4e Themes

[Arc Vembris]

I'd love to use themes in a 4e game, but I know you really gotta start with them in order to use them. Apart from Neverwinter and Dark Sun, what published books have themes in them?

Obligatory: Do you think themes are a good idea? Which ones do you like?  

[SporkMaster5000]

i don't think any other physical books have them, they're big in dragon. i haven't seen the neverwinter themes, but the ones in dragon grant lv 5 and 10 benefits in addition to the starting power they grant, making them not exactly balanced against the dark sun themes. they also have a few that are somewhat unbalanced in their own right, such as two that give a free lv 6 item at lv 5, one that lets you pay less for items, and one that gives you free alchemy.

i think the original idea was pretty okay, but they took a sharp spike in power as soon as they printed more, and that soured me to them pretty quick.  

[Arc Vembris]

From what I understand, a lot of the Dark Sun themes are a bit beefier, much the same way the FR Backgrounds are more powerful, only partly to compensate for the brutality of Dark Sun itself. They're clearly not something meant to apply only to some players and not to others, I guess that's another hangup.

Pretty sure Heroes of the Elemental Chaos had themes, but that only just came out.  

[Kowsauni]

Most of the 4.5 books have themes, however , I find the most interesting themes come from in the dragon magazines. I personally enjoy themes as it ads an additional level of depth to a character as well as some extra customization. Depending on what kind of theme you pick it can have a rather large effect on who that person is as a character. I always wondered why I never saw people using themes in this guild but it seemed most of the campaigns use the older books.  

[Arc Vembris]

Kowsauni

Most of the 4.5 books have themes, however , I find the most interesting themes come from in the dragon magazines. I personally enjoy themes as it ads an additional level of depth to a character as well as some extra customization. Depending on what kind of theme you pick it can have a rather large effect on who that person is as a character. I always wondered why I never saw people using themes in this guild but it seemed most of the campaigns use the older books.

Some people just don't have any books published after the Essentials line, and only a couple have themes printed. Without access to these books or Dragon, it's hard to ask players to use themes in the pbp formt, since we all have to rely on our own rulebooks.