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

[Bedrockgames]

,

Like I said, it's presentation that is killing 4e, not actual mechanics. People look at the role and presume that that's all the character can ever possibly do. And it's utter ballocks. Again, I'm not a regular on the charops boards at WOTC, but 30 seconds of Google and you'll find a dozen striker or controller builds for fighters. You won't find leader builds, that's true, since only leaders grant healing and typically grant extra actions.

But three out of four roles ain't bad.

I actualoy agree with a lot of the first part of your post, but strongly disagree with this section. Presentation of 4E was not the problem, and insisting that it was is dismissive of the opinions of those who didn't like it. The problems people have with roles are varied. We all understand they can do more than their role implies, that they aren't completely limited to what a striker or controller can do. But a lot of us object to designing classes around very narrow concepts like that. I want the wizard class designed around the idea of a wizard not defender, controller, etc. Others just dont want that metagame stuff so upfront. You can cettainly disgree, but to say critics just dont understand, sounds a bit hollow at this point.

 

[neofish]

Isn't this poll rather loaded? Shouldn't there be a 'no Roles' option? Anyway, I don't think that they should be kept (and I really don't think they will be). Whether or not they are *truly* prescriptive, that's the psychology of them, and as a 4e innovation they really didn't do anything for me. If one of my players has a druid who wants to charge into battle and fulfill a 'striker' function, then let him. The other party members are going to think 'you're crazy' and try and reign him in, but he shouldn't need to be assigned a label defining what he can or can't do in any given combat.

 

[SensoryThought]

I put roles in the same category as power sources - a way of describing the class template in the scheme of the larger game. It is descriptive, not prescriptive.

Clerics heal - they have since OD&D and calling them a leader role basically says they tend toward support and that as a class they get access to a lot of those sort of powers. Sure you can pick all the striker abilities, but overall as a class they are geared towards healing and support.

I'm surprised people haven't started complaining that making them divine is too prescriptive - that they want to play a martial powered cleric. And they don't want to heal, they want to defend their companions. Guess what? Just play a fighter.

 

[Hussar]

I actualoy agree with a lot of the first part of your post, but strongly disagree with this section. Presentation of 4E was not the problem, and insisting that it was is dismissive of the opinions of those who didn't like it. The problems people have with roles are varied. We all understand they can do more than their role implies, that they aren't completely limited to what a striker or controller can do. But a lot of us object to designing classes around very narrow concepts like that. I want the wizard class designed around the idea of a wizard not defender, controller, etc. Others just dont want that metagame stuff so upfront. You can cettainly disgree, but to say critics just dont understand, sounds a bit hollow at this point.

But, this is exactly what I'm talking about.

The classes AREN'T designed around narrow concepts. They are presented that way, sure, but they really, really aren't. You can make a striker, defender or controller fighter straight out of the PHB. You can make a controller, striker or defender Warlord right out of the PHB. You can make a striker wizard ridiculously easily.

Even a fairly quick perusal of the powers shows that this can be done.

Will your striker wizard be as good of a striker as, say, the Ranger? Probably not. But, again, being better than the specialist isn't the same as being bad. About the only build that wizards can't really do, at least straight out of the PHB is leader and that's because only leaders have healing powers.

The narrowness of concept only applies if you don't bother looking past the initial presentations and start digging a bit deeper into the mechanics.

I don't mean to be dismissive, but, when people say that you have these straight jacket roles imposed on classes, it's a point that's pretty easily disproved. It only remains true if your metric for a character is that he must be as good or better than any specialist. A warlock will not be a better controller than a wizard. That's absolutely true. but, he will be a better controller out of the box than any other non-controller and he's not all that far behind the wizard.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't mean to be dismissive, but, when people say that you have these straight jacket roles imposed on classes, it's a point that's pretty easily disproved. It only remains true if your metric for a character is that he must be as good or better than any specialist. A warlock will not be a better controller than a wizard. That's absolutely true. but, he will be a better controller out of the box than any other non-controller and he's not all that far behind the wizard.

i never said it was a straiht jacket (you keep building strawmen here), i said the classes were designed around roles, and they clearly were. That doesn't mean they dont have powers outside their focus, but it does mean the designers made classes to excel at striking, controlling, etc.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

Magic had a big change way back in 1998. Prior to Exodus, card rarity wasn't denoted on the card itself. Starting with that expansion, rarity was denoted by color of the expansion symbol.

