D&D 4E 4e and teamwork...will it support it or not?

[Someone]

I'm of the opinion that teamwork isn't encouraged by characters that excel at one thing and can't do other things with meaningful efectiveness, if anyting you're forcing the player to do nothing but what his character is good at and nothing else. If the Cleric can't do anything but heal, what choice does he really have? Also, having threats that can be automatcally bypassed by one team member doesn't exactly promote teamwork - the only one player working there is the guy with the right skill!The teamwork I see with those overspecialized characters is at the metagame level, when the group of players have to split the roles and one or some of them have to be stuck with the unpopular ones, least the party be defeated by lack of certain critical ability.

If anything, teamwork is promoted by by the game making sure no build is absolutely efective over any other (so characters can't be overshadowed by other characters with different choices) and by the DM setting threats that can't be defeated by just one character, but need all the party's cooperation.

 

[Henry]

The impression that I'm getting from 4e is that every PC can do a little bit of everything necessary for their characters survival. Everyone has at least some healing capability, traps are being designed so that all players can interact (and possibly, to a point, disable them), You can take training feats to grab a couple of another classes abilities, etc.

Personally, I think it will encourage teamwork like no version since AD&D. With the whole "defender, striker, leader, controller" model, an individual 4th edition PC will not have nearly the survival chance of a group of characters, and a group with 4 defenders won't have nearly the success of a d/s/l/c group will. A little bit of regaining hit points or swift recovery still won't come near a full on cleric using their curing magic, and grabbing a few basic abilities still won't compensate for rogues or wizards with high-tier stuff.

3E may be the worst edition in my opinion for archetypal characters needing to depend on one another. Characters with prestige classes that mix two or three classes into one, or having a boatload of magic stuff to duplicate other classes, or feats that let you do so, can really do this already more than any previous edition. However, they do seem to keep harping on PCs being more dependent on "the team" than before.

 

[LostSoul]

Support? Yes.
Encourage? No.

An example of something that on the surface looks like teamwork but at its core it is IMHO the very opposite: abilities that automatically trigger aboost to your allies.

Your cleric score a critical hit, and that triggers a healing effect to all your allies on the battlefield.

Where is the teamwork?

I want to set up the cleric so he can make the critical hit, giving me a boost as well.

If the Rogue had "Heal allies +xd6" power on his sneak attack, you'd still try to set up flanking for him.

We could ask, "How much player choice goes into triggering abilities that boost allies?" But that's getting away from the issue of teamwork and into "Is the game tactically complex"?

 

[Li Shenron]

I want to set up the cleric so he can make the critical hit, giving me a boost as well.

If the Rogue had "Heal allies +xd6" power on his sneak attack, you'd still try to set up flanking for him.

How do you setup the cleric to make a critical hit?

You don't.

Even more now that criticals are automatic and no creature are immune.
If you ever wanted to improve the chances of a friend to crit in 3.0, you could have e.g. focused on the crit-immune monsters while your friend dealt with the other foes, or you could have used Aid Another to grant a bonus to the confirmation roll.

We could ask, "How much player choice goes into triggering abilities that boost allies?" But that's getting away from the issue of teamwork and into "Is the game tactically complex"?

Not at all. That simply gets us to discuss the meaning of "teamwork".

 

[LostSoul]

How do you setup the cleric to make a critical hit?

You don't.

The most obvious thing is to do something to make his choice of making an attack a good one. Flanking, for example.

It's possible that you might have an ability that makes it more likely to crit. Use that!

It's also possbile that crits can be activated using some kind of resource - so when you want the cleric to use that up, you array yourself in such a way so that he can get the most use out of his power.

 

[Li Shenron]

The most obvious thing is to do something to make his choice of making an attack a good one. Flanking, for example.

