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The Twelve Days of Th4enksgiving
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<blockquote data-quote="FireLance" data-source="post: 6057653" data-attributes="member: 3424"><p><strong>10. Themes</strong></p><p></p><p>Themes are perhaps one of the most popular of the new mechanics introduced by 4e. </p><p></p><p>For those who care about it, there is usually a strong link between the flavor of the theme and the mechanics of the benefits it provides. As originally envisaged, themes also had fairly low power creep. Apart from the initial benefit that it provided (and even that could be balanced out by a house rule requiring the character to pay a feat to gain that ability), the character could only gain additional abilities from the theme by swapping out powers from his class. </p><p></p><p>For a while, I entertained the possibility that future versions of D&D could make all character defining options (such as race and class) into themes. The racial utility powers introduced in Dragon magazine and products such as Heroes of Shadow and Heroes of the Feywild seemed to be a step in this direction.</p><p></p><p>Under this approach, themes would provide no automatic abilities, but would broaden the characters' choices of abilities to select. Assuming a standard character starts with three themes, you could choose to be a Dwarf Fighter Noble, and choose your first-level abilities from the choices provided by the Dwarf, Fighter and Noble themes. Multiclassing would be represented by doubling up on class themes, so you could have an Elf Fighter Wizard selecting first-level abilities from the Elf, Fighter and Wizard themes. The complexity of the character could thus be raised or lowered by adding more themes or using less themes, but more complex characters with more themes would not get more abilities (just more choices) and would still be fairly well balanced with characters that have fewer themes. While it appears that 5e will not be designed in this manner, it was an entertaining line of speculation. </p><p></p><p>So, thank you, 4e, for themes.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="FireLance, post: 6057653, member: 3424"] [B]10. Themes[/B] Themes are perhaps one of the most popular of the new mechanics introduced by 4e. For those who care about it, there is usually a strong link between the flavor of the theme and the mechanics of the benefits it provides. As originally envisaged, themes also had fairly low power creep. Apart from the initial benefit that it provided (and even that could be balanced out by a house rule requiring the character to pay a feat to gain that ability), the character could only gain additional abilities from the theme by swapping out powers from his class. For a while, I entertained the possibility that future versions of D&D could make all character defining options (such as race and class) into themes. The racial utility powers introduced in Dragon magazine and products such as Heroes of Shadow and Heroes of the Feywild seemed to be a step in this direction. Under this approach, themes would provide no automatic abilities, but would broaden the characters' choices of abilities to select. Assuming a standard character starts with three themes, you could choose to be a Dwarf Fighter Noble, and choose your first-level abilities from the choices provided by the Dwarf, Fighter and Noble themes. Multiclassing would be represented by doubling up on class themes, so you could have an Elf Fighter Wizard selecting first-level abilities from the Elf, Fighter and Wizard themes. The complexity of the character could thus be raised or lowered by adding more themes or using less themes, but more complex characters with more themes would not get more abilities (just more choices) and would still be fairly well balanced with characters that have fewer themes. While it appears that 5e will not be designed in this manner, it was an entertaining line of speculation. So, thank you, 4e, for themes. [/QUOTE]
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