Good Dark Sun 5e Conversions?

[kraftcheese]

Now I've seen a few 5e conversions of the Dark Sun setting before (eg: Gabriel Zenon Wach's "Dark Sun 5th Edition Player's Handbook V2.0" https://m.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/31y843/dark_sun_5th_edition_players_handbook_v20/ ) and I really want to try and play a Dark Sun campaign with our group, but I don't know whether any of the Dark Sun conversions are actually any good.

Does anyone have experience playing a Dark Sun game in 5e? Whether it's a conversion or just a couple of homebrew rules you slapped onto vanilla 5e to allow you to play in the harsh deserts of Athas I'd really love some recommendations!

[Sitri]

While I don't have any source material for you, I wanted to bump this for interest. While I have only played one DarkSun campaign, I can easily say that it was my favorite setting. The flavor is simply amazing. I would love to see more material devoted to it.

[Nibenay]

Having played Darksun for about 25 years (with some long breaks as the DM decided to prioritize badly, children and family!), we just started up again playing 5e "Darksun" in the future, where things are more green and seemingly okay again. But He has hinted there will be old races introduced again, and just earlier we had a timetravel back into the desert wastes! So we were interested if there is anything official of course.

The best I've found on a quick google was this:
tribality.com/2014/11/03/darksun-and-ravenloft-5e-status

However, I looked through the homebrew stuff, and tbh it seemed a bit underwhelming. For me, Darksun was the place where everything was a little OP.. the halfgiant would cleave you in two if you let him hit, the kreen would turn anyone into mincemeat with a gazillion attacks. Now granted, many things (especially psioncis) was rather unbalanced there. Keeping things in line with the bounced accuracy of 5e AND keeping the flavour of "everything is dangerous" without unbalaning everything seems... an interesting challenge I think.

[kraftcheese]

Having played Darksun for about 25 years (with some long breaks as the DM decided to prioritize badly, children and family!), we just started up again playing 5e "Darksun" in the future, where things are more green and seemingly okay again. But He has hinted there will be old races introduced again, and just earlier we had a timetravel back into the desert wastes! So we were interested if there is anything official of course.

The best I've found on a quick google was this:
tribality.com/2014/11/03/darksun-and-ravenloft-5e-status

However, I looked through the homebrew stuff, and tbh it seemed a bit underwhelming. For me, Darksun was the place where everything was a little OP.. the halfgiant would cleave you in two if you let him hit, the kreen would turn anyone into mincemeat with a gazillion attacks. Now granted, many things (especially psioncis) was rather unbalanced there. Keeping things in line with the bounced accuracy of 5e AND keeping the flavour of "everything is dangerous" without unbalaning everything seems... an interesting challenge I think.

Yeah the whole "everything is dangerous" is really what I'm looking for flavor wise; I guess its just tough to get that feeling without having an irritating amount of TPK. Maybe accentuating the survival aspects of travel, and the whole "everything in the wilderness will try to kill/eat you if it gets the chance"? (Plants as well) And the evil bureaucracy of the templar orders in the cities?

Also one thing Im a bit nervous about concerning the 5e conversion I posted is how they've handled the Arcane magic; I mean obviously you've gotta accentuate the differences between defiling/preserving with the fluff, reactions of people, effect on the land/life around you but I just don't know how the tradeoff between power and work playwise. (Also a bit worried about how OP being a Cleric of Water would be in surviving a desert trek, considering you can use Create Food/Water as a spell??)

EDIT: I have seen the rumors about Dark Sun being supported in the future with official WotC stuff, and they DID mention Dark Sun in the DMG if memory serves correct AND the Thri-Kreen are in the 5e MM.....so fingers and toes crossed, huh!

[Nibenay]

I think we'll just have to use the ointment of patience. I don't expect Darksun to be prioritized... but we'll see. I just feel that the DS based races should be stronger than the average 5ed race in PHB. A halfgiant with a total stat bonus equal to a dwarf doesn't sit right :)