I have a decent, but not really good amount of info on Dark Sun*. If I use it I will follow the core setting, and there is a 99% I will not have clerics or paladin. I have not decided on oracles yet.
I know about defilers, scarcity of water, Thri-kreen, psionics, dragon kings, and a the races that are setting specific.
Now to the question. Which AP(3.5 and Pathfinder) would work there? I understand that I have to modify locations, and maybe even create a few of my own, but I want the general story idea to be in tact.
*I know about the 3.5 site and I have the documents. I just have not read them in detail yet.
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I've pondered this myself because I love Dark Sun. The urban APs would work somewhat - Curse of the Crimson Throne and Council of Thieves seem like they may be decent candidates. You'd just have to rework the city to one form the setting.
My group was thinking about using oracles but restricting them to the elemental mysteries to retain the elemental priest flavor.
I'm interested to see what others have to say on this topic.
Rise of the Runelords seems almost tailor-made for Dark Sun, thematically. Curse of the Crimson Throne, as noted, also works pretty well from a thematic standpoint.
Legacy of Fire, perhaps?
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Legacy of Fire, perhaps?
You'd think that, LoF being desert oriented, but:
I'm pretty sure gnolls are extinct on Athas.
Also genies are not much of a thing there either. Athas has an ...odd relationship with planar things.
It would require a pretty big rewrite.
Mummy's Mask may work better as a desert AP, but you'd have to strip out a lot of the Egyptian flavor I'd think.
I wonder if you could convert Skull&Shackles to use the Silt Sea?
Dreamscarred Press put out an AP
Wait, they did? Name?
Legacy of Fire, perhaps?You'd think that, LoF being desert oriented, but:
I'm pretty sure gnolls are extinct on Athas.
Also genies are not much of a thing there either. Athas has an ...odd relationship with planar things.It would require a pretty big rewrite.
Mummy's Mask may work better as a desert AP, but you'd have to strip out a lot of the Egyptian flavor I'd think.
I wonder if you could convert Skull&Shackles to use the Silt Sea?
I forgot about that planar issue. It might make summoning and calling spells a problem, and I tend to like outsiders as a GM. I will learn more as I keep reading. If it is a problem I have to decide to change things or run as is.
I will check on the gnoll thing also. I rewrote them slightly so it will be nice to try them out.
Have you got the 3.5 fan made conversion from athas.org ? If not definately check it out.
How about converting the 2E adventures ?
Have you got the 3.5 fan made conversion from athas.org ? If not definately check it out.
How about converting the 2E adventures ?
The 3.5 site is the one I am using.
I don't have any 2nd edition adventures for it. What are some good ones?
definately curse of the chrimson throne... youve got a city on the edge, a dragon-king doing a ritual, gray templars..... and seeking some aid from desert barbarians :p
Hell, with Nibenay, even the gender of the templars would be right.
Or perhaps better with Draj, and those templars seeking to raise a dragon-king from their moon-oracle or whatnot puppet ruler
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There were some very good 2nd edition DS adventures. My current campaign is starting with Arcane Shadows where the PCs have to help an avangion.
DS had its own AP, Dragon's Crown (300 pages of material + maps)
This link is a comprehensive guide with links to descriptions.
Enjoy!
Have you got the 3.5 fan made conversion from athas.org ? If not definately check it out.
How about converting the 2E adventures ?
The 3.5 site is the one I am using.
I don't have any 2nd edition adventures for it. What are some good ones?
I own all the old 2e dark Sun stuff, it's been a while since i peeled them open, but if you like i can give them a refresher look and maybe offer a few suggestions. The 2e stuff did do a nice job of establishing flavor pretty well overall.
I recall...Dragon's Crown was more a MegaModule wasn't it? Similar to the stuff like the desert of desolation/queen of the spiders/pool of radiance etcetera?
City by the Silt Sea was a nice regional sourcebook as well.
RE: Legacy of Fire and Gnolls. Could easily swap an iconic monster instead. ThriKreen? Gith? (i'd probably use Gith actually)
CotCT would be fine using one o fthe now dragon-king less states. I favor Draj actually.
Skull and Shackles could swap into Dune Sea and islands there.
Serpent's Skull could be the northern halfling jungle area.
Kingmaker could be rewritten for the setting as well.
Reign of Winter and Jade Regent feel flat out inappropriate.
In the old 2E, Dark Sun had two sets of "adventure paths". The first was the Freedom adventure followed by Road to Urik, then Arcane Shadows, then Asticlian Gambit, and finished with Dragon Crown. It was a great adventure path as the adventures were all connected.
