Character Building (from DDXP info)

[Ainamacar]

This is from the DDXP live chat.

Greg: How do you envision building a character going?

Monte: What we're working with now is that you pick you stats, class, race and then you also have a theme. So you might be a commoner, a noble, a knight, aprentice, etc. These themes would offer you skills. As you go up in level you could expand on that and express the story of your background and character by picking more optoins that support your theme.

But if you want to get into a more complex character development system (modular option), then you could pick other features and things to basically build your own theme.

There we have it, the basic elements of a character, at least at low levels. I think going with themes is a strong choice, and I'm glad these will be baked in from the start. Finally D&D will have a mechanical way to express background, outside training, social position, or almost anything the player considers most important outside their class from the start. Or to develop "paragon paths" and "epic destinies", or even acquired templates. For kingdom-building games and other things, a theme offers an easy way to join some of the strategic elements of being a ruler (for example) to character power. Very versatile, and according to Monte easy to ignore if desired.

More from the chat:

Greg: Are there any themes you really liked or things from themes you've really enjoyed?

Monte: We're doing a lot of really cool things with themes. For example, you could have a planetouched theme that would give you some extraplanar stuff.

Bruce: This is on the edge of what we're thinking of, but maybe something like being a deva would actually be a theme instead of a race. There's a more basic one that I really enjoy is the pubcrawler. You're that guy when you walk into the bar everybody knows your name, and it has some other flavor like that. It doesn't really speak to the combat or some other character areas, but it really helps inform who that guy is.

Rob: I like the idea of possibly taking what might have been classes in other editions and making them themes. For example, I love avengers, but an avenger themed Paladin is really cool too. It opens up the space for working with a class from a previous edition that there might not be space for as it's own class, but still has some great flavor.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

My knightly Wizard approves mightily. This is what themes should've been all along. Oh, and: themes killed backgrounds and took their stuff. As it should be - background mechanics always were underwhelming.

 

[Szatany]

Monte: We're doing a lot of really cool things with themes. For example, you could have a planetouched theme that would give you some extraplanar stuff.

This is, at the same time, interesting and worrying. It's cool because looks like I will be able to create aasimars, durzagons, etc. with just human race and themes.
On the other side, if I can only choose one theme, I won't be able to make an aasimar noble, because I must choose between either one, as both are themes.

Other thing that comes to my mind: Dwarves are very unlikely IMO to retain their bonuses against giants, etc. Instead, there will be a Wronged by monsters theme or somesuch.

 

[SeRiAlExPeRiMeNtS]

D&D next is looking a little like the dragon age rpg, anyone fells it to? I for one like almost everything they said, without the level scaling from previous D&D it is easy to make everything a stat roll with some bonus because race/class/theme.

 

[A'koss]

This is, at the same time, interesting and worrying. It's cool because looks like I will be able to create aasimars, durzagons, etc. with just human race and themes.
On the other side, if I can only choose one theme, I won't be able to make an aasimar noble, because I must choose between either one, as both are themes.

You will also have the option to create your own theme if you wanted so something like that could still be doable.

 

[Szatany]

You will also have the option to create your own theme if you wanted so something like that could still be doable.

I would prefer an option to use two themes, at a cost. Seems more intuitive than creating a half-aasimar/half noble theme.

 

[Dragonblade]

I would prefer an option to use two themes, at a cost. Seems more intuitive than creating a half-aasimar/half noble theme.

I REALLY hate it when people say "just house rule it!", but in this case, it really does seem to make sense to say that.

Now granted we don't mechanically how this will work, but assuming themes have limited combat utility (and thus limited potential for breaking the game), it would seem to be really easy for a DM to let players take two themes. I could already see myself doing this.

 

[A'koss]

During the seminar they mention things like vampires potentially being themes (and I think someone tweeted there was a werewolf theme in the playtest). So I wonder how they would handle a PC getting turned after 1st level. Do you pick up the vampire theme or will it be mechanically different (likely in MM)?

 

[Ainamacar]

During the seminar they mention things like vampires potentially being themes (and I think someone tweeted there was a werewolf theme in the playtest). So I wonder how they would handle a PC getting turned after 1st level. Do you pick up the vampire theme or will it be mechanically different (likely in MM)?

As I see it the goal of a theme is to grant a starting package that represents the core competencies of the theme, and then allow for further exploration. For becoming a vampire that might be a boost to Strength or Dexterity or Charisma (choose 1), plus a blood drain ability. Since themes are evidently packages of (at least) skills and feats, I would not be surprised if adding a new theme required a feat or, if the starting abilities of a theme are pretty significant, even a class level. (Since 3e multiclassing is apparently the goal, trading 1 level to enter a new theme could work mechanically. The interaction, if any, between multiclassing and themes hasn't been mentioned to my knowledge.) In other words, one would lose a small component from existing progression to gain a wealth of future options.

If themes provide little in the way of initial abilities, however, I wouldn't be shocked if they just let the player add an acquired theme like werewolf and be done with it, or possibly require only that the next "theme feat" the player acquires is from the new theme. After all, the number of elements they could choose from themes will probably still be fixed by other considerations, and if the plan is to allow players to create their own themes from scratch anyway this isn't much different.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

It really would be cool, if the game supports chosing only a theme and a race, or even two themes.
This way, level 0 will be an easy thing to play!