Themes article up

[JoeGKushner]

I don't think WoTC is damned if they do/don't.

they have created their own situation.

as others have noted, ds style themes might have been more difficult once they introduced essentials.

irnoically enough, essentials was introduced not long after ds and its themes.

what we may be seeing is that tighter integration of overall arching style game mechanics.

like all things dragon though, despite wotc efforts to make everything core, it probably works better if you consider everything from dragon as 'unearthed arcana' and as we used to back in 'the day', consider it optional and pick and choose what you like and ignore what you don't.

i'd still like to see a hella lot more monsters being updated in dragon/dungeon and more crunch.

 

[Aegeri]

And this also means that for the target audience of Monster Vault - new DMs - an overwhelming focus on the Heroic tier is absolutely the right thing. Most of those DMs are never going to go near Epic tier - and you could provide all the support you want for epic tier and this would not change.

I would buy this logic if the next MV book had epic monsters - but it doesn't. Also returning to a previous point, I think you need to look up the number of creatures in each book that has been released. Epic monsters have never ever had equal support to heroic and paragon. MM3 has 303ish monsters and 74 of them are in epic. That means the majority ARE in Heroic and Paragon. Also there are more than a few creatures in MV that could be culled for epic monsters happily as well (Drakes as a good example). Either way, MV was merely disappointing but the second book also dumping epic tier is infuriating and what gets my ire.

But saying that monster books ever supported epic equally is just incorrect. It's also missing the problem that I've already highlighted: Epic monsters pre-MM3 are the most worthless and require the most work to make competitive with newer creatures. There is far more need for a MV to have around 50ish epic monsters out of 300, than having 40 extra monsters on top of 180 heroic monsters out of 300. 180 heroic monsters that inundate a tier that is filled with hundreds of choices. Hundreds.

I don't agree that the Vampire's mechanics are worthless - merely that they are not suited to a high lethality campaign,

Actually, it's more that they suck as strikers and have pretty poor damage. I think the vampire is mechanically interesting in lots of other ways though, but they almost win the award for "failing at their role entirely". That puts them up there with luminaries in the game at this like the Binder and the OAssassin. That is not esteemed company.

Mind explaining some of them please? I found PP good for monks (I love 4e monks). But I still find the other three classes meh. Ardents IMO should have been folded under the heading of Bard. I don't know who was asking for the Fightbrain.

I liked *almost* everything about the book. I liked most of the new options they introduced (not all of them of course, but that is just about impossible for any book regardless of what game it is). I also - especially ironic given my general focus on discussions - liked the supporting fluff too. I generally liked the new build and having seen 2 battleminds in play (and an Ardent) I disagree the ardent is a bard (it's not) and the Battlemind (post-errata to Blurred step) is a perfectly viable defender. Overall though I liked the new mechanics, new builds, many of the new PPs and I really enjoyed the fluff. Just a really surprising book to me, because I didn't warmly receive psionics in the first place.

Of course, some psionic stuff still needs its justified whack with the nerf bat, but we'll have to see what happens in June!

 

[DEFCON 1]

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.

No, actually... they care a great deal about balance. They just don't care about YOUR balance.

YOUR balance says that Animal Master is much worse than Order Adept, most likely because the abilities you get from one far outshine what you get for the other based upon how you yourself play the game. But other people don't play the game the same way you do, and the stuff they get from one might outshine the other based upon what parts of the game has more import to them. Those people don't play with your balance. The people who playtested the game material don't play with your balance. The people in this thread who are defending the article don't play with your balance. Nobody else plays with your balance except you. So it isn't THEIR fault that they didn't give you material in 100% compliance with your game, because they don't KNOW your game.

So to whine that WotC just 'pooped out an on-rails class or theme' so they could move on to the next one is basically getting your panties in a bunch because the world didn't fall into place exactly how you wanted it to. To me, that is extremely childish. Criticize and discuss the rules all you want... but to claim that the employees of Wizards of the Coast were basically slacking off and pulling their puds rather than actually working is insulting. I'd be offended at your attitude if I were them.

You asked what you were paying WotC for? The answer is 'game material compatible with the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game'. That's it. And did you get what you paid for? Absolutely. And the tag 'Plus is 100% aligned with how Kinneus plays the game' is not on ANY of the marketing material.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, I don't think there's a real problem with Animal Master either.

