I found one article in the Dragon magazine of May 2004 that says sonething of another 300 years of timeline decribed anywhere. But where?
Every help would be great!!
Dragon magazine choosed to start their material 300 years after the 2nd edition material to give the individual DM's some space.
Many (maby even most) members of these board don't like the material of the dragon magazines and use instead the material of athas.org. This material is considered as official (is that right formulated?) and tries to continue and convert the DS2 materials.
I guess some of the bureau will show up soon (try to be polite
xlorepdarkhelm
)...maybe they can help you....or just try to search the board...I guess there has been other threads regarding thisIs there any ( official ) material what happens, when Dregoth shows up?
Originally posted by Bommmel
Thanks for the fast answer!!
Is there any ( official ) material what happens, when Dregoth shows up?
It's being worked on. The material is something that TSR never released, and Athas.org is needing Epic rules to be completed. It is an adventure called "Dregoth Ascending" and will be a lot of fun, when it's finally ready.
That's about all I'm saying here, as I am less than thrilled with what the magazines did, and definitely prefer the Dark Sun 3.5e rules from Athas.org.
I myself have a few gripes with the rules they posted there, but I'm still getting reaquainted with the setting in 3ed, so I'll not post anything until I am better informed.
Every prestige for Darksun would help me a lot. I have found only five so far ( those in the City State of Draj ) and every other would be great!!
Originally posted by az_zel
What exactly do you object to?
I myself have a few gripes with the rules they posted there, but I'm still getting reaquainted with the setting in 3ed, so I'll not post anything until I am better informed.
From the Dragon & Dungeon magazines? Almost everything, possibly to include the ink and paper they wrote it upon. No.... seriously.... let's see if I can remember, and try o put it in a non-inflammatory way.
1. Paladins in Dark Sun, that have a non-tangible source for their magic, amking them the only magic users on all of Athas like that, and cheapening the magic restrictions of the world.
2. Sorcerers who pretend to be Wizards to avoid being persicuted & killed.
3. Magic-using, happy-go-lucky Bards who are everything like Bards from standard D&D, but nothing like the ones from Dark Sun.
4. As a race, the Dwarves now worship Sorcerer-Kings, which before, most Dwarves had fled the city-states to escape the Sorcerer-Kings, and tended to resent & revile them - primarily because of the association with the Dragon.
5. Dwarves have beards. There's been an argument on this, but I'm still gonna stick to that Dwarves as a race, at least get rid of their body hair regularly, if they have it at all, and find the concept of hair to be disgusting to them.
6. Half-Giants, which are based on the ones from the XPH, had been apparently hit with the Whiffle Bat of Doom, and have become 7 - 8 foot tall Muls in stats.
8. For some reason, one of the wisest of Dark Sun races, the Pterrans, now has a wisdom penalty. And they somehow have a higher natural armor bonus than the race which has an exoskeleton, the Thri-Kreen.
9. Elves are not a race of marathon-runners any more.
10. All humans eventually get up to 4th level psionics.
11. Druids have gone from being lone, individualistic protectors of the wilderness to being basically a knock-off of the Forgotten Realms concept of a highly-organized infrastructure of treehuggers.
12. Proliferation of metal throughout the world.
13. Elemental Clerics & Templars are the same class, and the distinction for Elemental Clerics is only that one of their domains is one of the four main elements.
And the list does continue, but it's been so long, that it's not foremost in my mind any more. My suggestion for you, if you have some time, read the following thread: Dragon #319's take on DS 3.5
and i just don't like paladins... so they don't exist.
why rip on it so much, just be flexible...
use the good, pitch the chaff...
Originally posted by novachild
use the good, pitch the chaff...
For most of us there is way to much chaff to make it worth our while.
The reason why we are so hard on it is because what was put out was work of Noonan's that was botched, alot, mainly to fit more main stream and fit in with the perfect little WotC universe where every world is like FR, or even worse when it comes to magic being on every street corner...
Originally posted by novachild
like all Paizo articles and adventures, I keep what I like and modify what I don't... my dwarves are still hairless, my elves still tall, and bards lose magic and gain the poison use of assassins.
and i just don't like paladins... so they don't exist.
why rip on it so much, just be flexible...
use the good, pitch the chaff...
Why rip on it so much? Let's see.... maybe because the amound of good from it is pitiful. I was asked specifically what I didn't like about the magazine articles - I wasn't asked what I liked. What I liked are summed up into two things.
1. Kinda curious interest about the way they did Defilers. Not thrilled with making the metamagic on the fly, but it is an interesting idea.
2. I liked the idea about Alzetuk - only I'd redesign it that basically Tec ended up possessing his "son", to help explain the decidedly Sorcerer-King powers and such.
3. pushing the timeline forward 300 years is an intriguing idea.
That about sums it up. Most everything else in the articles is repulsive to me. so, in effect, I did use the good, and pitched the chaff. There just was far more chaff than good in it, and the amount of chaff has made it not worth my while to even flip through the magazines in the store.
And I'm sorry, but being flexible is what I am. However, if it begins to completely contradict the setting, it is no longer Dark Sun. those articles contradicted it. A lot.
The fact of the matter: There's a better system, already out there, and just as Official. Developed by Athas.org, it keeps the setting intact, and doesn't even cost as much as a single magazine to use.
Now, I'm not saying that I'm completely using Athas.org's material, 100%, but there's far more I can use from it, than from those magazines. I also don't agree at all with the idea of making the Athasian races be harmonious with the races from the standard D&D settings (like all dwarves wear beards, or elves have no advantage when running, or stunted Half-Giants). Same goes with the classes.
For what it's worth - the magazine made me rethink my stance on Paladins, and I now include in my campaigns a Sorcerer-King-based Paladin (LE Paladins) who have no spells. Kind of a secret police of the Sorcerer-Kings, who even keep tabs on Templars, while providing a more martial branch of a city-state's government. I had already been considering allowing Sorcerers, and finally decided to allow them - as being decendants of the Dragon Kings, no matter how distant. After a couple thousand years, there's a distinct possibility that any number of people could be somehow decended from the Dragon Kings. I also alow monks (or rather, Nytcrawlr's Psi-Monks), which gives more choices for players in my games to be different things. Of course, I also don't restrict my players from ever being Evil, which is something other Dungeonmasters are against. But such is life.
However, what we got was so watered down and bastardised that it was, quite frankly, worse than nothing at all.
We allowed our hopes to be raised, and then they were dashed, so yeah, we're a little bitter...
Originally posted by Korvar
...at the very least in the sense that new people would see how cool the setting is and join us here...
Whatever one thinks of the Paizo conversion, I would argue that this is exactly what has been happening since its release
.From Dragon: most races and classes plus the defiling rules.
From athas.org I have taken the clerics(not templars) and domains.
Originally posted by Korvar
I think the main reason we harp on about it so much is that when we found out that there was going to be a mini Dark Sun campaign set in Dungeon and Dragon we were basically hoping this would lead to some kind of revival of the Dark Sun line, at the very least in the sense that new people would see how cool the setting is and join us here.
However, what we got was so watered down and bastardised that it was, quite frankly, worse than nothing at all.
We allowed our hopes to be raised, and then they were dashed, so yeah, we're a little bitter...
Pretty much sums it up for me...
Originally posted by Skole
The Athas.org material to me was trying to be everything that was broken
Tell that to some of the nazi balance gurus we have that I use to fight tooth and nail with in the begining (and I mean that in a respectful way), heh.
Trust me, the athas.org rules are *very* balanced, probably more overly so in some areas than I would like.