I always thought this was true, but I realised something recently that almost makes it mandatory, unless you want to scrap another core aspect of Dark Sun yet again.
The first arguments I had on this have already been discussed, the first to great extend, and the second somewhat less.
The first reason regards the abilities of the characters of Dark Sun. In 2e, DS characters had higher stats and DS races had bigger adjustments. In 3e (at least, in athas.org's version of it), that is not so.
The former change has been discussed to death, and I could live with it, although I do feel it takes away from the setting, and I don't really believe would affect balance given other differences of Dark Sun, but I won't get into that.
The latter change is a big error IMHO, and I fail to see why dealing in +/- 4 adjustments is ok in less common races (such as orcs in standard D&D, or Aarakocra, Kreen and Half-Giants in Dark Sun (the stat adjustments do not account for the level adjustment in the first 2), and not in core races. Anyways, the athasian dwarf with a +2 Str, -2 Dex, +4 Con, -2 Cha is lots more flavorable than a flat +2 Con, -2 Cha. The elf also had something more with +4 dex, -4 con, +2 Int, -2 Wis, than the D&D version, especially if the half-elf is going to get a +2 to dex as well, making him just as agile as the pure blood elf.
Both those changes were justified with maintaining balance. Now that alone might not warrant rebalancing CRs and XP if you can live with playing a standard D&D race in Dark Sun, but the following might.
The second reason is that the standard CR / XP system of D&D includes equipment in balancing the characters, and specifically, magical equipment.
Now, I saw some here trying to say that athas is not a low-magic setting, to which I would respond with these 2 words:
PUH - LEEEAAASE!
Athasian elves do not have wizard as a favored class, nor are there any other race that does. Aarakocran clerics are the only race who has a spellcasting class as favored. Athasian bards do not cast spells and the sorcerers and paladins do not exist, replaced by classes which are not spellcasters.
Wizards are hunted down and exeedingly rare. Elemental clerics, also rare, and turned away from the city states by the templarate, and villages usually have only few of them, from what I understood of the earlier setting material (strikingly different from say, greyhawk, where the small town of hommlet has 2 magic shops and 3 temples, not counting the cultist spellcasters and the wizard lord residing in that small town...). Druids are paranoid loners. And then there are the templars, which would be the most common spellcasters of Athas.
However, templars are very unlikely to be of any kind of aid to PCs, and much more likely to be adversaries. As such, its difficult to factor in any kind of magical support to PCs coming from them. And anyways, half of the templars of the Tyr Region can't even cast spells anymore!
There are no out in the open magical shops in the city-states, no easy access to temples of healing, and magical items are an exceedingly rare commodity, because of all of the above.
Saying that athas is not a low-magic setting when comparing it to Greyhawk, or worse, Forgotten Realms, is completely ludicrous.
The only compensation the setting could bring would be by the way of psionics, which could offer some ''spellcasting'' support to players and psionic items for them to get their hands on. However, I would really discourage the notion of psionic shops or mass production of psionic items for adventurers, which again differs from standard D&D, where PCs usually even drop magical loot they don't need! And I would note that psionics cannot compensate for the standard healing and recovery spells of the temples of D&D.
Now, if you keep the same CR / XP system, you will need to have your 10th level PC run around with almost 50000 cps worth of magical/psionic equipment, which means that the standard 10th level athasian gladiator is not equipped with his master's gift: a pair of masterwork metal wrist razors, masterwork scale armor and his prized amulet of natural armor +2 he took from that belgoi shaman they captured and had him excecute in that main event. A 10th level D&D gladiator would be equipped with a +2 metal breatplate, a +2 metal Heavy Shield, a +2 Metal Bastard Sword, about 10 Potion of cure moderate wounds, a potion of endurance, a cloak of resistance +2, a ring of protection +1, Boots of speed, Amulet of natural armor +2, Potion of heroism. (see NPC equipment in DMG for inspiration)
Anyways, that kind of equipment is NOT what I envisionned Dark Sun to be, and surely not what the authors did too. The heroes of the Prism Pentad had Agis metal sword to boot for all their treasures until they got their hands on the Heartwood Spear, and they were certainly not low-level characters.
This also brings up another issue. Characters in Dark Sun can have interesting adventures when they get their hands on ONE magical item of Great power. Artifacts seem to be one of the important feature of the setting. These are hard to balance ''money value''-wise, which adds to the importance of having a CR / XP system which doesn't take directly into account equipment value.
Now, my newest realisation came when I tried to come up with campaign ideas for an upcoming adventure. I then realised something that requires that equipment not be directly part of the CR / XP system.
Slavery.
