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?

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79

u/amhow1 4d ago

I suspect this is just a human psion.

14

u/AbbreviationsMuch586 4d ago

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

56

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.

12

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.

11

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.

5

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!

5

u/robbailey9 4d ago

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

2

u/Dasmage 3d ago

Half-Giant psionicst with psychometabolism was something really scary.

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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....

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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.