Dark Sun. Is it any good?

[Binary]

Sweet, I enjoyed ds1 more than the sequel (though you can import your party as is and acheive the lofty heights of high level0.

Whats you party composition? I hope you have a mage and a druid at least, since the spells are kick ass sweet.

I remember multiclassing all my characters so that all classes were used. I avoided duplication of spells (no druid + cleric on the same character ).

I remember the psionic was a blast with mass control. and the preservationist (the mage) was also a must.

Oh, as an extra, and since there's a "best combat system on a RPG" thread out there, this one was my favorite for a long time. The final battle in DS1 and quite a few big battles in DS2 were fantastic.

 

[ghostdog]

Both games had some major bugs (especially the first) that could kill your game, check out http://www.patches-scrolls.de/ for some fanmade patches that fix those bugs.

I consider Dark Sun as the predecessor of Fallout. Isometric view, desolate-harsh world, a lot of quests, a lot of dialog. Very nice games.

 

[Binary]

It was DS2 and not DS1 that had game-breaking bugs. DS2, even after the patch, had some terribly annoying bugs. I don't remember ever having a single problem on DS1

I consider Dark Sun as the predecessor of Fallout. Isometric view, desolate-harsh world, a lot of quests, a lot of dialog. Very nice games.

lol, ever played Wasteland?

 

[Andhaira]

Actually, the darksun world itself was the post apoclyptic version of the standard fantasy world.

that is, forgotten realms/dragonlance/mystara/greyhawk in the far future, where a group of powerhungry mages have gone and destroyed the world to further their own ambition by exploding the fantasy equivalent of nukes.

 

[Andhaira]

Actually, the darksun world itself was the post apoclyptic version of the standard dnd fantasy world.

that is, forgotten realms/dragonlance/mystara/greyhawk in the far future, where a group of powerhungry mages have gone and destroyed the world to further their own ambition by exploding the fantasy equivalent of nukes.

 

[ghostdog]

lol, ever played Wasteland?

Nope


Yeah I know wasteland is great, it's the father of fallout etc, I just haven't played it ... and I don't think I'll ever will , for some weird reason. Anyway even if the apocalypsis in DS was caused from mages, it's still a post apocalyptic game...

 

[Binary]

I don't think there's an "apocalypse" in Darksun, it's just a desert world that's slowly losing resources - much thanks to Defilers I think? The opposite of Preservationists.

But yes I understand the concept of "barren world" is somewhat similar.

 

[Andhaira]

Binary:

Darksun used to be your 'standard' fantasy world. then, the some really powerful defilers(who became the sorceror kings) started to cause it to become what it is due to their drain on resources. There wwere wars between the sorceror-kings and all the 'standard' fantasy races. Dwarves, orcs, minotaurs, kobolds, etc etc were all wiped out. Permanently. The, the sorceror kings fought with the first sorceror-king rajaat, because rajaat wasn't going to stop with the genocide, he wanted to wipe out the humans as well!

Then, during all this, the planet's sun started to die! (Not sure if this was natural or due to defilers drawing upon the sun for power. I htink it was the latter).

And thats the state of the world when you enter.

 

[Binary]

Thanks for the explanation. I knew about the genocide attempts by Rajaat. Makes for a very interesting/unusual setting.

 

[DemonKing]

I thought they were decent games, although I never finished DS2 due to bugs (no interwebs back in the day for me to get a patch either - although I believe an official one was released).

One annoying feature I found was that no matter what you armed your guys with the graphics would always show them hammering on their enemies with their bare fists!

 

[aboyd]

I remember the psionic was a blast with mass control.

This is my first time doing psionics in a CRPG. I think the only time I've ever even tried psionics was an offline (real people around a table) RPG back when I was 16. That's 2 decades ago, so I have no memory of it. I'm not even sure I really did try it.

So, any tips? I've only played a few hours.

 

[Andhaira]

Yeah psionics and mage's are very powerful have 'em in your party.

Half-giant fighters are increabily powerful; they make eberron's warforged look like pansies. Though for roleplaying reasons I always preferred Mul gladiators.

Oh and aren't the spell icons/psi icons pretty? I think they were the motivation for BG and IWD series to have unqiue spell icons of their own.

 

[Binary]

So, any tips? I've only played a few hours.

Make sure your psionic and preservationist are different characters. My party was something like:

Half-Giant Fighter (not sure if I multi'd this one)
Halfling Thief/Cleric (or Druid)
Human Preservationist/Druid (or Cleric)
Elf (??) Ranger/Psionic

I remember there's at least one quest on DS2 that is race-size dependant, so either an half-giant or an halfling will do.

I wonder if I can find my saves...

