D&D 5E What are the Roles now?

[Dausuul]

yes the rogue (in 3e) got a big combat upgrade... it is why it goes from lurker to skimisher... both are type of strikers (and yes the 2e one was not as good at strikeing) but the back stab feature on all cut purses makes no sense inless you want to give them burst damage...

"Striker" implies strong overall damage output. Backstab was a small burst of damage at the start of some combats. By no stretch of the imagination could it put the thief's damage output on par with the fighter's.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I don't understand how "This wasn't invented in 4e, just first time it was explained in a PHB, and it still exsists in 5e but not as openly stated" is something worth 25 pages of argument... but yes you said it better then I have been trying to for 20ish pages

Hahaha, basically, it's just kind of hard to get people to realize that their experience is not "typical" (it certainly feels typical to them!). There's a few cognitive biases at play (projection effect, ingroup bias, etc.). And this ain't nothin' in comparison to the Real World where people making $100,000 + will tell you without irony that they are "middle class", or where some injustice "isn't a problem" or "will go away if you ignore it" because they don't directly experience it, or the tendency for people to think of themselves as above average on average (this literally is impossible). 25 pages on a D&D message board is light in comparison.

 

[Imaro]

I think there we've got a bit of a subjectivity problem. Before 4e categorized the roles, there wasn't any...well...categorization...of them. Thus, depending on how the play experience at any one table shaped up, different roles could emerge. If some DM liked traps so much that someone "had to play the trap-monkey," then "trap-monkey" was a role, but at the table next door, the narrative-focused DM didn't care about traps, but certainly *someone* in the party had to be the healer, so "healer" was a role, and a third table, both things were roles, and at a fourth, neither were and on and on....there's no One True List of Official And Correct Roles that is there waiting to be discovered.

The whole point is that they are subjective... since we have no objective measures of these roles it's incorrect to say that thos in 4e have existed in D&D throughout all editions. They existed in 4e plain and simple no other edition uses them. Whether people classified their own characters as strikers or leaders or controllers or defenders isn't the point... until 4e the roles of "striker", "defender", leader" and "controller" were not in the actual game. Which is what @GMforPowergamers keeps claiming.

A lot of tables probably had something pretty close to what 4e had if not spot on to what 4e had when 4e rolled out. So it's still not true to say that 4e invented its roles new out of whole cloth. They might not've been the same informal "roles" any particular group was using at their own table, but that doesn't make them alien to the game as a whole.

Since none of us have hard data as far as what went on at the majority of tables throughout all editions I think you're making a pretty big assumption here. I've seen a ton of variety in the so called roles just in this thread and very few if any match up with 4e's totally combat-centric view of roles.

To put it another way... if a lot of tables used 3d6 as opposed to the d20 for attacks and it was finally made the default rule in a single edition of D&D would it then be fair to say 3d6 existed as an attack roll throughout all editions of the game or would it be more accurate to say that it existed in the game for that particular edition?

 

[Imaro]

I don't belive there is one... it is "FOcuses on doing lots of damage" the only way to measure is "Who at your table does most damage" the same is true for other roles... Defender by itself is meaningless "Who draws the attention of the attacks in your game" and leader "WHo heals and buffs the best" and COntroler "Ok...this is way more nebulase"

What is "lots of damage"... otherwise we run into the issue we see in this thread where you keep claiming the AD&D thief does lots of damage and numerous posters are claiming you are wrong. That's why these roles only exist in 4e because without some objective measurement (or a clearly labeled designation) there's no way to determine whether a class was/is or wasn't/isn't a particular role.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The whole point is that they are subjective... since we have no objective measures of these roles it's incorrect to say that thos in 4e have existed in D&D throughout all editions.

The only thing someone needs to do to prove that false is to demonstrate that they personally had these roles before 4e. I'm taking a lot of 4e fans at their word when they say that they had these roles before 4e, but there's no reason to doubt that. A supporting argument would be along the lines of "The simplest reason for WotC choosing those roles was that these are the roles they identified people playing with." Thus, it must be true that D&D as a game had these roles. If some folks played with 'em, the game as a whole had 'em.

They existed in 4e plain and simple no other edition uses them. Whether people classified their own characters as strikers or leaders or controllers or defenders isn't the point... until 4e the roles of "striker", "defender", leader" and "controller" were not in the actual game. Which is what @GMforPowwergamers keeps claiming.

We need to make a distinction, it seems.

On the one side, we have the game as it was played. As it was played D&D had these roles before 4e defined them.

On the other, we have the game rules as they are written. As they were written D&D had no roles before 4e defined them.