Being taken in as slaves seems to me like a cornerstone in many athasian campaigns, and is certainly a viable consequence of many unfortunate PC actions, which can then lead into another important adventure, that of escaping.
Now, problem is, if PCs are taken into slavery, they sure as hell wont be able to keep all there wordly posessions, and certainly not magical ones.
So, if your pcs end up as slaves, an occurance far more likely in DS than in other standard settings, and equipment is not taken out of the standard CR / XP system of D&D, you'll have a problem, because that equipment will be taken out of your PCs' group, and their own CRs will drop massively the higher they are in levels.
So:
All of this leads me to conclude that an alternative CR / XP system is necessary for Dark Sun. Objective XPs, rewards, difficulty per encounter... I'm not sure. I'll have to revise all options.
One thing is for certain, equipment should be taken out of the direct system and affect it indirectly. This means that equipment value should not be counted before hand into the CRs of PCs and NPCs, but provide an additionnal value to the CR, depending on how powerful your equipment is. In a sense, equipment would be counted much like the natural abilities of any monster. Good weapons would be counted as powerful natural attacks in respect for CR. Charge items could be counted as spell-like abilities are. Wonderous items, as Special Qualities and Attacks. Anyways, I don't think it would be too hard to simply draw up a table of equipment value which adds to CR depending on the level of the PC, or rather the group, benefiting from it.
Don't you think?
All of this leads me to conclude that an alternative CR / XP system is necessary for Dark Sun. Objective XPs, rewards, difficulty per encounter... I'm not sure. I'll have to revise all options.
I must agree here 100%. In fact, simply ditch the entire system. Give out XP points in an arbitrary fashion based on things far more important than monster slaying like: how much fun and enjoyment did this person bring to the gaming table tonight? How well did they play out their character? Did they accomplish simple tasks, or did they overcome the impossible? Granted, its all entirely at a whim, but hey, its better than having some lame player toss in your face that, even though they were a bore and did nothing but toss the few 'mandatory combat dice', shove in your face that they 'deserve' X amount of experience points for doing this, that, or the other based on some stupid table in the DMG . . . . *end rant*
*almost*
As for CR, kill the entire idea. Sorry, but before 3E, you looked at a monster at judged whether it was tough enough or not. You adjusted the encounters based on your specific party strengths and weaknesses (in order to topple the party's supposed strengths and amplify their weaknesses in pure rat-bastardly DM fashion). Sorry, but I'm certainly not altering my way of doing things for some 18 years now just because they've inserted yet another table in the DMG and a new stat in the MM. It worked before, hence, no need to fix what isn't broken.
As for DS needing to revamp both the XP and CR system? Can't be done. Not that it is impossible to acheive, not at all. It would be reletively simple. Its just that Athas.org, from what I've gathered, isn't allowed to. That would put the revamping into the impossible catagory. Of course, I could be wrong on that, in which case Jon and Gab and Flip and all the rest are to be put on a special hit list by the Magical Ninja Association (cause everyone knows magical ninjas woop butt) for making so many headaches for the whole conversion proccess . . .
What I plan to do, as far as what XP system to use, is the one presented in SW D20 or Wheel of Time, both work rather well as a "story telling" system, and you don't have to worry about equipment and all that to figure out the CR of the encounter. In fact, CRs aren't used at all, but I will probably still use them as very rough guidelines.
The other good thing about using these systems is you can award roleyplaying XP, something I like to do but the current system can't seem to handle very well.
Check em out if you get a chance, they both would work well in this instance IMO.
Originally posted by Mach2.5
Of course, I could be wrong on that, in which case Jon and Gab and Flip and all the rest are to be put on a special hit list by the Magical Ninja Association (cause everyone knows magical ninjas woop butt) for making so many headaches for the whole conversion proccess . . .
Bah, put them on the lesbian ninja hit list, they are far more brutal than magical ninjas. :D
Agreed on all points though, and as far as I know, athas.org can't adjust the XP system, since their conversion has to be based on D&D 3e and not the D20 system as a whole.
I on the other hand, as well as others I'm seeing, will probably be adding their own touches to it, which will create the D20 version of DS.
To each his own though, I will still support and contribute to athas.org's version, what I play at home in the privacy of my own home is my own business.
No more peaking Mach, you peeping tom freak! :D
Originally posted by Shei-Nad
Yes, it does. :D
::snip::
Don't you think?
It was as if you were reading my mind... You don't happen to have mind powers?
I am preparing my first DS game in almost 6 years, and using the 3e rules it makes everything all wonky in regards to the "feel" of Athas. Particularly with the magic items and magic item creation. It is a High/low magic world very similar to Tolkein's Middle Earth. Those who weild the magics are ultimate bad-arses and the magic items that are found are indeed precioussss. ;) It's just that there aren't many items or weilders.
