Dark Sun and Pathfinder

Well, for Christmas I got the very awesome 4th Edition D&D version of the Dark Sun Campaign Guide. It's very cool. The art is nice, and there's a lot of crunch and fluff to sate my ravenous hunger for both. That being said, I can't help but look back towards Pathfinder in order to run a game in this setting. It makes more sense to me, honestly. I'm a bit confused by the whole Theme character set up they instituted. I'm presuming that the whole purpose of the the Theme Character concept is to give different options to existing character classes. I'm only guessing this, since I really don't play 4th Ed enough to really understand it.

I've gone through a few other sites to look things over, and see what other people have to say about running a Dark Sun campaign in Pathfinder. To be honest, in my opinion, there's not a lot that needs changed from the three great Dragon & Dungeon Magazine articles, as a whole. If you don't know the articles of which I speak, I suggest going to Paizo's site and seeing if you can find them in back stock. Also, I'm waiting until I can get my cyberhands on a pdf copy of the Psionics Unleashed book. I'm hoping that it lives up to my expectations, being pretty much just an updated version of the old 3.5 Expanded Psionics Handbook. (Update 3/11/2013: Yes, the Psionics Unleashed and it's Psionics Expanded books are great additions to any player that wants to incorporate Psionics into a Pathfinder game, and the flavor is just right for Dark Sun, in my opinion.)

That being said, it seems that there's this desire to create new classes for the different "themes" of Dark Sun. The advent of the Advance Player's Guide goes a long way of flushing out some of the "gaps" some may have felt were there when it came to certain charater archetypes for Dark Sun.

• The Minstrel 
  • The Character Options for the Bard and Rogue are great for making a proper Minstrel


• The Gladiator 
  
  • Barbarians, Fighters, Monks, and even some Rogue alternate class options also do a wonderful job of giving a character the Athas feel.


• The Elemental Priest 
  • Clerics, I think, still fill this little gap nicely. Just pick the right domains. Also, Druids with the new Nature Bond, and choosing an appropriate domain can fill this position nicely as well.
  • Oracles are also a nice additional choice in this role. Get them a nice Elemental base to their mysteries, and there you go.


• The Templars 
  • The Inquisitor class. I mean.. this class seems ready made to be Templars. Maybe some House Ruled Lawful (Neutral/Evil) Paladin, may also work... but I kinda lean against it.
  • The Anti-Paladins are another possible Templar class, but the requirement of "Chaotic Evil" makes this class a bit harder than most to justify. Maybe a requirement of "Lawful Evil" as a house rule may make more sense. 


• The Other Classes
  
  
  
  • There are a few classes that were introduced the Advanced Player's Guide that I think can fit well into a Dark Sun campaign
  • The Alchemist - The idea of a mad scientist in Dark Sun is almost comical. Being able to create potions and poisons would be a very profitable occupation in many walks of life, and there are many possible ways to fit this into the game. An Alchemist could also be responsible for some of the unusual character races, or other oddities as they experiment on subjects, both willing and unwilling.
  • The Cavalier - Wandering caravan guards, city defenders, leaders of a noble house's personal army, or master raiders and bandits, another class that can easily fit into Athas.
  • The Witch - A Witch in Athas can be an amazing character as well. They could be serving "things" from beyond the Gray, or the Elemental Planes. They could also be servants of the Sorcerer-Kings, possibly even unsuspecting servants. How much of a great role-playing moment when you find out that the little critter that's been giving you your spells each morning actually works for the guy you're rebelling against.
  • The Summoner - Now, you'll notice that I left this one for last. There's a reason for that. While, in theory, this is just a very specialized version of wizard or sorcerer, the eidolon opens up a lot of possibilities. What is the eidolon? Is it a manifestation of the summoner's psyche? Is it something more? A lot of "THINGS" died or fled before the current age. What if what the summoner is calling is a fragment of a god or some other similarly powerful entity? What if said entity is attempting to get a toe hold back in Athas? I mean, I know a summoner would be a hit in the arena, but what if summoners are new, and the sorcerer kings aren't quite sure what to make of them? (DMs, you may now throw your heads back in maniacal laughter.)
• Edit as of 3/11/2013: The release of the Ultimate Magic and Ultimate Combat introduced some new classes. To be honest, most of these are really hard to fit into 
• The Magus - A sword wielding spell caster makes for a very likely Templar for some of the City-States. If they hid their abilities, they could also be a specialized group of Gladiators, maybe an elite stable/household. This is a class, though, that you would want to be very careful with if you allowed it at all. Some of the Alternate Builds, though, do lend themselves very nicely to a Dark Sun game, just be sure that it's within the bounds of the game you are playing.
• The Gunslinger, the Ninja, and the Samurai - I've bundled these all together for a reason. Basically, unless you're DM is extremely generous, you've come up with an amazing explanation (like it's a lost culture, or the guns are remnants from before there was almost no metal, or something similar), or you're the kinda of player that just doesn't take "no" for an answer, these three are pretty much a no-go for a Dark Sun game.  While I am often the kind of DM that's willing to let certain things "slide past", I've had some difficulty with one Dark Sun game when I allowed a samurai in the game. Granted, it wasn't the samurai that was the problem, but it kind of set a bit of distortion to the game that the game never seemed to recover from. 

That's my two cents (and then some) on the matter. I hope this has given you some inspiration. In a nut shell, I don't think a lot of modification is needed to run an awesome Dark Sun campaign. Have the right collection of materials, and I'm pretty sure you'll have a good game.