Sorry if this as been discussed already.
Since Athas.org seem to be enthousiast about the DS 4 ed conversion, does this mean that unfinished 3.5 project are now on hold… or even dead?
This could be bad news for those who dont intend to go 4th ed.
Jihun-

does this mean that unfinished 3.5 project are now on hold… or even dead?

Same here.
But the fact that the Third Edition section of the forum exists is promising.

I’d really encourage athas.org to ‘finish the job’ and get DS3.5 done. I’m happy to volunteer time outside of semester (doing my Juris Doctor over the next two years) for proof-reading, indeed anything except hard-core number crunching. I’m one gamer who ain’t moving to 4.0 anytime soon, and i’m sure there are others!

We are working to finish 3.5. There has been only a few of us working on it, however. Have patience.

You guys want any help from the masses?

Thank you Christopher for the reply and the good news :)
Jihun-

If there are more playtester volunteers, then send me an e-mail with a brief introduction and what you can contribute with. jon [at] athas.org

Well I know we over at LPJ Design would love for any Dark Sun fans to help us with our Ravenloft/Dark Sun mash-up, Obsidian Twilight. Feel free to read more about it at our blog: http://lpjd.blogspot.com/search/label/Obsidian%... ot at our website: www.lpjdesign.com. If you like what you have read, contact me directly at LMPjr007 (at) aol (cot) com to help out. Thanks!

3.5 edition lives!
Or rather, it is undead! ... raised in lich form as Pathfinder RPG by the dark wizards over at Paizo.
Check it out, it’s a free download. We have a small group playing it, and I’m going to try running an athas.org Darksun campaign on top of the Pathfinder core rules.
So far it seems to be an incremental improvement over 3.5, simplifying some of the complicated parts, balancing out some overpowered classes, increasing survivability at low levels, but more importantly remaining backwards compatible with all your old 3.5 books.
In light of the huge amount of work that would be involved in converting the Darksun campaign to 4th edition (more than 2 -> 3.5), lack of support among players for 4th ed., and lack of support from WoTC, I recommend that athas.org aim for compatibility with Pathfider for future releases.

Pathfinder isn’t to bad and is probably beter than 3.5. Personally I’ve more or less given up on edition wars and probablt D&D in general. Burnt out on 3.5, 4th ed to boring. Star Wars Saga here I come.

4th edition is a miniture game… only good for short periods.
3.5 is expansive with flair and much diversity.

I’m not going to bash 4th Ed. I promise. Suffice it to say that if I want to play a tabletop wargame, I’ve got a basement filled with Games Workshop goodies.
Here’s why I love 3.5:
Flexibility.






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What? Do you really need anything more? With 3.5, as a player I can tell any possible story I want my character to go through. As a GM, the open ended rules allow me to build NPCs that are believable because you can look at their abilities and say, “Hey… that’s not bad. If I wanted to be able to do that I’d need to focus on X and Y.” I loathe storylines that have an evil wizard capable of X because that’s the only way you can explain the vast numbers of creatures at his disposal and when your character wants to do the same thing you get a, “You can’t… the wizard had a unique power…”
Bull-ogna! If one person can accomplish X, then with enough time anyone with the right motivation should be able to mimic it. Thank you 3.5 edition.
Also, I love 3.5 because I can play DS. Thanks to you true ‘preservers’ at Burnt World of Athas… keep my precious safe from those Defilers of the Coast (yes, that’s a play one words).
-Jason

I really liked 3.5 but the power level was out at higher leves with Druids, Clerics, Wizards, Sorcerers and Psions (in that order) being vastly better than most of the other classes. Also designing high level adventures or encounters was a real drag. While I’m not a big fan of 4th ed 3.5 needs alot of houserules and bannings to make it work.

Zardnaar,
I’ve been exploring Dungeons and slaying Dragons since I got my hands on Chainmail (Mr.Gygax’s predesessor to D&D) and it has always been my opinion that combat types have the advantage in low levels, stealth types are decent at all levels and magic users have the advantage at high levels. Why else would someone volunteer to play the weakling, unable to pull his own weight, barely useful caster? At least clerics are halfway decent at combat and come in hand when the battle is over.
As it relates to Dark Sun, what exactly would you like houseruled or banned? I can barely imagine Epic Level Dark Sun games, but I do like to have rules for the Epic level NPCs in the game.

