D&D 4E Roles in 4E D&D - Combat and Non-Combat Roles

[Herremann the Wise]

Hello Everyone,

4E has clearly stratified the combat roles of Player Characters as well as Monsters. I was wondering though, how would you stratify the non-combat roles of player characters (and even monsters/NPCs)?

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Scholar & Brutalman]

I've also been wondering how to define non-combat roles in an rpg. At the moment 4e doesn't have non-combat niche protection: non-combat abilities are provided by skills and rituals, which are easily learnable with one feat. I've been thinking that to have proper niche protection outside of combat I'd need a quite different mechanical system there.

You could have a lot of fun naming the social roles though: Bully, Con-man, Gossip and Lump.

 

[Zulithe]

I agree that this is something I have desired in 4e as well, but haven't taken the time to flesh out a system for it that satisfies all of my requirements.

Thankfully, it would be very easy to drop such a system in without it disturbing much of anything. I'd love to see a third party publisher or fan come up with something. There are a few systems in the custom rules forum (mostly to fill the void left when 4e dropped professions and crafting), those would be worth mining.

 

[Runestar]

I don't think there is a need for any differentiation of roles. Due to the nature of skill challenges, simply make sure that between all the PCs in your party, they have trained in a wide variety of skills (all, if possible), taken the effort to max them out (try to aim for +10 to +14 at 1st lv), and avoid overlaps (except for skills all players would find useful, such as athletics).

It really makes little difference if perception is coming from the rogue or cleric (though the cleric is in a better position to boost it, due to his likely higher wis).

 

[Jack7]

By coincidence the next posting I was gonna do was a post/article I've been working called, "To Hell With Roles." But I haven't had the time yet. I've been too busy to repsond even to my own threads much.

I'm not against roles per se, by the way, just the idea that the bets way to develop roles is based upon Class. To me this is a seemingly natural development of the class idea, but a stupid idea in actual practice, limiting even combat roles as a function of class. Some combat roles, like some non-combat roles may seem to follow logically form certain inherent class abilities, but then again class abilities are no guarantee that either combat roles or non-combat roles will flow naturally from "Class function." (I'll explain why by example in my post.) It seems intuitive that class should determine roles, but the counter-intuitive proposition that roles should be "class-free" is actually a far superior operating practice.

But as for non-combat roles I can think of many and my players have acted out many such parts over the years we've been playing. Roles such as Team Leader, Navigator/Land Navigator (which often includes things like being a mapper), Survival Expert (often the best guy at foraging, locating water, and being expert at survival tactics in dangerous situations or in inclement conditions, or simply when lost), Engineer/Dungeoneer, Tactical Leader (the guy who calls combat formations and dispositions depending on what you are fighting and in what environment), Diplomat/Spokesman/Mouthpiece, Scout/Reconnaissance, Intelligence Gatherer/Agent, Independent Operative, Political and/or Religious Operative, Translator/Communications man, Field Medic (as the back-up to the Healer) etc.

By team members having roles which they want to pursue and become good at, either by natural talent or by practice and training it is much easier to meet any particular situation with a good chance of survival, and it is often possible to multi-task or achieve multiple goals at once. You don't waste time or advantage searching for or rebooting during each situation for who is best to "take charge" of a particular set of circumstances.

For instance you meet a party of strangers. The Diplomat or Spokesman goes out to parley. At the same time, while the potential threat is distracted in negotiations or conversation the Scout begins to search for beneficial routes of advance or escape, the Tactical Leader can be arranging optimum party response dispositions, the Survival Expert can be looking for environmental advantages, the Team Leader can be examining or making inspection of the potential threat for weaknesses in defense, of arrangement, etc, etc.

Any situation, combat or non-combat can be so approached.

It is similar to Special Forces operations. Everyone should know a little bit about everything, but certain members in a squad are the designated experts or leaders in certain things. Languages/Translation, Survival, Cover stories or Undercover Operations, Sniping, Heavier Weapons Combat, Escape and Evasion, Navigation, Medic, Engineering, Communications, etc.

Arrange your teams not by Class, though class should be used to give a clue as to potentials, but by individual capabilities. Also players can use their characters in this way to pursue personal interests and to practice at becoming good at a thing. Also one advantage to saying to hell with Class Roles is that if a certain character is disabled or killed then back-ups can easily stand in based upon their corresponding or overlapping interests, skills, and personal/individual knowledge bases. (You can also develop sub-teams and sub-team expertise skill-disciplines in this way.)

