The heroes in fiction can always hit and kill their enemies when the writer says, and this is typically instant or almost as quick. Does Drizzt Do' Urden need to wait for his turn, or roll to hit? No. He gets to go right in and outperform any D&D warrior for the most part, and so do most fantasy heroes. If Drizzt was in real D&D, though, he would be slowed down. So if you want to play a ranger like Drizzt in the books, you need to understand he will have big limitations even if you get to 20th level. If the DM gave you his ability, at any level, you could do as he does in the books, though. Unless everyone can play such a character, he would overshadow everyone and the challenges he would need to face, for the game to be challenging, would be hard to approach with any strategy.
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D&D 5E What are the Roles now?
- Thread starter Unwise
- Start date
pickin_grinnin
Explorer
I'm more concerned with what the character does and how I play him, as well.
When I DM/GM, I love it when I get a player who plays his/her character as a character, rather than as a numerically-bound role. D&D classes provide numerical boundaries to certain types of actions, but it's not difficult for a good roleplayer to find ways to achieve what (s)he wants through intelligent, creative play. A really good player can take a character with straight 10s in every trait and the weakest features of every class and play the character in an effective, useful way. That's the way things are in life, too - many successful people did poorly in school, didn't start out with wealthy parents, aren't conventionally attractive, etc., but they "played" life in a smart, creative way and reaped the rewards for it.
pickin_grinnin
Explorer
It's always interesting to see the different ways that people view Conan and (to use earlier examples) Gandalf and Merlin. A lot depends on how they first encountered the character. The original versions often differ significantly from those found in books and comics.
The Conan comics - particularly the long-running "Savage Sword of Conan" - do a much better job of reflecting the Conan from Howard's stories than the movies. Even so, the fact that Conan comes from a "barbaric tribe" and is physically imposing only represents a fraction of the traits of the character (as you obviously know). The only way you could really model him in D&D (from a technical standpoint) is with some careful multi-classing and some really good stats.
I always find it interesting that people want to play characters modeled on Gandalf. If you look at how he (and the other wizards) are depicted throughout Tolkien's writing, it becomes obvious that he's semi-divine and falls somewhere in the lower orders of the pantheon of that world (or in a class of beings just below it). In fact, Tolkien's description of the Istari demonstrates how he's not even human - he's more of a spirit servant. He's very different than the stereotypical "wave a wand/staff and cast spells" conception of a magic user. In many ways, Tolkien's use of the term "wizard" is a bit of a misnomer.
Merlin is more of a prophet or seer. Myrddin Wyltt, one of the main influences on the character, was just that, in fact - an insane prophet.
Neither of them really fit the spell-casting conception of a wizard that you find in most fantasy. Then again, none of them (D&D wizards, Gandalf, or Merlin) really match the hermetic ceremonial magicians that the "wizard" stereotype grew out of, other than in the most superficial ways.
Yep, and it would be fairly boring if it did. Heroes in fiction survive and find success because there is no real risk involved. The writer makes choices according to the needs of the story.
pickin_grinnin
Explorer
Getting back to the original post...
Roles don't necessarily have to grow out of classes. They often do, and some things (like healing ability) are strongly tied to certain classes, but characters don't have to be played in that way.
I have always preferred (as a player and a DM) to focus more on characters as characters, and let their roles grow naturally out of their interactions with an adventuring group. In fact, a given character may function in multiple roles within the same party, or different roles according to the social situations in which they find themselves. In instances where their skills and stats don't facilitate a particular role, it's interesting to see the creative things that players do to bypass those limitations.
When I DM, I tell newbie players to ignore the classes and stats. First come up with a fun character idea, THEN look at classes and stats to see how closely you can model the technical sides of things, with the understanding that you can use multi-classing and such to inch those things closer to the character concept. The real test of the character will lie in playing him/her in a way that fits the characterization. There may be many different paths to achieving that. Don't start out thinking "I'm going to make a ranger." Come up with a character idea first, then let the class choice support the characterization. If you go the other way, you will often end up with a fairly boring, stereotypical character.
Roles don't necessarily have to grow out of classes. They often do, and some things (like healing ability) are strongly tied to certain classes, but characters don't have to be played in that way.
I have always preferred (as a player and a DM) to focus more on characters as characters, and let their roles grow naturally out of their interactions with an adventuring group. In fact, a given character may function in multiple roles within the same party, or different roles according to the social situations in which they find themselves. In instances where their skills and stats don't facilitate a particular role, it's interesting to see the creative things that players do to bypass those limitations.
