D&D 5E How would you like 5e to handle combat roles.

[Minigiant]

I disagree.

Early D&D had no roles except healer, blaster and meatshield. The thief was there to deal with enviromental hazards like traps and locks and was usually considered the most disposable 'role' in a party IME.

There was no explicit controller, although either the Mage or Druid could serve as one with the right spells. There was no explicit defender although a Fighter or Cleric could tank if needed. There was no striker at all, although a high level mage was unquestionably the big guns of the game. We called him a blaster.

There was no leader, that term did not exist until 4e invented it as a fig leaf to cover the term "healer".

3e formalized the Fighter, Wizard, cleric and rogue as the iconic 4 classes. That's not the same as roles. They upped sneak attack damage to make the Rogue more attractive which led to his serving as a striker, and led to later "Glass cannon" variants like the Ninja.

There was no such thing as a leader in the 3e lexicon. There was a non-critical job as a buffer. That role could be filled by a Cleric or Bard or possibly a Mage. Later the Artificer.

There was also a Healer. This was a Cleric or druid or maybe a Bard. Later there was the ... Healer.

3e design space was not constrained by roles and was richer for it. Totemists, Binders, Monks, Bards, Druids, Beguilers, Duskblades, Dragon Shamans, Warlocks, Sword Sages.

You could generate some pretty good arguments trying to pidgeonhole those classes into a 4e style role. Does that make them bad classes?

Again, the 4 explicit roles are straightjackets that suit one specific style of play under a specific set of circumstances. Outside of that "Kick-in-the-door" tactical map dungeon crawl they are nothing but a hindrance.

The roles were always there, they just were renamed and evolved.

The meatshield was the guy who hit enemies and took hits from enemies. It evolved into the tank in 3e when actively halting enemies was added. In 4e, its name was changed to defender.

The blaster of older edition just dealt a lot of spell damage. In 3e, it was turned into a lot of any sort of damage and became damage-dealers. 4e turned them into strikers and gave them "escape from threat" abilities.

The healer just healed. It wasn't until 4e where it was combined with the noncritical role of buffer to make the leader role.

Controller was another noncritical role. It evolved into a strong role when control abilities started to match damage in strength.

The noncombat roles was first given to the thief. Then the role was marginalized and the classes that got it was given the other combat roles.

And there was no problem until 3e showed up. Before each class could be tailored into only 1 or 2 roles. Then roles were given to whatever class matched the fluff. The role distribution was changed and players started to question the point of any class that only got one and/or got the one everybody had access to (damage-dealer). So 4e went the other way and enforced roles.

Role were there and always will be. They just evolved and were renamed as the importance of each role moved with the edition.

My own homebrew rpg had its role change when I changed it. Damage dealer and healer were weakened in importanced and I get complaints how fighters are broken and saints stink.

 

[Andor]

The roles were always there, they just were renamed and evolved.

Functions were always there. But that's not the same thing as explicit roles.

A Fighter was a fighter. He could serve as a defender, he could serve as a striker. In 3e he could even serve as a controller. Spec how you please. He also had the classic "Fighter's lockpick."

4e? Defender. With carefully defined power ranges to avoid him stepping on the Rogue or Wizards toes.

Explicit roles limit PC options, player creativity and game design options.

Lets suppose for example you want to make a character who (to borrow an MMO term) does debuffs.

In 3e you might make a Duskblade, or a Binder or talk your GM into allowing Bard who applies his bard buffs as malus to the badguys instead of bonus to the good guys. Or pick a spell caster and gun for debillitating spells. Necromancer would work well.

In 4e? You are outside the accepted design space. Possibly you could shoehorn that into the controller role. Maybe they even did that later on, I don't know.

Look at d20 Modern. Does that fit with the 4 roles? It does not. You might make a charatcer to fulfill one of the functions of that role. Or you could make a hacker who like to jetski.

Look at 7th sea. Dungeon crawls were solidly supported by the worlds design. The 4 roles of D&D? Almost completely absent. (I say almost because you could go for an arnoured fighter and try to tank. Still no healers to back you up though.)

Like I've said, I think roles are a useful tool for design when used implicitly to inform the game. I think they are a terrible thing to make explicit and hardcoded.

