http://critical-hits.com/2010/01/29/dd-xp-2010-…

A first look at the new character sheets for 4e Dark Sun.

Booo. They’re too lazy to make an actual templar, or an actual Half-giant? Wizards is making me despise them more and more every day.
Also, if the dagger does 1d4-1 damage when swung, why does it do 1d4 when thrown?
And, what happened to wild talents?
Does someone need to go and personally smack the lead designer of D&D fourth edition?

Oh, and nowhere does it talk about defiling/preserving. Like… at all. It’s quite disappointing and (I dare say) lazy on Wizards’ end.

The warlock actually has a defiling at-will power.
Arcane Defiling Arcane Feature

Trigger: You make an attack roll or a damage roll as part of an arcane daily attack power

Effect: You can reroll the triggering roll and you must use the second result, but each ally within 20 squares of you takes damage equal to half his or her healing surge value. This damage cannot be reduced.

Special: You can use this power to reroll each attack roll or damage roll only once.

In response to the dagger. Its because dagger’s used in melee add strength bonus to the damage (-1) while daggers thrown do not.

Wait, but wouldn’t throwing the dagger still use your strength? O.o
And yeah, but they were using the warlock as a “templar”; Last I checked they used divine spells. And what’s odd is that it only specifies allies, which makes no real sense.
And (not trying to be picky, but it really bugs me), defiling should only really harm plants, not living beings unless the warlock is a dragon.

I don’t wanna start an edition war, I’m just saying that they changed up Dark Sun a lot, as if they were understaffed, and the staff didn’t have much experience with Dark Sun at all.

From what i’ve read any arcane class has the option to defile. Which means the illusionist shoudl have that option too its just not written down. And (i’m not disagreeing with you just to disagree) I think that the damaging humans provides a nice balance to the power. It gives it a little bit of an edge and also makes a solo defiler more likely. I do wish you could use defiling on any ability not just daily powers. It’d make the temptation greater.

In terms of not having a templar class. I’m a bit torn. On the one hand i’d love to have a shiny new templar class. On the other hand using a templar theme that can be applied to many classes really increases the versatilty of people that have ambitions of rising through the ranks of the sorceror kings without limiting their choice of play style.

Just keep in mind the people that are making the decisions on dark sun are juggling alot of constraints. And they would absolutely make you happy if they could. Unfortunately balance, keeping lore intact, and making the game appealing to new players is a difficult task. The new setting definately isnt going to meet all my expectations, but if i can get a character on the sands of athas i’ll be able to make myself happy.

I’ve played the Dark Sun 4e Encounters and something is terribly wrong my friends!
There’s a Tiefling! And we fought goblins!
What the hell are they doing to Dark Sun? D:
Oh, and for some reason I don’t have the defiling thingy, my character’s a sorcerer. (You’re only allowed Pre-gens)

there are no Goblins in the Free games Day Module it is all “Dark Sun” (well none of it Rips my heart out while it is still beating… )

there is also a an adventure being run by podcast for dark sun on the Wizards website.. amusing (although i have not listened to all of it yet)

There were goblins in Encounters. It was a mistake on the writer’s behalf. I simply called them “sunwarped humanoids” in my game. Yes, there are Tieflings (and Eladrin). 4e races have been put into the setting much in the same way default 2e races had to be written in. They actually reinforce the themes of Dark Sun (especially the twist on Eladrin as primal guardians of the vanishing Feywild) and are easily ignored in anyone’s home game.

Barcan (the sorcerer) has Arcane Defiling attached to his Daily, I believe. You can take paths and feats to improve Defiling. Wild Talents made it into the final product.