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

[avin]

4E XP budget seems more intuitive and easy to use than CR. I wouldn't mind if a similar approach is tried for DDN... in fact, give me anything that I can figure out without thinking too much and I'll be fine...

...or release Monster Builder at launch for DDN.

 

[I'm A Banana]

When you get past all the hyperbole (Roles restrict roleplay! Roles force us to eat brocolli) and sit down and actually look at what a role does, this is precisely what a 4e role is - advice on how a given class works in play.

Not exactly.

Each 4e role comes first with Role Mechanics -- Defender's Mark (or Aura), Striker's Additional Dice (or extra damage), Leader's Word, and a controller with an area-affect ability and maybe some (save ends) or EoNT status effects.

This is how 4e ensures that any character can "do their job" in a party.

Secondly, and a bit more subtly, a class's 500 powers reinforce this role. There is much more variety to be found here, but many of a fighter's powers are still defensively-oriented, and those are, mechanically, the more optimal choices -- as a fighter you will have the best defensive powers around, so unless you want your entire party to suffer more, you choose defensive powers.

What Mearls seems to be talking about for 5e is the lack of explicit role mechanics -- no longer will every fighter have a mark -- and instead general advice on playing a given class -- telling you that fighters have the highest AC, so a good strategy is to get monsters to direct their attacks against the fighter, preserving the more vulnerable members of the party.

You might also get advice for the Bard that tells the player to try and solve their problems through diplomacy and deception and interaction rather than brute-force, too -- this doesn't need to be combat advice, per se. There are three pillars of D&D nowadays.

This means that roles aren't something the system puts on you. You can still play with de facto roles if you want -- no one is going to stop you from making a tanky fighter, a blasty rogue, a disabling wizard, and a healy cleric and going junk-to-the-skunk with some dragon. This DOES mean that no longer are the four combat roles the beginning and end of your character's purpose in the party. And it might also mean that fighters can be blasty and wizards can be healy and rogues can be controly and clerics can be tanky, too.

 

[Schmoe]

I have no problem with the combat roles in 4E. I love them, in fact.

However, they stopped before making non-combat roles.

We need a couple sets of roles

The infinite combinations would be cool

That's a cool idea. Come up with a whole bunch of different roles, some combat-oriented, some social-oriented, some reconnaissance-oriented, etc, and allow classes to fill several of those roles simultaneously.

 

[Sunseeker]

That's a cool idea. Come up with a whole bunch of different roles, some combat-oriented, some social-oriented, some reconnaissance-oriented, etc, and allow classes to fill several of those roles simultaneously.

Isn't that what most classes do anyway?

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Well, mechanically they could always treat roles as more explicit and separate, instead of less so and embedded. Make "role" an actual mechanical widget, just like race, class, feats, etc. Then simply include option in that list that amount to, "no thanks, I'll make my own". For whatever feats, powers, spells, etc. that exists outside of that framework, but should be informed by it, use keywords.


Another nice thing about this is that you can have roles that not everyone will enjoy, perhaps some that don't even overlap well. I don't care for games where one guy can be the "face guy". Others don't like "defenders". Someone else will want a guy with no particularly great combat abiltiies whatsoever:

• Defender - marking ability, pick from a handful of relevant consequences, pick options with "defender" keyword to strengthen the role.
• Face Guy - some kind of reroll ability on social skills, pick from a handful of ways to mitigate failures on social rolls, pick options with "face" keyword to strength the role.
• Adventurer - some kind of bonus feat ability or "generic" option that works ok no matter what your focus (not unlike what "humans" often get for racial abilities), pick from a handful of similar ways to mitigate failure or get bonus action point or something similar, pick any options that strike your fancy.
• And so forth.

Note that nothing says that you must "strengthen" your chosen role, either, with those feats, powers, etc. picks. Those are just there to tell you how to go about it if you want to. Of course, an individual table might decide that you must--if you sign up to play a "leader" then you have to bring N abilities to the table. Everyone can draw the line where they want.

 

[hanez]

Well, mechanically they could always treat roles as more explicit and separate, instead of less so and embedded. Make "role" an actual mechanical widget, just like race, class, feats, etc. Then simply include option in that list that amount to, "no thanks, I'll make my own". For whatever feats, powers, spells, etc. that exists outside of that framework, but should be informed by it, use keywords.


