L4W Discussion Thread V

[JoeNotCharles]

While that is a good point, we routinely allow many non ubiquitous sources like dragon, the power books etc. This is wizard's business model - the more you buy, the more options you get. I dont really like it, but it is what it is.

The difference is that all these options are supposed to be roughly balanced. Backgrounds and themes are the only things I'm aware of where a player who takes them just has something extra that others don't, as opposed to more options of what to take in a given slot.
For Backgrounds it's just a couple of extra points on a skill, not too overpowering. But for Themes, if I understand it right somebody who takes a theme has a whole extra encounter power that people without themes don't. So as soon as we allow themes, we require everyone to take a theme in order to keep up.

For backgrounds, we have our own Regional Benefits for people who only have PHB1. For themes, if we allow them we'd want to write up some setting-specific themes and publish them on the wiki so that people who don't have any of the official books that describe themes will still have some to take.

 

[CaBaNa]

That might be fun, L4W themes would be delightful, and it would give the community a chance to flex some creative muscle.

 

[Fyrm]

That does seem enteresting. An idea I had to make themes less nessesary would be to house rule them so that, instead of giving you a free encounter powwer, they could simply add the first one that is given to your level 1 encounter list, and then treat the rest of them as they are. Just a thought.

 

[Tomalak]

The difference is that all these options are supposed to be roughly balanced. Backgrounds and themes are the only things I'm aware of where a player who takes them just has something extra that others don't, as opposed to more options of what to take in a given slot.
For Backgrounds it's just a couple of extra points on a skill, not too overpowering. But for Themes, if I understand it right somebody who takes a theme has a whole extra encounter power that people without themes don't. So as soon as we allow themes, we require everyone to take a theme in order to keep up.

'Keep up?' We don't require players to take optimal stat builds, or to match their class/race for maximum statistic benefit - we allow it, but many people don't do that. How is this different?

While I understand not wanting to exclude players, why are you punishing the players who do buy the material?

 

[renau1g]

'Keep up?' We don't require players to take optimal stat builds, or to match their class/race for maximum statistic benefit - we allow it, but many people don't do that. How is this different?

Because it's power creep. Pure and simple. When backgrounds were introduced it was a small-ish bump to everyone's skills. That's not a big deal as it only makes Skill Challenges slightly easier. Now...themes are much different. They remind me of the backgrounds from Scales of War (which we don't allow) because some are so way overpowered when compared to others (see how many CharOp builds utilize the Born under a Bad Sign background). Since the inclusion of themes I have not seen any newly created character not have them. I'm fairly certain with themes it would be the same. We don't require optimal builds, but many people here do have pretty optimal ones. There's not a lot of 14 Str, gnome fighters running around, or Revenant Clerics of Lauto... I've seen one PC since I started with sub-16 main stat and he was new to 4e.

 

[Tomalak]

Options and choice are what make characters unique (along with backstory and attitude). Providing choices for character creation is something WotC is good at. There are a great deal of options. In fact, there seems to be a glut of options at every opportunity to make a decision that seems close to invoking the Peanut Butter Conundrum*. I enjoy seeing more choice points rather than more options per point. Which is not to say that everybody will see this the way that I do, but I'm sure some people do.

*Ever actually look at how many kinds of peanut butter there are in the store? Do there really need to be that many choices? Ever had trouble choosing, just because they all looked similar?

 

[JoeNotCharles]

'Keep up?' We don't require players to take optimal stat builds, or to match their class/race for maximum statistic benefit - we allow it, but many people don't do that. How is this different?

Because this is an entire extra Encounter power (at least - I don't have Dark Sun and my DDI subscription has lapsed, so I can't even read the themes, I'm just going by what I've picked up from discussion). That's more powerful than any of the other options, and there's no tradeoff. People who take a theme are strictly more powerful than people who don't - by a lot.

People who optimize their stats are also more powerful than people who don't, but you don't have to own extra material to do that.

 

[Iron Sky]

Well, if we allowed Dark Sun themes, I'm pretty sure all my characters would be Noble Adepts. I'm enough of a power gamer that I'll find a way to work an op choice into my concept and Noble Adept is pretty Op regardless of what your character is.

Personally, I don't think I need more mechanical gizmos to make my character more unique, I'd rather do that with fluffy stuff. Besides there's nothing like introducing 10 new options to a group to make everyone feel more differentiated, then find they all took the best 1 of those 10 options and now seem more similar instead.

 

[Mewness]

In fact, the introduction of Dark Sun themes is likely to make characters LESS interesting and unique, by encouraging people to push their characters towards the (rather Dark Sun-specific in most cases) fluff.

And, sheesh, not allowing Dark Sun themes does not "punish" people who have Dark Sun. The vast majority of crunchy material in Dark Sun (class powers, items, feats, weapons) is allowed!

 

[rb780nm]

Noble adept might be a bit OP (but only for Psis) - I can;t speak from experience with it, but in general the Encounter power is only about as powerful as an at-will (about 1x[W]).