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What are the Roles now?
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<blockquote data-quote="Blue" data-source="post: 6502250" data-attributes="member: 20564"><p>Umm, not sure how you got that from talking about how AD&D 2nd classes don't fit the same lines as 4e roles. I played lots of 4e and am still in a multi-year game. This really isn't an edition war. It's comments how things aren't always the same between all editions. Things can be different without implying one was bad.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Yes and no. Prior to 4e healing was explicitly divine caster, so much of the 4e leader role could only be fully covered by a cleric or druid, though buffing was much more open to all casters but not martial classes.</p><p></p><p>But if you want to take a look at that, it says that for the earlier editions, the niche that was protected was Healer, not Leader. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Not particularly relevant unless you want to get back into edition wars. It's just a sample that the boundaries of niche protection differed over time. And even there, you weren't just a healer. Both wizards and clerics could buff, but wizards could do battlefield control and area damage better than clerics and clerics could do other things. The lines for roles just weren't as clearly marked. They were more emergent from a wide selection of character choices, some of which like spells prepared were memorized. It wasn't until 4e where the codified into their design process stronger separation between the roles in order to encourage team play and strengthen niche control / stop players getting their toes stepped on by other players.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>It's reasonable but not as useful as it's been in the past. From my earlier example with the 5e paladin when a character can fit into at least 3 of the 4 roles by themselves before adding customization from feats, it's not a very strong descriptor. It's convenient shorthand, and some character will be primarily one role, but it's not the tight grouping of 4e where it was very meaningful and important for balanced party composition. In some ways it's if we tried to describe the current classes using the Chainmail names like fighting-men and magic-users. "Well, I'm a bard of valor, which am I?" It's not a clear fit, things have changed since those descriptors covered the gamut.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Blue, post: 6502250, member: 20564"] Umm, not sure how you got that from talking about how AD&D 2nd classes don't fit the same lines as 4e roles. I played lots of 4e and am still in a multi-year game. This really isn't an edition war. It's comments how things aren't always the same between all editions. Things can be different without implying one was bad. Yes and no. Prior to 4e healing was explicitly divine caster, so much of the 4e leader role could only be fully covered by a cleric or druid, though buffing was much more open to all casters but not martial classes. But if you want to take a look at that, it says that for the earlier editions, the niche that was protected was Healer, not Leader. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Not particularly relevant unless you want to get back into edition wars. It's just a sample that the boundaries of niche protection differed over time. And even there, you weren't just a healer. Both wizards and clerics could buff, but wizards could do battlefield control and area damage better than clerics and clerics could do other things. The lines for roles just weren't as clearly marked. They were more emergent from a wide selection of character choices, some of which like spells prepared were memorized. It wasn't until 4e where the codified into their design process stronger separation between the roles in order to encourage team play and strengthen niche control / stop players getting their toes stepped on by other players. It's reasonable but not as useful as it's been in the past. From my earlier example with the 5e paladin when a character can fit into at least 3 of the 4 roles by themselves before adding customization from feats, it's not a very strong descriptor. It's convenient shorthand, and some character will be primarily one role, but it's not the tight grouping of 4e where it was very meaningful and important for balanced party composition. In some ways it's if we tried to describe the current classes using the Chainmail names like fighting-men and magic-users. "Well, I'm a bard of valor, which am I?" It's not a clear fit, things have changed since those descriptors covered the gamut. [/QUOTE]
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