Final Character Theme Article Up: Heroes for Hire

[Nemesis Destiny]

I hope Animal Buddy gets bonuses to Defenses scaling with level, but that might be asking too much.

It shouldn't be asking too much, by any reasonable definition, but I fear that you are correct.

 

[WalterKovacs]

Oh yes, the alsomighty wealth balance is screwed...

no really... that is just nonsense... really nonsense...

i like how this ability refers to the ritual book btw...

The guttersnipe could be an interesting ritualist, by combining their cost saving methods (which can enable a bit more ritual usage), with Secrets of the City (which allows for replacing an Arcana/History/Religion/Int check with a Streetwise check, in a settlement they already made a succesful streetwise check). So, the ability to get that initial check out of the way for free, and getting the boost, can enable a charismatic ritual caster (like say, a bard), to get good rolls on some of the more common skill checks for rituals.

I particularly like the utility which debuffs an enemy until it hits you. I had been toying with the idea of a rogue using underhanded tactics and disheartening ambush, and that would be a perfect complement. And the "walk-by attack" is a fun little power to go along with it.

 

[Destil]

Why a power bonus? That's awkward as hell, most power bonuses are short-term buffs from powers. Now you'll need to remember you already have a power bonus going.

Should be a feat bonus. Or better yet just grant bonus feats for every passive benefit of these... really wish 4E design had more high-level oversight sometimes.

 

[Aegeri]

Why a power bonus? That's awkward as hell, most power bonuses are short-term buffs from powers. Now you'll need to remember you already have a power bonus going

It's worth noting all the previous themes are going to be "errata'ed" to this in June, so you should consider them all power bonuses. By being power bonuses, Order Adept is actually a bit less ridiculous than it was.

Some interesting quotes from Greg Bilsland over from the official boards:

In the third and fourth character themes article in Dragon, most of the bonuses granted by the theme features are typed, in contrast to the bonuses granted by the features in the first two articles. This is an intentional change, and we'll be updating the other themes as part of the errata at the end of June.

Hopefully some other mechanical corrections will come as a result.

The principle behind the themes this month was to get a good amount of general themes out there—ones that are applicable to a wide variety of campaigns. Going forward, we'll be narrowing the focus more. I can't guarantee there'll be a theme every month, but we're committed to exploring this new game option and seeing everything it has to offer.

Sneak peek for June: We'll be introducing a couple of shadow themes. We didn't have the space to support themes in Heroes of Shadow, so we'd like to get a couple of options out there for the more shadow-inclined characters.

I thought this was a very interesting idea. I'm curious to see how this works out in practice however. Unfortunately, even with errata coming up those hoping for the suck to be beaten out of Animal Master will be very disappointed as Rich Baker has wrote this about it:

Regarding theme balance, my own personal philosophy is that sometimes it’s desirable to provide benefits that aren’t immediately useful in combat, because many D&D adventures are progressed through characters meeting challenges with creative use of their abilities. For example, disguise self is a crummy combat spell, but it is potentially an adventure-solver because a player could take on the appearance of a bad guy and walk through any number of potential fights or spy out a crucial piece of information. The Animal Master theme is (so far) considered the weakest of the themes presented in the article series, but I am of the opinion that, in the hands of a clever player, a trained animal that does what you want it to is potentially way more useful than a spell that just buffs your AC for a round. It begs for a creative player to think of a way to use it. Obviously, we don’t want to routinely balance combat benefits against noncombat benefits—that was the demise of the 1e/2e thief. But we’re coming around to the idea that it’s OK to provide utility powers that provide *utility* and let players decide if they want them or not. Every character has many, many alternatives for strictly combat-oriented powers, after all; you don’t have to take these if you don’t want them.

I have a lot of problems with this logic inherently, much for the same reason that the shade is justified for being so mechanically terrible based on "roleplaying potential and out of combat utility" (that isn't actually there). So this isn't great logic whatsoever, but I can see the little gleaming hint of merit in there as the animal master at least isn't as tragic as the shade is (for an equivalent example). It's particularly bad because of how trivial losing the animal is and how useless later on it will become. It's definitely not going to live long in my Marauders of the Elemental Chaos campaign (for inherently obvious reasons), despite the rather neat image of having an actual parrot (or whatever) in what is effectively a planar pirate campaign.