Another advantage of "open-roles" is one of flexibility. For instance for a time or given a certain environment a Ranger might make an ideal forward scout, but in another situation, or simply given a different environment or period of time, a Rogue/Agent/Thief would make a much better forward scout. In a city a Cleric would often make an ideal forward scout and undercover agent, as well as an Intel agent. The same in a political environment. Then again in certain political environments the Paladin might be the optimal agent. However in the wilderness or against a hostile cult a Cleric or a Paladin would probably make a poor scout or undercover agent. Though not necessarily. So roles should be flexible enough to "adapt to, and overcome the actual situation or obstacle being presented." Not fixed in a stilted and static, inflexible manner. Inflexibility cripples real capability. It certainly cripples optimal capability in a slavish desire to pursue already existing forms simply because, "that's the way it has always been done." You don't re-win yesterday's wars, those wars are already over. You win the wars of today by being way ahead of the opponent. Let him fight yesterday's war, you fight today like you're already well ahead of tomorrow.

The last advantage is one of individualization. You can choose roles form a list of potential capabilities but you can also "invent your own roles" based upon the peculiar capabilities of the characters and the peculiar interest of the players. You are not limited to pre-assigned roles or even to the idea that only the existing pre-assigned roles are the only proper or potential roles. If a guy becomes expert at guerilla tactics, or at reading flora useful for creating ad-hoc medicines in the field then let that fella do that. Let them develop their own roles.

So I say to hell with "fixed roles."

Let team members "take on roles" (combat and non-combat) as they see fit, as they wish and can be good at the job, and as the situation demands.

There should be non-combat and combat roles, but free of fixed and artificial limitations on capabilities.

I like the idea for this thread by the way Herremann.

If I'm allowed to give you experience for the idea then I will.

Anyways, gotta go.

See ya.

 

[howandwhy99]

I'm not against roles per se, by the way, just the idea that the bets way to develop roles is based upon Class. To me this is a seemingly natural development of the class idea, but a stupid idea in actual practice, limiting even combat roles as a function of class.

I agree that the defining of hard and fast combat roles by class role is unnatural and should be dropped. But as one of the class roles is Fighter, essentially all about being a combatant, then combat ability will need to be defined in any other classes that may assist in a combat endeavor. They aren't combat classes, but they can lend their class abilities to combat. And since each non-Fighter class is defined by a role exterior to combat, then it is natural to find some classes simply support the effort better by filling certain combat roles rather than others.

For example, think if one of the classes was "Chef". I think a Chef in combat works best behind the lines on KP duty. One might say they were "born" for this combat role. When it comes to preparing and serving food, a Fighter probably works best as security. It is not that each Class has a predefined role for any endeavor. It is that any Class is going to more or less fill some roles better than others depending upon how the endeavor corresponds to their class. And, of course, each class is going to excel better than any other class in its' defining role, the class role.

I'm not against roles either, playing a (class) role is the point of roleplaying after all. Defining the (class) role players will fill is necessary, if the game is to serve its' titular function. RPGs that do not define a class role fail in my opinion as they are not defining the expected behaviors of its' players.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Hello Everyone,

4E has clearly stratified the combat roles of Player Characters as well as Monsters. I was wondering though, how would you stratify the non-combat roles of player characters (and even monsters/NPCs)?

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

My current ideas are:

- Guide. Trap-finder, scout,
- Face. Does the "leg-work" - knows people and convinces them of his view on things.
- Sage. Knows stuff. Scientist, labwork
- Techie. Builds and repairs stuff.

I am currently experimenting with my d20 Modern 2.0/4E ideas, and that was the starting point.

I am worried at the moment that the roles are still "too big", at least suggesting I need several build options for some.
For the Face, I noticed the following broad areas:
- Interacting with Contacts. Powers that improve what you get out of them, more aid, more information or more money etc.
- Disguises. More tricks to pretend someone you're not, to make the typical con-movie actions where people suddenly take over the scene.
- Direct Manipulation of people. Intimidation, Interrogation, Convincing them of lies, making them an ally.

The problem I see at the moment is that these might actually be individual roles, since someone focusing on disguises and sneaking himself into organizations would be very different from someone that just knows a lot of people and knows how to spin things so they help him more. If the differences in play are too big, maybe they are their own roles?

