I've started doing my own conversions and I see that your conversions for the race are very similar to my own. It's nice to see that others are on the same page I am.
"Dark Sun for Pathfinder
And Germany
Greyhawk for Poland and France"
Just thought i'd share that.
This needs a dot from me.
Nice :)
Fellow Dark Sun lovers,
I've just posted a full class conversion for the Athasian bard HERE. If you have a chance, please check it out and pass on any suggestions!
Thanks!
And thanks especially to tribeof1, since I'm stealing a bunch of your conversions for my own Dark Sun campaign! =D
I might just run an online Dark Sun pathfinder conversion based off all these ideas.
I would look at the Kasatha and the ogre admissible starting points for thri-kreen and half-giant and Slayer for bard.
A note, I heard paizo is making psionics themselves jow. Might help.
I do miss darksun pc game..
No. They are not. James Jacobs admitted that it's not psionics even though they use creatures that were psionic in the previous edition and that they don't want to do a point based system.
I say stick with Dreamscarred Press' Conversion.
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Chaoticnipple: I went with Cha because that's the default for spell-like abilities and made the most sense to me in terms of force of will vs practiced or reasoned ability. Also, I went with random wild talents because I wanted to emulate the randomness from the original. Balance wasn't my primary concern.
I didn't include the other psionic classes because I wasn't familiar enough with them to be comfortable taking submissions and haven't found a need for them since.
I think Slayers would make prefer bard stand-ins.
I've used clerics for Templars, to, but the inquisitor has worked very well so far. There weren't many Templars using particularly high-level spells in the original fiction, and a high UMD can allow them to use scrolls collected from defilers and elemental priests.
Helzin: I used 5d4. More details are in the recruitment thread for my PbP.
Shivok: That could work. I've used ogre stats for half-giant opponents several times and it worked well.
Hi, I have been working on converting the second boxed set for Dark Sun into Pathfinder, I've noticed several others have as well. Has anyone published anything on this? If not, are there any well working house rules for playing Dark Sun and where can I find them? If not I can write and publish my own book. I figure it wouldn't take much to write it up, I wouldn't sell it for more than the paper its printed on and shipping, however, would anyone be interested in doing any new art work, because I guess, I cannot use the original art work and I haven't drawn in many years and don't really care to. Collaborating with an artist who is willing to submit art work, for no gain, other than to see it in print for many to see, is all I can afford. I am not sure on how to go about setting up a free (paying only for the ink and paper of a book), to play game world, but think it would be fun to explore. Any ideas will be well received, thank you.
I am very interested in Dark Sun. Writing and gaming are my two favorite things, I would like to know if anyone would like to join up and be on a team to set Dark Sun right.
rayenaire71@gmail.com
I just bought the Dark Sun Setting box from Amazon because I saw this post again :)
I've always been a fan of the Dark Sun setting, and seeing a good conversion for Pathfinder is something I'm all for. If I may, I'd like to offer a few recommendations:
Templars: I would advise that you return Inquisitors to spontaneous spellcasting. Please do not forget that Templars had to ask for spells from their sorcerer-kings, not cast something that they'd already prepared to cast.
