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3 years ago ::
Jun 17, 2010 - 7:13AM
#31
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Date Joined:
Sep 12, 2008
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Likewise, old school DS player. Been playing it since the day it was released. I have zero problems with this. The argument from others (and from the Thri-Kreen of Athas supplement) is silly. We ride horses, yes? We also eat horses. Sure, modern Westerners may see that as abhorrent, yet it remains true that horse is most assuredly eaten and ridden simultaneously, and always has been. Even with thri-kreen being swift and able to run for a long, long time, kanks SHOULD move faster (6 running legs, not 2), and carry more gear. Thus, kreen on kanks makes perfect sense. Nostalgia be damned, give me logic and reason, thank you very much! 
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3 years ago ::
Jun 17, 2010 - 9:27AM
#32
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Date Joined:
Jun 23, 2009
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From Shard_of_Suzail: I personally dont like darksun, but i can see why the poster isnt happy. There comes a point where a race looks different enough and acts different enough to no longer be that race. From what i can gather, the Thri-Kreen were giant bugs. They were not "bug people", or "humanoid bugs", they were giant bugs and they looked and acted like bugs.
Dark Sun is a strange setting in that the setting really is all it has. It's not the usual "gods run it all" kind of place that we see in other settings, its special because it works completey differently to what we expect. The more that this basic principle is changed, say, with Thri-Kreen riding animals and looking less like giant bugs, the more the "Dark Sun" setting becomes "4Th Edition Desert wars" and thats not good.
Dark Sun works completely different from what we expect. Dark Sun isn't "awesome." It isn't "cool." It's different. That's what makes it cool & awesome. The strangeness of the setting makes it unique & special. If you remove the strangeness, then there's no point to playing Dark Sun. OR RATHER, there's no point to buying a disappointing book.
WotC's sourcebooks have been disappointing me lately. I haven't bought anything since "The Plane Below."And even then I just gave it away, the book's material was so useless to me. I hate wasting money like that.
I'm definitely skipping this Dark Sun adventure. I might even skip buying the campaign setting or the monster book. WotC has to convince me to give them my money. So far, they're failing.
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3 years ago ::
Jun 17, 2010 - 9:41AM
#33
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Date Joined:
Jun 11, 2008
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I'm definitely skipping this Dark Sun adventure. I might even skip buying the campaign setting or the monster book. WotC has to convince me to give them my money. So far, they're failing.
Because there's a tri-kreen riding a kank.
Take no offence, but boy I am glad WotC isn't designing stuff in order to sell it to you ^_^ .
Interested in reading about a Dark Sun 4e game? Here's the blog of our current campaign. My homebrew Dark Sun material: - the Lord of Blades, a melee oriented Kaisharga/Dead Lord
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3 years ago ::
Jun 17, 2010 - 9:42AM
#34
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Date Joined:
Jun 24, 2006
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I think the change is bad because:
1) It reduces the diversity between the species that the players can play. TK needing a mount, and not having a large abdomen means that they are one step closer to being nothing but mechanical optimization values instead of 'hey these guys tickle my imagination more than these other guys'.
2) Mechanically there was nothing to balance here. Mounted combat rarely happens, and if it really is a 'big deal' that TK be able to ride something too in the event that it does, well, a lot of stuff in the setting has howdas so TKs could ride on one of those. Overland movement is largely a roleplaying thing, and letting a TK have an advantage here is really letting them have a roleplay advantage, which don't get broken into crazy DPR builds.
It was a pointless change that cost the setting some of its uniqueness and didn't get anything in return.
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3 years ago ::
Jun 17, 2010 - 10:00AM
#35
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I think the change is bad because:
1) It reduces the diversity between the species that the players can play. TK needing a mount, and not having a large abdomen means that they are one step closer to being nothing but mechanical optimization values instead of 'hey these guys tickle my imagination more than these other guys'.
2) Mechanically there was nothing to balance here. Mounted combat rarely happens, and if it really is a 'big deal' that TK be able to ride something too in the event that it does, well, a lot of stuff in the setting has howdas so TKs could ride on one of those. Overland movement is largely a roleplaying thing, and letting a TK have an advantage here is really letting them have a roleplay advantage, which don't get broken into crazy DPR builds.
It was a pointless change that cost the setting some of its uniqueness and didn't get anything in return.
- There is nothing saying a TK needs a mount, just that a TK in that picture is riding one.
- There is no mechanical details here, just a picture. An artist's depiction. And honestly, not the first artistic depiction of something from Dark Sun that is not necessarily accurate (Paizo's Dim Sun & Hamanu for an example).
I think, quite honestly, this is being blown way, way, way out of proportion by some people here.