Frex, one of my favorite late 3e classes was the Dragon Shaman. With hindsight it shows clear signs of being an early dabbleing with 4e design philosophies. He's got some heal, some buffing, minor area damge. A leader/controller then.

You know what I did with them? 1 level as a Knight or Fighter to get heavy armour and martial weapons and turn them into frontline Defender types.

Easy in 3e with no explict roles, but the same functions. In 4e? Not doable, because of the rigidity of the design specifications.

 

[FireLance]

As a number of people have mentioned, roles have existed from the earliest incarnations of the game. What has changed in 4e, and what seems to have ruffled quite a few feathers, is the tying of specific classes to specific roles. Not that this actually constrains the characters very much, since each class has powers that blur the roles, and multiclassing makes individual characters even more flexible, but it is a mindset that the 5e design team should bear in mind.

Roles are supposed to tell you what your character is good at, but they aren't meant to be more constraining than that. They don't prevent you from doing things that you aren't good at, any more than being untrained in Stealth prevents you from hiding, or being untrained at Perception means you can't notice things. If you're not a striker, you can still deal out damage. If you aren't a defender, you can still get between an enemy and a badly wounded ally, and be no worse off than any character in any edition who doesn't have a mechanic to make the enemy want to attack you instead of your ally.

But back on topic. Tying roles to classes in 5e probably is not going to fly. Tying roles to powers/abilities/benefits might be a better approach, so that by picking the right combination of features, your fighter could (say) be a whole lot of striker, some defender, and a little bit of leader. Varying the way in which different powers approach the roles would also help: maybe shield other splits damage between the target and the user, while covering strike allows the user to make an attack against an enemy in melee reach who attacks an ally, and to impose a penalty on the attack roll if he hits.

 

[Lanefan]

But back on topic. Tying roles to classes in 5e probably is not going to fly. Tying roles to powers/abilities/benefits might be a better approach, so that by picking the right combination of features, your fighter could (say) be a whole lot of striker, some defender, and a little bit of leader. Varying the way in which different powers approach the roles would also help: maybe shield other splits damage between the target and the user, while covering strike allows the user to make an attack against an enemy in melee reach who attacks an ally, and to impose a penalty on the attack roll if he hits.

Interesting idea, but instead of going to these lengths wouldn't it just be simpler to go back to Plan A and abandon named roles entirely?

If your idea flies, my worry would be players picking features to suit a role rather than the actual character they have in mind. Ditch the formal roles; the informal ones will take care of themselves during play just like in 0-1-2e and to some extent 3e.

Lan-"like a roleing stone"-efan

 

[FireLance]

Interesting idea, but instead of going to these lengths wouldn't it just be simpler to go back to Plan A and abandon named roles entirely?

If your idea flies, my worry would be players picking features to suit a role rather than the actual character they have in mind. Ditch the formal roles; the informal ones will take care of themselves during play just like in 0-1-2e and to some extent 3e.

I omitted it from this post, but I also believe that explicit roles will be absent from 5e. However, I'm fairly sure, they are going to be there, "under the hood", in the background, eminence grises, exercising their subtle, intangible influence on the way that the game is designed and played, outside the direct view and notice of the gaming public, so that the designers can tell everyone, "Roles? What roles? There are no roles. These aren't the roles you are looking for. The roles are a lie. We killed them off in 4e. It's just your imagination. You're being paranoid. Get back to gaming. Nothing to see here."

5e's greatest triumph will be convincing everyone that roles do not exist.

 

[Tony Vargas]

4e? Defender. With carefully defined power ranges to avoid him stepping on the Rogue or Wizards toes.

Explicit roles limit PC options, player creativity and game design options.

In so far as the game fails to provide options for each role, sure. The Fighter is a very good defender, the defender role is one the fighter has always been meant to cover, but never done that well. The fighter's also often covered the archer role, now the ranger (scrubbed of druidy magic) is the pure-martial archer. The archer concept isn't lost because the fighter is no longer a good platform to create an archer, it's just done better by the ranger - ditto TWFing. The greatweapon fighter, even absent the Slayer, is a quite effective two-handed-style fighter, so that's covered. TWFing, Archery, Sword & Board, THFing, that's most of the old martial stand-bys done very well. Just not by only one class through deep system mastery, but by different classes and builds within obvious guidelines.

