Like the 3d6 rules for stats instead of the 5d4.
Or the fact that cleric spell system of 3rd edition cant be adapted with Dark sun. There not enough elemental spell. And where Conjure elemental?
Also, the cleric seems to no longer be able to ignore is element at 5 level or gate some of his element at 7 level.
Also, all the fighter are now uber-morepowerfull.
Some creature no longer need +1 weapons or steel weapons to hit. Like the Braxat, Gaj or elemental.
This cause a lot of inconsistency in my game and I dont think if we dont find solution, that our 3rd edition experience will last long. Maybe I will be the first to switch back to 2 edition after playing 3rd.
Like the 3d6 rules for stats instead of the 5d4.
You can do 5d4 is you like. Nothing stopping you. There was nothing intrinsic about 5d4 in AD&D that prevents its use in 3e.
But the biggest reason that it isn't used by Athas.org is the desire to keep PCs designed by Athas.org's conversion able to also use monsters out of 3rd party accessories with little change to the monsters to keep them the challenge for which the monster's CR rating designates.
Or the fact that cleric spell system of 3rd edition cant be adapted with Dark sun. There not enough elemental spell. And where Conjure elemental?
Also, the cleric seems to no longer be able to ignore is element at 5 level or gate some of his element at 7 level.
Clerics can be adapted, but Clerics and Druids are the most powerful classes in 3e, and the designers have admitted making them more powerful to lure people into playing these classes. These classes make decent backup warriors with the average BAB, have two good saves instead of one, and can cast 9th-level spells like Wizards and Sorcerers. The spells selection for Clerics and Druids are awesome at battlefield control and buffing (pumping up character's abilities). Clerics can spontaneously heal without having to prepare the healing. And unlike the limitation to clerics in original Dark Sun, they can cast healing higher than 3rd level spells now.
Where is conjure elemental? It's summon monster but just restricted to elemental creatures. Same with planar ally, just restrict it to creatures from elemental planes.
You might be noticing how difficult using the spell lists straight from the PHB is if you want to maintain Dark Sun's cosmological uniqueness. I sure did when I jumped into 3e when it was released. If Athas is blocked off from all the other planes "supposedly" out there what happens when so many spells that bring extraplanar creatures are made common to classes shouldn't necessarily be having them?
Doesn't it step on the elemental cleric's uniqueness to have wizards suddenly able to summon just as powerful an elemental as the cleric? I think it does, so I customized the arcane spell list to trim out some spells that, IMO, rightfully are something that characters with an elemental connection would have available. The biggest thing was simply to make custom summon monster lists available by class.
If you really want to try for a flavorful change, dump the 3e cleric's spontaneous healing ability for spontaneous summon monster (elemental).
Oh, and I added back a gate element ability to the cleric class that I use.
Also, all the fighter are now uber-morepowerfull.
While it may look impressive, the fighter takes a lot of specialization to keep up with the other classes at higher levels. It is rare, although some do, for characters to stay fighter for more than a few levels before jumping to another class, especially prestige classes. There are more than a few people who have played 3e a long while who consider the fighter to be among the underpowered classes.
Some creature no longer need +1 weapons or steel weapons to hit. Like the Braxat, Gaj or elemental.
You can add this back easily, but that gets into a discussion about the goals of monster designers in putting in such abilities like Damage Reduction and what the intent is supposed to be.
AD&D Dark Sun didn't use the classes out of the AD&D PHB without some adjustment, same thing applies really with 3e Dark Sun. It's just that WotC doesn't want to do it for us. ;)
Dark Sun d20
Many DS fans have adopted parts or all of these mechanics for their Dark Sun games. In any case, you can use some of it with athas.org stuff to get the Dark Sun 3.5 you like.
I suggest a compromise:
Dark Sun d20
Many DS fans have adopted parts or all of these mechanics for their Dark Sun games. In any case, you can use some of it with athas.org stuff to get the Dark Sun 3.5 you like.
Wow. I really like the material presented there. Excellent work. Feels like Dark Sun again.
While it may look impressive, the fighter takes a lot of specialization to keep up with the other classes at higher levels. It is rare, although some do, for characters to stay fighter for more than a few levels before jumping to another class, especially prestige classes. There are more than a few people who have played 3e a long while who consider the fighter to be among the underpowered classes.
