Themes article up

[RangerWickett]

Easy solution. When a pet is reduced to 0 HP, it's knocked unconscious, but as long as the PC is alive, it pops back to 1 HP at the end of the encounter. And if it's adjacent to you, it takes no damage from area or close attacks.

 

[Kinneus]

Easy solution. When a pet is reduced to 0 HP, it's knocked unconscious, but as long as the PC is alive, it pops back to 1 HP at the end of the encounter. And if it's adjacent to you, it takes no damage from area or close attacks.

I don't mean to pick on you, RangerWickett, and I know you mean well, but I don't think this is an easy solution. I don't think it's an easy solution when, a day after the release of this new-to-core element of the game, people are already suggesting house rules to fix certain aspects. Isn't this supposed to be a finished product? Aren't the folks at WotC professional game designers?

I'm paying WotC to come up with rules and themes and classes and powers so I don't have to. If I have to house-rule magic item rarity, rare magic items, themes, and everything else... then what am I paying WotC for?

I'm normally a huge supporter of 4e, but I really think the quality has been slipping lately. If all the themes were as crappy as Animal Master, I would understand, but when you put it side-by-side with Order Adept and nobody says, "Hang on a second," I really have to wonder what is going on.

Really, my only guess is that WotC blatantly doesn't care about balance anymore, about avoiding setting up 'trap' choices for players. They seem content to just poop out an on-rails class or theme and then move on to the next one. If it doesn't work, oh well. And if it works too well, errata!

Either that, or they need to shake up their staffing a bit, because I really think somebody dropped the ball here.

 

[webrunner]

This is cool but two are explicitly wizard, a third is pretty wizard-y, and the last one's mostly fit for rangers. Why no defender, not-naturey martial, or divine themes or anything?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I promise to be very short:

MM3 has so many epic monsters i like to read about, but will never use... so I am fine without it.

I like the themes in what they do. Increasing the power level is not bad if you don´t make something obsolete.
There is no class, that makes any class of the PHB 1 obsolete. You can use themes, or you don´t. If you use them, EVERYONE is slightly better. So the issue of power creep is a non issue. If they said: hey, I make a class that is strictly better (and I mean strictly) then there is power creep.

What we got in themes is a slight power boost for all, and in a way, that the overall balance is more or less retained. (Which does not mean, that one or two of those themes could get an errata before the actual release.)

And yes, quality was not that good at the beginning... I mean, PHB1 and MM1 have so many errata, they are more or less useless. (And the most obvious errata were obvious before release... Chris Perkins Previewed the Hill Giant and stumbled over his word when he said something like: A brute does a lot of damage... lets look at this Hill giat... 1d10+5... pause... yes, that is a lot of damage..."

Really complain all you want here... but i guess constructive criticism would be a lot more helpful...

 

[UngeheuerLich]

This is cool but two are explicitly wizard, a third is pretty wizard-y, and the last one's mostly fit for rangers. Why no defender, not-naturey martial, or divine themes or anything?

This is easy:

because those are in Part 2, 3 and 4 of those articles.

I am very very excited about them. I hope this time we get a ritual background!

 

[Kinneus]

This is cool but two are explicitly wizard, a third is pretty wizard-y, and the last one's mostly fit for rangers. Why no defender, not-naturey martial, or divine themes or anything?

Eh, I don't agree. Besides, anything that fits for a Wizard would fit for a Swordmage.

 

[bganon]

Animal Master really seems like something changed mid-development. It's like the original concept was for a basically non-targetable non-combat animal... but then someone decided to mix in a combat power or two. The result is something that doesn't seem to quite work as intended.

Given that most of the animals are Tiny, the PC could carry them. It might count as a houserule, but don't carried "items" have the PCs defenses? In any case, I think some clarification (beyond the current "they mostly stay out of combat" statement) on how to handle combat is in order. I feel like something's missing.

Alchemist and Apprentice seem pretty much right on target. Order Adept could be fixed with a clarification/fix to the non-Wizard part of the level 5 feature, and a nerf to the level 10 feature.

Maybe I'm misremembering something from long ago, but I thought the magazine articles aren't considered "published" until the end of the month? So that changes/fixes can be freely made until then without it being official errata. Maybe I just made this up.

 

[Klaus]

I think the real benefit of the Animal Master minions isn't the Encounter powers, it's the "within 10" benefits. Ignore the -5 Stealth from moving, performing Thievery at +2 at range, +4 Perception from the sky (including sharing senses later on) are some very good benefits.

Plus, you can now create the movie Beastmaster: Sentinel Druid (summer - replace bear with tiger), multiclass into an arcane class (Arcane Familiar - reflavor flying familiar as eagle), Animal Master theme (reflavor monkey as Kodo and Podo).

 

[BobTheNob]

I LOVE EM!

Note to those who have been doing block/text/block/text/block/text posts....I read all posts but yours

 

[Obryn]

This is cool but two are explicitly wizard, a third is pretty wizard-y, and the last one's mostly fit for rangers. Why no defender, not-naturey martial, or divine themes or anything?

You did notice the title of this Themes article, didn't you?

-O