The point of failure was that the martial source didn't cover all the roles.

 

[Minigiant]

I don't think 4e's explicit roles were not as bad as people say it is.
I think the issue is all the variants did not come out. 4e was based on powers and starting class abilities. As new books came out, players could snag powers that dealt more damage to be strikers or grab variants and powers to be a controller. If 4e went longer, I could imagine a leader fighter or defender wizard. The Powers method just took too long.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Because before there weren't 4 solid roles. It isn't like defenders, leaders, controllers, and strikers have existed as concepts in the game since its inception.

No. 2e mysteriously classified all the classes in the PHB into Fighter/Cleric/Magic User/Thief (or whatever the exact wording was). With e.g. the Bard being a subcategory of thief. These are your roles. Rangers are a type of fighter, bards a type of thief. The four roles come from D&D's history (and from there were picked up by MMOs).

I am not answering the poll because it does not contain an option for "I would like to see explict roles die in a fire."

Quick, was Boromir a Striker or a Defender?
Was Aragorn a Leader or a Striker or Defender? He had healing...
Was Frodo a Striker?
Was Bilbo?

Name me their classes. Was Aragorn a Fighter or Ranger? Depends which edition you play. What was Frodo? D&D classes don't map well onto LoTR where Gandalf's no wizard.

Pick the fantasy series of your choice and pick out the defender.

Fafhrd. Paksenarrion. Caramon Majere. Jocelyn Verreuil (sp?) from the Kushiel series.

I disagree. Classes have been around since the beginning, but the four role of leader, defender, striker and controller simply havent. That is a new interpretation of the game.

Which maps onto the 2e rulebook and common playstyles.

Yes but the roles are why wizards are so narrowly defined.

Wizards are not narrowly defined. They simply don't have a good quarter of the PHB devoted entirely to them any more. They don't get to become walking gods any more than any other class does.

That is an issue of roles not simply an issue of balance. They cold have made a balanced version of D&D that let wizards do everything every other class does, but balanced it out in some other way. The roles are there to establish balance through parity and specialization.

I've yet to see this hypothetical "balanced version of D&D that lets wizards do everything every other class does". I don't believe it to be possible.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I've yet to see this hypothetical "balanced version of D&D that lets wizards do everything every other class does". I don't believe it to be possible.

with casting times, spell failure, and risks of casting spells it is entirely possiboe to do. For me 2E was as balanced as I needed. But you could certqinly take it further, retaining the wizard's breadth of options but imposing things like harsher casting times. I much prefer an approach pike this than the narrowing of class roles you had in 4E. I want my casters to be interesting and have lot of options.

 

[Bedrockgames]

No. 2e mysteriously classified all the classes in the PHB into Fighter/Cleric/Magic User/Thief (or whatever the exact wording was). With e.g. the Bard being a


Which maps onto the 2e rulebook and common playstyles.

Well, the role of the bard was jack of all trades in 2E, not so much a leader (though he had some abilities that allowed him to boost the parties performance a bit). The thief was a trap monkey and out of combat stealth/theif in 2e. Backstab was there to give them something to use in combat, but it wasn't their focus. The striker concept doesn't really line up with what they were unless you strip away essential elements. The mage had spells that might fall under the controller label but they were much, much more than that. They were basically rule benders. They could change the fabric of reality through magic. Summoning monsters, teleportation, unseen servant, fireball, lightning bolt, speak with dead, animate dead, divinations, illusions, etc. They were a colorful class that advanced slowly, died easily and cast spells at some risk. To me, the roles of 4E really dont match my experience of D&D over the years.

 

[Andor]

Name me their classes. Was Aragorn a Fighter or Ranger? Depends which edition you play.

No. No it doesn't. Aragorn is THE iconic Ranger. He is why they had awkward spell access. "Can I model Aragorn" has always be THE test of the Ranger class. He is why the class exists.

What was Frodo?

Frodo was a commoner who prestiged classed into Elf friend.

D&D classes don't map well onto LoTR where Gandalf's no wizard.

Gandalf was a DMNPC demigod.

Modeling heroic fantasy literature has always been an explicit goal of D&D. Lord of the Rings is the 800lb gorilla in that room.

Fafhrd. Paksenarrion. Caramon Majere. Jocelyn Verreuil (sp?) from the Kushiel series.

