Confusion about Dark Sun - Skill Challenges and Desert Survival

[Urpriest]

I've been reading up on Dark Sun, and a few aspects confuse me.

First, I don't get the advantage of traveling at night, but that may be because I'm not understanding the rules. It sounds like you can spend a survival day to have no negative consequences from traveling, but only during the day, while if you travel at night you're always at risk of losing a surge. If you don't spend a survival day, then during the day you're at risk of sun sickness, while at night you're not, but sun sickness makes a fortitude attack that can cost you a healing surge while traveling at night still can cost you a healing surge, so the point seems moot. What is the advantage to traveling at night? Also, is there warm clothing or the like that can protect you at night?

Second, if I'm running a skill challenge that involves desert survival like Guiding a Caravan or Surviving the Desert, should I also impose a risk of sun sickness, or is that subsumed into the way the skill challenge is put together already?

Third, any other cool skill challenges out there for Dark Sun, besides in the Campaign Setting itself? I'd especially be interested in something for making weapons, since I'm considering an adventure that involves plopping the characters in the middle of the desert unarmed (or possibly unarmed except for a bone dagger, if that's more workable).

[Urpriest]

Sorry to bump a response-less thread, but I've got an additional question. I've been considering starting the players off without gear, and having them have to assemble what they can out in the wild, or ambush other travelers to steal it. This includes weapons and armor, though I'm considering starting each one off with a Dagger. I know 4e isn't normally set up for this sort of thing to work, but are there any ways to do it?

[Surrealistik]

Nature/Heal/Dungeoneering checks or simple skill challenges to butcher corpses and salvage bones, chitin plates and other pieces of anatomy that could be fashioned into weapons and armour seems workable to me. History might offer bonuses due to recollection of past designs, artisanship and processes.

As for the survival day stuff, I'm not especially well acquainted with those DS specific rules, much as I think DS is a cool setting. There are the desert clothing and sun balm mundane items that both help with heat exposure checks as I recall.

Concerning your second question in the OP though, I'd just integrate it into the skill challenge. KISS and streamline whenever possible.

[allonym]

I do like the aesthetic of the fight to survive with no gear scenario (though it works better with WFRP or Dark Heresy than 4e), but how workable it is depends on your players and their classes. A rogue will be just fine with only a dagger, whereas a fighter might find much of his build shut down if he's sword-and-board...though a brawler or arena fighter would be just fine. A ranger or barbarian would suffer without appropriate weapons, whereas most implement classes will be fine without anything, given inherent bonuses - unless, like an Arcanist Wizard, they specialise in a specific implement.

The lack of armour is also entirely party-centric. A non-dex fighter will be meaningless as a defender without something heavy, whereas a swordmage would be basically OK.

What are your players, basically? A party of swordmage, sorcerer, rogue, ranged (tactical) warlord and wildshape druid would be up to the challenge, for example, whereas a sword-and-board fighter, archer ranger, melee bravelord, barbarian and arcanist wizard would struggle.

[Urpriest]

Nature/Heal/Dungeoneering checks or simple skill challenges to butcher corpses and salvage bones, chitin plates and other pieces of anatomy that could be fashioned into weapons and armour seems workable to me. History might offer bonuses due to recollection of past designs, artisanship and processes.

As for the survival day stuff, I'm not especially well acquainted with those DS specific rules, much as I think DS is a cool setting. There are the desert clothing and sun balm mundane items that both help with heat exposure checks as I recall.

Concerning your second question in the OP though, I'd just integrate it into the skill challenge. KISS and streamline whenever possible.

Nature, Heal, Dungeoneering, and History all seem applicable. I'm tentatively thinking of having the PCs have to spend an hour to make/find an effective weapon, maybe two or three for armor. I'll probably give PCs with that one "I can make tools" Wild Talent a bonus on the check, or maybe even a free success.

Do you think I can make them fight things to get materials, or are fights before they've got decent-ish weapons and armor a non-starter?


