Dark Sun 3.x Houserules and adventure concepts

[Avoraciopoctules]

After surveying player interests, I've decided to discard one of my prospective variant Planescape games and run something in Dark Sun 3.x. There's a reasonably substantial Dark Sun conversion in athas.org, but there are a number of things I dislike about it. Because of this, I'm implementing a number of changes.

- Level adjustment and racial hit dice are going to be scaled way down in terms of cost. Half-giants are Large and have 2 racial hit dice. This will be treated as a single character level.
- Clerics and druids get a much more limited pool of spells, but cast spontaneously off it (like beguilers or dread necromancers). With clerics, this is mostly based off their patron element.
- Everyone gets around 5 power points per level. Dedicated psions get more. Each character starts off with several powers. These have a fixed cost (they cannot be scaled) and are in some cases much better than normal (for example, a version of Control Body that costs 3 PP to initiate and 1 per round to maintain, with concentration requiring a Standard OR Move action (a swift action if you use it on yourself)).
- Inferior materials are the norm. Metal weapons are mechanically better than normal. I'm considering a weapon durability system, but I'll probably just Magical Teaparty it.
- Defilers get more of an increased caster level. Maybe something else on top of that.
- Martial characters start with free access to all level-appropriate martial maneuvers from a school of their choice. All characters can pick up access to more schools as they advance.
- I may implement Tome feats.
- Character advancement is goal-based. Surviving in the arena long enough to be taken seriously is a level up. Escaping the slave pens is a level up. Escaping the city-state of Draj is a level up. XP costs are gone. I'll probably use Book of Gears crafting, but not most scaling items.
- You can rememorize a couple of spells or regain some spent power points with just an hour of rest.

Any opinions on these or suggestions for other houserules? Any major gaffes in the setting design I should think about fixing?

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The campaign I'm considering starts off ripping off the old Shattered Lands computer game, and will at some point move into the Dregoth Ascending module. Any ideas for other adventure concepts? It's probably going to be 1-3 players, 4-6 player-controlled characters, and will run from levels 4 to 15-16.

[CryptoSolipsist]

I tried out a number of different house-rules and variant rules in my DS campaign a few years back.

- Psion was an extra Favored Class for every race.
- Total Magic-Psionic Opacity. Which is to say, magic doesn't affect psionics and vice versa. With a few specific exceptions, like having two separate spells Detect Magic and Detect Psionics being available to spellcasters. Similarly, psions got a new Power called Detect Magic. This made dispelling and buffing a bit more interesting and unpredictable.
- Spellcasting classes had frequent options to "trade out" known spells as they advanced in level.
- Low magic and stingy on supplies. The "quest item" of the first major story arc was a +1 steel shortsword of shock. And they felt lucky to get it.
- One of the rules that was more controversial with the players was my attempt to strongly differentiate Defilers and Preservers. Defilers were spontaneous casters (sorcerors), and Preservers were prepared casters (wizards). This was supposed to reflect how Defilers were defined by their force of personality, while Preservers were all about study and contemplation.
- Character trees: Each player had 3-4 characters ready to go, who all had to share at least one element of their alignment. When the "active" character leveled up, the player could also choose to level up one inactive character (while keeping them all roughly equal).
- Since DS was such a dog-eat-dog setting, I was very lenient with what classes/prestige classes/feat combos I would allow - anything to encourage the players to come up with a badass schtick for staying alive. The only things rejected were anything that had even a vaguely oriental flavor (monks, sohei, fist of zuoken) or anything related to the gods (paladins, favored souls, contemplatives).

There were certainly more, and they changed over time, but that's all I've got off the top of my head. I'd have to check the dusty old box containing my campaign notes to remember any more.[/i]

[Avoraciopoctules]

Hmm. Thank you. I'm definitely liking the idea of making defilers spontaneous casters. It meshes well with my view of how the lifedrain effects of their magic work. It also allows me to give preservers versatility to offset the power of their enemies. Making the two power sources mostly ignore each other appeals in theory, but I'm not sure how it will work out in practice.

EDIT: I'm going to be making at least 3 NPCs the players will exert some direct control over. Suggestions for these are welcome. The one definite player seems interested in building a Walker in the Waste. This will mean at least one divine caster is guaranteed to be in the group. I'm probably going to stick a half-giant gladiator and some kind of preserver in as well.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Wizards are significantly more powerful than Sorcerers. If you really want to give the Defilers a mechanical edge over the Preservers, which I recall they had under the old Dark Sun rules, then the Defilers should have the better chassis. Thaumababble can be tailored to support the mechanical effects.

But if the advantage you get for stripping the planet's life-force is getting your spells a level late and being seriously less flexible... then there's no reason to make that devil's bargain in the first place.