 

[Jasede]

Hown can you even have a Dark Sun halfling in your party? Keep him fed by letting him feast on fallen sentients?

 

[Binary]

 

[Raapys]

Have I done a mistake by going with two of those insectoid stuff as gladiators and no other fighters?

They've done very well so far, but since they can't wear most items, including armor, are they going to suck late-game?

 

[Binary]

I do not know. Two gladiators does seem a lot, regardless of being thri-kreen or not. DS does seem to favor magic.

Well they have 4 arms don't they? With a El's Drinker each, and 3 more swords, they should be fine

 

[Hory]

I don't think it really matters... Most battles are not difficult - just like in other games...

 

[bezimek]

I don't think it really matters... Most battles are not difficult - just like in other games...

True but DS final battle is not easy, not so easy as for instance this in BG 1/2 or PS:T .

Thri-kreen gladiator/fighter with good weapons and 8/9 exp level can kill most enemies in 1/2 turns. He have a lot of hp, too so he can take a lot of pain. Half- giants have more hp - about 15 hp per exp level so it is wise to take:
- Half- giant gladiator/fighter
- Thri-kreen fighter or gladiator or fighter/psionic ( as I remember right )
and two support characters ( one magic user and one priest )

 

[Crichton]

Since the game caps level and not XP, multi-classing is always better (XP are unlimited). The easiest party that I've played with so far is-

Half-giant Ranger / Cleric
Half-Elf Ranger / Preserver
Mul Fighter / Psionist
Thri-keen fighter / druid

A party of all half-giants has a lot of HP, but it's difficult to tell them apart and they can't be preservers. I also tried a party of all thri-keen, but they're capped at two weapons, just like everyone else and eventually their natural AC can't keep up with all the fancy magical armor. So thri-keen are great early on but are a drag eventually. Any party of all one race can be troublesome because they all look the same.

I think the absolute best party for the endgame is four half-elf ranger / cleric / preservers, but I still haven't finished the game with them (they level up really slowly).

Thieves can backstab, which is cute, I'm not sure it makes up for all the spells you'd be giving up. They can also climb which only matters for the first half of the game before you start acquiring ropes. (You can even go back and use ropes for all the areas you couldn't reach before, so forget climbing)

 

[aboyd]

Since the game caps level and not XP, multi-classing is always better (XP are unlimited).

Well now that is a useful tip. I almost never multiclass. Knowing the game will severely penalize me for having single-class characters, I'm tempted to start over with a different group.

 

[aboyd]

Thieves can backstab, which is cute, I'm not sure it makes up for all the spells you'd be giving up.

Wouldn't a thief/druid be a good combo? They both have armor limitations, so you wouldn't lose spells. Correct? (I honestly don't know, I rarely do multiclassing.)

 

[Crichton]

Wouldn't a thief/druid be a good combo? They both have armor limitations, so you wouldn't lose spells. Correct? (I honestly don't know, I rarely do multiclassing.)

No, for three reasons,

1) In DS: SL, characters can use armor with no penalties if any of their classes can use it so a fighter/mage, fighter/druid, fighter/psionist, fighter/whatever can use the heaviest armor in the game with no penalty.

2) Multi-class warriors gain THAC0 / # of attacks just like single-class warriors, everyone else gains shit THAC0 / # of attacks, so everyone must be a multi-class warrior (fighter or ranger, gladiators can't multi-class).

3) A class slot is a class slot so instead of taking thief you could always take something that can cast spells / psionic powers. (ex. instead of fighter/mage/thief you could take fighter/mage/cleric)

This is why I think having four ranger/cleric/mages is probably the way to go, but if the idea bores you, by all means take some variety. Druids and psionists are great fun and as long as everyone has a warrior class and a spellcasting/psionic class, you can't go too far wrong.

For that matter, you can beat the game without any sort of super-party. The only reason I still theorize about it is my quest to win the final battle with all three useless NPC buddies alive and well.

 

[aboyd]

That is excellent info. Thank you!

I'm going to start my game over.

 

[Binary]

For that matter, you can beat the game without any sort of super-party. The only reason I still theorize about it is my quest to win the final battle with all three useless NPC buddies alive and well.

I never managed this - one of them always dies.

Thanks for reminding that levels are capped and xp isn't. This seemed to be typical of AD&D RPGs of that time (I think for example EOB was the same).

I would only point that I'd never mix 2 classes that cast the same type of spells. Ranger/Psionicist or Ranger/Preserver is fine, Ranger/Druid or Ranger/Cleric can be redundant in some fights.

IIRC you can have 3 classes per character, so putting a thief in there somewhere (El's Drinker backstabbing anyone? ) sounds good.