Themes article up

[Marshall]

Sure, in terms of raw combat power it is pretty terrible. If you're in a RP-heavy intrigue game with lots of skill use or whatever I suspect it compares much more favorably. Not every option is going to be equally suited to every type of game.

I keep seeing this argument, but it just doesn't hold water. Why do they have to be mutually exclusive? Just because its a good roleplaying theme doesnt bar it from having good mechanics.

 

[IanB]

I keep seeing this argument, but it just doesn't hold water. Why do they have to be mutually exclusive? Just because its a good roleplaying theme doesnt bar it from having good mechanics.

Good combat mechanics, you should say. For sending your crow to fly up the Tower of the Serpent to peek in the window of the High Priest and maybe steal the signet ring off his desk, the mechanics are just fine.

 

[Aegeri]

Good combat mechanics, you should say. For sending your crow to fly up the Tower of the Serpent to peek in the window of the High Priest and maybe steal the signet ring off his desk, the mechanics are just fine.

Just hope it wasn't trapped or enchanted to deal some kind of damage. Because after level 1, all of those effects will hit it automatically and then, well yeah you don't have it anymore for the rest of the adventure (until after level 5, then it's only until an extended rest!).

Edit: It's worth noting I looked up my campaign in 2008, which featured a part where the PCs needed to steal saucy love letters (don't ask). One of the tricks with this is that one of the letters was coated in a deadly poison as someone was trying to assassinate one of the lovers (to steal the other for themselves). Now a nasty poison effect (damage wise) and gaining a magical disease isn't a huge thing to a PC. But poor Abu the monkey, he was long for this world. This was around level 4 as well and again, is something I did years and years ago. I actually wanted to check if I had ever had a situation where the PCs would want to steal something and it was trapped/dangerous in some manner (six of them weren't).

Of course on thinking about it, that poor Abu would have took what is actually quite an annoying effect for an actual character would have been rather useful in this context.

 

[IanB]

Just hope it wasn't trapped or enchanted to deal some kind of damage. Because after level 1, all of those effects will hit it automatically and then, well yeah you don't have it anymore for the rest of the adventure (until after level 5, then it's only until an extended rest!).

Edit: It's worth noting I looked up my campaign in 2008, which featured a part where the PCs needed to steal saucy love letters (don't ask). One of the tricks with this is that one of the letters was coated in a deadly poison as someone was trying to assassinate one of the lovers (to steal the other for themselves). Now a nasty poison effect (damage wise) and gaining a magical disease isn't a huge thing to a PC. But poor Abu the monkey, he was long for this world. This was around level 4 as well and again, is something I did years and years ago. I actually wanted to check if I had ever had a situation where the PCs would want to steal something and it was trapped/dangerous in some manner (six of them weren't).

Of course on thinking about it, that poor Abu would have took what is actually quite an annoying effect for an actual character would have been rather useful in this context.

Well sure, everyone knows monkeys are susceptible to poison. Bad dates.

 

[Aegeri]

Other than the poison damage reading that disease again it was one of more banana's (I like to keep to theme here) ideas that I have had. It was really annoying, because if you got affected at stage 1 you took a -2 penalty to will. At stage 2, you were automatically affected by powers with the charm keyword (nasty). If you got to stage 3, you had to do whatever you were told. So if a creature told you to jump off a cliff: Whelp, time to find a cliff and jump off it. Of course the point of the third stage was to make the woman in question suggestible to the evil baron who planted it there. I can't see if anyone ever got affected by it

Now that I think of it, I should bring that back in some way in one of my current games. It was clearly grossly underused. Having some other creature take that effect instead of a PC would have been a terrible, if somewhat noble death though.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Here's the solution: just let them have a pet cat. It sounds like they just want an in-character way to not have to sit in the corner with their eyes closed and their fingers in their ears every time the rest of the party go stealthing.

Is it really that hard to just say "you don't want a mechanical benefit, so here you go, have a pet cat for free"?

Hell, you can even HAVE mechanical benefits through reflavouring. ("My rogue is actually mechanically inept: all of his thievery skills are his pet monkey doing things").

Unfortunately now that there's a theme that says "it's ok to spend mechanical resources to get minor flavour benefits" the chances of a random DM saying "No, there's a theme for that. You can't get something like that for free" rises dramatically.


Replace feat with theme and you've almost directly described animal master, unless your DM is the sort of person who says "no, you cannot have a pet cat that gives you no mechanical benefit because the rules don't say you can".

