Themes: What's the Catch?

[Solvarn]

I haven't personally had a chance to read through the Dark Sun material yet, but my understanding is that yes, themes are just a bonus add-on. I've heard some people describing it as being a minor throwback to the old days of Dark Sun where characters started at third level because the world was so deadly to first-level characters. In the new Dark Sun, you start with a bonus encounter power, which is normally something you would get at third level.

I see them as being a little bit like backgrounds in that they add something to the character's flavor and also a mechanical bonus. I also think it's power creep. Sigh.

It's a different approach to character differentiation, and one I think they'll be taking more often in the future because it is the right solution to providing campaign flavor to core classes. You can take a melee class they develop in two years, and go back and apply the gladiator template to give it a Dark Sun gladiator "feel".

The power creep is pretty low, some of the powers are decent and some aren't. The thing is that you still need to take a standard action to use the power; in some cases or situations it may not even be useful or the optimum choice.

These certainly any more unbalancing then some of the backgrounds that have been developed previously, i.e. Auspicious Birth.

 

[Klaus]

It's a different approach to character differentiation, and one I think they'll be taking more often in the future because it is the right solution to providing campaign flavor to core classes. You can take a melee class they develop in two years, and go back and apply the gladiator template to give it a Dark Sun gladiator "feel".

The power creep is pretty low, some of the powers are decent and some aren't. The thing is that you still need to take a standard action to use the power; in some cases or situations it may not even be useful or the optimum choice.

These certainly any more unbalancing then some of the backgrounds that have been developed previously, i.e. Auspicious Birth.

Plus, themes give you an additional entry that can be used as requirements for feats and powers and stuff.

 

[tyrlaan]

But...as-written, these things are costing a feat at my house. I'm honestly surprised at how little complaining there is about it. I mean, you're getting a free scaling encounter power, and then you get to swap out any of your class powers from the theme's list, also for free?

Does it scale for free? Can someone confirm this? I don't have the book in front of me, but how many of the free theme feature powers list scaling effects?

Regarding free swap out options, I really don't see a cause for distress. Yes, more options is power creep, but on a very gradual slope. Also, don't a lot of people house-rule the multiclass feats because they think spending a feat to give you merely the option to swap out a power is too weak?

Personally, I wouldn't house-rule the multiclass feats because the options available are vast. Swap out just about any of your base class encounter powers for any encounter power from the new class, for example, is a pretty wide open range of options. On the other hand, saying "here's a list of finite powers that you can swap into if you want" is a lot more restrictive than that. Really, you could argue it's no different than WotC releasing a new <power source> Power book. Aside from the free power, of course.

 

[Camelot]

Does it scale for free? Can someone confirm this? I don't have the book in front of me, but how many of the free theme feature powers list scaling effects?

All the theme feature powers scale with level, like a racial ability power. However, the swapped powers (the ones you can get at level 2 and up) don't scale automatically, though they have higher level versions that you can choose (for example, a level 3 encounter power has a level 13 version that you can replace it with when you reach level 13, but that counts as your power for that level).

 

[Old Gumphrey]

You can switch utilities for skill powers for free.

The feat is for an extra power.

You mean like the extra power you get for free with a theme? Read my post.

Does it scale for free? Can someone confirm this? I don't have the book in front of me, but how many of the free theme feature powers list scaling effects?

How many themes feature free scaling powers? Every one of them. And these aren't crappy powers, either; these things are GOOD. Frex, the gladiator gets a 2W+mod, push 2 squares, and that enemy and all enemies adjacent are slowed till end of next turn. Oh, and you get to use your highest stat, so there's no restrictions on it whatsoever.

Yes, more options is power creep

Oh good, we agree.

I'll concede that it's not worth bunching your panties over, but power creep is power creep and free stuff is free stuff. I think it's a bad precedent. In 2 more years, I wonder what else we will have had tacked on to basic characters in addition to backgrounds and themes?

