chubbs's Untitled Campaign (Inactive)

Game Master chubbs

Hello, I'm just checking interest in a Mummys Mask campaign set in Dark sun using Pathfinder rules tweaked a little. because dark sun is a harsh world the characters will be more powerful to offset the general lack of magic items and magic. this is just tentative I was just curious on the interest.

tentative rules- (ill be adding more if there is good interest)

1.Bone weapons and obsidian weapons have fragile qualities
2.everyone gets one free level of psycic class. (as gestalt but only for 1st level, Psycic and another class) (if you choose just the psychic class you get a extra spell 1st slot and two extra spell known)
3. we will be using automatic Bonus progression.
4. 25 point buy
5. Cleric class must have a patron (a dragonking. im open about if you like a dragonking if your a fan as long as you can explain the reason. and domains)
6. no metamagic feats for arcane classes (you can only get it through Defiling, normal spellcasting does not cause defiling. all arcane classes can choose to defile)
7. the time period will be around the free city Tyr books. before king Kalik was killed.
8. races all basic races (except half Orc now MUL). adding the races following name change stats are the same
(tengu will be Aarakocra)
(lizardman will the the Pterrans)
(half gaints are humans with simple template gaintkin instead of Gisalt Psycic)
(mul Half-dwarven same as Half-orc)
9. 20 ceramic tiles starting gold but get two free bone weapons and free light armor. (excluding metal)
10. gp will be Ceramic tiles. ceramic chips.

Oh, I do love me some dark sun. I'm dotting, but not sure what to play yet.

Interested, I would play a Mul Psychic.

Are you going to allow people to make Kasatha instead of thri-kreen?

maybe, ill have to think about it. they are really powerful, and certain builds would be game breaking.

I just ask because I've yet to play a darksun game without a thri-kreen. Personally, I think I'm going to play a Halfling. *NOM, NOM, NOM*

Since I have been away from the boards for a while and I'm not entirely certain what a Dark Sun campaign feels like, I might go for a human barbarian or something melee-focused. In the past I played sorcerers of every bloodline I could find (including 3rd party), but I am not sure how magic works in this campaign.

Yes, definitely! Dark Sun is definitely in my top 3 settings of all time and I haven't played it since 2e!

(Hmm... have never tried a template/cleric devotee of a dragonking but could be fun. Still good and basically buys into the propaganda. Or the kineticist class could be a perfect fit for Dark Sun. Erg... too many ideas forming!)

Definitely interested.

I hope this isn't unwelcome but I wanted to share a Pathfinder-Dark Sun conversion that fellow forumer Bodhizen worked on last year. It is a really neat comprehensive approach that endeavors to stay close to the original source material while making the necessary changes to PF rules.

Here is a link to the thread where Bodhizen launched his conversion and sought feedback from some of us old Dark Sun fans.

GM - I'm not sure if you had your own conversion or just planned on winging it, but I wanted to share this with you because I think it is a great adaptation worthy of the campaign setting.

Dotting, thinking about a Pterran barbarian or something.

Dotting

HNNGGGHHH DARK SUN is like one of my favorite things OF ALL TIME I AM IN SO HARRRRRD

So dark sun. Does that mean no clerics and divine characters (except druids from memory)?
How are you going to do defilers?

I'll look at the DOC. Zedth. its looks super cool. give me 48 hours. ill decide.

@Chillbane, this was very tentative. I just really wanted to see the response before I started truly delving into it. if there is overwhelming then ill do set rules.

I love dark Sun!

So I am definitely interested...

Uuuuggghhh, why must you tempt me so! Dark Sun is my favorite campaign setting from yesteryear so I'll be watching this one with tentative interest. It's nice to see some old friends round here as well. Hello chill and Fabian!

I can't guarantee I'll submit something, but I'll gladly give you the bump. This forum could always use a bit more Dark Sun.

Oh yes! Dark Sun is the place to be!

I'm dotting for Human Monk, but I would treat him as a Gladiator, his gladiatorial training would have been in a style that the Monk class would best represent. No armor, quick and brutal armed and unarmed.

Maybe a hunter? I dunno. All I can think of right now for dark sun inspiration is The Beastmaster movie from the 80s.

This is an interesting idea. hmmm...

Half-giant kineticist. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Dotting.... love Dark Sun...

Will we be starting at first level? Given how dangerous Dark Sun is, I can see starting at perhaps 3rd.

Dotting. Never really got the chance to play Dark Sun, but loved the flavor of it.