Races: You may want to re-evaluate the races for balance. As near as I can tell, the values are as follows:
- Ability Scores - Greater Paragon (2 RP) to get +4 Con, -2 Dex and -2 Cha. Add in Advanced Strength and Advanced Wisdom (8 RP) for a total of (10 RP)
- Speed - (-1 RP)
- Hardy - (3 RP)
- Stability - (1 RP)
- Stonecunning - (1 RP)
- Darkvision 60' - (2 RP)
- Hardy - (3 RP)
- Focus - Focused Study (4 RP)
- Wild Talent - We'll treat this like Spell-Like Ability, Lesser for the purposes of cost (2 RP)
- Ability Scores - Standard (0 RP) to get +2 Dex, -2 Con and +2 Int. Add in Advanced Dexterity (4 RP) for a total of (4 RP)
- Speed - Fast (1 RP)
- Skill Bonus - Perception (2 RP)
- Weapon Familiarity - (1 RP)
- Low-light Vision - (1 RP)
- Desert Runner - (2 RP)
- Fleet-Footed - (3 RP)
- Silent Hunter - (2 RP)
- Silver Tongued - (3 RP)
- Wild Talent - We'll treat this like Spell-Like Ability, Lesser for the purposes of cost (2 RP)
- Ability Scores - Flexible (2 RP) to get +2 Dex, to anything else. The restriction that one of the two flexible scores is Dexterity isn't enough to alter the cost. (2 RP)
- Skill Bonus - Perception (2 RP)
- Focused Study (4 RP)
- Low-light Vision - (1 RP)
- Elf Blood - Negligible (0 RP)
- Multitalented - (2 RP)
- Eye for Talent - Skill Bonus (2 RP) plus Advanced Ability (even though it's for animal companion; 4 RP) (6 RP)
- Greater Wild Talent - We'll treat this like Spell-Like Ability, Lesser for the purposes of cost (2 RP), but they get two of them. (4 RP)
- Ability Scores - Greater Paragon (2 RP) to get +4 Str, -2 Dex and -2 Int. Add in Advanced Dexterity (to offset the Dexterity penalty from being Large), but subtract for the Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma (-8 RP) for a total of (-6 RP)
- Size - Large (7 RP)
- Languages - Xenophobic (-1 RP)
- Giant Blood - Negligible (0 RP)
- Low-light Vision - (1 RP)
- Flexible Alignment - This is pretty significant, since you can use it to avoid taking damage from aligned sources, and you can use it to either make spells apply to you or not, depending on your alignment. I'd rate this at a minimum of (4 RP).
- Great Size - Negligible, as it's generally covered by being Large (0 RP)
- Impressionable - Flexible bonus feat (4 RP), plus the ability to change it day-by-day, which I'd rate as (6 RP) (10 RP)
- Wild Talent - We'll treat this like Spell-Like Ability, Lesser for the purposes of cost (2 RP)
That's just the first four races, and you're noticing a big disparity there (and I thought I was being fair with the Impressionable trait for Half-Giants). Just to compare to humans...
- Ability Scores - Flexible (2 RP)
- Languages - Linguist (1 RP)
- Bonus Feat - Flexible Bonus Feat (4 RP)
- Skilled - (4 RP)
- Breadth of Experience - Skill Training (1 RP) and Weapon Familiarity (close enough, considering the two martial weapons or one exotic restriction; 1 RP) (2 RP)
- Greater Wild Talent - We'll treat this like Spell-Like Ability, Lesser for the purposes of cost (2 RP), but they get two of them. (4 RP)
Generally speaking, the races need some appropriate balancing. I'd think that it would be fair to keep all of the races in the 18-20 RP (Advanced) range. Just at a glance, I get the feeling that Thri-Kreen are going to be bananas.
Generally speaking, I love what you're doing, tribeof1, but it does need some cleanup.
Best wishes!
As a follow-up (and since I have more time)...
