D&D 4E Questions: How do 4e Themes work?

[Dungeonosophy]

Hi, I'm new to 4e. I wondering about Themes.

1) Are they something that a character can only take at 1st level, or can they be chosen later?

2) Do the rules support a character taking multiple Themes, and so becoming a "multi-theme" character, like multiclassing?

3) Are Themes only class-like modifications like 2e Kits, or do they also cover race-like modifications like 3e Templates?

 

[Siberys]

1) Depends. If I were starting a campaign, I'd ask each player to choose one; If I had a campaign running and wanted to add them, I might either just give one to each player, or hand them out as "treasure".

2) No. One theme, that's it. You can retrain out of a theme and into another, though.

3) Yes, they can and do cover both.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Note, a character can have both a background and a theme, which allows to get the "feel" of "multiclassing" themes. Backgrounds are a lot more limited, typically either giving you an extra skill, a bonus to a skill (or skills) or some other small benefit - they don't give you powers like themes do.

So, for example, if you wanted to have your character be a wizard's apprentice but don't want to the Wizard's Apprentice theme, you could take the Magic Scholar background (it gives you a bonus to arcana and history) to give you some of the feel you might get from the theme.

 

[GreyICE]

Mostly themes are class and race agnostic - a Dragonborn Barbarian, a Human Ranger, and a Tiefling Warlock could all take the theme "Alchemist," as an example.

Some support a particular role - Guardian is pretty much meant for Defenders, for instance. Others don't care - Noble or Alchemist give benefits that help all. A few work on power source - I believe Noble Adept gives you Power Points, which are Psionic only.

Most also come with attached 'optional powers' that you can take at the relevant levels in place of a class/race/skill power.

You can think of them as a way to flesh out your character, making you a little bit more unique, and giving you nifty powers and bonuses to represent your origin.

 

[D'karr]

The theme concept was introduced in the Dark Sun campaign setting and is meant to be a way of broadening your character concept.

I was listening to the Design and Development chat from GenCon 2010 the other day and Rich Baker went into detail describing what they were attempting to do.

He described the theme as a third pillar of character creation - the other two being race, and class.

When they hit upon the concept they had a "V8 moment" as they kept thinking why couldn't we come up with this 2-3 years ago when we were hitting our heads against the wall trying to "solve" this "problem"?

Themes are very campaign dependent, some fit and some don't. The DM should look for good ways to introduce them, even if his characters are higher than 1st level. They really provide some interesting options to the PCs without increasing the power level of the characters.

BTW, here's the link to the Design and Development chats they were very enlightening.

GenCon 2010 Design and Development