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

[Minigiant]

It depends. The captain may not excel at combat but might know how to swing a sword adn every bit can help. He might also wait outside the entrance to the dragons lair. It is very dependent on context. I have certainly had bards in the party who weren't much in combat or even much out of it but participated in combat and wrote epics about the combats. More often though such haracters have something to contribute.

But old school d&d actually doesn't make that many assumptions about party composition. You used to roll your attributes and stick with your results. So it was entirely possible to have some feeble characters in the party. Usually this sort of situation is where the player got clever and found an angle like cook.

My point isn't that players should play boat captains or zero level characters, but that I dont want the designers making too many assumptions about how
People play D&D. They did that with 4E, in my opinion a bit arrogantly, and the results were not fun for about half of the gaming population.

My point is that the character needs some reason to be in the party. After a certain point, a PC has to fill an important role of the party or the other PCs wont have a reason to keep them around outside of personal feelings. Companies laid off, retire, and fire employees without purposes.


Ineffective characters don't match my idea of a D&D character. I prefer the designers make sure that every class and race have a point of existing as an adventurer.

 

[Bedrockgames]

My point is that the character needs some reason to be in the party. After a certain point, a PC has to fill an important role of the party or the other PCs wont have a reason to keep them around outside of personal feelings. Companies laid off, retire, and fire employees without purposes.

Sure, like I said they need a reason to be there, but it need not fit into the three categories. A party isnt always going to boot a top notch cook, bard or merchant. They contribute.

Ineffective characters don't match my idea of a D&D character. I prefer the designers make sure that every class and race have a point of existing as an adventurer.

Again that may be your preference, and I am sure lots of people agree. Bt prior to 3E, this really wasnt an assumption about the game. The classes and races all potentially had something useful to contribute (though this wasn't centered around combat) but you rolled your character and took the results you got, so parties of weaker and stronger characters were assumed. Personally I feel it created a better gaming experience. The challenge of playing a low stat character itself was fun for me (and rolling a great character was good too).

 

[Neonchameleon]

I dont see that we need roles in the game. Characters just need cool stuff to do in the game. But we should be able to put together any kind of party we like, and characters shouldn't all be balanced around combat encounters. I want characters who are bad in combat but great in an investigation, good in combat but awful at dipomacy and detecting traps.

Good in combat but awful at diplomacy and detecting traps is dead easy. Any edition can do that. And for all people complain about the theoretical nature of roles, I wonder if they have ever played 4e. Because you certainly can create a character who though competent at combat isn't at all great. You can also create a bard who runs round hurling insults or screaming, or a warlord who donates his actions to other party members. Both useful in combat while not looking like combat characters. (Or even a Shaman who is in fact a kid with a guardian angel).

 

[Bedrockgames]

. And for all people complain about the theoretical nature of roles, I wonder if they have ever played 4e.

this is getting very, very old.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I definitely want them to keep the combat roles in 5E, but they don't target one role per class like in 4E pre-essentials.

One role is too little.

Well, all the pre-E classes had secondary roles, sometimes more than one depending on build. And, post-E subclasses can have any role. So it sounds like we're well on our way - if they keep roles at all.

 

[Tony Vargas]

My perception of 4es multiclassing set-up is that it is constrained by the explicit function of roles and so prevents that ready mixing of flavors.

Well, it's constrained by an excessive feat tax. 5e would do well to keep the 4e idea of power-swapps as used in multi-classing and themes, but not keep the per-swap feat cost of 4e multi-classing. Themes make a better model.

The later 'hybrid' system, though, certainly lets you mix classes without any role-based constraint.

I don't think you can deny that 3e let me mix and match class powers and features more easily to create a character with the abilities or flavor I wanted.

A character, yes. A viable character, that took a lot more work. Tier 1, you were down to a few classes and the PrCs that let them keep full caster level. 3e's modular multi-classing was an elegant idea, but its balance problems meant that a lot of that potential wasn't really realized.

If 5e could find a similarly elegant and flexible aproach, but balance it, so all that flexibility actually led somewhere, that'd be awesome.

 

[Neonchameleon]

this is getting very, very old.

Almost as old as criticisms about 4e that don't appear to match up to what happens in play. When I point out three times in one comment (on different issues) that someone taking almost exactly the same line you are to 4e is simply factually incorrect are you surprised I wonder things like that. Especially as I went on to demonstrate how to do what you wanted to do.

