I know that it was released a little while ago, but I just wanted to say how continually impressed I am with the “Athasian Emporium”. I’m prepping a new arc of Dark Sun adventures for my Tuesday group and have been reading the Emporium on a daily basis for the last week or so, putting together equipment lists, background and so on. I read through it on release, but never with as much attention as now, and I’m continually amazed at the level of detail, flavour and passion that has gone into this release. I’ve seen many products come out of athas.org, many from conception to final release, and all have been of great quality. But I’m not exaggerating when I say that I think that the Emporium is, hands down, the best of the bunch – athas.org’s finest product. So here’s a massive congratulations and thanks to the designers Yanick and Alexis, the developers Daniel and Bruno, and everyone else who lent a hand with this magnificent gem. Every Athasian gamer should drink deeply of the wonders contained within :-)

It’s been a while since you wrote that post Kamelion, but I have just seen it and I thank you very much for your good words and I’ m really happy that you appreciate to such a degree the work put into this project by me and all the contributors.
If you ever have playtest comments about anything found in the AE, please feel free to send them our ways.
Thanks again,
- Yanick

Thanks as well, Mark :)
I’ll be converting any AE items to 4e if they end up in my 4e DS adventure I’m making. Check it out when I finish it. (Mark, you receive a dispensation on that one, Mr Pathfinder! ;) )

OK – now I’ve dished out the warm and fuzzies, I did want to raise a question that has been nagging at me – namely, the issue of some of the new armours presented in the Emporium…
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Firstly, Medium Tyr Armour. It is staggeringly expensive (being made from metal) and yet is inferior to a simple breastplate, having the same stats except for a worse Arcane Spell Failure chance. It also takes as much time to don as a breastplate. I’m having trouble seeing why anyone would pay such a huge sum when they can get the same benefit for 200 cp.
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Secondly, the Chitin Warsuit. It is inferior to chain mail (shell armour), having a lower Dex bonus, and yet is more expensive. It also takes as much time to don as chainmail. Again, I’m just not seeing why anyone would ever buy it instead of chainmail/shell armour.
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(It compares better with the breastplate, having a worse Dex bonus and Arcane Spell Failure, but is also cheaper than the breastplate – although, this is odd as it is a heavy armour suit that provides less protection than a breastplate.)
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I wanted to ask you guys about this, and why you chose to give these two armour types – the Medium Tyr Armour and the Chitin Warsuit – these characteristics? Thanks!

The short answer is, they use different rules.
While the DS3 Rulebook says that the armor just use different materials, but have the same stats, the armors in AE use metal parts for their armors, thus making the armor more expensive.
The problem with “same stats different material” rule is that if you bring metal armor into the game you’ll have the same problem, because they provide the same protection, cost a 100 times more and you have the heat problem.
Basically DS3 uses simplified armor rules while AE uses advanced armor rules.

The issue for me is a straighforward one: why would any of my players ever want to buy either the chitin warsuit or the medium tyrian armour? There’s no point. Moreover, why would a noble or sorcerer-king equip their troops with this stuff when – for the cost of a single suit of tyrian armour – they could build a new extension to their city walls or fund their merchant house for several years? Don’t get me wrong – I love the idea of the suits of armour. They are very rich additions to the gameworld. I just feel that their stats don’t stand up under scrutiny. Good fluff should be supported by strong crunch in an official release, imho :-)

Answer is, they probaly don’t want to bey them, because you provide them with better and cheaper options.


I can’t tell you if the DS3 armor rules are going to be revised, because I’m not participating in that project.
I can’t tell you why those armors made it in the AE as they are or have been edited to match with the current ruleset, because I don’t have the (or any) position in the templerate.
I can only tell you why I designed them, and why they have been in use in my campaign.


I never really liked the “keep the stats, change the material rules” so I looked for different rules and materials.
This resulted into a problem, that almost only metal as material was able to create heavy armors thus, characters with low DEX would allways be short of AC.
So I soon created a very complex partial armor system, with the big flaw, that it never realy worked with masterwork or magical enchantment.
That’s when I created some suits that gave the feel of partial armor and could provide decent ACs.
I’cant remember who it was who asked me, but I was asked if had some more amors, which could be used in the AE. So I made up some additonal ones to have more options for the players, but during my designing I ignored the “same stats different material” rule, because I forgott that it even existed.