Here's an example: I have a player that wanted to have a pet cat. The reason for wanting to do this was so that the character (who is not at all stealthy) could send the cat along with the rogue and the warlock when they go sneaking around, which they frequently do in this campaign. Now, this character also happens to be a wizard, so the solution was of course to get a familar and pick cat. That works fine and the cost of one feat isn't a big deal, especially since familiars have some other minor ancillary benefits. OTOH Animal Master would be perfect for a character like this. She'd probably get more out of that than having a familiar. Certainly if the PC wasn't Arcane and required 2 feats (and one being an MC feat) to do this it probably wouldn't be worth going the familiar route, at best it would be a significant opportunity cost with little ancillary benefit and require taking an MC that might not fit the character well (and maybe forgoing one that would).

OTOH Animal Master would be perfect for such a character. It would work great. The player doesn't care about having some super awesome combat advantages out of the deal. She just wants a cat. If she were say a fighter, then Animal Master would be perfect. Heck, it DOES have some potential use in combat. Yeah, the animal COULD get curb stomped and I do think some scaling would be a good idea, but she can also just have Fluffy keep well out of the way. Fluffy can hide in her backpack when the PCs are wandering around in some dangerous environment. Fluffy can tag along with the stealthy characters and it all works out. Yeah, maybe Fluffy WOULD get in trouble now and then, but we could work that out.

So, Animal Master may not be PERFECT, but then again WotC has stated these themes are still subject to finalization. Lets wait and see if they are going to tweak this one issue. Even if they don't it is still a useful theme. In some campaigns the fragility of the animal really won't matter anyway. In others nobody is going to bother with Animal Master because they are all about min/maxing their combat power. If a player in such a game wants a cat to use in a fight, they'll just have to create a build that can get a tough animal that will do that. There are several options open to them.

 

[Geffor]

For me, animal master IS perfect

It almost exactly matches the houserules that we came up with for a character concept in one of my campaigns. We aren't a group of optimisers and can sometimes ignore rules that interfere with what we see is a good idea.

This is what we call fun

 

[Incenjucar]

Familiars have a massive survival advantage over pets in that they can essentially cease to exist when environmental hazards are in play. As adorable as it will be to see the fighter's pet monkey try to hold its breath at the bottom of the ocean while they fight the kraken.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I might subscribe for a month to get these articles, but will wait and see if the rest are good, first.

So far, they sound ok and will enrich my game.


But I do agree WOTC needs to offer eratta on occasion to shore up weaker options, not just close down overpowered ones.

 

[Marshall]

Yeah, I don't think there's a real problem with Animal Master either.

.....Yeah, the animal COULD get curb stomped and I do think some scaling would be a good idea, but she can also just have Fluffy keep well out of the way.

Full Stop. So there is a real problem with the Animal Master, isnt there? The mechanics are drastically inferior and require a lot of DM intervention to actually keep useful. How is you Wizardess going to feel when dear sweet fluffy gets nuked at breakfast and she cant try to replace her until after they get back from the Dungeon of Doom? The theme is a failure from bad mechanics.

 

[Mengu]

Familiars have a massive survival advantage over pets in that they can essentially cease to exist when environmental hazards are in play. As adorable as it will be to see the fighter's pet monkey try to hold its breath at the bottom of the ocean while they fight the kraken.

Familiars also cost a feat. Animal Master's pet spends less camera time. If you are going Kraken hunting, you leave your pet monkey on the shore, so he can be all mad and fling poo at you when you come back. If you unexpectedly fall into hazardous situations, the pet is just sort of forgotten about, like it often happens in movies, only to show up again at a later convenient time. I see no problem with this. Could it be better spelled out as such? Hell yes. But as far as I'm concerned, it's usable material.

 

[IanB]

My mind boggles at the blatant power disparity between Order Adept and Animal Master. What makes me sad is that Order Adept will get nerfed, but Animal Master will continue to be a giant, howling void of suck until the end of time, a trap for new players who think it'd be cool to have an animal friend... an animal friend who'll be blown to smithereens more and more often as they level up (burst and blasts are really common beyond Heroic, with each combatant usually having at least one at his or her disposal).

I mean, seriously, it's like WotC doesn't even think about playtesting. Or... you know, common sense. Or like they've actively given up attempting to make things balanced.

Open offer: hire me, WotC. I will so totally work for you. I can apparently catch wild discrepencies in power level on the first read-through that you guys couldn't catch all throughout the process. I'm a genius!

Seriously though... for all my griping and head-scratching over the Order Adept/Animal Master disparity... at least we have themes!

Except it isn't a 'trap'. A mechanical trap would be something like a feat that adds no flavor at all and is inferior in every way to another feat or actually makes you worse.

Animal Master is not that at all. Yes, it isn't as strong in terms of combat power as the other themes. That doesn't make it worthless.