Themes article up

[Aegeri]

I think it is a habit people have gotten into. I mean really, has quality gone down?

In my mind, unquestionably yes. It really has done. You use the example of the PHB, but while there is stuff in there that was absurd broken or outright awful, there was so much good. We had one of the first non-cleric healer classes in 4E ever that was awesome (and still is) in the Warlord. We had fighters that weren't simply fodder and wizards/clerics were not gods. The game has expanded a lot since then adding in numerous other elements, with some pure crap (Beastmaster Rangers) but there was always gold to go with it (Like the brawler fighter).

Like let's consider one of the most monumental and important books in terms for DMs last year: Monster Manual 3. There are 303 creatures in that book. There are seventy four monsters over level 21 in that book. That is just fantastic, because many of them aren't even elites and solos - plenty of good old fashioned standard monsters (albeit with awesome epic tier powers and tricks!). I have never said a bad word about this book just about ever

Let's look at the essentials monster vault. There are twelve monsters over level 21, out of three hundred and four monsters. Now that's just bad. This is an excellent book with fantastically designed monsters, yet it was immensely disappointing because of what it didn't include. Not even ancient dragons for gods sake - something that is iconic to the game. I can forgive it for this because I thought "Oh well next book will offer something and - " oh wait. The next book ALSO is ditching epic tier support again (as the book is explicitly for heroic and paragon tier). So once more something I should be excited for I am barely interested in. Despite the fact the preview was unequivocally awesome.

How should that be possible? To have such a fantastic preview and yet not get me remotely excited about a DMs book full of great monsters? Oh, I know why - because it completely ditches an entire tier of the game well supported in every previous monster book. Thanks Wizards.

Now let's consider Heroes of Shadow. I thought this book should have been great support for necrotic as a damage type. It added a mediocre striker class onto the pile of mediocre classes (Vampire - making it almost entirely devoid of options and on rails to add insult to injury), it added a decent striker in the Blackguard (who is pretty decent at what he does), one of the worst possible options in 4E in the Binder (who is worse in every way to a regular Warlock) and more options for wizards/clerics (who were SO lacking in them obviously). It did nothing for necrotic in terms of feat support, which is still a terrible damage type and added a bunch of feat cruft that nobody will ever take. Oh and reintroduced the concept of racial penalties into 4E: An awful design decision. So unlike previous books, I can certainly say there was way more bad than there was good in this - probably for the first time this edition.

Then we get these themes. Now last year I remember being nothing but excited about Dark Sun. I devoured all information on the setting I could find and of everything I read, themes were the things I was most interested in. Mostly because I wondered if they would turn out really badly or not. As it was, I think themes were one of the best things added to 4E. I loved the concept and the mechanical effect was reasonably limited. Some exceptions, like most things in 4E exist. Like rangers whoring the 18-20 crit range of the Wilder theme with twin strike + interrupt attacks. Noble Adept was arguably one of the strongest themes as well, with its leader interrupt power that can apply to any roll. In general, they really hit the mark and successfully. There is no theme I can say is outright awful.

Now we get these themes. Gutted and stripped down versions of the originals. I can say that the animal master is outright awful, one is frankly superior to any theme I can think of (even noble adept from DS won't compare to getting an entire classes awesome utility powers), another asks major questions about rules loopholes (getting the item and training it out - what happens to the item?) and another is actually okay (checking LFR, they have ruled that all alchemical items are common unless otherwise stated. I didn't know that, but it's a ruling I'm putting in my own games as well). I mean in terms of being thought out I just don't see the degree of balance and design in these compared to the DS themes whatsoever.

Corner cases like Neonchameleon bought up with an avenger ranger (which isn't actually possible by default in DS, but some DMs DO allow divine options so is worth considering) do happen with DS themes. But there are some major imbalances that occur among a whole crapload of classes with one of these themes. Any defender would want shield. Any defender would like wizards escape. Any defender could use flight for an entire encounter + insubstantial (one of the later utility powers). Hell who couldn't use shield? Wizards escape? I can't think of any class that wouldn't mind having an ENTIRE classes utility powers to choose from, on top of getting +2 will and other benefits. The irony that Wizards get the least out of a theme that apparently suits them by fluff is just the icing on the cake here.

In a long winded way, I do think quality is going down. Both in the range of options available - even in the really well designed monster vault products that completely decide that epic tier is no longer worth supporting. We are filling books with fluff and reducing meaningful crunch options. Anyone should have been able to point out obvious problems with some of these things before publication: The shades racial power. The order adepts ridiculous benefits compared to the three other themes presented. The binder being pretty much worthless in every conceivable way. Dragon is just laughable really compared to what it was - I mean do you have an argument to even offer against that statement?

Quite frankly, I do believe the quality of the games design is going downhill now. Like there were always stupid things before essentials, but they were always put right alongside the damn GOOD things. Now we have the stupid things and none of the good things. That's the problem.

The negativity does get a bit thick, and has been almost unrelenting lately.

I don't design this game. I just devote much of my free time to running 2 games that I vastly enjoy every week (adding a third soon I hope!). I wouldn't mind Wizards feeling like releasing epic monsters and a working monster builder at minimum was something worth doing. But that's just me. I mean, this is it now for me: I've bought ALL my expectations back to those two things. If Wizards can release some epic monsters (or adventures, as they've promised) in future and a monster builder that builds monsters, I will call it even.

Is that so unreasonable to you? Is it unreasonable to anyone?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Yes. It is mostly unreasonable to me.

