Got a “Someone Has To Play The Leader (or Defender or Controller or Whatever)” problem? Let the banana fix it.
4e D&D’s roles system helps players build an effective party: get someone of each role, and you’re well-balanced and effective. Without someone of each role, you’ll have a noticeably harder time of it. Playing without a balanced party is like using a computer without a keyboard: totally possible (character map and a mouse!), but really, really inefficient. Because of that, in a functional way, the people who pick their characters later than others are goaded into filling out the roles that previous players didn’t fill. They may end up NOT filling those roles, but most players aren’t too excited to be the one who throws away the keyboard, so to speak. Rather than go with their first choice, if someone already has that role, they’ll go with their second or third.
If you were to play a game of 4e D&D end-to-end, levels 1-30, leveling up about once a month, it would take about two and a half years. That’s a long time to be stuck playing a character that you felt was your second or third choice, something that you felt pressured to take because you didn’t want to be the guy who decided to say “Instead of that leader that we clearly could benefit from, I’m going to be the party’s 3rd striker, because I like rogues.”
This is totally an avoidable problem. Any of the ways below will help your group to liberate your players from the tyranny of feeling like you just broke the computer’s keyboard for playing what you want to play instead of what the party needs.
Consumable Items
Healing potions in 4e kind of suck. “Spend a surge to heal a fixed value” is only a good idea for a few corner cases. This is probably deliberate: they’re not meant to overshadow or replace a party Leader. A party with a cleric and a brace of healing potions should be turning to the cleric more often than not.
Of course, a party without a cleric can have healing potions that are equal to what a cleric can do. Simply have a healing potion heal a healing surge plus 1d6. Or, depending on the type of potion, you can have it duplicate some other class’s leader ability – a healing surge plus a slide, for instance. Like so:
Potion of Life
Use: Minor action
Target: Yourself or an ally adjacent to you.
Effect: The target can spend a healing surge, and gains 1d6 additional temporary HP.
But let us not stop there. We can have consumable items that duplicate ANY of the role mechanics.
Karach Cocktail
Use: Minor action
Target: One weapon wielded by yourself or an ally adjacent to you.
Effect: Roll 1d6. 1 is Fire, 2 is Cold, 3 is Electricity, 4 is Acid, 5 is Poison, and 6 is Psychic. Your next hit with that weapon creates a Blast 2 centered on the target. Make an attack against each creature in the blast. Those who are hit are dealt 1d6 damage of the rolled type.
Bumblebee Blade
Use: Minor action
Target: One weapon wielded by yourself or an ally adjacent to you.
Effect: The next attack with the target weapon, whether it hits or misses, releases a small buzzing insect that harasses the target. This imposes a -2 penalty on the attack rolls of the target, until the end of that target’s . If the target makes an attack that doesn’t include the insect, the bug stings them for 1d6 damage.
Acid Reservoir
Use: Minor action
Target: One weapon wielded by yourself or an ally adjacent to you.
Effect: The next hit with the weapon deals an additional 2d6 acid damage.
Who needs a doctor when I've got this bad boy?
…those are only examples. No doubt you can think of a dozen different directions to take this in already. The thrust of the idea is that we have items that replace the roles. These items can be purchased, or can be found in treasure hoards such that they are generally always available to any PC with a minor action who wants to use one. It lets anyone serve as a healer, striker, controller, or defender, for that action.
The down side to using these is that the DM would have to make sure to sprinkle these items in treasure hoards and make them available at shops, and that changes the dynamic of play a bit. A DM who is used to fulfilling wishlists might not care too much about plunking down a handful of consumable items, and a DM who has hedge wizards, apothecaries, or potion brewers might not have a problem with this kind of minor magic shop, but these are pretty specific requirements.
A more subtle issue with presenting them as consumable items is the loss aversion inherent in any consumable resource. By definition, a consumable item is something you can’t get back once it’s used, which makes people reluctant to use it all up. You’ll probably see healing dropped a lot less often than a typical leader would drop healing, and you might not see the other items used much at all (“we’ll save it for when we REALLY need it!”).
This can be counter-acted, to a degree, by making the items more permanent, more like magic armor or a magic weapon. But then they compete with other armor and weapon powers, and also can be swapped out for other gear.
