D&D 4E 4e With No Casters?

[mach1.9pants]

But what If you want a lightly armored defender?

And for Cadfan, I reckon to get this you will either have to house rule or wait for a splat book, PHB2 etc. Shouldn't be too long before someone does one of these (a toe to toe light armoured defender)

 

[Gort]

But what If you want a lightly armored defender?

Swordmage

Or modified Samurai, possibly.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

But what If you want a lightly armored defender?

The same thing you do if you want a psionic striker: wait for it to appear in a future supplement.

 

[Lord Zack]

Swordmage

Or modified Samurai, possibly.

My idea right now is making the fighter be able to AC buffs to the Swordmage in light enough armor. But a Samurai wouldn't necessarily be a light defender, as Samurai wore armor.

 

[Belorin]

I think the solution to the no martial controller would be to utilize multiple strikers, at least one melee and one ranged, perferably two ranged.

Isn't a lightly armored defender an oxymoron?


Bel

 

[Lord Zack]

No, you could get a high AC by other methods than armor.

 

[Lizard]

I think the solution to the no martial controller would be to utilize multiple strikers, at least one melee and one ranged, perferably two ranged.

Isn't a lightly armored defender an oxymoron?


Bel

I don't think so. The role of the defender is to keep enemies off the other guys. A taunting, leaping, gesticulating swashbuckler, issuing forth foul insults about his enemies' mothers and seeming to present an easy target then ducking at the last second, fulfills this role mechanically. Add in things like being able to make trip attacks against anyone crossing a square you threaten, being able to move to block a charging foe, and other such abilities, and you can do the job.

If the 4e model is going to succeed, the four archetypes need a lot of variability in how they do their job. Otherwise, you've played on Striker, you've played 'em all. I'm especially interested in comparing the rogue and the ranger, since they're the only example of two characters with the same power source and the same combat role.

 

[Lord Zack]

I do as well. I hope it's not just "Rogues are Melee and Rangers are Ranged" but I think that's been shown to be wrong by the comment on Rangers using two weapons from the Magic Item article. On a related note I hope there's more choices than archery and two weapon fighting for the Ranger in the PHB. I guess I could make due with those for now, though.

 

[lightblade]

So the Paladin is still going tohave 'spellcasting' (aka powercasting).

We don't know that. We know that they have a magical (divine) power source. They'll probably still have some Turn Undead, or perhaps healing a-la Lay on Hands. Saying they use magic is not saying that they will be casting spells, just that they will have class abilities that are magical in nature.

 

[mmu1]

One of the nice things about the roles is that they let you play around with power sources without messing up the basic structure of the game. You can totally do a no magic game with the PH by sticking to the fighter, rogue, warlord, and ranger. You wouldn't have a controller, but it is possible to create a martial one.

That, more than ever, just makes it sound like everyone has spells - they're just called something else.

If you can play the game with just those classes without having to modify much of anything, then it logically follows that they're able to replicate the abilities / fill in the niches of other classes, which sounds... boring.

...God, why can't there be any good 4E news? So far, the only thing I liked was the death\dying mechanic.