suit of field plate armor costs 2,000 gp on Athas, the equivalent of 200,000 gp on other AD&D® campaign worlds. Simply put, a sorcerer-king can either purchase several suits of field plate or build a substantial addition to his city walls. vs requirements to level-up as a dragon: The material components must include vast riches (at least 10,000 gp worth of jewels, gems, coins, or artistic treasures), a vast structure where the transformation might take place, and no fewer than 1,000 Hit Dice worth of living creatures for the life-leeching process. The riches vanish and the living creatures are slain one heartbeat after the defiler begins casting. The structure, which must cost more than 50,000 gp to build, is not destroyed and may be used again to cast this spell when attaining all three of the low levels.
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Oct 4, 2009 01:37
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http://community.wizards.com/wotc_richbaker/blog/2009/09/29/dark_sun_the_dragons_bowl_and_worldbuilding This is another designer for 4e dark sun. A guy who thought it was a good idea to get rid of the Silt Sea, because Silt doesnt exist in the real world. loving. Idiots. Btw, Silt is in. He was overruled. ritorix fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Oct 21, 2009 |
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Oct 21, 2009 22:28
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PeterWeller posted:What exactly do you want to see? I'm not sure we'll see any changes made to any classes. A slew of setting specific Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies is all that's really needed to flavor the current classes to Dark Sun. I'm not expecting changes to actual powers and class features, but they will need some heavy flavoring for the divine and arcane power sources. Defiling looks like the new mechanic and may offer a preserve/defile choice for new arcane users. Then on the divine side you may have a templar/elemental choice as well. Or maybe the 'deities' list for DS will look like: "Hamanu, Nibenay, Fire, Water, Earth, Air..." with appropriate domains. ritorix fucked around with this message at 08:31 on Oct 22, 2009 |
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Oct 22, 2009 08:29
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PeterWeller posted:erdlu thigh battle axes and braxat hide armor I'm looking forward to using the DMG2 rules for 'alternative rewards' on a DS campaign. Basically instead of doing the normal 4e magic item treadmill, it drastically cuts gold and items. The math then gets patched by giving bonuses directly to the characters, so at 8th level they may be using a normal thigh axe but at +2 attack and damage.
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Oct 22, 2009 23:16
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That works out great, Dark Sun always had a ton of oddball monsters. Theres also the token adventure: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Product.aspx?x=dnd/products/dndacc/253890000 Now that Tyr is free of Kalak the Sorcerer-King, opportunity abounds in the city and the surrounding wastes. But some see Kalak’s fall as the beginning of Tyr’s end, and the unpatrolled deserts nearby are rife with danger. Outlaws openly defy the city’s Revolutionary Council and threaten outlying holdings. If Tyr is to thrive, heroes must arise to tame the lawlessness and evil that threatens the free city. This stand-alone D&D adventure is designed to take characters from 2nd to 5th level. Looks like we get a reset of the story. That sure beats a 100-year leap. That also means all the old DS books might be very relevant. Having a 'Revolutionary Council' is slightly different, 2e Tyr had a 'Council of Advisors' led by characters from the line of novels they have re-released. Would still like to see a DS game here on TG. If I wasnt already DMing a 4e game I would run one. ritorix fucked around with this message at 05:23 on Nov 15, 2009 |
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Nov 15, 2009 05:17
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For anyone not following the 4e Dark Sun designer's blog, heres the new bits: -A ton of DS info will hit us on Jan 28-31 during a convention -No bonus stats at character creation, thats an artifact from 2e that isnt really needed now. "12 is the new 15". Also helps portability to other settings. -Dragonborn are dray. "The dragonborn (or dray) are a race of sorcerous merchants, hired spellcasters, pragmatic mercenaries, and maybe even slavers. They're not especially numerous, so you don't see a lot of them around. Their clans are like small, insular merchant houses, and they might serve as deal-brokers and moneylenders: disliked in many places, but regarded as very useful to have around."  After reading his description of new dray, I like it. It fits. -Belgoi. "The belgoi are psionic *fey*, not natural humanoids. That's why they have their supernatural powers and the strange but flavorful focus of a bell for their mental summons. The Feywild of Athas is in pretty poor shape (more on that in another post, I guess), so centuries ago the belgoi abandoned it and became roving nomadic predators in the deserts." ritorix fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Nov 17, 2009 |
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Nov 17, 2009 01:51
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PeterWeller posted:Rich Baker has a new blog post up talking about Tyr and the Ringing Mountains Yeah its looking better and better. Back when I used the Ringing Mountains it was dangerous in the sense that the halflings were vicious to outsiders, and the rest of the forest would eat you. Sometimes literally. You dont get to be a 500-year-old tree on Athas without eating a few muls. The new primal focus means lots of halfling barbarians, which is awesome. The Tyr timeline makes me want to write a short dungeon crawl for the slaying of Kalak, to introduce players to Tyr and the setting. Could even have a couple pre-made paragon tier characters for Agis, Sadira, Rikus, etc. You have the Heartwood Spear, you are in his ziggurat, go get em before he kills the whole city. After that you know why Tyr is how it is, so its back to your 1st level characters for the full campaign.
