# Themes article up



## UngeheuerLich (May 6, 2011)

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page

And it is excactly what I hoped for:

Look at the alchemist. One free item per short rest. I guess we get something similar for ritual casters and martial practices.


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## Kelvor Ravenstar (May 6, 2011)

I'm pretty happy with this, but I think it could have had better features for the Order Adept and Wizard's Apprentice at 5 and 10. A +4 untyped bonus to Arcana? Great, now my party's wizard will make Arcana checks even more ridiculously (He already has boosts from background and items).


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## Nemesis Destiny (May 6, 2011)

I liked it and look forward to seeing more of them.

Interestingly, these themes lack levelled encounter and daily attack powers, but instead have bonus Features that resemble weak class features. I suppose this is to make them Essentials-compatible. I was wondering how that would be handled.

It does represent some power creep, but I have no problem with it, as the flavour boosts are welcome.


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## JustKim (May 6, 2011)

The only thing I don't like is that animal minions are going to be fodder. Adventuring is dangerous and animal minions will die, and when they do there's no mechanic to revive them. I don't really get why that is when other companions can all be revived. It doesn't really allow the sort of relationship I'd like a character to have with an animal companion.

Would it break anything to render animal minions unconscious, or allow them to be revived after an extended rest? I don't think so.

I love the alchemist, every character I play is going to be an alchemist from now on. Or at least until the next batch of themes next week.


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## Matt James (May 6, 2011)

I'm glad to see themes starting to come back


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## Kelvor Ravenstar (May 6, 2011)

I think the intent with the animal minions was to say to DM's, don't target the animal minions. The comment in the article about animal minions hanging at the edge of the battle until needed was, IMHO, a clue that they're not really valid targets.


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## mneme (May 6, 2011)

There's at least one errors -- the Order Adept gets to learn wizard utilities "of a certain level" (pretty clearly this lacuna was intended to be set before printing).

Also, while it's not an error, exactly, the Order Adept utility is arguably more useful for characters multiclassing into arcane classes than for actual arcane characters.  

A wizard will get his 1st, then 3rd, then 7th level power back, has to be deep into the fight, and won't get his 11th level power back until he's in epic levels, and will never get anything higher than an 11th level power.  Wheras a multiclass Artificer/Battle Engineer can get back Greater Magic Weapon, starting at level 11, and can use it, if he likes, to use GMW two rounds in a row.


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## WalterKovacs (May 6, 2011)

JustKim said:


> The only thing I don't like is that animal minions are going to be fodder. Adventuring is dangerous and animal minions will die, and when they do there's no mechanic to revive them. I don't really get why that is when other companions can all be revived. It doesn't really allow the sort of relationship I'd like a character to have with an animal companion.
> 
> Would it break anything to render animal minions unconscious, or allow them to be revived after an extended rest? I don't think so.
> 
> I love the alchemist, every character I play is going to be an alchemist from now on. Or at least until the next batch of themes next week.




The basic assumption is that the animal will only really get involved for the few powers shown, and would generally avoid the fight (and not present much of a credible threat anyway). Mechanically speaking, once level 5 hits, they could just as easily refluff the "can get a new companion after each rest" to "can revive your existing companion at each extended rest".

Regardless, the animal companion one seems to be a bit weak compared to the other themes (there are probably some good out of combat uses for animals that can, I guess, be commanded to disable a trap or unlock a door, etc ... but the other classes get an actual attack power).

I really like the alchemist (it reminds me of a prestige class for a d20 World of Warcraft book that basically allowed you to create a certain amount of free potions, that basically worked as an altered spell caster). I always wanted to use alchemy items, but the cost seemed a bit prohibitive. This way you get to pick one and it becomes an encounter power basically ... definitely worth the cost to buy some extra recipes since most with automatically level up with you ... and if you end up in an adventurer with recurring monsters with a vulnerability, you can stock up the rest of the party with alchemy items made the old fashioned way.


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## Vicar In A Tutu (May 6, 2011)

Great article. I'm not sure how useful Beast master is. I certainly know that I would never get a theme that is so relient on a minion animal companion, that goesn't get better defences, and is so likely to be taken out early in the combat. Sure it's great that it "hangs out in the back", except some of the powers require the companion to be adjacent to you. One area attack and the animal is dead. It should maybe get better defences as the beast master increased level?


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## Aegeri (May 7, 2011)

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.


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## Neonchameleon (May 7, 2011)

My understanding of the Alchemist and creating uncommon items is that you can create uncommon items _once you know the formula_.  It's the formulary that's secret and lost.  The features at levels 1, 5 and 10 do not restrict you to only taking common alchemical rituals.  So you can learn (and hence prepare your choice of) three different uncommon alchemical components.  So you can e.g. learn Alchemical Silver or a Tension Wheel at 5th, and Sovereign Glue or Keen Oil at 10th.  Other uncommon alchemical formulae - your DM has control.

Order Adept - my understanding is that you need to power swap.

And animal master is fine if your DM lets you keep the beasts out of the way.


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## Aegeri (May 7, 2011)

There is nothing in the alchemist that lets you create uncommon items with the alchemy feat, because it gives you nothing specific to override the general item creation rules. The problem with this is because wizards haven't bothered properly errata'ing alchemical items to common (which many should be).

I agree you need to power swap with Order Adept, but by RAW it is absolutely not clear on that.

Animal Master being fine on the whims of a DM is a horrible excuse for it to be that bad.


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## Neverfate (May 7, 2011)

Neonchameleon said:


> My understanding of the Alchemist and creating uncommon items is that you can create uncommon items _once you know the formula_.  It's the formulary that's secret and lost.  The features at levels 1, 5 and 10 do not restrict you to only taking common alchemical rituals.  So you can learn (and hence prepare your choice of) three different uncommon alchemical components.  So you can e.g. learn Alchemical Silver or a Tension Wheel at 5th, and Sovereign Glue or Keen Oil at 10th.  Other uncommon alchemical formulae - your DM has control.
> 
> Order Adept - my understanding is that you need to power swap.
> 
> And animal master is fine if your DM lets you keep the beasts out of the way.




I would imagine they'll sort the items... one day. Alchemist's fire in that article does say Common.

And yeah. Poor, poor minions that you can only get back via extended reest at level 5! If you were allowed to spend a surge and give them Temp HP that would be SOMETHING. It's too risky in comparison to clear mechanical benefits the other Themes give you.


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## Neonchameleon (May 7, 2011)

The text for uncommon and rare items states that "Uncommon and rare items are not normally created in the current age of the world.  These items were crafted in the distant past, some even during the dawn war, and the techniques for their creation have been lost to the ravages of time."

However, if you actually know the recipie to create them then specific overrides general.  The recipie is not lost - you have a copy.  The hard part, by my reading of the alchemy rules, is getting ahold of that recipie.  And you can neither craft _that_ nor buy it.  But once you've somehow obtained the recipie then you can craft the specific item it allows you to craft.  The uncommon nature of most alchemical items simply cascades from the fact the recipie has been lost - but with the recipie you don't have this problem.


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## samursus (May 7, 2011)

For all those really unhappy with the Animal Master, keep in mind, that I know MANY players who would snap it up in its current incarnation.  Just to be able to have a pet that can occasionally help out in battle (ala Beastmaster) without actually having to deal with the action economies of BM Rangers or Sentinel Druids.  

I mean, is there any chance there can be any agreement on this?  Read the posts; already its like everyone read a different article.


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## Aegeri (May 7, 2011)

The problem with it, you have one bad encounter and that's it for an entire adventure. It is rendered completely useless. God help you if your DM puts in a bloodfire harpy with the ridiculous aura 20 fire damage (which you won't be able to do a thing about, given your pet is a 1 HP minion). It's just terribly thought out, which is keeping to the form of the beastmaster ranger I must concede.


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## Blue (May 7, 2011)

The article isn't bad, but I'm rather underwhelmed.  In Dark Sun, Themes are a full pillar of character design.  True, not as important as race or class -- that would be hard to bolt on -- but within an order of magnitude.  They can really change up the feel of a character, especially with innate bonuses so you can have a implement or weapon theme while your class leans the other way.

These are ... well, bigger backgrounds.  Backgrounds are nice, a decent tool for giving a character a bit of a feel outside race/class, but aren't one of the pillars of character design.

Beastmaster is closest to what I'm looking for, with something always there (even if not always used) that makes the character different.  Some of the others are just some numerical advantages.  Woo, I get +2 to a skill I'm trained in, so I'm a bit better.  

They do have utility powers, but with skill powers long been out there, that's not where we needed power options for character differentiation.  And the somewhat amusing issue of the Order Adept granting a wizard utility power, but it's optional powers are also competing for a utility power slot.

This article doesn't do anything wrong - I could play or run in a campaign with these.  The problem is that it does scarcely anything right.  It takes the concept of Themes that was delivered with a magnitude of 7 or 8 out of 10 in Dark Sun, but only delivers it with a magnitude of 3.  It's a decent 3, but I want them to turn up the volume.  

Actually, I'm going to say that a bit more forcefully - if you want to add this complexity to the game (as well as a bit of power creep), you need to make it more worthwhile to achieving a character vision.  It needs to be a powerful addition.  This is the skim milk side of Themes.  Nothing wrong with it, but doesn't do much for me.


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## Aegeri (May 7, 2011)

You could say - perhaps cruelly - they are essentialized themes. This isn't really what I was so excited for at all and I entirely agree with your arguments Blue. The Dark Sun themes were so great, what was wrong with keeping to the same general structure and idea?


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## Obryn (May 7, 2011)

I'll be honest - I was hoping for more.

ETA: I do have to give them high marks for making something that's just as useful for PHB-style classes as they are for Essentials-style classes.  But I really, really wish they were full themes like we had in Dark Sun - with a list of swappable Encounter and Daily attacks, and with some associated paragon paths.

With that said, I suppose the leveling of the original Theme attacks was kinda wonky.

-O


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## Mummolus (May 7, 2011)

I like the alchemist, I can see some potential there as options expand over time. The others are basically underwhelming. Certainly don't hold a candle to the Dark Sun themes.

That said, there are three more articles. This may very well be the weakest of them.

Or the best.

I guess we'll see.


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## Aegeri (May 7, 2011)

At least they answered the question about how essentials classes like slayer/fighter would get benefits out of themes. They pretty much gutted the thing that made themes really great for me. I mean DS had 10 themes and not one of them is directly bad in any manner. They all allow any character class to expand their potential options. These themes are limited, I don't think are anywhere near as mechanically sound and lack the ability to grab a few unique powers feel that the originals had. Just a poor effort all around here IMO.

I am so sick of endless disappointment again and again.


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## Truename (May 7, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> I am so sick of endless disappointment again and again.




At some point you may wish to consider that it's you that's changed rather than the game. Time for a break? Your endless disappointment is bringing down a lot of threads.


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## renau1g (May 7, 2011)

It's fairly easy to say that the game has changed since Essentials. I don't know if you can argue otherwise and "essentiallizing" things has really hurt a lot of their recent offerings in that they're shadows of their former selves. 

IMO (and from what I've read a lot of others) it's lazy design. They could've either done two sets of themes, 1 for pre-e and 1 for regular e classes (the ones not getting e/u/d powers), which would've worked better and kept up the excellent offering they did with DS. 

Maybe instead of attacking the poster you could try to see where he (and as I said before others) are coming from. IF it doesn't bother you or you don't see anything wrong, great, nothing anyone here can say can affect your enjoyment one bit. 

If it's really bugging you there's a handy ignore button that lets you turn off their posts.


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## Aegeri (May 7, 2011)

Truename said:


> At some point you may wish to consider that it's you that's changed rather than the game. Time for a break? Your endless disappointment is bringing down a lot of threads.



I don't think I've changed, I was more than happy with DnD just a year ago. Given that the game has certainly changed more than me - actually this point is rather unarguable - I don't think that is the case at all.

Sorry if I "Down threads", maybe if Wizards actually released good things again I wouldn't be so unhappy! This was something I was genuinely absolutely and 100% perfectly excited for in every single way. What I've got I find very disappointing and _isn't what I was expecting_. If you want to argue that the game hasn't changed, may I suggest you pick up the Dark Sun campaign guide and look at the awesome, flavorful and mechanically awesome themes therein? Maybe you'll get an idea from that what I was expecting eagerly.


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## Mummolus (May 7, 2011)

The thing that gets me is that this article is from the same author as much of the DSCS, including themes. Theoretically that would mean these should be even better, since they've had time to work out the glitches (of which there weren't many - DS on the whole remains a solid product). 

Instead, we get themes obviously designed for essentials classes. Where's the promised support for pre-essentials? 

It's just like Heroes of Shadow. Could have been one of the best products yet, if the new "builds" had actually been builds and not subclasses.


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## Obryn (May 7, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> At least they answered the question about how essentials classes like slayer/fighter would get benefits out of themes. They pretty much gutted the thing that made themes really great for me. I mean DS had 10 themes and not one of them is directly bad in any manner. They all allow any character class to expand their potential options. These themes are limited, I don't think are anywhere near as mechanically sound and lack the ability to grab a few unique powers feel that the originals had. Just a poor effort all around here IMO.
> 
> I am so sick of endless disappointment again and again.



I am still trying to figure out how well these balance with the Dark Sun themes.

BOTH:
* Encounter attack power that's basically a low-tier encounter power for most classes
* Swappable utilities
* Added flavor

DARK SUN:
* Swappable Encounter and Daily powers, which let you shore up dead levels and make a distinctive character, but barely affect power level

NEW:
* Added features, some of which are pretty strong, at no cost, which will make your character more distinctive, too.

I thought otherwise on first read, but on a re-read I think these might actually be _stronger _than Dark Sun themes.  Which is weird.  The fact that there are a lot more freebies is telling.

Anyway, I'm looking through again, and yeah.  As I posted on the WotC forums, this has only 30% of the stuff I care about in a theme.  OTOH, the features add 20% back in.  Still, I'm left half as enthused as I was before the article was published...

-O


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## Aegeri (May 7, 2011)

I agree entirely. What is worse is some of these themes are just begging for clarification (Alchemist, Order Adept, Wizard Apprentice), poorly thought out (Beastmaster) and one is just much better than the others (Order Adept gives a +2 bonus to will at level 5, which is a pretty substantial increase compared to the others). While I honestly can put DS themes on tiers, there isn't anything outright bad or that penalizes you for taking it.

I also wonder about confusing rules elements, like taking the Apprentice Wizard theme, then getting your free item and retraining it out after level 6. What happens to the free item? I mean such stupidity in an ongoing campaign is easy to stop, but it could lead to hilarious encounters/LFR hijinks.

Honestly, I don't know anymore and it's become clear that stuff pre-essentials is no longer important to wizards.

Edit: I actually agree with you Obryn. While their power level varies hugely within themselves, it's the fact they grant extra features over powers (that need your normal slot) that changes them considerably. Additionally, Order Adept can let a wide variety of classes get some of the best defensive utilities in the game (as they can take wizard utilities). I wouldn't think anyone would take some of these over a Dark Sun theme, but the Order Adept is incredible and I can see anyone wanting that. Getting wizard utilities like shield and wizards escape is just invaluable for so many classes (plus the +2 will defense). I'm just really underwhelmed at the current design in 4E and really unhappy they removed the power swap feature - instead replacing it with features. Yes, I know that works well with essentials classes - but I am not concerned about that at all. I wanted something that works with the vast majority of everything currently in 4E: Especially as themes would be substantial and REAL support for pre-E classes. Well, what a shame there.

It was very hard to say that Dark Sun themes were power creep, even if they added a free encounter for nothing because all the normal restrictions on powers were there beyond that. A theme that grants 3 extra benefits (with an encounter power) is considerably more powerful in many ways. Then again it depends on what those benefits actually are.


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## Obryn (May 7, 2011)

Mummolus said:


> Instead, we get themes obviously designed for essentials classes. Where's the promised support for pre-essentials?



This is one complaint I _don't_ have.

Sure, they are designed so slimmed-down classes like the Slayer and Thief can get use out of them.  Clearly.  But in the final analysis, they are no more or less useful to them than they are to a PHB-style class.

I'm griping, too, but I don't think this is a fair gripe.

-O


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## Aegeri (May 7, 2011)

I can see his point, but they are still just as useful to anyone as they would be an essentials class. It's mostly just that it's pretty clear the DS themes were gutted like this because of essentials (which is a pretty easy to prove point really). You know, with 15 themes I wouldn't have minded some in a style that was more compatible with essentials (who have limited options for power swapping in many cases). But I would have preferred the majority of them to be in the Dark Sun style. I am pretty sure the remaining themes will be like these and not like the Dark Sun themes.


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## Obryn (May 7, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> I also wonder about confusing rules elements, like taking the Apprentice Wizard theme, then getting your free item and retraining it out after level 6. What happens to the free item? I mean such stupidity in an ongoing campaign is easy to stop, but it could lead to hilarious encounters/LFR hijinks.



HAH!

I expect Order Initiate to get some nerfing.  And I expect this to get some clarification!

I think it's funny how the Beastlord theme basically says, "Hey, DM, don't be a dick.  Leave the poor puppy alone!" 



> Honestly, I don't know anymore and it's become clear that stuff pre-essentials is no longer important to wizards.



Given that this is all stuff they've had in the pipe for months, and were likely developing even before the Heroes Of... books dropped, I'm not sure about that.  Mearls was pretty direct in Rule of Three recently.  I was hoping Themes would be _it_ but I guess not.

-O


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## Obryn (May 7, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> I can see his point, but they are still just as useful to anyone as they would be an essentials class. It's mostly just that it's pretty clear the DS themes were gutted like this because of essentials (which is a pretty easy to prove point really).



I think that's obvious, and not necessary to prove.  I think the only potential problem word is, "gutted."  I'm not too inclined to disagree - I think we're both disappointed along the same axis, but I get the feeling I'm somewhat less disappointed than you are.  I didn't get what I wanted, but there's some unexpected up-sides to what I got.



> You know, with 15 themes I wouldn't have minded some in a style that was more compatible with essentials (who have limited options for power swapping in many cases). But I would have preferred the majority of them to be in the Dark Sun style. I am pretty sure the remaining themes will be like these and not like the Dark Sun themes.



I'm 95% sure you're right.

I suppose, thinking on it, it's probably fair for a generic theme to be more ... generic ... but I hope this doesn't close the door on future Dark Sun-style themes in upcoming products and Dragon articles.

My biggest concern is this.  The fact that these are more obvious power-ups without cost means that themes may become less likely to be taken for thematic purposes and more likely to be taken for power purposes.  In Dark Sun, my players have chosen themes they wanted to take mostly for flavor reasons.  But now?  Will we see a billion Order Adepts just like how everyone was from Windrise Ports or how everyone had an Auspicious Birth, just to poach +2 to Will?

