I’m new-ish here. I had an account years ago, and I’ve recently been bit by the Dark Sun bug again. Not sure how I ever got on without a little Athas in my life!
I wanted to ask: what are the best conversions of Dark Sun to D&D 5e from around the web? I’ve seen a few here in the arena, plus a few more from around the web.
Can anyone point out others? Also, anyone know what rule set Radu uses in the game he talks about in the podcast? (Sorry if there’s already a thread like this somewhere, I didn’t see one.)
Edit: Added links, and added azlath’s conversion pointed out by zontoxira and an anonymous conversion linked by Mr_White.
I’ve stumbled upon azlath’s take @ Obsidian portal, some guy’s (that I can’t recall) conversion: Introduction, Races, and Classes, and another fella’s (again, no name) conversion on Defilement Rules and the subsequent Wizard class. In general, I’d say if you look “Dark Sun 5e” up on Google, you will get plenty of pages dealing with certain aspects/conversions or discussions on how to run a campaign set on Athas.
Googling aroung I stumbled on this pdf here but i cannot find info on the creator(s).
What I found most problematic is the conversion of the psionics. Most ways of converting the sorcerer or monks to psions sounds easy and balanced to me, but not to nostalgic players (“I want to do an old school psionic, not a sorcerer or monk with a different name”). Have anyone tested the Unearthed Arcana mystic class? Seems good, but way too open to lots of different powers. I’d let my players use that with some trimming.
Aye, nice addition to Polyomnocles’s list. I can see the creator has borrowed much from my work, modifying and adding rulings for various things to make a somewhat complete conversion. As for psionics, I agree with you, so far UA’s mystic feels closer to 2e’s psionicist, especially version 2. With version 3, the mystic class went too complicated and overloaded with powers and options that could bog down people. I was thinking of limiting the Orders (renamed as Teachings of the Way) to three: Awakened Mind (clairsentience, telepathy); Immortal Body (psychometabolism); Invisible Spirit (psychokinesis, psychoportation). And, of course, not make the mystic look like a psionic version of other classes. What we need, imo, is a class that feels and plays distinct.
As far as the Mystic, goes, I actually like it. It does have a ton of options, but honestly there are fewer options than most spell-casters have (just look at the list of spells in the PHB). And the Mystic options are easier to handle because they are grouped as disciplines instead of a ton of independent spells.
I think Avatar, Awakened, Immortal, and Nomad are all appropriate for Dark Sun. Wu Jen and Soul Knife don’t feel appropriate.
As far as Wild Talents go, I’ve been kicking around the following idea. Every PC can start with a wild talent from the 4e wild talent list. Then there will be a feat Psionic Initiate, similar to Magic Initiate, A player who takes it will chose one talent from the Mystic’s list. He/she will also chose 1 discipline and will get a singe psi-point per day to spend on that discipline’s powers. No psychic focus, and no psi-points from outside the feat allowed.
Just slowly reading through all these conversion works having been done.
I have one more we can add:
The EN World conversion thread by Zardnaar also contains a post by user @Nicolai_Hiorth mentioning his conversion which is linked: Darksun Hiorth edition
I am also using Toucanbuzz campaign rules and Kibblestasty psion rules, along with a few homebrew modifications, specifically around the bard class, as well as around defiling which I have posted about here: Defiling and 5e