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Message: <blockquote data-quote="dkyle" data-source="post: 5898178" data-attributes="member: 70707">While it wasn't your intent, I think it is an implication.If a "Trap" option can become a "not-Trap" purely by virtue of it being simple, that suggests that the player cares about simplicity, but not effectiveness.Whereas to someone who cares about effectiveness, a Trap can't be fixed just by making it simple. I think the more likely response from most people who like simple character creation would be to ask another player for advice on what they should take instead, using the custom feats. In which case, failure of modularity.But are people going to be that willing to be "best Secret Dungeon Explorer", and utterly lack in everything else?  Especially if there are feats that only reduce their Secret Dungeon Explorer a little, but dramatically increase their potency in something else?  Diminishing returns is very common, and 5 feats on one task is likely to run into that. Confining a theme to a specific task is really just another design constraint, that does nothing to improve the chances of it being optimal.For example, my guess is that Safe Fall would be the one to go on your list.  It's something that can almost certainly be replaced with a magic item, and even without, probably isn't a big deal. Possibly Jump too, depending on how much of a bonus it is.Find Traps/Disarm Traps allows a character to do something they simply couldn't otherwise, if past editions are a guide. Would there be other feats like that, that allow a character to do something they can't get anywhere else? I would think one of those feats would be better than a feat like Safe Fall, even if it's an entirely different kind of task.Yeah, I think the main difference is my greater degree of certainty that purely pre-fab Themes will suck. It just seems, based on all past experience, effectively inevitable."average character" isn't quite right, because that implies that a significant majority of feat-built characters are being built poorly, since they'd be better off with a Theme. "naively built" would be more like it; a build with a random selection of feats.Basically, if each feat, taken as an individual, is expected to be 10 amps of power, I'd want the Themes to be at 60 or 70 amps, because I expect the combination of 5 feats, of a players choice, to be more than 50 amps.  Partly through synergies, and partly because it's inevitable that some feats will be worth more than others, and the players would be free to cherry-pick the good ones. Ideal balance would be that the average feat-built character is also around 60 or 70 amps, thanks to those inherent benefits of choice.</blockquote>

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