L&L: These are not the rules you're looking for

[Kynn]

Wow, those are pretty stupid poll questions.

Also, dismaying but not unexpected to see them throwing out every innovation of 4e design.

 

[FireLance]

The problem was that the Roles were tailored for combat only. That was limiting for an RPG and needlessy so.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with the traditional argument why roles are limiting: namely, that they forced PCs to act in one particular way in combat. Now, I happen to disagree with that argument (in fact, I would say that it doesn't even have a factual basis), but if you do accept that argument, the logical soultion would not be to extend the concept of roles to the non-combat aspects of the game. That would seem to create constraints where none had previously existed.

 

[Li Shenron]

There is a HUGE difference between saying "you are playing the Fighter so you should fight" and "you are playing the Fighter so you should be the tank"

Pre-4e roles were generic enough so that you could have different types of fighters or wizards: a fighter could cover a few different roles, and one role could be covered by several classes. Shoehorning classes into one default combat role really impoverished the game IMHO, it felt like reduced biodiversity.

 

[JamesonCourage]

There is a HUGE difference between saying "you are playing the Fighter so you should fight" and "you are playing the Fighter so you should be the tank"

Exactly. (Can't XP again yet, or you'd have gotten that comment with some yummy level-up sauce, too.)

 

[FireLance]

There is a HUGE difference between saying "you are playing the Fighter so you should fight" and "you are playing the Fighter so you should be the tank"

Pre-4e roles were generic enough so that you could have different types of fighters or wizards: a fighter could cover a few different roles, and one role could be covered by several classes. Shoehorning classes into one default combat role really impoverished the game IMHO, it felt like reduced biodiversity.

Right, and the problem is not roles. As you pointed out, the problem was shoehorning classes into one default combat role. (Not that it actually limited individual characters very much at the table, due to power selection and multiclassing, but we'll let it pass for now.)

Arguably, you could take the concept of roles (each character should be able to do at least one thing quite well), allow the player to choose what role his character wants to play (your fighter could be a Striker hard-hitting damage dealer, a Defender bodyguard and protector, or a Leader battlefield tactician providing guidance and inspiration to his allies - which do you choose?), and maybe even allow more experienced players the option to take on more than one role through feats or higher-level class feature choices.

Oh well, I hope doesn't throw out the baby with the bathwater.

In other news, I just noticed that we have a smiley.

 

[JamesonCourage]

As you pointed out, the problem was shoehorning classes into one default combat role.

Arguably, you could take the concept of roles (each character should be able to do at least one thing quite well), allow the player to choose what role his character wants to play.

If they're going to go with this, why make you choose? Why not just give an indication (via tags?) what type of power/feat is? This keeps it "advice" like Mr. Mearls talks about, and if you want a purely "bodyguard" (Defender) type guy, only take [Defender] powers and feats. It'd also make looking up that type of power/feat in a computer database pretty easy, if they were tagged as such as well (select powers, check allowed books, check types of powers you're interested in: defender, fire).

In other news, I just noticed that we have a smiley.

Ha, that's cool. I never knew we had so many smileys until now...

 

[FireLance]

If they're going to go with this, why make you choose? Why not just give an indication (via tags?) what type of power/feat is? This keeps it "advice" like Mr. Mearls talks about, and if you want a purely "bodyguard" (Defender) type guy, only take [Defender] powers and feats. It'd also make looking up that type of power/feat in a computer database pretty easy, if they were tagged as such as well (select powers, check allowed books, check types of powers you're interested in: defender, fire).

I guess it depends on how is structured - fighters might no longer have "powers" (at least not in the basic module), but judging from one of the supposedly leaked playtests, they might be able to choose between fighting styles. There was one "defendery" style, one "strikery" style and two others (archery and two-weapon fighting) which allowed multiple attacks which could be considered "controllery".

 

[pemerton]

Arguably, you could take the concept of roles (each character should be able to do at least one thing quite well), allow the player to choose what role his character wants to play (your fighter could be a Striker hard-hitting damage dealer, a Defender bodyguard and protector, or a Leader battlefield tactician providing guidance and inspiration to his allies - which do you choose?), and maybe even allow more experienced players the option to take on more than one role through feats or higher-level class feature choices.

It's almost as if you could choose to play a sword and shield fighter, a greatweapon fighter, a warlord, a barbarian, a STR ranger, etc! And then hybrid them, or multi-class into a paragon path from a different class, to mix things up a bit.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with the traditional argument why roles are limiting: namely, that they forced PCs to act in one particular way in combat. Now, I happen to disagree with that argument (in fact, I would say that it doesn't even have a factual basis)

I also think that it has no factual basis.

 

[Nimblegrund]

I don't mind advice. As a player, I have very little use for it, however. So long as the rulebooks aren't crowded with advice, I think I willk be fine.

As a GM, though, I am less comfortable and primarily read the DMG for advice. But again, don't crowd my rules with advice, either.

 

[Li Shenron]

I guess it depends on how is structured - fighters might no longer have "powers" (at least not in the basic module), but judging from one of the supposedly leaked playtests, they might be able to choose between fighting styles. There was one "defendery" style, one "strikery" style and two others (archery and two-weapon fighting) which allowed multiple attacks which could be considered "controllery".

I am not a fan of that solution either...

When I play a Wizard, I don't want to have to choose a path. All I need is to take a look at spells of next level(s), and if I feel like playing a blaster then I'd pick damage-dealing spells, while if I feel like building myself an arsenal of "controller's" spells I pick the appropriate ones. But I also want to be able to mix them in whatever proportion I feel like: maybe one good blast is enough for me this time, and maybe next character I really want more blasters with different damage types, who knows? This is actually quite the normal way of playing a Wizard for me...

So why shouldn't the Fighter or anyone else allow for a similar approach? You have your long list of feats/powers, you just read the description and decide if you want all "striker's type" feats, or if you want to complement them with 1-2 "defender's type" feats or more.

If the designers really want to help players, just stick a tag on feats/power for beginners... that's all you need, non-beginners can read.

Instead, introducing "paths" or "fighting styles" is bad design, because once they're the rule, it's hard to get away from them. Of course you can house rules them (but that's not a very nice argument), but it's not only the players who are stuck with them, it's the designers of further products who are.

It's ok if such "fighting styles" are recommendations, but not if they are rules. IIRC, 3ed Oriental Adventures took the right approach: they described martial arts styles as a series of feats (both core and OA-specific ones) but they didn't tell each PC to pick one, it was just description as in "if you want to call your PC as expert of style X, here are the feats that would make you look like that in combat", and then maybe if you did in fact take enough of those, you also unlocked some benefits, but they didn't force your PC to pick a style and then you must choose feats from that list or they were granted automatically.

This is the way to go IMHO to achieve both "tutored playing" for beginners and freedom for experts.