ɯ1ǝɥʞɹɐp dǝɹo1x --
".sɹouɹɹǝ buı1ǝ1ds s,ɹǝʇnɯoɔ ʎɯ ɹǝɟ 1ǝqɐɔuodsǝɹ ʇou 1ǝʇs ɯ,ı"
"I'm stel not responcabel fer my comuter's spleling errnors."
-- Xlorep DarkHelm
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3 years ago ::
Jun 17, 2010 - 10:34AM
#36
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Date Joined:
Dec 22, 2001
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Face palming?
That picture is what's jazzing me up for Dark Sun.
It's a bug! RIDING A BUG!
Where do they come up with this stuff?
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3 years ago ::
Jun 17, 2010 - 10:56AM
#37
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Date Joined:
May 29, 2001
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I'm definitely skipping this Dark Sun adventure. I might even skip buying the campaign setting or the monster book. WotC has to convince me to give them my money. So far, they're failing.
Because there's a tri-kreen riding a kank.
Take no offence, but boy I am glad WotC isn't designing stuff in order to sell it to you ^_^ .
You fail to see the point. The picture is more bigger than just a riding kank.
What is the interest in trying to shape all world as the same with just simple nitpicks here and there? We want a setting different from the others, not a setting that smell just like every "normal" setting. What's the POINT in buying a setting that smell all the same?
The Siltskimmer Page - www.siltskimmer.org
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3 years ago ::
Jun 17, 2010 - 11:24AM
#38
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Date Joined:
Jan 13, 2008
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There are many things that I like about DS, but "TKs don't ever ride kanks" is hardly one of them.
Its the Eberron dragonmarks all over again "Sky is falling, in 4E humans can have mark of shadow". To that I just said "Ok, im my campaigns it is still a mostly elven thing like it was in 3.5E. If someone wants to play the exception to the rule and that ends into a valuable and remembarable character - more power to him."
TKs can ride kanks... big deal - it's not like they HAVE TO or like the whole setting will be focused upon TKs ridding kanks.
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3 years ago ::
Jun 17, 2010 - 11:30AM
#39
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You fail to see the point. The picture is more bigger than just a riding kank.
What is the interest in trying to shape all world as the same with just simple nitpicks here and there? We want a setting different from the others, not a setting that smell just like every "normal" setting. What's the POINT in buying a setting that smell all the same?
But the setting is different, from what I've seen, in the 4E incarnation. Despite the situation where WotC is "normalizing" (to a degree) the different settings so that they can focus on releasing books and materials that could be used in any setting, rather than a whole slew of divergent setting-specific books, and as such, some things need to be reworked mechanically to fit within that scope.
That said, Athasian races are still with Athasian flavor. Athas is still Athas, the SK's are still big perpetual thorns in many peoples' backsides. So the TK's have been altered to have no abdomen -- that already had been done in 3/3.5, so I fail to see why people are shocked by it now. So what if TK's ride kanks? You don't have to allow that in your campaigns, after all. Or maybe (the direction I'll probably take) some TK clutches refrain from riding kanks, while others don't mind using them.
Like I said, from what I've seen, 4E Dark Sun still is full of its own flavor and diversity, and is quite unique, despite the somewhat-normalized aspect of the mechanics.
ɯ1ǝɥʞɹɐp dǝɹo1x --
".sɹouɹɹǝ buı1ǝ1ds s,ɹǝʇnɯoɔ ʎɯ ɹǝɟ 1ǝqɐɔuodsǝɹ ʇou 1ǝʇs ɯ,ı"
"I'm stel not responcabel fer my comuter's spleling errnors."
-- Xlorep DarkHelm
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3 years ago ::
Jun 17, 2010 - 11:35AM
#40
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Date Joined:
Jun 11, 2008
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You fail to see the point. The picture is more bigger than just a riding kank.
What is the interest in trying to shape all world as the same with just simple nitpicks here and there? We want a setting different from the others, not a setting that smell just like every "normal" setting. What's the POINT in buying a setting that smell all the same?
Two things here:
- we can safely have the Athas we know and love with Tri Kreen riding Kankas. It's not like they turned Rajaat from Human to Pyreen or they killed half of the Dragon Kings or put a forest in the middle of the desert or made it rain on Athas. OH WAI- yeah, point being, Dark Sun and Dark Sun fans survived through so much crap and earthshattering changes that I can't see anyone (aside from haters who are gonna hate change of any form) being scared by Tri Kreen riding Kankas.
- it's a friggin ant man riding a friggin ant mount on Mars. Do you think anyone seriously risks mistaking that for Forgotten Realms?
Interested in reading about a Dark Sun 4e game? Here's the blog of our current campaign. My homebrew Dark Sun material: - the Lord of Blades, a melee oriented Kaisharga/Dead Lord
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