D&D 5E D&D Next Blog: Beyond Class & Race

[Morrus]

So a 2e character is a pregenerated character? After all you only need to choose race and class...

Well, plus nonweapon and weapon profs, but yeah - go back even further and you're definitely talking pregens. A choice of 30 or so combos; then you must add the personali.

I'm prety sure that a pregenerated character is one that the player didn't decide anything about it beside maybe it's name.

Considering that there are going to be at least four classes and four races so using your numbers of six backgrounds and six themes we got 4x4x6x6 iirc that give you 586 pregenerated characters! And that before counting the umber of different abilities arrays!

I'm not trying to be confrontational, but it seems to me that we can't call this pregenerated characters.

Fair enough;I'll accept the terminology preference and call them "packages" instead. I'm not hung up on the name.

I'll even agree I'm exaggerating a little. But not by a awful lot.

I think my basic point is: per-created "packages" for beginners isn't really a big deal. It see,s like a no-brainer to me, whatever the mechanics of the edition are.

Sure, vary them in complexity from one, two, three, or four decisions. Makes sense. I just don't get what the big deal is.

 

[Incenjucar]

I wouldn't rule out the possibility that 5e feats could grant access to powers and power swaps, so 5e themes could still occupy the same mechanical space as 4e themes.

As it is, they already occupy the same flavor space: a concept or archetype, independent of class (at least, that's my reading).

The real advantage I see is better organization and linking of feats with flavor elements. As mentioned in my previous post, it would be better (at least to me) than the laundry list of feats we've seen in the past.

Themes can become roughly a third of your character if you invest in them heavily enough. If this can be done with feats, feats will become a freaking huge part of your character. Whether that is good or bad I couldn't say, since we lack any significant information about feats in 5E.

 

[Morrus]

The point I think Morrus is trying to get across is that this article was devoted to "Pick five skills, OR, pick one package of five pre-picked skills." and "Pick three feats, OR, pick one package of three pre-picked feats."

Yeah, that's more succinct.

Saying "A farmer is Wheatgrowing, Bootcleaning, and Pitchforking" isn't really worth an article. It's a sentence in a book.

 

[Savage Wombat]

The important point here is that a day ago we didn't know what themes did in 5e. And now we do.

We no longer have to speculate about whether a "vampire" or "planetouched" theme will grant special powers above and beyond normal character creation options. It's just feats and skill points.

 

[Incenjucar]

That's because I'm not arguing for making pre-fab stuff more powerful than custom stuff. I'm arguing for making them equally powerful. Which I believe, given the practical realities of pre-fabs, necessitates that pre-fabs not follow the custom rules strictly, and be more than just "example builds".

To not do so is to ignore massive amounts of history and precedent for "example builds".

Making lots of pre-fab stuff isn't good either. Then you end up with a bunch of trap options, and things that people want to play are likely to be among the options that aren't effective. Having a lousy "thief" isn't made up for by having a good "mystic slayer". They're not interchangeable.

All this does is introduce another avenue for min-maxing. It solves nothing. If WotC creates unbalanced example packages, it'll also create unbalanced unique packages.

 

[FireLance]

Themes can become roughly a third of your character if you invest in them heavily enough. If this can be done with feats, feats will become a freaking huge part of your character. Whether that is good or bad I couldn't say, since we lack any significant information about feats in 5E.

Judging from what has happened in the past, the real beauty of feats is that they can be anything: adding a constant bonus, adding a new ability, changing or enhancing an existing ability, allowing you to exchange an existing ability for something else, etc.

 

[Incenjucar]

Judging from what has happened in the past, the real beauty of feats is that they can be anything: adding a constant bonus, adding a new ability, changing or enhancing an existing ability, allowing you to exchange an existing ability for something else, etc.

True. But it also means that the people crying feat bloat are going to be going for their bullhorns.

 

[FireLance]

True. But it also means that the people crying feat bloat are going to be going for their bullhorns.

Hopefully, even if there is feat bloat, it's going to be better organized, more flavorful feat bloat.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I get the impression that the 4e designers have always been very...concerned...about themes adding powers to your character in place of your class abilities. They have always had a limit in place for that, and they quickly scaled back on the powers aspect of themes after their original implementation. It's still a big part of themes, but it's something that has been toned down quite a bit. I don't think themes are meant to come at the expense of your character's other powers.

I think 5e might be giving them a chance to hit a reset button, and make sure that people who want to take themes can do so without compromising their class powers. Feats are not a bad way to do that. They are a totally separate 'pillar.'

So I don't think 5e themes will feature quite as much "You are a fighter/gladiator," and will be more "You are a full fighter, AND you are a full gladiator," without having to choose between them.

I like it, even if it means feat abilities are a lot more like the more recent feats we've seen in the Dragon articles (with free treasure and minor bonuses at 5 and 10) and less like the original DS articles (with abilities you swap class powers for).

 

[Falling Icicle]

Having pre-generated packages to make character creation easier for new players or those who just don't like getting under the hood to customize their characters is fine, but the way they're doing this bothers me.

I was hoping that themes would be like 2e kits or Pathfinder character paths, which can provide some unique and interesting options as well as flavor, not just be a pre-chosen selection of regular feats that any character can get. That's a huge disappointment for me.

Also, I see all these packages wasting a tremendous amount of word count in the book that could be much better spent on other things. I think the packages would be better served being in a player's guide type supplement rather than taking up precious space in the core book.