Nergal Pendragon
First Post
So rogues in 4E are defenders?
D&D 5E What are the Roles now?
- Thread starter Unwise
- Start date
So rogues in 4E are defenders?
Hussar
Legend
None of those spells should ever appear on a defender's list. Every one of those is battlefield control, ie. controller spells. Heck, there's a reason virtually all of those appear on the Wizard's spell list in 4e, but not the AC buffs and defence buffs.
But, I have to ask, how in the world does Arcane Lock work with a defender?
Hussar
Legend
Umm, why would you think rogues are on the front line?
I guess these are the tactics fans of 4e like to use. It wouldn't create confusion if the names of the 4e roles weren't so poor.
The defender doesn't defend, the controller doesn't control, and the leader doesn't lead. The striker at least strikes, but that's what everyone does so it doesn't serve any point to call it this. "Strikes only one target with concentrated damage" the book says, but could you be more specialized? Striker isn't so specific so again it's a poor name.
The defender doesn't defend, the controller doesn't control, and the leader doesn't lead. The striker at least strikes, but that's what everyone does so it doesn't serve any point to call it this. "Strikes only one target with concentrated damage" the book says, but could you be more specialized? Striker isn't so specific so again it's a poor name.
Nergal Pendragon
First Post
They're not defender spells to you because you've never used them that way.
And please excuse me for this, but your last question is one that brings up something I have to discuss about the mindsets encourage by 4E.
4E's role designations can encourage the mindset that Item X must be used for Role Y. Which, realistically, is pretty much limited to just 4E from what I've seen. You would be surprised how often I've seen people use Prestidigation as a form of crowd control. Or used Create Water to deal damage. Or used Ghost Sound and creative positioning of siege weaponry to turn a gelatinous cube into catapult ammunition.
Now, this isn't a fault of the system itself; 4E didn't actually operate under "Item X must by used for Role Y" and you can scour this thread for a vast number of posts from 4E players that back that. The issue, and which I've said before is the biggest weakness of 4E and probably why so many people couldn't stomach it, is the presentation. The way the information is presented changes how a person processes that information and the mindset they adopt when making decisions and classifications based on it.
For example, I could point out that dihydrogen monoxide is a combination of rocket fuel and one of the most potent oxidizers known to humanity, that one component of it is a known neurotoxin, that it kills thousands every year, that one type of it is a dwindling commodity that people are willing to kill over, and that anyone who takes the chemical suffers fatal withdrawal symptoms if denied it; despite sounding like a highly-explosive super-addictive poison, it's still just water. My presentation of it doesn't change any actual facts about it, but how I presented it changes the perception of it (and, yes, there are people seriously calling for the ban of dihydrogen monoxide because of presentations just like the one I just did).
Now, to answer your question: Arcane Lock can be used in a defender role by using it on a door that is between you and an enemy. Most of the time, they're going to have to bash that door down to get to you. Do it on several doors between you and them and you might actually have enough time to do a long rest before they get to you (depends on what the doors are made of, of course). Speaking as a DM who's been on the receiving end of that tactic, it can be an amazingly effective way to hold a position for a period of time.
Because if they're stabbing someone in the back and they're not on the front line, you just lost your wizard or cleric to betrayal.
This goes back to the question I asked and [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] reiterated - are you asserting, what some others in this thread, have, that any given 5e character can fulfil multiple roles, and perhaps any role?
Because by pointing to the Basic PDF, I am pointing to some 4e characters for whom I believe this is not true.
If the claim is that a given class can be built to multiple roles, I don't think I've seen that widely contested. The contested claim is whether this is also true of 4e - I think it is, but accept [MENTION=6680772]Iosue[/MENTION]'s point that doing so can require a relatively high degree of system mastery.
The terminological point seems to me a relatively small quibble. You are looking at it from within the fiction - the character is brave; the role label has more of an eye on metagame function - by drawing and absorbing attacks, the character keeps those attacks off the other PCs, and thereby defends them.
The mechanics in 4e are unique. I've discussed this in multiple posts upthread. In AD&D, melee was sticky by default. In 3E melee was non-sticky by default, due to very generous 5' step rules. 4e kept a version of the 3E rules as its default, but then established particular mechanics available to certain characters, and concentrated primarily but not exclusively in certain classes (with fighters as the paradigm), in order to replicate the stickiness of AD&D when the melee involved the characters who chose those mechanics.