The quality is not going down. Wizards has just taken back a bit and starts releasing material for different people:

At the start of 4e, people were not so contend with the seemingly samey of the classes. Also all classes were quite complex at beginning and some things were too fiddly. (Feats for exaple, so i can at least understand you concerns about the heroes of shadow feats.)

Essentials was a reaction to many of those complaints. It may be hard to swallow for you, but last year material was for people like you, this year is for different people!
Next year you may find, that you get epic support again, because essential players could make use of it.

I think your negative reaction may have the same effect as the reaction of some haters before: wizard will make another turn instead of staying on the IMHO good way they are now...

i think your way exaggerated complaints are showing a lot of egoism.

(Monster Vault not having a lot of epic support was absolutely needed... it had to revise the fist monster manual which is more or less useless...)

 

[Neonchameleon]

You get pretty much one more option, albeit a good one, but in terms of the "Litterbug" build you're still restricted to the same number of powers.

What you aren't resticted to, and this difference is critical, is restricted to the same number of powers per turn. You litterbug with your minors as well as your other powers (and yes, I've got a currently active litterbug wizard).

Quite frankly, I'd like something done about twin strike much more. The other thing is that this is 100% predictable. Rangers literally break every kind of effect like this, because they can attack multiple times.

Me too. But until they errata Twin Strike to adding +1[w] damage on the second hit (and reduce the immediates/minors they get) - which still makes it an extremely accurate at will, Rangers breaking powers like this are a fact of D&D.

In my ACTUAL Dark Sun game, I had both the Battlemind and the Monk using the Wilder theme. Both retrained it out because:

I never said that it was a good power on the average PC. It just combos well.

They could have pleased everyone, but chose not to do so.

You mean they could have "pleased everyone" by leaving a segment of the market and the player base utterly unable to use a lot of the abilities of some of the new themes? Your definition of everyone is nowhere near the same as mine. And I like the idea of a fighter with the apprentice wizard theme who parted on good terms because he was inept or a thief with the order mage theme who has weak magic - but high political skill.

And I dislike the idea of keeping all your class features, but replacing all your class powers with your theme.

Edit: And for the record, I am not going to stop posting.

I never hoped you were.

Some of these themes have a gigantic impact and others are utterly useless. That isn't something I enjoy whatsoever.

I agree the order adept needs to be wacked hard with the nerf bat and the animal master needs to be better at rescuing their animal.

In my mind, unquestionably yes. It really has done. You use the example of the PHB, but while there is stuff in there that was absurd broken or outright awful, there was so much good.

The thing is I look at these themes you dislike and see an awful lot of good. In the order adept (or whatever he's called) I see a political member of the mage's guild or one through inheretence who isn't really a mage and doesn't weaken themself for joining the guild and doesn't end up looking like a wizard who dabbles. That's huge and almost new to D&D. The Apprentice Wizard, again, allows decent mechanical support for a backstory involving being a failed apprentice without locking up your feats (so you can actually multiclass somewhere else based on what you do in play). Again, this is huge. The alchemist just plain rocks (although is a part patch for 4e). And the animal master is fun (although has issues) - and if you can't do anything with or take inspiration from a pet monkey with a fez you aren't trying.

We had one of the first non-cleric healer classes in 4E ever that was awesome (and still is) in the Warlord. We had fighters that weren't simply fodder and wizards/clerics were not gods. The game has expanded a lot since then adding in numerous other elements, with some pure crap (Beastmaster Rangers) but there was always gold to go with it (Like the brawler fighter).

And it continues to do so. Knights, Slayers, and Thieves are all gold - giving the less mechanically inclined people something to play. I have no wish to ever play a slayer. But I am not everyone - and some people are happier with slayers than with the original 4e classes. It's great that they can have something for them.

Likewise the Vampire. It extends the game in ways I didn't expect. And the Blackguard. And I like the new mage schools in HoS. And the gloom pact hexblade. (I agree about the Binder).

And these themes? Just these four themes alone have given me more inspiration for characters, and more extension for what can readily be done than the entire list of Dark Sun themes. "Athasian Minstrel" - as if we needed another excuse for PCs to asssassinate. "Dune Trader" - the powers (other than the L2 Utility) do just about nothing to help you be a better trader. Likewise "Wasteland Nomad". They just try to tie you in to the concept by virtue of the name rather than extending the concepts.

There are seventy four monsters over level 21 in that book. That is just fantastic, because many of them aren't even elites and solos - plenty of good old fashioned standard monsters (albeit with awesome epic tier powers and tricks!). I have never said a bad word about this book just about ever

Agreed. MM3 was great. And Epic support currently is poor.

There is no theme I can say is outright awful.

Likewise. But there are almost no themes I can say truly fit what I see as the requrements or extend what it's possible to build by much. Other than adding a splash of casting or combat to people who would go all the other way. I like the Veiled Alliance, the Templar, the Elemental Priest, and the Dune Trader. And think that the Minstrel and the Gladiator (and arguably the Nomad although IMO that needs a re-fluff for reasons stated earlier) should both come with weapon proficiencies. But then I'd attach wand proficiency to the apprentice wizard and the order mage (and the Veiled Alliance member and rods to the Templar)...

Now we get these themes. Gutted and stripped down versions of the originals.

I'd say with most of the crap removed. You can't overwrite most of a class with your theme any more. Your class is always the most important part. (Yet another reason the Order Adept needs nerfing).

Is that so unreasonable to you? Is it unreasonable to anyone?

A working monster builder and epic support, no. But as I've said, I prefer these themes to the DS ones. I consider them to be more thematically interesting and less overwhelming. I like that there is a Vampire class - and one that can be left to the side. I like the existance of the Slayer even if I have no wish to play one.