Bad in combat, great at investigation? Sounds like my current bard. Great in combat but awful at diplomacy and traps? The dwarf in the same party. What you want is not only possible, it's easy. Easy to the point that my current party has done exactly that without that being specifically what we were setting out to do.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Almost as old as criticisms about 4e that don't appear to match up to what happens in play. When I point out three times in one comment (on different issues) that someone taking almost exactly the same line you are to 4e is simply factually incorrect are you surprised I wonder things like that. Especially as I went on to demonstrate how to do what you wanted to do.

Bad in combat, great at investigation? Sounds like my current bard. Great in combat but awful at diplomacy and traps? The dwarf in the same party. What you want is not only possible, it's easy. Easy to the point that my current party has done exactly that without that being specifically what we were setting out to do.

But you are disproving strawmen.

Charactes in 4e are designed to all shine in combat. This is something most wouldn't argue with. In fact, fans consider that a strength. The balance in 4e is designed around the combat encounter. This is also something peolle pretty widely accept. My statement was essentoally that this is the wrong way to design classes, and why the 4e roles dont work for me. I am sure it is possible to gimp a character in 4e, i never said it wasn't

 

[Andor]

Ineffective characters don't match my idea of a D&D character. I prefer the designers make sure that every class and race have a point of existing as an adventurer.

Why is it you feel comfortable stating that it's desireable for the game to exclude character options that don't match your prefered playstyle? 4e did that. It didn't work out well for WotC.

Here's the thing. If WotC took a poll and allowed everyone to pick a character type, concept, approach, role or function to exclude, then 5e would consist of a logo followed by a period.

5e should be inclusive, not exclusive. If that means I can make a character you don't like, that's a problem only if we sit at the same table, and neither of us are capable of acting like adults. And if that's the case, it wasn't going to work out well no matter what edition we played.

Game design based on the exclusion of badwrongfun is not going to be the way to unite the playerbase.

 

[Minigiant]

Why is it you feel comfortable stating that it's desireable for the game to exclude character options that don't match your prefered playstyle? 4e did that. It didn't work out well for WotC.

Here's the thing. If WotC took a poll and allowed everyone to pick a character type, concept, approach, role or function to exclude, then 5e would consist of a logo followed by a period.

5e should be inclusive, not exclusive. If that means I can make a character you don't like, that's a problem only if we sit at the same table, and neither of us are capable of acting like adults. And if that's the case, it wasn't going to work out well no matter what edition we played.

Game design based on the exclusion of badwrongfun is not going to be the way to unite the playerbase.

I understand that 5e's game design should be inclusive.

I just prefer that the default characters, classes, and raceto have a point and for the designers to give the default characters an adventuring function. I'd prefer not to see an acrobat or baker class whose skillset is something other PCs can appreciate. Players can tweak their characters into whatever specific character they want. But system mastery and minmaxing shouldn't be needed to make an effective character.

 

[Andor]

Which means that any of the archetypes explicitely supported by the game are viable - much more of a range than 3.x offers.

Conversely archtypes not explicitly supported are not viable. In 3.x it was possible to combine things in ways the game designers didn't forsee to make your own archetype (or role, if you insist.)

And sometimes this was bad. While theoretical abominations like PunPun didn't actually happen, there were plenty of GMs who couldn't keep up with creative players with greater system mastery than they had.

For my preferences the good far outweighed the bad, but I won't pretend there were not legitemate concerns, and 4e did adequately address them. Was it worth the cost paid? Opinions have differed, to the great profit of Pathfinder.

And given my dislike of intentionally hiding mechanics and design principles I think the opposite.

Who said anything about hiding it? I agree with you actually. I think the proper role of roles, if you will forgive the phrase, is to inform game design, not to direct or coerce it. Implict roles are fine, as long as they are not tied to heirarchal mechanical restritions for the purpose of niche protection or the squashing of creativity.

4e was, in part, a reaction to the power 3e placed in the hands of the players. Which is an illusion. Frankly all they really needed was to say "Pssst. Hey. GMs, you know you don't actually need to adhere to stat block rules right? You know you can assign that Orc a "Frank is a twink" modifier to hit his character, right?"

Hopefully 5e will provide a balanced framework where less inflationary power growth leads to easier work judging balance for GMs. With less range of power the twink vs wimp character divide will require less intrusive system wrangling than the 4e roles definitions.

 

[dagger]

Sort of. Certain spells were, but, they weren't the only spells out there.



Very much an exception and not a rule. What cost does Sleep or Charm Person have? Hold Person?

More than zero which is more than 3e/4e and I feel it adds to the game.