That’s what I can tell you from my point, everything else has to be explained by someone, who has more insight on the current game design.

That’s some very useful inight, Bengeldorn – thanks for taking the time to explain that to me. It’s useful to know where the disconnect is coming from – namely the fact that the AE armours aren’t designed according to the same standards as those in the Core rules. I do feel that it would have been better to have them match up with the core armours, but it’s good to understand where you were coming from when you came up with the new armours.
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From a personal perspective, I agree that the heaviest armours should use metal – this is how it was in the 2e days, and this is what I use in my own homebrew DS games. In my games there are no non-metal heavy armours (well, apart from your chitin warsuit, and I’m still deliberating over how to make that fit, as you’ll probably have guessed, lol). For the light and heavy armours, I do use the “different materials” rules, as this was incorporated in 2e (which I am using as a baseline reference in my current games) but not for the heavy armours.
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I have to add, by the way, that I love the gladiator, caravan, and artists armours. These are a wonderful piece of design, and their benefits are nicely offset by their expanded vulnerability to criticals. A great example of fluff and crunch in perfect harmony :-)
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The chitin warsuit and medium Tyr armour are more problematic, however, particularly considering how they interface with the Core Rules. It would be nice to preserve them somehow.
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For the chitin warsuit (the easiest to modify), I’d recommend basing it on splint mail. Give it a AC bonus of +6, no Dex bonus, an Armour Check Penalty of -7, and a ASF of 40%. These stats can reflect that it is a sturdy, heavy armour, but is somewhat inflexible and restrictive to wear. Beacuse the material is lighter than metal, though, you can keep the rule that it takes as much time to don as chainmail. I’d boost the cost to 200 cp to keep it balanced against other armours. It now fits nicely in with other armours and offers a single type of heavy armour for those who can’t afford metal. I think that all other heavy armours should be metal – this one is a cheaper alternative that has some hefty stat penalties to make it an interesting choice.
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The medium Tyr armour is trickier, but I think we can take inspiration from the idea that it is so easy to don and remove. This suggests to me that it is a suit of well-balanced armour made by the best craftsmen in Tyr, and we can tweak the stats to reflect that. Keep the AC bonus at +5, but boost the max Dex bonus to +5 and drop the Armour Check penalty to -2 and the ASF to 20% (or even lower). Keep the low donning time. As for the price, I’d slash it to 15gp (1500 cp) as the armour is described as only having metal bracers, so you don’t need to have such a huge price. Now you have a suit of armour that provides the best that medium armour can offer across the board.
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(Imcidentally, I’d also suggest lowering the price of a Tyrian warsuit to something in the area of 50 gp (5,000 cp) as it only incorporates metal greaves and gauntlets according to the description, so does not need to have a price as if it were made fully from metal…)
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Anyway, with these adjustments, I think that your cool armours now interface more smoothly with the Core rules while still retaining their own unique flavour. I’d welcome any comment you (or anyone else) have on my suggestions. I’ll modifiy these for my home games and give them a playtest. Maybe these modifications could find their way into the AE at some point if they pass muster?
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Anyway, thanks again for taking the time to discuss this with me – it has been a real help in figuring the armours out. They’re a cool addition to the game!

In 3rd ed rules i always thought that Athasian armors made out of inferior materials should have -1 AC but +1 maximum dex bonus on them.

I’d be carefull with providing armor that could provide a total AC (AC Bonus + Max-DEX-Bonus) of 10 or more.
I’d suggest this:


Medium Tyr-armor
Cost 30 gp
Armor-Bonus +5
Max.DEX +4
AC-Penalty -4
Spell Failure 25%
Weight 27 lb.


As for the Chitin armor, I don’t see why the Check penalty should be that high. A total AC of +6 (regardless wether it’s 5+1 or 6+0) is allready very bad for an armor, increasing the penalties will make the armor very uncomely.