Another nice thing about this is that you can have roles that not everyone will enjoy, perhaps some that don't even overlap well. I don't care for games where one guy can be the "face guy". Others don't like "defenders". Someone else will want a guy with no particularly great combat abiltiies whatsoever:

• Defender - marking ability, pick from a handful of relevant consequences, pick options with "defender" keyword to strengthen the role.
• Face Guy - some kind of reroll ability on social skills, pick from a handful of ways to mitigate failures on social rolls, pick options with "face" keyword to strength the role.
• Adventurer - some kind of bonus feat ability or "generic" option that works ok no matter what your focus (not unlike what "humans" often get for racial abilities), pick from a handful of similar ways to mitigate failure or get bonus action point or something similar, pick any options that strike your fancy.
• And so forth.

Note that nothing says that you must "strengthen" your chosen role, either, with those feats, powers, etc. picks. Those are just there to tell you how to go about it if you want to. Of course, an individual table might decide that you must--if you sign up to play a "leader" then you have to bring N abilities to the table. Everyone can draw the line where they want.

Agreeed

 

[Lanefan]

Ignoring roles for just a minute, one theme in this article that leaps out at me is that various things e.g. CR, wealth-by-level, etc. are being presented as guidelines rather than rules.

I really hope the word "guidelines" is emphasized in great big bold letters on the relevant page(s) where they appear; mostly so players don't start inventing expectations where there are none and can be quickly corrected when they do.

As for roles, I'm not sorry to see them getting downplayed - I want to be able to take a class and shoehorn it into a different role if that's what suits the character I have in mind. My usual example is the "heavy Ranger", a sword-and-board guy in heavy armour who in most respects is a tank but can take the armour off and track/scout if he has to. Both 3e and 4e somewhat force Rangers to be light-armour 2-weapon types (thank you Drizz't, may you rot in pain for all eternity) and expect them to be what is now called a striker.

Lan-"every time I see the word 'guidelines' I think of Capt. Jack Sparrow"-efan

 

[Janaxstrus]

Ignoring roles for just a minute, one theme in this article that leaps out at me is that various things e.g. CR, wealth-by-level, etc. are being presented as guidelines rather than rules.

I really hope the word "guidelines" is emphasized in great big bold letters on the relevant page(s) where they appear; mostly so players don't start inventing expectations where there are none and can be quickly corrected when they do.

As for roles, I'm not sorry to see them getting downplayed - I want to be able to take a class and shoehorn it into a different role if that's what suits the character I have in mind. My usual example is the "heavy Ranger", a sword-and-board guy in heavy armour who in most respects is a tank but can take the armour off and track/scout if he has to. Both 3e and 4e somewhat force Rangers to be light-armour 2-weapon types (thank you Drizz't, may you rot in pain for all eternity) and expect them to be what is now called a striker.

Lan-"every time I see the word 'guidelines' I think of Capt. Jack Sparrow"-efan

I'm fine with them being considered guidelines. They were in previous editions as well. It was, however, assumed that characters met certain threshholds at certain levels. If your characters weren't equipped, statted, etc etc to meet those baseline assumptions, then you needed to account for that with monsters, encounters et all.

If they say this is a 7th level encounter, and it wipes your 7th level party because they all have mundane weapons, and 3d6 in order stats, that is not a failing of the game. It can only give you the tools and tell you what the assumptions are.

They can't say "This monster is a challenge for a level 7 party, UNLESS A, B, C or D. It's a challenge for a 9th level party if they are all wearing +4 full plate of speed and x, y and z". They have to take a baseline (in this case, 4 party members of a balanced party, with an assumed amount of treasure) and go with it.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Wow. So many pages in just half a day. Hard to keep up with all of this, but I may as well replay to those who replied to me...

I definitely wouldn't call it silly, I believe most editions treated roles in such a way. I think (hope) the 5e designers are trying to focus on what is special about table-top RPG's (in character play, creativity, story-telling, etc).

And I must say, I love balance as much as the next guy (I'm even a bit of a stickler about it in my groups), but if I have to make a choice between balanced classes and playing a class how I want to...I'll take the latter.

Like some others in this thread, I don't think RPGs need to focus on things like in-character play, creativity, or story-telling. Or at the very least, I don't believe that those thing have anything at all to do with roles and class design. Those things don't need rules, and rules can't do a thing to inhibit them, if you ask me. Maybe it's because I play pure freeform roleplay games (more often than I play D&D, actually), so when I want to play D&D I do so for the mechanics. All those things you list will happen regardless of what mechanics I use, so I want mechanics that are actually good. Roles and game balance are a part of what lets mechanics be good.

In other words, if the mechanics for D&D are not good, then there is quite literally no point on me even using the rules at all.

As for your second point, I'll be addressing that in my response to the next quote.

I don't think these two are as incompatible as you seem to believe.

But let's say they are. Let's say you MUST choose between playing a balanced class in a way you don't want to play, and playing an imbalanced class that you can play however you want to.