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Dec 11, 2009 22:36
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AndItsAllGone posted:Hey, this is kind of a lame request but could someone post the 2e stats for the Nightmare Beast? Thanks!  That was badass for 2e. Not in the statblock, but it can also drain levels to heal itself for the HP lost by the victim. "Nightmare beasts are also capable of magical and psionic at- tacks. Each round, a nightmare beast may attack normally, and use either one of its spells or one of its psionic powers. The crea- ture is able to use the following spells, twice a day, once per round: fireball, lightning bolt, chain lightning, dispel magic, wall of fire, incendiary cloud, death fog, and cloudkill. A night- mare beast is immune to the effects of it own spells and all its spells are cast at 10th level of experience. All spells used by nightmare beasts are considered use of defiler magic." So basically you had to fight the 30' beasty in the middle of its own death fog. It was basically the Dark Sun tarasque. edit: btw, the "Kill Kalak" dungeon delve is going to happen. I finished the pregenned characters, posted them here. The formatting was a bitch for those forums so I wont redo it for here, but take a look if you want to see Rikus, Sadira, etc in 4e form. ritorix fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Dec 23, 2009 |
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Dec 23, 2009 00:05
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ManMythLegend posted:Paging all recruits. He lives!
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Jan 8, 2010 06:17
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There is a bit of new info though, on weapon material qualities. Materials basically wont have an impact, so you can still use bone weapons at paragon tier and you will get your Inherent Bonus to them. No more -2 to this material, -1 to that, so you dont really need metal weapons just for penalty avoidance. Weapon breakage rules will be optional.
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Jan 15, 2010 23:07
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Hmm the templar is using a superior implement. And she has +7 to the will attacks, but only +6 to the others. Whats going on there.
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Jan 30, 2010 20:59
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poo poo its going to be awesome  Sun-sickness disease track, I like that idea. Everything sounds perfect, this is great news.
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Jan 30, 2010 23:59
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some guy posted:Weapon breakage rules are as follows: if you roll a 1 on an attack with a weapon, you can reroll it. If you’re using a non-metal weapon, it automatically breaks after the attack if you do so. If you’re using a metal weapon, it breaks on a roll of 1-5. So you can turn an auto-miss into a possible hit, but at the cost of your weapon. Essentially no cost if you have a spare, so great for botched Dailies. And metal weapons can break too, with a 25% chance vs the 100% chance of a nonmetal.
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Jan 31, 2010 00:33
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At least they had the good sense to reboot to the start. All those awesome supplements, like Valley are useful again. Plus full stats for all the SKs and Dragon in the monster book. Its going to be awesome.
