Can 4.0 style class roles and 3.5 character customization co-exist?

[Najo]

To each his own. In my experience with an Eldar army you can make different builds to seak victory as it suits your taste. For example you can either build to damage your enemy, either buid to gain strategic points, either build to negate strategic points to your enemy or any combination of the above with equal chances to be able to deploy different tactics in each case and build to gain victory.

Out of all the armies the eldar are one of the more flexible, yes. But, try building an eldar armored army. Their vehicles can't do it. Try building an eldar army with high numbers like tyranids, orks or gaurd, again near impossible to do and have it play well. Eldar do not have cheap troops or heavy armored tanks. In a sense, the eldar cannot perform the roll of defender very well. The closest they get is by loading up on wraithlords and wraithguard, but that has its own costs and sacrifice, again in numbers and expensive warlocks and farseers to support the units well.

Likewise, each eldar unit (aside from dire avengers) is over specialized in their combat role. How do howling banshees, striking scorpions or harlequins deal with heavy shooting? How do fire dragons deal with ranged shooting or close combat? How does swooping hawks deal with holding a position? If you take one of these units, it has a single role it fills and it is very limited in its battlefield role, where as a marine unit is more well rounded but not as effective at that single role an eldar unit is.

This is how eldar are put in a role, that their units are meant for one function and are not very adaptable.

Also, eldar are not great at holding objectives in the new rules as most of the units they need are non-troops.

 

[Najo]

You don't. And there is a simple reason why. 4e characters START out as heroes. They have already had the life change that has catapulted them into being a hero. 4e characters and campaigns start in media res at 1st level.

Luke is already a trained jedi apprentice. Conan is already a rogue and becomes king by 10th level. Robin Hood is already stealing from the rich and a hero of the people.

Part of widening the sweet spot was eliminating the part before the sweet spot (5th level in 3.x). 1st level characters no longer start as minions as they did in earlier editions (in the sense that most were only one good hit away from going down).

I've posted several times before about the need for a tier below Heroic for those people who like to see how the hero came into being. But the GSL won't let me write it. It is my only difficulty with 4e. I love the old 1st to 3rd level stuff where your character was made of tissue paper. 4e doesn't have that kind of feel at 1st level.

I agree the 4e is missing that and needs it. The origin of the hero is a powerful moment in the telling of a hero's story and says a lot about where the hero came from and what his destiny entails.

 

[Scribble]

I must be one of teh rare folls who think 4e is actually MORE customizable then previous editions.

I like the idea of being able to mix up a class with another class to build what you want. I don't like the idea that you have to say, stop fightering in order to start wizarding.

I like the idea of the fighter who picks up the ability to use magic (rituals) and then decides he wants to pick up a few skills like picking locks and hiding in shadows (skill focus) and then decides he wants to maybe learn how to brew alchemical subtances (alchemy) and finally hears a calling from his god, and picks up some divine power (cleric feat.)

Just seems a lot more natural to me?

Personally I've picked up a number of skills over the years. I know how to drive reasonably well. If I take up learning how to fly, I don't suddenly stop increasing my ability to drive... Or to use a computer, or cook, or fish, or read.

And the more classes we get, the more archetypes we'll have as a starting point for a concept.

 

[Gizmoduck5000]

As for the hero's journey, I think that is something most players do want to experience.

The "hero's journey" can be simulated in 4th Edition through role playing, again if one is able to divorce the thematic elements of their character from the mechanics that make up their abilities. A PC might be a fighter on paper, but you can call them whatever you like, I.E. Samurai, Knight, Peasant Hero, Mercenary, Veteran, etc.

Now take a concept like a former knight who loses land and titles and turns to banditry in his desperation. This can be represented in both 3rd and 4th Edition, all be it in different ways.

In 3rd Edition, you would represent this by multiclassing, perhaps taking Knight 5/Rogue 15...or something along those lines. This iteration of the game allowed players to quantify everything about their characters in hard numbers, so they could be solidly defined on paper.