When I DM, I tell newbie players to ignore the classes and stats. First come up with a fun character idea, THEN look at classes and stats to see how closely you can model the technical sides of things, with the understanding that you can use multi-classing and such to inch those things closer to the character concept. The real test of the character will lie in playing him/her in a way that fits the characterization. There may be many different paths to achieving that. Don't start out thinking "I'm going to make a ranger." Come up with a character idea first, then let the class choice support the characterization. If you go the other way, you will often end up with a fairly boring, stereotypical character.
Tony Vargas
Legend
You could certainly play a Cleric who never preps a healing spell, and, viola, he's not filling the healer role anymore. He may be contributing sub-optimally to his part, possibly even contributing to their demise, but he is, indeed, 'free' of the healer role. The Cleric has enough spells, though, that if someone else takes up the healing burden, he could probably neatly fill some other (traditional or de-facto) role well enough to be fully-contributing. A pacifist fighter who refused to ever swing his weapon would be another instance of a character bucking his classic role - though he'd have little else to do with his extra attacks/round and action surge.
Not having formal roles takes a lot of pressure off the design of classes. A class can just be whatever you dream up, even if it doesn't contribute much to the party, contributes different things at different levels or even just different days, over-contributes to the point of dominating play and marginalizing characters of other classes, or is differentiated from other classes only by fairly meaningless or pedantic mechanical distinctions. That's a lot of 'design space' opened up.
That's a nice idea. Classes actually get in the way of that approach - even with 3e-style multi-classing or 4e-style reskinning - classless systems are much better at facilitating it. Hero system, for instance: you don't even have a choice of classes, you just come up with a concept and build it up from individual stats and powers.
Rather, classes spark character ideas and/or emulate stock characters or archetypes from the genre and/or make character building easier by presenting a complete/functional/contributing package of abilities without requiring undue system mastery. When they do those things well, they're a positive for the game. Especially for new players who are not going to have the system mastery to do a viable build-to-concept, and who can't count on having an experienced DM or system master there to mentor them.
The basic roles that speak to a well rounded party are still one warrior, one rogue, one priest, and one wizard. The warrior has the endurance and the weapon skills to fight multiple opponents, the rogue has the expertise and the contacts to bypass defenses and work angles to learn things only locals or other rogues know; the priest has the magic to heal and protect including from the undead and from evil spirits and deceptions of all kinds, and the magic and wisdom to guide the party to its goals; and the wizard has the magic to attack and destroy great masses of things, work deceptions, summon monsters, and alter reality to name a few.
The wizard is actually the most well-rounded character on their own, as their spells can cover the widest range of effects. Of course, at early levels they have fewer spells and they can't play such a broad role. The priest would be next best-rounded, followed by the rogue. The warrior is most narrowly focused, particularly barbarians and fighters. Rangers and paladins enjoy more areas of expertise, permitting more non-combat activity and of course, some magic which makes them more well-rounded by itself.
These are the real basics. If you can only have four PC's in the party, picking one of each is very good advice. The bard can step into the priest and wizard's shoes easily in 5th Edition, though. Concerning the warrior, if no one else can fill the role, he or she should learn melee and ranged weapon skills. If you can afford another warrior, it is better to specialize at least one in each.
While I recognise your description and think it's fine, I don't think it's as valid to to object to people who go into character generation without any idea of what sort of character they're going to play. Many RPGs simply don't give you the sort of control over the character generation. Early editions of D&D are one example where you just can't rely on having the stats and multi-classing that lets you start with a character idea and then start looking at classes and stats to model that. 3e and 5e are the exceptions in the extent to which you can do that with regard to multiclassing, and 5e tones down the amount you gain from it. There are also games which do "character concept first" design much better than any version of D&D, of course.
pickin_grinnin
Explorer
I have found that it works just fine with class systems, particularly in games that stress roleplaying and aren't as focused on combat and constant dice-rolling. When I get players who have a good character idea and are having trouble finding a way to do it within the given classes, I work with them to create a balanced new or hybrid class (or tweak a current class a bit) until we get something that will work.
pickin_grinnin
Explorer
If you run games that primarily focus on combat, that's true. That's not how everyone runs their games, though. I have run some games where none of the players were particularly good at combat and we focused on roleplaying, social interaction with NPCs, solving mysteries, etc.
pickin_grinnin
Explorer
I don't object to that at all. There are many equally valid ways to approach character creation. I just tell that the newbie players in my campaigns because it often leads to them creating characters with interesting skills, professions, or interests, which in turn gives them a lot more options for solving problems in the types of games that I run.