 

[Aegeri]

Yes. It is mostly unreasonable to me.

A working monster builder and actual support for epic in the form of more monsters seems hardly unreasonable - especially as they were succeeding at both just last year (before breaking the monster builder and well, forgetting epic tier existed when publishing MV and subsequent products).

The quality is not going down.

I disagree there and I think Dragon recently and Heroes of Shadow are good examples of it.

At the start of 4e, people were not so contend with the seemingly samey of the classes.

Some people weren't and others were perfectly happy with it. I like the similar structure and right now, the structure of more "complex" things is being held back by the introduction of the simpler things - that's the real problem.

It may be hard to swallow for you, but last year material was for people like you, this year is for different people!

What, you mean last year was for people who actually liked 4th edition and this year is for... who again? Because as I've mentioned before, I've bought every DnD product since 4Es release just about. Right now, I'm seriously considering not bothering to buy any further player resource related books. I'm not even sure if I want to bother with further DM supplements either like Gloomwrought and Threats to the Nentir Vale. I should find both exciting, but yet I now have this immense apathy towards the stuff wizards releases.

Yet I shouldn't. I love boxed sets. I love the tokens + maps and other goodies. Yet I just can't get excited about the content anymore.

Next year you may find, that you get epic support again, because essential players could make use of it.

I don't care what "essentials" players can or cannot use frankly. I am telling wizards what *I* actually want and I'm not going to be non-vocal about it.

I think your negative reaction may have the same effect as the reaction of some haters before: wizard will make another turn instead of staying on the IMHO good way they are now...

Good, I'd love them to abandon this cycle and go back to the way things were. Last year up to a certain point was simply awesome and this year - 5 months in - has really offered very little at all.

i think your way exaggerated complaints are showing a lot of egoism.

I don't think any of my complaints are "way exaggerated" and frankly, I find your statement extremely insulting. It is a common and noted complaint that Dragon/Dungeon have declined in page count and quality of crunch in them. Admittedly, Dungeon is making somewhat of a comeback due to the Robert J. Schwalb show but Dragon is basically cut content from books. You can look at other forums to see there is a pretty good consensus on many of the mechanical points I've bought up - like the vampire, shade and binder. Another example - one that wizards have directly admitted themselves - is the CUR item system is fundamentally broken and doesn't work. When Wizards are telling DMs just to use the original system, you know it's non-functional. Then again, the original parcel system wasn't included in essentials so essentials only DMs are stuck with a non-functional system - WHOOPS. I'm sure you'll claim that's another part of this great and entirely brilliant design direction.

If I was the only person disappointed with essentials and the current direction I probably would think it was just me. Given that there are more than enough people who feel the same way, I'm not inclined to believe that.

Monster Vault not having a lot of epic support was absolutely needed... it had to revise the fist monster manual which is more or less useless...)

Then let's look at the number of epic tier monsters in the original monster manual. In the original monster manual there are 74 monsters between the levels of 21 and 33 (Orcus obviously being that 33). There were 489 monsters in total in the book, so epic tier isn't the greatest concern of it but there was a good amount of them in there for a starting book.

Now of course, it's worth noting that the monsters LEAST affected by MM3 are heroic tier monsters. So if your argument had any logic to it - which it doesn't - you'd find that the monsters that needed revision the *most* from the original MM were paragon and epic tier monsters. Of particular note are paragon and above solos - who by far are the biggest write offs in the book. As these are the creatures that suffered the most due to the poor design of creatures originally. So what *needed* the most revision from that book weren't even given the revisions they needed. So your logic just absolutely falls over.

I can take original MM Kobolds and they will work fine in a post-MM3 environment. Their damage expressions don't render them useless. Orcs and Gnolls were revised in MV, but the original MM orcs and gnolls have nothing overtly wrong with them. Now certain heroic tier MM creatures needed revisions: Needlefang Drake swarms were just ridiculous. The original Wraith I think was one of the most frustrating and poorly designed monsters in this edition. They got deserved updates in MV.

I cannot take many of the original paragon and epic tier MM monsters and expect them to function. They are just frankly rubbish. Their powers haven't caught up with the current monster design whatsoever. You need to redo their maths entirely (defenses, damage, multiple attacks and similar for elites, solos have to be rewritten). They desperately needed an update far more than a bunch more heroic tier monsters did. Especially as many of them already worked fine and it's not like we don't have billions of good heroic tier monsters in 4E - because we totally do!! Now MV did a wonderful job in paragon tier, but it completely neglected the epic tier and that was just really silly. What creatures in 4E were the worst designed out of the gate in the MM? Those in the epic tier. What monsters in 4E didn't get a needed design update in a product that was - essentially - a redo of the MM? The epic tier creatures.

Of course the next product after is similarly ignoring the epic tier. Quite frankly, I'm not going to sit around and just say nothing this time. I actually didn't say much about the book not having epic tier monsters when it came out. I've really only become focused on this issue because Threats to the Nentir Vale is similarly not including any real epic support.

In any event, I was really excited about these themes and yet again I've been disappointed. In saying that, I am going to take an interest in the other themes of course. I am curious how they will compare to the power level of the ones given here. For example, perhaps Order Adept is the expected power level compared to the other three - which actually need a boost. Who knows until we see all of them. Maybe that 0.01% chance there are DS like themes in there is actually the case and these were just more "essentialized" themes to lead off (Yes I know this won't happen, you don't have to point it out to me).