In 4th Edition, this character concept could be represented with a Rogue who has a Fighter or Warlord training feat. The exacts can be reproduced as part of the characters backstory, and you are still free to roleplay their redemption as a hero. This does require a fair amount of abstraction, but personally I find it better suited to my tastes than playing a mechanically stunted character just to fit a concept.

 

[Krensky]

4e has very strong niche protection and strictly defined roles. There are different ways of fulfilling a role and those different ways tend to give you a touch of another role, but Defenders defend, Strikers strike, etc. There's also a degree of Rock-Paper-Scissors in it that each role deals with a different type (I don't mean any specific game term here) of opponent better then the other roles. In 4e I don't think you can have the same flexibility that 3.X has without endangering those roles. If a fighter/wizard is a good (not great) Defender and a passable Controller, it weakens it's ability to fulfill it's Role as a Defender and dilutes the party's Controller's Role.

Now, other games can do both of these. Spycraft 2.0, for instance, allows you to make a character who is competent in both his class's party role, but is also capable in another as well. As an example: It is relatively easy to make a Hacker who is great with computers and electronics, decent at sneaking and security (picking locks), and a pretty fair shot (decent attack bonus) as well. Now, he's not as good at those things as an Intruder or a Soldier is and they aren't as good as he is with a computer, he can still hold his own with the party when it comes time to sneak into the villain's lair and when the lead starts flying. Also note, this isn't just because of guns, you can do the same sort of tricks with melee weapons or bare fists.

 

[xechnao]

Out of all the armies the eldar are one of the more flexible, yes. But, try building an eldar armored army. Their vehicles can't do it. Try building an eldar army with high numbers like tyranids, orks or gaurd, again near impossible to do and have it play well. Eldar do not have cheap troops or heavy armored tanks. In a sense, the eldar cannot perform the roll of defender very well. The closest they get is by loading up on wraithlords and wraithguard, but that has its own costs and sacrifice, again in numbers and expensive warlocks and farseers to support the units well.

Likewise, each eldar unit (aside from dire avengers) is over specialized in their combat role. How do howling banshees, striking scorpions or harlequins deal with heavy shooting? How do fire dragons deal with ranged shooting or close combat? How does swooping hawks deal with holding a position? If you take one of these units, it has a single role it fills and it is very limited in its battlefield role, where as a marine unit is more well rounded but not as effective at that single role an eldar unit is.

This is how eldar are put in a role, that their units are meant for one function and are not very adaptable.

Also, eldar are not great at holding objectives in the new rules as most of the units they need are non-troops.

Are 3e classes limitless? You have to face some compromises so you can see and sense the need of tactics development. The fact here is that with your army you can choose your approach, without limiting yourself to a very specific game style. This way, the build of an Eldar army is in theory more flexible than a 4e role yet equally in the need of tactics. This happens so because they have more answers of how to attain victory. My point in the last one was about victory conditions that first appeared in 2e if I recall correctly, something you do not seem to think about or address. Your point is about how one army is different than the next. But this is desirable since we need different armies to choose from first place.

 

[Gizmoduck5000]

Just have the DM be liberal with the retraining rules.

Robin of Loxly was a rogue who took a few ranger powers through multiclassing. When he made his choice to abandon his social standing and become an outlaw he remade the character as a ranger with a few rogue powers.

Skywalker was a farm hand (ace pilot) who took a few Jedi powers in a multiclass. When he went to Dagoba and met Yoda he retrained his whole class to Jedi with a multiclass in whiny git

If there is one moment of defining life changing then the DM should be open to changing the life of the character. The current rules allow a character to get half way between two classes. If they want to be further instead of going up the scale from their original class they should flip and then come back down the scale till they are pure class B (or as pure as they wish to be)

It's not a perfect solution but fits in well with current power rules since you replace a level 1 power with a higher level power - you don't remember it over the whole of your career. Characters are expected to forget abilities so something minor like changing class shouldn't have a noticable effect as long as the concept of the character is preserved.

I would allow this, with some roleplaying.