-O


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## Aegeri (May 7, 2011)

Dark Sun themes were pre-essentials player crunch. It is certain as they were originally published - that I actually liked - are a dead concept and this is what themes will be in future. It would be awesome if my conclusion is wrong and the other themes DO have some DS like ones in them. I wouldn't mind at all themes that are more compatible with essentials classes and others that are more compatible with AEDU ones. As it is though, AEDU classes always seem to lose out on options when it comes to any decision about essentials compared to the original classes. Developing two different kinds would take more development time and I don't think that's likely to happen frankly - no matter how much I would love that to be the case.

Edit: Poach +2 will and Wizard Utility powers. I mean Order Adept gives you an entire _classes_ utility powers to choose from. That's amazing because wizards have _amazing_ utilities. I can think of several off hand I would want: Shield, Illusory Wall (an attack power cleverly disguising itself as a utility) and Wizards Escape _to name but some of the best choices_. No other theme offers that much flexibility. You get 3 features, +2 will defense and an entire other classes utility powers to choose from.


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## Obryn (May 7, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> Edit: Poach +2 will and Wizard Utility powers. I mean Order Adept gives you an entire _classes_ utility powers to choose from. That's amazing because wizards have _amazing_ utilities. I can think of several off hand I would want: Shield, Illusory Wall (an attack power cleverly disguising itself as a utility) and Wizards Escape _to name but some of the best choices_. No other theme offers that much flexibility. You get 3 features, +2 will defense and an entire other classes utility powers to choose from.



Yeah, again, I expect Order Adept will get hit hard by the nerf bat. 

-O


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## garyh (May 7, 2011)

So, these themes were supposed to be in a book that was canceled (leading one to assume SOME development was done on them), and they don't have the power swap powers, feats, or paragon paths that - I thought, at least - seemed a major part of themes from Dark Sun.

And yet, they had to push the HotFK support material to next month to finish these stripped down themes...

Not what I was expecting...  gotta say I'm disappointed.


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## Neverfate (May 7, 2011)

Well, from a design stand point, here is a slightly different take. I believe these were intended to be the Paragon Paths of the Heroic tier. This is why they do not have their own PPs or why they can not power swap.

I believe the "Essential" aspect in all of that is the designers aim to make D&D foolproof. Also, from utilitarian standpoint, they are easier to produce. How many time have we seen a concept for a character pigeon holed into a Paragon Path? Or how many articles have we've gotten with a Paragon Path tacked on instead of an encounter power for every appropriate level?

How much feat support do we get for an actual Paragon Path? So I doubt we'll see much for themes.

I don't know how I feel about these articles just yet (as we have several more to see), but looking at this as a PP or ED for Heroic tier makes more sense in my head. Now if only they balanced the things (one Theme depending a 1HP Minion for EVERYTHING and another class getting access to a whole class's utilities? Um what?)


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## Lenaianel (May 7, 2011)

To me DS themes always seems to be some sort of free multicass (If you swap all your powers to take the theme 's ones what's left of your class ?, how that class still define your character ?) that i dislike.

I prefer the new themes as they feel IMHO as a new layer more than a potential replacement for the class that shoud be the defining point of the character.


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## blalien (May 7, 2011)

Is there an official ruling on how the DM is supposed to compensate for themes?  Do we add an extra monster to the party?  Add a level to the monsters?  Kinda just eyeball it?


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## Xris Robin (May 7, 2011)

Why is Order Adept not only so good, but so good only for non-wizards?  If you have a spellbook, all you get is another 2nd level utility.  If you don't have one, you get access to wizard utilities?  Fluffwise, it's for spellcasters in the first place.

Also, the free item from Apprentice is kinda lame.  None of them (except Order Adept) really scale, but a skill bonus is always working at least.  A free item becomes outdated as soon as you go up a plus.


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## UngeheuerLich (May 7, 2011)

I really really don´t get the disappointment. Ok, i don´t know how the animal master is supposed to make the fighter more strikerish as stated:



> For example, a fighter who chooses the animal master theme can gain some
> useful striker powers.




It looks like something has been cut...

The other thing is that the animal master needs an encounter power he can use without his animal. Or he needs the same treatment as the beastmaster ranger...

On the other hand: the alchemist is exactly what I expected. A way to get alchemy in a useful way. Some other class will bring rituals back. For me this is much more useful than any power swap attack power could ever bring.

As to unbalanced features: Paragon paths all over again...


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## TwoSix (May 7, 2011)

What bother me most is that a concept that should have theoretically expanded the game (classes with non-AEDU design), is now hindering the design space for everything else.  Since some classes don't have a 1/3/5/7 encounter or daily slot, Wizards can't release anything that interacts with those slots anymore.

What was the point of saying we want to move past the original conformity, if the new system is even more confining?


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## UngeheuerLich (May 7, 2011)

I beg to differ...

If you want themes to allow the encounter power swap, you could easily phrase it that way:

Level 3: You may take xx instead of the benefit usually gained at that level from your class (usually an encounter power)
This would be the close to the standard substitution level phrase pf 3.5...


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## TwoSix (May 7, 2011)

UngeheuerLich said:


> I beg to differ...
> 
> If you want themes to allow the encounter power swap, you could easily phrase it that way:
> 
> ...



Exactly.  Why they didn't do that is beyond me.


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## Marshall (May 7, 2011)

Obryn said:


> I am still trying to figure out how well these balance with the Dark Sun themes.
> 
> BOTH:
> * Encounter attack power that's basically a low-tier encounter power for most classes
> ...




IOW, the DS versions were ways to make your character more distinctive and added a whole new arena of customization. Choosing a theme was another option in the same design space as Hybrid and Multiclassing. Breadth over depth.

These new ones are PURE power creep. New class abilities tacked on with no trade-offs made from other build decisions. Worse is the decision to leave them stand-alone. Once you choose your theme, your done. There is no mechanism to make the theme mean anything more to the PC than MOAR POWAH!

Epic Design Fail....again.


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## Minifig (May 7, 2011)

Any word on when these will be added to the Character Builder?


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## WalterKovacs (May 7, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> Dark Sun themes were pre-essentials player crunch. It is certain as they were originally published - that I actually liked - are a dead concept and this is what themes will be in future. It would be awesome if my conclusion is wrong and the other themes DO have some DS like ones in them. I wouldn't mind at all themes that are more compatible with essentials classes and others that are more compatible with AEDU ones. As it is though, AEDU classes always seem to lose out on options when it comes to any decision about essentials compared to the original classes. Developing two different kinds would take more development time and I don't think that's likely to happen frankly - no matter how much I would love that to be the case.




Even with Dark Sun, they were already trying to juggle and work around the whole AEDU vs. psionic issue. And, they have sort of made a 'path' to give encounter powers to the characters with no leveled encounter powers via feats. So they could concievably put encounter attack powers back in to the concept of themes.

Personally though, utility powers are the easiest to design/balance probably, since you don't have to see "what would ANY class do with this power which uses their best attack stat ..." in each case. While essentials may have played a role, it may also be that, just like they only did racial utility powers, they felt that keeping it to your starting encounter power (which scales automatically), utilities and static class features it would be easier to design. 

Also, it's only because of the Dark Sun themes that this problem is coming up. If these were the original themes, it wouldn't necessarily have occured to someone that a class feature being added over and above all the existing parts of a character is actually _denying_ them something. And it's a bit weird to say the only way something can support pre-Essential classe is to inentionally be unusable or less usable by post Essential classes. Making themes and feats and paragon paths, etc, available for everyone is probably better han making them niche. And of the themes, the power-swap powers are an optional element to an optional element. _IF_ someone takes the theme, they might take one of the powers, but only if it's better than, or significantly different than, something they get from their own class. With utilities, that's easy, as the range of possible utilities is vast, and 'generic' ones keep getting added (skills, racial, theme). 

Or, it may simply be that it depends on the theme. A gladiator would learn attack techniques, while a wizard's apprentice or alchemist are more backgrounds that would reflect book learning and thust lean towards mostly towards utility ideas, etc.


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## Neonchameleon (May 7, 2011)

Marshall said:


> IOW, the DS versions were ways to make your character more distinctive and added a whole new arena of customization. Choosing a theme was another option in the same design space as Hybrid and Multiclassing. Breadth over depth.
> 
> These new ones are PURE power creep. New class abilities tacked on with no trade-offs made from other build decisions. Worse is the decision to leave them stand-alone. Once you choose your theme, your done. There is no mechanism to make the theme mean anything more to the PC than MOAR POWAH!
> 
> Epic Design Fail....again.




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*.

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).

You sure you want to talk about Power Creep?


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## Shroomy (May 7, 2011)

While I expected DS-style themes, I was pleasantly surprised by the new format.  I think it has several advantages:

-They're 100% compatible with all the existing class structures
-They're almost purely additive - Personally, I'm not convinced that the encounter and daily power swaps were used that much by the majority of players
-Though the progression is locked in, the fact that they are features opens up a lot of design space and variety IMO.  For example, we already have features that provide bonuses, items, powers, feats, pets, etc.

Technically, they are power creep, but I don't think they will have a major impact upon game balance and I'm looking forward to the release of even more themes.  I would also like to see some paragon paths and feats to expand them (my one complaint).

One other thing, a lot of people have pointed to the Essentials classes as a reason why the encounter and daily powers were removed (at least for now), but while I think that they were definitely a factor, I see another, more philosophical reason for the switch.  Its the same philosophy that gave us the vampire as a class.  If WotC defines classes as what you do the majority of the time, then it makes sense, at least to me, that themes would not be more important than your class when it comes to your powers.


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## TwoSix (May 7, 2011)

Neonchameleon said:


> 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).
> ...




Well, that does indicate some valid points, which are:

1)  Nerf immediate action attacks.

2)  Nerf Twin Strike already!!


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## Nemesis Destiny (May 7, 2011)

One thing that I just noticed that these new themes are missing, is the addition of a power source and role. While relatively minor, there are several feats that do in fact key off your role and power source for prerequisites.

It's pretty easy to suss out what the power source should be with each of these, but I suppose with no attack powers there is very little to differentiate the role of utility powers.


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## RangerWickett (May 7, 2011)

blalien said:


> Is there an official ruling on how the DM is supposed to compensate for themes?  Do we add an extra monster to the party?  Add a level to the monsters?  Kinda just eyeball it?




You shouldn't need to do anything. They don't add more power to PCs, just more options.


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## UngeheuerLich (May 7, 2011)

They add a third encounter power at level 1... so a little bit power creep is there... the wizard adept dazing power is actually very powerful... but level 1 PC´s actually could need that bit of help...


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## Obryn (May 7, 2011)

RangerWickett said:


> You shouldn't need to do anything. They don't add more power to PCs, just more options.



These do add more power - more than the Dark Sun themes did.  But they still probably don't add so much that you'll need to compensate for them.

Unless, that is, everyone takes Order Adept and everyone snags Wizard utilities every single level.  I mean, I think it'd be great to have Illusory Walls every single fight.  Likewise, I think it's awesome if every Fighter can grab stoneskin.  Or that everyone in the world snags Shield.  Yes, all of that was sarcasm. 

-O


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## GMforPowergamers (May 7, 2011)

Obryn said:


> These do add more power - more than the Dark Sun themes did.  But they still probably don't add so much that you'll need to compensate for them.
> 
> Unless, that is, everyone takes Order Adept and everyone snags Wizard utilities every single level.  I mean, I think it'd be great to have Illusory Walls every single fight.  Likewise, I think it's awesome if every Fighter can grab stoneskin.  Or that everyone in the world snags Shield.  Yes, all of that was sarcasm.
> 
> -O




yes becuse when my warden calls shield my DM will cry... such sweet tears. I already have the lock down going, and an AC 6 points higher then the next hgihest in the group and 10 pts over the shaman. I second wind and jump 5 more... then when he goes to hit me I intrupt for 4 more...


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## Mengu (May 7, 2011)

I see themes as being more fun than optimization oriented, though with a small but flavorful mechanical benefit. As such, I am pleased with most of the offerings.

Alchemist - This one is probably my least favorite of the lot, but I can see a Cleric of Erathis who tinkers in alchemy, and makes vials of holy water, and woundpatches at every opportunity.

Animal Master - For a thief I was thinking of starting, this theme lets me pick a monkey with a fez. I get to have a monkey with a fez. For free. And once in a while it screams to distract my enemy as I charge them. It's beyond awesome. Oh yeah, I'll be from Calimshan without a doubt. At higher levels being able to bluff a tiger into not eating me is just gravy. This is easily my favorite theme of the lot.

Order Adept - Many campaign worlds have many orders where this theme would fit right in, providing both hooks, and benefits. I think the theme would be quite fitting for a tiefling swordmage, perhaps a guardian of a secret order of arcanists. Out of the gate the character gets a ranged power, and it doesn't really hurt him to walk right into the zone either. I do agree with some of the others who brought up that the wizard utility and +2 to will being powerful, compared to benefits of other themes. I think I would be okay with a feat, that had the theme as a prerequisite, and gave a power swap wizard utility, and an untyped +1 bonus to will. I think +2 arcana at level 5, +4 at level 10 are sufficient benefits, based on what we are seeing so far.

Wizard's Apprentice - Can't think of anything better for a Hogwarts student. The encounter power is perfect. The magic item is likely to be a trinket, but there are quite a few good ones, like if your teacher cares about your safety, she might send you a defensive staff or a shielding dagger that you could off-hand.

The utility powers are a bit of a waste of space I think. I can understand how one can cross roles with theme powers, so there are dangers in making the powers on par with what classes get straight up, but they should be at least on par with skill powers, which I don't feel they are at the moment. They captured good flavor with some (like Aqua Regia, Timely Trick, and Disappear), but the power levels leave something to be desired (like Disappear could easily last till end of next turn).


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## UngeheuerLich (May 7, 2011)

The order adept is a perfect fit for a fighter that multiclasses to wizard. Beeing able to chose wizard utilities is the most important part of wizard multiclass... i like that.


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## GMforPowergamers (May 7, 2011)

Mengu said:


> Animal Master - For a thief I was thinking of starting, this theme lets me pick a monkey with a fez. I get to have a monkey with a fez. For free. And once in a while it screams to distract my enemy as I charge them. It's beyond awesome. Oh yeah, I'll be from Calimshan without a doubt. At higher levels being able to bluff a tiger into not eating me is just gravy.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




just as long as he understands " touch nothing but the lamp"


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## JoeGKushner (May 7, 2011)

renau1g said:


> It's fairly easy to say that the game has changed since Essentials. I don't know if you can argue otherwise and "essentiallizing" things has really hurt a lot of their recent offerings in that they're shadows of their former selves.
> 
> IMO (and from what I've read a lot of others) it's lazy design. They could've either done two sets of themes, 1 for pre-e and 1 for regular e classes (the ones not getting e/u/d powers), which would've worked better and kept up the excellent offering they did with DS.
> 
> ...




To do this, they would have to acknowledge that Essentials is a .5 edition and that despite the ease of use with the two systems, the differences going forward will become more and more pronounced.

As the timeliness of the support is well, not there for the most part, especially in terms of Dragon and Dungeon hiting their dates, the likely hood of them doing two systems, when according to many, there is only one system, seems slim to nill.


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## The Little Raven (May 7, 2011)

I like these. Order Adept needs some tweaking, but all in all, I prefer these to the DS Themes, which were just a power list with a couple paragon paths and feats. These also avoid the problems the previous ones had with power swaps and psionic power points.


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## Jools (May 7, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> You could say - perhaps cruelly - they are essentialized themes. This isn't really what I was so excited for at all and I entirely agree with your arguments Blue. The Dark Sun themes were so great, what was wrong with keeping to the same general structure and idea?




It was mentioned around the time of Dark Sun that the threats of that world were a little greater than that of the other D&D worlds, and that the DS themes partially redressed that imbalance. So it makes sense if these ones aren't quite as strong. If so, I'm glad of it. Last thing we want is even newer monster manual math to allow the monsters to catch up.


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## AbdulAlhazred (May 7, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> 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.




I guess I don't understand why it is always bad when the devs adjust course a bit. They've had almost a year of experience with DS themes. 



> 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.




I think this is a bad reading of the rules personally. Alchemical Items are NOT MAGIC ITEMS. The description of Alchemy in AV1 says that outright. Beyond that there is some 'advisory text' in the RC stating that Uncommon and Rare items not made in modern times. It isn't actually a RULE. Beyond that Essentials doesn't HAVE rituals, and thus has no way to craft items to start with, so that text really is more a fluff statement about how the world works. At most it says "you can't buy uncommon rare MAGIC items normally". Enchant Magic Item itself has NOT been errated to make any statement about rarity, nor has Brew Potion, nor has the Alchemy feat. 

Thus I disagree that you can't make uncommon Alchemical items. It would be reasonable to assume that the formulae for uncommon/rare Alchemical items are not available for sale, but even this is not clearly stated by any rule. What is clear is this kind of thing would be in the province of the DM (which it really always was anyway...).



> 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.




I don't think Animal Master is rubbish. The whole issue of the 'glass animal' IS an issue. It certainly is a mechanically marginal package, though. Still, it is quite thematic. As we discussed with the Vampire, game elements which can't fulfill their role in enabling a character option that provides the proper CONCEPT is worthless. Mechanics must take a second seat to concept. This theme would be great in a variety of settings (particularly a less combat-oriented game that featured a lot of intrigue and such).



> 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.




I think I pretty much have to agree with you here. Except I would say that there's no real ambiguity. If you are an Order Adept and don't have a spell book you can select wizard utility powers just like they were utility powers of your own class. Nasty, and obviously someone didn't think this through at all. Personally I'd restrict it to level 2. Still problematic, but not completely off-the-wall insane.



> 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.




This one I have mixed feelings about. It is not OP, but is reasonably nice. OTOH nothing in it really says to me "Apprentice Wizard". I think a cantrip instead of an item would have worked better. 



> 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.




I think Order Adept aside the power level is OK. There are some very nice Alchemical items that are as useful as Color Orb. Wizards have other daze powers, and honestly at low levels daze is not that great. Non-wizards are not going to be using this at high levels anyway unless they are implement users, in which case they will have better things to do. A fighter picking it up? Yeah, kind of nifty but without an implement he won't be using it for that long, effectively, and if he had to burn his theme slot AND a feat for an implement just to use Color Orb? Meh.