It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out what's going to appeal to most people.

This statement makes a mistake of putting balance up on a pedestal as a goal, rather than as a tool in service of a goal. Balance is not a reward in and of itself. It's not something you pursue for the sake of itself. It's something you pursue (in the context of D&D) as a part of building a fun RPG where you can pretend to be your favorite fantasy hero.

Balance is important, but it is not sacrosanct. If you NEED to sacrifice balance to achieve some other goal, it's certainly possible.

I don't think you need to sacrifice class balance to have a flexible character, but even if your assumption holds true, it is, perhaps, an acceptable sacrifice, in certain contexts. Balance is only a tool.

I think you are focusing WAY too much on my reference to balance and far too little on my other point: that roles are essential to good classes and good class design. They help with balance, but that is far from being even their most important purpose.

Roles are about giving classes identity. They are about niche protection. They are about making each character a part of a whole, rather than either the whole itself or an unnecessary tag-along. Put simply, they are about building the game around cooperation and encouraging it to the point of necessity. D&D is, supposedly at least, a cooperative game. Roles encourage and support cooperative play. Editions prior to 4E quite frankly didn't, and a large part of that is their failure to embrace the idea of roles. Advice completely devoid of mechanics and rules is just empty verbiage that has no bearing on reality. It is little different than a lie. It can't support cooperation, good class design, balance, and fun gameplay the way that a role system can.

There is also the point that "play your class any way you like" is itself, an impossibility for any version of D&D. D&D has always been and will continue to be a class-based game. No class-based game will ever permit a true "your character can be anything it wants" kind of game. A 3E Fighter will never be a buffer. In fact, a 3E Fighter can't really be much of anything at all, because it doesn't have the mechanics needed to do anything. A Ranger will never be able to create walls of fire in order to isolate certain parts of the battlefield. Even an overpowered 3E Wizard will never be an effective healer.

The moment you choose a class, you are giving up the freedom to do whatever you want. No class will be that flexible, and neither should they. Mixing limitations and advantages is the very point of a class-based system. Restrictions are just as much a part of classes as anything else.

Overall, D&D is a cooperative class-based game, and an essential part of any cooperative class-based game is a role system. If you don't want roles, than you don't want D&D to be a cooperative class-based game.

I'm not sure why you would say that. Roles as they are in 4e were not part of the game until 4e. The game did well for decades without roles being boxed up neatly as mechanical functions, instead being more like advice. The game has always had shortcomings and I don't see a lack of mechanically based roles as one of them.

Maybe I'm not understanding your intended meaning, but the wording gives me the impression of a boardgame where the Knight can only do certain things and the Thief can only do certain things and there is no playing the character outside those strictures.

Please let me know if I'm not getting your point and clarify it for me.

Well, as I said just above, the idea of Knights only doing some things and a Thief doing other things is essential to a game where you pick between classes. D&D has always been exactly that kind of game. Fighters have their class features and Rogues have different class features. These different class features create mechanical advantages and disadvantages, and it is impossible for players to play outside the limitations of their classes.

Anyways, roles have been a part of D&D ever since the belief that a balanced party consisted of a Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, and Cleric came about, and that belief started very, very early on in the game's history. Back then there was no identification of roles as such because the classes were the roles. The ideas of classes and roles only separated because of the proliferation of many new classes that broke down the old equivalency. In other words, the Rogue's ability to sneak and open chests used to be both a class mechanic and a role mechanic, but in 4E it is a class mechanic, since there is no "thief" role. In a theoretical 5E that embraces roles, it might very well be a role mechanic for a "thief" role.

If you want to go back to a game where there are no explicit roles, you need to go back to a game where there are only as many classes as there are players at the table. I rather like having lots of class options, however, so I'd much rather have explicit roles and a variety of options.

 

[Bluenose]

If there are multiple ways for the game to do things, some more effective than others, that doesn't imply that the ones less effective are actually incompetent. Make them all at least competent and there should be no problem. If clerics are the most effective at healing, but nobody wants to play one, that's not a problem as long as other classes people do want to play are reasonably competent.

First Aid, the "heal me now!" function of Treat Injury, can be used once a day to heal somebody for their level in hit points plus the amount by which your check exceeds DC15, and incidentally can go wrong and make someone worse off. Revivify requires you get to the character in the round they drop. Treat Disease and Treat Poison are identical to the same functions in Heal. About the only way to improve this is to go for the Medic prestige class. It's not even close to comparable with what a traditional cleric can do, and certainly wouldn't keep up with the damage values for monsters. So, "reasonably competent" is going to be a matter of opinion.