Personally I liked this game more when there was a release schedule with exciting things on it, supplements adding great new options and we had a MM that supported all three tiers brilliantly and really fixed something in the system that needed it. Then the best setting that 4E has seen thus far in Dark Sun. Sadly I feel the days of great books like the DS:CS are well behind us now if this is the general quality of things going forward.

What you aren't resticted to, and this difference is critical, is restricted to the same number of powers per turn. You litterbug with your minors as well as your other powers (and yes, I've got a currently active litterbug wizard).

Depending on what summoning powers you are looking at, they can be minor actions as well and there are numerous conjurations that can be summoned as minor action. So I'm not exactly seeing the problem. Especially as this was on a build that really abused instinctive action as much as it could.

Me too. But until they errata Twin Strike to adding +1[w] damage on the second hit (and reduce the immediates/minors they get) - which still makes it an extremely accurate at will, Rangers breaking powers like this are a fact of D&D.

Yes, which means rangers need to be fixed. As an aside, hopefully that is something that the upcoming class compendium article is going to do!

I never said that it was a good power on the average PC. It just combos well.

Exactly. Barbarians also can make good use of it - but Barbarians have an option for an 18-20 crit range already (albeit a daily rage, but it lasts the whole encounter). In the end though, 4E is always going to have a huge problem with multiple attacking characters vs. characters that cannot (it's a core and inherent flaw in the system).

You mean they could have "pleased everyone" by leaving a segment of the market and the player base utterly unable to use a lot of the abilities of some of the new themes?

So what? The point of those classes is to be simple and be devoid of the dreaded options that are apparently confusing. That they can't make use of options designed to make characters more flexible is irrelevant to them: Their design was to be straightforward and devoid of options. Fact is, they could have themes that were more suited to them, while keeping themes for the majority of other classes. AEDU classes with choices are still the majority of classes, incidentally and even many essentials classes can get power swap options as well. So it's more that the minority of classes have curtailed the options for everyone else. That's not a suitable compromise to me whatsoever.

I like the slayer/thief and such because they are simple. I really don't have a problem with them being left alone for the people who want them and not made more "complicated" than they have to be. Also, getting an encounter power and choice of utilities, would still give them support anyway (even without being able to swap encounters, many essentials classes could still swap dailies anyway).

And I dislike the idea of keeping all your class features, but replacing all your class powers with your theme.

I don't mind it whatsoever and rather like it. It's very rare to see anyone swap out every power for a theme, unless you're one of those terribly undersupported classes that might make good use of them.

But who cares about supporting them anyway, Wizards sure doesn't!

Incidentally, an Order Adept can replace all his utilities with wizard ones up to level 30. Just so you know, it's not even limited to just levels 1-10. And believe me, the things I could do with a fighter with a lot of those higher level wizard utilities. Oh boy...

I agree the order adept needs to be wacked hard with the nerf bat and the animal master needs to be better at rescuing their animal.

You know, it's the obvious fact that the Beastmaster is rubbish and the Order Adept is ridiculous that amazes me. We are told by Wizards we get less content in say, Dragon because they "rigorously" look over articles with R+D. Yet they can't spot issues apparent to me reading the article for 5 minutes. For example, what happens when you retrain Wizards Apprentice after level 6? Do you keep your free item? What happens if you retrain into it? Do you get that free item?

It's a mess.

The thing is I look at these themes you dislike and see an awful lot of good.

I dislike the mechanical swinginess and limited (or not limited enough in one case) power swap options. Of the themes presented, only the alchemist really has a great deal of merit to me. Especially given that houseruling all alchemical items as common doesn't seem to cause a problem! I like that theme, but I don't like the mechanical issues that are present with the other three: It just feels poorly thought out and as an initial impression, I'm kind of worried about what the others will look like. A lot of my future reaction will depend on how many look like the Animal Master (awful), which ones look like the Alchemist (Decent) and what ones just make me look at my computer, raise my eyebrow and stare in sheer bemusement it was published like that (Noble Adept). If the others are around the alchemist in feel/flavor, I will be a lot less unhappy.

And it continues to do so. Knights, Slayers, and Thieves are all gold - giving the less mechanically inclined people something to play.

Then why bother with if they can use options or not? The point is they shouldn't be mechanically minded: Yet these themes are going to live or die mechanically. Honestly, nobody in my games will be taking Animal Master over Order Adept (as an example). I also find these will have a much higher optimization and power creep factor than the original DS themes. Order Adept, which is being beaten to death, is the poster child here. More benefits for nothing is a lot more than 1 encounter power, then having to give up your own classes powers for others. Especially in a setting without inherent bonuses to make taking other class powers much easier.

Likewise the Vampire. It extends the game in ways I didn't expect.

Well yes, it is almost a new low in mediocrity for strikers in 4E. I do believe it beats the original assassin, so it doesn't quite win. The others were pretty average, I mean the Blackguard was competent but the Fury Blackguard as an example, has a poor scaling benefit (+2 damage, +4 if bloodied) compared to the Domination Blackguard. Also a very shoddy forced at-will power. Not to mention that Wizards complains in their columns about not wanting to add feat cruft, then adds nothing but feat cruft with HoS.

And these themes? Just these four themes alone have given me more inspiration for characters, and more extension for what can readily be done than the entire list of Dark Sun themes.

I disagree really. They've given me the feeling I'm going to be seeing a *lot* of Order Adepts, not a lot of Animal Masters (0 in fact), maybe the odd Alchemist and the odd person who might think getting a free item then ditching the theme (say for Order Adept) is a good idea.

I actually feel these themes are more mechanically prone to optimization than the DS themes are.

Agreed. MM3 was great. And Epic support currently is poor.