- Ability Scores - Greater Paragon (2 RP) to get +4 Dex, -2 Str and -2 Cha. Add in Advanced Wisdom (4 RP) for a total of (6 RP)
- Speed - (-1 RP)
- Fearless - (1 RP)
- Keen Senses - +2 Skill Bonus to Perception (2 RP)
- Sure-Footed - +2 Skill Bonuses to Acrobatics and Climb (4 RP)
- Weapon Familiarity - (1 RP)
- Blue Age Magic - Deep Magic (3 RP)
- Nimble Attack - Static Bonus Feat (2 RP)
- Poison Use - (1 RP)
- Swift as Shadows - (3 RP)
- Stalker - Skill Training (1 RP)
- Wild Talent - We'll treat this like Spell-Like Ability, Lesser for the purposes of cost (2 RP)
- Total: 25 RP
- Ability Scores - Standard (0 RP) to get +2 Str, +2 Con and -2 Cha. Add in Advanced Strength (4 RP) for a total of (4 RP)
- Dwarf Blood - Negligible (0 RP)
- Ferocity - (4 RP)
- Resilient - As Plagueborn; it's close enough for what you get (1 RP)
- Tireless - Like a Static Bonus Feat (Endurance; 2 RP), but stackable with it (+1 RP). (3 RP)
- Darkvision 60' - (2 RP)
- Wild Talent - We'll treat this like Spell-Like Ability, Lesser for the purposes of cost (2 RP)
- Total: 16 RP
- Ability Scores - Weakness (-1 RP) to get +2 Str, -2 Int and -4 Cha. Add in Advanced Dexterity (4 RP) for a total of (3 RP)
- Speed - Fast (1 RP)
- Antennae - Static Bonus Feat (2 RP)
- Carapace - Natural Armor (2 RP), Improved Natural Armor x2 (3 RP) (5 RP)
- Darkvision 60' - (2 RP)
- Efficient Physiology - Similar to Constructed, so we'll use that. (2 RP)
- Exotic Frame - I'm going by feel here, by I'd give this... (-2 RP)
- Hatred - (1 RP)
- Intuitive Psionics - I'm going by feel here, as well, so... (1 RP)
- Jumper - (2 RP)
- Multi-Armed - x2 for a total of 4 arms (8 RP)
- Natural Attacks - Claws 1d4 (2 RP for 1d3, increased damage 1 RP; 3 RP total), Bite 1d4 (2 RP), Toxic (1 RP) (6 RP)
- Stalker - Skill Training (1 RP)
- Weapon Familiarity - (1 RP)
- Wild Talent - We'll treat this like Spell-Like Ability, Lesser for the purposes of cost (2 RP)
- Total: 35 RP
Also, Athasian Half-Giants should be 18 RP. The xenophobic language quality doesn't confer a -1 RP adjustment; my error. Dwarves should be 26 RP as well, as the re-roll from their Focus is worth at least 1 RP.
A range of 16 to 35 demonstrates a need for some better balance.
- 16 RP - Mul
- 18 RP - Half-Giant
- 18 RP - Human
- 21 RP - Elf
- 21 RP - Half-Elf
- 25 RP - Halfling
- 26 RP - Dwarf
- 35 RP - Thri-Kreen
Ideally, Thri-Kreens, Muls and Half-Giants should be at the upper end of a balanced spectrum, with Humans and Half-Elves at the low end. As an unsolicited opinion, I would advise re-calibrating your races to between 18 and 25 RP with Humans and Half-Elves around 18, Elves, Dwarves and Halflings around 20 or 21, and Muls, Half-Giants and Thri-Kreen around 25. This would give a base starting point for Athasian games that demonstrates the hardy nature of the game. There would be no need for 5d4 stats at that point to reflect the dangerous world of Athas since your races are effectively all advanced races, and you could use the point-buy system.
Best wishes!
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Bodhizen: Regarding templars, keeping them spontaneous gives them less flexibility. They can't change their spells (ie. ask the sorcerer-king for something different) at all, barring swapping a spell occasionally when leveling up.
As for the race points, everything was about 20 RP (or maybe 25, but equal) when I did my calculations. I didn't keep my notes, but on first blush it looks like you are valuing the wild talents at about half what I did. That accounts for part of the difference.
I also did not use strictly-by-the-book values for ability score increases, because doing so results in really stupid cost variations, as you illustrate. The dwarf's bonuses are effectively the same as the mul's (swapping more Con in place of more Strength), the only difference being that a dwarf has -2 Dex and +2 Wis. That's arguably worse, from an optimization standpoint, but under the Race Guide accounting, the mul's stat line costs 4 RP while the dwarf's cost 10 RP. That's a flaw in the Race Guide system, so I applied some common sense to the costs (reducing the dwarf's to mul levels, IIRC). That's another part of the discrepancy between your values and mine.
With the half-giant, you're only accounting for a +4 Strength, not +6, and refunding more for the negative stat adjustments than I did (a negative stat is not worth the same as a positive). You've also overvalued flexible alignment (aligned spells and weapons are quite rare on Athas) and undervalued great size (needing four times as much water as normal is a potentially fatal drawback on Athas) compared to my calculation.