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Feb 6, 2010 05:23
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Part of the design of Dark Sun has always been twisting the classic D&D races. -Halflings arent fat and happy, they are cannibals that once ruled the world. -Elves arent tree-dwelling hippies, they are marathon-running desert dwellers and thieves. -Humans have mutations. (2e fluff -Dwarves are bald. -Lots of races were exterminated, be glad you got away just bald. Or can we interest you in playing a giant insect... So in that line of thought, I doubt tieflings would be standard devil-spawn. More like the children of Nibenay (all his templars are female, they are keeping that juicy detail). Mingling of dragon blood into the human lines from multiple sorcerer kings over thousands of years, etc. Granted they got away from this line of thinking with the Revised boxed set ("here, play an unchanged birdman that flys around, or play a pterran lizard freak"). But Revised was all about loving with the setting so they could sell it again. ritorix fucked around with this message at 08:34 on Feb 9, 2010 |
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Feb 9, 2010 08:23
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jigokuman posted:Show me one piece of Brom work that is more Dark Sun than this little fella.  Onward, beetle wagon.
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Feb 11, 2010 23:49
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 I dont even know.
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Feb 12, 2010 23:12
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What was the zombie called that was gluttonous, did nothing but eat whatever it could find, and could bite your head off? So Dark Sun. edit: If the fael causes 6 or more points of damage, there is a 25% chance it has bitten off a portion of its victim the size of a hand. If the fael causes 9 or more points of damage, there is a 25% chance it has bitten off a portion of the victim the size of an arm or leg. If the fael causes 12 points of damage, there is a 25% chance it has bitten off the head of its victim, automatically killing him. quote:Meorty: Meorties are undead who Dark Sun had awesome undead. And the players never had any clue what they did. Vampires, liches and mummies were well-known to the vets, but they didnt know WTF a krag did. ritorix fucked around with this message at 11:45 on Feb 18, 2010 |
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Feb 18, 2010 11:29
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ManMythLegend posted:
This is awesome. I could see one for each city: draj - aztec theme balic - greek crown of ivy nibenay - asian bas-relief theme gulg - trees, wild animals, crossed wooden spears raam - no one cares about raam Awesome because a player looking at these instantly gets the cultural reference and theme of each city.
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Feb 20, 2010 05:50
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Ivory Triangle gave the detailed treatment to Nibenay and Gulg. Full maps, surrounding areas, culture and lots of Gygaxian microdetail. It's another good place to set a campaign, especially if you want templars and the threat of a shadowy-but-aloof sorcerer king.
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Feb 21, 2010 00:24
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Yeah we have months to work the blue turban thing out. Raam's ruler was the slayer of orcs, theres no more orcs, so that is proof that she has done at least one thing right in her lifetime. Turbans were, of course, traditional Green Age Raamian religious garb but the orc occupiers of Raam banned their wear. After the orcs were massacred, citizens took to wearing them again in honor of their new Queen and liberator. Thousands of years later, their religion is long forgotten but the turbans remain. The turbans remain.
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Feb 22, 2010 19:53
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In fact, by wearing blue turbans they spite the dust-colored sky. Its the tenuous links to prior, lost cultures that make Athas such an interesting place.
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Feb 22, 2010 20:21
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I couldn't leave this alone.  See,with a little creativity even Raam becomes less of a shithole. Nibenay ranks templars by their lack of clothing; Raam can measure by the size of their turban. ritorix fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Feb 22, 2010 |
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Feb 22, 2010 23:56
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There is plenty of crazy poo poo going on, I wouldnt say mul breeding is the worst of it. Slavery in every form, cannibalism, genocide. Cheapness of life is the theme. Life has little value, no rights and no respect on Athas. Tanis's origin in Dragonlance was a source of shame and something that made him different from the rest of the setting. In Dark Sun no one would care. That's the wasteland for you. PeterWeller posted:On the other hand, Neeva was the biggest bad rear end of that series, and her uterus was probably one of the few sources of iron left on Athas.
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Feb 25, 2010 00:41
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Aranan posted:Oh, okay. I haven't opened the Wanderer's Journal yet--the Rulebook part of the set describes them as looking like wise and beautiful children who are concerned with inward spiritual connections or some such thing. They are, their cultures and traditions go back thousands of years. Halflings have a great respect for their own race and would never harm another of their kind. Too bad that doesnt extend to any other race. The barbarians of the wastes are fair game. Literally.
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Feb 26, 2010 13:07
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