 Animal Master is definitely lower in combat power than the others, but it really isn't a big deal, and the character DOES gain a LOT in out-of-combat utility. Order Adept is going to need to lose the +2 WILL and the unlimited utility swap. That's the main complaint I can accept. I really think you might want to go do a stint as a game designer Aegeri, it ain't easy, trust me....


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## Blue (May 8, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I guess I don't understand why it is always bad when the devs adjust course a bit. They've had almost a year of experience with DS themes.




Well, let's examine it.

Stated goal of themes:  Be the third pillar of character design, with race and class.

So we need something that will make a big difference in the character, on the order of race and class.

Let's look at what they give.

Encounter power at 1st.  Both DS & DDI.  Okay, no problem.  You've got something to help differentiate you can could come up every combat if useful.

Utility power swaps:  Both DS & DDI.  Useful for customization, but we already have extended the utility power swap customization niche with skill powers, so this is nice but not particularly an interesting add.

Attack power swaps:  DS only.  Right now the only way to get swaps is paying a feat per swap, and even then it's rather limited (MC power swap feats require a MC feat first and all have to be from the same class, etc.)  This is the groundbreaking that DS themes did that put them on the map with races and classes as per the stated goal.  This has the additional force multiplier in DS that it suggest inherent bonuses so you can have weapon / implement crossovers between class and theme.

Misc bonuses:  DS has one theme from Dragon that adds a skill, and another that adds a power point.  DDI themes all have these that increase with level.  Some bit of customization, but also power creep.

Feats:  DS has a number of feats over the tiers for additional emphasis on theme if wanted.  Again, make see the stated goal.

Paragon Paths:  DS has 1-2 paragon paths per theme, again allowing additional emphasis if wanted.  Most of those also had a non-theme entry to allow character variation.

In the end, DS themes while not on par with race and class (a hard thing to bolt on to existing rules), they do a reasonable job of meeting the design goal and really making a difference in realizing your character vision.

These ... well, they aren't wrong.  And will probably be reasonably balanced after revision.  But they fall way short of the goal we were all expecting.  I am underwhelmed.

I grant Wizards the right to a "do over".  I'll give them a complete pass if they do like they did with the hybrid rules and rework them once there is a significant body of feedback.  None of this is bad, but it really missed it's potential by so far.


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## AbdulAlhazred (May 8, 2011)

Blue said:


> Well, let's examine it.
> 
> Stated goal of themes:  Be the third pillar of character design, with race and class.
> 
> ...




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. 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 don't think they missed anything or that there is any requirement whatsoever for a 'do over'. I can drop the Alchemist theme onto my character and add an entire new aspect to the character. Likewise the other themes. My Alchemist can make and use a whole raft of different items which are pretty much on a par with encounter powers. There are already something like 400+ Paragon Paths in 4e, I don't really see a specific need for more PPs simply to fill in some checkbox that says there's one associated with a given theme. In my example there are at least 2 Alchemy themed PPs already available. One seems pretty thematic for any character and the other is Warlord-only, but do we need a third one? Really?

I mean, sure, there COULD be some PPs for some themes. I expect there are a few that could use a new/different PP or have ones that are a bit too restrictive, etc. Doesn't mean they HAD to include them in these articles. 

I'm beginning to think people around here have gotten into some seriously bad habits when it comes to new material. Get some perspective, eh?


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## Mummolus (May 8, 2011)

So here's a question (which probably has a really obvious answer, I'm a touch sleep-deprived at the moment though), but once you're a level 5 Order Adept, would you be able to retrain your level 2 class/race utility into a wizard class/utility? Or would you only be given the option for utilities after level 5?


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## garyh (May 8, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I'm beginning to think people around here have gotten into some seriously bad habits when it comes to new material. Get some perspective, eh?




A lot of us liked the DS take on themes.  These are much less comprehensive, lacking the power swaps, feats, and PP's.  Since they had been touting themes this month (even pushing other announced content back to "polish" these themes), and the only ones we'd seen were DS themes, expecting these themes to be like the DS themes we like and being disappointed that they're pretty different doesn't seem outlandish to me.


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## Aegeri (May 8, 2011)

Neonchameleon said:


> 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.



I disagree with this entirely, because themes in DS are very easy to predict the effects of. I've been playing with them for over a year and I've not had to guess what effect they have on a character yet. You get one power and then have to powerswap - using the normal power allotment - for everything else. That one power just doesn't change the class. Now the power swaps can and that is part of the fun of themes.


> 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.



Really? I've never found that and have had an elemental priest Druid spamming summons with instinctive actions. It's nowhere near the issue you seem to think it is.  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. It isn't like there aren't an abundance of great summon and similar powers across the Wizard and Druid (the two who can REALLY litterbug).


> Now giving the Elemental Priest theme to a shaman is just... obnoxious.



It is? Wow, I've missed something there (because it really wasn't).


> 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.



That they cannot really enforce in either way. Of course marking itself is incredibly useful and marking in a close burst 5 is really good, but ultimately the monsters can still choose what they are going to do. The -2 penalty is great though, but it's not the end of the world and taking an area burst 2 for a melee combatant limits its use heavily (due to provoking OAs). But that's part of what makes themes so interesting as choices for your character!

Personally I cannot figure out what is imbalanced about any of your examples thus far, but the next one does have a pretty legitimate point. Just not the point you think you've made 


> 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*.



You mean throw on a multiclass of something that doesn't exist by default in Dark Sun. You do realize Divine isn't in Dark Sun without the DM saying yes, making your entire example still broken, but not quite as bad as it would be with it.  If the DM allows it then that is his fault! 

Even so, all it shows me is that Rangers twin strike and amount of out of turn attacks are broken. I can give you numerous other examples of where rangers twin strike is absolutely broken _all the time_, not just when you hit with a specific power first (which if you miss does break your entire chain of subsequent attacks). Half-Elven twin striking avengers every day all day on pretty much every attack they make (including charges). Actually twin strike + avenger anything is just terrible. Thankfully avenger isn't available in DS making this argument rather moot, but in the PoL setting it could be an issue. 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.

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

1) They couldn't hit with it on demand when required against something important. In fact they never once got the benefit of the extended crit range over 4 levels, so retrained it out for another theme (miserable rolling and in melee, provoking the OAs to use it wasn't worth it) - again when it was important.

2) The rare times they did hit with it were on pointless creatures (EG not things they REALLY wanted to hit). Even then they never got the crit anyway, because it wasn't very common to actually hit with it and then roll an 18+ on their next attack. But again Monks and Battleminds are not renowned for their multiple attack powers!

So really it's pretty easy to figure out that if you allow a divine class MC - in a setting that normally doesn't allow them - then throw on an 18-20 crit range, then allow rolling two dice (avenger multiclass) and have the ranger with its array of out of turn attacks and multiple attacks that it's going to be broken. But again, that's rangers for you and the result there is always 100% predictable. 


			
				AbdulAlhazred said:
			
		

> I'm beginning to think people around here have gotten into some  seriously bad habits when it comes to new material. Get some  perspective, eh?



Wow both insulting and dismissive. Good job there on getting both into one sentence!

Perhaps there are quite a few people who just aren't happy that Wizards aren't publishing things they like anymore - yet just under a year ago they were? I am really not happy with things like themes being limited by the limited design of essentials classes. Especially when I could have seen room to have had both in the game with 15 themes. There could have been traditional DS themes. There could have been themes that were more essential friendly. 

They could have pleased everyone, but chose not to do so. Again there is good logic for why they didn't do that, but it doesn't mean I am happy about it. Especially because this was the first thing in a long time I was absolutely 100% unequivocally excited about - only to be immensely disappointed yet again.

Edit: And for the record, I am not going to stop posting. If Wizards continue to release things that continue to disappoint me, I am going to continue pointing that out (and I don't care if you like it or not). All I want are monster books with epic monsters, a monster builder that worked and before these, themes for the general game. I am certainly going to let my players take these themes, if anyone is actually wondering as I've wanted to have my players in my Eberron game enjoy the same options regarding themes as my DS game. 

Another point that annoys me is because they are entirely different mechanically, it means working with different rulesets between my two games. My DS game has entirely different themes than my regular one. I was hoping that I could offer a mix and match scenario, but I am not convinced that works very well with how different in structure they are. I also find it very annoying that there is such a wide variety in power structure in the new themes, that wasn't present in the DS ones. Some themes are arguably higher on the power curve than others, like Noble Adept in DS, but they aren't that huge in impact. Some of these themes have a gigantic impact and others are utterly useless. That isn't something I enjoy whatsoever.

But again, I am still going to allow my players in my Eberron and later PoL games to pick these themes. But I think I'll stick my DS players to only the Dark Sun themes. It's irritating having two rulesets for themes however.


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## Obryn (May 8, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I'm beginning to think people around here have gotten into some seriously bad habits when it comes to new material. Get some perspective, eh?



Looking at my posting history, do you _really _think I have a tendency towards the negative?

-O


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## Aegeri (May 8, 2011)

In fairness, I think he's more referencing posters such as myself more than you. I haven't been happy with anything since essentials, though it's worth noting I regularly defended essentials before its release (and when it was released). I only developed my very negative opinions once the MB was basically left to rot in a broken state, Dungeon/Dragon declined very heavily towards the end of last year, a core magic item book needed to make the CUR item rarity system work was canceled and they released basically nothing of consequence DnD wise until Heroes of Shadow last month.

I don't see a lot to be positive about frankly. If it wasn't for the games I was running, I would have walked away from DnD already.


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## AbdulAlhazred (May 8, 2011)

I think it is a habit people have gotten into. I mean really, has quality gone down? There have always been things that weren't perfect. Look at PHB1, plenty of stuff there that has been tweaked (or not and still causes problems, like Twin Strike). Also I think you have to consider that the devs have their own view of things and their own reasons for doing things in specific ways. I don't think it is bad to disagree, I don't agree with everything they do, but really, this is a pretty damned good game. The negativity does get a bit thick, and has been almost unrelenting lately.

Anyway, not trying to piss anyone off, it is just getting to be a downer. And no, not everyone does it, pardon me if it seems like I've implied that. Must suck to be Mike Mearls though. Well, when you're not pleased as heck to be getting paid to invent new D&D stuff... lol.


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## bganon (May 8, 2011)

I liked themes in DS, but I'm a little surprised to see people criticize the lack of feat and PP support for the new themes.

1) The theme feats were kinda cruddy.  Almost all of them provided buffs to the theme power, but this is generally a worse choice than a feat that'll buff _all_ your powers.  And even when they weren't cruddy, it still stank that it took a feat to make the theme power awesome.  Why wasn't it already awesome?  And I thought we all agreed feat bloat is a bad thing.  I'm glad the new themes don't have feats.

2) The "theme" paragon paths were great and all, but I don't think a single one actually  *needed* to have the theme as a prerequisite.  They were connected only thematically, and would've been just fine (or even better) as standalone PPs.  So maybe we'll see standalone PPs to go along with these new themes.  An "Academy Master" PP (oh wait, that already exists)... or maybe an "Alchemist Savant" PP (oops, already exists too)?  Seriously, a lot of the concepts the new themes cover have _already been done_ as PPs.  Do we really need more?

The new themes do exactly what they need to do (provide another flavor "axis" at the heroic tier), and *no more*.  IMO that's important.  There might be some tweaking left to do for balance, though...


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## Obryn (May 8, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think it is a habit people have gotten into. I mean really, has quality gone down? There have always been things that weren't perfect.



It did for a while there, but I think we're in the upswing for a while, now.

I'm honestly and sincerely just disappointed with this particular article, and part of the reason for that is that I've been looking forward to it forever.

-O


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## Aegeri (May 8, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> 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_?


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## UngeheuerLich (May 8, 2011)

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...)


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## Neonchameleon (May 8, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> 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.



Aegeri said:


> 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.


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## Aegeri (May 8, 2011)

UngeheuerLich said:


> 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.



Neonchameleon said:


> 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.


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## Marshall (May 8, 2011)

Neonchameleon said:


> 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).
> ...




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.


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## UngeheuerLich (May 8, 2011)

@ 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.


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## wayne62682 (May 8, 2011)

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.


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## Aegeri (May 8, 2011)

UngeheuerLich said:


> @ 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:


			
				Rule of Three said:
			
		

> 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.


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## Marshall (May 8, 2011)

UngeheuerLich said:


> 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.



Neonchameleon said:


> 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.


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## Blue (May 8, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> 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.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> 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.


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## Obryn (May 8, 2011)

Apropos of nothing...

Hot damn, do I hate quote block wars!  It's like the final degenerative mutation of message board threads.

-O


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## Nemesis Destiny (May 8, 2011)

Obryn said:


> Apropos of nothing...
> 
> Hot damn, do I hate quote block wars!  It's like the final degenerative mutation of message board threads.
> 
> -O



I completely agree. Nothing makes me scroll-wheel through a thread more reliably than people nit-picking each others arguments apart line by line, page after page.

It's pretty clear that minds have been made up on both sides. Don't get me wrong; have fun folks, and if that means arguing and debating, fine, but do realize that nobody's opinion is likely to change.

In the context of this thread's topic, some people liked the new themes, some didn't, and others are probably somewhere in between.


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## AbdulAlhazred (May 8, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> 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).




Well, I think Beastmaster Rangers kick ass  , but yup, there's gold AND THERE'S STUFF THAT ISN'T. In EVERY book.



> 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_.




So MV and MV2 are horribly flawed because they weren't aimed at the specific aspect of play that you're interested in seeing more support for? Lets look at MV, it has awesome monsters in it, like the new versions of the dragons. It was aimed at being a generally useful book for all players, and specifically for starting players. Low level monsters NEEDED BADLY to have another look. I realize it didn't focus on what you would have liked it to focus on, but you know that happens. Not every book focuses on what I specifically want to see next either. Calling it 'bad' is just not warranted. 



> 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.




I thank wizards profusely for MV. I've found a vast number of excellent monsters in that book which I have been very happy to have and use eagerly and with pleasure. I'm not discounting anyone else's tastes. The fact is if you are publishing a game system you simply have hard choices to make. Every epic monster in that book means a heroic tier monster or a paragon monster that has to be dropped on the cutting room floor. Consider that. Take a balanced perspective.



> 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_.




And I disagree. IMHO you're too caught up in mechanics. You've become far too focused on dice and numbers and your vision of the game has become too narrow. By simply making an "avoid necrotic resistance" feat or two (or whatever the exact mechanics would be) simply moves necrotic resistance from something different, interesting, SCARY, into just another damage type exactly like all the other damage types. Vampire is an awesome class because it depicts a vampire quite well. I've said it before and I will say it again. *Mechanics which fail to provide any kind of CONCEPT which gives us the ability to do something genuinely new is worthless. *I can say the same about most of the other material in HoS. HoS particularly of all books requires strong theme. I haven't spent much time analyzing the Binder, but I can tell you that the class works, and in fact IMHO provides a more thematically coherent warlock (albeit a somewhat narrowly defined one, I wouldn't want that to be the ONLY warlock). There are already a vast number of different mechanical options out there. An HoS which simply provided more of the same with different adjectives attached to it would have been a waste of ink. I can already refluff things myself. HoS succeeded well in its purpose, giving us options that play in genuinely new ways and open up thematic concepts which were not available before.



> 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.




And again, in the case of Order Adept, we agree. As when they designed Twin Strike, Rain of Blows, Blood Mage, etc etc etc they got one out of four a bit wrong. No doubt it will have to get hit with the nerf hammer, but what is that going to take? A 2 sentence errata? Ouch, that is so terrible. I will repeat what I've said before on the subject of the other themes:

1) It is not necessary nor particularly advantageous for WotC to mindlessly repeat the same formula they've used before. DS and 4e in general have slightly different goals and requirements. The new themes serve a slightly different purpose from DS themes and have to work with different character types and needed to be slightly different.

2) AGAIN, CONCEPT TRUMPS MECHANICS. This is a NECESSITY. I cannot repeat this enough times. An Animal Master mutilated into something that fits a highly rigid power structure at the expense of any kind of thematic appropriateness IS WORTHLESS. There is no point in putting out material that doesn't give people options that are worthwhile character development concepts. This is especially true at this later point in the 4e product lifecycle where people ALREADY have a vast array of mechanical choices and the main complaint about the game is thematic, not mechanical.



> 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.




And we agree on this point. My issue here is you're condemnation applies equally to every single 4e product released by WotC. The issue isn't WotC, IMHO you want to look closer to home. I really don't mean that to sound harsh, I've always appreciated your voice here. I think the super critical Aegeri that cannot be pleased though is not the voice I was enjoying. Call me selfish, I'd like to see that version of Aegeri more than the one I'm hearing here now. I realize I'm projecting my wants and desires on you. As I said, call me selfish, lol. 



> 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?




Sure, my argument is the same one I've been making during this whole thread. This is not some kind of new phenomenon. You're going to tell me that Student of Caiphon was just fine? It wasn't obvious it would be poached? It was obvious to ME when I read it (and sure enough I had a player do that too). I won't belabor you with the vast number of examples. You know the material as well as I do and, again IMHO, I think the issue here is you've gone from focusing on what is fun and interesting to what is imperfect or doesn't satisfy specific itches.



> 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.
> 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_?




Eh, it isn't a matter of reasonable and unreasonable. It is a matter of outlook. I perceive that the outlook of some people has changed. I don't think the quality of the game system has actually changed. I think the designers have come to a point where they've said the big things they were after saying with the game as it was released in 2008. I think the aims they have now involve gaining a greater understanding of and emphasizing more the territory they were accused of abandoning with core 4e. This could be looked at as pandering to critics of the game, but it can also be looked at as a purely natural evolution. Mike Mearls and Co have pumped out basically every combat option that anyone will ever need, rehashed them, and rehashed them again. The newer material is more thematically oriented. It is the designers saying "yeah, and we can also have a class that sticks to its theme even if it won't appeal to some min/maxer." The game grew up.

Honestly, we come from very different perspectives (at least so I gather). I've LONG ago been through my gaming phase where I craved new tricky mechanical stuff for its own sake. I've LONG since been down the optimizing and power gaming road, and back. I've done all that stuff. All I care about now is having a good variety of material, solid mechanics, and support for cool concepts that can be folded into my game and I don't have to invent for myself. Something like Vampire is perfect. The distinction between necrotic and elemental damage types is perfect. A Binder that manifests bound spirits is great. I eat this stuff up. I'm OK with someone saying "Oh, there's this mechanical problem, doing X instead of Y could solve this without breaking the concept." That's great, and I don't have an issue with that level of critique. I do have an issue with the idea that what we had 3 years ago (which often did NOT support many of my needs thematically) was superior to what we're getting now. It was different. It had a different emphasis. It was good stuff, but what we get now is good stuff too, better in some ways. 

