D&D 4E 4E: What we think we know

[Kae'Yoss]

Don't we do that now anyway? When a new player joins the group with, say, a party of 3 people already
there is a fighter wizard and rogue

There is no cleric so new guy has to be a cleric or druid. But druids suck so play a cleric new guy.


Same thing really. Now it just spells it out.

Undeniably. The roles have just been renamed. There were there all the time: Warrior, Priest, Rogue, Arcanist. 3e sort of assumed that your group consisted of Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard, or something like it. But no one held a gun to your head and forced you to bring a rogue. I doubt that in 4e, they'll hold a gun to your head and force you to play a striker.

 

[Szatany]

Wow, that sound great !

I guess the other controller will be sorcerer, as it has been confirmed that there are still sorcerers and wizards.

They said they will take sorc and wiz further apart, so I'm guessing sorcerer will be a striker and perhaps druid the other controller.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

They said they will take sorc and wiz further apart

Good thing, too. The 3e Sorcerer doesn't really deserve to be its own class, much less one of the core team. It's basically a variant wizard.

 

[Nyaricus]

Merric, I've posted this is the 4e covers thread here, but I'll repeat it here (as I think it's important):

"I don think anyone else has noticed that under "PLayer Handbook" on the PHB cover, it says, "Arcane, Divine and Martial Heroes"

This means psionics aren't in the core book."

I underlined the important part

cheers,
--N

 

[WhatGravitas]

Undeniably. The roles have just been renamed. There were there all the time: Warrior, Priest, Rogue, Arcanist. 3e sort of assumed that your group consisted of Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard, or something like it. But no one held a gun to your head and forced you to bring a rogue. I doubt that in 4e, they'll hold a gun to your head and force you to play a striker.

Right. And I also think, that Defender, Striker, Controller, Leader is a much better division of roles, than:

Warrior = Tank/Damage-dealer
Wizard = Controller/Batman
Cleric = Buffer/Healer
Rogue = Skill-monkey/Party-face

Why? Because it is more battlefield oriented (unlike the concept of skill-monkey) and therefore opens up new flexibility in non-combat situations. Additionally, splitting tank and damage-dealer makes for more interesting interaction on the battlefield... and no healer, but instead leader? That's nice, because it opens up healing to other classes, making it easier to supplement a missing role.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Li Shenron]

I haven't slogged through the entire thread, but here are some thoughts:

- Not really sure how I feel about the "defined roles" thing. I thought the point of 3.x was that there were no defined roles, and you could play whatever you want? If 4E is designed with the assumption that you're going to have one of each role, isn't that basically forcing people to play things? e.g.

...

- Similar train of thought with the racial differences. It sounds like they're going away from the "any race can be anything" and running dangerously close to the old "Only members of races x, y and z can be this class" nonsense in the bad old days. Again, it's too early to be sure, and I'm certain they won't do something like that, but it was a point of concern with some of my friends.

Impossible, you're just too pessimistic

For races, IMO they are seriously hinting at something like having racial abilities that develop in parallel with your class level. There could be a risk, if there is a race that dominates when combined to a certain class (e.g. Elf ends up being a straight better choice for anyone wanting to play a Mage). But I think the chance of barred combinations is non-existant.

And I think the "defined roles" means that they are going to create guidelines (or more...) about roles on the battlefield, like "tank" or "ranged combatant" or "mass-damage dealer". It's probable that each class will work best in one role, but no way there will be a requirement to fill each role in a group to be able to play...

 

[Cadfan]

Lord Tirian- exactly. Instead of defining the classes by roles that sometimes occur on the battlefield, and sometimes off, each class should have an on the battlefield role and an off the battlefield role. No one should be left out of either setting.

 

[DungeonMaester]

WoC is really the evil empire.

Rage Against the WotC?

---Rusty

 

[William Ronald]

Moderators, maybe it would be a good idea to pin this to the top of the forum for a while. This way, people could use this thread as a resource.


Probably each class can fill a number of roles. So, a player with a wizard character may be the controller on the battle field and the leader -- because of the personality of the character. The cleric might serve in a support role, augmenting the other characters.


As for the racial abilities issue, I imagine that all races will get something that works for any given class. So, perhaps if elves are supposed to be smart and swift in movement, perhaps a wizard will gain a power that reflects this. I imagine that the other races would also gain abilities related to a class, possibly reflecting the broad roles.

We still have a lot to learn.

 

[Greg K]

There is no cleric so new guy has to be a cleric or druid. But druids suck so play a cleric new guy.


Same thing really. Now it just spells it out.

Never happens with the groups I play/have played with. If a role goes unfilled by a PC, the party either hires an NPC or deals with it. We've even moved away from cleric as healer and tailored spell lists to the deity's domain and still have had people willing to play a cleric and the player's except that the cleric may only have limited healing or no healing at all.