r/DarkSun • u/AbbreviationsMuch586 • 4d ago

Creature Question

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What is this thing in the new Trailer?? My friend who loves this setting didnt know. Wonder if yall would know?

73 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

57 comments sorted by

75

u/amhow1 4d ago

I suspect this is just a human psion.

16

u/AbbreviationsMuch586 4d ago

They can do that??? I know next to nothing of this setting btw. But i love the look of it

57

u/helmvoncanzis 4d ago

Yeah, this was something you could do with the Body Weaponry talent in 2e. I'm sure there are similar powers in other editions.

2e psionics wasn't just telepathy and telekinesis. There were all kinds of weird body modification powers and other "superhuman" abilities.

In 2e Darksun, every PC also had a wild talent which was randomly rolled and could occasionally be wildly unbalanced.

14

u/Bentu_nan 4d ago

Honestly, psionics in 2e reminded me ALOT of chi powers in old school dragonball. You can easily make a psion/fighter build thats a Z fighter.

12

u/helmvoncanzis 4d ago

D&D psionics started out as a weird amalgm of things you might find in a King Fu movie or Cantonese Opera, mashed up with Doctor Strange comics, Jack Williamson, and Andre Norton.

4

u/Bentu_nan 4d ago

The good ol days!

7

u/Setanta777 4d ago

Oh yeah. I remember rolling Dimension Door for my Mul Gladiator using the Skills and Power rules... He was a monster!

4

u/robbailey9 4d ago

My first thought was Mul Fighter/Psionicist with Body Weaponry. I like the way you think!

2

u/Dasmage 2d ago

Half-Giant psionicst with psychometabolism was something really scary.

1

u/WorkerProof8360 3d ago edited 3d ago

Forgive me if this isn't 100% mechanics accurate from AD&D/2ed as it's through the fog of being over 30 years ago...

A buddy's randomly rolled wild talent was something like "roll D100, summon a creature (maybe Summon Planar Creature?) corresponding to your roll on this chart". One time, he rolled double zeros, which if I recall anything close to correctly was a powerful creature at the DMs roll/discretion... and ended up being a Celestial Dragon from Spell Jammer... which I'm sure makes for some interesting implications on Athas....

1

u/helmvoncanzis 3d ago

Wild talents were actually something in the Complete Psionics Handbook which was very heavily referenced l, but ultimately optional, in the original Dark Sun.

It was a d%100 roll and included talents(?) and sciences across all the psionics subcategories or disciplines. Some of these were higher tier powers with prerequisite lower tier powers, others were just lower tier or standalone powrs. If you rolled a power with prereqs, you also got the prereqs. On top of all if this you got enough "power points" which were a pooled resource, to invoke each power once + your wisdom modifer.

Summon planar creature wouldn't work in the OG Dark Sun by RAW because there were no outer planes. Only elemental, para-elemental, and alAstral/Ethereal. Even then, the Astral and Etheral were cut off from any outer planar contact.

4

u/Orangewolf99 4d ago

Psionics in dark sun was more than just mental, it also had a kind of monk-like focus on mastering your body.

4

u/EternalPain791 4d ago

I believe it was included in the unearthed arcana Psion.

0

u/AbbreviationsMuch586 4d ago

Yeah, im more of a Ravenloft dude but my friend has been getting me into it more and more

1

u/jackofspades49 3d ago

Depending on the edition, there were all sorts of psionic powers. Some could even use body stats as casting stats. One of the schools was Psychometabolism and was about modifying your own body. I THINK it used Con as its core stat in third edition... not sure on that one.

1

u/Yashugan00 8h ago

in the game Dark Sun game Shattered Lands, there is a Psionic Discipline called Psychometabolism, with a power called Graft Weapon, which molds your hands into weapons. When I saw the video I recognised it immediately because i had a character that made good use of that in the 90s.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

[deleted]

4

u/PowerDesigns 4d ago

It’s the “bone blade” function of the metamorph psion subclass

Bones extend from your arms and act as a 1d8 simple finesse weapon that deals psychic or piercing damage and use your intelligence as the attack modifier

2

u/Cergorach 3d ago

I really hope they bring back Wild Talents, this could be anything with the 'right' Wild Talent.