[Avoraciopoctules]

And if Defilers have something like +2 to caster level, a standard wizard chassis (with two spells learned every level-up), and the ability to boost their powers still further if there are a bunch of potted plants nearby?

[Akula]

Honestly, if you want to make Defilers more powerful that just make them Wizards and Preservers Sorcerers. You don't need to hand out more boosts on top of that, as it would just make it into a game where you would be crazy not to play a Defiler. It is fine for the Defilers to be better than their arcane counterparts, but it would seriously suck if they were made better than every other option. That is, if you want them to be PCs, if you don't, make them into a CR+X template that can only be added to arcane casters and makes you into an NPC.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Defilers are going to be a PC option. They are also going to be better mechanically in at least one way. Ideally, Preservers should be tempted by the power boost they could get by defiling in a desperate situation, and if they make the choice to switch, converting the character should take no more than a few minutes.

[Akula]

Well, I'm not trying to argue the Defiler Preserver thing really. I'm saying that if you give a flat bonus just for being a defiler, and give a bigger bonus when they really actually defile something, you just have a class that is straight up better than anything but the Druid. It just removes variety from the game by making them too damn good. Just make defiling a +1 caster level, +2 if they take extra time to kill more stuff.

[Starmaker]

• "Latent psionic abilities" instead of a significant share of magic items. (These function just like magic items and count against the magic item limit).
• One replacement character per person. No alignment restrictions.
• Everyone starts at character and class level 3. Caps at level 11 (sorcerer-kings are level 15).
• Elemental clerics get vaguely thematic domains (Nancymancy, Stevery, etc.) with actually good spells. Water clerics do not have to drink but Create Water etc does not exist.
• Templar is more of a title than an actual class. Spellcasting templars are clerics with non-elemental domains. They get cohorts, not subject to bullshit DMG penalties of course, easily replaceable.
• Defilers get Sudden Metamagic from potted plants, Fiendish feats are available.
• Preservers get spell resistance from potted plants for no particular reason.
• Psions are sorcerers with adjusted spells-per-level tables and no ability to use potted plants.
• Bards are Jesters.
• Gladiators are Tome Fighters.
• Half-giants count as Large for weapon size rules. (Halflings count as Meduim.)
• Thri-kreen get an extra Slam.
• Other races except humans get predetermined bonus Tome feats, humans can choose any feat.
• Transformation into undead is available for everyone; dragons for defilers, avangions for preservers, psions receive some Stranger with the Burning Eyes abilities.

[Grek]

Defilers and Preservers should the same class. The difference between the two is only as big as the difference between positive and negative energy clerics.

[JonSetanta]

The defiling process should be handled once in a day, not each cast. The latter is too cumbersome in each encounter and every round.

At the start of a day, after sleep, a Defiler would instead have not recovered energy/spell slots/mana/whatever you decide to use.
They must destroy life to gain spent spell energy from the previous day. No life, no new spells.
Spells stored from before may be kept indefinitely.

Preservers take 10 times longer to gather spell energy but it's relatively safe.
Think Piccolo meditating near a distant waterfall all day; that's how long it might take sometimes.

For a more desperate setting feel, try lowering the spell cap for maximum spells stored.
Defilers/Preservers will have to do their collecting far more often than normal.
Agreed on the 2-in-1 class though, it should be more of a method than a class ability. Each caster may do either and it's a fundamental ability for all casters in the setting. No feats or other changes needed.

[Akula]

You're advocating taking 5 hours to memorize spells?

[Grek]

Lever 15-16 is "Let's kill the Sorcerer-Kings and make ourselves head of the world. Then let's make the place not a desert!" territory. Which is fine if you don't plan to use the world for another campaign, or plan for it well.

Do you plan to have kanks?

[Akula]

I can safely say that the PCs are unlikely to be that ambitious.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Defilers and Preservers should the same class. The difference between the two is only as big as the difference between positive and negative energy clerics.

Agreed on the 2-in-1 class though, it should be more of a method than a class ability. Each caster may do either and it's a fundamental ability for all casters in the setting. No feats or other changes needed.

Yeah, defiling or preserving should be a choice that every arcane class makes on a case-by-case basis. The only things which shouldn't work that way are the Avangion and Dragon-type classes, which should probably come with 'exclusively preserves' or 'exclusively defiles' codes of conduct. You might also want to include alternate types like those who draw power from the Cerulean Storm or the Gray, but those spread the flavor a bit thin.

So you can be a beguiler, true necromancer, sorcerer, wizard, or whatever, and you're still situationally a defiler or preserver. You can also have some bullshit flavor (or maybe even bullshit mechanic like Dark Side points) which make preserving more difficult the more you defile.

The defiling process should be handled once in a day, not each cast. The latter is too cumbersome in each encounter and every round.

