D&D 5E What are the Roles now?

Hussar said:

No it would not be.

Why?

Because the enemies are not capable of attacking. There is nothing to defend. If anything that's action denial which is a controllery thing to do.

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Then explain why the 4E fighter had quite a few class abilities that denied actions, sometimes through use of status effects. I mean abilities like Covering Attack, Spinning Sweep, Dizzying Blow, and Supremacy of Steel.

I have no problem with saying "a wizard is not doing it in melee." Fair enough, that's a good point. But it becomes a problem when saying that denying actions is controllery when the primary example of a defender in 4E had a lot of abilities devoted to denying actions.

Scow2 said:

No. Rogues are Skirmishers/Lurkers. Unless you build one to be a guy who, instead of reacting to the battlefield and using careful positioning/timing and precise bursts, just walks up and trades blows with enemies. Defenders

You can build a Warlord and Barbarian to sort of be Defenders in 4e - or at least the 5e equivalent of a defender (Soldiers) I explained it much earlier in the thread. A soldier is a straightforward combatant, and forms the skeleton the rest of the party functions around.

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I think you and I have a different idea of what "on the front line" means.

For me, it means you're up in melee combat, dealing with enemies and keeping them away from those who have to rely more on ranged attacks. The rogue does count for this. Not because they're trading blows, but because they're using their mastery of stealth, situational awareness, maneuverability, and precision bursts to decimate the enemy. Which is also a soldier tactic.

GMforPowergamers said:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0012.html

yea, D&D needs to have MORE terms not less, another reason why the idea of labled roles is such a good one.

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I have to agree, honestly.

Minigiant said:

That doesn't conflict with what I said.

You can swap roles, switch roles, do 2 roles, 3, all 4, fry, mash them, mix them, match them, do a role hardcore, be a purist, etc.

But if you're in a combat and participating, youre doing a 4e role in 5e.

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So essentially you're not matching a particular character to a role... a mash up or mix of two roles would not be performing a 4e role... it would be something different from either one.

Hussar said:

No it would not be.

Why?

Because the enemies are not capable of attacking. There is nothing to defend. If anything that's action denial which is a controllery thing to do.

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This makes absolutely no sense. It's unintuitive and even esoteric.

pemerton said:

From my lower knowledge base, I don't feel that surprised about AC, just because Mage Armour + 20 DEX = 18, which is equivalent to plate; and it seems that the wizard has no reason not to pump DEX as a second stat. But I look forward to the maths.

I'd also be interested in any views you have on whether bounded accuracy breaks down, or rather if it is an excess of magic items that is being shown to be the cause of potential breakdown. My default assumption would be the latter.

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Okay, here is where I make bounded accuracy cry.

Magic items for fighter build:
+3 Full Plate (18 base, 21 total)
+3 Shield (+2 base, +5 total)
Total armor: 26

Spells, Stats, and Magic Items for Wizard Build:
Mage Armor (13 base)
Dex of 20 (+5 AC)
Shield (+5 DC)
Bracers of Defense (+2 AC)
Total AC: 25

Note the Bracers of Defense were a surprise item; I didn't expect to find they could apply to the wizard. But, they can.

Magic items that both can use:
Cloak of Protection (+1 AC)
Defender Sword (special ability set entirely to AC) (+3 to AC)
Ioun Stone of Protection (+1 AC)
Ring of Protection (+1 AC)
Rod of Alertness (Protective Aura) (+1 AC)
Total AC: +7

Final results:
Fighter AC 33
Wizard AC 32

Note I only grabbed one of each magic item; they could easily double-up on rings to get 1 more point of AC each. Note I was ignoring attunement during this; the Bracers of Defense, Cloak of Protection, Defender, Ioun Stone, and Ring of Protection require attunement (they don't have to be holding the rod to benefit from it). If we were to adjust it by obeying those rules and taking the highest AC items, these end up the final results:

Fighter AC 31
Wizard AC 29

The reason why I ignored attunement for my initial results was that, thanks to attunement rules, the old edition idea of stacking loads of magic items isn't as easily possible; someone who wants to play that way would have to houserule attunement out of the picture. Plus, to be honest, I just wanted to see how insane I could make it.

But even with attunement in the picture, you still have a couple of characters who can flat-out ignore any non-20 result of most of the Monster Manual.

Overall, I am going to have to say that giving out not even half the magic items that a character could have in previous editions will very easily break bounded accuracy. This edition, mechanically, does not seem designed at base to be able to function under such conditions.

So, very much, yes. Giving out a lot of magic items breaks bounded accuracy.

Imaro said:

I remain unconvinced that 4e roles (by which I mean roles as they are presented, defined, etc. in the 4e corebooks) are the same "roles" found in 5e which in a nutshell I consider to be the classes and their descriptions. Furthermore I still haven't seen any benefit that could be derived in 5e from adding labels on top of classes that in their description already tell the players what to expect. As for how they should best use abilities...how about they should best be used however you can creatively think of for the situation?

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The heart and soul of D&D. Great post.

Minigiant said:

Because it does fit.
If a character isn't doing one of the combat roles in the 4th Ed PHB, he or she probably doesn't help in combat.

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This isn't even true in 4e itself, where playing by those combat roles has the most benefits.

There should be no such assumptions about what characters have to do to contribute. There are plenty of other things which could fill out additional combat roles, and every character that falls somewhere in between can contribute.

Minigiant said:

That doesn't conflict with what I said.

You can swap roles, switch roles, do 2 roles, 3, all 4, fry, mash them, mix them, match them, do a role hardcore, be a purist, etc.

But if you're in a combat and participating, youre doing a 4e role in 5e.

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No. That's what you have wrong. The substance of the 4e roles does not cover everything significant.

Imaro said:

So essentially you're not matching a particular character to a role... a mash up or mix of two roles would not be performing a 4e role... it would be something different from either one.

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This would also be true.

Minigiant said:

That doesn't conflict with what I said.

You can swap roles, switch roles, do 2 roles, 3, all 4, fry, mash them, mix them, match them, do a role hardcore, be a purist, etc.

But if you're in a combat and participating, youre doing a 4e role in 5e.

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Then I'm not sure I'm following you. When people talk about roles in the 4e context, they're talking about how 4e clearly defined for you that if you were class X, your role was Y. 5e isn't like that at all. So when you say that a 5e character is doing a 4e role, that's throwing people off. Well, me at least. Because the concept of "striker, defender, etc" isn't new to 4e, so they aren't really 4e only roles if you're talking about general concepts only. When you say a 5e character is doing a 4e role, I'm thinking you mean a role as how 4e defined them. Which is not an accurate comparison because a fighter in 5e is not always a defender as 4e describes it.