D&D 5E What are the Roles now?

[Eric V]

Huh? So answering your questions and correcting your error (about the broadsword not being a martial weapon) is too much of an in-depth discussion?

It would seem so.

As always, I'm amazed at your patience, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION].

 

[Rejuvenator]

I'm amazed how much time we make to argue about geekbabble. It's a guilty pleasure for me, but I can only take it so far.

 

[Eirikrautha]

Battle Cleric isn't a role in the 4e sense though...

I know you are agreeing with me, but I want to clarify something and don't want to post/quote where it will contravene the owner's wishes. So allow me to respond that the issue is not what the "role" is or is not called. It is whether or not the role is built. In all of the discussion, the point that constantly gets ignored is that older editions required you to build characters to a role (even if the class does most of the building). 5e doesn't! The cleric in my example wasn't "built" to be a war cleric or battle cleric or anything else. In the next combat, he may have buffed the other party members with Bless. So he's a leader. The the next combat he might heal. Then the next one he uses positioning and spells to control the battlefield. He didn't have a single feat or power (other than those common to every cleric) that he chose to do these things! So, when, with no changes, a character can be all roles... he is none. He used tactics; he wasn't built for a role.

 

[SirAntoine]

RPGs in which, particularly during melee combat, characters "move from square to square on a board":

* DragonQuest (early 1980s RPG);

* Plenty of 3E games (early 2000s RPG);

* B/X or AD&D played on a dungeon map with grid and key (late 1970s RPG).

Dungeon Tiles are irrelevant to 4e: I have never used a Dungeon Tile, and I know from these boards that plenty of people buy Dungeon Tiles to use them for 3E/PF games.

Here are some RPGs I have played in which, during combat, all players take equally significant turns:

* Rolemaster;

* RuneQuest;

* Marvel Heroic RP;

* 3E D&D.

I don't really understand what you mean by "clear objectives". When I think "clear objectives" I think of the tournament scoring rules in classic modules like C1 and C2. And Gygax's advice, in the closing pages of his PHB, that skilled players will set themselves clear objectives before undertaking a dungeon expedition.

In any event, I don't see why players having goals for their PCs - be that in 4e or any other RPG - makes it a board game.

Clear objectives are a way the players can win.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I know you are agreeing with me, but I want to clarify something and don't want to post/quote where it will contravene the owner's wishes. So allow me to respond that the issue is not what the "role" is or is not called. It is whether or not the role is built. In all of the discussion, the point that constantly gets ignored is that older editions required you to build characters to a role (even if the class does most of the building). 5e doesn't! The cleric in my example wasn't "built" to be a war cleric or battle cleric or anything else. In the next combat, he may have buffed the other party members with Bless. So he's a leader. The the next combat he might heal. Then the next one he uses positioning and spells to control the battlefield. He didn't have a single feat or power (other than those common to every cleric) that he chose to do these things! So, when, with no changes, a character can be all roles... he is none. He used tactics; he wasn't built for a role.

I think it's about specialization of labor. 5E allows you to optimize, but it is still is generalist-friendly. As you outlined in your earlier post, Eirikrautha, rigid build-time specialization is a requirement for effectiveness only in a system which is built to challenge specialists (target DCs in the low 30s, etc.). 5E made the conscious design choice to make the d20 roll the single biggest factor in almost any contest of skill, and while I have my problems with that idea from the verisimilitude perspective (the best archer in the world isn't all that much better than a mediocre archer, really?) it does accomplish its design objective: you don't have to rigidly optimize your build to be successful as an adventurer.

 

[Aribar]

Clear objectives are a way the players can win.

I'm not sure what you mean by win, or rather what the player is winning. Do you mean something short term like "survive the fight"? Or something like "throw the One Ring into Mount Doom"? I haven't really seen a difference in players "winning" D&D; "winning" a campaign seems to come down to good role playing, possibly well-made and effective characters, and the players succeeding at the campaign's goals.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Clear objectives are a way the players can win.

