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<blockquote data-quote="KidSnide" data-source="post: 5942478" data-attributes="member: 54710">A knight character could have a knight-like background, theme and class.<ol>
<li data-xf-list-type="ol">In the current rules, knight is a background.&nbsp; It gives you some appropriate skills, a &quot;knightly&quot; social position, and maybe better-than-average equipment. 
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<li data-xf-list-type="ol">A character could also have an armored-horseman theme or a defender theme.&nbsp; These would provide feats that allow you to fight more effectively either on horseback, or by defending you allies as a heavily armored melee warrior. 
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<li data-xf-list-type="ol">That same character could choose a class that works with heavily armored melee fighting, typically a fighter or paladin, but we can see that a war-domain cleric can pull this off also.</li>
</ol>There are really two points to breaking things up this way.&nbsp; First, a class is your core abilities and has a long history in the game.&nbsp; It's D&amp;D, so we need to have classes and the desire to include classes for most classes historically appearing in PH1s goes a long way to defining which classes will be there.&nbsp; The theme is separate from the class because the designers want more coherence in character customization.&nbsp; Instead of forcing players to pick from huge lists of highly-mechanical powers and feats, players can pick from a medium-sized list of theme-feats that are grouped coherently.&nbsp; Themes also represent the type of customization that could apply to multiple classes.&nbsp; Here, the heavily-armored-warrior schticks can apply to (at least) the fighter, paladin and cleric, so those options should be separate from class decisions.&nbsp; Contrast this to 4e, where ranger, fighter and barbarian all needed their own &quot;two-weapon fighting&quot; powers.&nbsp; Make it a theme and you only have to design it once.&nbsp; The background is separate because the designers want characters to have a place in the world and that place is quite separate from what characters do in combat.&nbsp; The same combat abilities could apply equally well to a mercenary soldier or the noble son of a duke.&nbsp; So it makes sense to allow PCs to apply the class and theme separately from the background.-KS</blockquote>

[QUOTE="KidSnide, post: 5942478, member: 54710"] A knight character could have a knight-like background, theme and class. [LIST=1] [*]In the current rules, knight is a background. It gives you some appropriate skills, a "knightly" social position, and maybe better-than-average equipment. [*]A character could also have an armored-horseman theme or a defender theme. These would provide feats that allow you to fight more effectively either on horseback, or by defending you allies as a heavily armored melee warrior. [*]That same character could choose a class that works with heavily armored melee fighting, typically a fighter or paladin, but we can see that a war-domain cleric can pull this off also. [/LIST] There are really two points to breaking things up this way. First, a class is your core abilities and has a long history in the game. It's D&D, so we need to have classes and the desire to include classes for most classes historically appearing in PH1s goes a long way to defining which classes will be there. The theme is separate from the class because the designers want more coherence in character customization. Instead of forcing players to pick from huge lists of highly-mechanical powers and feats, players can pick from a medium-sized list of theme-feats that are grouped coherently. Themes also represent the type of customization that could apply to multiple classes. Here, the heavily-armored-warrior schticks can apply to (at least) the fighter, paladin and cleric, so those options should be separate from class decisions. Contrast this to 4e, where ranger, fighter and barbarian all needed their own "two-weapon fighting" powers. Make it a theme and you only have to design it once. The background is separate because the designers want characters to have a place in the world and that place is quite separate from what characters do in combat. The same combat abilities could apply equally well to a mercenary soldier or the noble son of a duke. So it makes sense to allow PCs to apply the class and theme separately from the background. -KS [/QUOTE]

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