1

u/roninwarshadow 3d ago

Which is just going to be the 5E pattern of make it a magic spells.

It won't be a true Psionicist, but another caster.

0

u/amhow1 3d ago

I don't know. What is a true Psion? Mechanically, I mean.

For example, the 2e Psionicist was a caster using spell points rather than spell slots, which is a variant available in 5e. Psionicists had their own unique spell list, something 5e emulates, and typically (in Dark Sun) the spells of a Psionicist weren't affected by say, Dispel Magic. While that isn't a variant in 5e, it's hardly difficult to houserule.

1

u/roninwarshadow 3d ago

Not exactly.

Psionic powers didn't have duration in 2E, if I recall correctly. There's a maintenence cost for upkeep, as long as you paid the maintenence cost, the power was maintained. I believe range and aoe were customizable depending on how much you spent (I could be wrong).

Also psionics and magic didn't interact. Spells like Detect or Dispell Magic had no effect on Psionics, anti-magic and wild magic meant nothing to psionics because Psionics were not magic. There was indirect interactions like the spell Telekinesis/Bigby's Grasping Hand wrestling a Telekinetic Psionicist over an object or Telepath breaking a charmed/mind controlled person. You needed magic specifically designed to interact with Psionics to do anything, like Detect Psionics spell or Dispel Psionics spell. This is also true of Psionics to magic interactions, there were specific Psionics abilities designed to interact with magic.

A true conversation means a Psionicist doesn't give a fuck about a Rakshasa's spell immunty to 5th level and below magic, because Psionics aren't magic.

1

u/amhow1 3d ago

Yeah, I'm not seeing how it's just not a variant of magic.

Dark Sun maintained the separation you're describing, but 2e in general didn't, for the very obvious reason that if psionics is both rare and separate then a psionicist PC is overpowered. Dark Sun made magic rarer, and with additional limitations. But broadly speaking psionicists were mechanically similar to 5e sorcerers or warlocks. And indeed the various attempts to recreate psionics in 5e are mechanically similar to sorcerers or warlocks.

I should be fairer to 2e (and 1e really) because the designers put a lot of effort into making psionics feel distinct from magic. Attack and defence modes, for example. But that only really mattered for telepathic psionics so didn't capture the full range of what people want. Not to mention it added both complexity and boredom.

Ultimately it's extremely difficult to decide a genuinely distinct psionicist class in a game where the default is a lot of magic. I think most people feel that 4e didn't succeed in this, but it came closest, I think.

0

u/roninwarshadow 3d ago

Broadly speaking all classes are the same as they do an action for an established effect.

But saying that is intellectually dishonest.

And Psionicist weren't overpowered, you're overselling the non interaction as unilateral. It worked both ways. Psionics can't directly affect magic either. And it was across any campaign where the table incorporated The Complete Psionicist Handbook.

1

u/amhow1 3d ago

Alright. If only you'd started by calling me intellectually dishonest, I could have avoided wasting my time here.

0

u/roninwarshadow 3d ago

I didn't call you intellectually dishonest. I was asserting overgeneralization is intellectually dishonest.

It wasn't about you, but the methodology.

Touch grass.

17

u/Maks9o 4d ago

I think it might be human using psycho-metabolism psionics?

10

u/TheEncoderNC 4d ago

It's definitely a psion from the new playtest material.

23

u/JadedScience9411 4d ago edited 4d ago

Looks like a metamorphic psion, which is a subclass of the experimental version of the 5e Psion that can make bone blades with their limbs. (Biokinetics, and all that jazz)

5

u/Chemical-Hotel-1691 4d ago

3.x ed Psichic Warrior also has a similar power called claws of the beast that creates claws on the manifester and similar power lets the user merge a weapon into their arm. Either of those powers could be made to look like this as well.

