Some examples of good themes

[TwoSix]

So I'm starting up a heroic tier 4e game in a few weeks. My players are uniformly good roleplayers, solid at tactics, but not great at character building.

I'd like to put together a list of some themes that they could pick from, that are both solid from a mechanical standpoint, and have a decent mechanical hook. I've been out of the 4e crunch loop for a while, so I'm hoping there have been some decent ones.

Also, since my group will probably be using Essentials classes, Dark Sun themes are probably less useful.

 

[Manbearcat]

"Decent ones" is a starting point but I need a bit more to help you out mate. If you give me a few more specifics (some character archetypes that they may be working toward, backgrounds, etc) then I can help you out.

 

[TwoSix]

"Decent ones" is a starting point but I need a bit more to help you out mate. If you give me a few more specifics (some character archetypes that they may be working toward, backgrounds, etc) then I can help you out.

Mostly I just want to give a people some diversity of options, without just plopping them in front of the Character Builder. Once I have a list, I'll write up a little summary.

Mostly I'm looking to avoid themes that have some broken feature, or that are extremely weak. Ones with some inbuilt story hooks are preferred. The Dark Sun themes, for example, have a good amount of specificity over, say, Noble.

 

[Manbearcat]

K. I'll throw a list together here later this evening.

 

[Joshua Randall]

I subcontracted my list to the Wizards Character Optimization message board:
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/28914029/Variation_on_Themes:_A_Theme_Handbook

(obviously, that list only cares about mechanical optimization, not role-playing)

 

[Dragoslav]

Scholar is a good one. It's one of those themes that makes you say, "Yes, now my character mechanically functions in the way that I roleplay him." The extra skill is handy, and learning all of the languages by level 10 is a real winner. The powers you get or that you have access to tend to be nothing to write home about, though the "Useful Lore" utility power that gives you +5 to a skill for the length of an encounter is a great plot coupon for the player to say, "actually, my character recalls a very handy bit of lore that I can make us of here..."

 

[Manbearcat]

Sorry. Have been MIA a wee bit. Its extremely difficult to give advice on this without having further information to focus my thoughts; eg setting, plot arc expectations, PC backgrounds.

However, what I can do is provide this general guidance on themes and give two examples:

Problematic theme: There are themes out there that either have far too much potential synergy with certain builds or they start out with ridiculously powerful features (such as encounter powers with extreme action economy; eg minor action attacks or powerful no/free action riders or status effects) and comparatively taper off in power (but oftentimes become more interesting and better served in their thematic role) as they level. These themes will have large effect on combat encounter budgeting expectations. I would be inclined to make PCs spend a feat on the first level features they gain for free. Examples: Blackstaff Apprentice, Guardian, Sohei.

Functional theme: There are themes out there that diversify resource arsenal and/or provide true thematic depth to a character without considerably perturbing their fundamental power level. What's more, these themes either have a flat power gain or a minor trend upward. While they do not affect combat encounter budgeting in any meaningful way, they likely gain interesting, thematically coherent features that provide them combat utility. However, what they do is provide the character the means to functionally participate in non-combat encounters outside of their class's default expectations or they make them slightly better at their class's default non-combat encounter expectations. That is a good thing. Examples: Explorer, Hordelands Nomad, Mariner.

All in all though, outside of a few examples, the Theme Utility Power options are almost univerally excellent.

 

[sabrinathecat]

Haven't seen any of the problematic themes, but I'm a dead-tree edition type of guy.

 

[sabrinathecat]

Only thing I've noticed since adding themes is that I generally need to add at least 1 more monster or add 1 to the level of the encounter.