When someone says "4e only defined the roles that have always existed," they are talking about the game as it was played, pretty clearly (they're not typically asserting that D&D had defined these roles in hard rules somewhere -- that'd be demonstrably pretty false). When someone says "4e invented the roles whole cloth!" they're ignoring the game as it was actually played -- they're asserting that unless it's written as an offical rule, it didn't exist. Which is a little like claiming that XP awards based on story pacing don't exist before they were written about in a DMG -- clearly, the practice isn't dependent on a formal rule.

Since none of us have hard data as far as what went on at the majority of tables throughout all editions I think you're making a pretty big assumption here. I've seen a ton of variety in the so called roles just in this thread and very few if any match up with 4e's totally combat-centric view of roles.

Yeah, there's a lot of diversity. But I presume that 4e's designers did some homework, and I presume that 4e fans who speak of roles like this aren't lying. Those aren't very big leaps to make.

To put it another way... if a lot of tables used 3d6 as opposed to the d20 for attacks and it was finally made the default rule in a single edition of D&D would it then be fair to say 3d6 existed as an attack roll throughout all editions of the game or that it existed in the game for that particular edition?

It'd be fair to say that it existed as an attack roll throughout all editions for some tables, and for others, that it was new to them in this edition. For the game as a whole, then, it has existed throughout all editions. Those who have always used it are still under the umbrella of "playing a D&D game."

 

[Imaro]

The only thing someone needs to do to prove that false is to demonstrate that they personally had these roles before 4e. I'm taking a lot of 4e fans at their word when they say that they had these roles before 4e, but there's no reason to doubt that. A supporting argument would be along the lines of "The simplest reason for WotC choosing those roles was that these are the roles they identified people playing with." Thus, it must be true that D&D as a game had these roles. If some folks played with 'em, the game as a whole had 'em.



We need to make a distinction, it seems.

On the one side, we have the game as it was played. As it was played D&D had these roles before 4e defined them.

On the other, we have the game rules as they are written. As they were written D&D had no roles before 4e defined them.

When someone says "4e only defined the roles that have always existed," they are talking about the game as it was played, pretty clearly (they're not typically asserting that D&D had defined these roles in hard rules somewhere -- that'd be demonstrably pretty false). When someone says "4e invented the roles whole cloth!" they're ignoring the game as it was actually played -- they're asserting that unless it's written as an offical rule, it didn't exist. Which is a little like claiming that XP awards based on story pacing don't exist before they were written about in a DMG -- clearly, the practice isn't dependent on a formal rule.



Yeah, there's a lot of diversity. But I presume that 4e's designers did some homework, and I presume that 4e fans who speak of roles like this aren't lying. Those aren't very big leaps to make.



It'd be fair to say that it existed as an attack roll throughout all editions for some tables, and for others, that it was new to them in this edition. For the game as a whole, then, it has existed throughout all editions. Those who have always used it are still under the umbrella of "playing a D&D game."

Well if people had these roles we should be able to define them enough to determine what classes fell into what roles, and yet here we are unable to agree that certain classes fit certain roles. A player personally claiming that they had these roles in D&D does not disprove anything, I could claim I had the roles blue, red, and yellow but that doesn't make it so... especially if I can;t give a concrete enough definition of the roles blue, red and yellow to determine which classes fit into those roles... which is exactly what's happening in this thread...

How much damage does one have to do to be considered a striker... a lot (yeah even this is subjective)... uhm, ok... well that definitely provided a clear role to clasiify some of the classes with.

 

[Dausuul]

I feel like the people arguing that the four roles existed in early D&D are watering down the definition of "role" so much that it ceases to mean anything.

Some characters deal more damage than others. That has always been the case. It's hard to see how it could be otherwise. So, you can rank the builds in order of average damage output, pick the top 25%, and label them "strikers." Presto! The striker role has existed throughout D&D!

But has it really? "Average damage output" depends on a host of assumptions--there are so many environmental variables, from the monsters you face to the party level to what you rolled for stats, that any ranking you come up with is going to be invalid for a large fraction of campaigns. But even setting that aside, what have you learned? You took a continuous spectrum of values and imposed arbitrary categories. A character at the 76th percentile of DPR is a Striker. A character at the 74th percentile is a Non-Striker. But there's no real difference between them; without seeing their character sheets, you'd have to watch them for multiple sessions and do careful statistical analysis to tease out which was which. That's not a meaningful distinction.

Is any quantifiable character trait the basis for a role? Is there a Speedster role for characters with high movement rate? An Anti-Wizard role for characters with good saves against magic? A Smartypants role for characters with Int 15+?

 

[Joe Liker]

It'd be fair to say that it existed as an attack roll throughout all editions for some tables, and for others, that it was new to them in this edition. For the game as a whole, then, it has existed throughout all editions. Those who have always used it are still under the umbrella of "playing a D&D game."