The second set of adventures were not connected but could be strung together as they were of abridging levels. Started with Black Flames, then Merchant House of Amketch, then Marauders of Nibenay, and finished with Black Spine (probably the only plane spanning adventure for DS).
You can find some conversions for the adventures.
Additionally, athas.org has some adventures that would finish off with a great three part adventure called Dregoth Ascending (similar to the previous Dragon Crown and Black Spine adventures).
As far as pathfinder adventure paths, I don't think you could set them in the Tyr Region without a lot of overhall. In the old Crown of Fire source book, there is a continent to the east of the Crown of fire that seemed to have some forest. Might work for Serpent's Skull.
Thanks for the adventure recap, that did a fine memory jog.
My Kingmaker reskin would use Elemental Spirits instead of Fey as the metaplot. N could of course be Water-Tied.
Have you got the 3.5 fan made conversion from athas.org ? If not definately check it out.
How about converting the 2E adventures ?
The 3.5 site is the one I am using.
I don't have any 2nd edition adventures for it. What are some good ones?
I own all the old 2e dark Sun stuff, it's been a while since i peeled them open, but if you like i can give them a refresher look and maybe offer a few suggestions. The 2e stuff did do a nice job of establishing flavor pretty well overall.
I recall...Dragon's Crown was more a MegaModule wasn't it? Similar to the stuff like the desert of desolation/queen of the spiders/pool of radiance etcetera?
City by the Silt Sea was a nice regional sourcebook as well.
Suggestions would be nice. :)
Suggestions would be nice. :)
Greynore summed up the 2E adventures by name up just above.
Dragon's Crown had a 5 adventure series that springboarded from one to another like an AP does, while the second series was more loose and was more of a level X to Y in part one, which sets up great to start module 2 with less of an arching connection.Dragon's Crown would be worth snagging digital versions of for resources.
I ran a 3 year Dark Sun game back in 2E, and while i did pull stuff from adventures, it's was mostly homebrew for actual overall adventures.
Also: Just checked, no Champion of Rajaat was a Slayer of Gnolls. They weren't really used in the setting previously though. (not that that matters!)
Rathendar is correct that there was never a gnoll bane; however, Irikos, the weilder of the Silencer of Bodach, was said to have taken care of errant tasks for Rajaat. Could gnolls be in that list? Don't know.
In looking at the expanded Campaign Setting p. 89 (list of suitable monsters from Monstrous Manual 2e), gnolls are not on the list. I think that the gith would be the appropriate substitute in the Tyr Region (gith seem to take the place of orcs, goblins, gnolls, and other general humanoid enemies).
Outside the Tyr region, who knows what still exists. The Crimson Savannah could have a small section of gnolls that war with the kreen.
I might allow orcs just so I can have have-orcs or use the half-orc stats but give them a new name.
I believe Mummy´s Mask could actually be a real good fit with some work.
Replace Hakotep with a dead Dragon King. Exchange all locations and some flavor, was well as names. Find a city that has a dead Dragon King.
Exchange unfitting monsters. Perhaps apply some psionics and Athas conditions for sure!
I might just do that sometime^^
One thing I wont be doing is using the powered up faces in Dark Sun. I will use the Pathfinder versions, and for the races PF does not have I will make conversions. To make DS's difficulty a little easier to deal with I will likely run with 25 point buy.
For the LA +1 and +2 races I will decide what to do about them later on.
In the other thread you will find many listings of already converted races. There are quite some opinions on that and it seems everybody has it´s own.
I for example had the funny idea of adding Kitsune as Fennec people.
They either secretly live among humans without ever showing their real form or in the desert, a bit adapted to the desert, what can be done with with some racial traits. They can be hunted by elves or Thri-Kreen, who have legends about nine-tailed fox furs.
I am going to visit that thread again later on.
I basically "borrowed" from the archaeologist bard, and the dark sun bard that is on a wiki, and changed a few things. Ignore all references to the archaeologist bard for now, and also not that this bard does not get access to bard spells.
Archaeologist (Archetype) Dark Sun Bard variant.
Dark Sun Bards do not cast spells.
<flavor to be filled in later>
Bardic Performance: Dark Sun Bards do not gain the bardic performance ability or any of its performance types.
Bard's Luck (Ex): Fortune favors the archaeologist. As a swift action, an archaeologist can call on fortune's favor, giving him a +1 luck bonus on attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and weapon damage rolls. He can use this ability for a number of rounds per day equal to 4 + his Charisma modifier. At each level after 1st, she can call on fortune's for 2 additional rounds. Temporary increases to Charisma, such as those gained from eagle's splendor, do not increase the total number of rounds that a bard can use this ability per day. At 7th level a bard an activate this ability as a free action.
