Dark Sun 5e Class Conversion Primer

Last time I addressed the core Athasian races for a 5e Dark Sun conversion. I liked that and I  want to get a Dark Sun game up and running with current rule-sets so here we go!. Let’s take a look at the classes.

Let’s get this out of the way: I eliminated the Paladin and Sorcerer classes. Bard has been returned as a Rogue subclass which we will explore below. Any sub-classes that grant Arcane Spellcasting are also subject to exclusion. I haven’t sat down and worked through all of them yet but in most cases you could substitute an appropriate Athasian flavor for a class ability that is already in place.

The first draft of this I felt like I was being too specific and digging into each and every subclass would bog this down. Instead I this takes a general approach towards each class, allowing those that come after to make the micro or macro adjustments that fit their particular version of Athas.

The Basics:

There are some adjustments that will need to be applied broadly across all classes and subclasses.

• Money and equipment: you don’t start with metal money, everything is in ceramic pieces. Any equipment you start with due to class or background that would normally be metal needs to be a non-metal counterpart or you don’t have it. This includes major items such as armor, weapons, and minor items such as a crowbar from the Criminal background.
• Arcane Magic is to be minimized or hidden. Magic is viewed with distrust at best and hatred and violence more frequently. It is not commonplace or mundane in any way and those that would follow the path do so only through rigorous discipline.
• Subclasses such as Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster are best left out. Another option would be to convert such a class into utilizing psionic powers instead of arcane.
• Divine power doesn’t exist. There are no Gods. Any class that is typically divinely powered is now fueled by elemental (air/earth/fire/water) sources. This need not change how the class is played or the mechanics but it does affect the flavor of the character.

 

Barbarian

Overall not much needs to change here. The core Barbarian abilities all blend nicely into the harsh desert world. Depending on the Path chosen you may need to rework it to feel like something that belongs on Athas. Path of the Totem, for example, would need proper Athasian beasts but otherwise should work nicely. Path of the Storm Herald as is could only use the Desert build.

Cleric

In the effort of…making the least effort possible…I have not reorganized the cleric domains into the four elements. Instead I’ve left the Domains as they are. Players can determine how that fits into their characters relationship with their chosen element. For example, Water Cleric could easily choose Life Domain, but so could a Fire cleric as it brings warmth in the cold and light in the dark.

I am just beginning to play a Life cleric dedicated to Earth and I’m not sure yet how I’m going to take it. Earth can be nurturing by yielding crops and providing sustenance for people and beasts, shade from the harsh sun. But earth can also be unyielding, hard and bare, exposing you to death, starving you in barren, lifeless rock. I think this will be fun.

Arcane Domain doesn’t make sense as magic is almost directly opposed to life on Athas, but if a player wants to try it and can make a good argument…. Forge domain I think can remain mostly intact with the knowledge that there is little metal on Athas and the player will be working with other materials.

I have my own thoughts/version of Forge cleric as it is.

Druid

Giorgio Baroni

This class remains largely unchanged. Anything that refers to animals/beasts would need appropriate Athasian fauna as well..

Circle of the Land Druid would likely need to choose from Desert, Forest, Grassland, and Mountain land types. You could make an argument for Rocky Badlands and it could be possible to use Coast if the druid is tied to an oasis but that is a bit of a stretch.

Circle of Dreams doesn’t work as is due to Athas’ isolation in the multiverse, however you could conceivably rework it. Perhaps the Circle of Dreams becomes Circle of the Oasis. It may not be an impossible stretch to make the abilities fit that theme of rest and respite, a safe, magical place within the deadly sands.

Fighter

Brom

Like the Druid, a Fighter is largely unchanged when created on Athas. Substitute metal equipment for non-metal and the core abilities all remain viable. Perhaps even more so in this harsh and violent world.

The Champion archetype is a perfect fit for a Gladiator. Battle Master would be leading armies either for or against the Sorcerer-Kings.