Anyway, peace. Just think about it.


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## Marshall (May 8, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> And I disagree. IMHO you're too caught up in mechanics. You've become far too focused on dice and numbers and your vision of the game has become too narrow. By simply making an "avoid necrotic resistance" feat or two (or whatever the exact mechanics would be) simply moves necrotic resistance from something different, interesting, SCARY, into just another damage type exactly like all the other damage types.




Thats 180 degrees backwards. Necrotic is just another damage type, right now. A painfully weak and boring type. HoS had the chance of making it actually useful and outside of some specific powers failed miserably. Its NOT scary and they BLEW the chance to make it that way.



> Vampire is an awesome class because it depicts a vampire quite well. I've said it before and I will say it again. *Mechanics which fail to provide any kind of CONCEPT which gives us the ability to do something genuinely new is worthless. *




No, mechanics which fail to accomplish their design goals are worthless. The Vampire is designed to be a Striker and fails at that, making it worthless. Cool Concept, Bad Mechanics still makes a Bad Class.


> 1) It is not necessary nor particularly advantageous for WotC to mindlessly repeat the same formula they've used before. DS and 4e in general have slightly different goals and requirements. The new themes serve a slightly different purpose from DS themes and have to work with different character types and needed to be slightly different.




Sure, the new themes are designed to be power creep. The DS ones are character expanding.



> 2) AGAIN, CONCEPT TRUMPS MECHANICS. This is a NECESSITY. I cannot repeat this enough times. An Animal Master mutilated into something that fits a highly rigid power structure at the expense of any kind of thematic appropriateness IS WORTHLESS. There is no point in putting out material that doesn't give people options that are worthwhile character development concepts. This is especially true at this later point in the 4e product lifecycle where people ALREADY have a vast array of mechanical choices and the main complaint about the game is thematic, not mechanical.




Absolutely NOT. Mechanics define the concept. Without decent mechanics it doesnt matter how good the concept is. 

There is two different axis to good class design the north-south axis is concept. Archetypes and fluff and ideas. The stuff you love.
The east-west axis is mechanics. Without good mechanics the concept is nothing but a story. Its the mechanics that make the _game_.
Assuming North and East are the positive directions, only classes that fall in the NE quadrant are playable. Too far south and there is no way to connect to the characters story, too far west and the class is too weak/strong or just doesnt work.

Vampires are definitely in the NW quadrant.


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## AbdulAlhazred (May 8, 2011)

Marshall said:


> Thats 180 degrees backwards. Necrotic is just another damage type, right now. A painfully weak and boring type. HoS had the chance of making it actually useful and outside of some specific powers failed miserably. Its NOT scary and they BLEW the chance to make it that way.




It is the resistance that is interesting, and if you simply make a feat to get around that, like most of the other types have some such mechanism, then it ends up pretty much just like the other types. By this philosophy why bother with damage types at all? They are reduced to nothing but fluff. Every character that does typed damage simply takes whatever feat/power/feature/whatever that nullifies the corresponding resistance and you have reduced it all to triviality. Sorry, that's exactly the wrong direction to be going in. I don't advocate going TOO far in the other direction either, lest we have the 3.x rogue problem, but we've already discussed that, and HoS does provide usable support for dealing with that. 

This is an area however where 4e design can fall down on itself because poaching is relatively easy in a lot of cases. It would be interesting to have a necromancer feature which is exceptionally potent against undead and deals with their necrotic resistance or does something more interesting, but if any old wizard can pick it up then the specialness is again lost. This is one area where class features are actually a good thing, it is possible to make something the exclusive territory of a very specific class/build/subclass. 



> No, mechanics which fail to accomplish their design goals are worthless. The Vampire is designed to be a Striker and fails at that, making it worthless. Cool Concept, Bad Mechanics still makes a Bad Class.




Vampires are perfectly playable. I have compared character builds for vampire to other builds of other classes which are actually in play in games I run/have run. They stack up reasonably well. It isn't necessary for them to be exactly on a par with some super-optimized bow ranger. If you insist on that, then don't play a vampire because a flavorless vampire that doesn't achieve its concept merely because some designer insists that you can make a bazillion DPR build of it is fail. 

I think vampire is in many ways not a great example either because it is both a very strong and specific concept and a brand-new class that has yet to receive the kind of in-depth support many other classes have. HoS is filled with a lot of very niche concepts that need to have much stronger conceptual bounds than something like 'fighter'.



> Sure, the new themes are designed to be power creep. The DS ones are character expanding.




I disagree. Alchemist is power creep? Animal Master is power creep? I don't really see it that way. Sure, you CAN make a theme that is overpowered, and MAYBE it is easier to do it with the DDI themes. We've all been over Order Adept. It has a problem, nobody is arguing against that. Alchemist and Animal Master OTOH are excellent flavor with just enough mechanics to do the job. Excess mechanics aren't needed. Animal Master is a peculiar case too. Having a small trained pet animal is just not something with a huge scope IMHO. As it stands it is a hugely useful thing outside of pure combat situations. How really would you deal with dying animals? Seriously? Without yet again kicking concept to the curb and creating some awkward mechanical kludge? Play the thing in the kind of style of game where it is a nice boon, like a game centered on intrigue. Bringing your pet cat into The World's Largest Dungeon? Probably not really a super clever idea. Remember, any PC can have a pet without needing a theme. You just leave the pet safe at home and pick some other theme. 



> Absolutely NOT. Mechanics define the concept. Without decent mechanics it doesnt matter how good the concept is.
> 
> There is two different axis to good class design the north-south axis is concept. Archetypes and fluff and ideas. The stuff you love.
> The east-west axis is mechanics. Without good mechanics the concept is nothing but a story. Its the mechanics that make the _game_.
> ...




Nobody is arguing that mechanics don't need to provide reasonable support for the concept. The problem is that concept has to come first, or you simply have a game of soulless numbers, which is EXACTLY what 4e is accused of on a regular basis (and there's an entire community of people off playing PF who mostly agree with that). So yeah, I'm sorry, I demand that my game provide strong concept and then cloak that concept in reasonable mechanics which allow it to play out at the table. Mechanics first failed. Half the people that used to play D&D went away and largely because of that mistake. Look at the history of RPGs. I've been playing them since day one and the ones that survive and continue have strong concept. Many of those survivors also have had crappy mechanics, and yet they continue to be perennial favorites. I want good mechanics, I will not accept lack of good concept, period. I think WotC has finally figured that out. There's no decline in quality of material in 4e. Quite the opposite, the game is finally flowering.


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## JoeGKushner (May 8, 2011)

It was not the Bizzaro world that Epic support was heavily featured in.

It was the Fringe Universe.

Alas that only the Fringe Unvierse had the foresight to publish the DMG 3 and the revised Player's Handbook with all of the Essentials and DS Material with new themes in it...

It was the Fringe Universe that also produced the updated Epic Level Handbook, a monster manual of epic creatures as well as locations, done up in a similiar manner to Dungeon Delves but with more story to link the locations.

This same universe... also has PDFs of the books of all editions and an offline DDI CB and Monster Builder/Encounter Builder as well as still compilating the Dragon and Dungeon issues at the end of the month.


Damn you Fringe Universe!


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## AbdulAlhazred (May 8, 2011)

I think it is really a matter of WotC deploying its finite resources where they feel like the need is greatest and the return is most assured. 

I don't think they've intentionally abandoned anything. As time goes on I think they'll naturally direct more of their energies to the areas like epic tier that deserve more attention. Honestly, once we have Heroes of the Feywild I could easily see a lot more time and energy spent on these other areas. I don't see any indication that WotC wouldn't be happy to put out an epic handbook of some kind, maybe even call it DMG3, who knows? I mean at some point it becomes the highest priority thing on the list, and I'm not seeing a huge amount more that would be higher on the list than that, better adventures at all tiers aside. If I had to make any kind of prediction it would be epic tier stuff starting in the fall. Not that I am a brilliant prognosticator of what will actually happen...


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## Neonchameleon (May 8, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> *Mechanics which fail to provide any kind of CONCEPT which gives us the ability to do something genuinely new is worthless.*




I wouldn't _quite_ agree with this.  You can have better implementations and those aren't worthless.  But it's why I consider the Ardent near pointless; I'd have rolled that character concept up under the heading of Bard.  Fightbrains and Runepriests I don't see as needing their own class either.  It's why I consider the nadir of 4e design to be the PHB3 - although the Monk is an excellent class.

And likewise a concept which fails to be supported by the mechanics is ... pointless.  If not worse.



Marshall said:


> Thats 180 degrees backwards. Necrotic is just another damage type, right now. A painfully weak and boring type. HoS had the chance of making it actually useful and outside of some specific powers failed miserably. Its NOT scary and they BLEW the chance to make it that way.




I'd have liked kicker feats on necrotic damage rather than reducing DR...



> No, mechanics which fail to accomplish their design goals are worthless. The Vampire is designed to be a Striker and fails at that, making it worthless. Cool Concept, Bad Mechanics still makes a Bad Class.




I disagree that it's that bad.  It's specialised but highly flexible.  That said, it has a big issue between levels 3 and 7.  And what it's good at isn't for all campaigns - but IMO it fits well in the sort of campaigns where people will want to play vampires to play vampires.



> Absolutely NOT. Mechanics define the concept. Without decent mechanics it doesnt matter how good the concept is.




But without a decent concept for how it expands the game, extra mechanics are little more than a marketing scam at best - and IMO actively weaken the game through removal of elegance.


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## AbdulAlhazred (May 8, 2011)

[MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] Yeah, I have to definitely grant you the point, not all mechanics need to supply a NEW concept. OTOH they must be in service to some kind of concept. I will admit though that some concepts are so broad and inherent in the genre that almost anything can be contributing to them. 

Maybe it is fairer to say that a concept requires mechanics which correctly support the conceptual space, not the other way around. Mechanics alone are nothing, or at least certainly not an RPG. It is concept that makes the game what it is. Again though, I freely admit that a lot of the more D&D specific tropes had their origin in some quirk of mechanics. The whole cleric class lock-stock-and-barrel falls into that category.


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## wayne62682 (May 8, 2011)

IMO mechanics are worth infinitely more than concept.  A concept needs mechanics to be effective, otherwise it's at best false and at worst an outright lie.  Without mechanics to back it up, you don't have a concept; at least not a feasible one.  This has been my personal problem with D&D since 3.x and even since 2nd edition, whereby I had a concept that should have been valid and the mechanics didn't support at all or, best case scenario, supported midway through the life of my character (e.g. making an effective Fighter/Mage class in 3.x without using the Duskblade or some of the UA rules like the Battle Sorcerer - you had to be minimum I think like 12th level or so to even begin to touch upon the right concept for a fighter/mage).

Mechanics alone can exist without a concept because it's up to the individual to create the concept; isn't this how generic rule systems work?  You don't get a concept, just the rules and it's up to you to decide upon the concept.


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## AbdulAlhazred (May 9, 2011)

wayne62682 said:


> IMO mechanics are worth infinitely more than concept.  A concept needs mechanics to be effective, otherwise it's at best false and at worst an outright lie.  Without mechanics to back it up, you don't have a concept; at least not a feasible one.  This has been my personal problem with D&D since 3.x and even since 2nd edition, whereby I had a concept that should have been valid and the mechanics didn't support at all or, best case scenario, supported midway through the life of my character (e.g. making an effective Fighter/Mage class in 3.x without using the Duskblade or some of the UA rules like the Battle Sorcerer - you had to be minimum I think like 12th level or so to even begin to touch upon the right concept for a fighter/mage).
> 
> Mechanics alone can exist without a concept because it's up to the individual to create the concept; isn't this how generic rule systems work?  You don't get a concept, just the rules and it's up to you to decide upon the concept.




Well, there is concept, then there is execution, which is mechanics. Now, when you create a character in some generics based system your concept MIGHT be inspired by existing mechanics, but the mechanics were put there in the first place to support the concept, or a range of related concepts. You wouldn't create a Hero System character who's CONCEPTS are 'blast', and 'slam', and 'damage reduction'. You might look at those mechanics and think "Oh, I can make a guy that shoots a bow, can knocks someone down with a body blow, and has magic armor that deflects attacks." but the given mechanics are just support for those elements in play. Maybe it doesn't matter to a particular player what they play and they get all their inspiration from the mechanics of the game, but the character itself is concept, embodied in game mechanics. The reason those mechanics EXIST is so you can make characters armed with bows, blaster rifles, psychic mind blasts, or whatever you can imagine. If the 'blast' mechanic didn't exist, then it would have to be invented in order to support those concepts if they were going to appear in the game, not the other way around.

The case is very similar in 4e. Not being a generic system the case is much clearer, the mechanics of longsword exist to support the concept of a long bladed sword type weapon used in one hand. The game designers didn't sit down and create random assemblies of weapon stats and then give them names. Nor really did the designers of some generic system, they simply painted with broader strokes and based their mechanics on more abstract conceptual grounds.

Now consider the obverse. Many concepts can exist with no supporting mechanics at all. D&D got along for over a decade with no skill system at all worth mentioning, yet characters were regularly performing skilled tasks either according to DM fiat or with some kind of ad-hoc mechanism. Original D&D didn't distinguish between swords and maces but the concepts certain existed and PCs were regularly equipped with a mace, or a longsword, or a spear. Nobody sat down and decried that they couldn't have a longsword because it lacked mechanics. The specific mechanics for each weapon only came along later because people thought it would be interesting to distinguish different weapon types.

Many concepts require no mechanics at all. In fact NO concept absolutely requires mechanics, you can tell stories with no rules at all, mechanics are a convenience. Without a concept for them to reflect you don't have an RPG, you have chess.


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## Blue (May 9, 2011)

*Winning the internet*

Folks,

It's the same few of us arguing.  At this point, I think we've all communicated our core concepts and had a few rounds of everyone illustrating our points.  If we still have people on different sides of the discussion, I think it's time to agree to disagree.

A great game has great concepts AND mechanics that support and encourage those concepts.  I think we're all (myself included) arguing one side or the other of it.  In addition, some of us are optimistic ("these add a lot") and some not so much ("these don't compare to the Dark Sun themes").

We made our points, let them stand on their own.

xkcd: Duty Calls

Cheers,
Blue


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## Aegeri (May 9, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, I think Beastmaster Rangers kick ass



Well, that does explain why you think the vampire is a viable striker and you must really not care about mechanics! Because the BMR pet is best as basically a flanking buddy for a bow ranger.


> So MV and MV2 are horribly flawed because they weren't aimed at the specific aspect of play that you're interested in seeing more support for?



No, you should read my point again. My point is that it should support _all three_ tiers. Other books did, why not the two MVs? 


> Low level monsters NEEDED BADLY to have another look.



Nonsense. Heroic tier monsters WERE THE LEAST AFFECTED by the maths changes.


> Calling it 'bad' is just not warranted.



I never called it bad, I called it disappointing while simultaneously praising its high quality monsters. 

One can do BOTH at exactly the same time. Shocking I know!


> Every epic monster in that book means a heroic tier monster or a paragon monster that has to be dropped on the cutting room floor. Consider that. Take a balanced perspective.



I have and maybe you should. Maybe you should consider that epic has the LEAST viable monsters (that aren't demons, I mean if you REALLY like demons you are set at epic tier. Hope your PCs REALLY enjoy fighting demons for 10 levels). Maybe you should consider epic monsters are MOST damaged by the new maths changes, desperately need the most work in terms of updating their powers and that epic solos especially are the most worthless monsters in 4E.

I can gladly sacrifice a few heroic monsters out of the _hundreds_ of viable heroic tier creatures. I'm not lacking for choice in heroic tier and wasn't even before MV. I *AM* lacking for choice in epic tier and still am.


> And I disagree. IMHO you're too caught up in mechanics. You've become far too focused on dice and numbers and your vision of the game has become too narrow.



I disagree. I like flavor/fluff as much as anyone, but fluff is malleable but mechanics are how that fluff is expressed in game terms. If the fluff is poor, who cares because good mechanics can save it. I can put my own fluff on it if I want and fix it. Poor mechanics are harder to solve (as debates like this thread show). It means having to fiddle with rules directly, something I've rarely had to do in 4Es lifespan before recently.

But if mechanics are bad, then the class or concept cannot support what it is trying to do _in game terms_. This is the problem with the animal master who has the worlds most vulnerable minion and when it pops, he basically can't make any use of his powers for an entire adventure (which could be 3 levels or so. That's a LONG time). He's really not that much of an "animal master".


> By simply making an "avoid necrotic resistance" feat or two (or whatever the exact mechanics would be) simply moves necrotic resistance from something different, interesting, SCARY



lol.

You mean the damage type that nobody takes because it's generally regarded as useless? Because that's probably what you meant. I can't tell you the last time I saw a PC took a necrotic keyword power - for obvious reasons.


> Vampire is an awesome class because it depicts a vampire quite well. I've said it before and I will say it again. *Mechanics which fail to provide any kind of CONCEPT which gives us the ability to do something genuinely new is worthless.*



And CONCEPTS that fail entirely on their MECHANICS are utterly worthless.







> I haven't spent much time analyzing the Binder, but I can tell you that the class works, and in fact IMHO provides a more thematically coherent warlock



Um. It really doesn't and perhaps you should actually try a Binder before making such comments. It's actually a stripped down warlock that can't deal damage OR out control a regular warlock (it's fixed encounters powers are not good and its dailies can be equally pinched by the standard warlock).


> 2) AGAIN, CONCEPT TRUMPS MECHANICS. This is a NECESSITY.



If you want to add CB filler and options that are strictly inferior to the game, sure. Mechanics are important, because if a character concept is wonderful but cannot express that concept mechanically, then it is worthless. There are too many examples in 4E of having a concept and expressing it with A+ results mechanically. I simply think you have too narrow a view of the game, where you think that classes must be mechanically gimped/worthless to express a concept. In good design, mechanics are not sacrificed for concepts: Instead they express them extremely well.


> And we agree on this point. My issue here is you're condemnation applies equally to every single 4e product released by WotC.



Nope.
Sorry, but that's just you projecting and without a valid point either. I mean MM3 last year supported epic tier brilliantly. So did the book that followed it right after (Dark Sun Creature Catalog). So did Demonomicon (though we have enough demons already). All three were fantastic books.

Then there was Dark Sun Campaign Setting: Really, do you NEED me to say any more here? Psionic Power was fantastic, really adding some great options and actually changed my opinions about psionics I loved it that much. I also liked Heroes of the Fallen Lands and Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms. 

My objections to books like HoS and these themes are MECHANICAL. I've explained my position multiple times, but suffice to say you are simply wrong on this point.


