Were the four roles correctly identified, or are there others?

[MoonSong]

I have to ask. How often do your players want to play noncombatant characters? In thirty five years of gaming, I can't say I've ever seen a player intentionally come to the DnD table with a non combat character.

Is it really that common?

Everytime I get to be a player and I'm not in the mood to play a swashbuckler, 3.x sorcerers and 2e specialty priesrt were specially well suited to the part, not to mention certain underpowered class from the miniatures handbook. But basically anybody could be a pacifist withoutdisrupting your party, even in core anybody could easily grab martial weapon proficiency :sap and be ready to contribute to combat without being too involved. And this ia the real problem with 4e no so much that it removed non combatants -though it mostly did- but it also removed true pacifists, it took away the ability to take part into combat without contributing to killing, I know you can choose to spare your kills, but that is the privilege of the one to land the last hit, before with subdual you weren't actively contributing to killing regardless of who landed the last hit, now you have to told your fellow players how to play their characters in order not to. Lazy warlords are very cool noncombatants, but they require a melee heavy party and are a very speciffic build and require lots of attention from somebody who isn't that interested in combat -hint if you want to play a non combatant more often than not you aren't that interested in combat- besides it removed utility sorcerers from the game, and no ritual casting didn't work to bring them back, the whole point of a sorecerer is not needing a spellbook to be magical.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

And this ia the real problem with 4e no so much that it removed non combatants -though it mostly did- but it also removed true pacifists, it took away the ability to take part into combat without contributing to killing, I know you can choose to spare your kills, but that is the privilege of the one to land the last hit, before with subdual you weren't actively contributing to killing regardless of who landed the last hit, now you have to told your fellow players how to play their characters in order not to. Lazy warlords are very cool noncombatants, but they require a melee heavy party and are a very speciffic build and require lots of attention from somebody who isn't that interested in combat -hint if you want to play a non combatant more often than not you aren't that interested in combat- besides it removed utility sorcerers from the game, and no ritual casting didn't work to bring them back, the whole point of a sorecerer is not needing a spellbook to be magical.

That's really no different to PCs finishing off your subdued foes in other editions, though, functionally and morally*. Also, if it was a real problem in a real game, a quick word with the DM could sort that out (I suspect you are talking theoretically, though), no?

* = If you KO someone, and your buddy murders them, yeah, you are partially responsible, morally - doesn't matter if you only did subdual damage.

 

[MoonSong]

That's really no different to PCs finishing off your subdued foes in other editions, though, functionally and morally*. Also, if it was a real problem in a real game, a quick word with the DM could sort that out (I suspect you are talking theoretically, though), no?

* = If you KO someone, and your buddy murders them, yeah, you are partially responsible, morally - doesn't matter if you only did subdual damage.

The difference is that in previous editions your buddies had to go out of the way to coup de grace the subdued enemies, instead of every enemy dies by default unless your pal remembers to spare the enemies you are hitting, both are somewhat different, in the first case the enemy is spared by default and you get to have some control over the matter, In the second case the enemy dies by default and you cannot feel as comfortable hitting it as you would with subdual, that is beyond your control. And insta kill <> coup de grace.

Edit, also in previous editions if you were the party healer you had even more control over the situation. You could negate to or be stingy with healing if a party memeber went against your wishes and finished off a subdued enemy.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The difference is that in previous editions your buddies had to go out of the way to coup de grace the subdued enemies, instead of every enemy dies by default unless your pal remembers to spare the enemies you are hitting, both are somewhat different, in the first case the enemy is spared by default and you get to have some control over the matter, In the second case the enemy dies by default and you cannot feel as comfortable hitting it as you would with subdual, that is beyond your control. And insta kill <> coup de grace.

I understand the difference. I don't understand why your DM refused to house-rule it.

 

[MoonSong]

I understand the difference. I don't understand why your DM refused to house-rule it.

This is an Oberonis fallacy at work. Just because the DM can fixit doesn't mean it isn't a problem of the system.

And this isn't soemthing you can rely on when you don't have a fixed group, Encounter s DMs have to abide with RAW and you cannot just get into a group and expect to receive special treatment, and I persaonally don't like feeling as if I'm receiving special treatment, which asking for a house rule that will give the DM more work and isn't even in th e bkok as a house rule is asking for special treatment.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This is an Oberonis fallacy at work. Just because the DM can fixit doesn't mean it isn't a problem of the system.

Sure, it is, but it isn't a major problem, or one remotely hard to fix in a normal group.

And this isn't soemthing you can rely on when you don't have a fixed group, Encounter s DMs have to abide with RAW and you cannot just get into a group and expect to receive special treatment, and I persaonally don't like feeling as if I'm receiving special treatment, which asking for a house rule that will give the DM more work and isn't even in th e bkok as a house rule is asking for special treatment.

It seems like every objection I've read to 4E's systems of late comes from people who play solely or Encounters, not with a normal group. Hmmm.

EDIT - Which doesn't mean you are bad - it means maybe 4E was a bad fit for Encounters.

All house rules aren't in the book... that's why they're called house rules...

 

[MoonSong]

Sure, it is, but it isn't a major problem, or one remotely hard to fix in a normal group.



It seems like every objection I've read to 4E's systems of late comes from people who play solely or Encounters, not with a normal group. Hmmm.

All house rules aren't in the book... that's why they're called house rules...

