D&D 5E Let's call it a theme again

[Grimmjow]

waaaay back in the first playtest we were calling specialities themes. I would personally like to see it go back to that. In this case the name does mean a lot. A Speciality is something that your character has trained at and has a knack for doing. Take the survivor speciality. What does it do? It makes it harder for your character's hit point to reach 0. If we re-named it the survivor theme what would change? Probably nothing. The survivor theme would also make it harder for your character to hit 0.

Now what if we wanted to make a theme that worked as a cursed theme (role playing makes it bad but the mechanics would be a good thing for you). You take this theme, no matter what class or race or background you play, and your character now is cursed, working like a background but giving more mechanical bonuses rather than skills and a trait. We could also create things like lycan, the two sub races from the psionic power, and anything else that wasnt a race, class, or background, and wasn't a training thing that your character "learned" to do.

They changed themes into specialities back in the second play test to make it less "confusing" for people who were used to themes being dispatched from feats but i think it is a good idea to change them back to themes.

They (themes) could be like the frosting on your cake. Cursed being black, gooy, and gross. Survivor being rock hard. Ambusher being camo and lyca nbeing hairy (ew)

I know this is kinda late to be discussing but i guess we're only on the 4th play test, theres still alot of time to discuss alot of things.

 

[GX.Sigma]

I think the key to making them Themes again is to make them more than just a feat every few levels. Make them something bigger.

 

[Grimmjow]

or just make the feats bigger

 

[MoonSong]

or just make the feats bigger

Please, someone xp this man!

Really, I wish they stayed away from passive feats. Feats should give you the power to bend your spells, gain cantrips, grow wings, glow in the dark, burn your own blood to heal others, manifest an aspect of an ancestor, learn to use new weapons, learn maneuvers, gain a bonded item... really the current take on feats is too dry cut and clinical they feel like they were written reluctantly, the fear of upsetting balance is really preventing the designers from creating good feats.

 

[Grimmjow]

Really, I wish they stayed away from passive feats. Feats should give you the power to bend your spells, gain cantrips, grow wings, glow in the dark, burn your own blood to heal others, manifest an aspect of an ancestor, learn to use new weapons, learn maneuvers, gain a bonded item... really the current take on feats is too dry cut and clinical they feel like they were written reluctantly, the fear of upsetting balance is really preventing the designers from creating good feats.

agreed feats should unbalance the game.

In theory, if everyone is unbalanced because of feats, then no one is unbalanced. Therefor they can make feats more powerful.

 

[Grimmjow]

nerd alert! what if there was a possessed theme that basically worked like a vizard from bleach XD i'd play it

 

[the Jester]

waaaay back in the first playtest we were calling specialities themes. I would personally like to see it go back to that.

100% agreed.

 

[Connorsrpg]

The feats have another thread outlining that they need more, but i don't see how that can't go along with the OP. BTW I am with the OP. I would prefer themes where we can add things that don't just represent specialised training - it could be natural ability, odd conditions/variants, divergent knowledge/training, etc. I think of a lot of the cool theme, kits, etc from past editions and I think themes suits them better (the ones that don't go into class and BG).