> I think the super critical Aegeri that cannot be pleased though is not the voice I was enjoying.



I've been extremely happy with 4E for over 2 years, so this is nonsense. Heck, I've repeatedly said what I want and it's not even _that hard_.


> You're going to tell me that Student of Caiphon was just fine? It wasn't obvious it would be poached?



Of course it was, never argued otherwise but back then Dragon content wasn't "rigorously" tested by Wizards R+D. In addition to this, Student of Caiphon was poached because Radiant - unlike necrotic just so you know - is one of the best damage types in the game and has _excellent_ support. Now that SoC is Warlock only it is perfectly fine, because Warlocks could use the PP and its great for them. 

At the same time, mechanically, Student of Caiphon was a great PP. Flavorwise AND mechanically. It was a complete success. I can tell you now: Not many classes are going to be poaching *anything* from HoS classes. Except maybe some half-elves that want to take the vampires +2 accuracy charm powers (but that's a corner case and probably not worth the feat investment).


> is you've gone from focusing on what is fun and interesting



Of which the stuff from HoS is neither. That's the problem, because when something is poor mechanically that has direct repercussions at the game table: It's less fun. There are reasons certain things are left to die in 4E. 


> I perceive that the outlook of some people has changed.



I disagree so vehemently here I cannot disagree any harder. The game HAS changed and so has its quality. I'm just not acting like an ostrich about it  


> A Binder that manifests bound spirits is great.



Have you ever considered that the problem there is a normal warlock can take the binders dailies, be better at them than a binder, do more damage AND has better control powers in its encounters? I suggest reading through this thread to get an idea just what the problem with the binder is.

Quite frankly, I don't think you think about the mechanics or how they impact the game. Mechanics are what is expressed directly at a table. Flavor and thematics do not save poor mechanics - otherwise nobody would be asking wizards for support for Runepriests/Seekers (who desperately need it). That is an undeniable fact.

Edit:


> Many concepts require no mechanics at all. In fact NO concept absolutely  requires mechanics, you can tell stories with no rules at all,  mechanics are a convenience. Without a concept for them to reflect you  don't have an RPG, you have chess.



You can tell stories without rules, but _you cannot play a game without them_.

That's kind of where your entire argument falls over


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## Colmarr (May 9, 2011)

Hey, Obryn, you know what's worse than quote wars?

Quote wars with ALL CAPS, _italics_, *bold *and hyperlinks.


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## generalchaos34 (May 9, 2011)

so pretty much its damned if you do, damned if you dont for them.

If they released DS style themes the cries would have been: 

"ACK!  Power Creep!" 
"EEK! Why wont my essentials subclass use these?"
"MWUHAHA! See the abandoned the essentials formats because it was a failure, i was right and all other opinions are invalid!"
and 
"They took away the thing that made DS special! Its a harsh world and this is how the PCs could survive!!"

What we get now is not bad at all, infact, considering that you got them instead of NONE at all, im damned grateful to get some official support, yet im still hearing...

"ARRR!! These arent powerful enough for my taste!"
"MEEP! These are too powerful, too much creep!"
"Mulp! Why arent these like the DS ones! I demand sameness and refuse to use those instead!"
and
"RWARR!! Why are essentials classes allowed to associate with this material! HOW DARE THE SUPPORT OTHER CLASSES I DONT LIKE!!!"

Also, the nitpicking quote thing is really annoying, i was hoping to talk about the particulars of the actual themes themselves, not a forum for airing your Dislike of some edition or perceived notion of that it being an edition or what not, thats what the Wotc forums are for.


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## Obryn (May 9, 2011)

generalchaos34 said:


> so pretty much its damned if you do, damned if you dont for them.



Well, maybe.  I'm not sure.

Like I said, I congratulate them on achieving maximum possible compatibility.   That doesn't mean I love 'em, though.

I was personally fine with Dark Sun themes being less useful for E-style classes.  It's worked fine in my home game so far.  Part of the reason you're using an E-style class is maybe because you don't want to be bothered with picking something new every level.

Still, if they had released DS-style themes, we may very well have seen compatibility complaints in the other direction.  I'm positive we would have on the WotC forums, anyway.   So, point taken.

-O


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## Saeviomagy (May 9, 2011)

generalchaos34 said:


> If they released DS style themes the cries would have been:
> 
> "ACK!  Power Creep!"
> "EEK! Why wont my essentials subclass use these?"
> ...



And all those points are invalid or worthless.


> What we get now is not bad at all, infact, considering that you got them instead of NONE at all, im damned grateful to get some official support, yet im still hearing...



Yes, we should bow down to our supreme overlords for they have deigned to make us content! Bow down!


> "ARRR!! These arent powerful enough for my taste!"



The article has presented an incredibly weak option. Saying it's weak is hardly a crime.


> "MEEP! These are too powerful, too much creep!"



The article has presented an incredibly strong option. Additionally, it has changed the structure of themes so that instead of exchanging character options for theme options, you simply tack theme options on top of what you have.

So - a specific example of something overpowered, and simultaeneously a shift to a framework that guarantees there will be more instances of excessive power.

Again - not saying anything seems silly.


> "Mulp! Why arent these like the DS ones! I demand sameness and refuse to use those instead!"



I don't think this argument is actually being made. The argument being made is that these are simultaeneously stripped down from the DS ones (in terms of less content and options) and also less balanced. We already sampled the grass on the other side, and it is much, much greener.


> and
> "RWARR!! Why are essentials classes allowed to associate with this material! HOW DARE THE SUPPORT OTHER CLASSES I DONT LIKE!!!"



The issue is that in the interests of providing more options to a version of the game designed to present less options, the version of the game which likes lots of options has had options stripped away from it. I think how confusing that sentence is has considerable implications for how much sense the decision makes.


> Also, the nitpicking quote thing is really annoying, i was hoping to talk about the particulars of the actual themes themselves, not a forum for airing your Dislike of some edition or perceived notion of that it being an edition or what not, thats what the Wotc forums are for.




Personally I find quotes to be a lot less annoying than people hopping onto a thread and impugning the character, arguments and intellect of everyone in it, or simply just saying "this thread sucks because people are breaking up their arguments in the style of a debate". The themes themselves are covered on DDI. This site's policies prevent any real disclosure of the rules beyond that. What can be disclosed on this site was done and dusted on page 1. Please feel free to leave the thread as you found it.


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## Neonchameleon (May 9, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> Well, that does explain why you think the vampire is a viable striker and you must really not care about mechanics! Because the BMR pet is best as basically a flanking buddy for a bow ranger.




Here I'm with you.



> No, you should read my point again. My point is that it should support _all three_ tiers. Other books did, why not the two MVs?




From my own observation I doubt that one campaign in every twenty gets into Paragon tier; the overwhelming majority of them start at level 1 and either fizzle in low heroic or end in high heroic.  This has nothing to do with the level of support provided.  (And campaigns that start at Paragon or higher are IMO the most likely to fizzle of all).

Of the campaigns that make it into paragon, by attrition I doubt that one out of every five makes it into epic.  It gets slower and more complex.  And requires time investment to get there.  

Which means I doubt that one campaign in every _hundred_ makes it into epic tier.  And this has nothing to do with the level of support provided.  It has to do with level of complexity, time of play, and natural attrition.

And this also means that for the target audience of _Monster Vault_ - new DMs - an overwhelming focus on the Heroic tier is absolutely the right thing.  Most of those DMs are _never_ going to go near Epic tier - and you could provide all the support you want for epic tier and this would not change.  And of that tiny minority that does, most are going to put serious investment in and therefore be the sort that buy books like the Monster Manual 3 and the Dark Sun Creature Catalog.

You clearly want Epic to be as supported as Heroic tier.  As far as the overwhelming majority of games are concerned, Epic might as well not exist - and epic support just pads out pages.  This is doubly true for books such as MV that are intended to allow new DMs to hit the ground running.  Every page spent on epic monsters is a page that will almost never be used.  Epic support is massively _disproportionate_ to the amount of play it gets.  But you want more.  You want WoTC to clutter up their books with what is, for their target audience, utterly _useless_ information just so the very few epic tier players can have more than was already produced.  

Equal support for epic tier to heroic tier would be like equal support for undead and living PCs in D&D.   Hell, I don't think there's as much support for undead as for living PCs in the _World of Darkness_.  And that despite WoD being driven by the vampire coolness factor.



> But if mechanics are bad, then the class or concept cannot support what it is trying to do _in game terms_. This is the problem with the animal master who has the worlds most vulnerable minion and when it pops, he basically can't make any use of his powers for an entire adventure (which could be 3 levels or so. That's a LONG time). He's really not that much of an "animal master".
> ...
> And CONCEPTS that fail entirely on their MECHANICS are utterly worthless.




Agreed on all counts.  And especially about the Binder.

I don't agree that the Vampire's mechanics are worthless - merely that they are not suited to a high lethality campaign, although I believe they are well suited to other campaigns.  They involve an interesting and fluffy _serious_ tweak to the mechanics and I'm very glad 4e is trying that sort of thing.  I'd also rather they underpitched the strength rather than overpitched.  I'm also a fan of the Executioner, the Blackguard, the Nethermancer (I think Necrotic energy should have warped bodies with feats or features), the Gloom Pact Hexblade, the Death Priest, and more Warlock powers.



> Then there was Dark Sun Campaign Setting: Really, do you NEED me to say any more here? Psionic Power was fantastic, really adding some great options and actually changed my opinions about psionics I loved it that much.




Mind explaining some of them please?  I found PP good for monks (I love 4e monks).  But I still find the other three classes meh.  Ardents IMO should have been folded under the heading of Bard.  I don't know who was asking for the Fightbrain.


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## Kinneus (May 9, 2011)

My mind boggles at the blatant power disparity between Order Adept and Animal Master. What makes me sad is that Order Adept will get nerfed, but Animal Master will continue to be a giant, howling void of suck until the end of time, a trap for new players who think it'd be cool to have an animal friend... an animal friend who'll be blown to smithereens more and more often as they level up (burst and blasts are _really common_ beyond Heroic, with each combatant usually having at least one at his or her disposal).

I mean, seriously, it's like WotC doesn't even think about playtesting. Or... you know, common sense. Or like they've actively given up attempting to make things balanced.

Open offer: hire me, WotC. I will so totally work for you. I can apparently catch wild discrepencies in power level on the first read-through that you guys couldn't catch all throughout the process. I'm a genius!

Seriously though... for all my griping and head-scratching over the Order Adept/Animal Master disparity... at least we have themes!


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## Wednesday Boy (May 9, 2011)

I really like the alchemist and animal master.  I like that the alchemist feature takes off some cost for creating alchemy items so hopefully they'll see more use.  And who cares about mechanics--having an animal minion is just fun!  I'd definitely take it for my beastmaster ranger just to have another animal to pal around with.


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## RangerWickett (May 9, 2011)

Easy solution. When a pet is reduced to 0 HP, it's knocked unconscious, but as long as the PC is alive, it pops back to 1 HP at the end of the encounter. And if it's adjacent to you, it takes no damage from area or close attacks.


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## Kinneus (May 9, 2011)

RangerWickett said:


> Easy solution. When a pet is reduced to 0 HP, it's knocked unconscious, but as long as the PC is alive, it pops back to 1 HP at the end of the encounter. And if it's adjacent to you, it takes no damage from area or close attacks.



I don't mean to pick on you, RangerWickett, and I know you mean well, but I don't think this is an easy solution. I don't think it's an easy solution when, a day after the release of this new-to-core element of the game, people are already suggesting house rules to fix certain aspects. Isn't this supposed to be a finished product? Aren't the folks at WotC professional game designers?

I'm paying WotC to come up with rules and themes and classes and powers so I don't have to. If I have to house-rule magic item rarity, rare magic items, themes, and everything else... then what am I paying WotC for?

I'm normally a huge supporter of 4e, but I really think the quality has been slipping lately. If all the themes were as crappy as Animal Master, I would understand, but when you put it side-by-side with Order Adept and nobody says, "Hang on a second," I really have to wonder what is going on.

Really, my only guess is that WotC blatantly doesn't care about balance anymore, about avoiding setting up 'trap' choices for players. They seem content to just poop out an on-rails class or theme and then move on to the next one. If it doesn't work, oh well. And if it works too well, errata!

Either that, or they need to shake up their staffing a bit, because I really think somebody dropped the ball here.


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## webrunner (May 9, 2011)

This is cool but two are explicitly wizard, a third is pretty wizard-y, and the last one's mostly fit for rangers.  Why no defender, not-naturey martial, or divine themes or anything?


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## UngeheuerLich (May 9, 2011)

I promise to be very short:

MM3 has so many epic monsters i like to read about, but will never use... so I am fine without it.

I like the themes in what they do. Increasing the power level is not bad if you don´t make something obsolete.
There is no class, that makes any class of the PHB 1 obsolete. You can use themes, or you don´t. If you use them, EVERYONE is slightly better. So the issue of power creep is a non issue. If they said: hey, I make a class that is strictly better (and I mean strictly) then there is power creep.

What we got in themes is a slight power boost for all, and in a way, that the overall balance is more or less retained. (Which does not mean, that one or two of those themes could get an errata before the actual release.)

And yes, quality was not that good at the beginning... I mean, PHB1 and MM1 have so many errata, they are more or less useless. (And the most obvious errata were obvious before release... Chris Perkins Previewed the Hill Giant and stumbled over his word when he said something like: A brute does a lot of damage... lets look at this Hill giat... 1d10+5... pause... yes, that is a lot of damage..."

Really complain all you want here... but i guess constructive criticism would be a lot more helpful...


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## UngeheuerLich (May 9, 2011)

webrunner said:


> This is cool but two are explicitly wizard, a third is pretty wizard-y, and the last one's mostly fit for rangers.  Why no defender, not-naturey martial, or divine themes or anything?



This is easy:

because those are in Part 2, 3 and 4 of those articles.

I am very very excited about them. I hope this time we get a ritual background!


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## Kinneus (May 9, 2011)

webrunner said:


> This is cool but two are explicitly wizard, a third is pretty wizard-y, and the last one's mostly fit for rangers. Why no defender, not-naturey martial, or divine themes or anything?



Eh, I don't agree. Besides, anything that fits for a Wizard would fit for a Swordmage.


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## bganon (May 9, 2011)

Animal Master really seems like something changed mid-development.  It's like the original concept was for a basically non-targetable non-combat animal... but then someone decided to mix in a combat power or two.  The result is something that doesn't seem to quite work as intended.

Given that most of the animals are Tiny, the PC could carry them.  It might count as a houserule, but don't carried "items" have the PCs defenses?  In any case, I think some clarification (beyond the current "they mostly stay out of combat" statement) on how to handle combat is in order.  I feel like something's missing.

Alchemist and Apprentice seem pretty much right on target.  Order Adept could be fixed with a clarification/fix to the non-Wizard part of the level 5 feature, and a nerf to the level 10 feature.

Maybe I'm misremembering something from long ago, but I thought the magazine articles aren't considered "published" until the end of the month?  So that changes/fixes can be freely made until then without it being official errata.  Maybe I just made this up.


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## Klaus (May 9, 2011)

I think the real benefit of the Animal Master minions isn't the Encounter powers, it's the "within 10" benefits. Ignore the -5 Stealth from moving, performing Thievery at +2 at range, +4 Perception from the sky (including sharing senses later on) are some very good benefits.

Plus, you can now create the movie Beastmaster: Sentinel Druid (summer - replace bear with tiger), multiclass into an arcane class (Arcane Familiar - reflavor flying familiar as eagle), Animal Master theme (reflavor monkey as Kodo and Podo).


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## BobTheNob (May 9, 2011)

I LOVE EM!

Note to those who have been doing block/text/block/text/block/text posts....I read all posts but yours


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## Obryn (May 9, 2011)

webrunner said:


> This is cool but two are explicitly wizard, a third is pretty wizard-y, and the last one's mostly fit for rangers.  Why no defender, not-naturey martial, or divine themes or anything?



You _did _notice the title of this Themes article, didn't you? 

-O


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## JoeGKushner (May 10, 2011)

I don't think WoTC is damned if they do/don't.

they have created their own situation.

as others have noted, ds style themes might have been more difficult once they introduced essentials.

irnoically enough, essentials was introduced not long after ds and its themes.

what we may be seeing is that tighter integration of overall arching style game mechanics.

like all things dragon though, despite wotc efforts to make everything core, it probably works better if you consider everything from dragon as 'unearthed arcana' and as we used to back in 'the day', consider it optional and pick and choose what you like and ignore what you don't.

i'd still like to see a hella lot more monsters being updated in dragon/dungeon and more crunch.


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## Aegeri (May 10, 2011)

Neonchameleon said:
			
		

> And this also means that for the target audience of _Monster Vault_ - new DMs - an overwhelming focus on the Heroic tier is absolutely the right thing.  Most of those DMs are _never_ going to go near Epic tier - and you could provide all the support you want for epic tier and this would not change.



I would buy this logic if the next MV book had epic monsters - but it doesn't. Also returning to a previous point, I think you need to look up the number of creatures in each book that has been released. Epic monsters have _never ever_ had equal support to heroic and paragon. MM3 has 303ish monsters and 74 of them are in epic. That means the majority ARE in Heroic and Paragon. Also there are more than a few creatures in MV that could be culled for epic monsters happily as well (Drakes as a good example). Either way, MV was merely disappointing but the second book also dumping epic tier is infuriating and what gets my ire.

But saying that monster books ever supported epic equally is just incorrect. It's also missing the problem that I've already highlighted: Epic monsters pre-MM3 are the most worthless and require the most work to make competitive with newer creatures. There is far more need for a MV to have around 50ish epic monsters out of 300, than having 40 extra monsters on top of 180 heroic monsters out of 300. 180 heroic monsters that inundate a tier that is _filled_ with _hundreds_ of choices. Hundreds.


> I don't agree that the Vampire's mechanics are worthless - merely that they are not suited to a high lethality campaign,



Actually, it's more that they suck as strikers and have pretty poor damage. I think the vampire is mechanically interesting in lots of other ways though, but they almost win the award for "failing at their role entirely". That puts them up there with luminaries in the game at this like the Binder and the OAssassin. That is not esteemed company.


> Mind explaining some of them please?  I found PP good for monks (I love  4e monks).  But I still find the other three classes meh.  Ardents IMO  should have been folded under the heading of Bard.  I don't know who was  asking for the Fightbrain.



I liked *almost* everything about the book. I liked most of the new options they introduced (not all of them of course, but that is just about impossible for any book regardless of what game it is). I also - especially ironic given my general focus on discussions - liked the supporting fluff too. I generally liked the new build and having seen 2 battleminds in play (and an Ardent) I disagree the ardent is a bard (it's not) and the Battlemind (post-errata to Blurred step) is a perfectly viable defender. Overall though I liked the new mechanics, new builds, many of the new PPs and I really enjoyed the fluff. Just a really surprising book to me, because I didn't warmly receive psionics in the first place.

Of course, some psionic stuff still needs its justified whack with the nerf bat, but we'll have to see what happens in June!


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## DEFCON 1 (May 10, 2011)

Kinneus said:


> I don't mean to pick on you, RangerWickett, and I know you mean well, but I don't think this is an easy solution. I don't think it's an easy solution when, a day after the release of this new-to-core element of the game, people are already suggesting house rules to fix certain aspects. Isn't this supposed to be a finished product? Aren't the folks at WotC professional game designers?
> 
> I'm paying WotC to come up with rules and themes and classes and powers so I don't have to. If I have to house-rule magic item rarity, rare magic items, themes, and everything else... then what am I paying WotC for?
> 
> ...




No, actually... they care a great deal about balance.  They just don't care about YOUR balance.

YOUR balance says that Animal Master is much worse than Order Adept, most likely because the abilities you get from one far outshine what you get for the other based upon how you yourself play the game.  But other people don't play the game the same way you do, and the stuff they get from one might outshine the other based upon what parts of the game has more import to them.  Those people don't play with your balance.  The people who playtested the game material don't play with your balance.  The people in this thread who are defending the article don't play with your balance.  Nobody else plays with your balance except you.  So it isn't THEIR fault that they didn't give you material in 100% compliance with your game, because they don't KNOW your game.

So to whine that WotC just 'pooped out an on-rails class or theme' so they could move on to the next one is basically getting your panties in a bunch because the world didn't fall into place exactly how you wanted it to.  To me, that is extremely childish.  Criticize and discuss the rules all you want... but to claim that the employees of Wizards of the Coast were basically slacking off and pulling their puds rather than actually working is insulting.  I'd be offended at your attitude if I were them.

You asked what you were paying WotC for?  The answer is 'game material compatible with the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game'.  That's it.  And did you get what you paid for?  Absolutely.  And the tag 'Plus is 100% aligned with how Kinneus plays the game' is not on ANY of the marketing material.


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## AbdulAlhazred (May 10, 2011)

Yeah, I don't think there's a real problem with Animal Master either. 

Here's an example: I have a player that wanted to have a pet cat. The reason for wanting to do this was so that the character (who is not at all stealthy) could send the cat along with the rogue and the warlock when they go sneaking around, which they frequently do in this campaign. Now, this character also happens to be a wizard, so the solution was of course to get a familar and pick cat. That works fine and the cost of one feat isn't a big deal, especially since familiars have some other minor ancillary benefits. OTOH Animal Master would be perfect for a character like this. She'd probably get more out of that than having a familiar. Certainly if the PC wasn't Arcane and required 2 feats (and one being an MC feat) to do this it probably wouldn't be worth going the familiar route, at best it would be a significant opportunity cost with little ancillary benefit and require taking an MC that might not fit the character well (and maybe forgoing one that would).

OTOH Animal Master would be perfect for such a character. It would work great. The player doesn't care about having some super awesome combat advantages out of the deal. She just wants a cat. If she were say a fighter, then Animal Master would be perfect. Heck, it DOES have some potential use in combat. Yeah, the animal COULD get curb stomped and I do think some scaling would be a good idea, but she can also just have Fluffy keep well out of the way. Fluffy can hide in her backpack when the PCs are wandering around in some dangerous environment. Fluffy can tag along with the stealthy characters and it all works out. Yeah, maybe Fluffy WOULD get in trouble now and then, but we could work that out.

So, Animal Master may not be PERFECT, but then again WotC has stated these themes are still subject to finalization. Lets wait and see if they are going to tweak this one issue. Even if they don't it is still a useful theme. In some campaigns the fragility of the animal really won't matter anyway. In others nobody is going to bother with Animal Master because they are all about min/maxing their combat power. If a player in such a game wants a cat to use in a fight, they'll just have to create a build that can get a tough animal that will do that. There are several options open to them.


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## Geffor (May 10, 2011)

For me, animal master IS perfect 

It almost exactly matches the houserules that we came up with for a character concept in one of my campaigns. We aren't a group of optimisers and can sometimes ignore rules that interfere with what we see is a good idea.

This is what we call fun


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## Incenjucar (May 10, 2011)

Familiars have a *massive* survival advantage over pets in that they can essentially cease to exist when environmental hazards are in play. As adorable as it will be to see the fighter's pet monkey try to hold its breath at the bottom of the ocean while they fight the kraken.


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## Dice4Hire (May 10, 2011)

I might subscribe for a month to get these articles, but will wait and see if the rest are good, first.

So far, they sound ok and will enrich my game. 


But I do agree WOTC needs to offer eratta on occasion to shore up weaker options, not just close down overpowered ones.


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## Marshall (May 10, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yeah, I don't think there's a real problem with Animal Master either.
> 
> .....Yeah, the animal COULD get curb stomped and I do think some scaling would be a good idea, but she can also just have Fluffy keep well out of the way.




Full Stop. So there is a real problem with the Animal Master, isnt there? The mechanics are drastically inferior and require a lot of DM intervention to actually keep useful. How is you Wizardess going to feel when dear sweet fluffy gets nuked at breakfast and she cant try to replace her until after they get back from the Dungeon of Doom? The theme is a failure from bad mechanics.


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## Mengu (May 11, 2011)

Incenjucar said:


> Familiars have a *massive* survival advantage over pets in that they can essentially cease to exist when environmental hazards are in play. As adorable as it will be to see the fighter's pet monkey try to hold its breath at the bottom of the ocean while they fight the kraken.




Familiars also cost a feat. Animal Master's pet spends less camera time. If you are going Kraken hunting, you leave your pet monkey on the shore, so he can be all mad and fling poo at you when you come back. If you unexpectedly fall into hazardous situations, the pet is just sort of forgotten about, like it often happens in movies, only to show up again at a later convenient time. I see no problem with this. Could it be better spelled out as such? Hell yes. But as far as I'm concerned, it's usable material.


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## IanB (May 11, 2011)

Kinneus said:


> My mind boggles at the blatant power disparity between Order Adept and Animal Master. What makes me sad is that Order Adept will get nerfed, but Animal Master will continue to be a giant, howling void of suck until the end of time, a trap for new players who think it'd be cool to have an animal friend... an animal friend who'll be blown to smithereens more and more often as they level up (burst and blasts are _really common_ beyond Heroic, with each combatant usually having at least one at his or her disposal).
> 
> I mean, seriously, it's like WotC doesn't even think about playtesting. Or... you know, common sense. Or like they've actively given up attempting to make things balanced.
> 
> ...




Except it isn't a 'trap'. A mechanical trap would be something like a feat that adds no flavor at all and is inferior in every way to another feat or actually makes you worse.

Animal Master is not that at all. Yes, it isn't as strong in terms of combat power as the other themes. That doesn't make it worthless.


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## UngainlyTitan (May 11, 2011)

In general I like the themes and look forward to seeing the rest. That said, with regard to the Animal Master one, if they allow a combat power then a survival mechanis for the poor creature that does not rely on the kindness of the DM is in order.


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## Aegeri (May 11, 2011)

IanB said:


> Except it isn't a 'trap'. A mechanical trap would be something like a feat that adds no flavor at all and is inferior in every way to another feat or actually makes you worse.



Actually this isn't right, trap feats can have flavor but be immensely mechanically inferior to lots of other things (see most of the new feat cruft occupying up the CB from HoS for multiple examples. The flavor is there, the mechanics are simply not). The animal master isn't a trap yet because we don't know what the rest of the other themes are. I think the Animal Master is absolutely terrible, but if the rest of the themes actually are around the same power level (and things like the Order Adept are suitably nerfed) then it won't be as bad. I'll still think it's terrible, but it won't be a lot worse than other themes.

Of course this assumes the other themes are going to be similarly poorly thought out and mechanically awful. Let's hope that isn't the case. I am hoping for around the Alchemist and Apprentice myself.


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## AbdulAlhazred (May 11, 2011)

Marshall said:


> Full Stop. So there is a real problem with the Animal Master, isnt there? The mechanics are drastically inferior and require a lot of DM intervention to actually keep useful. How is you Wizardess going to feel when dear sweet fluffy gets nuked at breakfast and she cant try to replace her until after they get back from the Dungeon of Doom? The theme is a failure from bad mechanics.




Oh it is not. FAILURE! Anything that doesn't meet your standard of perfection is a failure! When you got a C+ in English did they kick you out of school for being a failure? 

There are conceivably situations where it would be fairly unavoidable that a companion would take a point of damage, yes. I think the devs should consider the implications of that, especially at higher levels, and make provisions for it. Still, there are a wide variety of games where the animal simply isn't going to get into that kind of danger unless it is a plot point. As in my example of the wizard who is only interested in having an animal that can tag along with the rogue while scouting (really mainly so the player has something to do in that situation).

Personally I think making them NON minions with say 10hp +2/level would be pretty decent. Fluffy now can survive a hit for at least 15 damage and not croak instantly. Yeah, it is now possible for it to take miss damage, but so what? If it is never being deliberately targeted it isn't going to help for it to be a minion and now some random stupidity doesn't kill it.


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## Aegeri (May 11, 2011)

I think if the animal companion had a passive and active mode like a familiar it would work very well. Then you are deliberately exposing it to danger by choice, not just watching with despair as you miss a bloodfire harpy arriving and the aura 20 auto whacks it for the entire adventure. Given there are some monsters with pretty big auras that feature automatic damage (5+) in the game, it can be awfully hard to avoid it being autosplatted in a variety of situations (not to mention places there isn't a lot of room to hide it). Allowing it to function like a familiar would really help and make any design goal that it wasn't meant to be a target pretty clear.


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## Klaus (May 11, 2011)

To be fair, at 5th level you can replace (or, through re-fluffing, resurrect) you pet at the end of an extended rest.

Also, the Animal Master encounter power doesn't require that your companion move adjacent to you enemy. As long as you can catch one enemy and your pet in the burst 5, you get combat advantage.

Plus, per the text, the pet is assumed to be out of harm's way unless you direct it to move in.


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## Incenjucar (May 11, 2011)

Klaus said:


> Plus, per the text, the pet is assumed to be out of harm's way unless you direct it to move in.




This is D&D. Everywhere is harm's way.


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## AbdulAlhazred (May 11, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> I think if the animal companion had a passive and active mode like a familiar it would work very well. Then you are deliberately exposing it to danger by choice, not just watching with despair as you miss a bloodfire harpy arriving and the aura 20 auto whacks it for the entire adventure. Given there are some monsters with pretty big auras that feature automatic damage (5+) in the game, it can be awfully hard to avoid it being autosplatted in a variety of situations (not to mention places there isn't a lot of room to hide it). Allowing it to function like a familiar would really help and make any design goal that it wasn't meant to be a target pretty clear.




I'm thinking Bloodfire Harpies before level 5 is a no-go. 

I guess you could use the familiar rule. It just seems, well, odd.


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## Kinneus (May 11, 2011)

Klaus said:


> To be fair, at 5th level you can replace (or, through re-fluffing, resurrect) you pet at the end of an extended rest.



That's cold comfort, though, when in many, many adventures, your character doesn't _get_ an extended rest until after they slay the big bad and leave the dungeon. If your animal companion gets ganked in the first round of the first encounter, then congratulations, you're screwed!

Making it work like a familiar with a 'passive mode' would do a lot to fix it. Right now, they're just too fragile. There's bursts/blasts, auras, damaging zones, environmental effects like just being underwater, multi-attacks that _require_ that the monster attacks another creature with its second attack (even though the hawk isn't a threat, why wouldn't they take a swipe at it if there are no better targets?). None of these things (with the exception of 'being underwater') are particularly uncommon. And I would be honestly shocked if somebody's animal companion survived all the way to level 5 without dying at least once to one of these effects... kind, loving DMs that bend the rules in the poor pet's favor notwithstanding.

Despite my criticisms, I'm glad we have themes. I'm hoping that the future installments will be better. But when 2/4 in the debut have serious power problems, it doesn't exactly inspire optimism in me. Alchemist and Wizard's Apprentice are pretty much right on the money, so here's hoping things get better with the next article.


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## Incenjucar (May 11, 2011)

Passive Mode would be easy enough. It just represents the animal hiding in your shirt or backpack so that you can absorb any and all incoming attacks. The theme could go on to explain that your pet benefits from any effect you do when it's passive, so when you can breathe underwater, so can it, etc.

The main thing here is that many players and DMs absolutely must follow every bit of the rules, with no room for DM fiat, whether because they're in a Living game or because that's just how they tick. Make it so THEY can do something without it being a nightmare, and it's that much easier for those with more freedom.

--

I will say, despite my criticisms, I certiainly do like the alchemist theme.


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## UngeheuerLich (May 11, 2011)

A simple fix would be an encounter power that just does not require the animal to do anything and to be honest, one that is actually comparable to the other powers...

On the other hand, what monster that is worth its money will devote an attack to kill an animal?


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## Kinneus (May 11, 2011)

Incenjucar said:


> The main thing here is that many players and DMs absolutely must follow every bit of the rules, with no room for DM fiat, whether because they're in a Living game or because that's just how they tick. Make it so THEY can do something without it being a nightmare, and it's that much easier for those with more freedom.



Thanks... this is an excellent point, and exactly why the whole "It's not a problem because you can just house rule it" attitude irks me so much. Some settings don't have that luxury, whether it's LFR, a DM who's very by-the-books, or a new DM with new players that hasn't yet realized they even _can_ house rule stuff.



UngeheuerLich said:


> On the other hand, what monster that is worth its money will devote an attack to kill an animal?



The problem is that lots and lots of monsters don't have to waste an attack to kill it. As I said before; bursts, blasts, environmental hazards, damaging zones, damaging auras, multi-attacks that require you to attack somebody other than the primary target. Here's the example I keep thinking of:

You start the adventure. Aladdin the Rogue and his pet monkey Apu enter the dungeon with their fellow adventurers to see a few orcish warriors blocking their way. But, oh no, they didn't spot the archer on the ledge above them! The archer gets a suprise round. Since the entire party is clumped up together, the archer uses his surprise round to fling an area burst 1 attack at the party.

The monkey was hanging out at Aladdin's heels, right beside him, because hey, that seems like the safest place, right? And sure, the DM could try and be 'nice' and exclude the monkey from the blast, but why would the archer do that, when he can catch more of the big, bad PCs in the blast if he includes the monkey? So, the party gets blasted in the surprise round, and the monkey, due to his level 1 defenses, is only missed on a 1. Apu dies in the very first encounter, before the group even rolls initiative, basically rendering Aladdin's theme useless for the entire adventure. And since they're just entering the dungeon, they're unlikely to get an extended rest any time soon. Is the party really going to call off their initial assault, leave the dungeon, and take an extended rest just so Aladdin can train another monkey-butler?


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## Nemesis Destiny (May 11, 2011)

UngeheuerLich said:


> On the other hand, what monster that is worth its money will devote an attack to kill an animal?



That's what the other posters are complaining about though - a monster doesn't have to devote an attack to killing the animal - it just has to catch it in an area effect and *poof* - animal destroyed until the end of the adventure. This is not even uncommon at low levels.

^--- EDIT - ninja'd! ---^

For it to be halfway viable, it would have to work like a familiar, or perhaps like a shaman's spirit companion, where it is not a valid target for area and burst attacks (melee or ranged only). That way, if a monster wanted to hurt it, the DM would have to target the animal specifically, thus "wasting" an attack. At least then its death would not have been for absolutely nothing. So much unlike the current situation, where it can just be casually killed by anything with area effects, auras, zones, etc.


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## UngeheuerLich (May 11, 2011)

This is actually what immediately came to my mind before reading your post Nemesis, and maybe a line, that makes a companion animal unconscious instead of dead and nontargetable for the rest of the encounter, would also help.

Would this solve the issue?

edit: maybe i should read posts before posting... (You Ninja´d me Nemesis in a very unsneaky way...)


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## AbdulAlhazred (May 11, 2011)

The more I think about it, the more I feel like the "animal problem" is really more of a conceptual issue with the theme itself. Instead of Animal Master focusing on a companion animal maybe it would have been more interesting for it to focus on "doing things with animals" in general. It does have its skill bonuses, but they're only marginally useful and don't kick in till level 10. 

I mean it is kind of academic, but giving the theme powers and bonuses that are related to ANY animal you run into, and maybe even unintelligent monsters of various sorts at higher level might have worked better. The character could still have his 'pet' animal, but his theme's advantages wouldn't depend entirely on it and it would become more of an RP thing. Anyway, just a thought.


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## IanB (May 11, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> Actually this isn't right, trap feats can have flavor but be immensely mechanically inferior to lots of other things (see most of the new feat cruft occupying up the CB from HoS for multiple examples. The flavor is there, the mechanics are simply not). The animal master isn't a trap yet because we don't know what the rest of the other themes are. I think the Animal Master is absolutely terrible, but if the rest of the themes actually are around the same power level (and things like the Order Adept are suitably nerfed) then it won't be as bad. I'll still think it's terrible, but it won't be a lot worse than other themes.
> 
> Of course this assumes the other themes are going to be similarly poorly thought out and mechanically awful. Let's hope that isn't the case. I am hoping for around the Alchemist and Apprentice myself.




Sure, in terms of raw combat power it is pretty terrible. If you're in a RP-heavy intrigue game with lots of skill use or whatever I suspect it compares much more favorably. Not every option is going to be equally suited to every type of game.


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## Aegeri (May 11, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> The more I think about it, the more I feel like the "animal problem" is really more of a conceptual issue with the theme itself. Instead of Animal Master focusing on a companion animal maybe it would have been more interesting for it to focus on "doing things with animals" in general. It does have its skill bonuses, but they're only marginally useful and don't kick in till level 10.



Back when I was actually excited for these, I was REALLY hoping for a theme that boosted the immensely lackluster beastmaster ranger and may have had power swap options for combined attack for the sentinel druid (as combined attack loses its luster at higher levels). I was hoping the theme would boost defenses, HP or something else for existing companions, while having a minor familiar like one for people lacking them. Animal companions (and mounts) scale horrifically in 4E. A theme that did something about that would have been awesome.

Instead we get this. Oh well.


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## Colmarr (May 12, 2011)

ardoughter said:


> In general I like the themes and look forward to seeing the rest. That said, with regard to the Animal Master one, if they allow a combat power then a survival mechanis for the poor creature that does not rely on the kindness of the DM is in order.




First we had hirelings and henchmen statted as minions, effectingly making them fodder for the DM to chew through. Now we have an animal companion minion.

I had a problem with the hirelings/henchmen article because taking helpers into a dungeon knowing they would almost certainly die didn't seem to sit well with 4e's 'small band of brave and determined heroes' motif. The more I think of it, the more it seems a tasty morsel aimed at the old-school approach that saw henchmen and hirelings as a form of armour that stood between the PCs and death.

Is it just me or is anyone else noting a change in design in that direction?


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## Saeviomagy (May 12, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yeah, I don't think there's a real problem with Animal Master either.
> 
> Here's an example: I have a player that wanted to have a pet cat....




Here's the solution: just let them have a pet cat. It sounds like they just want an in-character way to not have to sit in the corner with their eyes closed and their fingers in their ears every time the rest of the party go stealthing.

Is it really that hard to just say "you don't want a mechanical benefit, so here you go, have a pet cat for free"?

Hell, you can even HAVE mechanical benefits through reflavouring. ("My rogue is actually mechanically inept: all of his thievery skills are his pet monkey doing things").

Unfortunately now that there's a theme that says "it's ok to spend mechanical resources to get minor flavour benefits" the chances of a random DM saying "No, there's a theme for that. You can't get something like that for free" rises dramatically.



IanB said:


> Except it isn't a 'trap'. A mechanical trap would be something like a feat that adds no flavor at all and is inferior in every way to another feat or actually makes you worse.



Replace feat with theme and you've almost directly described animal master, unless your DM is the sort of person who says "no, you cannot have a pet cat that gives you no mechanical benefit because the rules don't say you can".

You don't need mechanics for pure flavour. Having feats that add pure flavour IS a trap.


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## Aegeri (May 12, 2011)

Colmarr said:


> Is it just me or is anyone else noting a change in design in that direction?



It's not just you, but I personally felt that was a response to the ridiculous "armies" of stuff that you could build in previous editions. I'll never forget the only time I actually was playing DnD in an actual real ongoing campaign (not just one shot playtests or similar) back in 2nd edition. I bought an army of war dogs with some treasure I got, then unleashed them into the orc filled dungeon ahead of us. It was a massacre to say the least, because they were pretty absurd IIRC. I even got the idea to do that off the internet at the time! In my own DMing experience, dealing with players with leadership and absurd diplomacy was very hard in 3rd edition as well (until I discovered they had crap saves. Wail of the Banshee GO).

So making these things minions is a way of making them have a useful benefit in some way, but reducing their combat ability extremely hard. Looking at all the mechanics for pets and similar, 4E makes a very conscious choice to try to make the game about the PCs as much as possible. The PCs pets, hirelings and other things are increasingly marginalized by the rules. It makes it very hard to try to build a kind of "Leader" character like you could get in 3rd edition. The only classes that get away with this feeling are mages/wizards and druids. Their summons are tough enough to take auras and a couple of burst/blast attacks (plus feat support is plentiful for those summons). They can't do this all day easily though.


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## IanB (May 12, 2011)

Saeviomagy said:


> You don't need mechanics for pure flavour. Having feats that add pure flavour IS a trap.




I think you are _seriously_ underestimating the potential of an encounter recharge, sustained, 1 mile range remote-controlled monkey.


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## Marshall (May 12, 2011)

IanB said:


> Sure, in terms of raw combat power it is pretty terrible. If you're in a RP-heavy intrigue game with lots of skill use or whatever I suspect it compares much more favorably. Not every option is going to be equally suited to every type of game.




I keep seeing this argument, but it just doesn't hold water. Why do they have to be mutually exclusive? Just because its a good roleplaying theme doesnt bar it from having good mechanics.


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## IanB (May 12, 2011)

Marshall said:


> I keep seeing this argument, but it just doesn't hold water. Why do they have to be mutually exclusive? Just because its a good roleplaying theme doesnt bar it from having good mechanics.




Good _combat_ mechanics, you should say. For sending your crow to fly up the Tower of the Serpent to peek in the window of the High Priest and maybe steal the signet ring off his desk, the mechanics are just fine.


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## Aegeri (May 12, 2011)

IanB said:


> Good _combat_ mechanics, you should say. For sending your crow to fly up the Tower of the Serpent to peek in the window of the High Priest and maybe steal the signet ring off his desk, the mechanics are just fine.



Just hope it wasn't trapped or enchanted to deal some kind of damage. Because after level 1, all of those effects will hit it automatically and then, well yeah you don't have it anymore for the rest of the adventure (until after level 5, then it's only until an extended rest!).

Edit: It's worth noting I looked up my campaign in 2008, which featured a part where the PCs needed to steal saucy love letters (don't ask). One of the tricks with this is that one of the letters was coated in a deadly poison as someone was trying to assassinate one of the lovers (to steal the other for themselves). Now a nasty poison effect (damage wise) and gaining a magical disease isn't a huge thing to a PC. But poor Abu the monkey, he was long for this world. This was around level 4 as well and again, is something I did years and years ago. I actually wanted to check if I had ever had a situation where the PCs would want to steal something and it was trapped/dangerous in some manner (six of them weren't). 

Of course on thinking about it, that poor Abu would have took what is actually quite an annoying effect for an actual character would have been rather useful in this context.


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## IanB (May 12, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> Just hope it wasn't trapped or enchanted to deal some kind of damage. Because after level 1, all of those effects will hit it automatically and then, well yeah you don't have it anymore for the rest of the adventure (until after level 5, then it's only until an extended rest!).
> 
> Edit: It's worth noting I looked up my campaign in 2008, which featured a part where the PCs needed to steal saucy love letters (don't ask). One of the tricks with this is that one of the letters was coated in a deadly poison as someone was trying to assassinate one of the lovers (to steal the other for themselves). Now a nasty poison effect (damage wise) and gaining a magical disease isn't a huge thing to a PC. But poor Abu the monkey, he was long for this world. This was around level 4 as well and again, is something I did years and years ago. I actually wanted to check if I had ever had a situation where the PCs would want to steal something and it was trapped/dangerous in some manner (six of them weren't).
> 
> Of course on thinking about it, that poor Abu would have took what is actually quite an annoying effect for an actual character would have been rather useful in this context.




Well sure, everyone knows monkeys are susceptible to poison. Bad dates.


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## Aegeri (May 12, 2011)

Other than the poison damage reading that disease again it was one of more banana's (I like to keep to _theme_ here) ideas that I have had. It was really annoying, because if you got affected at stage 1 you took a -2 penalty to will. At stage 2, you were automatically affected by powers with the charm keyword (nasty). If you got to stage 3, you had to do whatever you were told. So if a creature told you to jump off a cliff: Whelp, time to find a cliff and jump off it. Of course the point of the third stage was to make the woman in question suggestible to the evil baron who planted it there. I can't see if anyone ever got affected by it 

Now that I think of it, I should bring that back in some way in one of my current games. It was clearly grossly underused. Having some other creature take that effect instead of a PC would have been a terrible, if somewhat noble death though.


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## AbdulAlhazred (May 12, 2011)

Saeviomagy said:


> Here's the solution: just let them have a pet cat. It sounds like they just want an in-character way to not have to sit in the corner with their eyes closed and their fingers in their ears every time the rest of the party go stealthing.
> 
> Is it really that hard to just say "you don't want a mechanical benefit, so here you go, have a pet cat for free"?
> 
> ...




Except you STILL fail to note that having an ordinary pet cat doesn't do jack for you. The character in my example didn't want an ordinary pet cat, she wanted a cat that would go on a scouting run with the rogue. I don't care if you're a high level adventurer or what you are, you're not training an ordinary cat to do that, period. An Animal Master is more than fluff. It may be underpowered for a theme, but it is NOT fluff. 

[MENTION=78116]Aegeri[/MENTION] Agreed on the armies thing. I think 4e may have moved a little bit too much in the other direction in some ways, but actually it is pretty close to AD&D, but with better summons (AD&D summons were a total joke, the very best of them were poor options). 

OTOH I utterly fail to comprehend your opinion on the Beast Master Ranger. BMR is an extremely potent striker build which trades about 10% of its damage output vs a TBF or Archer build for a very useful pet (one that CAN and WILL survive, does scale, and has all the RP potential of the Animal Handler's animal but also has some modest combat utility). People have fixated on the fact that beasts don't do much damage and seem to have forgotten that the ranger himself does, well, RANGER damage, the best in the game! Yeah, you're going to try to tell me all about Prime Shot blah blah blah, but I've built it, played it, seen it, it is nasty and you don't need the PS feat tree to be downright scary.


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## Aegeri (May 12, 2011)

The problem with the BMR is the BMR powers are absolutely terrible. In reality, you're a ranger with a pet that serves as a flanking buddy and does little else. That is kind of useful, especially for a bow ranger as it lets you have a melee presence as well - but it's also not actually very good in terms of concept. All the beast really does is occupy a square for flanking but the damage is _miserable_ so you never ever attack with it (or take beast master ranger powers). I can see the benefit there, but it really takes some work and MM3 creatures (due to the companions poor defenses) can dismantle them easily with bursts/blasts. Certain creatures can even turn them into a liability due to always hitting it with their powers.

You see, I like my options to actually be options and not traps. The BMR is a gigantic example of the perfect trap option in 4E. You take it and then ignore _every_ power that has to do with it in the game. It's literally something there to occupy a square and provide an extra source for placing quarry (which is why I see bow rangers use them). In every other way it's a trap option and grossly inferior to the other two fighting styles. If you optimize it, which is literally just taking it for the quarry and flanking benefits it is useful in a way. Otherwise someone who takes it and the powers will basically be walking right into an enormous trap.

That is poor design and why I rag it. Plus all the other styles are flat out superior options. Gaining CA is easy enough mitigating the beasts ability to flank as being *that* great, it can't do jack to monsters with its attacks so it's irrelevant for that and defensively it's a bust. If you're a bow ranger I can *really* see the advantage it provides with quarry. Now that is unquestionable to me, but is it *really* worth giving up some of the ridiculous prime shot feats and +1 accuracy? It's really not.


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## Neonchameleon (May 12, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> Now that is unquestionable to me, but is it *really* worth giving up some of the ridiculous prime shot feats and +1 accuracy? It's really not.




The prime shot feats only work at paragon.  And the question there is whether you are going for sharpshooter.  Because if you go for sharpshooter, you can make opportunity attacks with your bow.  If you do that, you can take Beast Protector as a feat.  And _that_ gives you opportunity attacks.  A lot of them.

It's the Beast Companion that puts the Sharpshooter Paragon Path right up there with Battlefield Archer with all the Prime Shot feats.  And at heroic, there aren't the Prime Shot feats.  So it's a choice between getting +1 to hit and some defence against opportunity attacks _if you take a high risk strategy_ or the lower risk strategy of standing back and shooting - and having a very mobile bag of hit points to both place quarries and get in the bad guys way.  (If you aren't using the high risk strategy of Prime Shot, taking the beast companion costs you nothing).

On the other hand, I agree about the Beast Companion powers.


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## Dice4Hire (May 12, 2011)

I have always liked the BMR's out of combat versatility via the animal companion.


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## UngeheuerLich (May 12, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> Just hope it wasn't trapped or enchanted to deal some kind of damage. Because after level 1, all of those effects will hit it automatically and then, well yeah you don't have it anymore for the rest of the adventure (until after level 5, then it's only until an extended rest!).




I don´t remeber the rule that makes all attacks hitting automatically from level 2 on. Can you quote that please.

I think the rule is, that monster´s attacks attack increases by 1 point between level 1 and level 2. Also I believe, an attack roll of 1 always misses.

But I have been wrong before...

...so i need to look up, if all traps of level two or higher have effects that deal damage, instead of hit lines...


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## Aegeri (May 12, 2011)

> If you do that, you can take Beast Protector as a feat.  And _that_ gives you opportunity attacks.  A lot of them.



I'm kind of confused because IIRC this only triggers on when an enemy makes a _melee_ attack against the beast. Quite frankly, any enemy that is dumb enough to attack the beast companion with a melee attack is wasting a *lot* of time and effort unless forced to. Bursts and blasts trivially kill the beast companion off, while affecting PCs most of the time as well. Unless there is literally no other target, I can't remember the last time I made a melee attack against a beast companion after heroic tier. There is literally no point to attacking it unless you are forced to actually do so (as it's opportunity attacks suck).

The fact the beast is like a giant cat, feebly scratching away at any monster at paragon or above makes it very little threat*. You're going to have to tell me how you make it threatening enough for any paragon or epic monster to even bother with (except for including in bursts). I guess if you immobilize an enemy and put the beast adjacent you might get an attack? That's a lot of effort for a maybe.


> It's the Beast Companion that puts the Sharpshooter Paragon Path right  up there with Battlefield Archer with all the Prime Shot feats.



It does? I'm... okay, I'm just not seeing that frankly. Why is anything bothering to melee attack the beast companion? I mean if they are doing that, the beast is being MUCH more useful than I would ever anticipate! In fact the instant any creature wastes its standard action on the beast attacking it like that, you've had a major victory in the first place!

Have I missed something here?


UngeheuerLich said:


> I don´t remeber the rule that makes all  attacks hitting automatically from level 2 on. Can you quote that  please.



Traps and hazards often simply inflict automatic damage (or incorporate such effects). Even when they don't, because the minions defenses don't scale they are practically hit on everything but a 1 very quickly, which might as well automatically kill them. This is why they have such huge problems with auras in particular.

*Now that I think of it, this reminds me of how pre-MM3 monsters felt like against PCs!


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## Danzauker (May 12, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> The problem with the BMR is the BMR powers are absolutely terrible. In reality, you're a ranger with a pet that serves as a flanking buddy and does little else. That is kind of useful, especially for a bow ranger as it lets you have a melee presence as well - but it's also not actually very good in terms of concept. All the beast really does is occupy a square for flanking but the damage is _miserable_ so you never ever attack with it (or take beast master ranger powers). I can see the benefit there, but it really takes some work and MM3 creatures (due to the companions poor defenses) can dismantle them easily with bursts/blasts. Certain creatures can even turn them into a liability due to always hitting it with their powers.




A little side note.

I never played a BMR, but if the main concern is low damage output and low defenses, could it be errataed/house ruled with a simple flat +2 damage/+1 to defenses (maybe per tier per tier) to all beast powers?

Not that a house rule is a good excuse for poor design, but, honestly, in your opinion, would then a BMR be better?

Sorry for going OT, I'm just curious.


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## Aegeri (May 12, 2011)

I would absolutely LOVE beast companions to get inherent bonus like additions to their damage. So they got an enhancement bonus like increase and critical damage. So a bear say hits like a dump truck on a critical dealing d12s, while a wolf might deal d8s and perhaps knock prone (this is just off the top of my head). It's not everything they need of course, but at least it's an easy start and already emulates something in the game already (that works pretty well as it is). 

I am actually already tempted to institute such a rule in my own games. The sentinel druids companion for example will scale poorly into the later stages of my Eberron campaign. Adding an inherent bonus increase for damage rolls and critical hit bonus dice will keep combined attack feeling more relevant. It's not much of a problem right now, but later on I think this is something I will have to consider.


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## UngeheuerLich (May 12, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> Traps and hazards often simply inflict automatic damage (or incorporate such effects). Even when they don't, because the minions defenses don't scale they are practically hit on everything but a 1 very quickly, which might as well automatically kill them. This is why they have such huge problems with auras in particular.




The worst level is level 4. This is not nearly autohit... I don´t say there is no issue, but that was quite a bit of an exaggeration.

I really would have liked a line, that explicitely makes the cat favoured by some goddess of luck... allowing to evade bursts and blasts and auras. Have a damage treshold or something like that. (btw, the shaman spirit needs his treshold adjusted with the new monster damage scaling...)

I just notice, once again, underestimating the utility of a pet. Some people are gladly exchanging power vs utility.

And once again, we are at the point, where a legitimate criticism about 4e - the lack of a possibility to make flavour choices over combat choices - was adressed, and wotc beeing flamed for that.
Why can´t people just ignore "underpowered" choices and let people who like them use them? Overpowered choices or choices that don´t give any benefit for reduced combat utility are much more problematic. (The seeker issue or the shade racial power are things I understand. The shade racial mainly, because it does not work as intended and really needs a clarification/update...)


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## Aegeri (May 12, 2011)

UngeheuerLich said:


> I really would have liked a line, that explicitely makes the cat favoured by some goddess of luck... allowing to evade bursts and blasts and auras. Have a damage treshold or something like that. (btw, the shaman spirit needs his treshold adjusted with the new monster damage scaling...)



I agree, that would be an obvious solution and again: I wonder _why that wasn't put into its rules in the first place if that was the intent_.

On the shaman spirit companion, I absolutely 100% disagree. For numerous reasons as well. Firstly, spirit companions cannot be targeted by bursts and blasts in the first place. This automatically makes them one of the most resilient features of its type in 4E. They are also not harmed by auras, so a creature to get rid of them the companion has to specifically be targeted by a melee or ranged attack. This is a _huge_ victory for the shaman. Much like the BMR above, if a monster wastes its standard action attacking it you have scored a *huge* victory. That's damage not being directed at anything important.

Additionally, the spirit is very easily resummoned and in fact by being dismissed it can be a considerable advantage in many ways. So I have no sympathy for the spirit companion and it works extremely well. If it could be killed by bursts or blasts I would agree. As it can't if a creature uses its standard action on the spirit with an attack, the creature has used its turn in a terrible manner making a _huge_ victory for the PCs.


> And once again, we are at the point, where a legitimate criticism about 4e - the lack of a possibility to make flavour choices over combat choices - was adressed, and wotc beeing flamed for that.



They failed spectacularly. Had the rest of the themes been like that I agree. As it is with something as mechanically strong as Order Adept in there, the deficiencies in themes like the animal master are all the more glaring. If the themes were all of that kind of level, adding minor mechanical benefits and something else utility wise I would agree. But when you have such a gigantic mechanical gulf between them, then they fail.

Terrible options are as bad as overpowered options. They clutter the CB and can lead new players into making poor choices - making them feel marginalized at the table when they soon find themselves rendered very ineffective. I mean we're literally talking about something that is at your DMs mercy entirely, vs. something that is almost one of the best examples of power creep in 4E!