When was Fafhrd keeping the bad guys off a squishy wizard? Paks did not exert 4e style field control and marking. Caramon was based on D&D but still was not notably better at field control than the barmaid with the frying pan. I have not read the Kushiel series.

Defender is a job, not a powerset. The thing about explicit roles is that they are an entirely gamist construction and I despise their intrusion into the simulation aspects of the game.

Classes are too, to be fair, but I think they give more than they take away.

Tell me if you can. What benefit is derived from having explict roles that cannot be achieved by simply allowing the concept of roles to inform the background system design?

 

[Minigiant]

Tell me if you can. What benefit is derived from having explict roles that cannot be achieved by simply allowing the concept of roles to inform the background system design?

It lowers accidental imbalance.

Without some form of enforcement in the guidelines, the players might accidentally (or purposely) combine things that the designers did not expect to be combined or use resources the designers did not expect to use.

I am sure the designers of 3e did not expect to trivialize damage dealing when they gave everyone access, jacked up the HP, and keep control spells strong. 3e works great when the players play dumb. Or all those trading games and their banlists. And all those games with patches to here and boost things.

Explicit roles lets the designers make the game in the manners they intended and the amount of fixes are kept down. The problem is you now have to play the designers' game, not yours.

Guidelines are great. The problem arises when someone doesn't follow them. Then they no longer fit into what the game expected to see. Then the game changes.

 

[Andor]

Explicit roles lets the designers make the game in the manners they intended and the amount of fixes are kept down. The problem is you now have to play the designers' game, not yours.

This. Exactly this.

Speaking for myself I don't give a fart in a typhoon how balanced the game is if it's not the game I want to play.

That doesn't make you wrong if you would rather play the designers balanced game rather than your own. It doesn't even we couldn't have fun playing at the same table.

It might mean WotC can't sell both of us the same book. That's what 4e meant after all. It would not naturally occur to me that some people would dislike imbalance so intensely that they are unwilling to move into a looser game from 4e. It may be so. And if so WotC has set themselves an impossible task by trying to make One edition to unite them all. I hope not. I'd like 5e to succeed.

 

[Neonchameleon]

with casting times, spell failure, and risks of casting spells it is entirely possiboe to do. For me 2E was as balanced as I needed. But you could certqinly take it further, retaining the wizard's breadth of options but imposing things like harsher casting times. I much prefer an approach pike this than the narrowing of class roles you had in 4E. I want my casters to be interesting and have lot of options.

And yet I've retired a 4e wizard for overwhelming the DM with all his tricks and stunts. At third level. It just took more work than overwhelming him with a previous edition one would.

No. No it doesn't. Aragorn is THE iconic Ranger. He is why they had awkward spell access. "Can I model Aragorn" has always be THE test of the Ranger class. He is why the class exists.

Aragorn is the iconic 1e ranger right down to their ability to use crystal balls as he used the Palantir. What he is not is a twin sword waving dervish of the 2e ranger. Or even that much of a 3.0 ranger whose defining feature was two weapon fighting. The ranger has changed over the years and it's only the 1e ranger that's a good fit.

Gandalf was a DMNPC demigod.

Who used maybe half a dozen spells in the whole of LoTR. But DMPC qualifies.

Modeling heroic fantasy literature has always been an explicit goal of D&D. Lord of the Rings is the 800lb gorilla in that room.

Pre 4e it fails even at Jack Vance despite the "Vancian" casting. It fails to get the Grey Mouser at all. Ritual Caster being a 4e inovation.

When was Fafhrd keeping the bad guys off a squishy wizard?

When was he up in the face of enemies so if they took their attention off him he'd slice them open? A much better reflection of the defender. And what marking represents.

Paks did not exert 4e style field control and marking.

No. She just made sure that people dealt with her not those she was protecting. Which is what defenders do. The marks are a mechanical representation of this.

Caramon was based on D&D but still was not notably better at field control than the barmaid with the frying pan.

But he was better at getting in the way, being a meatshield, and making sure people attacked him and not his brother.

I have not read the Kushiel series.

Jocelyn was a trained bodyguard.

Defender is a job, not a powerset.

And the defender mechanics give you the tools to do the job. Rather than just standing there like a stuffed lemon as people play splat the mage.