I do like the aesthetic of the fight to survive with no gear scenario (though it works better with WFRP or Dark Heresy than 4e), but how workable it is depends on your players and their classes. A rogue will be just fine with only a dagger, whereas a fighter might find much of his build shut down if he's sword-and-board...though a brawler or arena fighter would be just fine. A ranger or barbarian would suffer without appropriate weapons, whereas most implement classes will be fine without anything, given inherent bonuses - unless, like an Arcanist Wizard, they specialise in a specific implement.

The lack of armour is also entirely party-centric. A non-dex fighter will be meaningless as a defender without something heavy, whereas a swordmage would be basically OK.

What are your players, basically? A party of swordmage, sorcerer, rogue, ranged (tactical) warlord and wildshape druid would be up to the challenge, for example, whereas a sword-and-board fighter, archer ranger, melee bravelord, barbarian and arcanist wizard would struggle.

Some relevant details that I forgot to mention:

The players are starting at first level, so magic items aren't a relevant concern anyway. It's a one-shot, and the players have been explicitly told that they will be deprived of gear and should try to make relatively gear-independent characters. That said, I'm a bit worried that there isn't enough room for viable archetypes. Even a Dex-focused Fighter or a Warden expect Hide and maybe a Shield to have a competitive AC, after all.

[allonym]

Dex fighters are less likely to use a shield, but that's a different point. The best fighter build with such a massive gear shortfall would probably be a brawler, and even then you're looking at them being 3 AC behind the curve. The defenders that work best with no armour are swordmage and berserker.

[Urpriest]

Dex fighters are less likely to use a shield, but that's a different point. The best fighter build with such a massive gear shortfall would probably be a brawler, and even then you're looking at them being 3 AC behind the curve. The defenders that work best with no armour are swordmage and berserker.

I guess my question is, it is going to be bloody murder if the defenders have to do a fight or two at 3 points of AC behind the curve? Would using fewer monsters compensate at all?

[allonym]

Not exactly bloody murder. Chances are they'll take one extra hit in a fight, if they aren't being swarmed by minions (3 AC, afterall, just means 3 numbers on the D20 meaning "miss" which otherwise would have meant "hit" - if those numbers don't come up, the AC difference is irrelevant). Defenders still have the most HP and the most surges. So if your players have set up that they can handle the lack of gear, you should be OK. How long do you intend to keep this going on for? If the defender is of a type which would otherwise wear light armour (dex fighter, swordmage, berserker, warden) then, if they take Unarmoured Agility at level 1 and retrain it out once they have armour, they should be fine. Incidentally, I'd recommend this as a DM and allow them to retrain upon or soon after attaining the armour, if they still have a ways to go before leveling up, rather than have them do several encounters with a dead weight feat.

In terms of compensating, I'd certainly make encounters a bit easier - your defender might feel the sting the most, but many members of the party might be stymied by the gear limitations. Reducing the number of monsters, and avoiding minions or higher level monsters would be my advice.

However, if they are not set up to be able to use light armour (Knight, non-dex fighter, I guess battlemind), the defender will be basically useless until they get some real armour. A defender being a couple of points of AC behind the curve is unfortunate. A defender having an AC of 10 is pitiful.

[Surrealistik]

A -3 to AC or a 15% increase in accuracy vs AC amounts to increasing the overall damage dealt to a Defender penalized in this way per encounter by ~75% of the average damage value of a single attack assuming 5 attacks; this shouldn't be too problematic given the role. You could assume a lower value for the # of attacks given that enemies typically won't be attacking the entire combat (2-3 rounds). Just keep in mind that this increment applies for likely several enemies in practice (so 75% of a regular attack's value * X), and can be deadly in the case of many minions.

I guess a more representative projection might be 3 (# of attacks on the PC from a given mob over the course of an encounter) * 3 (# of mobs attacking) * .15 = 135% of an attack.