Then there's very little temptation to ever defile, unless you just want to play an asshole. In which case there's no reason to have any mechanics at all. If it's at the time of casting, you can make situational choices like 'I don't want people to notice' or 'I need this power fast'. The exact mechanics of it would have to be decided (speed vs. power--I'd probably make preserver spells take time like sorcerer metamagic, and let defiling give the normal speed or a CL boost).

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P.S.

The monk class works great in Athas, there should totally be psi-magic feats (and classes), and "psionics" might work better as incarnum.

[norms29]

maybe we should reexamine the Defiler=spontanous suggestion. not making them different classes, but what if prepared spells have the preserver quality by default, and by defiling the caster can substitute any spell of the same level, kind of like the core "cleric spells can be converted to healing" concept, only instead of healing, it's any spell that you know.

or another idea, what if defiling nets you free spell levels, like prepare a level two spell in a level one slot if it defiles, or defiling pays for meta-magic feats. that gives defiling the desired speed and power advantage.

Edited: me spoke not good

[Avoraciopoctules]

Lever 15-16 is "Let's kill the Sorcerer-Kings and make ourselves head of the world. Then let's make the place not a desert!" territory. Which is fine if you don't plan to use the world for another campaign, or plan for it well.

Do you plan to have kanks?

The Sorcerer-Kings seem a bit nastier than that. My understanding is that most of them are officially around CR 50 but actually less than that. I am definitely considering making them level 20 characters with arbitrary templates added on so as to avoid using D&D Joke Book material, though, and in that case this could be viable.

I have no problems with running a campaign that significantly changes the setting. Advancing the cause of the druids and preservers could make for a fairly enjoyable premise.

Kanks. I'm assuming that you are talking about the domesticated giant insects? Yes, there's 3.5 stats for them around page 305 of the latest core athas.org pdf. Here are some screenshot chunks:

Defilers and Preservers should the same class. The difference between the two is only as big as the difference between positive and negative energy clerics.

Agreed on the 2-in-1 class though, it should be more of a method than a class ability. Each caster may do either and it's a fundamental ability for all casters in the setting. No feats or other changes needed.

Yeah, defiling or preserving should be a choice that every arcane class makes on a case-by-case basis. The only things which shouldn't work that way are the Avangion and Dragon-type classes, which should probably come with 'exclusively preserves' or 'exclusively defiles' codes of conduct. You might also want to include alternate types like those who draw power from the Cerulean Storm or the Gray, but those spread the flavor a bit thin.

So you can be a beguiler, true necromancer, sorcerer, wizard, or whatever, and you're still situationally a defiler or preserver. You can also have some bullshit flavor (or maybe even bullshit mechanic like Dark Side points) which make preserving more difficult the more you defile.

This approach would involve less work and create more options for players. I think it appeals. There's a certain amount of flavor in place about all mages being identifiable by their spellbooks, but that's a fairly superficial change.

The defiling process should be handled once in a day, not each cast. The latter is too cumbersome in each encounter and every round.

Then there's very little temptation to ever defile, unless you just want to play an asshole. In which case there's no reason to have any mechanics at all. If it's at the time of casting, you can make situational choices like 'I don't want people to notice' or 'I need this power fast'. The exact mechanics of it would have to be decided (speed vs. power--I'd probably make preserver spells take time like sorcerer metamagic, and let defiling give the normal speed or a CL boost).

Hmm. So spells would take a full-round action to cast, and if you devour the delicious life force of the cactus next to you, your spell is either cast as a standard action OR gets a boosted CL. Maybe you can eke out some extra spell slots. If you are being environmentally friendly, you don't have to worry about the obvious circle of ash that appears around you every time you cast and you don't have to keep jogging out of the land you just killed off in order to keep casting effectively.

I want some reason for defilers to be motivated to take over druid groves and cultivate private gardens. However, this may be better left to handwavium "ritual" magic.

---

P.S.

The monk class works great in Athas, there should totally be psi-magic feats (and classes), and "psionics" might work better as incarnum.

Are you talking about the PHB monk or the Tome monk?

Are you suggesting abilities that combine a character's spells and psionics somehow? Since I'm fairly sure that already serves as the base for both of the transformation mage types.

Sadly, I don't have the book on incarnum.

maybe we should reexamine the Defiler=spontanous suggestion. not making them different classes, but what if prepared spells have the preserver quality by default, and by defiling the caster can substitute any spell of the same level, kind of like the core "cleric spells can be converted to healing" concept, only instead of healing, it's any spell that you know.

or another idea, what if defiling nets you free spell levels, like prepare a level two spell in a level one slot if it defiles, or defiling pays for meta-magic feats. that gives defiling the desired speed and power advantage.

Edited: me spoke not good

I'd prefer for defiling to offer a continuous temptation for mages who just need a little more power right now. When you run out of prepared spells, find that none of your spells are applicable to the problem at hand, or simply want that horrible monster in front of your friends to fail its save no matter what it rolls, the easy path beckons. Something like spontaneous metamagic or spell swapping fits, but preparing a more powerful spell in advance doesn't seem to unless you're making an item or something similar.