The only way you could disrupt spell casting is if you were in melee combat with the wizard. How stupid were your players that they were allowing this on a regular basis?

Much easier than that actually, and most players at my table are not stupid.

Hrm, to destroy a spell book, I would have to fail my initial saving throw, my container would have to fail it's saving throw, and then my spell book (presuming I had no additional protections) would then have to fail its saving throw. Yeah, not so easily destroyed.

It happens, especially if you are making a lot of saves.

You generally had a 75% or so chance per level of picking up a given spell. That's not really a definition of "hard" that I would use. You might not get it this level, but, a level or two down the road, you likely will.

A 25% chance of not getting Teleport or Identify sure seems hard when you don't get it, and I feel the difficulty adds to the game.

Ahh, the old standard "Things were so much more difficult in my day" schtick. Never gets tired does it?

I wouldn't know, you seem to have the answers.

Yes, because playing "Hide the Rule" was such an effective means of controlling the game. Never mind that many DM's are also players. And, that "surprise" only happens once.

You would be surprised how many times players forget things.

Whereas to me, it was SOP. You automatically traded spells with other PC's because to not do so was about as stupid as you could possibly get.

I am glad you had tons of wizards playing at the table at the same time. Also it cost time/money and you still have to roll for the spell.

I feel that its done better in 1e and so do a lot of other people.

Its not like you will change my mind or anyone else reading so have a nice game.

 

[Neonchameleon]

But you are disproving strawmen.

Charactes in 4e are designed to all shine in combat. This is something most wouldn't argue with. In fact, fans consider that a strength. The balance in 4e is designed around the combat encounter. This is also something peolle pretty widely accept. My statement was essentoally that this is the wrong way to design classes, and why the 4e roles dont work for me. I am sure it is possible to gimp a character in 4e, i never said it wasn't

But

Conversely archtypes not explicitly supported are not viable. In 3.x it was possible to combine things in ways the game designers didn't forsee to make your own archetype (or role, if you insist.)

False. The clearest and most obvious example of how it is false is the "Lazy Warlord". A family of builds that take the PHB, both Martial Power books, and a handful of dragon articles to work properly. And what you end up with is a character that never rolls an attack or directly makes one. That does some interesting things to the system (without actually breaking it) as you can dump your prime stat or be as unlucky as you like - and any build that takes a core book, two splatbooks, and a handful of dragons isn't one I consider to be an intended archetype.

Whenever you have complex lists of options, you are going to get new ways of playing them as emergent properties. And the 4e fighter for instance has more than one feat choice every two levels, and more than four power choices every five. There are 17 Fighter At Will powers, 18 level 1 encounter powers, 17 level 1 daily powers, 19 level 2 utility powers (in addition to the skill powers), 22 level 3 encounter powers (or you can pick a L1 at L3), and 18 level 5 daily powers (plus the level threes). Unless you count fiddling about with skill points, this is far more options than any single classed non-caster in 3.X gets, and I'd argue more than most multiclasses.

4e was, in part, a reaction to the power 3e placed in the hands of the players. Which is an illusion. Frankly all they really needed was to say "Pssst. Hey. GMs, you know you don't actually need to adhere to stat block rules right? You know you can assign that Orc a "Frank is a twink" modifier to hit his character, right?"

You do know that a number of GMs were forced to keep spreadsheets of what the PCs can do? And a lot of others consider "Frank is a twink" modifiers to be violating the simulation, and a breach of the rules of the game?

 

[Kynn]

Why would anyone want to be near a kender?

See, that's one thing 4e got right: no kenders.

 

[Hussar]

My perception of 4es multiclassing set-up is that it is constrained by the explicit function of roles and so prevents that ready mixing of flavors.

And, I think this, more than anything is the biggest problem and mistake with 4e. I've stated it elsewhere (and it might have been in this thread, I forget) that 4e's biggest issue is presentation. 4e has probably the most robust ruleset of any version of D&D. It has huge amounts of support for a very, very wide range of concepts. The fact that much of the flavor of anything isn't tied to specific mechanics results in a huge amount of flexibility.

You want an assassin paladin? Not a problem. Assassin isn't a class, and you can respec much of a paladin's abilities to make him into a pretty decent assassin. Now THAT's flexibility.

But, and this is a huge but, 4e isn't written that way. It presents a very static game with a very strong voice and a lot of one-true-wayism statements (don't talk to the gate guard is a good example). The wall of text in the powers causes people's eye's to glaze over and that, coupled with a very, very transparent ruleset written from a very meta-game level results in a lot of people, like Andor, quite reasonably perceiving the game as being very limited.