Thankfully as the DM I can make common sense rulings, change around numerous aspects of the theme AND ensure it's still got all the flavor it had originally. Just without the mechanical suckage. Plus a creative player can still get awesome uses out of it that never were going to break the game in the first place if the theme DIDN'T suck mechanically.

Edit: Too much to ask indeed.

If you're wondering, I did the below to the theme:

Companion Resilience

Firstly, the animal companion counts sort of like a familiar and has an active and a passive mode. When it is in its passive mode, the animal cannot be targeted by attacks or effects. A free action changes the animal from being in its passive mode to its active mode. A minor action switches the animal from its active mode back into its passive mode. To use the powers of the theme, the animal companion has to be in its active mode. This represents the animal staying out of harms way, hiding behind something or just generally staying out of reach. The point here is to make sure he doesn't get autosplatted by the first thing that looks at him funny.

Defenses

All animal companions defenses gain your level as a bonus. They will still be reliably hit by most monsters, but it will mean they will at least scale somewhat and in their active mode have *some* chance of avoiding an attack. They are still minions, so bear this in mind when turning their active mode on with regards to traps, hazards and monsters auras (or similar effects).

Resurrection

You can spend a surge to bring your animal companion back to life if it is killed during a short rest. The condition on this is that you are in suitable terrain to regain the pet (or can buy it at an exotic market or similar). I will 99% of the time be really lenient on this though. Alternatively, you can automatically regain a new animal companion at the end of an extended rest (again assuming you can reasonably find the animal in question - I will be lenient on this! It's meant just to be logical, not punish you).

Level 5 Feature

With the above common sense ruling, this is now pointless and after some thought this instead gives a +1 power bonus to all defenses of animal companions and mounts. This basically covers the sentinels bear and wolf, and the beastmaster rangers animal companions as well (including the themes pets).

As you can see, I basically rewrote a good chunk of how it worked to make it viable. I also chose to give it a benefit to existing animal companions and also incorporate mounts (both things that could use some love). I am still undecided on these changes, I'll need to see how it goes in play to see if I've hit roughly the right amount if resilience vs. usefulness. But effectively to do stuff with it you need to risk the companion. Fair enough trade and basically I wanted the "unlucky aura = dead" problem to be solved.

 

[Destil]

It's worth noting all the previous themes are going to be "errata'ed" to this in June, so you should consider them all power bonuses. By being power bonuses, Order Adept is actually a bit less ridiculous than it was.

No, they need to be typed, badly. But power bonus is literally the worst of the three possible choices they had here. Feat and Item would be fine, because both are really just taken into account when you level up for things like skills and defenses, you don't tend to gain them dynamically in the middle of a fight. Item makes less sense, so they should be feat bonuses.

 

[Marshall]

It's worth noting all the previous themes are going to be "errata'ed" to this in June, so you should consider them all power bonuses. By being power bonuses, Order Adept is actually a bit less ridiculous than it was.

Some interesting quotes from Greg Bilsland over from the official boards:
Hopefully some other mechanical corrections will come as a result.
I thought this was a very interesting idea. I'm curious to see how this works out in practice however. Unfortunately, even with errata coming up those hoping for the suck to be beaten out of Animal Master will be very disappointed as Rich Baker has wrote this about it:

I have a lot of problems with this logic inherently, much for the same reason that the shade is justified for being so mechanically terrible based on "roleplaying potential and out of combat utility" (that isn't actually there). So this isn't great logic whatsoever, but I can see the little gleaming hint of merit in there as the animal master at least isn't as tragic as the shade is (for an equivalent example).

Yes, it is. Its tragic that the Devs cant see the problem with having a trained companion that spends 90% of its time DEAD. The complaints about the Animal Master have always centered around the fact that no matter how cool it is out-of-combat, that cool goes away almost as soon as you enter your first combat situation. If they want the critter to be an out-of-combat utility power, and thats not a bad idea, than they cant make it vulnerable to combat and for damn sure they shouldnt design combat powers around it.
Animal Master is a terrible theme in combat and out.