The net upshot is that if you write the story of a 4e melee with a fighter at the centre of the scrum, it will read much like the story of an AD&D melee with the fighter at the centre of the scrum. But if you move from the fiction to the gameplay, the mechanical pathway to that fictional outcome was different in each case; and more specific and intricate in the case of 4e.
A footnote to the above: I think we can identify at least three reasons why 4e uses different mechanical devices from AD&D to achieve melees in which enemies are locked down in a scrum with the fighter at the centre of the action.
(1) 4e favours mechanical intricacy as a general feature of its design. It is a game for RPGers who enjoy working with mechanics.
(2) 4e is a successor-game to 3E, so it's default approach to melee is closer to 3E's non-sticky melee than AD&D's sticky melee. Therefore, to achieve AD&D-style stickiness in the special case of the fighter (and similar characters), new mechanics are needed.
(3) 4e's approach, while mechanically more complex than AD&D, makes it easier to support different sorts of character builds for whom melee is not sticky, like the ranger and rogue (who have many ways of generating multi-square shifts, or - in 3E terms - 5' steps of a lot more than 5 feet). In AD&D this sort of character was hard to implement; the only version I know of is the Thief-Acrobat with its Evasion special ability, which is complex in wording and, in my personal although admittedly long-ago experience, not all that easy to use and adjudicate in play either.
Hussar
Legend
Ok, again, where are you getting this.
Any defender in 4e has powers that allow him to be sticky - thus drawing attacks to himself and away from everyone else. That's the definition of defender. If you walk past the defender, the fighter is going to smack you and cancel your movement, the paladin is going to cause you pain because you didn't attack him and the other defender classes will do other stuff.
Leaders don't lead? Ummm, what do you call all those powers which grant additional actions to allies? What is my warlord doing when he grants you an extra move action outside of your turn?
Strikers typically cause lots of damage (or at least effects) on single targets and then move away, making it very hard to pin the striker down. Warlock is teleporting all over the battlefield, rogues get to shift everywhere. That sort of thing.
Yes, if you define the roles by single points, you're right, the roles don't really mean anything. But, you're ignoring the rest of the role in order to make your point. Defenders don't make an ally harder to hit, typically, they defend you by interposing themselves between you and whatever is trying to eat you.
Hussar
Legend
Nergal Pendragon said:
Using Create Water to deal damage stopped after 2e. It was specifically disallowed in 3e and later editions. Even doing it in AD&D was cheesy rules lawyering. In fact, it wouldn't even work, because you need line of sight to cast spells in 3e or later and you can't see inside a target in order to create water.
Arcane locking a door is NOT what a defender does. That's not a defender action. That's battlefield control - thus - CONTROLLER.
This conversation would go a lot easier if you folks would stop inventing definitions.
Nergal Pendragon
First Post
Okay, I understand where you are coming from.
I will say that, yes, I believe any given character can fulfill any given role in combat, but that if they are not built for that roll it can be extremely difficult. It is possible to have a fighter in the Basic rules act as a controller, but he's going to majorly suck at it. Just like a 4E fighter could be built to fill the controller role, but would still majorly suck at it.
That said, fulfilling a role and being effective at it is an entirely different matter; no, it is not possible for any given character to do that under normal circumstances. I can sit here and cite special circumstances until our grandchildren die of old age that show it is possible, but I believe you are talking about in general. And in general... no, it is not possible.
If you go back and look at my posts much earlier in this thread, you will see me saying that at any given time characters I played with could fill any given role; this is true, but that's because we as a roleplaying group would often intentionally set up the special circumstances that made it possible for classes like the rogue to play roles like defender. Thus, why it is I can give you an answer now that contradicts that earlier stance without actually changing my stance or actually contradicting what I said.
Now, that any given class can fulfill any given role? That I definitely agree with. And it has been my stance all along. I don't disagree it was possible in 4E; in fact, I think 4E's greatest problem is that it gave the illusion it's not possible. I can see several ways to play the 4E wizard as a striker or a defender with ease. It's all in how you apply your magical firepower
The role labels are meant to apply at the level of game play, not within the fiction. 4e doesn't hide from the fact that it is a set of rules for playing a game.
