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

[Mishihari Lord]

Other. Toss roles out. I'd like to see some classes that aren't even combat oriented.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If everyone is supposed to have parity in all situations, then why not just have one class, and one race. "D&D character". You can each do the exact same things at all times.

There, done.

But that's not the way the game is.

Well, it's the way some people like to pretend 4e is to make it easier to criticize.

Some classes are supposed to excel at certain things. The cleric is a better healer than any other character. The wizard is a better blaster. The fighter is the best at armed combat. The bard is supposed to be one of the characters with the best social skills.

You can't make them all exactly the same in terms of capabilities in particular roles, because they're *supposed* to be different.

Right. But you can give them mechanical 'parity' while still letting each one be different. That's exactly what 4e did - in combat.

5e just needs to expand that to non-combat. Or to Exporation and interaction, for that matter.

The bard should excel in social situations, with better abilities at influencing NPC and monster behaviour than any other character.

Well, certain social situations. Court intrigue, getting a free meal at an inn, that sort of thing. Getting the help of an acetic old hermit or getting a band of bugbears to back down, maybe not.

But, the flip side is that he shouldn't be as good at ripping them into meat gibbets as the fighter is.

But, the bard probably should be good at cunning tricks in combat - flustering an opponent and getting him mad to create an opening, misdirecting an enemy attack, feigning weakness (or strength).

If your game is just a dungeon crawl, then yeah....a focus on pure combat balancing makes more sense, as might roles.

But many games aren't just simple like that.

Which is the point of broader balance. Not every game will have equal measures of combat and non-combat, so you /can't/ balance combat resources vs non-combat resources, they have to be balanced independently.

 

[SteveC]

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.

If that's the case, then what did a fighting man, a magic user, a cleric and a thief do in a dungeon adventure?

If the cleric didn't heal, who did?

If the magic user didn't take out group targets with sleep, who did?

If the fighting man didn't keep the magic user alive, who did?

And if the thief didn't argue with the DM that they should get their backstab bonus or die to a trap, who did?

I'm not saying this was the only way to play the game early on, but to say that it wasn't there, and it wasn't intended to be there is rewriting history. If computer games didn't take these concepts from RPGs, where did they come from?

Now you can certainly argue "I didn't play the game that way back then, and I don't want to now," and I'd agree with you. Your game, play it your way. But to say that wasn't the general idea behind the early classes, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I don't know if you actually played back in the day, but if you did, I'd love to hear how your group was different.

 

[Andor]

If that's the case, then what did a fighting man, a magic user, a cleric and a thief do in a dungeon adventure?

If the cleric didn't heal, who did?

Potions, time, npcs back in town.

If the magic user didn't take out group targets with sleep, who did?

No one. The wizard had unique abilities. As an individual. In practice a dozen NPC henchmen with bows outgunned a wizard for about 6 levels.

If the fighting man didn't keep the magic user alive, who did?

The cleric. The rogue. The magic users brains. Or no one. Adventureing is risky, that's why sane people hire adventurers to do it.

I'm not saying this was the only way to play the game early on, but to say that it wasn't there, and it wasn't intended to be there is rewriting history. If computer games didn't take these concepts from RPGs, where did they come from?

In part from RPGs, in part from the tabletop games RPGs sprang from, in part from the unique requirements and opportunities of the genre. Aggro management was simply not a part of the game before MMOs made it part of the gaming lexicon. Oh the Fighter might try to keep the kobolds focused on him instead of the wizard by mocking their mothers, but the mechanical components to this originated in CRPGS and MMORPGs and then filtered back to the 3e Knights challange and 4e marking.

Now you can certainly argue "I didn't play the game that way back then, and I don't want to now," and I'd agree with you. Your game, play it your way. But to say that wasn't the general idea behind the early classes, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I don't know if you actually played back in the day, but if you did, I'd love to hear how your group was different.

Formal roles did not exist. Nobody told the wizard "You're a controller, take earth to mud, not acid arrow, or you can't fulfill your role." Likewise the Cleric was not a leader, he was a healer. And that was a problem because healing was vital. You needed a healer, and that was sometimes all he got to do because without that, everybody dies. Half of all game design since then has been a reaction to that.

Combat is the key. In a game without combat, all these problems go away. But in the game, like in life, there is always a risk that someone will decide that the appropriate solution to the annoying people is a cludgel to the head. And it's more likely in a primitive, disorganized world without strong central authorities with an interest in order and wide ranging police powers. So we have to take combat in to account. And Players (escpecially now) want their PCs to surive. I think this is a much stronger feeling today, driven, perhaps, by computer games where death is defeated by a reload, or a mushroom. So to sell a game to consumers who want pretty good odds for their PCs to survive most combats you need to give them the tools needed to do so. In old school games TPKs happened. We all knew it.

