6 PC playtest - who to clone and how to adjust

[CM]

Actually, if they use ranged attacks, they deal 2 damage no matter what. That basically means every dagger they throw automatically hits, and automatically does max damage. Free critical hits for everyone!

It's not quite as bad if you give orcs the Slayer theme, since they would only do 1 damage, and only on melee attacks. Hobgoblins get 1 damage every round no matter what attack mode they are using.

And that is just the Slayer theme. Imagine giving those kobolds the Magic-User theme. Now they can now throw magic missiles and rays of frost at will, infinitely. This will be a very short battle.

We all know that feats (and therefore themes) are quite powerful. Why should we expect a monster with a theme to continue to be a pushover? (Assuming that monsters can even be customized with themes designed for player characters).

My money is on there being a set of special monster themes/templates which aren't game-breaking when applied to NPCs/monsters.

 

[CleverNickName]

My money is on there being a set of special monster themes/templates which aren't game-breaking when applied to NPCs/monsters.

You're probably right, but I'm going to keep my fingers crossed for themes/templates that aren't game-breaking no matter who (or what) they are applied to. Variety is the spice of life, right?

 

[Kraydak]

I agree, and I hope the final rendition of the rules allows us to adjust monsters this easily. The problem is that these themes are overbalanced at the moment. I'm sure they will fix them later, but right now, 10 kobolds with magic missile means that one party member dies every round, no save. 10 kobolds with the Reaper feat means that one party member dies every round, no save.

Meh. Only at low level, if the PCs roll badly for initiative. Massed ranged attacks have always been devastating: 10 competent archers would do much the same. 10 longbow wielding Gnolls would be significantly scarier. Adding a theme isn't *that* bit a deal.

 

[CleverNickName]

Adding a theme isn't *that* bit a deal.

Maybe not, but the playtest really breaks down when you start mixing and matching between players and monsters. I'm sure they will get all the bugs worked out before the final version. All we can really do right now is help them find the bugs.

 

[DEFCON 1]

...Why? I don't mean to insult your tastes or anything, but to me Human/Commoner/Fighter/Guardian is literally the most boring combination imaginable. What's the appeal? Just genuinely curious.

For me, it was just practicality. With needing 8 characters, there were only so many combos that didn't duplicate too many things.

Wanted a second Guardian theme, because I wanted more attempts to playtest the Defender feat mechanic. There was already two dwarves and I was running a second elf for my archer fighter, which meant either a third human or second halfling... and I knew my players would be more interested in a human. Then of the backgrounds, sage was for my bard, the dwarf fighter was already a soldier, the other Guardian was already a knight and I wanted to avoid a priestly fighter (as that would have given me a third 'religious' type character). So unless I made a new background up (which I was already doing once for the elf archer) Commoner was the only one left. And I thought a second class having a Trade might make for interesting RP.

Fairly easy to place it all together once I thought about it.