I loved MM3 so much, it really got me so excited about the future of DnD

I'd say with most of the crap removed.

I disagree, I think these just add crap. We are not going to agree on this point, but I won't agree with you that a theme that adds more for nothing is removing crap. It's adding it.

I consider them to be more thematically interesting and less overwhelming.

We're going to have to wait on this, because looking at these we know one thing: They vary hugely in mechanical power. Far more than DS themes do. One of these IS overwhelming mechanically and you implicitly agree with me as well (otherwise you would not be calling for it to be nerfed). I will say again, while DS themes definitely have their top and bottom tiers: None stands out so hugely everyone should take it. With the way these are designed, we're going to see defined bottom of the barrel themes and ones that are clearly superior. Hell we have FOUR and we can already do that. What do you think all 15 are going to look like? Personally, I would expect further debate on the relative mechanical power levels as the rest come out.

 

[Marshall]

The current ones are much more reasonable than the Dark Sun themes. Because there is a lot less of the law of unintended consequences in them. Just picking obvious Dark Sun issues, there's the Elemental Priest. I don't know if you've ever seen what a clog-the-battlefield controller can do in an urban setting, but it locks the battlefield down and makes the DM's life incredibly frustrating. Now giving the Elemental Priest theme to a shaman is just... obnoxious. But it's the law of unintended consequences that's the problem. Giving fighters power such as Fearsome Command (Area Burst 2 as their L3 encounter power) or Dazzling Flash (close burst 5). Spraying marks all over the place. Or let's look at the Wilder (crit on 18-20) combined with a seriously multiattacking ranger. Throw in an Avenger multiclass for good measure*.

Yeah, No. Whats your point? There is no unintended consequences there and nothing outside of the normal variation in power levels(there could be overpowered powers), but the theme structure adds lids little to the overall power of the PC. One encounter power, thats it.

Generally the DS themes are balanced. But some of them with some combinations of classes are ridiculously over the top.

* Turn 1: Psychic Surge, triggering your Quarry and Hobbling Strike. Move in. Trigger Avenger Multiclass. Action Point for Twin Strike. (2 attacks). World Serpent's Grasp to knock the enemy prone so they can't run away (and so you can get Headsman's Chop in). Interrupt: Disruptive strike. (3).
Turn 2: Twin Strike (5), Off Hand Strike (6), Ruffling Sting (7).

That's 7 attacks, rolling twice, and critting on an 18-20 - a crit chance of slightly more than 1/4 - or an average of 1.75 crits over the two turns. (Without the action point you only get five attacks, but you get the action point in more than half your encounters).

And?!?! You're dropping 3 encounter+ powers backed up with a multiclass feat and a handful of minor action attack boosters and an AP. You should be getting a heck of a boost out of it.
Why arent you using Throw and Stab instead of a Move action to get a couple more attacks? Drow Long Knife in the Off-hand is worth the trade off.

You sure you want to talk about Power Creep?

At least with the DS version of themes those PCs are trading class attacks for theme attacks, trading what should be 'on specialty' abilities for expanded options. The CC Themes are just free abilities tacked on to increase power levels. They moved from the MC/Hybrid design space to the Backgrounds design space...on Steroids, shot up with Gamma Rays and wielding Mjolnir. Straight power creep.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

@ Aegeri: I am still sorry to say that, but people like you, who were contend with the structure and playing epic had a good year.

People like me, who really liked the new direction of the game, but who were not so content with the type of support, especially the fokus on epic level (which i frankly don´t like that much...), now have some good times...

I actually liked that game before essentials, but i really like the way, some things are done in essentials (as there are also some things that are worse than before...)

I didn´t want to insult you, and I am sorry for that, and i don´t even want you to shut up. But I would be pleased, if you don´t come to every thread and tell us how everything is bad and broken and badwrongfun. Even if you don´t mean it that way, this is how it reads... it reminds me a lot to those edition wars between 3.5 crowd and 4e crowd...

Lets focus on some specifics:

@EP ic support:
Material support for epic is there right now. Enough to play year long campaigns. Not a month ago, there was a great article how to make a dragon epic. We get support, but really big quality support needs time.

@ different structure:
I know you think otherwise, but it really makes no sense to release the same things all over again and again, just with little different numbers and such.
The complains we had at the beginning of 4e would have become justified if PHB 3 and HOTFX books had the same contend again.
This is the reason why the class compendium was scratched: not a lot of people would have liked to buy the same things they already had. (I had bought it, as i simply refused to buy "Core 1 books".) As Dragon Articles, they make perfectly sense!

@ Beeing negative:
In the 3.0 era, I actually went to andy collins`s forum and told him how crappy i thought his epic handbook was... i was frustrated about this contend. I got an answer from him. He told me how unpolite it is to come to his board and make such comments. He showed, that he was a great guy, but still, i didn´t like a lot of the material he produced... maybe we are just incompatible.
I also made a comment about Pathfinder which earned me a justified week long ban.

We just have to accept: not everything produced is for us, and it is good that way: we save some money and some people will find material they like.

With the death of "everything is core" you are encouraged to take away the material you don´t like in your games. I did that in 3.5 and it worked fine.

So if you don´t like the material, be voicy about it, but don´t say it is crap without proofs. (The monster builder and the feats in Heroes of shadows are things I agree with more or less, but I also don´t like your solutions to be honest).

You can come here and tell us how you don´t like it. But making subjective statements in the way you do seems also insulting for those people who like it that way. I also think it is especially insulting for the designers, who actually listened to their customers...