I think it would be more accurate to say that those who have always used it fall into the category of "playing a homebrew game based on D&D."

Homebrews can stray pretty far from the official rules of D&D, to the extent that some of them are barely recognizable. It's a matter of degrees, certainly, but if someone's changing something as central to the game mechanics as the attack roll, I personally don't consider that "real" D&D. (It's a pretty safe bet that they've changed a lot more than just that!)

I'm not trying to disparage homebrews. I'm just saying it doesn't make a lot of sense to discuss them in the same breath as the official rules. They are, by definition, not official.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Well if people had these roles we should be able to define them enough to determine what classes fell into what roles,

Why would that be true? Roles as they were played are subject to a lot of variation and subjectivity. That's kind of my point, after all -- 4e's roles weren't familiar to a lot of players.

A player personally claiming that they had these roles in D&D does not disprove anything, I could claim I had the roles blue, red, and yellow but that doesn't make it so

If someone says they played the game with roles that were basically 4e's roles, I'm in no position to dispute that. If you say you had color-coded roles, maybe you did! ("red" is classes that are melee, 'cuz they get covered in blood, and "blue" is characters who are cool because every group has a cool character, and "yellow" is characters who dressed up in chicken suits because that was super-important in this one game and it became a thing for the group and....)

... especially if I can;t give a concrete enough definition of the roles blue, red and yellow to determine which classes fit into those roles... which is exactly what's happening in this thread...

How much damage does one have to do to be considered a striker... a lot (yeah even this is subjective)... uhm, ok... well that definitely provided a clear role to clasiify some of the classes with.

I don't buy that concrete definitions are required. They say these were important to them, and they are the most reliable witness to their own experience, so I accept their account of what happened to them. Trying to pin down subjective roles with mathematical certainty is a quixotic endeavor. I mean, the rogue/thief is an example from this very thread - some DMs had them as "strikers" because they dealt big spike damage on a semi-regular basis, but other DMs didn't, because of a more limited interpretation of Backstab. Neither group is "wrong," it's just a variety of experiences.

I think it would be more accurate to say that those who have always used it fall into the category of "playing a homebrew game based on D&D."

Man, I am not usually one to throw this around, but if you can find me a D&D group that never made up anything of their own, I'm pretty much going to say that they were playing D&D wrong.

...a world where everyone plays pregens and obeys RAW 100%....where the DM runs only modules set in pre-existing settings....where every goblin was statistically identical....

Which is just to say that coming up with party roles isn't some aberrant variation, it's just a way to play.

 

[Imaro]

To touch on a few of your points in more depth...

A supporting argument would be along the lines of "The simplest reason for WotC choosing those roles was that these are the roles they identified people playing with." Thus, it must be true that D&D as a game had these roles. If some folks played with 'em, the game as a whole had 'em.

Or when WotC created the roles they named them that way because they match up with MMOrpg terminology and are easily recognizable by many people that would play D&D...

When someone says "4e invented the roles whole cloth!" they're ignoring the game as it was actually played -- they're asserting that unless it's written as an offical rule, it didn't exist. Which is a little like claiming that XP awards based on story pacing don't exist before they were written about in a DMG -- clearly, the practice isn't dependent on a formal rule.

No they aren't ignoring it as it was actually played... what they are saying is that before 4e the term striker as applied to D&D was so nebulous as to have no real meaning... however 4e took the term defined it and then designed classes within those defined constraints... thus they created those roles whole cloth unless they consulted with these hypothetical tables that had been playing D&D with said roles, which I have no reason to believe they did.

Yeah, there's a lot of diversity. But I presume that 4e's designers did some homework, and I presume that 4e fans who speak of roles like this aren't lying. Those aren't very big leaps to make.

Again, MMOrpg terminology... even people who don't play them tend to have a basic understanding of it... that's the homework I think they did. As to whether fans who speak of roles like this are lying... I never claimed they were, but I bet if you ask them to define it you'll probably get a nebulous answer at best (and probably wildly differing in that nebulousness)... as we did in this thread when i asked the question.

It'd be fair to say that it existed as an attack roll throughout all editions for some tables, and for others, that it was new to them in this edition. For the game as a whole, then, it has existed throughout all editions. Those who have always used it are still under the umbrella of "playing a D&D game."

This makes no sense to me, with the number of houserules, variants, etc. that people use in D&D where is the line drawn? or can we just claim any and everything is a part of D&D since someone somewhere might have done it... This quickly spirals into ridiculousness if we are talking about what has or hasn't been a part of the game... I'm sure drugs and alcohol are part of some ones game somewhere does that mean it's correct to claim drugs and alcohol have been a part of D&D since the beginning?