You Wanted Character Themes, You Got 'Em - Dragon 399 ToC

[Kinneus]

@Kinneus That was a great response to the idea of narrative vagueness vs narrative specifics...

In case you missed it, my post actually was about *design space* vagueness leading to confusing/arbitrary overlap. Hence my silly examples.

Background, race, class, paragon path - these all have distinct roles in defining a character. You're probably not going to confuse a background for a class, for example. Themes are a bit stickier.

At first blush themes independent of setting are rather amorphous beasts. "Templar" and "escaped slave" make sense because they describe a character's social status in a brutal hierarchy and they provide an extra boost in a low-magic setting.

But what does "explorer" have in common with "alchemist" to justify belonging together as themes?

Okay, I hear you. I don't think the issue is quite as bad as you make it out to be, though. I'd argue that the only real place where there is significant overlap is themes and backgrounds. I would agree with you, actually, that we probably don't need both. But I prefer themes, because I think of themes as simply better-implemented, more mechanically interesting backgrounds. Next time I run a campaign, I might disallow backgrounds, since themes fill that niche so much better.

Seriously, take backgrounds out of the equation, and I think all the confusion and overlap melts away. Ranger/Battlefield Archer/Explorer makes sense to me. Sure, they're similiar, but still distinct enough that "Explorer" adds some particular, unique flavor to the character. "Alchemist" or "Ordained Priest" even more so.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Yes, if themes come in, maybe backgrounds need to go out.

But if all backgrounds do is allow another class skill or a +2 bonus, I don't really see the problem.

SOme of the ones that give further benefits are a bit of a problem, but that was jsut one product as I recall.

 

[Aegeri]

Scales of War backgrounds, wrote by Monte Cook and the FR backgrounds that followed them relatively soon after. Both of those are the strongest backgrounds in the game and arguably are much more powerful than intended (especially looking at how backgrounds developed after). The worst offender was Windrise Ports. God was I glad to see that nerfed if I ever go back to FR.

 

[Kelvor Ravenstar]

The first of the Themes articles is up, containing the Alchemist, Animal Master, Order Adept, and Wizard's Apprentice.

The features are pretty neat. The Alchemist gains the Alchemy feat for free, and can create one alchemical item of their level or below at no cost during an extended rest. The Animal Master gains an animal minion, a cat, dog, hawk, monkey or raven; which they can use with their level 1 encounter power to make an enemy grant combat advantage. The starting features of the Order Adept and Wizard's Apprentice are just encounter attack powers, pretty good ones too. What is more interesting are their level 5 and 10 features. The Order Adept gets an untyped bonus to Arcana (+2 at 5, +4 at 10), and an extra 2nd level utility in their spellbook. The Wizard's Apprentice gets a 6th level magic item at 5th, and +2 to Arcana at 10th and a new language.

The optional utility power choices seem pretty good to me.

 

[Aegeri]

No attack powers beyond level 1 to swap :/ Guess they had to fit in with essentials somehow. I really don't know how to feel about this. I can't help but be disappointed they don't offer the same options as the DS themes do. I am wondering if these themes will get paragon paths and some feats as well. Probably not.

As to the themes themselves: Alchemist will be useless until we can create the vast majority of uncommon alchemy items (alchemy has 1 common item now, it's in the article IIRC). It's relatively nice though and I think isn't a bad choice.

Animal Master is just rubbish. That was a huge disappointment, I was hoping for something that worked well with sentinel druid or beastmaster ranger in some way.

Order Adept is absolutely off the wall insane. Any character can get shield without needing to PMC! That's just frigging amazing! Not to mention it's got a solid controller power built into it as well! This one definitely needs some clarification: Do I get my normal fighter utility (or whatever) AND can get my wizard utility? Or do I have to powerswap a fighter utility for the wizard utility (it's not 100% clear from the article). Either way anyone has to appreciate just how damn good it will be for a defender to have access to shield. It's by far the strongest theme in the article.

Wizards Apprentice is really good as well and comes with a level 1 ranged daze power as well. The common item thing will be better once more are added into the game. Given commons tend to be IMO some of the better items, it's not a bad deal at all.

Overall a really mixed bag for me. I can't help but feel a bit disappointed as Animal Master is rubbish... again. What is with Wizards and making classes with Animal Companions specifically gimped? I'm not happy with gutting out the encounter and daily attack power swap choices, but whatever, essentials probably demanded that. The themes are pretty neat and flavorful though, but one could use a whack already with the nerf stick and a few others could use a distinct boost.

 

[ourchair]

I like the amount of nuance and complexity in these themes, but I feel far more comfortable with the simplicity of the initial (Dark Sun) themes which were basically "+encounter power and new power tree."

The initial theme designs felt easier to grok in terms of how it's going to affect your character, what combos you can make and how it will affect your game as a DM.

 

[Blue]

Mechanically probably more powerful than DS themes because of more granted bonuses over time without having to swap. But as a /theme/ they don't really stand as a pillar of character creation the likes of race and class, which was how themes are presented. There's some utility swaps, but we already had skill power utility swaps, we needed it more elsewhere. DS gave us strongly themed Themes and expanded character customization in ways these haven't: through attack power swaps (before missing without spending a feat for every change) as well as theme-specific feats and paragon paths.

Nothing wrong with what's there, but it missed so much potential. Instead we have less options to customize to our character vision than DS themes provided, at the cost of greater power creep than those same DS themes.

 

[ourchair]

Exactly.

I find the fluff good, but it lost some of the 'third pillar' feel that themes originally had: strong depth-building ideas backed up by mechanics.

You're right in that theme based powers are just another new set of swaps and that these new themes provide but at least DS Themes felt more 'strucutred' and as you pointed out, less power creepy.