An example:
At the beginning we had voicy complaints about the lack of fluff and too much crunch. Now we got a lot more fluff but less crunch. (That crunch is much more easy to engineer than fluff for me...)
Wizards needs to find the right balance and has to accept, that people´s tastes differ and you can´t make everyone contend. And it seems like you are just unfortunate at the moment... but I am sure, if you stop complaining around and make productive comments*, your voice may be heard rather faster than later... what about writing some articles yourself?

*i have read some productive and well thought out comments, and i liked.

 

[wayne62682]

Disclaimer: I've only given themes (DS and the new batch) a cursory glance and haven't played with them yet.

I think the problem is that Wizards is devolving back to the 3.5 days of forgetting to balance things against all sourcebooks. I remember the days of 3.5 where every new book that came out was only balanced on the assumption the only books used where the Core 3 + Itself, and this lead to $DEITY knows how many loopholes because most people used more than 4 books in their game.

Now, from what I've seen and read about the design intent of themes, the DS themes meet that goal (important character choice) and the other themes do not. IMO themes ought to be either one or the other - either they don't influence much at all and are almost all flavor with some minor mechanical benefit so there's a reason to take the theme in the first place (let's face it, you can say "Pick a theme for RP reasons" until the cows come home but most people will want some mechanical benefit) or they all need to be powerful choices and built into the game rules.

As it stands right now, only DDI people even know what themes are and DDI people are the large minority compared to gamers who have no idea there is online content for D&D - that alone is going to cause issues because I, as a DDI subscriber, turn up to a game with some online content and I'm automatically more powerful than everybody else (even picking one of the worse Themes, because I'd be the only person to have a theme).

To be honest, I like the Essentials format. I want them to follow that format from now on, and make all new "classes" really subtypes/builds of existing classes wherever possible and save actual new "classes" for things that require new mechanics (for instance if they brought back the Incarnum classes). I also want to see more builds that offer a different role to a base class instead of just the same role with a new twist.

These themes, though, are weaksauce compared to the Dark Sun ones; they fall short of the goal of themes being the "third pillar" of character creation. Either there are really good choices that anyone with half a brain will choose for the mechanical benefits, and there are the "fool's gold" choices of 3.5 that trick newbies that think a theme sounds cool but really is mechanically inferior. I thought we had gotten away from that; offering subpar choices under the guise of "flavor" is ridiculous and is going to hinder those people simply because they don't know or won't choose superior themes.

 

[Aegeri]

@ Aegeri: I am still sorry to say that, but people like you, who were contend with the structure and playing epic had a good year.

What? We got no DMG3 on epic tier, we finally got fixed maths after 2 years that adjusted epic tier from a brutal to design EL+5 or worse average encounter level grind fest, into something that resembled the rest of the system and was fun to actually play/design. Dark Sun Campaign Setting added immensely to HEROIC tier, in both options (themes) and monsters. Hell themes were an entirely heroic tier development with not much impact on epic, yet I loved them all the same! Your argument just doesn't make any sense whatsoever to me. There were barely any epic adventures published in all of last year for the epic tier in 4E - except for Tomb of Horrors (which is partially in epic). In fact other than the Scales of War adventures, the E1-E3 adventures and Tomb of Horrors I cannot think of any other adventures in epic tier. Given that the Scales of War adventures and E1-E3 are pre-MM3 so suffer terribly for it, this isn't much comfort.

How many heroic and paragon tier adventures are there I wonder. Would you like to bet it's somewhere between a metric boatload and just about EVERYTHING published adventure wise for 4E? Because you'd be right if you guessed that!

especially the fokus on epic level (which i frankly don´t like that much...), now have some good times...

What focus on epic? You're honestly living in an entirely different dimension to me. Heroic tier and Paragon tier have always received the most support.

But I am certain I have died and gone to Bizarro World. Did you read my previous post where I noted that of 489 creatures in the original MM, only 74 of them are in the epic tier? This is a "Focus" on epic tier to you?

What? I just.. What? Even MM3, which added great epic support adds more heroic and paragon monsters.

But I would be pleased, if you don´t come to every thread and tell us how everything is bad and broken and badwrongfun.

Basically you are telling me to shut up. Also, I am going to point out things that aren't mechanically great because that's what I liked about 4E (well, before). Actually I don't even have a specific hatred of essentials, while I have my opinions on say the Knight - I can't say there is a single essentials class in Heroes of the Fallen Lands or Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms I wouldn't recommend. They are all very solidly put together, even if I find the slayer/thief/scout/hunter rather boring. If you have a player who wants to play, but doesn't handle something complicated then you just can't go wrong with those.

I like the sentinel a lot and the mage/warpriest are pretty much just a wizard/cleric anyway. What I dislike are poor design elements coming back into this edition that wizards originally swore off doing. Like racial penalties, for mostly the same reasons that Wizards originally wrote for not putting them into 4E back before its release. I will express my opinions on these and unless doing that is against the forum rules, you're stuck with it. Sorry bout that! Maybe I will get less annoyed when wizards provides something to be happy about, like these promised epic tier adventures (please let them be good. PLEASE

@EP ic support:
Material support for epic is there right now. Enough to play year long campaigns.

No, it's actually not. There are few good published adventures. I mean E1-E3 were well before MM3. Epic lacks monsters in rank and file standards, with ONLY demons being well represented. You seriously should go and read the threads on epic before making these statements. The problems have been the same for a long time now and will continue to be with wizards continued lack of support.

Not a month ago, there was a great article how to make a dragon epic.

