It wasn't setting exclusive, but the Warlord was first introduced in 4e alongside it's flagship setting Nentir Vale. 4e was my introduction to D&D, so I think it's be cool if they made a Nentir Vale setting book with Warlord as it's class.
Mind you, I don't expect to see either happening anytime soon (or at all) in this edition, but since I'm lying here thinking about it...
It's perfectly possible that Wizards takes an approach to Dark Sun whereby they don't make a systematic distinction between which classes are defilers and which are not, and instead create a list or guideline. Something like "The following subclasses are not considered defilers for the purposes of magic and spell casting. This could be due to their use of psionics, such as with the Aberrant Mind Sorcerer, or through mastery of some other source as energy such as Way of the Four Elements monk and their use of ki". This would let them 'soft classify' some classes and subclasses as being safe to use what is still ostensibly magic, without the requisite to design a whole bespoke system.
The other route would be to create something akin to Theros's supernatural gifts, where when you make a Dark Sun character you can choose to be a defiler or preserver, which defines your magics source and maybe gives you some mechanical benefits. The approach that there must be a mechanically distinct system seems a bit narrow to me, there seem to be plenty of alternate design routes that would enable Dark Sun and its special relationship with magic.
The latter was kinda the approach in 3e (from Dragon magazine) and 4e, where defiling was part of a few archetypes, and any arcane caster could choose to defile in order to gain some mechanical bonus. These conflict with the idea that all magic is harmful, but are mechanically elegant. As arcane magic is no longer distinct, I would simply say that wizards, sorcerers, warlocks, and bards are subject to defiling rules, whatever they may be.
For diehard DS fans, bards would be forbidden, clerics would be limited to elemental domains (tempest, light, etc), and warlocks or paladins would be restricted to some setting-specific archetypes relating to the sorcerer-kings.
It wasn't setting exclusive, but the Warlord was first introduced in 4e alongside it's flagship setting Nentir Vale. 4e was my introduction to D&D, so I think it's be cool if they made a Nentir Vale setting book with Warlord as it's class.
Mind you, I don't expect to see either happening anytime soon (or at all) in this edition, but since I'm lying here thinking about it...
I think the battlemaster sucks away a lot of the oxygen from a need for a distinct warlord. That's controversial though.
I mean, Dark Suns originally came out in 2e, when your class options were Warrior, Wizard, Priest, and Rogue. If you cast arcane magic, you were a wizard. Period. You got a variety of options within the Wizard class, much like we have subclasses now, but you were always fundamentally a wizard. Defiler was a class created as a type of "evil wizard."
You make an excellent point, Mephista. The fact that we're discussing the differences between multiple editions of D&D (i.e., at least 2 with other editions between them) means that there's going to be some significant differences in both rule mechanics as well as playing styles. Back in 2E, there were the four main categories with options within each of those. In some ways, they were similar to our "13 classes" with their subclasses. In other ways, settings would just create new types of things to fill those four main roles. Dark Sun, as an example, gave us gladiators (warriors) and preservers and defilers (wizards).
Might not be to the taste of many Dark Sun enthusiasts, but I don't think that it'd be terribly hard to create a pair of 5E wizard subclasses that give alternate abilities in line with preservers and defilers. The specific rules of Athas arcane magic defiling life would probably have to be an alternate ruleset, though.
As far as I'm aware, divine classes (Cleric, Druid, and to a lesser extent, the technically arcane class Warlock) had other issues to contend with. Being cut off from the Outer Planes and all that, which theoretically impacted the type of spells they had access to. But, I don't recall ever seeing anything about them causing defilement.
I believe that you're correct in that divine magic did not have any of the defiling effects that arcane magic entailed. As you already mentioned, the issue with clerics in Athas was that the Outer planes were nearly completely cut off from Athas. Clerical magic in Athas instead came from elemental beings that granted spells and abilities. These would actually transfer over to 5E subclasses fairly easily, since we'd just need to have elemental domains for the Athas clerics to take; such as air, earth, fire, and water. If we were really replicating the Dark Sun setting, then we'd also probably need to have Sun, Rain, Silt, and Magma.
In 2e, there were Templars who served the Sorcerer Kings instead of a god, but basically the same thing. I imagine we might get Fire, Water, Wind, Earth Domains for clerics too with Dark Sun. But otherwise, yeah, spot on.
Yes, templars were the "clerics" who served the Sorcerer Kings in place of actual deities. Personally, they feel much more like warlocks than clerics, so I would probably remark as a warlock subclass in 5E to fit that "serving a patron" aspect that they had. Might have to find some of my old 2E materials and play around with recreating some of the stuff as subclasses to see what they'd look like in this edition.
I think the battlemaster sucks away a lot of the oxygen from a need for a distinct warlord. That's controversial though.
