Bone, Stone, & Obsidian Episode 7 Elemental Magic
The sands of Athas are unforgiving to those without bone, stone, or obsidian to protect their water–and their lives. What element will Robert and Wayne make a pact with in this episode full of air, fire, earth, and water? Which one will save them and which will doom them?
Another great show! I admit I have a soft spot for clerics. I specially appreciated the possibility of elemental “paladins”.
I have a lot of catching up to do, since I left D&D before the Third Edition. I remember that in Second Edition high level cleric/psionics could turn into titanic elements of their devotion. Can that still happen?
Looking forward to the next episode!
Good show, but I disagree with Robert, fourth edition didn’t do anything well.
Also, I always liked the Templars using elemental magic. I always assumed the SK’s gained the ability with the dark lens to steal power from the elemental lords, which makes clerics hate them even more. If they are not stealing that power, then where does it come from? Arcane magic comes from life, clerical magic comes from the elemental lords, and psionic power comes from the psionicist themselves.
There’s no reason that can’t still be the case. Just because the mechanics are Warlock, doesn’t mean it can be reflavired to a more divine nature. Still keeps the 2e story with better fitting rules I 4e or 5e.
I think that’s one of my issues with 4th edition DS, actually. 2nd edition rules were altered to fit DS, but it seems like DS was changed to fit 4th rules. In my opinion, it seems some of the flavor was lost when that happened. The setting wasn’t as unique as it was in the 2nd edition days.
I am curious about you’re fifth edition DS game though. What psionic rules are you using? That seems to be the main concern for conversion.
I use my own rules for 5th edition, but I have an option for both Clerics and Templars to be Warlocks, although more divinely inspired.
Exactly. My concern with possible 5e DS is whether the setting will be adapted to the game’s mechanics. But as raddu says, reflavoured warlocks as elemental clerics and templars fit the role perfectly. It is in fact a pact these classes form with their patrons, be it elementals or SKs.
One thing I give credit to 4e is rebranding divine magic as primal.
I was waiting for an announcement for episode 8 and it’s been out for nearly a month? Dang it.
4th edition wanted homoginity between all the worlds but that hurts Athas rather than helping. Dray? Nah, here, have dragonborn instead. Players want Eladrin so here, have an entirely new race that hasn’t ever existed before and is WAY too fantasy for a post apocalyptic survival game. Cosmology? If it’s good enough for forgotten realms, it’s good enough for Dark Sun, right? etc.
Now that’s not to say I hate everything 4th edition did. I like the grim dark feel of no clerics (despite liking Athasian clerics), so I can’t say it got everything wrong.
Honestly, this was a major problem for ALL 4e campaign settings. I mean, just look at what it did to poor old Forgotten Realms. Even in the case of Eberron, where I’m convinced the 4e cosmology got allot of it’s inspiration from, they still somehow managed to fuck up the cosmology by adding a 14th outer plane (if you know anything about eberron, you know that the numbers 3, 12, and 13 have special symbolic significance to the setting, adding breaking the pattern messes up a lot of the established symmetry existing).
I’m not really sure WHY wizards of the coast wanted all their settings to look like re-skinned versions of each-other in 4e, as it seems like it trades a lot of what made the settings unique and interesting (and thus individually marketable) for… what exactly? the ability to have crossovers?