How many roles should there be?

[Ed_Laprade]

If you must have them, and you shouldn't:

Shield Wall. If some first level mook on the other side can destroy the best defensive formation the pre-gunpowder world ever knew by magically moving people out of it, I don't want anything to do with that game.

 

[dagger]

Zero.

Role playing does not mean being shoehorned into a role.

Works for me

 

[BobTheNob]

First off, "combat role" is a design tool, not a game mechanic. That design tool has been used by every D&D designer from Gary Gygax on down. Just sayin'.

Before I say anything else, this is a very true statement. Designers need clarification of class purpose and assigning roles early helps them when putting together the combat purpose of a class.

However, I dont want it coming out of the design room at all! Once its in the players hands, let the player do what the hell they like with it.

But the more significant point is this. 4e was a combat game. Yes, it had other fluff, but lets face it, it took serious effort by all involved to make it anything else. It introduced "formal" roles. The problem I have is that when you define class by combat roles, you are defining them as a combat application, meaning you are dooming the game to be (yet another) "mini wargame".

I so want 5e to bring us back from the combat emphasis that 4e turned D&D into, and if we define classes in terms of "what they do in combat" that just wont happen.

I vote for scrapping combat roles.

 

[Herschel]

I always thought the older designations, "meat shield", etc., were mainly jokes, not game mechanics. Granted, I have never considered any of my characters to have "combat roles".

But they nevertheless had them and by giving the character tricks and abilities that make them better able to do their thing is just plain cool.

The character I've played most often has been a "defender" but 4E was the first time I felt I was able to do what I actually wanted to do well instead of having to try and get house rules put in to place.

 

[the Jester]

First off, "combat role" is a design tool, not a game mechanic.

Yes, and I like how the classes emphasize their roles in 4e.

That said, I'd rather never see the term used in the PH except in a short overview of each class, and I never want to read a tactics section that says "This monster will attack defenders first". I'm fine with "attack heavily armored foes" or "attack melee combatants" or whatever, but "defenders" - no way. You cannot spot a defender at a glance, or at least you shouldn't be able to.

So as far as how many/what (combat) roles, I think the four that exist are reasonable.

 

[El Mahdi]

Zero and Infinite.


Zero mechanically defined roles. Infinite roles created by the Imagination.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

There are a lot of useful ideas already forming in this thread. I especially like the breaking down of the 4E roles in to component parts, and the references to different infantry types.

The thing 4E did was put the design elements of the game where everyone can see them. Whether or not this is a turnoff doesn't lessen their value for discussing design.

4E got the roles wrong, though not entirely. The fighter isn't a defender, despite the historical term of meat shield. He is the armored knight. The slow, but nearly invulnerable killing machine. The reason he soaks so much damage is because the enemy cannot afford to ignore him and he can't just move away. Nobody should be taking or causing more overall damage than the fighter. He should also excel at combat maneuvers. The area around him is incredibly dangerous.

The rogue as striker works well enough. He is light infantry. His job is to be where he is needed, so mobility is key. He has sneak attack because he's not supposed to stick around. He has to do his damage quickly and move on. In many ways, he's the one that should be defending the wizard, by showing up any time the wizard finds himself in trouble. The rogue's abilities should focus on mobility. Give him the ability to sprint someplace, dodge attacks, and still perform a solid strike when he arrives.

The wizard isn't really a controller, though he can be. Most wizards focus at least somewhat on big area of effect damage spells. That's heavy artillery. They also have summoning (reinforcements), divination (overwatch), and many other fancy tools. Their role is to be a powerful, multi-purpose resource that needs to be protected.

The cleric is a little bit of all three, plus a healer. It's a support role. The cleric can fill a gap in a pinch, and can make the other classes stronger and the enemies weaker. Some people don't like playing a support role, but for those who do, the Cleric always has something he can be doing.

But there are other, very useful roles that can be filled. An archer can put damage anywhere on the battlefield while staying in a protected position. It's a form of suppression, but doesn't function as well as it could. Imagine if a bow was incredibly powerful, but cover was much more effective, and shooting into melee was always dangerous.

A paladin can be cavalry, combining the power of the fighter with the mobility of a rogue and some of the support capacity of the cleric. The druid can beast shape to fulfill multiple roles.

And many classes, such as the barbarian and monk sit somewhere between the fighter and the rogue, and could be considered medium infantry.

So the roles, really should be:

• Heavy
• Mobile
• Support
• Suppression
• Special

And special is really just a catch-all. Most classes would likely have an element of it. The wizard is just the master of it.

 

[Terraism]

I never really understand the argument that roles are in some way "anti-roleplaying" or "pigeonholing" characters. Roles are an entirely mechanical conceit - they have no bearing whatsoever on how the character is played, personality- and choice-wise. They exist to describe, at a glance, what a classes's primary combat strength is, and as such, I find them incredibly valuable. It's a quick way to narrow the mechanical field when there are twenty-some-odd classes to chose from.

I think perhaps that the disconnect is on a level of "what a class means," but that seems strange to me. I'm of the opinion that a class is a way to out-of-game define something in-game, but it's not referenced in the world at all. That is, a fighter (class) character doesn't necessarily introduce himself to people as "a Fighter", but maybe "a warrior", or "adventurer", or "juggernaut" (or, okay, maybe "fighter", but that's because it's a pretty generic word). A Ranger (class) might be a "ranger", or a "woodsman", an "archer" or a "warrior". Roles are the same sort of thing.

I guess that it seems to me that the complaint about roles being bad for the game looks at them in the wrong direction. You don't chose to play a fighter and become "stuck" playing a defender - you decide you want to be a brick wall that protects your friends and then play a fighter, because it's the most fitting, mechanically. If you chose that you wanted to be a fellow in heavy armor who tears things up, you play a slayer.

In any case, I think the 4E roles are pretty close to spot-on, as far as how they describe the primary things people can do in combat. You can protect, damage, support, or interfere. Those map pretty straightforwardly to Defender, Striker, Leader, and Controller. I do think, though, that AoE damage should fall under a type of striker, not a type of controller.

 

[IanB]

Roles are an entirely mechanical conceit - they have no bearing whatsoever on how the character is played, personality- and choice-wise.

This is simply not true. If I want to roleplay my character as a cowardly, weak guy who is always picked on, etc., it is going to stretch credulity to the breaking point if I'm playing a 4e defender type role where I have to be able to absorb large amounts of punishment, be in the front lines in combat, etc.

 

[Minigiant]

This is simply not true. If I want to roleplay my character as a cowardly, weak guy who is always picked on, etc., it is going to stretch credulity to the breaking point if I'm playing a 4e defender type role where I have to be able to absorb large amounts of punishment, be in the front lines in combat, etc.

The point of the 4e roles are to describe how a character helps the party in combat. 4e didn't allow "I suck at combat PCs".

So a cowardly PC would have to help in combat somehow. Whatever method he chose was his role.

If he stood back at fired arrows. He was a striker in 4e. It didn't matter what class he was he was a striker if all he did was attack and run away. That is the definition of a 4e striker. It didn't matter if he was a fighter or rogue. The only difference the class made was the effectiveness. If the coward was a rogue, he was a natural striker. If he was a fighter, he had to work to be a striker and whenever he got a hint of courage, he could protect someone. Roles don't restrict your character, they only enforce that characters are good at something.


But how many roles I prefer? 11.