So that’s the trade-off you’ll be making with roles-as-items: flexibility and customizability, but less reliability and perhaps slightly more DM burden.
Battlefield Achievements
Rather than give your players items that duplicate the effects of a role, you can code the role mechanics into elements on the battlefield that players and monsters can interact with or achieve. You could make these particular squares or terrain elements, or triggered events that happen when the player or character performs a particular action. For instance:
The Glory of War!
Trigger: When two members of the enemy party drops to 0 hp (for this purpose, minions count as ¼, Elites count as 2, and Solos count as 2 when they become bloodied, and 2 when they are reduced to 0 hp).
Target: One member of the triggering character’s party.
Effect: The target can spend a healing surge. If the target was the one who activated the trigger, the target also gains 1d6 hp.
Provoking Distraction
Trigger: When a party member attacks an enemy adjacent to an ally.
Target: The enemy attacked
Effect: Until the end of the target’s next turn, it takes -2 penalty on attack rolls against anyone other than the triggering party member. If the target attacks someone other than the triggering party member, the triggering party member can make an opportunity attack against the target.
Flanked!
Trigger: When a party member attacks an enemy that they flank.
Target: The enemy attacked
Effect: The target takes an extra 2d6 damage.
Take Full Advantage
Trigger: When a party member hits an enemy granting combat advantage
Target: The enemy attacked
Effect: The target is dazed until the end of their next turn.
These ideas require less DM intervention. In fact, you can farm this out to the PCs to keep track of. Since it’s purely an added effect, chances are good they’ll pay attention when it happens, leaving you to worry less about their balance and more about enemy behaviors. This also achieves solid synergy: a party that needs healing is encouraged to flank and gain combat advantage to take an enemy out so that they can spend a surge. There’s a particular strategy to their behavior that can reward advanced planning and smart play.
Your Ideas
I’ve barely scratched the surface, here, I’m sure. Over the last 5 years, I bet a lot of ENWorlders have stumbled on different ways to make it so that a player wasn’t locked into a role for the life of the character. Let me know what you think of these, and what you’ve done yourself, down in the comments!
4e D&D’s roles system helps players build an effective party: get someone of each role, and you’re well-balanced and effective. Without someone of each role, you’ll have a noticeably harder time of it. Playing without a balanced party is like using a computer without a keyboard: totally possible (character map and a mouse!), but really, really inefficient. Because of that, in a functional way, the people who pick their characters later than others are goaded into filling out the roles that previous players didn’t fill. They may end up NOT filling those roles, but most players aren’t too excited to be the one who throws away the keyboard, so to speak. Rather than go with their first choice, if someone already has that role, they’ll go with their second or third.
If you were to play a game of 4e D&D end-to-end, levels 1-30, leveling up about once a month, it would take about two and a half years. That’s a long time to be stuck playing a character that you felt was your second or third choice, something that you felt pressured to take because you didn’t want to be the guy who decided to say “Instead of that leader that we clearly could benefit from, I’m going to be the party’s 3rd striker, because I like rogues.”
This is totally an avoidable problem. Any of the ways below will help your group to liberate your players from the tyranny of feeling like you just broke the computer’s keyboard for playing what you want to play instead of what the party needs.
Consumable Items
Healing potions in 4e kind of suck. “Spend a surge to heal a fixed value” is only a good idea for a few corner cases. This is probably deliberate: they’re not meant to overshadow or replace a party Leader. A party with a cleric and a brace of healing potions should be turning to the cleric more often than not.
Of course, a party without a cleric can have healing potions that are equal to what a cleric can do. Simply have a healing potion heal a healing surge plus 1d6. Or, depending on the type of potion, you can have it duplicate some other class’s leader ability – a healing surge plus a slide, for instance. Like so:
Potion of Life
Use: Minor action
Target: Yourself or an ally adjacent to you.
Effect: The target can spend a healing surge, and gains 1d6 additional temporary HP.
But let us not stop there. We can have consumable items that duplicate ANY of the role mechanics.
Karach Cocktail
Use: Minor action
Target: One weapon wielded by yourself or an ally adjacent to you.
