Dark Sun Questions and Discussion (maybe get this out of the OGL thread, too)

[Segev]

I am not well-versed in Dark Sun, and it never really caught my interest, but I am curious about one thing: If psionics are just as powerful as magic, but don't have the preserver/defiler issues, what is it that keeps psionics from being the dominant "magic" of the setting and just making magic be this icky thing that nobody does?

[Lord Torath]

Well, for one thing, the psionicist class has fairly stringent ability score requirements, and is also quite MAD (multiple-attribute dependent), at least in the original 2E rules. Every PC who is not a psionicist has a wild talent, but only NPCs that meet the ability score requirements to be a psionicist but aren't one have wild talents (or any one the DM decides should have one, generally limited to plot-important BEGs).

Also, your initial premise is begging the question. Is psionics as powerful as wizard magic? Probably not, at least in the 2E rules. There is no psionic equivalent to "Wish" after all. There are many things that wizard magic can do that psionics can't. Psionics and magic do different things, and generally don't interact much.

3E changed that, so the question you ask might be more appropriate to later edition versions of Dark Sun.

[Dr.Samurai]

I think it's more that you can achieve even greater things by fusing arcane power with psionic power, as opposed to psionic power being a direct parallel.

However, there are the Mind Lords, who seem to be pretty strong (on par with sorcerer kings?). But they are maintaining balance, meaning anyone that gets strong enough in psionics either has to comply with their neutrality and stop trying to change things, or get merc'ed.

[skyth]

1st edition psionics were just broken. There wasn't actually a class that had them, but rather any player had a chance of getting random psychic abilities and the amount of variation when you got the abilities was pretty large as well.

2nd edition, psionics were interesting but magic was more powerful.

[Tanarii]

IMO 2e psionics weren't as powerful as magic when it was unfettered (safely cast from behind the lines, free to defile, in-world social consequences be damned). They were fairly broken rules in terms of usability, but not generally broken in an OP way. They did revise them later on specifically because Dark Sun showed a lot of the cracks, not sure if that made them more usable or changed them to OP.

But other than that, nothing kept Psionics from being the dominant "Magic" of the setting. That was a large chunk of what made it different.

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One of my favorite things about the setting was starting at level 3 and character trees. Both addressed AD&D 2e starting character survivability issues in small player groups, which had mostly become the norm long before that.

[Segev]

Was a 3e Dark Sun ever printed?

It seems to me that the massive shift in power and availability of psionics in the system might make that conversion tricky.

[NichG]

The big-bads in the setting were also (necessarily, by virtue of how the dragon transformation worked) both wizards and psionicists and had a gimmick that let them drain life from animals rather than plants (which includes e.g. the enemies they're facing in combat), as well as having some epic-level-spell gimmicks on top of all of that. I guess the other thing making the arcane path significant in the setting is that the sorceror kings could grant arcane magic to their Templars, which means that it becomes a much easier path to power for people who aren't going the Preserver route.

There was a homebrew 3e Dark Sun but I don't think anything official from WotC.

[Dr.Samurai]

Never printed for 3rd edition. We used Burnt World of Athas at athas.org for 3E Dark Sun.

[Corvus]

While psionics were everywhere (quiet literally, as even some plants had psionic powers), they weren't quite as powerful as wizard magic. You could ask the same of later editions like 3e - why play a fighter or rogue when you could play a mage?

2e psionics also had the problem, unlike magic, in that it was prone to not just failure but could backfire on the user. A power had an activation roll that could be something like CON, INT-2 or WIS-4. You had to roll equal to or less than that on a D20, and unlike later editions, stat increases were very rare. And a NAT 20 was a critical fail which caused bad things to happen to the user.

Outside of the risk of mob attack, wizard magic was safer to use.

[Tanarii]

I guess the other thing making the arcane path significant in the setting is that the sorceror kings could grant arcane magic to their Templars, which means that it becomes a much easier path to power for people who aren't going the Preserver route.
Templars cast Divine spells. Can't recall if they used 2e spheres (and which ones) or had a custom spell list. I do vaguely remember them having a lot more blast spells than the typical PHB Cleric.