Maybe one needs indeed define more than two role categories? (My current idea: Non-Combat and Combat). Maybe "Social" "Combat" and "<insert something else>"?

Maybe "Combat", "Information Gathering", "Social Interaction" "Travel/Wilderness"?

---

Ideas for roles (especially Face), I am currently getting inspiration from A-Team, Leverage and The Pretender and CSI.

 

[Jack7]

I'm not against roles either, playing a (class) role is the point of roleplaying after all. Defining the (class) role players will fill is necessary, if the game is to serve its' titular function. RPGs that do not define a class role fail in my opinion as they are not defining the expected behaviors of its' players.

Yeah, I think of class as the most obvious professional role in the game. It is the fundamental role. But the roles attached in 4E by class are at times logical given certain situations, but at times very restrictive given other situations.

What I'm saying is that if you de-couple certain role-assumptions directly from class then you can create role functions which are flexible, fluid, personal, and which allow the players to exploit their own natural capabilities.

So I'm not against defining roles at all, as long as those role definitions aren't a form of mummification or calcification of character and player capabilities.

- Sage. Knows stuff. Scientist, labwork
- Techie. Builds and repairs stuff.

I really like these ideas.

The problem I see at the moment is that these might actually be individual roles, since someone focusing on disguises and sneaking himself into organizations would be very different from someone that just knows a lot of people and knows how to spin things so they help him more. If the differences in play are too big, maybe they are their own roles?

Yeah, that was my point too. Roles shouldn't be so restrictive that they can't be immediately adaptable to the situational environment. And in many senses, they should be left up to the players and the characters, not the game designers.

The game designer can anticipate that roles will be useful. What they cannot do is imagine every kind of role possible, how that role will function in nay given situation, what good role-play will be in any particular set of circumstances, or what the demands of a role may entail.

Just as a soldier can be trained for everything from urban combat to equipment repair, but what he can't be trained for is what any particular urban encounter will demand of him, or what every instance of equipment failure will imply.

Therefore "roles" are player and character functions which sit atop or beneath other character attributes like race, class, etc, not necessarily determined by class or race, but more an expression of "individual character and nature" in which matters like class and race inform, rather than demand.

So roles are player functions, not game design functions. The game designer has no business assigning them based upon limited preconceptions of what might be possible, rather what the game designer(s) should do is say, "these are general possibilities and suggestions, now it is up to you to decide 'roles' among yourselves."

Because roles, by very definition are player and character matters, not class, DM, or matters for designers.

You've got to trust your players and that they will discover their best roles in any given situation for themselves. It's not up to someone else to tell them what their roles must be.

They are the players and the characters. They don't need Daddy Designer or Mommy DM telling them what they will grow up to be or what their roles must be. They are the role players. It's ultimately their business.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I won't bother to search through the archives to where I first speculated about this idea, but the thing is this:

Roles exist to help make characters different in combat challenges.

Other challenges should have corresponding roles.

These roles will be different depending on the different challenges.

We need a few (maybe not four, but probably at least 2) different roles for non-combat challenges. A social challenge needs different roles than an exploration challenge, which needs different roles than a stealth challenge, or a puzzle challenge. Skill Challenges homogenize everyone to a basically equal playing field, which means there isn't enough creative variety in it to really interest a game that focuses on it. Adding different character types for these other challenges helps us to give characters things they can do out of combat that are still divided along archetypal lines -- Conan contributes somthing different to smooth-talking the Burghermietser (probably intimidating threats) than Orpheus might (probably winning his heart with a stirring song), and they both have unique powers and abilities they can contribute to winning him over.

 

[Jack7]

Skill Challenges homogenize everyone to a basically equal playing field, which means there isn't enough creative variety in it to really interest a game that focuses on it. Adding different character types for these other challenges helps us to give characters things they can do out of combat that are still divided along archetypal lines -- Conan contributes somthing different to smooth-talking the Burghermietser (probably intimidating threats) than Orpheus might (probably winning his heart with a stirring song), and they both have unique powers and abilities they can contribute to winning him over

Excellent point. Different people can engage in the same basic role-function, and yet have totally different "roles" in how the situation is actually resolved. Good cop, bad cop. Both are cops in that situation, both serve entirely different ends with the same intention.

To me that is further evidence that roles should not be restrictive, but fluid, open, flexible, and exploit the individual strengths of players and characters.