Effect: Roll 1d6. 1 is Fire, 2 is Cold, 3 is Electricity, 4 is Acid, 5 is Poison, and 6 is Psychic. Your next hit with that weapon creates a Blast 2 centered on the target. Make an attack against each creature in the blast. Those who are hit are dealt 1d6 damage of the rolled type.
Bumblebee Blade
Use: Minor action
Target: One weapon wielded by yourself or an ally adjacent to you.
Effect: The next attack with the target weapon, whether it hits or misses, releases a small buzzing insect that harasses the target. This imposes a -2 penalty on the attack rolls of the target, until the end of that target’s . If the target makes an attack that doesn’t include the insect, the bug stings them for 1d6 damage.
Acid Reservoir
Use: Minor action
Target: One weapon wielded by yourself or an ally adjacent to you.
Effect: The next hit with the weapon deals an additional 2d6 acid damage.
Who needs a doctor when I've got this bad boy?
…those are only examples. No doubt you can think of a dozen different directions to take this in already. The thrust of the idea is that we have items that replace the roles. These items can be purchased, or can be found in treasure hoards such that they are generally always available to any PC with a minor action who wants to use one. It lets anyone serve as a healer, striker, controller, or defender, for that action.
The down side to using these is that the DM would have to make sure to sprinkle these items in treasure hoards and make them available at shops, and that changes the dynamic of play a bit. A DM who is used to fulfilling wishlists might not care too much about plunking down a handful of consumable items, and a DM who has hedge wizards, apothecaries, or potion brewers might not have a problem with this kind of minor magic shop, but these are pretty specific requirements.
A more subtle issue with presenting them as consumable items is the loss aversion inherent in any consumable resource. By definition, a consumable item is something you can’t get back once it’s used, which makes people reluctant to use it all up. You’ll probably see healing dropped a lot less often than a typical leader would drop healing, and you might not see the other items used much at all (“we’ll save it for when we REALLY need it!”).
This can be counter-acted, to a degree, by making the items more permanent, more like magic armor or a magic weapon. But then they compete with other armor and weapon powers, and also can be swapped out for other gear.
So that’s the trade-off you’ll be making with roles-as-items: flexibility and customizability, but less reliability and perhaps slightly more DM burden.
Battlefield Achievements
Rather than give your players items that duplicate the effects of a role, you can code the role mechanics into elements on the battlefield that players and monsters can interact with or achieve. You could make these particular squares or terrain elements, or triggered events that happen when the player or character performs a particular action. For instance:
The Glory of War!
Trigger: When two members of the enemy party drops to 0 hp (for this purpose, minions count as ¼, Elites count as 2, and Solos count as 2 when they become bloodied, and 2 when they are reduced to 0 hp).
Target: One member of the triggering character’s party.
Effect: The target can spend a healing surge. If the target was the one who activated the trigger, the target also gains 1d6 hp.
Provoking Distraction
Trigger: When a party member attacks an enemy adjacent to an ally.
Target: The enemy attacked
Effect: Until the end of the target’s next turn, it takes -2 penalty on attack rolls against anyone other than the triggering party member. If the target attacks someone other than the triggering party member, the triggering party member can make an opportunity attack against the target.
Flanked!
Trigger: When a party member attacks an enemy that they flank.
Target: The enemy attacked
Effect: The target takes an extra 2d6 damage.
Take Full Advantage
Trigger: When a party member hits an enemy granting combat advantage
Target: The enemy attacked
Effect: The target is dazed until the end of their next turn.
These ideas require less DM intervention. In fact, you can farm this out to the PCs to keep track of. Since it’s purely an added effect, chances are good they’ll pay attention when it happens, leaving you to worry less about their balance and more about enemy behaviors. This also achieves solid synergy: a party that needs healing is encouraged to flank and gain combat advantage to take an enemy out so that they can spend a surge. There’s a particular strategy to their behavior that can reward advanced planning and smart play.
Your Ideas
I’ve barely scratched the surface, here, I’m sure. Over the last 5 years, I bet a lot of ENWorlders have stumbled on different ways to make it so that a player wasn’t locked into a role for the life of the character. Let me know what you think of these, and what you’ve done yourself, down in the comments!