How does this relate? Well, it goes to the transparity issue. In Magic, denoting rarity makes the game more transparent but only has an impact on the metagame of trading. It provided some protection to novice players in trades by identifying an element of the game that only experienced players knew.

Combat Roles, in 4th, are like card rarity in Magic. Novice players need guidance while expert players do not. The difference is that card rarity had no mechanical impact on the game of magic while combat roles had significant in-game impact.

Frankly, this is a character creation issue. And the issue only arises when you've got too many options. In 2nd, rolling 4d6 drop the lowest, it was hard to make a bad character through player choices at creation. You simply didn't have enough choices during character creation (about the only choice was what NWP and WP to select and kit, if your DM allowed it). Your character was defined more by what happened in play then what happened during creation. Since 3rd though, your character options outside of gameplay have exploded (feats, skills, multi-classing, prestige classes, paragon paths, etc).

 

[Mengu]

I'm with the "ditch roles" crowd, but probably for somewhat different reasons than some. While I'm a 4e fan, I thought roles were one of the worst straight jackets for class design. It seemed like when they slapped on "leader" role, they had to have a twice per encounter healing mechanic, when they slapped on "defender" role, they had to have a marking mechanic. And if you had the "controller" role or "striker" role you couldn't have those things. These straight jackets prohibited them from giving the invoker or original druid a once per encounter heal, and from giving the avenger a marking mechanic. It resulted in the warlord ending up with two "healing words" instead of perhaps a more fitting temporary hit point mechanic.

I think these straight jackets needed to be ripped off, to allow for more freedom, and more fitting mechanics for each class in its own right.

I know the next edition is not even going to have a hint of 4e, so these design examples are somewhat of a moot point, but the idea remains. Roles as defined in 4e are too restrictive as a design criteria.

They're probably okay conceptually, for describing character function to beginners, and to those coming from the CRPG background. But even then, I prefer to talk about roles like "hitter, hacker, grifter, thief, and mastermind" rather than the 4e roles.

 

[Minigiant]

I think they problem is that we need new questions.

1) Should the designers name a classes combat role in the class description?

2) Should the game enforce a class' role in the class' mechanics?

3) If yes to Question 2, how many roles should each class have?

4) if no to Question 2, what should regulate the combat roles each class's concept has? Or should there be no regulation and restrictions on class combat roles and let the class concept do whatever it can do?

 

[Lord Mhoram]

So push roles into the realm of system mastery and tribal knowledge?

More have a discussion of party roles somewhere in the PH (perhaps an appendix) explaining what they are - making a large point that they are guidelines, not restrictions. Make an even bigger point that these are combat only.

Take an example class "Wizard" and explain how one might play that class in each of the different roles.

Then discusss the different kinds of roles in party, and examples of what they can do. Then discuss the drawbacks and bonuses of diferent party dynamics with different collection of roles- for of a "1 of each roll" party, For an All Striker party, for a Defender/Controller only party.

Never ever hard code this into the rules, but have a good solid discussion of it in a playstyles or "Things you should know before you get into combat" section.

So anyone that wants to use roles tightly woven into the game have the info they need, and those that want to never see a formal role in the game again can ignore them.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Will your striker wizard be as good of a striker as, say, the Ranger? Probably not. But, again, being better than the specialist isn't the same as being bad. About the only build that wizards can't really do, at least straight out of the PHB is leader and that's because only leaders have healing powers.

The narrowness of concept only applies if you don't bother looking past the initial presentations and start digging a bit deeper into the mechanics.

That is the mechanical "straightjacket" Roles have in 4E to my opinion. Why shouldn't the "striker" wizard do as much damage as any other "striker". Why shouldn't any class have the opportunity to be the best "leader". Because the game says "Strikers are these classes" means that other classes cannot be as good as they are as strikers - if part of your combat character design goal is to be able to do the absolutely the most damage of anyone in the part, but are somewhat squishy, you should allow every class to do that - not just "better than everyone except the specialist".