The thing about explicit roles is that they are an entirely gamist construction and I despise their intrusion into the simulation aspects of the game.

Because getting up in someone's face is an entirely gamist construction? Because being alert of anything that's going on round you so you can punish a moment of inattention is a gamist construction?

Marking as a term isn't meant as in "with a highlighter pen". It's meant as on the football field or basketball court.

Tell me if you can. What benefit is derived from having explict roles that cannot be achieved by simply allowing the concept of roles to inform the background system design?

Given that role has no direct mechanical input, I don't understand the question. The roles are made explicit because it makes things easier for new players. Marking from a fighter is a physical reflection of what they do, crowding, and making sure that if their targets stop paying attention they are dead.

It also gives more of a reminder for the designers to stay focussed so you don't end up with the 3.X Monk (Jack of No Trades) or the 3.X Druid. Whether you need to explicitely say which role people have at the end is neither here nor there.

 

[Bedrockgames]

And yet I've retired a 4e wizard for overwhelming the DM with all his tricks and stunts. At third level. It just took more work than overwhelming him with a previous edition one would.

I wasn't saying you couldn't. This has everything to do with range of available spell options. It isn't about wizards being overpowered. In fact one of things I. Lke about AD&D style wizards is hiw weak they are the first several levels.

 

[keterys]

Recently played some older school D&D and I have to say... the old rule where disengaging from an enemy gave an attack and there was no way to 5-ft step or whatever without sacrificing your turn? Oh, and it was way easier to have chokepoints in the adventure?

Yeah, that really made fighters feel very defendery at the table, as no creature wanted to risk dying in one hit to get at the back ranks where the non-fighters had much worse AC and HP.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Recently played some older school D&D and I have to say... the old rule where disengaging from an enemy gave an attack and there was no way to 5-ft step or whatever without sacrificing your turn? Oh, and it was way easier to have chokepoints in the adventure?

Yeah, that really made fighters feel very defendery at the table, as no creature wanted to risk dying in one hit to get at the back ranks where the non-fighters had much worse AC and HP.

That's the other way to do it. Add things that aren't on the fighter's kit list such as solid brick corridors (doesn't work anything like so well in open ground) and prevent disengaging almost entirely. But once you open up any sort of mobility, this goes.

4e fighters are basically only a little stickier than AD&D fighters and for almost the same reasons. It's just that the game is much more mobile and flowing around them.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I wasn't saying you couldn't. This has everything to do with range of available spell options. It isn't about wizards being overpowered. In fact one of things I. Lke about AD&D style wizards is hiw weak they are the first several levels.

It's range of available spells that the DM did not expect that I was driving the DM mad with. That's right. The range of spells and effects a 4e wizard had. 3.X is IMO just too easy.

Also with 3.X I didn't notice a lot of variety with wizards. Swap the spellbooks over and they were almost the same. 4e on the other hand because there are fewer options can have much more variety.

 

[Minigiant]

This. Exactly this.

Speaking for myself I don't give a fart in a typhoon how balanced the game is if it's not the game I want to play.

That doesn't make you wrong if you would rather play the designers balanced game rather than your own. It doesn't even we couldn't have fun playing at the same table.

It might mean WotC can't sell both of us the same book. That's what 4e meant after all. It would not naturally occur to me that some people would dislike imbalance so intensely that they are unwilling to move into a looser game from 4e. It may be so. And if so WotC has set themselves an impossible task by trying to make One edition to unite them all. I hope not. I'd like 5e to succeed.

Balance and customization are not mutually exclusive all of the time.

Just because the game has explicit roles doesn't mean a character is stuck with only 1 explicit role.

Just because the game has explicit roles doesn't mean a class that has an explicit role has access to it at the same strength as other classes.

You might make your wizard able to be a striker, defender, controller, and leader at the same time. Doesn't mean his heals will match the cleric's but his buffs might.

 

[Bedrockgames]

It's range of available spells that the DM did not expect that I was driving the DM mad with. That's right. The range of spells and effects a 4e wizard had. 3.X is IMO just too easy.

Also with 3.X I didn't notice a lot of variety with wizards. Swap the spellbooks over and they were almost the same. 4e on the other hand because there are fewer options can have much more variety.

Our experiences with the two sysyems are very different then