D&D 5E Themes in Next

[mserabian]

Hey all

I'm thinking of starting up a new 5e/Next campaign using the 4e Neverwinter setting. I absolutely love the character themes that are presented, and I'm trying to think of a way to use them in 5e/Next.

Firstly I thought they could be mostly replaced by just creating them as backgrounds in the new system. i also thought about taking some of the abilities and recreating them as 5e feats?

what are other peoples solutions/thoughts?

mal

 

[Unwise]

I think that you could mostly just do this by making them backgrounds with traits. The themes did significantly change the power level of PCs in 4e. As such, it would be in keeping to just make backgrounds and add on lots of different traits that kick in at various levels.

In 4e it was very easy to slot in things like themes becasue you had AUED abilities. You knew that at level X everybody would get a power of roughly the same ability. As such you could offer them alternatives. That is not really the case in 5e.

If you felt like doing a lot of homebrewing, one way to make themes work would be to actually make them classes (limited to 5 levels) with different abilities each level. So you could be a level 3 wererat and level 4 thief. Those three levels might give you keen senses, shapechange, advantage on stealth and streetwise in urban areas, nightvision, a higher base move and other such abilities. You could heavily load them with abilities in the first few levels and restrict players to only choosing one. This means you could have a game somewhat balanced between those that choose themes and those that don't.

Alternatively, you keep them as classes, but remove the hitdice per level and give everybody 1-3 free levels in a theme of their choice.

 

[Thaumaturge]

It seems like you could make them a combo of backgrounds and feats. Make the first power the trait you get with a background, and then make subsequent powers something you get with a feat. This gives a similar kind of choice as in 4e, where you could trade your class abilities for theme abilities.

The main problem with this is background feats tend to be non-combat related, but balance concerns are only relative. If every PC takes a theme-background, then everyone is on the same level.

Thaumaturge.