Thri-kreen were the trickiest, and the least elegant, but are not as out of line as you have them. Exotic Frame effectively prevents them from wearing anything better than light armor (there's no mithral or celestial plate on Athas, and no monk class in my version) and eliminates a couple of magic item slots, so I ranked it considerably more than a -2. Also, you need to re-read my version of "multi-armed" - it is significantly nerfed, until/unless you invest two feats.
In the end, I don't think there's any significant power difference between my thri-kreen and the published kasatha, at 20 RP, beyond quirks in the point system.
So, long story short, I'm not surprised everything doesn't add up under the Race Guide system, because the Race Guide system is pretty unbalanced. I used it as a guide and adjusted as needed to balance races against each other and within the campaign world.
After playtesting these rules in two campaigns (one home, one PbP), I'm more or less satisfied with the balance, especially with humans, half-elves, elves, halflings and dwarves. (Although in hindsight, I would probably go with a standard point-buy. The 5d4 was nostalgic, but just creates uneven and potentially OP characters, creating more work scaling up the opposition).
Half-giants and to a lesser extent muls are open to abuse if a player wants to really min-max a warrior, but that's a problem with any high-strength race (ability scores are not created equal, no matter what the Race Guide says). Half-giants' large size is another boost, although the scarcity of quality, large equipment tends to keep that in check. (Under my equipment rules, a non-magical, MW large steel greatsword costs more than a +3 weapon somewhere else).
Thri-kreens are probably the most easily abused if you wanted to create some kind of melee monster. In my own campaigns, I deal with that through DM fiat - those characters don't get approved. But the thri-kreen problems (multi-attack, natural weapons) are Pathfinder problems - I'm not sure how to make the race reflect its 2E roots without stumbling into a couple of the Pathfinder ruleset's problem areas.
In the end, I lack the motivation to make any further revisions. The rules served my purposes, but I don't intend to run another game using Pathfinder once my current Dark Sun PbP wraps up. Play, maybe, and I expect I'll keep subscribing the the APs and fiction, but I've got no more appetite for the rules-bloat, fiddliness and accumulated imbalance of 3.X as a GM. If these can be of help to other Pathfinder GMs, that's great. But the next Dark Sun house rules I put together and run are going to be for 5E (5E rules plus classic 2E settings seems to be a pretty easy fit, and right in line with my current preferences).
Wowza. We've been doing a homebrew Dark Sun sandbox (heh!) game since September. We've only been able to get in a game a month due to schedules, and the DM has not seen any of these resources yet, he's just a huge 2ndEd Athas fan and is winging the conversion with a lot of DM fiat.
I play a Rogue and Druid brother/sister team, we also have a Magus, a 3rd party variation on the Summoner (that the DM wanted some one to try out), and a Barbarian.
We've had a blast.
If anyone DMing a game and if I can skype in (live in Florida) let me know.
I'm doing a conversion of Hells Rebels to represent taking down a Sorcerer King and dealing with the aftermath - an alternative Freedom campaign if you like but with the PCs as the heroes. The basics are in a Thread in the Hells Rebels section of the boards if you are interested.
My take on preservers/defilers is to scrap sorcerer and wizard and use Arcanist instead. They both take the terrain penalty or bonus to CL and DC detailed in the athas.org conversion (-2 to +2 depending on the abundance of plant life)
Preservers can ignore the penalty by spending a point from their reservoir
Defilers destroy the ground by get +1 to DC and CL. They can use a point from reservoir to increase to +2 and the potent magic exploit to increase to +3. Each additional +1 increases the defiling radius by 5ft.
I thought this was quite a simple mechanic that would also offer enough temptation to defile while still allowing for things like painful raze to be added as arcane exploits.
Also not sure what you guys think but the brawler seems like the perfect gladiator - particularly if you treat the gladiatorial weapons from athas.org as monk weapons.
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Wow - thanks everyone. Dark Sun has always been my favorite campaign setting, and I am enjoying reading everyone's ideas about how to update it to Pathfinder. I thought about using the old 2E psionic rules and giving everyone the option of adding psionic powers to their class (just the powers and psp). If a character chooses this option they progress on the slow advancement track. Otherwise they use medium level progression. I originally thought that defilers would decrease their advancement track by one level, but I really like the spontaneous metamagic!
dot.