Sorry, optional rule. But well it is a problem, when I get the chance to play on a house group I'm normally stuck dming If I want to play I need to look for pbp, vtt, or encounters. And it is normally easier to find a game the more you are willing to work within RAW, so if I want to play these kind of characters I have more luck by looking at not 4e, if you where to play with strangers who would you pick the player who wants to play the run of the mill sorcerer or the one who is asking you to work more to make room for a character who is normally not seen and goes against the spirit of the edition?

 

[Neonchameleon]

In my experiences, its not common, but it does happen.

I've seen a few wizards who took invocation as a banned school

You need to do much more than banning Evocation to make a non-combatant wizard. Although it's much more meaningful than the 3e situation where the most powerful combatant wizards generally ban evocation (normally favouring conjuration and transmutation).

or clerics (usually specialty priests) who focused on healing and weren't plate-and-mace style.

Or, as we like to call them in 4E "Clerics". Seriously, that's no more non-combatant than the average 4E laser-cleric.

I also saw the archetypical "coward halfling theif" once, as well as a really dandy/prissy bard. However, Few of them really made an impact, but they did exist in both 2e and 3e.

Speaking from experience both those happen in 4E as well.

 

[GSHamster]

D&D combat is a very bad match for most real combat. On the battlefield you would be in close order and the defenders would be entire blocks of units with some sort of polearms. Can't go backwards, can't go round. Man to man, defenders are people who get up in your face so you don't feel you can break away because you are under that much pressure. And that's actually how 4e Fighters work. Getting right into the enemy's face and if they try to break away or attack someone else the fighter gets a free swing. No taunts, and CAGI is very much not necessary. Attacking someone other than the fighter means that you are taking your eye off the killer in front of you and they are going to shank you between the ribs or chop your arm off.

I don't think this works in a game with melee strikers (or other roles). If a striker and defender are both within attack range. The optimal thing to do is attack the striker. The striker is both more dangerous and more fragile. Attacking a defender is simply a sub-optimal move. Thus the game requires extra mechanics to punish that choice.

Look at how players approach a mixed group of monsters. They will gut the healer and mage first, and then move on to the rest.

MMO taunts are due to the AI not being that good. It's simply the easiest way to code. And in PVP players would absolutely hate to be taunted. Unlike 4e marking/punishment, taunt is implemented through mind control so you'd need an entire set of new subsystems.

This is not true. Threat is actually a complication to induce better gameplay. The simplest, easiest method to do targeting for an AI is to attack the person doing the most damage, rather than the person doing the most threat. MMOs deliberately choose not to do this in order to create space for the Defender role.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Eh, I don't think I agree with you M. O. The 4 roles aren't about hit points at all. They are about tactics in general. ALL tactics are about control of a situation. Violence is the imposition of the will of one group upon another by force. It generally presumes that the opposition has its own plan to do the same (maybe just defensively by thwarting your plan, but nonetheless).

Tactics are just methods you use to win a battle. In order to win, you need to reduce the enemy's hitpoints to 0 before they reduce yours to 0. So tactics are, by definition, the methods you use in order to reduce their hitpoints while keeping yours up.

Now, I don't think that you are wrong about the 'three things to do with hit points', this is true, and 4e generally emphasizes hit points as the core mechanic to measure the defeat of enemies by. Its far from being the be-all and end-all of tactics though. Controllers ESPECIALLY deal with the enemies means of fighting very directly. IMHO the 4e controller is the most defined and most central role (though you really MUST have some striking capability to actually win most 'knock down drag out' type fights that tend to predominate in your run-of-the-mill adventures).

I don't think controller is well defined at all. It appears, if you examine all the controllers in the game and their abilities to be the role in which you either do lots of area of effect damage with no special effects at all, or you do single target crowd control with very little damage, or you do single target crowd control with lots of damage, or area of effect crowd control with very little damage, or abilities that allow you escape and protect yourself from damage, or you dispel area of effects that other people have put down. Which seems about as clear as mud.

Aren't "protecting yourself from damage" abilities the domain of the Defender? Isn't damage in general the domain of Strikers? Isn't dispelling a special effect the domain of Leaders?

Here's the real deal, however. "Control" as it is defined in the game is literally just a way to prevent damage to your group. If you cast a spell that prevents the next 35 damage dealt to an ally and an enemy attacks him and does 35 damage you've done precisely the same thing as if you stunned the enemy for a round. If you give the target -20 to hit and they miss, you've done precisely the same thing as stunning them for a round. If you do 200 points of damage in one hit and kill the enemy outright, you've not only accomplished the same thing as stunning them for a round, you've essentially stunned them for the rest of the game.

Which is precisely why all you really need to worry about is damage. It's why our party of strikers not only did just as well as a balanced party, they finished combats in half the time.

My friends and I used to have this argument all the time in 3.5e, we had a couple people who were absolutely convinced that their character was super awesome because of all the defenses they had. Until we replaced them one day with someone who had no defenses and was all offense. We finished battles quicker and the entire party took less damage.

We actually used to get rather angry at people for attempting to "control" in both 3.5e and 4e. Most of the time the controller did almost nothing because they'd put down an AOE that would prevent the enemies from acting and would also prevent all his allies from attacking the enemies. So we'd have to sit around and wait for an extra 3 rounds for the AOE to wear off before we could engage the enemy. When if we could have attacked, we would have just beat them.