*side-eyes people asking to play monks*

*side-eyes people asking to play monks*

Actually if you have a little bit of knowledge about the gladiators of Athas, or like me, you played this from the early 90s and own a copy of The Complete Gladiator's Handbook. You might be familiar with the gladiator kit "Gladiatorial Slave", which are gladiators that were simply provided with anything their master wanted them to wield, or possibly 'nothing'.

Playing as a Gladiatorial Slave that had a cruel master, forcing you to become especially proficient with unarmed combat and to rely on speed and wits instead of armor. The best possible class to represent that would be the Monk class. The lack of armor proficiency would be great to represent the bloody fights they wanted to see and the strange assortment of weapons he was forced to use is well represented by the Monk weapon proficiencies. I see my character favoring the talid and puchik when given any choice.

*Turns to pick up boxed set from 1991*

The specific problem I have with this is that even the gladiator's unarmed combat capability is very much a last-ditch element. It is almost always better to fight with a weapon than to fight unarmed, even with the gladiator's ability to fight unarmed with a shift on the unarmed strike charts.

The reason that the monk class breaks this is because the monk continues to gain improvements to unarmored and unarmed combat over levels that make equipment of much less utility. In 2e the gladiator doesn't improve in unarmed combat fighting ability over levels; gaining access to a better weapon is a major part of the character's development. Like other warrior types the character should be struggling to go from using whatever crappy weapon is at hand to gaining access to a reasonable weapon and hopefully someday getting a metal and/or magical weapon. But a monk doesn't have this hurdle. The monk doesn't care about weapons and armor, because those features are baked into the class. The monk doesn't use metal armor and thus doesn't have to make the difficult choice of wearing armor vs. having long-term combat stamina due to heat exhaustion. The monk doesn't need to make choices about which weapons to specialize in because the monk can just flurry with unarmed strikes.

In short, playing a monk is undercutting an essential part of the scarcity mechanisms of the setting.

While we're at it, the gladiatorial slave (GH p. 22) is a sh!t kit that was written by someone who didn't know what the hell they were doing, because it gives you the "advantage" of "You can specialize in two weapons, but you have to spend lots more slots to do it and your double specialization is crappier!" while the base gladiator class (DS Rule Book p. 24) already can specialize in multiple weapons.

ok I read the dark sun players guide and as a whole I liked it, so this is the new rules. nevermind the ones at the top. everyone can look at the players guide under Zedth, I reserve the right to change anything I feel is out of place however. but let see what people can come up with.

1. 20 point buy- the races have a big adjustment.
2. using the players guide that is shown on the link. with the following changes. (some I felt were too powerful so they were nerfed just a little.)
Thri-kreen- you can choose either, poison bite or wild talent-
half gaint you choose ether, toughness or wild talent-
will add lizardmen as ptarrens with the following adjustments- (+2 str +4 con, scent instead of swim, and wild talent.)
3.no 3rd party psionic information (psionic classes), we will be using the Occult. in the guide
4.i will be using corruption from horror adventures with defilers. instead of what is listed in players guide on penalty's
5. you can roll 2 times on the wild talent list and choose.
6. (Thri-kreen brawlers will be limited to only grappling with what you can with two arms, fyi)
7. get three traits two must be out of handbook.
8. get one exotic weapon prof for free to add flavor
9. bonus progression rules.
10. Bone weapons and obsidian weapons have fragile qualities (slashing obsidain weapons +1 dmg trait)
11. 20 ceramic tiles starting (gold) but get two free bone weapons and free light armor. (excluding metal)

Backgrounds must be included.

*Turns to pick up his boxed set from 1991*...etc

I think you're focusing too much on the mechanical elements of this and not the role playing aspect. How the character progresses on a chart or with dice is perhaps not the most important aspect of the character development. The Gladiatorial Slave of 2e was an utterly terrible kit and the advancement of an unarmed gladiator was poor in 2e as well, Pathfinder however has interesting options available. Which is great because unarmed combat to the death would be a horrifyingly brutal spectacle for the arenas.

However, I think you raise an interesting point about undercutting the scarcity mechanism. But some classes are just naturally less affected by it, barbarians, rogues and rangers (assuming archer) aren't overly reliant on getting to roll a D8 over a D6 for weapons and they mostly use leathers.

But if the DM feels I'm progressing faster and farther than the rest in terms of damage and AC I'm totally fine with being scaled back, I just like the role playing aspect of a rebellious gladiatorial slave who kept getting denied weapons and armors by his master to teach him a lesson, only to end up training an unarmed killing machine :D

The mechanisms of DS support the setting. When you build a character that breaks those mechanisms, you make part of the setting irrelevant, which is itself destroying the roleplaying elements.