Eldritch knight appears to present a conundrum but you could quickly turn this into a Psychic Warrior analog (though I prefer the term Psion yes I know it was different) by replacing spellcasting with limited psionic abilities. As for the subclass features: Weapon Bond, War Magic, Edritch Strike, Arcane Charge and Improved War Magic can all be adapted to work with psionic abilities instead of arcane. The trickiest bit would be adding the psionic abilities in lieu of spells. I will revisit this in a later post.

Monk

Eric Belisle

Another class that needs little revision for Athas. 4E Monks were psionic, which demonstrates how easy it is to make that mental flip here under the dark sun. Just like Eldritch Knight *cough Psion cough* making the monk psionic changes nothing of how it operates. Astral Projection through the Empty Body ability would need to take into account The Grey and The Black and the inability to reach the Astral Plane.

Way of the Open Hand and Way of Shadow need no adjustment. Way of Shadow Monks could argue a connection to The Black.

Elemental Monks would need to be adjusted. Personally I never cared for every elemental monk being The Avatar. I have been remastering the elemental monks to make individual elements the focus with perhaps a dip into a second non-diametrically opposed element.  I’ll get into that in a different post but I will say I had the idea after playing a Mystic in a Dark Sun one shot last year.

Any elemental abilities tied to water/ice would need to be limited/eliminated or made vastly more costly. Abilities to be targeted in this vein: Breath of Winter, Clench of the North Wind (rename and make an earth ability), Mist stance (perhaps change flavor text to dust/silt), Shape of the Flowing River, Water Whip.

Ranger

David Griffith

When looking at Rangers, one must remember that Rangers are divine casters and as such could continue to gain spells as depicted in the PHB. It would behoove us to have a spell list delineated by element, but in lieu  of that it really comes back to allowing the ranger spell list to be used as is with dedicated flavor/descriptions. Barkskin is easy enough to imagine for an earth aligned ranger, but use the spell mechanics as written and change the description to a swirling current of air surrounding the rangers body that deflects attacks and you have an ‘air’ elemental ranger spell.

Rogue

Brom

At face value the rogue also needs very little adjustment. All the core rogue abilities transfer into Athas. This holds true for the Thief archetype though I would include psionic devices in the Use Magic Device ability.

Arcane Trickster is another example of the pervasive arcane magic that doesn’t exist in Dark Sun. Yet again this is an ‘easy’ conversion if the new power source is psionics.  For example:

Mage Hand Legerdemain becomes Mystic Hand Legerdemain, otherwise it functions identically.  Then as with Eldritch Knight adding psionic abilities at a lower rate than a full Mystic would round out this class. I will address this specifically along with the Eldritch Knight.

Transitioning Spell Thief to work with psionic abilities is easy enough and it sounds just as fun as the original ability.

Assassin needs no changes.

Bard (subclass)

Muyoung Kim

I had initially envisioned transitioning Bard back under a rogue subclass, but since recently starting a 5e Dark Sun game I see how it can be maintained as a full class without spellcasting. Robert Adducci put it together for his game and I rather like it. I will not post it here as it is his but perhaps we can ask him to share?

Below I have included the table for the Archetype advancement I had envisioned for the Athasian Bard (as a rogue subclass).

I admit it is not terribly exciting, but it is steady advancement and combining some bard specific abilities with the Rogue which would currently only come from multiclassing.

Level	Bard Archetype Feature
3rd	Antitoxin, Bardic Inspiration (d6), Jack of All Trades, Poisoner, Song of Rest (d6)
9th	Bardic Inspiration (d8), Font of Inspiration, Counter Charm, Poisoner, Song of Rest (d8)
13th	Bardic Inspiration (d10), Poisoner, Song of Rest (d10)
17th	Bardic Inspiration (d12), Poisoner, Song of Rest (d12)

Warlock (Templar)

Brom

Warlocks make for perfect Templars. Per the original Dark Sun Boxed Set:

“Templars are the greatly feared disciples of the sorcerer-kings…. A templar’s spells are received directly from the sorcerer-king he worships. Spells can be taken away by the sorcerer-king if the templar has somehow displeased him. If the sorcerer-king is particularly displeased, he might kill the offending templar.”