 

[Solvarn]

I'll concede that it's not worth bunching your panties over, but power creep is power creep and free stuff is free stuff. I think it's a bad precedent. In 2 more years, I wonder what else we will have had tacked on to basic characters in addition to backgrounds and themes?

It's a valid question. Maybe magic items will be sold in decks of cards rather than books.

When I think about the future of D&D I look at Magic the Gathering. Tournament play, expansions that are more carefully crafted to be compatible yet just enough power creep to make people go out and buy them, etc.

 

[tyrlaan]

I'll concede that it's not worth bunching your panties over, but power creep is power creep and free stuff is free stuff. I think it's a bad precedent. In 2 more years, I wonder what else we will have had tacked on to basic characters in addition to backgrounds and themes?

Well, let's look at this from a different angle. What's the pain this is introducing into the game? Either all the players at the table will have themes or all the players won't have themes.

It's one thing if it was something like class B just came out and is clearly more powerful than class A from the original book. In such a scenario you can have inherently imbalanced characters at a game table. Class A would be flat out behind the curve if someone else is playing class B.

But that's not what we're talking about here. This is across the board. So everyone has a theme. Okay, that's cool. If it's really noticeable in a game, the DM can toss an extra monster in the fight or something.

 

[Gradine]

Oh good, we agree.

I'll concede that it's not worth bunching your panties over, but power creep is power creep and free stuff is free stuff. I think it's a bad precedent. In 2 more years, I wonder what else we will have had tacked on to basic characters in addition to backgrounds and themes?

Not to stumble too far off-topic here, but since you brought it up, why backgrounds of all things? It doesn't even save you a feat, since you still only get the same number of trained skills.

I don't know who decided "more options = power creep" but I don't buy into it one bit. These are mutually exclusive concepts that only coincide when the people producing the extra options doesn't take into account game balance. Backgrounds don't even belong in the conversation.

I wouldn't even call themes "power creep" since that term seems to imply the increase in power levels is accidental, while themes are wholly intentional. And, for that matter, wholly optional. If you like the idea of themes but not the execution, you could even just take away from the free scaling encounter and call it a day.

Quite frankly, themes are the best idea WotC have brought to the table since skill powers. Say what you will, but 4e is a much better game now than it was two years ago.

 

[bganon]

How many themes feature free scaling powers? Every one of them. And these aren't crappy powers, either; these things are GOOD. Frex, the gladiator gets a 2W+mod, push 2 squares, and that enemy and all enemies adjacent are slowed till end of next turn. Oh, and you get to use your highest stat, so there's no restrictions on it whatsoever.

I'm not going to disagree that themes are power creep, but the Gladiator power is a bit unusual in that it's the only one which does two dice of damage. It'll usually deal about the same damage as Wasteland Fury (1[W] + twice primary ability modifier if you have CA), and Gladiator is supposed to be a Defender theme! I smell an upcoming errata.

Most of the other theme feature powers seem to be at the level of awesome at-wills; they're often something like 1[W]+ability and a very useful effect. That's a power level I'm quite comfortable with, it's rather like giving every character a version of the Dilettante feature that doesn't actually suck. Disrupting Advance is the only one I'd always be willing to trade a 1st-level class encounter power for, and I think this says more about that particular theme than the power level of themes in general.

 

[tuxgeo]

Not to stumble too far off-topic here, but since you brought it up, why backgrounds of all things?

< snip >

Quite frankly, themes are the best idea WotC have brought to the table since skill powers. Say what you will, but 4e is a much better game now than it was two years ago.

And remaining off-topic just a little longer (sorry!), I need to say here that I don't have PHB2 yet (Yes! I'm horribly behind the times), but am nevertheless considering buying PHB3 because of the Skill Powers, Hybrid multiclassing, and Psionics, which are some of the more drastically innovative features of 4E (IMHO).

This doesn't even count the new races and classes in PHB3, which are also intriguing ("newsletter-subscribe-to-your-and").
[Quoth the Minotaur, "Say 'Moo!' one more time and I'll gore you."]