One conceit of that game is that enemies are typically encountered in relatively discrete groups rather than essentially endless waves. This is a conceit that D&D borrows from fantasy fiction, and particularly pulp fantasy. (The same conceit is found in other fiction with pulp origins, such as super hero comics. It can also be found in some non-puplish fantasy, eg romantic fantasy, because the characters regard it as dishonourable to deploy excessive force against an honourable foe.)
Given this conceit, there are only a finite amount of attacks to be delivered, and hence a finite amount of damage to be taken, before any given combat is over. Defenders "defend" because, in virtue of their mechanical abilities, they draw more of the attacks onto themselves then would result from a strictly random or even distribution of the attacks across the PCs, and thereby absorb more of the potential damage (via a combination of high AC meaning some potential damage is not actualised, and robust hit point totals which means that actualised damage isn't as likely to be fatal).
In the fiction, this mechanical "defending" may or may not take the form of defending. The game leaves it up to the player of the PC to colour what is going on, what exactly a mark means, why exactly the NPCs rush towards the fighter whose player has just used Come and Get It, etc. This is one of the points at which 4e is closer to a free-descriptor-style RPG (like FATE, or HeroWars/Quest, or Marvel Heroic RP) than other versions of D&D.
A "leader" may or may not lead in the fiction. (And p 16 of the PHB notes as much.) The leadership, from the role point of view, consists in the fact that they act as force mulitpliers for the party to which they belong - they multiply the force of the defender by supplying buffs and hit points, the force of the striker by supplying extra attacks, and of the whole party by conferring positional advantage through movement abilities.
A "striker", as you note, is not unique in attacking. What is distinctive about a 4e striker is that damage-delivery is his/her main combat function. The closest thing in the PHB to a pure striker is the archer ranger. (The melee ranger is more likely to have to find ways to withstand being at the centre of the scrum, and hence have at least a touch of defender capability; the rogue and even moreso the warlock mixes striking with control.)
A "controller", like a striker, degrades the enemy, but generally does so outside the hit point system. (In 4e, especially the PHB, there is a legacy treatment of AoE damage as also a controller function. This is entirely a legacy matter, because the classic D&D wizard both does AoE hit point damage via the artillery function, plus bypasses hit points via charm, web, slow etc.) The degrading takes the form of disrupting formations/positions (eg forced movement) and condition imposition (which often takes the form of action denial).
"Striker" and "controller" are not roles that occur in nature, as it were. They depend upon a mechanical convention, long part of D&D, that some ways of degrading an enemy, but not all, are measured via hit point depletion. In an RPG system in which there was no difference between hitting some one for "damage", and hitting someone and "stunning" them, the contrast between striker and controller would disappear (examples of such RPGs include HeroWars/Quest, Marvel Heroic RP, and arguably Tunnels & Trolls).
Certain features of controlling, defending and leading also depend upon the fact that D&D uses figures on maps (whether literally or in the imagination) to adjudicate combat positioning. In an RPG in which positioning was not treated in this way, forced movement and "leading" by way of conferring bonus movement would disappear, and hence some of 4e's role distinctions would also not apply to that game. Marvel Heroic, HeroQuest Revised and Tunnels & Trolls are all examples of this, and so is AD&D as far as melee (but not ranged combat and closing to melee) are concerned.
This is why I have stressed upthread that roles are about function in the context of fiction meeting mechanics. Strip away the action economy, the positioning rules, the distinction between hit points and condition imposition, and the 4e roles disappear with them.
But I don't think 5e has stripped many of those things away. It still has positioning rules based on a real or imagined map (eg movement rates, distances, effects etc all measured in feet). It still has conditions as a way to degrade the enemy without depleting hit points. It still has an action economy. So it still has the mechanical raw material out of which the 4e roles emerged.
One thing that is different about 5e, though, is the mechanical duration of combats. Fewer round of combat mean fewer events of character movement (either PC or NPC/monster), less time for imposed conditions to matter, etc. By making movement more liberal it also makes positioning in combat easier, which reduces the distinctive significance of granting allies free/bonus movement or imposing forced movement on enemies. These features have the potential to reduce the significance, in 5e, of the mechanical features that underpin 4e's roles - much as in AD&D, because melee is sticky by default and there is no movement once in melee, there is no distinction between melee strikers and defenders, nor any significant scope for leading or controlling that focuses on movement.