It was a truly great article free to anyone and it's something we need a lot more of. Not just one. It doesn't in any way prove that epic tier is getting the support it needs. It is merely a PART of the support that epic needs and again, has needed for some time.

@ different structure:
I know you think otherwise, but it really makes no sense to release the same things all over again and again, just with little different numbers and such.

I don't mind if they do something different, but I'd like it to be thought through well.

Examples: The thief. Excellent basic achiever and performs its role perfectly. I'd throw the slayer in here as well. Pisonics post-psionic power as well, are fantastic and I really love them.

Two other examples: The shade. Utterly awful racial power and just nothing redeeming it whatsoever. The binder: This is one of the definitions of "outright bad" in 4E. Especially when the binder is out damaged and out controlled by the original Warlock (pretty much removing any reason to ever play it).

This is the reason why the class compendium was scratched: not a lot of people would have liked to buy the same things they already had. (I had bought it, as i simply refused to buy "Core 1 books".) As Dragon Articles, they make perfectly sense!

They make perfect sense because it's basically errata and asking people to pay for errata was just not going to make anyone happy. I wouldn't have bought that book.

@ Beeing negative:
In the 3.0 era, I actually went to andy collins`s forum and told him how crappy i thought his epic handbook was... i was frustrated about this contend. I got an answer from him. He told me how unpolite it is to come to his board and make such comments.

This doesn't sway me whatsoever, because I'm not asking for money for what I put on this board. I'm a paying and loyal (former?) customer, who immediately subscribed to DDI and bought every book that was published in 4E. I defended essentials and bought into wizards narrative that it was a set of 10 products and then "Back to Normal". Except the "Back to Normal" narrative is distinctly different in practice

As a customer who wizards wants to continue giving them their money, I am feeling more than entitled to point out how much I dislike the current direction. I also feel the need to state just how much I dislike certain mechanical elements being just, well, poorly thought out. Especially when the reduction in content and delays, the lack of a viable monster builder (still, MONTHS on from breaking the original one) and more have left me feeling more than betrayed. So instead of simply taking my ball and going home in a huff, I would rather tell wizards that I think they are doing the wrong thing.

Because believe it or not, I want wizards to succeed and make great products so I keep giving them money. Right now with the state of DDI and IMO, player option book content not being up to par - I don't think they are succeeding. I am not going to comment on Gloomwrought having not seen it, but I will state (possibly even surprising you) that what I have heard makes it sound great. I never expected epic support in a clearly paragon based supplement BTW. I am in fact reasonable, which is why my ire is directed on this point towards the next Monster Vault (which I believe SHOULD cover all tiers).

I also made a comment about Pathfinder which earned me a justified week long ban.

I couldn't care less about pathfinder.

Here's a challenge for you. Go to google. Type this into it (or copy and paste):
Aegeri site:Pathfinder RPG Discussion - EN World: Your Daily RPG Magazine

Let me know when you find a post from me in the pathfinder forum. Heck, go to Paizos site and see ANYWHERE if you can find a post from me in their forums about how much I dislike their game. I do dislike Pathfinder a lot and yet I don't go to their forums, websites or anything else. In fact I distinctly talk about 4E because I'm running it and I actually really (did?) like it. I only point out the problems with 4E in the hope they will be fixed - because Wizards have done a great job in the past of fixing things (see MM3 as the shining example!). You might find me talking about Pathfinder in this forum when it (rarely) comes up, but those posts are precious snowflakes and I do not make a habit of talking about pathfinder. Because I don't play it and don't like it at all. So I don't talk about it.

You can come here and tell us how you don´t like it. But making subjective statements in the way you do seems also insulting for those people who like it that way.

Except I back my arguments up with logic and examples. I do not just simply assert "This sucks and everyone who likes it is an idiot". This implication is again, something I find completely insulting, because I don't type walls of text explaining my logic for my own amusement (or just to be a painful eyesore to everyone else!).

I also think it is especially insulting for the designers, who actually listened to their customers...

Did they? Very recently in a rule of Three Mike Mearls wrote this:

We started columns like this one back in February precisely because we saw a gap between what the audience wanted and saw as important, and what we were dealing with in R&D. We’re not going to bridge that gap overnight, but I think we’ve made steps forward in correcting that.

Now that to me reads like something entirely different to the point you just made. It sounds to me like the opposite happened: Wizards didn't listen to their customers exactly on every issue. I wonder about what that difference is between what wizards thought they should have done and what their audience is telling them.

But that's just my interpretation, but it's pretty clear that wizards weren't listening somewhere. I think I know where that was.

And it seems like you are just unfortunate at the moment... but I am sure, if you stop complaining around and make productive comments

Most of the time I offer ways of improving the elements I am complaining about or, in many cases I actually put what I'm complaining about to the practical test of in game scenarios. If you read back through the Heroes of Shadow thread, I actually put the vampire to in game tests and found "Durable for free = not a big issue anymore". So instead of just complaining, I look for solutions and then implement those solutions - making it again, insulting of you to imply otherwise (or you are just not reading my posts). I've taken another poster (from the Wizards boards) version of the shade and replaced it entirely (while maintaining the same general concept) and houseruled out the -2 surge penalty from Vryloka.

Simple solutions to these problems in my own games. I dislike that I had to do that in the first place, but to imply I don't try to solve these things is just incorrect. Of course I haven't the foggiest what to do with the Binder, it's actually just superfluous.

