[Dark Sun Gold]

Good evening!
As multiple users before me, I have been hacking away (and building onto their work) at a Dark Sun conversion for BW. I posted this one on my old account a long time ago and recently got back into it after me and my group deciding to pick up our old campaign.

With the changes to Sorcery in BWG, I decided to revise the Defiling/Preserving Rules and would love to get some feedback, mechanically, thematically or anything, really. I gave credit to the people whose work I am using in the link, and most of the hacks are theirs. I merely collected and tuned them where I saw fit.

Since Magic is a (the?) central conflict to the setting, most of my own thinking went into those rules. I know that I am, in a way, giving Defilers back the Spellweaver rule, hindering their progression in the Sorcery skill and making them very powerful. Still, the choice whether to defile or not is and will always be a tough one.

The way I have it now, with the common number of life dice being at B4, a defiler will have at least 2 dice more to add to his sorcery test than a preserver who takes all but one life die and hopes for the best. By forbidding all other help to preservers, am I totally gimping them?

Also, to really get a grasp of the full Defiling/Preserving Rules, check out the Traits “Willfully Destructive” and “Gentle Hands” further down in the text. There is also the “Darkest Power”, which allows very powerful Sorcerers (advanced beings) to draw life force from living creatures. I did change that one too, but it is unlikely we will have to deal with these guys anytime soon.

Anyways, please comment, here is the link!

Cheers,
Mord

1 Like

I think the Life Dice rules should just have locations as areas- no need to use the formula for radius of destruction. That way you can measure it in “whose field/forest is defiled?” which is the core of the choice anyway.

I like Psionics, and think Faith is good, although question how difficult talking to the King is.

Races
You’re using speed multipliers, this is BWG.

Half-Giants seem WAY too thick to me, they will go down really easily in any conflict. Probably increase their Mental points by 1, the maximums to 6, and consider letting them buy the Brute trait cheaply.

“Elven Reflexes” trait leaves elves slower, clumsier, and thicker than humans. It is also way too good if it’s meant to say “9”. Elf Run should be a Dt which allows elves to ignore fatigue etc whilst running (flat-out ignore those considerations, if only for the short term, still test for whether they get there fast enough though)
The Lifepaths don’t really follow the standard “how many skill points” rules, give a Faith attribute which you say doesn’t exist (and automatically give it, which is abnormal for BWG). They also have Sprinting as a skill, it’s not. In Gold, Sprinter is an applicable Trait. Do not give most of your elves easy access to it, because they already have it vs normal races effectively.

Mul have no real drawbacks, give them a trait that makes them susceptible to something please, just to keep them from looking like just better humans.

For Mannish Lifepaths:
Is there a very good reason why all musical slaves are blind?

The Lifepaths seem okay, but I haven’t gone over them with a fine comb.

First of all - your feedback is much appreciated, thank you!

As I mentioned, I basically threw together the various Dark Sun Hacks I found on these forums and which were to my liking. I barely messed with Lifepaths (only to add Psionics) or Stocks (I think I tweaked the Mul a bit, but I think I made them better so your points here are also valid). I will work your suggestions into those though, since we will be recruiting new players and we should have a consistent and working hack for this world. I think most mannish lifepaths came from one source (Jormungandr, who also did most of the rules modificiations, excluding Psionics), while most of the others (including Stock design) came from Beast in the Garden. Therefore, they might have a different feel and have relics like Faith which shouldn’t exist. I have to go through those with a broom or chainsaw for sure!

Also, I only modded the Sorcery Rules for now to match up with BWG and need most feedback on those, since I want to get them just right. I like your approach to do away with the Circle of Destruction. I only left it in to give Defilers a more tangible advantage and some more fun with the chain reaction that could occur on the Land failing tax over and over.

What I do like about the rules right now is: Defilers will advance their sorcery and forte slower (the latter not at all through spellcasting). So if they have a swing of conscience and choose to preserve, it will be much harder due to not being able to resist tax well and having a lower sorcery exponent than a sorcerer who used to preserve and took the long and patient route.

Again, thanks for the feedback. If you have any more input on how to put more elegance in the sorcery rules (while also keeping in mind that multiple spellcasters in the same area will use the same resource), it’d also be much appreciated.

Right, I have some:

If instead of a measurement of feet, you use rough areas, it focuses the choice.
If you stand in a field and cast, you’re drawing on that field. A large stretch of Savannah. A glade in a forest. You can keep the expanding circles of destruction, but have it invade a different location. “You have ruined both this field, and the nearby oasis” is far more potent a threat.
Note that if you help Tax with Forte, you advance Forte.

When assessing the Life dice a place has, use gut feel, and add one die if it’s big or take one if it’s small.

I like your Psionics rules. I have made my objections to some LPs plain; to prune, take off any skills not 100% necessary, and in general give LPs no fewer than 1 skill point per skill on the list.

Thank you again.

I fiddled some more with the Sorcery rules to make it a little more exciting but not annoyingly crunchy. I did throw out exact measurements, but divived an area into multiple pools (usually of the same size, and a number of pools equal to its life dice). Each time one pool gets reduced to 0, all remaining pools lose a die. Also, to go from one pool to another, you have to use positioning (at an obstacle penality according to the number of depleted pools), or draw upon another pool at an increased casting time (also increasing with each depleted pool). This gives players a few more options in Fight!, where are Preserver can decide to disengage to tap into another pool so he will not deplete the current one, while a defilier just depletes one and has to move on. This way, a defiler can get off about 3-4 spells before a patch of normal Athasian Terrain gets wiped out and makes casting impossible for the current conflilct. Multiple Defilers working in tandem would break this though… I could of course increase the dice for each type of terrain to counter this, if playtesting shows this to be an issue.

As an alternative, I could just have one pool which only decreased if tax would take it to 0. Effectively this is the same as the pool mechanic, but without repositioning, increased casting times or being able to return to a former pool.

Either way, I think it’s on the right track.

As for the lifepaths - yeah, I will surely heed your advice. The Elves I definatly have to clean up, as its a popular choice with players still. As for the Mul…I reworked the stats slightly, and now need a big drawback, maybe relating to their utter stubborness.

Thanks!

If you were a cruel Tyrant, you might consider giving them a variant of the Tasting the Lash trait.

Your synopsis of the Sorcery makes it sound like it’s now about the right type of thing :slight_smile:

If you would like further directed feedback, them I’m game to spend a while really combing through it after you’ve changed some stuff up.

That trait is definatly a good fit for Dark Sun. For the Mul in particular, I am not sure. I think they might get something that makes it incredible hard for them to change an opinion once they have it set. They are just too damn stubborn :smiley:

yeah, I fiddled even more with Sorcery. I think I am at the point where I need to see how it plays. If my Sorcerer player complains alot about how defiling is overpowered and how preserving is so hard, it will be all good.

And I will for sure let you know once I went through the lifepaths, I’d be really happy to have you comb through them then. Thanks mate!

Do you have any plans on adding the Halfling stock? I personally enjoyed how Dark Sun turned them into cannibals and tribal like.

The Dark Sun Halflings are a cool take on the species (and have like nothing in common with the standard halflings except for their height). But they are actually very important to the history of Athas, and I don’t plan on having Halfling PCs for now. If a player truly wants to play one though, I will tackle it sooner rather than later.

As for the joy of building the lifepaths itself - it’d actually be one, because they have a unique culture different from the standard human/mul/half-giant etc. So yes, I do plan on getting to them eventually :slight_smile: