Themes

[Tvtyrant]

I am currently working on a new 4E campaign and was thinking of incorporating themes into it. I feel like they provide greater continuity with paragon paths and epic destinies, and they provide greater personalization of characters.

I know that most of the themes are in the Heroes of --- line and Darksun, are there any additional ones I should know of? Are themes worth using?

Edit: Also my players each have a noticeable tendency in making characters. Person 1 likes weird fluff and variable abilities, so they are in on themes.
Person 2 like feeling awesome, so as long as they get cool stuff they are fine.
Person 3 is more problematic because they tend not to deviate from a few actions repeated over and over again in combat. This is fine, but they might feel a little overwhelmed with options. Any suggestions on how to help them with this? Any largely passive themes?

[NecroRebel]

There are themes in:
Dark Sun Campaign Setting
Dragons 390, 399, 400, 401, 402, 404, 405, 406, 407, 408, 409, 410, 412, 414, 416, 420 and 426
Heroes of the Elemental Chaos
Heroes of the Feywild
Into the Unknown
Neverwinter Campaign Setting
The Book of Vile Darkness
There might be others that I'm not aware of.

If themes are allowed, there's no reason not to use them. They literally give you something for nothing.

If you're DMing and your players are being overwhelmed with character creation options, consider simply not allowing character backgrounds and themes. They're not really necessary for any reason, and not having them can actually make it easier to fluff a character because you're not required to fit the character fluff to a mechanical theme.

[Rhaegar14]

Person 3 is more problematic because they tend not to deviate from a few actions repeated over and over again in combat. This is fine, but they might feel a little overwhelmed with options. Any suggestions on how to help them with this? Any largely passive themes?

Purple Dragon Knight might be a good one; it has a stance that modifies melee basic attacks, iirc.

[Kurald Galain]

Person 3 is more problematic because they tend not to deviate from a few actions repeated over and over again in combat. This is fine, but they might feel a little overwhelmed with options. Any suggestions on how to help them with this? Any largely passive themes?

How about starting him off without one, then allowing him to pick one a few sessions in, when he's more comfortable with the system?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Person 3 is more problematic because they tend not to deviate from a few actions repeated over and over again in combat. This is fine, but they might feel a little overwhelmed with options. Any suggestions on how to help them with this? Any largely passive themes?

Tell person 3 to play a ranger, and to grab twin strike? Rumour says that when you do, you don't need any other attack. Give him a passive theme like the one that gives him more HP, and call it a day.

GW

[ryuplaneswalker]

I always felt themes were more about Roleplaying than the mechanical benefits, which is why I think they are the best thing about 4th edition you can add that little bit of "your backstory shows in your abilities" into your character.

It is rather hard to give advice on the themes unless you yourself are going to build their characters, most themes have one attack you get for free, then some other powers you can choose to pick up instead of your class in addition to free stuff at level 5 and 10 so no matter the theme the third person will have one extra power, most of them do not care what stats you use for their abilities but a few select ones do so watch out for that.

For the first player, The Were____ themes should be fun, they are fluffy as all get out, Also Chaosmade or Fatedancer would be good ones if he likes variable abilities.

for the second player, Spellscarred harbinger could be fun lots of "cool" powers like the ability to make it harder for things with recharge powers to recharge them, and a utility that lets you redirect an attack, Alchemist also looks like it would have potential to be "cool and fun to use"

The third person is rough as every theme grants another button, though past that it is all taking X ability instead of your normal classes power at that level, for him I would suggest Outlaw, Spy, or Guardian all of which have abilities that are little bits of utility that are not really missed if you forget about them (though Guardian is a lifesaver if someone is about to go squish)

[EugeneVoid]

Are you ready?
Use... THIS (http://community.wizards.com/content/forum-topic/3331711)

[Tvtyrant]

Tell person 3 to play a ranger, and to grab twin strike? Rumour says that when you do, you don't need any other attack. Give him a passive theme like the one that gives him more HP, and call it a day.

GW

I wish I could, but she is a lurker type at heart. Anyone got any ideas on how to make a relevant and simple lurker build?

[Calen]

Well the heart of a lurker would be a solid understanding of the stealth rules.
Google "The hidden club"' (I think?) for a good explanation of this.

If your player can get a solid grasp of that then a rouge with a hand-crossbow/sling playing as Cunning Sneak would be a good choice.

IMO though rouges are one of the harder strikers to play as a new player because of the stealth and combat advantage rules that is usually more advanced.

[Sol]

The outlaw theme is pretty great for lurkers.

It's not entirely passive, but its encounter power triggers on a hit and dazes your target, which is a rogue's best friend. At later levels it gives you a choice of terrains in which to ignore difficult terrain, and intimidate/streetwise boosts, which aren't amazing but play well with Rogue native skill picks.

The power swaps are all speed or stealth related.

Personally? I love themes. They add a little extra power to low level characters, sure, but spamming the same at-wills can get really boring, and even one more encounter power helps a lot. And the power isn't overwhelming. It hovers around two feats worth.

[Tvtyrant]

Thanks everyone! Good suggestions.

The outlaw theme is pretty great for lurkers.

It's not entirely passive, but its encounter power triggers on a hit and dazes your target, which is a rogue's best friend. At later levels it gives you a choice of terrains in which to ignore difficult terrain, and intimidate/streetwise boosts, which aren't amazing but play well with Rogue native skill picks.

The power swaps are all speed or stealth related.

Personally? I love themes. They add a little extra power to low level characters, sure, but spamming the same at-wills can get really boring, and even one more encounter power helps a lot. And the power isn't overwhelming. It hovers around two feats worth.

I think the lower levels could be slightly more exciting anyways; when I was a low level player in 4E I always felt frustrated by how quickly I was out of things to do except spam at-wills.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Thanks everyone! Good suggestions.


I think the lower levels could be slightly more exciting anyways; when I was a low level player in 4E I always felt frustrated by how quickly I was out of things to do except spam at-wills.

It depends on the class, some classes like vampires have several at-wills they can use in different situations, but it can get like that sometimes, my baradin does feel like all he does is spam virtuous strike, but there are several reasons for him wanting to do it (and I did give up an at-will to have the aura anyways)

But as said before I do love themes because it lets your characters backstory to affect him mechanically.