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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mengu" data-source="post: 5619798" data-attributes="member: 65726">In my head, D&D has 2 roles, melee, and range. That's it. Everything else is "stuff your character does". With each action, you do a % of each role. Say a goliath runepriest pops stone's endurance, walks up to an elite hits with word of binding, action points, hits with word of diminishment in defensive rune mode, and tells everyone, I'll hold this big guy up, you guys, go deal with everything else. At this point, he is very much being a defender and a controller. A couple rounds later, he is beat up, but his buddies have cleared out everything else, and are ready to aid him, he starts with Rune of Mending to heal himself, uses shield of sacrifice to heal 2 others, and drops Rune of the Final Act. Now he is leading. His buddies fail to finish off the elite, when his turn rolls around, he wants the elite gone because there is a time crunch, and he doesn't want the elite taking another turn, minor action makes the target his bravo prey, smacks with a 2[W] power, triggers his Quick Weapon daily, and smacks once more, finishing off the elite, concluding his striker turn.You can keep adding more roles to the game, but it's all just labels, nothing more. Everyone does every role, it's just a percentage. A fighter is a defender, but when his marks are being ignored, or when he is pulling out rain of blows or trip up, he is more of a striker. An invoker is a controller, but when he drops Rain of Blood on an enemy group, he is really leading. A rogue is striker, but when he hits with compel the craven, granting all his melee allies opportunity attacks against a target, he is being a leader. The paladin is a defender, but on the turn he uses Battle Cry, Lay on hands, healing word from his cleric multiclass, action point (her's armor healing), Righteous Smite to hand out temps, it really feels like you have another leader at the table.I've seen a wizard step in front of the paladin to protect him. I've seen the fighter dish out more damage and take down more enemies than the avenger in an encounter. I've seen a buffed hunter do more damage than an assassin who spent most his time blind in an encounter. Roles are rather swappable, depending on what is happening at any given moment during an adventure. everyone has hit points, everyone has healing surges, everyone does damage. When your paladin is down to 0 surges, and the hunter ranger is sitting at his full complement of surges, maybe he needs to get out there and take a few hits for the paladin. When your leader is down for the count, maybe the hunter needs to do some healing.The roles don't really define classes. They just give you an idea of what the majority % work of a character will be, with a typical build.I don't even think the roles are as well defined as you might think. If I said striking is just damage, some people would be coming at me with pitchforks, as a degree of mobility, self reliance, and survivability are often attached to the striker role. So maybe mobility should be a role? Is survivability a role? Defending is also multiple roles, you have to be able to "draw aggro" encouraging monsters to attack you (or suffer consequences), and take a punishment. But the ranger in my game draws aggro like nobody's business, so is he a defender too? My runepriest can take punishment like the best of them, is he a defender? Defender fanatics will undoubtedly say no, because neither character can do both.Roles are pretty nebulous, and we could certainly create more nebulous roles. But it's I think best to think of each character as a pie chart of role functionalities.</blockquote>

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