Speaking of which IiRC Clerics in Dark Sun also got more blasting spells due to their Elemental worship.

[Lord Torath]

Templars cast Divine spells. Can't recall if they used 2e spheres (and which ones) or had a custom spell list. I do vaguely remember them having a lot more blast spells than the typical PHB Cleric.

Speaking of which IiRC Clerics in Dark Sun also got more blasting spells due to their Elemental worship.Priest spells were divided into 5 spheres: Air, Earth, Fire, Water, and Cosmos, which included everything that didn't fit in one of the elemental spheres. Some spells were in multiple elemental spheres. All the healing spells were in the Sphere of the Cosmos (well, except for the 1st level - and extremely underpowered - Elemental Bonding spell, which healed less than Cure Light Wounds).

Elemental Clerics got major access to their elemental sphere, and minor access (up to 3rd level spells) to the Cosmos.
Druids got major access to Cosmos and one element, and possibly minor access to another element, depending on what they picked as their guarded lands
Templars got major access to all spheres, with the exception that were were a few specifically non-templar spells they didn't get.

The Earth, Air, Fire, and Water book added Paraelemental Clerics, Magma, Rain, Silt, and Sun. They were intended to be antagonistic NPCs, and not PCs, and were generally involved in furthering the environmental damage already taking place (Rain clerics were the exception). They got their own, extremely limited, spheres as well, with some custom spells.

[Telok]

Note too that in 2e pisonic wild talents were random. Like random random. You got (don't recall numbers so wild ass example here) like a 90% 1st level spell, 5% two first level spells, 4% 2nd, 0.75% two 2nd, 0.25% a third. Then an equal chance among all the powers meaning the +1 strength power came up as much as the 'launch bolt' cantrip equiv which came up as much as the taste light power... yes, there was stuff like "taste light" as powers.

Then you got psi points to use it like 3/day and you still had to roll to use it and you probably had a fairly average (except the con based powes for some races) stat to roll against.

As a classed psion... think of the power sets like magic spell schools but they were cut into "minor" powers (the weak spells like 5e Witch Bolt & True Strike) and "major" powers (the good spells you like). You picked a school or two, then started picking minor powers because the major powers had requirements that you had to know X number of minors, or even specific minor powers, before taking them. Imagine a caster having to take 5e Friends & Detect Thoughts in order to take Charm Person, then needing Charm Person to take Command, then needing Command and Sleep to take Fear. Then you get like 3 minors and 1 major power at first level, another minor every level, and a new major every two or three levels. Those aren't the exact progressions, I'm afb, but that was the style of it. And you still paid your power points before rolling to see if you got the power off, did nothing that turn, nat 20 & screwed yourself, or nat 1 & paid full price for a half power/minimum effect spell.

[LibraryOgre]

I am not well-versed in Dark Sun, and it never really caught my interest, but I am curious about one thing: If psionics are just as powerful as magic, but don't have the preserver/defiler issues, what is it that keeps psionics from being the dominant "magic" of the setting and just making magic be this icky thing that nobody does?

In a lot of ways, psionics was not as powerful as arcane magic. Individual practitioners would never be as varied as even a low-intelligence mage... at least, in 2nd edition.

Psionic powers worked more like skills. You had to check to see if they succeeded, failure could have horrible consequences, and you only had so many, and they each could only do so much. A lot was made of the fact that you could get Disintegrate very early as a psionicist... as early as 3rd level. However, what was seldom mentioned is how much of a problem that would be. If you had straight 18s (Con, Int, and Wisdom for most psionic powers; there was only one I can recall of the top of my head that didn't use one of those three), then at level 3, you'd have 58 PSPs. Disintegrate costs 40, meaning you'd be pretty close to wiped out, needing about 2 hours complete rest to try again. Which, admittedly, is a lot at 3rd level. But, at that point, the wizard in the party has put you to sleep, without a saving throw. Or incapacitated you with Stinking Cloud. Or melted you with an acid arrow. Or disappeared into invisibility, which you probably can't see through, because you're a psychokineticist, and probably didn't put your 2nd Discipline into Clairsentience.

