Hi all. I'm going to be running a pilot session soon for a Dark Sun campaign using pathfinder rules. I'm using the Pathfinder Core Rulebook, the beta psionics class materials from here, along with the materials from Athas.org, and the XPH for the powers until Dreamscarred releases a beta of the full list of powers -or- the Psionics Unleashed supplement. It's been a bit of homework to go through all the Athas.org 3.5 material and the Pathfinder stuff and make sure it's all compatible. Any how, I'd like to keep notes here, and provide feedback from my players as we go along. So far we have a wilder and 2 psionicists(egoist and nomad) in the party. One of them will be looking to try the elocator class... we'll see.

Awesome!

I look forward to seeing how it goes for you!

This sounds like it could be quite interesting. Here's my biased hope that one of your players make a soulknife character (but ditch mind blade specialist and give it full BAB, as we've already informed everyone that change is coming in the beta).

Any hints as when the Beta will be available????

For the Soulknife? As soon as we finish it!

Edit: Seriously though? Our Soulknife-Master Maverick is doing his design fu on it "as we speak" and I am hopeful that SOONER rather than later is the timeframe.

MaverickWolf wrote:

This sounds like it could be quite interesting. Here's my biased hope that one of your players make a soulknife character (but ditch mind blade specialist and give it full BAB, as we've already informed everyone that change is coming in the beta).

No soulknives... I felt inclined to not include that class. I want the players to really feel the lack of resources. A PC who can summon a decent weapon at will waters down that flavor.

MaverickWolf wrote:

This sounds like it could be quite interesting. Here's my biased hope that one of your players make a soulknife character (but ditch mind blade specialist and give it full BAB, as we've already informed everyone that change is coming in the beta).

Oooh will have to inform my resident Jettur soulknife in our playtest campaign. She will be most pleased!!

Sinewave wrote:

MaverickWolf wrote: This sounds like it could be quite interesting. Here's my biased hope that one of your players make a soulknife character (but ditch mind blade specialist and give it full BAB, as we've already informed everyone that change is coming in the beta). No soulknives... I felt inclined to not include that class. I want the players to really feel the lack of resources. A PC who can summon a decent weapon at will waters down that flavor.

Fair enough. I'm not particularly fond of that aspect of Dark Sun (feels too much like DM vs. players to me), but I understand the reasoning. That said, have you also banned the monk? That's just about the only class I'd play in Dark Sun outside of psions and soulknives, for that whole viable in combat thing.

Angellis_ater wrote:

I am hopeful that SOONER rather than later is the timeframe.

It is. I make no guarantees, as real life continues, but I'm aiming to clean it up and make the necessary changes before the end of the week.

MaverickWolf wrote:

Fair enough. I'm not particularly fond of that aspect of Dark Sun (feels too much like DM vs. players to me), but I understand the reasoning. That said, have you also banned the monk? That's just about the only class I'd play in Dark Sun outside of psions and soulknives, for that whole viable in combat thing.

I did remove the monk as well... Athas has no deities, an Egoist or Psi-warrior can fill that niche, to a degree. We're aiming for flavor, the players are all eager to play in the post-apocalyptic setting. I can't wait to see the half-giant barbarian in action!

First session was good. We have one psionicist in the party (and hopefully a psychic warrior with us next session). He torched a defiler with his energy ray. He rolled good in spite of the fact that he was grappled via a web spell.
The psionicist took psicrystal affinity from the XPH. He seems very capable, but I will be designing more challenging encounters after that.

RE: My last post....

It occurred to me that the psion used all his power points to augment his energy ray and fry the Defiler. While having more than one encounter for a group of 6 players can be a challenge, I want to keep the power users on their toes... Any thoughts?

Are you using the rule of augmentation?

A psion cannot spend more power points on any single manifestation than their manifester level.

A psion shouldn't be able to use ALL his power points on any manifestation at almost any level... at 1st level with a 16 int, he'd have 3 power points, but even with Overchannel, he should only be able to do 2d6. If he's above 2nd level, there's no way he can dump his entire PP pool in one manifestation.

Jeremy.Smith wrote:

Are you using the rule of augmentation?

Apparently not. Thank you. <3 this forum.

Happy to help

That's one of the most critical, and oft-overlooked, rules of psionics.

Jeremy.Smith wrote:

That's one of the most critical, and oft-overlooked, rules of psionics.

I used the XPH to give myself the rundown before I started this campaign, but somehow missed it.

Finished 3rd session last night.
The PC's made a 5 day journey north of the tablelands and ran into some pretty treacherous creatures. I have to say the Athas.org stuff is a fantastic resource, the players found strange plants (some of which tried to eat them), as well as poisons and drugs while foraging.

So far the Dream Scarred psionics are working out great. I would warn that if you use the Athas.org half-giant in your game, you'll need to do some adjustments to compensate. The Half-giants are unbelievably strong, but prone to mind control, -a bad combination of he starts swinging at his friends. Depending on the monster, I make modifications to tailor the encounter to the party, -increasing HD, hitpoints, or AC of certain monsters, to ensure the challenge remains.

This thread is on watch!

So we just did session 8, I just stopped updating this page because I wasn't sure how I wanted to approach this, telling it as a narration, as a GM filling you in on all the backstory happening, or just the technical details.

I think I will tell the story, and drop in how I'm approaching the technical side of things to get feedback, as this I'm fairly new to the art of GMing. More to come soon.

Tbh, while storytelling is always nice, we're primarily hoping for playtesting for the crunchy bits (technical details), so we can determine if X class or Y power or Z feat (etc.) are overpowered, underpowered, or otherwise need adjustment.