I don’t mind certain classes being slightly better at certain levels. Its where some classes have overwhelming difference in power levels. A high level Druid wildshaped into something that flies with Natural sepll or wild shaping into a dire animal, buffing himself up and outclassing the fighter at fighting. Same thing with Clerics. A fighter feat fives you +1 to hit while a cleric can cast divine power gain +3 to hit, damage, +1 hbit point per level, and fighter BAB. Even wizards polymorphed or shapechanged into various critter can fight better than a Fighter or barbarian and then theres spells like Mordenkainens Disjunction, Gate, Timestop, etc etc. Even spell DCs scaling faster than PCs saving throws and spekls can increase the spell DC (foxes cunning) or someething like enervate to lower saves. Having the PCs Barbarian dominated for example can often turn into a TPK or at least kill the nearest PC he is standing against. Also stacking various spell effect or using various ways to chain spells togather (Divine Favor+Divine Power+Righteous Might) and often make thjose spells persistent or permanent.
Epic play in 3.5 just doesn’t really work and isn’t alot of fun to play and is even less fun to DM. Imagine trying to design a Sorcerer King using Athas.orgs rules. Odds are it will take you as a DM several hours to design that 1 BBEG. Athas.org used the epic rules to do it so they were kinda forced to do it that way because thats the way the epic rules work (or don’t work as the case may be).

Essentially spells>class abilities. Alot better. Open lock vs knock spell.

Essentially spells>class abilities. Alot better. Open lock vs knock spell.

You’re missing the point, though. Simply replace ‘spells’ with ‘powers’ and it holds true for DS just as easily. Better, even, because, a psion or ardent can be far more judicious about exactly when he spends each morsel of energy available to him, and thus should almost never run out.

Mid to hi level spellcasters and Psions almost never run out of spells espicially if they have a few scrolls, wands and the like. A 5th level wizard for example can cast a Fireball but he is probably better off casting a haste spell on the rest of the party and sit back and conserve his spells while that haste spell almost doubles the parties offensive power. We had one wizard once who got nicknamed Xerox because as soon as he hit 5th level he spent a little bit of xp and gold and scribed X10 scrolls of haste (this was 3.0 haste).
Or at higher level said wizard casts a timestop, force cage and acid fog spell. Or casts timestop and a combination of spells including multiple timestops to wipe the PCs out in 1 round. Multiple metamagic delayed blast fireballs can do it easy enough. In D&D at higher level the game turns into an initiative roll alot and if the PCs come acroos an enemy spellcaster and lose initiative the whole party can be wiped out. 3.0 Harm was a good example of this. Hit a PC with harm and follow through with a quickened cause light wounds=dead PC.
Thats not counting polymorph abuse. Shapechange into a Balor. Creae a vorpal sword, create another vorpal sword, create another vorpal sword, create another vorpal sword…..........
Or cast some protective spells, take a holiday to the negative energy plane or elemental plane of water and then gate in one of your enemies- with no saving throw.
Or cast half a dozen buff spells on the party cast scry and then teleport without error.
Or do a dungeon crawl or looking for a lost city and cast Find the Path.
Take the one ring to mount doom and throw it in. In D&D just cast teleport and throw it in..
Split ray sudden empowered enervate on a PC spellcaster.Usually good for 6+levels lost and knocks out the highest six spells known and gives them -6 on all saves and skill checks.
Wall of Iron+fabricate
Cast Mordenkainens Disjunction near an epic level fighter. Lose several million gp worth of equipment.
Turn into a dire animal and cast a maximised awaken on yourself.
Tank around as a cleric with persistent Divine Favor and Divine Power on yourself 24/7.
Have Bards give +8 to hit and damage by level 8. Combine with power attack, watch DM cry.
Frenzied Berzerker PrC.
Hulking Hurler PrC
Incantrix PrC
Theres a few abuses for you to ponder and most of them aren’t that hard to do and alot are just in the core rules.

I’ve seen a similar list of ‘broken’ combos or ‘abuses’ for 3.5, this is nothing new. I do have a few remarks, as I’ve been actively running 3.5 since it came out and have often done so with a group of the most ‘munchkin’ abusive rules lawyers out there, and my experiences paint a different picture.
First off, taking into account average CRs and the amount of encounters on average that PCs must confront without resting I’ve found mid to high level casters almost always exhausted of spells. The higher level you get, the more this holds true… it’s a combination of the ineffective low level spells and the much tougher baddies.
As for the deadly combos, these mostly fit into two categories: overpowering spell combos (which take a ton of power, and when used on a challenging encounter should be offset by similar defensive magic) & things a DM should say ‘No’ to (a very effective technique… and the focus of my original reply) like a Goliath (races of stone) with the Monkey Grip feat and a

What should keep uber high level casters (Sorcerer Monarchs) away from blasting every intangible threat to their city with massive magics? Aside from the cost in plant life, which even these dragons conserve, is a quote I read from Eliminster of Toril (p.84 of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting).