Each psionic power was pretty narrow; about as wide as a spell. But, like the sorcerer of later editions, the psionicist only had a few choices at each level and, unlike the sorcerer, they could not change, and had restrictions on what they could choose. A Clairsentient would always have to have no Discipline with as many powers as Clairsentience. A couple of Disciplines were somewhat hard to buy into as second disciplines... both Psychcokinesis and Telepathy required a Science to get access to most of their powers, meaning you'd first be able to really stretch your legs in there no earlier than level 5 (when you got your 3rd science, and thus could take one from outside your discipline). Some powers also had Prep times, which were measured in rounds, not initiative counts.

So, while a wizard or priest could change up their spells every day, a psionicist was limited to being good at a fairly narrow field. While wizards and clerics had burst potential (throwing all of their spells, one per round, until they were out), psionicists were a lot more limited on points. Most wizard and priest spells were a round or less; many psychic powers were, but a number were not.

[Telwar]

Never printed for 3rd edition. We used Burnt World of Athas at athas.org for 3E Dark Sun.

There were a series of Dragon magazine for a 3.5 version.

I remember that wasn't terribly well-received.

[GenericFighter]

If psionics are just as powerful as magic, but don't have the preserver/defiler issues, what is it that keeps psionics from being the dominant "magic" of the setting and just making magic be this icky thing that nobody does?

That is, in fact, exactly how it worked in the setting. Psioincs was socially accepted and magic was seen as a creepy thing dangerous criminals did.

[Anonymouswizard]

Arcane magic was more powerful and IIRC fluff-wise easier than psionics if going defiling (which back in 2e wasn't inherently more powerful, just easier to learn). Add in a mixture of everybody having psionic talent, most being uneducated slaves, and the Sorcerer-Kings having a pretty tight trip on power to create the end result of the Tyr region being more slanted towards magic than the rest of the described world.

Not that Athas had both widespread illiteracy and actively outlawed magic (except defilers working for the Sorcerer-Kings and preservers in post-Kalak Tyr). Good luck recognising an enemy wizard's spell book, or reading a noble defiler's!

[LibraryOgre]

Arcane magic was more powerful and IIRC fluff-wise easier than psionics if going defiling (which back in 2e wasn't inherently more powerful, just easier to learn).

I always preferred the version in the Prism Pentad, which made an appearance in Spells & Magic... defilers were wizards, using the wizard table, but defiling had a concrete bonus; in S&M, it was faster; while preserving, a mage could manage 4 points, plus 1 per level per round (so 8 per round at 4th level; 4 base +4 for level), while defiling would net them 4 points plus 2 per level per round (so 12 per round at 4th level; 4 base +8 for level). So, each time a wizard cast a spell, they had the choice to defile or not, leaving it as a temptation to all wizards. In the Prism Pentad, others could tell if you were a defiler.

[Mastikator]

I'm not well versed in in Dark Sun, though I do find the setting interesting. I think the main difference is that arcane magic incurs a cost to the environment and psionics incurs a cost to the psion. Therefore psionics is always limited by the psychic, but arcane magic is limited by the world. Sorcerer kings can externalize the cost to the starving masses, psychics have the bear the brunt.

At least that is how I would transfer it to 5e/1dnd. (granted, I'd have to remake the entire magic system to support that)

[Anonymouswizard]

At least that is how I would transfer it to 5e/1dnd. (granted, I'd have to remake the entire magic system to support that)

Weirdly the defiling/preserving split works better in pretty much any magic system other than the classic D&D one. That's just the realities of the Vancian system working the way it does, but it feels a lot more natural with a spell point system or the like.

I once started adapting Dark Sun to GURPS and defiling just straight up made spells easier to cast, in something like Cortex Prime I'd have it give extra dice in exchange for a complication. Plus as Dark Sun is possibly the most abnormal D&D setting (beyond both Spelljammer and Planescape) it's relatively easy to convert to other systems once you've decided on how defiling will workm