If you want to play an unarmed combatant in DS, the way it works is:
1. Make a gladiator.
2. Spend all of your character creation resources on your unarmed combat abilities.
3. Die ignominiously.

DS is a setting that is all about scarcity. Water is scarce. Metal is scarce. Shade is scarce. Arcane magical power is scarce. You must carefully husband your resources to survive. Anything that breaks one of these resource scarcity elements in low-level gameplay is changing the setting that you are playing.

Players telegraph what they want to play by making their character design choices, so a player takes Heat Protection to say "I want to worry less about managing water and exhaustion," or takes Armor Optimization to say "I want to be able to rely on armor and shields more even if they're not metal," and these inform the kinds of challenges that the DM creates. A good DM reads those choices and recognizes "Player A wants these challenges but isn't as interested in those..." The setting then gives you the boundary boxes, the range of kinds of challenges that you will have and the kinds of character designs that are appropriate to the game that you're playing. Just like you wouldn't play a Jedi in Dark Sun, you wouldn't play a character who can just use arcane magic without the temptation of defiling, or someone who is just flatly immune to mind-affecting powers right out the gate. You wouldn't play a heavily-armored mounted knight or a tree-hugging forest-dwelling elf. Those are outside the box and they do not fit the tone and themes of the setting.

Playing a monk in Dark Sun is playing a character that not only pushes the boundaries of the setting box, but one that then flatly ignores the mechanical and story-based difficulties of struggling to acquire the kinds of equipment necessary for survival.

If that's the game you want to play then by all means have fun with it, but it's not the game that I checked in to play when someone said "Dark Sun."

ok I read the dark sun players guide and as a whole I liked it, so this is the new rules. nevermind the ones at the top. everyone can look at the players guide under Zedth, I reserve the right to change anything I feel is out of place however. but let see what people can come up with.

1. 20 point buy- the races have a big adjustment.
2. using the players guide that is shown on the link. with the following changes. (some I felt were too powerful so they were nerfed just a little.)
Thri-kreen- you can choose either, poison bite or wild talent-
half gaint you choose ether, toughness or wild talent-
will add lizardmen as ptarrens with the following adjustments- (+2 str +4 con, scent instead of swim, and wild talent.)
3.no 3rd party psionic information (psionic classes), we will be using the Occult. in the guide
4.i will be using corruption from horror adventures with defilers. instead of what is listed in players guide on penalty's
5. you can roll 2 times on the wild talent list and choose.
6. (Thri-kreen brawlers will be limited to only grappling with what you can with two arms, fyi)
7. get three traits two must be out of handbook.
8. get one exotic weapon prof for free to add flavor
9. bonus progression rules.
10. Bone weapons and obsidian weapons have fragile qualities (slashing obsidain weapons +1 dmg trait)
11. 20 ceramic tiles starting (gold) but get two free bone weapons and free light armor. (excluding metal)

Backgrounds must be included.

Should we create builds then or do you want to create an "official" Recruitment thread?

I'll stick with a Mul Psychic as its the closest thing to Psion a pillar of the Dark Sun world.

Besides the fact it's Dark Sun, I'd probably try to put together a concept just so I can get to play with Shadow ;) I'm considering some sort of improvised weapon focused build. Something funny and yet still useful in the setting.

Besides the fact it's Dark Sun, I'd probably try to put together a concept just so I can get to play with Shadow ;) I'm considering some sort of improvised weapon focused build. Something funny and yet still useful in the setting.

Funny like Halfling Vegetarian Rogue ;-)

Alright, I'm totally fine with the new changes.
I think I will make a Pterran Bloodrager with the draconic bloodline.
wild talent: 3d8 ⇒ (7, 6, 8) = 21-Telepathic projection
wild talent: 3d8 ⇒ (5, 7, 2) = 14-Mindlink
Neat.

It seems like there is fairly good interest. so yes I would like to see builds if you want and have fun doing it. (its one of my favorite parts of the game.) I'm not doing official "recruitment" yet. just idle curiosity. (I still have to read all the way through the players guide that was written so far I have enjoyed it. Its pretty extensive)

I'm thinking of a halfling hunter with a crodlu companion.

You said you will run Mummy's Mask; will that be set in or around Tyr?

How will the party come together?

What are your posting expectations? How often do you intend to post?

Are you still making up your mind whether you will GM this or is your mind set?

Sorry for so many questions but character creation, while very enjoyable, takes up a good amount of time (at least it does for me) and I want to make sure that I will be a good fit for the type of game you intend to GM (if selected of course).

Thanks for hosting,

Game on!

