When did the Fighter become "defender"?

[Tony Vargas]

Hmmm and I always thought the rogue was expendable.

Next most expendable after the fighter and monk, I suppose. But, yes, quite expendable. Afterall, his major claim to fame was finding and removing traps - which he started out /really bad at/. Something like 20% for the AD&D Thief, IIRC.

 

[Fifth Element]

As for pigeonholing roles, I'm happy they are going bye-bye in 5th Ed. Not every Fighter in pre-4th Ed was a Defender, not every Wizard was a Controller, though that's a bad example, the contrived, IMO, "controller" role (started out not knowing what they were doing or talking about with that one).

A party of 3 Rogues should be fine.

The irony being that in 4E, the game with "straightjacket" roles, a party of three rogues has better survivability than in any other edition of the game. They don't need no cleric.

There's no causation between those two facts, of course.

Ultimately I think the OP takes the term defender too literally. Many 4E fighters "defend" by kicking ass, even in the early days of the edition.

 

[Wiseblood]

Next most expendable after the fighter and monk, I suppose. But, yes, quite expendable. Afterall, his major claim to fame was finding and removing traps - which he started out /really bad at/. Something like 20% for the AD&D Thief, IIRC.

I forgot the monk haha. I hope he's more than just the fastest runner in DDN.

 

[pemerton]

his major claim to fame was finding and removing traps - which he started out /really bad at/. Something like 20% for the AD&D Thief, IIRC.

In B/X it's even worse, because there is no race or stat bonus to the skills.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I forgot the monk haha. I hope he's more than just the fastest runner in DDN.

Try the 4e Monk It rocks.

But getting back to the topic, one of the key jobs of the fighter has been protecting the field artillery from monsters squashing them. And the wizard's been squishy but powerful field artillery since Chainmail and the fantasy tabletop wargame that D&D grew out of.

The roles were made explicit for players certainly as early as the 2e PHB broke all classes into fighter, wizard, cleric, rogue (or whatever the four were) and made druids a subclass of cleric and paladins and rangers subclasses of fighters.

And ironically the game which is most explicit on the roles has PCs least constrained to them. A four rogue adventuring party works in 4e (and a thief/scout/ranger/vampire party works extremely well - I speak as DM of that group). And a four wizard pary won't run out of spells or take about one javelin each.

 

[hemera]

In my experience, short of a few 2e dark sun and a couple 3e games, the fighters I've seen have always been defenders. Though I really don't like that term. Their role was to try and keep enemies bottled up and focused on them while the spellcasters (the real damage dealers) did the heavy lifting.

 

[paladinm]

Of course a player can choose Not to use powers/skills/feats and whatever. But as I looked at the powers available (especially in 4e PH1), there seemed to be a very large number that did include some sort of "teamwork" element, as well as keeping track of "squares". If I want to do something to help a co-adventurer, it can be done w/o being built into the description of my abilities.

The forced teamwork, forced roles, and miniatures-orientation need to go away.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Of course a player can choose Not to use powers/skills/feats and whatever. But as I looked at the powers available (especially in 4e PH1), there seemed to be a very large number that did include some sort of "teamwork" element, as well as keeping track of "squares". If I want to do something to help a co-adventurer, it can be done w/o being built into the description of my abilities.

The forced teamwork, forced roles, and miniatures-orientation need to go away.

You don't have to take the powers that help your allies unless you've chosen to be a leader (i.e. teamwork centric). And as for the roles, if you don't want encouraged roles don't play a class based game. I don't care which edition of D&D you play. A wizard is always going to be much squishier than a fighter, and a rogue will have more skills than a fighter.

As for the minatures-orientation, there is some there. At least movement speeds are no longer measured in inches.

 

[Steely_Dan]

Last session he was not able to join in, and the remaining players realized what his offensives actions meant in terms of 'defending' them. They found out that those 700ish points of damage he tends to soak really hurts.

Yeah, I would rather an end to that type of damage category.

But totally agree about non-magic-using characters being effective in pre-4th Ed; we had a Gold Dwarf character that gave out sick damage when he lay the smack-down.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Heh, I'm finding it a little ironic that we're commenting on how ironic it is that 4e doesn't suck in this or that way.