That...doesn't really help me understand you. I don't know what "clear objectives" exist in 4e that allegedly do not exist in any other version of D&D. Can you give an example? I did some thinking about this over dinner, and every time I thought I'd come up with something, it boiled down to "participating in the story," "winning a fight," or "avoiding death," which are all present in every version of D&D I know of and have played (B/X, 2e, 3e, 4e).

 

[Imaro]

I know you are agreeing with me, but I want to clarify something and don't want to post/quote where it will contravene the owner's wishes. So allow me to respond that the issue is not what the "role" is or is not called. It is whether or not the role is built. In all of the discussion, the point that constantly gets ignored is that older editions required you to build characters to a role (even if the class does most of the building). 5e doesn't! The cleric in my example wasn't "built" to be a war cleric or battle cleric or anything else. In the next combat, he may have buffed the other party members with Bless. So he's a leader. The the next combat he might heal. Then the next one he uses positioning and spells to control the battlefield. He didn't have a single feat or power (other than those common to every cleric) that he chose to do these things! So, when, with no changes, a character can be all roles... he is none. He used tactics; he wasn't built for a role.

No worries I was just trying to clarify whether Herschel's point was that the same classes existed in 5e or the same roles... as to your larger point I wholeheartedly agree about the place of roles in 5e.... see my below post... the problem is that throughout this thread about 5e roles we keeo getting caught up in the minutiae of 4e... go figure.

And what we've been trying to tell you and the rest of the 4e brigade is that 5e isn't constructed like this... thus the 4e roles don't exsist in 5e... My Fighter's basic toolbox isn't geared towards me being a defender... because he doesn't have features like combat superiority and combat challenge or numerous defender powers based solely on Strength and only Strength with a lack of ranged weapon options hard-coded into the class...

 

[pemerton]

I'm not experienced enough with 5E to know how to fix these problems (and I dislike that I have to put time into fixing things I perceive as problems in a new system with a $50-150 entry free), but as general ideas I'd like to go back to the one playtest packet where fighters restored superiority dice upon rolling initiative or beginning battle, or possibly change how long short rests are.

The 5e DMG presents options for changing rest durations.

I'd like if there was a way (whether feats, class feature, etc.) to gain more Reaction actions or maybe have like 1 free attack of opportunity per round.

Isn't the confining of out-of-turn actions to one per round part of the streamlining of play that is a primary goal of 5e? If that's so, then I think this would be an unlikely option.

In all of the discussion, the point that constantly gets ignored is that older editions required you to build characters to a role (even if the class does most of the building). 5e doesn't!

It's not been my intention to ignore this point. I've responded to it upthread, including doing some maths around bounded accuracy.

I can see your cleric example, but to my mind that's somewhat cherry-picked, a bit like my example upthread in which the sorcerer (notionally "striker") lays down an auto-damage, AC buffing zone (controller + leader), the paladin (notionally "defender") lays down an auto-damage, combat advantage-inflicting zone (controller + leader) and the cleric lays down an auto-damage zone (pure control).

Conversely, the fighter in my 4e game has no real way of acting as a leader (self-heal only, self-buff only) unless magic items or circumstances permit (flanking is a type of buff in 4e).

I'm imagining a 5e champion fighter of 4th level. I can see how that character can play as a "striker" via damage dealing, and as a modest leader (via Protector style - though this requires a shield and hence tends to preclude ranged striking). But I can't see where this character gets the ability to act as a controller (either "defender" style or wizardly ranged style) - where is the condition-imposition, debuffing etc? And I can't really see how this character brings healing either, or AoE damage.

If the claim is not that every 5e PC is a generalist, but that 5e permits generalist builds, then that's probably true but doesn't seem wildly different from 4e, which also permits generalist builds. Maybe they're easier to build in 5e? That sounds plausible, and is a point that [MENTION=6680772]Iosue[/MENTION] made quite a way upthread.

 

[pemerton]

Pemerton, whom I was talking to, can call himself a defender of 4th Edition.

Actually, you are the one who said that.