It will be based in Tyr, shortly after the assassination of King Kalik, the group will be part of the freed slaves and trying to make their way not beholden to anyone but not sure what to do. (I am thinking about introducing the group as being owned by the same noble that outside of tyr after the assassination of Kalik his caravan heard that they would be free if they went to tyr and turned on him in true Dark sun fashion outside the gate and then just went in. that way Templars of other dragons can be lieutenants that just promised to keep their mouths shut after they saw the wind was blowing. or other diverse backgrounds)because there are so many freed slaves some band together as a adventure group to explore the catacombs beneath the city instead of opening the necropolis. It will roughly follow a combo of Mummys Mask and the war over tyr.

Posting once a week, hopefully during weekend also

still making up my mind. I don't half ass a DM group I need to know I'm all in based upon the group and the interest in the setting (I am hoping to start a renaissance back to dark sun. where when one person starts a group several others also might take up the call if there is enough interest. because its my fav setting.)

Hmmm... I'm considering a Half-Elf, raised by a Thri-Kreen Druid....

Wild Talent: 3d8 ⇒ (5, 5, 4) = 14 - Decrepit Disguise
Wild Talent: 3d8 ⇒ (3, 2, 2) = 7 - Mindlink

Interesting...... Mindlink would actually fit, and make sense for the intended background. :)

Dotting.

Considering a half-elf "actor" (bard/daring infiltrator ... maybe a shadowdancer in the future).

Nibenese most likely, silver tongued, actor/dancer/poisoner. Uses a blowgun and some sort of hidden melee weapin (dagger-ish) ... bummed that the book doesn't have a bard's friend conversion.

Wild Talent: 3d8 ⇒ (8, 6, 3) = 17; paranoia
Wild Talent: 3d8 ⇒ (8, 4, 8) = 20; telekinetic projectile

I think I'm going to do a Mul Mesmerist. What level are we starting off at?

Would a Ninja character be welcome?

3d8 ⇒ (6, 5, 7) = 18 (psychic reading)
3d8 ⇒ (2, 2, 6) = 10 (detect psychic significance)

okay, Mul kineticist

Wild thing: 3d8 ⇒ (6, 4, 3) = 13 Mind Thrust I
You make my heart sing: 3d8 ⇒ (5, 3, 3) = 11 Grave words

Are you using background skills?

Is the automatic bonus progression the half treasure one or the no treasure one?

Will we be able to take the Mummy's Mask Campaign Traits?

Posting once a week, hopefully during weekend also.

You mean posting once a day or once a week?

Posting once a week would be a deal-breaker for me but I understand that pace is something very personal. An enjoyable pace to some is not so much for others.

Being a halfling in Athas means slavery is a big no-no but I will come up with some sort of story to tie my halfling hunter with the rest of the group that goes tomb exploring.

For what it's worth, I GMed a Dark Sun PBP on these boards but closed it down after the game lost momentum after an extended vacation break.

Game on!

For what it's worth, I GMed a Dark Sun PBP on these boards but closed it down after the game lost momentum after an extended vacation break.

Game on!

That's quite a shame! DS is really made for those long-haul campaigns.

Fabian- once a day during the week, weekend optional but encouraged.
Vrog- 1st
stardust- yes
Philo- background skills- no
treasure- the half one.
Arknight- you can as long as it is part of your background. some though just don't work in dark sun.

Rolling for my Wild talent:

3d8 ⇒ (8, 5, 1) = 14 Survey says: mindlink.

I think I'm going to change up my submission a bit and go with a Half-giant. I'm looking at classes now, but leaning towards either a barbarian or a kineticist, to take advantage of the half-giant's racial stats.

I have completed most of the stat block for Verinthal, human ninja, but I hope someone else will post their character idea first, because I'm a little stuck with the character's background, and its always good to get some examples for inspiration.

Here is the short opening.

After a bloody battle several miles outside of Tyr the remnants of the caravan once ran by Togesh Varseli is in shambles, led by slaves after many rumors of what Tyr had to offer caused the slaughter most of the guards. A couple of guardsmen after seeing the way the relentless desert wind was blowing, joined the coup in earnest. A small trail of dust can be seen in the distance as the few merchant survivors that didn't turn escape, to make there way in the relentless desert. leaving their fate to the lost gods rather than trust the sympathy of the slaves. Night is starting to fall as the few remaining slaves and guards start looting from scavenged wagons. a tense silence follows almost as no one wishes to speak about what might happen within the next day or two......

Is it still going to be Mummy's Mask?

Darn. Background skills add so much flavor to the game.