In terms of these themes as an example, in my own games I would probably find some way of making the Animal Master not suck - I might make the minion impossible to target with burst and blast attacks (or something like that). I doubt I would ever waste an attack on it, so that would give it a massive amount of protection. At the same time I am rather waiting to see all the themes before I "fix" anything, but it's pretty clear I'm not the only one who sees problems with them. Once all 15 themes are out and potential updates out of the way, I will see about solutions to my complaints. Until then it's kind of pointless! There are clear problems that I can point out now: But solutions will take time and depend on what the general power level of everything else is.

As for writing articles, I have in fact done that but the stuff I sent in was all epic tier. Putting my money where my mouth is didn't really get me anywhere and given the LACK of epic tier adventures published in the magazines (for months now): It's easy to see they didn't want it. This is also why I am rather bemused by your statements earlier about epic tier being the "focus" at wizards.

 

[Marshall]

The quality is not going down. Wizards has just taken back a bit and starts releasing material for different people:

One article, 4 player options, 1 ridiculously overpower, 2 with gaping rules loopholes, 1 underperforming.
The only way to claim that quality hasnt gone down is to day that the quality was crap to start with. There is a huge difference between products that I dont like and bad quality products. I have no interest in the DS setting, but it was a quality product, HoS and these themes are just outright poor quality products.

You mean they could have "pleased everyone" by leaving a segment of the market and the player base utterly unable to use a lot of the abilities of some of the new themes? Your definition of everyone is nowhere near the same as mine.

..and this is where continuing to market to the essentials crowd is a failure in its own right.
Since the stated goal of essentials was to cut down on the options for the players that were overwhelmed by the bloat, Why the heck do you think its a good idea to create more options in that style?

Essentials is bush-league 4e, when you want to expand the options on essentials you promote full on 4e, you dont confuse the issue by complicating the basic set.

The thing is I look at these themes you dislike and see an awful lot of good. In the order adept (or whatever he's called) I see a political member of the mage's guild or one through inheretence who isn't really a mage and doesn't weaken themself for joining the guild and doesn't end up looking like a wizard who dabbles. That's huge and almost new to D&D. The Apprentice Wizard, again, allows decent mechanical support for a backstory involving being a failed apprentice without locking up your feats (so you can actually multiclass somewhere else based on what you do in play). Again, this is huge. The alchemist just plain rocks (although is a part patch for 4e). And the animal master is fun (although has issues) - and if you can't do anything with or take inspiration from a pet monkey with a fez you aren't trying.

Noone has an issue with the fluff, its the mechanics that are crap.

And it continues to do so. Knights, Slayers, and Thieves are all gold - giving the less mechanically inclined people something to play.

Again, expanding the mechanical options for those that like NOT HAVING OPTIONS is counterproductive.
Desiging options for those not inclined to use options is stupidity. So why take them into account when designing themes?

Likewise the Vampire. It extends the game in ways I didn't expect. And the Blackguard. And I like the new mage schools in HoS. And the gloom pact hexblade. (I agree about the Binder).

Idea vs. Execution. Too many engineers, not enough techs to make it work.

 

[Blue]

Yeah, I pretty much disagree. Nothing requires that themes have equal MECHANICAL weight to classes. These themes are already mechanically on a par with a character's race, though races have some additional customization support.

Why do you take such umbrage at "mechanical"? The rules are mechanical, they support the games we play. Their design space are those mechanical rules.

There's no reason to suppose themes can't or won't be as significant as race. From the character development perspective themes are also nearly as important as race and class.

I disagree that the DDI themes are on par with race. I see race and DDI themes as giving some bonuses and usually an encounter power, but races also giving bonuses to stats and having volumes of feat support as well as a bit of PP support.

Character development ... ah, this is an interesting point. Wizards could publish a class with the fluff that it's a fantastic healer, but for mechanics cut-n-paste the rogue. Could a player create a PC that was a fantastic healer with that class? No. Fluff is good, but does not allow you to shape characters in ways the mechanics don't support. PHB1 even explicitly tells players to reskin their powers to make sense for their character. Good fluff, really helps with realizing your character as opposed to generic wizard #752. Still doesn't allow you to swing a sword with the skill of Gandalf without additional mechanical support (say a weapon proficiency feat).

Where I'm going with this is that mechanics and concept go hand-in-hand. There are many important parts of character vision don't interact with the mechanics and so don't need to be modeled by them. Like your character personality. Even there there's some touch - the boisterous viking, the mousy rogue, and the high-society socialite probably don't have the same charisma scores and/or skill training in the social skills.

Other parts of your character are strongly influenced by the rules. Those you really need mechanical support in order to accomplish. Combat is the arch-typical example, even the DMG p42 improv rules are how to integrate the mechanics.

Backgrounds became a way to mechanically support more. Your orphan rogue was raised in a convent and you want the religion skill trained? A background can give you that option. A step forward in allowing the player to realize some of the more creative options out there.

These themes aren't wrong, they do help with that to some extent just like background do. But after seeing how well Dark Sun did it, these are underwhelming in how little they do.

In DS, I could take just about any character and say that they are a secret agent for the Veiled Alliance. They know some arcane magic, can know more, and it's generally supported within itself. To build the same concept with DDI themes, if I took Apprentice Wizard I would get an encounter power, but to continue along those lines I would need to either MC and spend feats or go hybrid. The first option has a high opportunity cost - it takes away lots of your options to customize because it will eat up lots of feats just to swap powers, the second dilutes your whole class choice.

These aren't bad. If these had come out first it would have been "nifty", and then when the DS themes came out it would have been "awesome!" But to go from the DS themes that can can stand hand-in-hand with class and race and can really adjust your character mechanics to support your vision for them, to these which are lackluster in comparison. I was extremely excited that themes were coming out for non-DS, and these were just disappointing.