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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aegeri" data-source="post: 5575003" data-attributes="member: 78116">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 <a href="http://community.wizards.com/wotc_richbaker/blog/2011/05/27/themes,_2nd_fleet,_conquest_of_nerath" target="_blank">wrote this about it</a>: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 ResilienceFirstly, 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.DefensesAll 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).ResurrectionYou 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 FeatureWith 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.</blockquote>

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