That's part of the reason why I'm sure it probably won't happen, but I think it *could* still be done, especially if they stepped away from the usual model for martial types and focused much more heavily on maneuvers and special reactions a la the Battlemaster and Cavalier; I think that could be pretty interesting, but again, probably not gonna happen...
sorcerers use internal energy, whereas wizards use the Weave (ie environment), but both are considered arcane. I suppose that, at this point, we really should say that arcane magic is anything not divine, since artificers, bards, sorcerers, wizards and warlocks are all arcane, but they're vastly different from each other. Honestly, its not really a helpful distinction anymore, more of a role play thing, and even then, its debatable.
the weave is only in Faerûn not in any other setting period
sorcerers use internal energy, whereas wizards use the Weave (ie environment), but both are considered arcane. I suppose that, at this point, we really should say that arcane magic is anything not divine, since artificers, bards, sorcerers, wizards and warlocks are all arcane, but they're vastly different from each other. Honestly, its not really a helpful distinction anymore, more of a role play thing, and even then, its debatable.
the weave is only in Faerûn not in any other setting period
The term, perhaps, but this quote from Strixhaven indicates the structure of magic spans multiple planes
"In the Forgotten Realms, scholars describe the fabric of magic as a Weave that allows spellcasters to interact with the world’s underlying magical reality. In Arcavios, that fabric is knotted and tangled in some locations, creating a phenomenon called snarls."
It wasn't setting exclusive, but the Warlord was first introduced in 4e alongside it's flagship setting Nentir Vale. 4e was my introduction to D&D, so I think it's be cool if they made a Nentir Vale setting book with Warlord as it's class.
Mind you, I don't expect to see either happening anytime soon (or at all) in this edition, but since I'm lying here thinking about it...
The latter was kinda the approach in 3e (from Dragon magazine) and 4e, where defiling was part of a few archetypes, and any arcane caster could choose to defile in order to gain some mechanical bonus. These conflict with the idea that all magic is harmful, but are mechanically elegant. As arcane magic is no longer distinct, I would simply say that wizards, sorcerers, warlocks, and bards are subject to defiling rules, whatever they may be.
For diehard DS fans, bards would be forbidden, clerics would be limited to elemental domains (tempest, light, etc), and warlocks or paladins would be restricted to some setting-specific archetypes relating to the sorcerer-kings.
I think the battlemaster sucks away a lot of the oxygen from a need for a distinct warlord. That's controversial though.
You make an excellent point, Mephista. The fact that we're discussing the differences between multiple editions of D&D (i.e., at least 2 with other editions between them) means that there's going to be some significant differences in both rule mechanics as well as playing styles. Back in 2E, there were the four main categories with options within each of those. In some ways, they were similar to our "13 classes" with their subclasses. In other ways, settings would just create new types of things to fill those four main roles. Dark Sun, as an example, gave us gladiators (warriors) and preservers and defilers (wizards).
Might not be to the taste of many Dark Sun enthusiasts, but I don't think that it'd be terribly hard to create a pair of 5E wizard subclasses that give alternate abilities in line with preservers and defilers. The specific rules of Athas arcane magic defiling life would probably have to be an alternate ruleset, though.
I believe that you're correct in that divine magic did not have any of the defiling effects that arcane magic entailed. As you already mentioned, the issue with clerics in Athas was that the Outer planes were nearly completely cut off from Athas. Clerical magic in Athas instead came from elemental beings that granted spells and abilities. These would actually transfer over to 5E subclasses fairly easily, since we'd just need to have elemental domains for the Athas clerics to take; such as air, earth, fire, and water. If we were really replicating the Dark Sun setting, then we'd also probably need to have Sun, Rain, Silt, and Magma.
Yes, templars were the "clerics" who served the Sorcerer Kings in place of actual deities. Personally, they feel much more like warlocks than clerics, so I would probably remark as a warlock subclass in 5E to fit that "serving a patron" aspect that they had. Might have to find some of my old 2E materials and play around with recreating some of the stuff as subclasses to see what they'd look like in this edition.
That's part of the reason why I'm sure it probably won't happen, but I think it *could* still be done, especially if they stepped away from the usual model for martial types and focused much more heavily on maneuvers and special reactions a la the Battlemaster and Cavalier; I think that could be pretty interesting, but again, probably not gonna happen...
the weave is only in Faerûn not in any other setting period
The term, perhaps, but this quote from Strixhaven indicates the structure of magic spans multiple planes
"In the Forgotten Realms, scholars describe the fabric of magic as a Weave that allows spellcasters to interact with the world’s underlying magical reality. In Arcavios, that fabric is knotted and tangled in some locations, creating a phenomenon called snarls."
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