4e is a game in DIRE need of better presentation.

 

[Hussar]

this is getting very, very old.

But, not entirely unreasonable. There are a large number of times when someone says, "But, 4e is like this..." and there is clear, concise evidence that that isn't true. Not only isn't it true, but, it wasn't even true when the game was first released.

But, critics still bring these things up. Why is the criticism automatically believed when the actual text of the game is not?

Look at the little back and forth I just had with Dagger. Now, the claims that he made are pretty easy to, if not disprove, at least question. Saving throws for spellbooks? How many times would you have to get hit by area of effect attacks to actually lose your spellbook? Considering people keep telling me that AD&D is this low magic game where you are mostly fighting humanoids, why is the wizard making so many saving throws?

Wizards get their spells regularly disrupted? Really? Most humanoids don't carry ranged weapons on a regular basis (look at the Monster manual if you don't believe me), and very, very few monsters have any ranged attacks at all. Never mind that you cannot make ranged attacks if you are in melee combat, so, why isn't the fighter engaging the ranged attackers to free up the wizard. AND, as a final point, the wizard has to lose initiative before this is even an issue at all.

The difference between the criticisms of 4e and what I'm doing here, is that I actually PLAYED 1e for ten years. I have a pretty decent working knowledge of the rules. Yet, quite clearly from the criticisms in this thread, people really don't have a decent working knowledge of 4e mechanics.

So, questioning people's experience with the system is pretty valid IMO. I'd give much more weight to Lanefan's criticisms of AD&D than mine (he knows that system FAR better than I do) and I'd give NeonChameleon's criticisms of the system far more weight than someone who's repeatedly been shown to not know the system very well.

 

[Kynn]

But, and this is a huge but, 4e isn't written that way. It presents a very static game with a very strong voice and a lot of one-true-wayism statements (don't talk to the gate guard is a good example).

Huh? I don't really know what you mean by the parenthetical about the gate guard.

 

[Andor]

And a lot of others consider "Frank is a twink" modifiers to be violating the simulation, and a breach of the rules of the game?

The most important rule in 3e was rule 0. But yes, some people did forget that.

I'm hoping to see it in 5e.

 

[Hussar]

Huh? I don't really know what you mean by the parenthetical about the gate guard.

In the DMG,

Fun is one element you shouldn't vary... An encounter with two guards at the city gate isn't fun. Tell the players they get through without too much trouble.

There's a rather lengthy thread http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/315902-guards-gate-quote.html discussing this quote and they have a pretty good point. The writing here is far too strong and smacks wayyy too much of one-true-wayism. Granted, I have no problems seeing through this and realizing what it actually being said here, but, I can also see why people would react so negatively to the statement.

And, let's be honest, this isn't an isolated thing in 4e. The marketing and other books and design decisions have often alienated people because they were voiced too strongly.

 

[SteveC]

So we are back to discussing how easy it is to make a character who is not effective in one of the core elements of D&D? Honestly, if someone brings a character to a game, any game, who is not going to bring anything of consequence to the table, I think it's time to have a conversation with that player. It's cute to have a character who's a basketweaver and that's about it, but does a character like that belong in Fantasy Vietnam?

In the end of the 3X days, a player in my game played a half-orc fighter who really wanted to be a cobbler. He was a darn good one as well! At the same time, he could also handle the role of fighting very well. He was a smart fighter, so he had a bit of a chip on his shoulder about fighters being dumb. Very fun character, actually, who only became better when he was converted over to 4E.

But seriously: it is possible to play a campaign that is extremely light on elements of adventure and danger in D&D, but there is no edition that makes this a particularly good choice. That is simply because there are many, many games out there, that handle this much better than D&D, even OGL games like Fantasycraft that share a lot of the same rules.

But if the idea that D&D should make it easy to develop characters who are good at what typically happens in a D&D adventure is strange to folks, I have to wonder if this isn't arguing for the sake of a hypothetical point that really doesn't occur.

Are you going to play through Against the Giants, the Caves of Chaos, the Temple of Elemental Evil with a character who doesn't have anything to do in combat? Really? And should the game really support that kind of play? Really?

Again, there are lots of games: FATE and HERO are two of my favorites, that can make incredible characters who don't do combat very well, but then they correspondingly don't do campaigns like Age of Worms with them.

My thought is that this is largely a theoretical discussion that has little impact on the actual game.