Maintaining this bonus is a free action, but it ends immediately if the archaeologist is killed, paralyzed, stunned, knocked unconscious, or otherwise prevented from taking a free action to maintain it each round. Bard's luck is treated as bardic performance for the purposes of feats, abilities, effects, and the like that affect bardic performance. Like bardic performance, it cannot be maintained at the same time as other performance abilities. This bonus increases to +2 at 5th level, +3 at 11th level, and +4 at 17th level.
In addition when the bard is using Archaeologist's Luck he does additional damage equal to 1/2 his bard level. This damage is precision damage.
Poison Use: Bards are trained in the use of poisons, and at 1st level, never risk accidentally poisoning themselves when applying poison to a blade.
Clever Trickster (Ex): At 2nd level, an archaeologist gains a bonus equal to half his class level on Sense Motive and Bluff checks.
Deadly Attack: When the bard is using Archaeologist's Luck he does additional damage equal to 1/2 his bard level. This damage is precision damage.
Uncanny Dodge (Ex): At 2nd level, an archaeologist gains uncanny dodge, as the rogue class feature of the same name.
Quickdraw: Bards learn to strike quickly and without warning. At 3rd level, you gain Quickdraw as a bonus feat.
Trap Sense (Ex): At 3rd level, an archaeologist gains trap sense +1, as the rogue class feature of the same name. This bonus improves by +1 for every three levels gained after 3rd, to a maximum of +6 at 18th level.
Rogue Talents: At 3rd level, an archaeologist gains a rogue talent. He gains an additional rogue talent for every three levels of archaeologist gained after 3rd level. Otherwise, this works as the rogue's rogue talent ability. In addition he may also choose a trade secret in place of a rogue, which are listed below. At level 12 he gains access to advanced rogue talents.
Trade Secrets:
Alchemy Dealer: Pay one‐half of the market price for raw materials needed to craft alchemical items.
Accurate: For a number of rounds equal to your bard level you may reroll vs concealment as if you had the blind-fight feat. This ability is activated as a swift action, and is used in one round increments.
Agile: You receive a +1 dodge bonus to AC for every 4 levels you have.
Coolheaded: You may take 10 on Bluff and Diplomacy checks.
Poison Dealer: Pay one‐half of the market price for raw materials needed to craft poisons.
Poison Resistance: You receive a +4 bonus to saving throws against poisons.
Scorpion’s Touch: Add +1 to the save DC of all poisons applied by you. This trade secret may be chosen more than once, and its effects stack.
Skilled: Add one‐half your bard level (rounded down) as a competence bonus to one of the following skills: Acrobatics, Appraise, Craft, Diplomacy, Heal, Perception, Profession, or Sleight of Hand. This trade secret may be chosen more than once, each time it applies to a different skill.
Smokestick Application: You can combine inhaled poisons with smokesticks. All creatures within the area the smokestick covers (10‐ft. cube) are affected by the poison you applied to the smokestick. This requires one hour, and it has a craft DC of 15, but there is no cost associated with it.
Versatile: Select any two non‐class skills. These are now considered class skills for you.
Quick Thinking: Bards often find themselves in a tight spot where they have to act quickly, whether it is to escape a templar patrol or strike first when in confrontation with a foe. At 5th level, you get a +2 bonus on initiative checks. This bonus increases by 2 at 11th and 17th level.
Evasion (Ex): At 6th level, an archaeologist gains evasion, as the rogue ability of the same name.
Chance: Bards live on the edge in many ways. At 7th level you may reroll one single d20 roll once per day. The higher roll is kept.
Improved Poison Use (Ex): At 8th level, you can apply poison to a weapon as a free action without provoking attacks of opportunity. Also if using a melee weapon the weapon will be coated with poison until you make a second successful attack.
Awareness (Ex): At 17th level, you are never caught flat‐footed and always act in the surprise round.
Mind Blank (Ex): At 18th level your mind becomes completely sealed against involuntary intrusion as per the mindblank spell. This spell‐like ability is always considered active.
Hidden Secrets
You gain new a new rogue talent or trade secret
Prerequisite: Rogue Talent class feature or Trade Secret Class feature
Benefit: You gain one additional rogue talent or trade secret if you possess the class feature. You must meet all of the prerequisites for whatever ability you choose.
Even though I called out bard levels in some of the abilities all levels refer to bard levels unless I call out "character levels".
For those of you wondering about DPR I had similar numbers to an investigator without mutagens.
I know there are errors. I will fix them on the next go around, but I am sure I missed some so feel free to call out anything that is rule breaking or anything that you think might be too good or not good enough. I am aware that not all of the trade secrets are even.