Ok, we don't know if there is anything new about critting, but what we presumably know is that there is no confirmation roll, and all weapons only crit on a 20. With these changes, flanking doesn't affect critting at all. Aid Another doesn't affect critting at all. Critting just happens on a natural 20, which is still an automatic success, hence you always have the same 5% chance of critting, and nothing can change that, save for special abilities. Next question is: will there be a special ability that when you use it, it increases someone else's chance to crit? Could be, but it is certainly much less likely than an ability that increases your chance to crit.

It's possible that you might have an ability that makes it more likely to crit. Use that!

It's also possbile that crits can be activated using some kind of resource - so when you want the cleric to use that up, you array yourself in such a way so that he can get the most use out of his power.

 

[Wepwawet]

In my view 4E encourages FUN for everyone. And you play whatever you want to play. Not some class that must be present in the party but no one wants to play it.

A group having fun is team work.
This is better than *forcing* teamwork on the players. (My experience as a DM tells me to never force anything on the players usually it goes wrong)

Anyway, a party will have always teamwork, because each one is better at a different thing, and because I believe most people will play it this way.
And you can even have parties of 1, 2 or 3 players who can acomplish most of the tasks.

 

[Corinth]

In actual play, there is no difference between "encourage" and "require" because players that have a clue will insist on maximizing performance. If Clerics are still the best healers in the game, then they shall remain heal-bots and groups will insist on having one in the party- especially in gameplay environments that are either highly organized (RPGA, cons) or transient (online play), because you end up with the same community pressures that today are commonplace of the MMORPG scene, and that pressure is to maximize the value of the time spent playing the game by maximizing the effectiveness of the group.

 

[Zaruthustran]

Think of a fictional 4-person infantry squad composed of a sniper (rogue), rifleman (fighter), medic (cleric), and artillery spotter (wizard). Each soldier has a specialty, but each soldier can sort of cover for the others: they're all trained in first aid, they all carry an anti-personnel weapon, they all carry grenades.

Same in 4E. Sure, every character can self-heal to some limited extent. Sure, anybody can make a Spot check to notice a tripwire, or a Disable Device check to jam a crowbar into the gears of a trap. But the specialist will be the best.

If anything, I think 4E will encourage teamwork. True teamwork. As in, instead of the fighter getting creamed and *needing* the cleric to heal him, he can decide to "take one for the team" and rely on his selfheal, thereby allowing the cleric to throw down a Flamestrike. By enabling classes to cover for each other, 4E encourages players to coordinate, plan, talk things out.

In play:

Rogue: The fighter's hit! Cleric, heal him!
Fighter: No! I can handle it. You need to nail that lich--take it down!
Cleric: [HOLY ROAST]
Wizard: I think I can bypass this trap by freezing its mechanism! [RAY OF FROST]

That's cool. Clerics are more than bandaid dispensers. Rogues are more than walking toolkits. Each class can contribute to combat, and no class is *required* in order to make a viable party. Much better.

 

[JohnSnow]

To steal an analogy from dog-training, it seems to me that 4e is focusing on the 'reward' model of behavior modification rather than the 'newspaper to the nose' model.

3e penalized you for playing badly and not fulfilling your role properly. Occasionally, you even got penalized for playing correctly (cleric doesn't get to participate in the fight because he's busy healing somebody). Many players find being relegated to that support role "unfun." 4e, by contrast, is holding out incentives for characters who do what they're supposed to do. There's no newspaper to the nose, just a nice treat if you do the right thing - that is, fill your role.

Where is the teamwork? The critical hit doesn't require the cleric any choice, it just happens. When it happens, your friends get a benefit but this is not teamwork, because there is no "work". Teamwork is when the cleric purposefully choses not to do something (e.g. attacking) because doing something else (e.g. casting a healing spell) is more important at the moment.

I have to ask all the people saying this: do you play the heal-monkey cleric in your current group? If so, then I guess you have a right to that opinion. On the other hand, if you don't, is it because you find it "more fun" to have a different role in the fight?

And doesn't that say something?