Fighters are more than a match for creatures of similar level/power provided you are playing with the default magic item availability assumptions. A mid teen level fighter in a one-on-one fighter is attacking three times, every round for lots of damage. A wizard has nice high damage spells, but these usually allow a save for half, and are gone once used.
This balance continues until it becomes economic to start lobbing mord's disjunction all over the place. Then fighters have a hard time surviving encounters with arcane weilders.
As soon as magic items become rare however, fighters grow much weaker the higher levels go. Mind control, save or dies, flying opponents etc.
In a nutshell, fighters usually dominate one-on-one fights because they have a lot more hit points then wizards and do comparable damage. Wizards totally own fights against hordes of lesser critters thanks to many area affecting spells. Thus depending upon the opponent one or the other dominates the field fo combat.
A mid teen level fighter in a one-on-one fighter is attacking three times, every round for lots of damage.
So do barbarians (brutes), rangers, paladins (if allowed), and monks (with flurry). Fighters need to be compared to more than just wizards when considering whether they are underpowered at high levels.
So do barbarians (brutes), rangers, paladins (if allowed), and monks (with flurry). Fighters need to be compared to more than just wizards when considering whether they are underpowered at high levels.
Barbarians are usually tougher than a fighter, but lose out on combat options achievable with feat selections. Whilst slightly easier to hit (poorer armour choice) their raging gives them the HPs to usually tank through it.
Paladins are comparable to fighters, their solid spell selection, turning ability and otherwise identical stat line balances out against feats quite well.
Rangers are much weaker than fighters. Set bonus feats, fewer HPs, bad spell selection and poor armour choice.
Monks usually get caned by truer fighter types. They lack the HP of fighters and barbarians to really stand much of a chance, and whilst damage potential is comparable, their sucky to hit bonus usually means they miss more frequently.
Fighters balance out okay against them. However, at high levels the lack of high level feats means fighters usually have a broad set of combat abilities rather than the ability to whomp something real good.
The optimal pure warrior build usually involves about equal levels of fighter and barbarian giving you improved feat selection (wep spec in particular) and the ability to rage, faster movement and more skill points than a straight fighter.
A properly constructed Psychic Warrior will stomp on any other class.....
when he get's his buffs going. That is always the problem with Psychic Warriors and to some extent paladins and Clerics. If they are caught unaware, they get flattened. If they get time to activate all their powers/spells then they do the stomping. Depends upon what you want really.
And now, I feel bad about deflecting this thread off topic. I will refrain from further off topic posts.
Wow. I really like the material presented there. Excellent work. Feels like Dark Sun again.
Thank you Sithis!
I would appreciate any and all feedback, good or bad (especially negative one actually, so that I can make tweak to improve it).
I will be updating this summer, in theory, with minor changes and complete psionics (with mindscape variant rules) and spells and powers. And regions.
Shei-Nad
Thank you Sithis!
I would appreciate any and all feedback, good or bad (especially negative one actually, so that I can make tweak to improve it).
I will be updating this summer, in theory, with minor changes and complete psionics (with mindscape variant rules) and spells and powers. And regions.
Shei-Nad
Very good work congratulations. Specially the races and equipment chapter.
Good take on the Half-giant (-6 int and -2 wis) and Kreen (include almost all features from the book thri-kreen of athas). About the Dwarf... I felt +2 Str, +4 Con, -2 Dex, -2 Cha, a little unbalancend (I don´t know the making off behind it but maybe you could cut off the Str bonus, or set -4 Cha). The elf at first glance I though -2 Str unbalanced but then I saw the racial abilities and found it ok (+10 speed).
I loved the piecemeal armor systen, specially because it works in conjunction with the standart armor rules. My only doubt is: why chitin armor is stronger then shell armor? Isn´t to be the opposite? Since your rules stat that chitin has a hardness of 5 and 5 hit points per inch thickness while shell has a hardness of 7 and 5 hit points per inch? Maybe chitin armor should be medium and Shell armor could be heavy.
I haven´t time to read everything ( :whatsthis ) but as far as I´m concerned, I fount it a very impressive work. Congratulations.
Very good work congratulations. Specially the races and equipment chapter.