Maybe it’s just me, but this sounds pretty much like the Pact Magic and Otherwordly Patron features in the PHB. Continue to choose between the patron options but instead flavor them to fit the sorcerer-kings as needed. In reality, any of the sorcerer-kings could have any of the otherwordly patron descriptions fit. They are monsters, beyond mortals, beyond human comprehension and capable of great feats of magic..

Even the Celestial patron can be adapted to the sorcerer-kings. Play it not as divine or holy light but an awful, burning radiance, a tiny reflection of the might contained in the mighty sorcerer-kings.

Wizard (Preserver/Defiler)

Jason Engle

Wizards are present all over Athas, though they live a secretive life due to the revulsion and antipathy their class endures. The core Wizard abilities stay unchanged and this holds true for the abilities granted by the various Wizard Traditions (at least from the PHB which is all the further I looked for this post).

Where we get weird is when we get into defiling. Magic on Athas works unlike the other known D&D worlds. From the original Dark Sun Boxed Set:

“Wizards draw their magical energies from the living things and life-giving elements around them. Preservers cast spells in harmony with nature, using their magic so as to return to the land what they take from it. Defilers care nothing for such harmony and damage the land with every spell they cast.”

Here we see the split: Preservers vs Defilers. In the Boxed Set it was set up as Good vs Evil and separated into two distinct classes. That might have been the easy way out and it herded defilers into almost permanent NPC status, much like Templars.

In the novels, Sadira walks the line between Preserver and Defiler. She sees defiling as destructive but not evil in and of itself. She avoids it but will defile to defend herself or promote her ideals (such as defending the citizens of Tyr). When she does defile she feels remorse, knowing it is destructive and will cause hardship for those who will come after, but she does it to ensure others will come after.

Capturing this struggle is where I want to take this. I want to make defiling appealing. I want ‘preserver’ characters to be tempted and ‘defiler’ characters to be pleased with their choices. So how do we do that?

Bring back the metamagic feats. All of them. That’s pretty damn tempting. Having access to any of the metamagic feats at any time? You just have to be willing to permanently damage the environment…. Some will take that on, while others will walk the moral road.

I think this makes defiling pretty appealing, therefore to balance it out the social ramifications for defiling need to be equally devastating. The populace of Athas blames all magic-users (defilers rightly so) for the destruction of their world. Mages keep their powers hidden and are ostracized when discovered if not attacked and killed. Being a known defiler is a death sentence.

Defiler Magical Destruction Table

*The effect is radius, in yards around the defiler where all vegetation is turned to ash.

Terrain Type                                                    Spell Level
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
Stony Barrens	10	14	17	20	22	24	26	28	30
Sandy Wastes	10	14	17	20	22	24	26	28	30
Rocky Badlands	10	14	17	20	22	24	26	28	30
Salt Flats	10	14	17	20	22	24	26	28	30
Boulder Fields	10	14	17	20	22	24	26	28	30
Silt Sea	10	14	17	20	22	24	26	28	30
Mountains	10	14	17	20	22	24	26	28	30
Scrub Plains	3	4	4	5	5	5	5	6	6
Verdant Belts	2	2	2	3	3	3	4	4	4
Forest	1	1	2	2	2	2	2	3	3

All right travelers, that is a lot to take in. Take a look at it and let me know what you think. Those of you that have played Dark Sun before or have read the novels and other original materials…how does it feel? My aim with this is to have it feel like Dark Sun. I referenced and in many placed directly pulled from the original boxed set.

Athas is not The Forgotten Realms.

Dark sun was intentionally designed to be different from the other game worlds, many of which were fun house reflections of each other. This isn’t ‘desert Forgotten Realms’. It started as ‘War World’ and grew into a harsh, unforgiving and brutal world, filled with death and beauty and those willing to fight and die for a chance to make things better.