Then in 3e D&D magic (by the rules) is commonplace. ANd it is integrated into the level/xp system. ARRRGHHH!!!
Thanks for venting for me!
it isn't an easy hting to balance thoguh.
ok in my own last DS campaign IIRC, at the end when characters were lvl 7 or so, they had a (normal) steel sword, a +1 obsidian weapon, +1 steel dagger, and some potions IIRC.
Now THAT seems perfectly reasonable to me for DS, that's part of what makes the setting so good, you ain't gonna run around with many magic items, and *STUFF* any player who tries making a "Powergamed munchkin maker of a bazillion magic items" ;)
They should be RARE, exceedingly so.
Note regarding CRs, monsters/NPCs will also assumed ot have magic items they'd use if they have in normal CRs that would affect such. But you won't find many black dragons wearing Rings of Blinking in Athas will you? ;)
Also, Athas is MEANT to be tough.
Ideas:
--Athasian PCs and NPCs should get +2 to all stats.
--Wizards get only 1 new spell per spell level.
As for Shei-Nad's thoughts, there is a reason why I included the reference to the XP system in the first edition of Star Wars d20 in the DS3FAQ. Enough said.
Just a small comment as for Athas being a magic poor world, don't forget psionic items could be abundant - thus balancing the equipment levels.
I myself used the alternate XP rewards per encouter of the DMG for awhile, but then I figured balance was really calculated in accordance to the CRs of monster fights in the core adventures, which we are running, so I reluctently switched back to the basic system (which I think is one of the major problems with the whole D&D game, btw)
So now I'm trying to think of a system where equipment would be left completely out of the basic XP system, and affect the CR as other outside factors do (templates, for example) as they essentially provide the character with better abilities. This would allow 20th level characters to fight with their prized metal mundane sword and still be balanced.
As for magic/psionic items, I did acknowledge that psionics were more common in Dark Sun, however they do not provide the same resources of magic, specifically for healing, and though they have equal potential for the creation of psionic items, I really do not see athasian characters geered up in psionic items as forgotten realm characters are in magics. So even if their is potential for this happening, I would never let it.
Crafted psionic items should mainly be the result of the PCs own work. In fact, I was thinking of having the cost of magical and psionic items (and special items, for that matter) upped to 10% of PHB and DMG price (or 10 times the regular price, if you understand me). Crafting item costs, however, would not be increased in the same way, though it might be to some extend.
I was thinking magic items would cost the DMG price (in cps) to craft in cp and 1/50 the cost in xp, and the selling cost would be 10 times the crafting cost (or 10 times the price of the DMG, in cp).
This way, crafting items is somewhat less accessible than standard D&D, though still quite possible, but buying is almost out of the question. This would mean that crafting items is rarer in DS, and mostly for personal use by powerful casters or manifesters. Also, magical item markets would not exist, though magic items could be sold in markets, but at very high base prices.
Anyways. Just some thoughts. And glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks D&D xp sucks! :p
So now I'm trying to think of a system where equipment would be left completely out of the basic XP system, and affect the CR as other outside factors do (templates, for example) as they essentially provide the character with better abilities. This would allow 20th level characters to fight with their prized metal mundane sword and still be balanced.
The system from the first SW D20 rule book is simple and elegant:
Short adventure: 1000 xp multiplied by average character level
Medium adventure: 2000 xp multiplied by average character level
Long adventure: 4000 xp multiplied by average character level
Adjust using % depending on difficulty, good roleplaying etc.
No more peaking Mach, you peeping tom freak!
I have several well paid alibis who are willing to testify on my behalf in court. You cannot prove a thing without the negatives
Originally posted by Jon, Oracle of Athas
Just a small comment as for Athas being a magic poor world, don't forget psionic items could be abundant - thus balancing the equipment levels.
That's how I run my Athas. low magic items, high Psionic. Of course, I have to get my players used to the idea that Psionics, not Magic is prevailent in thw world (so I stick to my semmantics routine of correcting them when they use Magic but should have used Psionic to describe something). to me, Psions are about as common as wizards & sorcerers, as well as (to some extent) clerics and druids in other worlds, while clerics, druids and wizards are about as common as psions are in other worlds. They kind of change their positions in society. Plus, I try to play up the down-sides to playing a wizard, as well as problems when playing a cleric or druid, to lower my players' interest in playing those classes. Templars are easy enough themselves with that. I work with a non-spellcasting version of the Ranger in my campaigns (especially since the one in UA is presented now) - yet another way I keep the magic reduced on the world overall. It's ironic, really, I usually persuade my players against playing a magic-casting class, and yet have been working on Advanced Beings which kind of require spellcasting levels to become them.