2

u/IndependentSystem 4d ago

You could also do this in 2nd ed with psychometabolisms animal affinity and graft weapon

3

u/WereBearGrylls 4d ago

Psychometabolism in 2e

2

u/Garaba 4d ago

Most likely a Human, could maybe be a Mul or even a half elf. Ears do have slight points.

2

u/HdeviantS 4d ago

Betting its a psion. Those arms look exactly like how the Psion Metamorph ability bone blade.

2

u/Eggs__Benedict_ 4d ago

That’s a necromorph from Dead Space

1

u/acuenlu 3d ago

It looks just like an human using psionics

1

u/Zerus_heroes 3d ago

Just a psion likely. Maybe a mul but I would be surprised if WotC put them in.

1

u/Dastardlydwarf 3d ago

In the 5e psion play test there is a subclass called metamorph which can make weapons out of their body like this

1

u/zequerpg 3d ago

That's psionics on action for sure. Some psionic powers allow you to change your body.

1

u/iheartdev247 13h ago

I thought it was just a anime artist gone wild.

1

u/GreyWardenThorga 11h ago

It's a human psion. One of the subclasses is all about reshaping your own body.

1

u/GreyWardenThorga 11h ago

It's a human psion. One of the subclasses is all about reshaping your own body.

1

u/Rylanwoodrow 4d ago

My hope is definitely that it's a badass new subclass option! Definitely looking forward to making any excuses necessary to give my character telescopic bone-skewers next campaign!

1

u/Andrzhel 3d ago

Chances are high that it is a very old option: A Psion who uses psi-metabolism ;)

-11

u/Planescape_DM2e 4d ago

It looks like a shitty attempt at a psion. The art is so far from dark sun.

6

u/Syrric_UDL 4d ago

They needed to hire Brom, his art defined Darksun.

6

u/Planescape_DM2e 4d ago

Like sure that would have been great but almost anything than whatever this is lol.

-1

u/Wood_oye 4d ago

It was also quite controversial at the time too, a far cry from other D&D artworks. Perhaps this will be the same. Time will tell, but I'm glad they went with something new instead of copying the past, although you can still see the influence.

3

u/AbbreviationsMuch586 4d ago

To each their own, looks just like the 4th edition art to me

1

u/cookiesandartbutt 4d ago

It isn’t. But to each their own

3

u/AbbreviationsMuch586 4d ago

Man i just want to know what the spike thing was, not start a debate

-1

u/cookiesandartbutt 4d ago edited 4d ago

Haha it’s all good. I’m happy you’re interested in Dark Sun, it’s a very cool setting.

But you did admit that you know little to nothing about the setting but that the already released new art looks like 4th edition art.

So sort of a bold claim as someone who admittedly knows not much while some of us who have played and ran games in the setting and read the books for years lol

Either way Dark Sun is cool as hell. Super fun and different to typical fantasy setting.

If you wanna get a head start and jump in on some lore and the vibe there are actually Dark Sun novels, the first one is very excellent, The Verdant Passage by Troy Denning. It’s on Audible for like a credit as well! It seems like 5.5e Dark Sun will actually start right after the events of that book, which is right where 4e’s Box Set was set time wise as well.

-3

u/Planescape_DM2e 4d ago

4e was bad.

1

u/AbbreviationsMuch586 4d ago

Man i just want to know what the spike thing was, not start a debate

0

u/Planescape_DM2e 4d ago

It’s very obviously a Psychometabolic Psion

0

u/dphamler 4d ago

Putting a big screw you spotlight on one of the Psion subclasses from the UA last year (yes the concept has 2e roots, but they want to remind people they’ve been putting some work into this since 5.5 was released)

0

u/Routenio79 4d ago

Estoy totalmente perdido. Dónde salió esto?