In reality, this is gear, it is training, it is prep work, it is intelligence, it is not having fair fights in the first place.

In a modern game the PCs want the illusion of a fair fight, but to not have a 50/50% shot at dieing. So. You give them a pool of hit points, and set them up against monsters that can drain that pool. But then you give them a healer to undo that damage. You give them a controller so they can determine when they get hit. You give them a meatshield who can't be dropped in one round to soak the damage for the rest of the team. And you give them a striker to take out those enemies while the rest of the team concentrates on survival. But at some point it becomes so remote and abstract that it stops feeling like an RPG and becomes a boardgame. That point of dislocation varies for different people. For a lot of people 4e was past that point, and the community split over that.

So if 5e is supposed to be a uniting edition it needs to rope that in to where most gamers can suspend their disbelief and get into character without worrying if Sir Bitemous is supposed to be a defender/fighter or a striker/fighter.

And to do that I think roles, as explicit components of class design, need to die. The concept of roles can inform design, but nobody at WotC should ever say "That's a cool idea for a fighter feat/ability/class feature but it's drifting into striker territory and blurring the roles."

My 2¢.

 

[Tony Vargas]

'Formal roles' is a distinction without a difference. There have been different classes with different roles throughout D&Ds history.

Yes, 3e first formalized them as iconic class roles, and 4e first formalized them independent of class. In between MMOs adopted formalized roles - in immitation of D&D!

Roles are nothing new, only the labels are new. To argue otherwise is absurd - and, really, whats the purpose of doing so, anyway? If you get role excised from the game, you'll still have characters who are tanking, healing, blasting, and so forth, anyway, it'll just be a tad harder to explain to new players, and require a little more circumlocution to pull a decent party together.

This whole thing smacks of rejecting a concept /only/ because it's found in 4e.

 

[Khaalis]

IMHO, the game can benefit from Roles. However, I don't think they should be the highly defined rigid combat-only structure of the 4E roles, which is likened to forming a group in an MMO (1 Defender, 1 Leader, 1 Controller, 2 Strikers). Personally, I think Roles should be revamped.

Each class should list a Role that is a suggested guide on ways the class can contribute to success of a party. In many cases (with few exceptions), classes should fill more than one roll. The roles themselves should be redefined, something along the lines of (from Fantasy Craft):

* Backer: Improves the entire party's performance
* Combatant: Self-explanatory; good at fighting
* Specialist: Master of one or more skills/functions
* Solver: Excels at plot advancement and information gathering
* Talker: The face. Great with social (NPC) interactions
* Wildcards: A few rare classes like wizards fill in here; those classes that have enough going on that they can fill in for two or more roles depending on how their abilities develop.

Examples:
Assassin (Talker/Combatant)
Bard (Talker/Backer)
Fighter (Combatant)
Priest (Backer/Wildcard)
Ranger (Combatant/Solver)
Rogue (Specialist/Combatant)
Warlord (Backer/Combatant)
Wizard (Wildcard)

 

[Bedrockgames]

' .

This whole thing smacks of rejecting a concept /only/ because it's found in 4e.

I think we have made clear this isn't te case at all.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think we have made clear this isn't te case at all.

I must have missed it, maybe it was hidden behind all the revisionist history...

 

[Bedrockgames]

I must have missed it, maybe it was hidden behind all the revisionist history...

Not revisionist history, just honest disagreement about roles in prior editions of D&D. I don't expect you do agree with me on the history, but I know my reasons for disliking roles isn't just because it is part of 4E.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Technically, there weren't formal roles in early D&D. If you've ever heard someone say 'we need a cleric' (or fighter, or theif or magic-user), though, you know that roles existed, even if they weren't called that.

As to your unstated personal reasons, I can't read minds or cast 'detect lie' over the internet (or in person), so I can't argue with them, can I?

 

[Bedrockgames]

Technically, there weren't formal roles in early D&D. If you've ever heard someone say 'we need a cleric' (or fighter, or theif or magic-user), though, you know that roles existed, even if they weren't called that.
I?

That is a lot different from the way roles were used as a narrow measure during class design in 4E IMO. I think you end up with a very different final product that way, for good or bad. As an example a wizard was far more versatile in ad&d or 3e. They had "controller spells" (though honestly know one would have used that word to describe them) but they also had spells for doing lots of damage to a single target, for animating the dead, for teleportation, for creating illusions, etc. The role of a thief in previous editions was built almost entirely around non combat. Their backstabbing wasn't all that great to boot, so the striker thing doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. The thief really wasn't much of a combat class. He was the trap guy, the climber, the theif, etc.