I’d make the Tyrian warsuit cost at least 100 gp. You have to keep in mind that with this armor comes a weapon that overcomes DR x/metal.

Well, there is precedent for armours that provide AC/AC + Dex of 10 or more (Races of Stone and Arcana Evolved, for example), but such bonuses would need to be offset by cost. Anyway, the stats you suggest are very helpful, and closer to the mark I think. If you do go with the stats you suggest above, I’d say you’d need to lower the AC penalty a couple of points and/or drop the ASF to 20% – otherwise you’re paying an extra 2800 cp more than you would for a breastplate just to get one extra point of Dex. I think it would be useful to playtest the stats and see how players respond as well.
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I agree that the chitin warsuit has some tough stats, but it’s actually based directly off splint mail from the PHB. My feeling is that those heavy penalties are the payoff for not having to make the armour from metal. YMMV.
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I take your point about the Tyrian warsuit, but a pair of metal gauntlets would actually only cost 400 cp. Given that the warsuit only has metal in the gauntlets and greaves, a cost of 10,000 cp doesn’t really reflect the amount of metal used. Strictly speaking, it should cost something in the region of 2500 cp (ie the cost of non-metal platemail in ceramics, plus the cost of metal gauntlets and greaves). But I agree it needs to be significantly higher than that. I took 5000 cp as a ballpark, though, and it could use a closer look.
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Thanks again for taking the time to discuss this!

I wouldn’t worry to much about making armor slightly better than the PHB armor as long as it costs more. In most 3.5 games theres only 3 types of armor that really get worn anyway (Chain Shirt, Breastplate, Full Plate).
You can always make the armor better in a non AC way. Perhaps a +1 save bonus vs fire or DR 1/- or something like that. Broken armor isn’t so much of a problem in 3.5 when compared to spells.

Got another question!
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This time it’s about the cargo capacities of the silt vehicles. A couple of them seem a little low. In particular, the silt skimmer. It is listed as only having 2 tons of cargo space. This seems far too low to me. When you compare it to similar-sized vessels in Stormwrack, you’ll see that it needs to be higher.
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I can understand that it might need to be lower than a regular sailing vessel due to the wheels and stuff, but 2 tons is tiny. Given that most merchant vehicles will be skimmers and not the psionically powered schooners or skiffs, 2 tons is barely enough to make back the cost of the food, water and wages incurred by the voyage.
(The PCs in my current DS game are getting involved in dune trading, so I am developing a keen understanding of the costs involved and was startled when I looked at the cargo capacity in detail.)
It also compares poorly to the skiff, which is a smaller vehicle, yet has a larger capacity at 5 tons.
The other vehicles have similarly low cargo capacities, although are not as bad as the skimmer.
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So could one of the designers shed some light on this? Is this a typo or an oversight? Or is there an intention behind this that I am missing?
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In the meantime, here are some suggested revised cargo capacities. I am basing these on those given in Stormwrack by comparing the size of a silt vehicle (length x breadth x height) with seafaring vessels of a similar size and then eyeballing a bit from there. Feedback on these suggestions is welcomed!
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Silt Skimmer
Colossal, Size: 80’ x 30’ x 30’
Cargo: 2 tons
Suggested Cargo: 60 tons
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Silt Skiff
Huge, Size: 20’ x 10’ x 5’
Cargo: 5 tons
Suggested Cargo: 10 tons
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Silt Schooner, Trade
Gargantuan, Size: 60’ x 20’ x 10’
Cargo: 20 tons
Suggested Cargo: 80 tons
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Silt Schooner, War
Colossal, Size: 80’ x 20’ x 10’
Cargo: 40 tons
Suggested Cargo: 100 tons
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They are more in line (if still smaller) than the vehicles from Stormwrack and more useful to merchant houses. The argosy is still the king of the hill (as it should be) and is only equalled in capacity by the war schooner, which is almost three times the price. Keeps the feel of the setting intact, imho.
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Thoughts?