[Starmaker]

Sorcerer-kings are canonically level 20 dual-class gestalt defiler/psionicists. However, they can be killed by npcs who don't often get mentioned by name, and that without fucking up the setting. So they are actually less powerful, more like 15-16 albeit with a metric fuckton of resources.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Sorcerer-kings are canonically level 20 dual-class gestalt defiler/psionicists. However, they can be killed by npcs who don't often get mentioned by name, and that without fucking up the setting. So they are actually less powerful, more like 15-16 albeit with a metric fuckton of resources.

Here's the first chunk of the stat block for the primary antagonist in Dregoth Ascending. It seems athas.org may have caught the Dicefreaks bug:




That said, I much prefer making these characters merely high-level, as you suggested. I'm thinking I'll take all the epic level plot spells and turn them into rituals using a slightly modified form of the rules here: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic ... ations.htm

[Roy]

Wow. That's what they call a level 50 (almost) character?

20 bucks says a competent level 20 party could blow it away. And they wouldn't even need tricks like Gate spam.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Here are the athas.org levels for 2 normal sorcerer-kings. These look to be officially probably around CR 30+.





I could see decent PCs defeating these around level 16 if they had some allies and somehow managed to avoid fighting hundreds of similar-level templars at the same time.

[Starmaker]

The transformation process is described in Dragon Kings, TSR 2408. To become a dragon, you need to start as a (human or half-elf) defiler, attain level 20 and complete the transformation ritual which lasts for 10 levels and you lose control of your character at some point (level 25 to 29). Dregoth came closest to the goal and leveled to 24 before being ganked by Lalali-Puy & Co, now he's undead and doesn't fit the requirements. The same for avangions and preservers, only you don't lose control and the rituals are easier. Also, half-elves need not apply.

Now all those rules in a campaign world that encouraged having a replacement always on hand were basically flavor text. The rules were not exactly clear* either: depending on the chapter, either mage 20 was enough (the class chapters) or one had to dual-class into psionicist (or, in case of half-elves, be a multiclass defiler/psionicist), attain level 20 and then cast transformation (the monster entries). Regardless, a transforming mage of level 21+ has psionics at the same level. D&D Joke Book is, well, a joke, and mystic theurge et al. are no better, so it makes sense to have the sorcerer-kings be gestalts of a reasonable level.

*The rules are not clear on a multitude of subjects. Just from a cursory look at DSCS and the aforementioned Dragon Kings: The former bans potions of dragon control and scrolls of protection from dragon breath while the latter states these items also work on PC dragons. Wat.

I don't remember seeing a sorcerer-king's 2e stats, like, at all, but they are canonically killable by semi-nameless npcs. Kings themselves need to be fairly impressive in order to rule large chunks of the campaign world and keep some semblance of order. So there's quite a number of powerful npcs who normally would be able to cast fabricate and shit, but the world isn't any closer to a lush green paradise. So there have to be restrictions on magic -- heavy restrictions.
Many people will no doubt remember the 2e alignment write-ups (the nine alignments divvy up loot). In Dark Sun, the write-up is about sharing water. Metal weapons being rare is also a big deal.
However, importing planar water or metal can be done easily. The clerical Sphere of Water sucks ass in combat but guarantees basic supplies (as long as the cleric is alive), which makes the water cleric a requirement, which is stupid. The Sphere of Air has Plane Shift. (In contrast, mages don't have Transmute Dust to Water accompanying Water to Dust as a 6-level spell, wtf?)

Fun fact: canonically, potted plants are used when memorizing spells, not casting. (The temptation to defile arises from the faster level progression). That's stupid (and an option to defile while casting was provided in Defilers and Preservers).

Another fun fact: Athasian bards are popular in baatezu courts. So much for planar travel restrictions.

Yet another fun fact: 2e Templars don't have anything awesome going on, so when if the game reaches epic transformations, they are encouraged to zero their XP and start taking levels in a "real" class.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Is making a Dark Sun campaign setting going to have to involve getting into FR/Dragonlance 'my NPC is better than yours'-ish dickwaving?

Because... because I'll cut you.

[Avoraciopoctules]

No. I fully intend for the Sorcerer-Kings in my game to be very vulnerable to being mobbed by level 4 mooks who happen to have Save-or-Die psychic powers. They are pretty awesome, but there's nothing keeping you from just dropping a big rock on one or stabbing them repeatedly in their sleep.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Update: I checked out the athas.org epic material. It is horrible. Look at this:



This is worse than the Yathrinshee. The "Legends of Athas" pdf is literally the first d20 rulebook I feel (mental) pain for having read.