 

[Tony Vargas]

That's more a matter of the classes being balanced than roles. Fighters got a lot of new toys in 4e, because they'd never had many toys. Wizards got paired down substantially because they'd had far too much. Rogues got to be useful in combat, because being useless in combat really sucked.

Roles helped in class design, clearly, but they aren't solely responsible for the changes to classes - improvement in class balance was a major factor, too.

If 5e wants to return classes to more familiar forms it doesn't have to abandon formalized roles - which are a useful construct - to do so, it just has to use /different/ formalized roles...

... well, and abandon class balance.

 

[Bedrockgames]

That's more a matter of the classes being balanced than roles. Fighters got a lot of new toys in 4e, because they'd never had many toys. Wizards got paired down substantially because they'd had far too much. Rogues got to be useful in combat, because being useless in combat really sucked.

Roles helped in class design, clearly, but they aren't solely responsible for the changes to classes - improvement in class balance was a major factor, too.

If 5e wants to return classes to more familiar forms it doesn't have to abandon formalized roles - which are a useful construct - to do so, it just has to use /different/ formalized roles...

... well, and abandon class balance.

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

 

[Dausuul]

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

No, that was going to happen regardless. When the decision is made that no class should be able to do everything, the class that could previously do everything is going to have its options curtailed and its definition narrowed. That's just how it is.

 

[Bedrockgames]

No, that was going to happen regardless. When the decision is made that no class should be able to do everything, the class that could previously do everything is going to have its options curtailed and its definition narrowed. That's just how it is.

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.

 

[Andor]

'Formal roles' is a distinction without a difference. There have been different classes with different roles throughout D&Ds history.

Yes, 3e first formalized them as iconic class roles, and 4e first formalized them independent of class. In between MMOs adopted formalized roles - in immitation of D&D!

Roles are nothing new, only the labels are new. To argue otherwise is absurd - and, really, whats the purpose of doing so, anyway? If you get role excised from the game, you'll still have characters who are tanking, healing, blasting, and so forth, anyway, it'll just be a tad harder to explain to new players, and require a little more circumlocution to pull a decent party together.

This whole thing smacks of rejecting a concept /only/ because it's found in 4e.

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.

 

[Dausuul]

Early D&D had no roles except healer, blaster and meatshield.

Also known as "leader," "striker/controller," and "defender." This is a semantic quibble. Aside from splitting out striker from controller, 4E uses the exact same roles.

If you think early 4E's implementation of roles was far too dogmatic and rigid--I agree with you. Early 4E in general was far too dogmatic and rigid. But the idea that roles, and those specific roles, didn't exist previous to 4E is just wrong.

 

[Herschel]

What I don't want for example are three defender builds, or three controller builds. I want to be able to take a class and use it's options to build whatever I can think of with what I have. If I want an archer type fighter I don't want to be told I can play a ranger and flavor it to be a fighter.

Sure a fighter could pick up a bow and use it but why would you when you have all these other powers that enable you to do more damage, nevermind the fact that those powers are designed for melee and not archery.

Yet this is no different than before, see my example of my AD&D Ranger. He became a "fighter" after we started using UA and then when 2E came along, and had to remain that way in to 3E as when UA came out the Ranger became a dual-wielder. He was still the same character from edition to edition, some of his descriptive keywords just changed.

If you want to play an archer character, play the class that supports the character concept regardless of whether it's called a fighter, a ranger or a jackolantern.

Heck, for the vast majority of the game's history the Ranger is explicitely a specialized fighter.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Yet this is no different than before, see my example of my AD&D Ranger. He became a "fighter" after we started using UA and then when 2E came along, and had to remain that way in to 3E as when UA came out the Ranger became a dual-wielder. He was still the same character from edition to edition, some of his descriptive keywords just changed.

If you want to play an archer character, play the class that supports the character concept regardless of whether it's called a fighter, a ranger or a jackolantern.

Heck, for the vast majority of the game's history the Ranger is explicitely a specialized fighter.

I don't like those style of games I'm afraid. When I want to play an archer fighter I want to play an archer fighter like in 3.5/Pathfinder. When I want to play an archer ranger I will play an archer ranger.

 

[Herschel]

I don't like those style of games I'm afraid. When I want to play an archer fighter I want to play an archer fighter like in 3.5/Pathfinder. When I want to play an archer ranger I will play an archer ranger.

What "style of game"? Where you can play an armored archer character? My Two-Handed Sword-Wielding character was almost exactly the same from edition to edition.

I have an archer that I've played in 3 editions (did not play it in 3E) he's been a Fighter, a Ranger (specific subclass of Fighter) and a Ranger. He has the same personality, same armor, everything. Just a couple of keywords changed.

My dual-hammer-wielding Dwarven Fighter/Thief is still the same character but now he's a Ranger in 4E.