You guys all seem to forget (or at least forget to mention) “If the PC’s can build some overpowering combo, so can the NPC’s” Plus even if the players build that one super move, there is always some way to counter it or exploit a weakness. Learn to attack from the side, out think the PC’s – you don’t always have to overpower them.


In my experiences PC’s of nearly any level tend to come in one of two flavors – Specialized or Swiss-army-knife.

Specialized characters nearly always some major flaw with their concept (Melee killing machine with a reach weapon – That’s nice, what’s your will save again? 5 you say, OK then first we’ll start by having you kill your Cleric).
Swiss-Army Knife characters on the other hand seem to always have every weakness covered, but virtually are never fully invulnerable in any given area.


If all else fails, anti-magic is your friend – there is nothing player’s fear and hate more then having their mid to high level characters laid low by a group of well equipped kobold engineers.

Phoenix the problem with that is that while NPCs can do it this just makes the problems at higher level worse and combat turns into an initiative roll to see who can cast timestop first or whatever. I’m probably one of the few DMs who ran an epic game and we played from level 20-23 and level 30. its not just the power level thats a problem. If anyone has Dungeon magazine they had a level 20 adventure and the BBEG had a 2 page stat block or something crazy. Try statting out an epic wizard or rogue and see how long it takes. You spend more time doig paperwork than playing the game.
rpgagmjay- theres to many to list but heres a few suggestions.
Crazy Broken Stuff
Polymorph-Shapechange spells including alter self.
Any spells or ability that grants multiple actions (timestop, Temporal acceleration, some spells in the PHB2).
Effects that reduce or negate metamagic level increases (Incantrix PrC, Arcane Thesis feat (PHB2), sudden feats (Complete Arcane)
Individual spells that are to powerful as written. Gate, Mordenkainens Disjunction. Find the Path,
Druid Class
Overpowered stuff.
Spells that replicate class abilities to easily (Knock, Find Traps, Divine Power)
Some divinations
Alot of Teleport spells
Fly
Some save or die/save or suck spells (spell DCs scale alot faster than saves)
Annoying spells (gameplay grinds to a halt)
Evards Black Tentacles
Summon spells
Thats probably not a bad place to start.

i want dark sun 3.5 to continue to have a future.
i’m interested in helping. sent you an email, jon, as you requested.

Well, now that WoTC has announced that they will use 2010 as the year for re-releasing many DS materials, I’m sure that we’ll see a growth in the fan base. This can be a good thing. More minds with new ideas will certainly increase the material that is out there. For those of us that prefer v3.5, we will most likely have to convert everything from 4ed, but conversion has become almost second nature to many of us.
I am excited that DarkSun has shown its face again, and weary. Because for many of the newer, younger players, they now have the oppotunity to explore the world of Athas, but for most of us who have been there for the past twenty or so years already, we’ve put our time and energy and effort into keeping the idea of DarkSun alive. Of course there will be changes, some that we will not be happy with; don’t use it if it doesn’t fit your style, but do take all the other new material and shape in into an even better Athas. Who knows what will come out of WoTC finally listening to its users.

Jon,
You still looking for volunteers to playtest this? I plan on using all of your books in an upcoming campaign, and have found typos with most of the books, but nothing that is a huge surprise, and has probably been brought up before. I will send an email.

Also, while the flavor of the gladiator is interesting, it isn’t very functional. Why not have a multi-path fighter much like the ranger flavor, but more based around showmanship and innovation? I’ll post what I come up with.

Fezzik,

The DS 3.5 rule set is essentially finalized, we are focusing on getting other projects done. Thanks for volunteering, though!

I’m currently running a darksun 3.5 campaign on top of pathfinder and beta-testing the dreamscarred press psionics-for-pathfinder stuff as we speak.

…Will there be any plans to make a Pathfinder version of Dark Sun? I’d love to see a proper conversion of the Bard, Gladiator, and Cleric spells.

I also really hope that we’ll see some new DS 3.5 project.

Sometimes I wish that WOTC never announced DS for the 4th edition: it “blocked” all the interesting projects like Secrets of the Dead Lands, City State of Balic, etc.

And looking at the AWFUL conversion of Forgotten Realms for the new edition, I’m really afraid that we can’t have many hopes :(

I just hope that, if DS 4th will sucks, we all reacts with a “screw that: let’s stick with DS 3.5 and finish all our projects!”

Hi american gamers :) I’m italian, excuse the mistakes I could do ;)

I casually found this wonderful site, and I wanted to know if you guys are still in need of playtesting!
Me and some of my friends would like to start a campaign of DS (I hope we can start it soon!).

I would like to help your amazing job, sending you some suggestions! Thank tou guys, you’ve done something really awesome!