Doom314 wrote:Yes, high level DnD4.0 rules don't make any sense in a Dark Sun-type world. So, no end game.
How so. The high end dark sun campaign would be about stopping or doing the very things that the various sorceror kings actually did. Wipe out entire races, become try and become a diety, these sound like epic destines to me. The idea that just because you cannot turn an entire castle to mud or because you cannot flood whole cities without a real cost to yourself sleep for 8 hours and then do it again that the game has no way of being epic is entirely in the minds of the members of this board and not in the rules of the game. D&D does not need hero charts and villiany tables. It does not need the spells to subsitute for story.
There's no beginning game, either. Low level DnD4.0 rules don't make any sense on Athas. Scarce resources? By level 2, a cleric obviates the need for food and water. Granted, that's only clerics, but in a world as harsh as Athas, I would imagine clerics would become a very common profession, relatively eliminating the scarcity.
First thing: the cure wounds spell is a daily power. You can do it once. This means that it works on only a single person. Game assumes a party of 5. That means 5 walk into the deseart and 1 walks out. That sounds like Athas to me. Also, I this this isn't pure raw but the way it discusses how you cannot regain healing surges I would argue implies that you cannot take the extended rest action. Which means that you can magically stave off starvation only a single time. Final thing on clerics. Athas as a 2e dnd world assumes that most people are not pcs and don't have any levels. (Well, actually it assumes they are pretty hard ass people who are the fittest of their race and not easy to take down even for pcs. However, LIKE other dnd settings it assumes most people don't have access to magic. Though many had access to psyonics.) Even priests are usually not able to actually draw spells (This is the important part and the part that was like what the 2e dmg said about classes). Whats more, considering that the priests do not worship dieties I wonder if the elments worshiping priests won't be the new class in the Athas suppliment. It wouldn't make much sence to have priests who deal radiant damage in athas.
Secondly: The gear itself has a large impact on 4th edition than previous editions messing with the value of equipment could have a considerable effect on player power. If wooden weapons do less damage or have different hit bonuses it will be noticeable. Probably more so than even 2e.
A design paradigm of DnD4.0 is players can buy pretty much any mundane thing, right at level 1, as it is. For purposes of balance, it wouldn't be fair for the wizards to have a better AC than the clerics right off the bat, which would happen if suddenly you can't get even chainmail.
Why does this have to be the case with this setting? 2e and 3e characters in most settings were able to buy whatever mundane thing they wanted as well. Athas had different rules, why wouldn't it have differnt rules in 4e? Secondly, the equipment rules in 4e are designed to basically equip all starting characters with their "iconic" equipment. You can buy the weapons and armor that are most appropriate to you. In athas that will be different than in other settings.
Even if prices or rules are changed, the 'enchant magic item' ritual means you can make magic steel plate at a fairly low level, anyway, causing any thinking person to wonder why there's a scarcity. You could reduce the availability of residuum/components, but then you've got to re-map character development to sort of handle the lack of magic items.
In order to enchant something you must have it. You cannot enchant steel plate if you don't a set in the first place. For a small cost 4e characters can basically redesgn the magic items the dm gives them. However it still requires that they have those mundane items in the first place.
Really, this argument that player enchanting somehow makes athas untenable means that athas can only exist as a 2e setting. In 2e the rules for crafting magic items were so convoluted as to be unworkable. Why would 3e have magic item scarcity? The people of athas are hadier than other places which is in part a factor of their life experience and experience makes magic items.
Whats more there is no particular reason athas can't be hard mode 4e. It was hard mode 2e dnd. You don't have to revamp anything.
The whole 'defiler' thing doesn't work in DnD4.0, either, since you can't exactly take out an entire power source (arcane), or screw it over heavily, and not violate the balance paradigm.
Actually, you can very easily have a 4e party with no arcane characters in it. So no there is not really a reason you couldn't just make arcane off limits.
I don't think they will do this. Personally, I think we will see 2 new types of wizard and the impiment wizards will go away. The defiling wizard will be able to recharge each of his encounter powers on a 5 or a 6 each turn but only able to reacharge any individual power once an encounter. The preserver will be able to recharge their encounter powers only on a 6 but will be able to do it as often as they the rolling allows each encounter. Maybe they don't even start with their encounter powers available in exchange for this ability. Maybe it applies to all arcane characters.
I would bet that we will also see the first attempt by WOTC to show us how a rituals system that eats healing surges instead of money will be a part of the book.
On almost every level, either DnD4.0 or Dark Sun would need to be 're imagined' for there to be even a semblance of compatibility, and just as DnD4.0 doesn't resemble Dungeons and Dragons, I bet Dark Sun DnD4.0 won't resemble the Dark Sun of prior years.
No not really at all. No more so than it did when playing 2nd ed dnd. Athas was a wierd place then. In 2e it had its own character creation rules, magic system, equipment, and more extensive rules than the basic game for traveling the wasteland.
The only campaign setting that had as many setting specific rules as dark sun in 2e was dragonlance (which basically took AD&D 2e and undid all the parts that made it 2nd edition and restored lots of basic dnd junk. (ugh name level)).
Its these sort of arguments that have nothing to do with the way 4e actually works or plays but instead just say "I don't like 4e so it can't be used to simulate a game world I actually like" that make the rest of the arguments about 4e seem weak and like they come from people who don't play just criticize.
Dark Sun is just a campaign world. I can adapt its concepts to any edition of D&D. Heck you could even use the shadowrun or nwod or grups and run dark sun too. For a setting the rules just need to capture the feel of the world in the mechanics you have.