Thanks a lot! :D
Good take on the Half-giant (-6 int and -2 wis)
Thanks. The thing is, if you look at the monster manual, intelligent creatures with very low wisdom are quite rare, and even dumb brutes have an average wisdom score (see ogres, the best comparison for a HG). So I decided to limit the wisdom penalty to -2, but the intelligence mod should ensure that even the brightest half giant is just above average intelligence for other humanoids, while most are dumb enough to have trouble speaking and thinking coherently, which is always how they are shown. -4 just allows getting average Int to easily IMO.
and Kreen (include almost all features from the book thri-kreen of athas).
I tried as best I can to do just that
About the Dwarf... I felt +2 Str, +4 Con, -2 Dex, -2 Cha, a little unbalancend (I don´t know the making off behind it but maybe you could cut off the Str bonus, or set -4 Cha).
Ok. Here, I've asked myself that question over and over, and frankly, I can't say I'm sure if it is balanced or not, but here is my reasoning:
- First off, I really want my dwarves to get a bonus in Str and Con, just as in the original DS work. Plus, look at any picture of athasian dwarf and try finding one whose not rock hard muscled. No Str adjustment just isn't good. I was thinking about reducing the Con bonus to +2, and it could still be done, but then, 2e dwarves had a better Con than muls, and it is their defining attribute.
- The Dex penalty offsets the Str bonus, both affecting combat, and setting the dwarf and mul further apart. Also, the short subby dwarves shouldn't be as agile as a human IMO. However, the Con bonus isn't completely offset with a Cha of -2. The thing is however, that if Cha was reduced further, dwarves would make poor wilders (which becomes an important class with dark sun wild talents), and render them as charismatic as Thri-Kreen to other humanoids, and also affect abilities like turning undead and such. In any case, the Cha penalty would only really affect the dwarves in social situations where their stubborness applies, and by giving them a -2 penalty to diplomacy and bargain, that aspect is adequately covered, and even more important than by simply giving them -4 to Cha.
- Finally, if you take a look at the athasian dwarf and the D&D dwarf, the athasian dwarf looses A LOT of his benefits. No attack bonuses whatsoever (orcs, goblins, giants), no stonecunning, no appraise or search bonuses, no exotic weapon proficiencies. The Focus ability, without any attack bonus (which is how it is described in DS2e), can't completely compensate.
- With the increased con score, and the str bonus (even offset by the dex penalty), I think the dwarf is at least as balanced as the 3.5 dwarf.
The elf at first glance I though -2 Str unbalanced but then I saw the racial abilities and found it ok (+10 speed).
Yeah, and in fact, since I wanted to include all the Elves of Athas Dark Sun abilities, it seemed like the only way to balance the race without adding a +1 level adjustment.
Also, note that this also represents the light physique of elves. Though they may have a well developped musculature, they don't gain any real muscle mass, or at least not to the extent of humans, dwarves or certainly not muls. The -2 to Str seems more than appropriate.
I loved the piecemeal armor systen, specially because it works in conjunction with the standart armor rules.
I really glad you appreciate that part. It was NOT easy to do. ;)
My only doubt is: why chitin armor is stronger then shell armor? Isn´t to be the opposite? Since your rules stat that chitin has a hardness of 5 and 5 hit points per inch thickness while shell has a hardness of 7 and 5 hit points per inch? Maybe chitin armor should be medium and Shell armor could be heavy.
Good question, which is what I asked myself when I saw the Dragon Magazine conversion of Dark Sun, and the Arms and Equipment guide. Not that I would stick to those versions (especially not the Dragon's conversion), but I found that it did make some sense after all, here's why:
- The armor bonus isn't really based on the hardness of the material used as much as how it is used to deflect blows. Of course, soft materials will only be able to deflect light blows, but metal armor has the same hardness in D&D. Its the way the armor is made that affect the level of protection of the wearer.
- Shell armor, described as medium armor in both the Arms and Equipments' guide and Dragon, is made from shells treated with a solution that allows some flexibility. However, the dome shape of shells limits the ability of armorcrafters to use them effectively as armor pieces. You could easily make knee, elbow or shoulder pads with them, but a full breastplate, without any open joints, would be difficult to make with round, dome shaped shells. Hence the lesser protection.
- Chitin armor, described as heavy armor in those references as well, may be more brittle than shells (which are indeed thicker), but come in a far greater variety of shapes and sizes, allowing for better costumization into heavy armor suits.
I haven´t time to read everything ( :whatsthis ) but as far as I´m concerned, I fount it a very impressive work. Congratulations.
Thanks a lot! for the praise and especially for the feedback. Please ask more questions or afd comments if you have them.
Shei-Nad