You don't need mechanics for pure flavour. Having feats that add pure flavour IS a trap.

Except you STILL fail to note that having an ordinary pet cat doesn't do jack for you. The character in my example didn't want an ordinary pet cat, she wanted a cat that would go on a scouting run with the rogue. I don't care if you're a high level adventurer or what you are, you're not training an ordinary cat to do that, period. An Animal Master is more than fluff. It may be underpowered for a theme, but it is NOT fluff.

[MENTION=78116]Aegeri[/MENTION] Agreed on the armies thing. I think 4e may have moved a little bit too much in the other direction in some ways, but actually it is pretty close to AD&D, but with better summons (AD&D summons were a total joke, the very best of them were poor options).

OTOH I utterly fail to comprehend your opinion on the Beast Master Ranger. BMR is an extremely potent striker build which trades about 10% of its damage output vs a TBF or Archer build for a very useful pet (one that CAN and WILL survive, does scale, and has all the RP potential of the Animal Handler's animal but also has some modest combat utility). People have fixated on the fact that beasts don't do much damage and seem to have forgotten that the ranger himself does, well, RANGER damage, the best in the game! Yeah, you're going to try to tell me all about Prime Shot blah blah blah, but I've built it, played it, seen it, it is nasty and you don't need the PS feat tree to be downright scary.

 

[Aegeri]

The problem with the BMR is the BMR powers are absolutely terrible. In reality, you're a ranger with a pet that serves as a flanking buddy and does little else. That is kind of useful, especially for a bow ranger as it lets you have a melee presence as well - but it's also not actually very good in terms of concept. All the beast really does is occupy a square for flanking but the damage is miserable so you never ever attack with it (or take beast master ranger powers). I can see the benefit there, but it really takes some work and MM3 creatures (due to the companions poor defenses) can dismantle them easily with bursts/blasts. Certain creatures can even turn them into a liability due to always hitting it with their powers.

You see, I like my options to actually be options and not traps. The BMR is a gigantic example of the perfect trap option in 4E. You take it and then ignore every power that has to do with it in the game. It's literally something there to occupy a square and provide an extra source for placing quarry (which is why I see bow rangers use them). In every other way it's a trap option and grossly inferior to the other two fighting styles. If you optimize it, which is literally just taking it for the quarry and flanking benefits it is useful in a way. Otherwise someone who takes it and the powers will basically be walking right into an enormous trap.

That is poor design and why I rag it. Plus all the other styles are flat out superior options. Gaining CA is easy enough mitigating the beasts ability to flank as being *that* great, it can't do jack to monsters with its attacks so it's irrelevant for that and defensively it's a bust. If you're a bow ranger I can *really* see the advantage it provides with quarry. Now that is unquestionable to me, but is it *really* worth giving up some of the ridiculous prime shot feats and +1 accuracy? It's really not.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Now that is unquestionable to me, but is it *really* worth giving up some of the ridiculous prime shot feats and +1 accuracy? It's really not.

The prime shot feats only work at paragon. And the question there is whether you are going for sharpshooter. Because if you go for sharpshooter, you can make opportunity attacks with your bow. If you do that, you can take Beast Protector as a feat. And that gives you opportunity attacks. A lot of them.

It's the Beast Companion that puts the Sharpshooter Paragon Path right up there with Battlefield Archer with all the Prime Shot feats. And at heroic, there aren't the Prime Shot feats. So it's a choice between getting +1 to hit and some defence against opportunity attacks if you take a high risk strategy or the lower risk strategy of standing back and shooting - and having a very mobile bag of hit points to both place quarries and get in the bad guys way. (If you aren't using the high risk strategy of Prime Shot, taking the beast companion costs you nothing).

On the other hand, I agree about the Beast Companion powers.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I have always liked the BMR's out of combat versatility via the animal companion.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Just hope it wasn't trapped or enchanted to deal some kind of damage. Because after level 1, all of those effects will hit it automatically and then, well yeah you don't have it anymore for the rest of the adventure (until after level 5, then it's only until an extended rest!).

I don´t remeber the rule that makes all attacks hitting automatically from level 2 on. Can you quote that please.

I think the rule is, that monster´s attacks attack increases by 1 point between level 1 and level 2. Also I believe, an attack roll of 1 always misses.

But I have been wrong before...

...so i need to look up, if all traps of level two or higher have effects that deal damage, instead of hit lines...