D&D 4E If 4e went in this direction...

[Matt James]

I created a pirate theme for ENworld. I believe its in the store area. Simularly, I created a mercenary theme for Soldiers of Fortune.

 

[Erudite Frog]

I have not seen the pirate yet. I'll have to check it out. The mercenary is sweet.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Hmmm ... Eliminating races, classes, paragon paths, epic destinies, feats, multiclassing/hybrid classes, etc ... and universally replacing them all with themes.

Well, to my way of thinking, the PP and the ED are just themes you cannot take until a higher tier. I do not think having themes get something at first level, like necro resistance is too hard, themes already get an encounter power. As long as there were a penalty tothe bonus, that is.

I do think the vampire and revenant would work far better as themes. You could have half-trolls and half-dragons that way too.


Themes seem far more robust than most races. Dragonborn, Tieflings, Deva, etc could all work as themes.

 

[WalterKovacs]

Themes seem far more robust than most races. Dragonborn, Tieflings, Deva, etc could all work as themes.

The Shade and Vryloka have sort of taken the concept of themes in terms of giving utility powers. They could probably make races more like themes (they already have the racial power, which is an encounter power you get for free, and that is not as powerful as a 'real' encounter or utilty power ... kind of like the themes get) just by giving racial options for attack powers and utilities at higher levels. Utility is probably the easiest ... a few races (dragonborn, genasi, minataur, etc) make a bit more sense for attack powers than other ones. (Although for a gnome you could have a power that let's you hit something and go invisible, or an eladrin hits something and teleports, etc)

And, considering the way the vampire only has one option at most levels, it could be turned into a theme pretty easily (although implementing the whole "blood dependency" thing would be lost to some extent).

The class, as they put it, is a "pure" vampire ... a theme/race would be useful for say, a rogue or blackguard, etc that happens to be a vampire as well. Of course, they did make a race for that with the living vampire. And they sort of have a theme, with the Vampire bloodline feat tree and paragon paths. The latter could probably be reworked into an actual theme (the initial power would work fine as the 1st level encounter power for the theme, and some of the powers they offer as retraining via feats could easily have been just part of the options you could take as part of the theme.

 

[SteveC]

I just wanted to say that I hate being the negative guy. Over the last few months, that's exactly what I have been regarding 4E, since I haven't liked the direction the game has gone at all. I've strongly considered whether it's really the game I should be playing, since life's too short to play and support something I don't like.

And then I see this, and I realize that I love the game, love the ideas it's presented, and would love to see much more work in this direction. In other words, if anyone from WotC sees this... let's go this way and see where it leads, okay? There's got to be someone other than just me who feels this way...

 

[Aegeri]

I have the same feelings that you do SteveC. The only reason I haven't stopped playing 4E is because I am running 2 games and I really enjoy them. Plus it doesn't really seem fair to the people I play with to just up and walk away on them. I really want wizards to turn the rut around soon and get back to publishing things I actually enjoy. Threats to the Nentir vale sounds fantastic for example, but I am increasingly concerned from the descriptions of it there will be *no* epic tier monsters at all in the book. Again.

It's things like the abandoning of epic tier, the numerous poor design elements creeping into the game and similar, which are really making me consider stopping playing. Wizards introducing themes into the whole game sooner, rather than later, would be something I would vastly like to see and appreciate them doing.

 

[Matt James]

[MENTION=9053]SteveC[/MENTION] - I believe character/class themes would be great too. I'm very happy to see this idea get some traction. As I said before, it is difficult to see if an idea will be well received. From a design perspective, I feel this would be a gold mine moving forward.

[MENTION=78116]Aegeri[/MENTION] I am very much invested in the game as a DM and player as well. I do work as a game designer on a freelance basis for WotC, but I have an emotional attachment to the game as well. Though my words probably carry little weight, everyone should know that the guys who work on D&D out there in Renton are equally invested. They do honestly want to see the game become as awesome as possible.

 

[Matt James]

There are some great replies to the article itself. Be sure to check it out and contribute there -> Loremaster - Game Design: Foundational Layers for 4e

 

[Morrus]

I created a pirate theme for ENworld. I believe its in the store area.

It's a subscriber article.

 

[ScorpiusRisk]

[MENTION=12037]ThirdWizard[/MENTION] I don't see any reason why, if used themes as a multiclass option, that has to be the only option available. If you had half-elf as a theme, you could still multi-class with feats, just like hybrid didn't get rid of the feat options.