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## AbdulAlhazred (May 12, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> The problem with the BMR is the BMR powers are absolutely terrible. In reality, you're a ranger with a pet that serves as a flanking buddy and does little else. That is kind of useful, especially for a bow ranger as it lets you have a melee presence as well - but it's also not actually very good in terms of concept. All the beast really does is occupy a square for flanking but the damage is _miserable_ so you never ever attack with it (or take beast master ranger powers). I can see the benefit there, but it really takes some work and MM3 creatures (due to the companions poor defenses) can dismantle them easily with bursts/blasts. Certain creatures can even turn them into a liability due to always hitting it with their powers.
> 
> You see, I like my options to actually be options and not traps. The BMR is a gigantic example of the perfect trap option in 4E. You take it and then ignore _every_ power that has to do with it in the game. It's literally something there to occupy a square and provide an extra source for placing quarry (which is why I see bow rangers use them). In every other way it's a trap option and grossly inferior to the other two fighting styles. If you optimize it, which is literally just taking it for the quarry and flanking benefits it is useful in a way. Otherwise someone who takes it and the powers will basically be walking right into an enormous trap.
> 
> That is poor design and why I rag it. Plus all the other styles are flat out superior options. Gaining CA is easy enough mitigating the beasts ability to flank as being *that* great, it can't do jack to monsters with its attacks so it's irrelevant for that and defensively it's a bust. If you're a bow ranger I can *really* see the advantage it provides with quarry. Now that is unquestionable to me, but is it *really* worth giving up some of the ridiculous prime shot feats and +1 accuracy? It's really not.




Well, I have some experience with melee BMR build. It is better than you portray it. The real problem is that you don't give up much over a TBF build to get the beast. That beast is also handier in combat than you give it credit for. If the beast's attacks were pumped up to high damage it actually can get kind of out of hand pretty quick. For one thing at epic the beast's attack is effectively a minor action at-will for the character, which if it were on a par with other attacks would get outrageous. 

As for beast powers. Yeah, they're not really mostly all that interesting. There are a couple of them you can do some decent stuff with but in general they're not that useful unless you're going for something more like an off-role controller/defender kind of build, in which case you can justify several of them. The beast simply never was a feature that was designed to crank out damage, it is more of a utility and control feature. I think they COULD go somewhat in the other direction with it at this point though.

That brings up the last observation however, which is that BMR in the context of PHB1 builds makes a lot more sense design-wise. Since then emphasis has shifted more and more towards certain types of optimization and optimized play style that doesn't focus on the kinds of things that BMR generally does. It isn't a bad option AT ALL, it is just not getting quite the same add-ons that other builds are. 

BMR isn't a trap option at all, it simply doesn't work in the way people seem to insist that it should work. If you go with it and play to its strengths it works quite well and outperforms a wide range of other builds that you don't hear a lot of bitching about.

This is also all ignoring all the amazing out of combat potentialities of the beast itself, which are quite substantial and which really only the sentinel has anything close to equivalent to. Honestly, while ranger is very thematically appropriate for a beast master sentinel clearly points out that the ranger class design wasn't terribly well suited mechanically to the purpose of making an "I fight through my animal friend" kind of setup. The nice thing is, we do have sentinel now, so that niche has a perfectly nice option. BMR is still useful though depending on exactly what you need and unless you're goal is that extra tip top bit of added DPR at high levels at the cost of all else you aren't gimping yourself.

Which kind of ties back to the whole theme subject. Perceived disparities in various options like Animal Master really go back to the ancient and perpetual tension between flexibility and specialization. High degrees of specialization in combat get high marks from optimizers, but a high degree of flexibility gets high marks from players with other goals. They are by definition somewhat opposed to each other and no amount of design tweaking is going to entirely remove that, aside from simply going back to AD&D era class design (which Essentials isn't even in the ballpark of doing).


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## Aegeri (May 12, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:
			
		

> BMR isn't a trap option at all, it simply doesn't work in the way people seem to insist that it should work.



I don't mean to cut down your post of rather valid points to this alone, but this is the crux of it for me. The ranger is a *striker*. This is his *job*. He should be - first and foremost - a striker who deals damage. People who insist that it should work in being an effective option for dealing damage _are 100% right_. That's exactly what it should be doing and what it fails in doing. This is again, what makes it a total trap option because it performs very poorly _when you actually take the powers_. I am well aware of the utility of the BMR, but it's failure in the actual _role_ of the class is extremely problematic. 

This is why I dislike the animal master as well. It's design is confused because like the BMR it has no idea what it's trying to do. It might get relegated to a pure flavor pet, but it's strictly worse than other options making it a trap for newer players. Advanced players might be able to get a lot out of it, such as those who realize the BMR is inherently terrible but the pet has its uses for occasionally meatshielding, sometimes flanking and the quarry advantage it provides. 

If 4E didn't demonstrate time and time again you can build a class with solid mechanics and achieve certain themes _effectively_ I wouldn't be so harsh. The slayer and thief are great examples of having very simple classes to play, that are incredibly effective even against their original (already very effective) parent classes that are much more complex. That's an A+ design success there. That's what I want to see more of. I want to see less feat cruft and pure crap options. 

The problem as well is that I know that overpowered stuff like Order Adept, it will get fixed. Stuff that sucks? Well too bad. It will suck forever.


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## UngeheuerLich (May 12, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> ...They are also not harmed by auras, so a creature to get rid of them the companion has to specifically be targeted by a melee or ranged attack. This is a _huge_ victory for the shaman. Much like the BMR above, if a monster wastes its standard action attacking it you have scored a *huge* victory. That's damage not being directed at anything important.




of course, the damage that carries over to the shaman needs to be increased accordingly. I guess the intention was that thetreshold, which scales with 0.5*level should scale with monster average damage. So the new MM3 math should mathematically force the adjustment of the treshold... In a certain way, that would make attacking the spirit more rewarding for the monster...!



Aegeri said:


> They failed spectacularly. Had the rest of the themes been like that I agree. As it is with something as mechanically strong as Order Adept in there, the deficiencies in themes like the animal master are all the more glaring. If the themes were all of that kind of level, adding minor mechanical benefits and something else utility wise I would agree. But when you have such a gigantic mechanical gulf between them, then they fail.
> 
> Terrible options are as bad as overpowered options. They clutter the CB and can lead new players into making poor choices - making them feel marginalized at the table when they soon find themselves rendered very ineffective. I mean we're literally talking about something that is at your DMs mercy entirely, vs. something that is almost one of the best examples of power creep in 4E!




No, they didn´t fail. Even if all themes give a little benefit to all characters, you now have a choice to take an option without great combat applications. If all themes were like that, this choice would not be present, and as such, it would in no way adress the criticized issue. Having combat and noncombat options in the same layer makes it possible. If all themes were like the animal master, this layer would have just been the noncombat layer everyone takes.

This in no way means, that adding a layer with pure noncombat choices would have been a bad idea... but this special criticism would not have been invalidated. And I personally (with just a little worry about the order adept and the animal masters animal) like what I see. I like them a lot more in standard D&D than the DS themes, that just add another class role/power source to a character... (which in dark sun seems great to incorporate the old dark sun classes without adding tons of class variants)


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## Kinneus (May 12, 2011)

UngeheuerLich said:


> Why can´t people just ignore "underpowered" choices and let people who like them use them?



The reason I don't like blatantly underpowered choices is because people who are new to the system are unlikely to recognize that it is blatantly underpowered. When a new player joins the game and picks the Animal Master theme, they're probably imagining lots of crazy adventures with their awesome animal friend helping out, fetching keys, swooping down to rake at an enemy's eyes at an opportune moment. They're likely not imagining it dying with near-comedic frequency. But that's what they're going to get.

If there was a sticker slapped onto blatantly underpowered choices that said something to the effect of: "Warning: this selection is intended to be an RP choice/challenge for more experienced players/niche option," I'd honestly be fine with them. But since I don't see that happening any time soon, I'd like it if WotC at least tried to keep some semblance of balance.

Nothing sucks more for a new player than trying out a new system and finding that your favorite class/race/concept of choice is predestined to suck.


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## AbdulAlhazred (May 12, 2011)

I think you'll find when you've been around the game designing block a few times, which I have, that what seems simple and straightforward to people sitting in their armchairs really is not at all simple and straightforward in practice. I haven't met or talked to Mike Mearls or any of the other WotC game dev people but I feel reasonably confident in stating that they have people there with a mechanical grasp of the game every bit as thorough as anything you'll find anywhere. There are simply a lot of difficulties involved in producing content that are invisible to you sitting at home. There are also a lot of competing interests that you naturally give less weight to than your own (not a criticism, just an observation about human nature). 

I'd also note that in MANY cases when options have been weak, ineffective, or didn't serve their original intent well they actually HAVE been improved. This doesn't happen uniformly in a specific way, but it does happen. People weren't satisfied with beast master's balance of combat capability between the beast and the character, so the sentinel was erected as an answer to that for instance. Wizards had trouble at low levels with control, so that was improved. Paladins had trouble with well a lot of things, and that was substantially improved. People don't always like the way these things have been accomplished and since there's no real way to remove content from the game it does get littered with stuff that has been tried, found somewhat wanting, and is no longer being focused on or improved in that form. Only an edition roll is going to clean that up.


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## UngeheuerLich (May 12, 2011)

@ Trap choices:

Trap choices are choices that look good on paper, but are bad in actual play.

The animal master does not look like a great combat option on paper. Even an inexperienced player would notice that. Fetching a key and swooping down for a second are also covered by the rules... In general you don´t have your bird die all the time. It just dies, if you send it to death regularily. And actually, it should die horribly if you abuse it to do all kind of dangerous things regularily.

This was one of my main complains of the druid in 3.5:
Your animal companion was just too tough. It was not your companion, but your fighting pet. So i rather have this kind of animals than the overpowered thing we are used to...

So it is perfectly fine, that they can neither absorb attacks nor make your group´s thief redundant.

On the otherhand, it should not regularily die by just beeing around... So an exclusion to auras and bursts and blasts, and a hover on death´s door rule would not hurt.


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## pauljathome (May 12, 2011)

UngeheuerLich said:


> @ Trap choices:
> 
> Trap choices are choices that look good on paper, but are bad in actual play.
> 
> ...


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## Saeviomagy (May 12, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Except you STILL fail to note that having an ordinary pet cat doesn't do jack for you. The character in my example didn't want an ordinary pet cat, she wanted a cat that would go on a scouting run with the rogue. I don't care if you're a high level adventurer or what you are, you're not training an ordinary cat to do that, period. An Animal Master is more than fluff. It may be underpowered for a theme, but it is NOT fluff.




Perhaps I'm misunderstanding: what could the cat actually do while it followed the rogue out on a scouting run? I'm imagining that the cat's actions were pretty much:
Follow the rogue
Make stealth checks
Make perception checks and alert the rogue of potential dangers
And even once in a while:
assist the rogue's stealth checks (oh, never mind, it's just a cat).
run for help when the <blank> hits the fan.

The rogue is already going to report the results of the scouting mission to the rest of the party, so you don't need any special communication between the cat and the master.

That's all stuff I would consider to be in the realms of possibility for an 'ordinary' adventurer's cat.

Now sure, if you want the cat to be picking pockets, stealing important documents, carrying treasure or stuff like that, you're going to need something more. Hell, even those are things that cats have been trained for in the real world. In this case "something more" is going to be a high nature skill.


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## AbdulAlhazred (May 13, 2011)

Saeviomagy said:


> Perhaps I'm misunderstanding: what could the cat actually do while it followed the rogue out on a scouting run? I'm imagining that the cat's actions were pretty much:
> Follow the rogue
> Make stealth checks
> Make perception checks and alert the rogue of potential dangers
> ...




Probably my fault. Or maybe we have different impressions of what cats are capable of. I would say an ordinary cat is a zero. I've owned many cats. Perhaps you could get one to reliably play fetch, sometimes. They surely won't stick around if there's the slightest danger, or follow you anywhere, or go where you tell them, etc. So a basic pet cat sans Animal Master is about as useful as a hood ornament. I guess it might alert you to danger as it hauled ass out of the way!

Yeah, the player wanted to have a way to 'tag along' on a scouting mission. So an animal that could be stealthy, would (at least according to the rules) perform mostly how you want it to, and can even report back if that becomes necessary, or relay a message, etc. was pretty much what the doctor ordered. 

I agree, the Animal Master cat can't physically do anything supernormal. It is just that the mere fact that you can use an animal that way at all IS supernormal already. Even a dog wouldn't do the kinds of things an animal master can get his pets to do automatically, regardless of training.


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## Saeviomagy (May 13, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Probably my fault. Or maybe we have different impressions of what cats are capable of.




I'd say it's probably the second - my wife has been wanting a cat for quite some time and I'm very much a dog person. Her arguments have partially consisted of demonstrations of how various cat breeds can be trained like dogs and are every bit as intelligent.

For instance, google "moscow cat theatre".


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## AbdulAlhazred (May 13, 2011)

Oh, you can train them in a sense. Like any animal though only within certain parameters of what their natural propensities are. What Animal Masters are doing? Yeah, its pretty much paranormal. Dogs might almost get there, but you just can't get animals to independently act like the scouting cat would, etc. So I'd say it is still a cool theme and gives you some interesting, if not earth shattering, options. Still agree with the durability issue though. That was I was saying it probably would have been better built along the lines of doing stuff with any animal anytime vs using specific animals as helpers/tools (albeit you sure can train one up fast).


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## IanB (May 13, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Oh, you can train them in a sense. Like any animal though only within certain parameters of what their natural propensities are. What Animal Masters are doing? Yeah, its pretty much paranormal. Dogs might almost get there, but you just can't get animals to independently act like the scouting cat would, etc. So I'd say it is still a cool theme and gives you some interesting, if not earth shattering, options. Still agree with the durability issue though. That was I was saying it probably would have been better built along the lines of doing stuff with any animal anytime vs using specific animals as helpers/tools (albeit you sure can train one up fast).




Yeah the Primal keyword on the powers is a dead giveaway for it being at least somewhat supernatural, IMO.


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## GMforPowergamers (May 13, 2011)

IanB said:


> Yeah the Primal keyword on the powers is a dead giveaway for it being at least somewhat supernatural, IMO.




I want the dog from the jona hex movie...


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## Kerranin (May 13, 2011)

I am not happy with the power-creep this system enables. I think the only reasonable way you could add themes is to have enough of them, and wide ranging enough, so that all PCs could pick an appropriate one.


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## UngeheuerLich (May 13, 2011)

i guess this is the idea...


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## AbdulAlhazred (May 13, 2011)

Kerranin said:


> I am not happy with the power-creep this system enables. I think the only reasonable way you could add themes is to have enough of them, and wide ranging enough, so that all PCs could pick an appropriate one.




It would be nice if NOT picking a theme was as good as picking one, but it does seem hard to imagine how you could both give some mechanical support to the theme and at the same time make it not advantageous to have one. I guess you could make them cost a feat slot, but these days people seem so short of those...


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## twilsemail (May 13, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> It would be nice if NOT picking a theme was as good as picking one, but it does seem hard to imagine how you could both give some mechanical support to the theme and at the same time make it not advantageous to have one. I guess you could make them cost a feat slot, but these days people seem so short of those...




Why would it help in any way to make it not advantageous to have a theme?

Would you prefer a PC were the same with or without Paragon Paths or Epic Destinies?  That's the slot these are filling in Heroic.

Would you like to see a PC be balanced with or without a background?  That can't really happen.  These are a new element like backgrounds.  Much likee backgrounds, they were changed for the game at large when translated from a setting book.

They've added a new element.  Much like with the existing elements, some are stronger than others.  Players will, in the end, do one of two things.  They will either pick what fits their concept, or they'll pick whatever makes their character mechanically superior.  These may wind up being the same option, but the drive is usually one or the other.


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## AbdulAlhazred (May 13, 2011)

twilsemail said:


> Why would it help in any way to make it not advantageous to have a theme?
> 
> Would you prefer a PC were the same with or without Paragon Paths or Epic Destinies?  That's the slot these are filling in Heroic.
> 
> ...




Not all characters need one, and it would be nice to be able to pick up some of them later on vs always defining that aspect of the character immediately. Technically you can retrain them, which is nice but not perfect. Personally I don't have a big issue with it. The poster I was replying to apparently was disturbed by this is all.


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## Kerranin (May 13, 2011)

twilsemail said:


> Why would it help in any way to make it not advantageous to have a theme?
> 
> Would you prefer a PC were the same with or without Paragon Paths or Epic Destinies?  That's the slot these are filling in Heroic.
> 
> ...



But by equating themes with paragon paths & epic destinies you're supporting my point about making sure that there is a theme available for every PC, and as I said, as long as there are enough themes to allow every PC a choice then fair enough.

What I wouldn't want is for themes to only make sense for a few characters and everyone else to just lose out.  Would you be happy if some classes didn't get paragon paths?


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## twilsemail (May 13, 2011)

Kerranin said:


> But by equating themes with paragon paths & epic destinies you're supporting my point about making sure that there is a theme available for every PC, and as I said, as long as there are enough themes to allow every PC a choice then fair enough.




I certainly think that there should be enough to support every character.  I also think they're doing a great job of doing that with just the ten options they're presenting here.  It's likely that you'll be able to fit most PCs in one of these 10 themes or at least be able to refluff a theme to fit them.



Kerranin said:


> What I wouldn't want is for themes to only make sense for a few characters and everyone else to just lose out. Would you be happy if some classes didn't get paragon paths?




No, I wouldn't be.  I don't think that any of the listed themes sound so outlandish that you couldn't find a way to make one of them fit a PC.


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## Kerranin (May 13, 2011)

twilsemail said:


> I don't think that any of the listed themes sound so outlandish that you couldn't find a way to make one of them fit a PC.



I'd prefer to see a good few more, but it would certainly be worth a try just to see how feasible it is to assign a theme to every member of a group.


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## ThirdWizard (May 13, 2011)

[MENTION=93904]Kerranin[/MENTION] on the plus side, there are still three more articles to come, so there will hopefully be enough options for everyone at the table to be happy. *crosses fingers*


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## Mentat55 (May 13, 2011)

I can say that, for my level 16 wizard, I've seen three themes so far -- Order Adept, Apprentice, and Scholar -- that would be great fits.  In the two remaining articles, the noble theme and the explorer theme might also fit, though I imagine the explorer theme might be more Indiana Jones or Lara Croft than book-toting archaelogist.


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## GMforPowergamers (May 13, 2011)

Mentat55 said:


> though I imagine the explorer theme might be more Indiana Jones or Lara Croft than book-toting archaelogist.




OK, now I want to play a hot elvin chick ranger explorer...that wears half shirts, and short shorts...


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## Nemesis Destiny (May 13, 2011)

I could go on at length about my hopes for themes where it concerns my existing characters, but I'll spare the details and just say that I'm really looking forward to more, and can't wait to apply one to all my characters when I go back to playing instead of DMing.


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