 

[The Little Raven]

I have no idea what the hell getting to roll it as a free action is supposed to do for you, though.

STREETWISE (CHARISMA)

...

Action: The check takes 1 hour of effort. The DM might allow a creature to use Streetwise as a knowledge skill, in which case the check requires no action; either a creature knows the answer or not.

Emphasis mine.

It saves you an hour on the standard roll without having to rely on DM fiat to allow it to be used as a knowledge skill.

 

[Neverfate]

So looks like we should bury Animal Master next to Shade? Thanks for the info from the official threads, [MENTION=78116]Aegeri[/MENTION].

Edit: Man, that out-of-combat usage thing mentioned by Baker is . . . I could see how maybe, possibly, depending on how super duper strict your DM is outside of combat and fudges rules in his/her favor and says, "I AM THE LAW" the Shade could somehow be useful with their "Standard action, to activate, Move action to use power".

But if I'm spelunking into a DUNGEON with my Hawk that isn't flying around anywhere and we set of a poison gas trap. . .it's dead. It's dead in combat. Out of combat. Sure I could RP that it's still alive, but it won't offer any mechanical benefit what-so-ever so I should just pick another theme and just say I have a pet Hawk (though I'd totally say I'd have a Raccoon. Raccoons are awesome!).

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Why a power bonus? That's awkward as hell, most power bonuses are short-term buffs from powers. Now you'll need to remember you already have a power bonus going.

Should be a feat bonus. Or better yet just grant bonus feats for every passive benefit of these... really wish 4E design had more high-level oversight sometimes.

Although I am pretty ok with the expertise feats as they are now, I guess if they provided a power bonus instead of a feat or an untyped bonus, they would not be considered taxes (maybe only for most leaders), but a way to play a leaderless game that does not rely on leader bonuses to close the gap...

so even though it is a bit strange, i guess the idea of permanent power bonuses is not the worst i can imagine...

I would also add, that i believe backgrunds should not provide untyped bonuses but racial bonuses instead!

 

[renau1g]

Thoughts: Explorer is excellent. A powerful option, to be sure, with very useful features, but not in any way overpowered. I quite like it. I especially like the difficult-terrain dependent encounter power they get. I sometimes feel like difficult terrain isn't interesting, and turning it to your advantage fits the flavor of a ranger/explorer/India-Jones type quite well.

Guttersnipe looks a little questionable. Running Slash is a fun level 1 Encounter... good mobility, and a weapon attack vs. Reflex? That'll be useful well into Epic. I anticipate problems with the level 5, feature, though... mainly, everybody in the party giving the Guttersnipe their old gear to sell, and therefore increasing the overall wealth of the party. When you get to higher levels, 10% more for selling an item is a potentially a huge amount of gold. +5 to Streetwise is solid and flavorful, even if Streetwise isn't the most useful skill. I have no idea what the hell getting to roll it as a free action is supposed to do for you, though. I have trouble coming up with an instance where Streetwise wouldn't be a free action. Heck, I have trouble thinking up an example where you'd even want or be able to use Streetwise in combat.

Mercenary's a little bland, but mechanically sound. That level 1 Encounter is going to be a favorite for Strikers, for reasons that should be obvious. Hard to complain about something like that.

For Outlaw, Surprise Strike is sexy, and frankly blows the Wizard's Apprentice level 1 Encounter out of the water, but whatever. Level 5 feature is dubious value. Might be useless for many, many levels in a varied, Points of Light campaign, but if you know your DM is doing Dark Sun or a campaign based in a long trek out into the tundra, it could be potentially pretty useful. Mostly, though, I just don't like the flavor of it for an Outlaw. Something like this seems better-suited to an Explorer, or maybe a "Hermit" sort of Theme where somebody is clearly hunkering down in and adapting to one environment. I picture Outlaws moving all over, trying to evade authorities, so really I just don't see what it has to do with the Theme.

re: Guttersnipe, just hand out less rewards for a home game to keep it in balance. It could be problematic in LFR if they allow themes to be re-trained.

The Mercenary will interact very well with a Brawling Fighter + Pin Down....