So, if everyone is Dark Sun has at least a Wild-talent, couldn’t at least one, destroy the SK using pscionics? This was just a thought. Now, I’ve never used AD&D2e’s pscionics in Dark Sun, so I have no idea how they work. I’m not sure how they’d work in 4e. My reasoning is, over the, like two-thousand years a SK is alive, surely, someone, out there may get a lucky-roll and off the guy.
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So, you’re saying if a random person got something like disintegrate as a wild talent, why in two thousand years haven’t they used it on an SK? In fact in two thousand years, why haven’t multiple people used disintegrate on an SK? After all, even an SK can fail a saving throw.
These are all good questions and I think there are multiple answers.
The first is that SKs have protections, both mundane and mystical. They have guards, templars, and magic and psionic protections. SKs have lived so long, they could have researched special protects against disintegrate specifically.
The second reason is that the setting wouldn’t be as fun, if all the SKs were dead.
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All player characters are assumed to have wild talents, but wild talents themselves only affect a percentage of the populace.
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I play in 3.5/Pathfinder, but as far as how widespread psionics are…
I give every player a free psionic feat at level 1 which can be used for one of 3 options. Wild Talent, Hidden Talent, or an Anti-Psionic feat as they choose. For NPCs I make 25% have an Anti-Psionic, 25% a Wild Talent, and 50% a Hidden Talent.
While the talents in 2e could be much more powerful, in 3.5/Pathfinder the low level of the talents means you don’t end up with an instakill.
Aside from all that, and as pointed out above, SMs are smart, they’ll have many layers of defenses, in 3.5 Champions of Rajaat are immune to disease, poison, stunning, sleep, paralysis, death effects, disintegration, energy drain, ability drain, ability damage, polymorphing, petrification, or any other attack that alters its form. In 2e they had a bunch of resistances just for being a dragon. As far as I recall only Dregoth got statted out in 2e and he had a list of immunities that included death effects as well.
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Kind of; A Sorcerer-King can have all the mundane and mystical powers; guards, templars, magic etc. But, one can only die once. It just takes one failed saving-throw, and he’s ancient-history.
I don’t think all the SK could be dead, but, it would make for some interesting back-stories; That wasn’t the first Kalak, to die. It would be interesting if the PCs found old, ancient royal-documents from a Queen Klen Kenek, ruler of The Vale of Tyr.
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It’s been so long since I’ve played OD&D and 2E, so I’ve forgotten how that works. Could a psionicist wild talent get lucky with a disintegrate? I don’t know. In 3.5e, there are difficulty classes for spells so it would be impossible.
Do it. Make your own history. If the players are geeky Dark Sun fans, like myself, I’d appreciate the heads up that you are breaking from canon. You don’t have to tell them how, only that: “The world, from your PCs view, is the same. There are no horses or Gnomes. Evil sorcerer kings rule the city-states and the Tablelands are a water parched desert.”
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I used an ‘opposed successes’ d00 system. So (example only) a wild talent with a disintegrate can get (normally) a maximum of 3 successes. A DK will get an innate bonus that, even on an ‘01’, gives them 5 successes to resist. So, the wild talent can ‘never’ succeed. (I use quote marks because, you never do know what those pesky players are going to come up with to boost their chances…)
Even a PC with a healthy disintegrate would still be chancing their arm… perhaps the DK has a bonus equal to ten successes… or twenty… do you really want to be the one to risk it? And probably an additional bonus for their throne room, and will you get initiative, and guards and psionisicts and… you know what, let’s just go disintegrate a Gith.