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

[Bedrockgames]

4e did roles weird as it replayed combat roles and made noncombat roles freeform through skills.

But the point still stands. Combat or noncombat, if a character doesn't provide a few functions for the party, why would they bring along this person into situations where they (the other party members) can die?

I wouldn't bring a basketweaver/baker with me on my quest to stop an archmage intent on conquering the world.

Well every party is going to be different. Needing a basket weaver is unlikely (though certainly not impossible) but needing a diplomat, thief, scout, forager, navigator, trapper/hunter, metal worker, herbalist, sage, etc are very feasible. Obviously they need reasons to bring anyone with them, but that doesn't mean every member of the party needs to make an equal contribution. Taking a sage makes a lot of sense even if you lean on skill set rarely and he provides little combat benefit. Bringing a bard or poet makes sense even if he adds nothing to combat and very litttle in terms of practical skill. On a long journey the party culd certainly use some form of entertainment (as well as have someone to document their exploits). Even having a cook makes sense.

 

[xigbar]

I know it's been stated several times already, but can we just drop the combat roles entirely? As much as my love of the tactical aspects of 3.5 would imply that I would love 4e, the very concept of adding something out of World of Warcraft appauls me.

 

[Andor]

I wouldn't bring a basketweaver/baker with me on my quest to stop an archmage intent on conquering the world.

And if your friend the basket weaver insisted on coming along and paying his own way, would you use force to stop him? Why? Does some mystical sense tell you that there can be only 5 main characters and if you gank your best friend since childhood a psychopathic drow axe murderer will mysteriously volunteer to help you on your quest?

By the end of the LotR books Merry and Pippin were legitimate little badasses. At the time of the council of Rivendell they got sent along because the elves couldn't be bothered with taking the hairy freeloaders back to the Shire. By your logic Gandalf should have blasted them on the spot, as this would somehow cause Glorfindel and Elrohir to man up and come along.

 

[Andor]

On a long journey the party culd certainly use some form of entertainment (as well as have someone to document their exploits). Even having a cook makes sense.

And they were forced to eat robin's minstrels, and there was much rejoicing. Yay.

 

[Minigiant]

Well every party is going to be different. Needing a basket weaver is unlikely (though certainly not impossible) but needing a diplomat, thief, scout, forager, navigator, trapper/hunter, metal worker, herbalist, sage, etc are very feasible. Obviously they need reasons to bring anyone with them, but that doesn't mean every member of the party needs to make an equal contribution. Taking a sage makes a lot of sense even if you lean on skill set rarely and he provides little combat benefit. Bringing a bard or poet makes sense even if he adds nothing to combat and very litttle in terms of practical skill. On a long journey the party culd certainly use some form of entertainment (as well as have someone to document their exploits). Even having a cook makes sense.

Sure if a player wants to play a musician whose sole purpose is to play background music and the other players make their PCs want that, fine.

But you are not playing a traditional D&D player character and the core rules should not cater to you. A character that doesn't aid the party in one of the basic aspects of D&D adventure: combat, expolaration, and social interaction, is not the type of player character the default game imagines. PCs have to be good at enough adventuring skills that adventuring makes sense. People get hired for the skills their employer or social contract holder wants.

Combat and Noncombat Roles tie in to this. PCs had to be good at something PCs care about and train in a lifestyle thatmakes adventuring a job choice. As failure is usally jailtime, enslavement, oppression, poverty, hopelessness,, or death.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Sure if a player wants to play a musician whose sole purpose is to play background music and the other players make their PCs want that, fine.

But you are not playing a traditional D&D player character and the core rules should not cater to you. A character that doesn't aid the party in one of the basic aspects of D&D adventure: combat, expolaration, and social interaction, is not the type of player character the default game imagines. PCs have to be good at enough adventuring skills that adventuring makes sense. People get hired for the skills their employer or social contract holder wants.

Combat and Noncombat Roles tie in to this. PCs had to be good at something PCs care about and train in a lifestyle thatmakes adventuring a job choice. As failure is usally jailtime, enslavement, oppression, poverty, hopelessness,, or death.

From the point of view of your characters there is no limit to the party's final number. They can bring along all the fighters they feel they need plus a cook if they want. My point is the characters bring along all kinds of people with them. I dont think they are striclty thinking in terms of social, exploration and comnat. That said, I agree that people need a reason to be traveling with you and geneally having something to contribute helps. But it need not fit into the three categories you have provided. You might, for exaple, just have someone who is an idea man. He doesnt directly contribute to combat or social interaction, but he is good at coming up with solutions to problems faced by the party.

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.

 

[Minigiant]

From the point of view of your characters there is no limit to the party's final number. They can bring along all the fighters they feel they need plus a cook if they want. My point is the characters bring along all kinds of people with them. I dont think they are striclty thinking in terms of social, exploration and comnat. That said, I agree that people need a reason to be traveling with you and geneally having something to contribute helps. But it need not fit into the three categories you have provided. You might, for exaple, just have someone who is an idea man. He doesnt directly contribute to combat or social interaction, but he is good at coming up with solutions to problems faced by the party.

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.

D&D assumes the party sticks together. If the party is travelling to the dragon's lair, why are they bringing the ship captain? The dragon's lair is in the forest and the captain cannot help fight the dragon. So why is the captain coming? He should stay back on the ship. Back at town.

And what happens to the player playing the ship captain. His character makes more sense sitting around.

And if your friend the basket weaver insisted on coming along and paying his own way, would you use force to stop him? Why? Does some mystical sense tell you that there can be only 5 main characters and if you gank your best friend since childhood a psychopathic drow axe murderer will mysteriously volunteer to help you on your quest?

By the end of the LotR books Merry and Pippin were legitimate little badasses. At the time of the council of Rivendell they got sent along because the elves couldn't be bothered with taking the hairy freeloaders back to the Shire. By your logic Gandalf should have blasted them on the spot, as this would somehow cause Glorfindel and Elrohir to man up and come along.

I was always confused why he didn't. At least he could have left them their. All they did is drain XP.

Batman only calls Alfred when the funk hits the fan or when he needs to cover his identity. Otherwise the bulter stays home, where he belongs.

 

[Bedrockgames]

D&D assumes the party sticks together. If the party is travelling to the dragon's lair, why are they bringing the ship captain? The dragon's lair is in the forest and the captain cannot help fight the dragon. So why is the captain coming? He should stay back on the ship. Back at town.

And what happens to the player playing the ship captain. His character makes more sense sitting around.

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.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I think you misunderstood my point. It was not that any given combination of existing roles could not be combined into a single character given enough splatbooks.

It was that in 3e, with the more powerful and flexible multiclassing rules I could take a class or powerset that I like and easily recast it into another 'role' by adding in the class feature I wanted.

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.

The thing is that the 4e classes are pretty flexible. Each class has a primary role, and comes with a choosable subspecialty for a secondary role. So for instance a Thaneborn Barbarian is a Striker (Barbarian) with secondary role of Leader (Thaneborn) - whereas a Rageblood Barbarian is a pure striker with additional striker features. An Invoker (Controller Divine caster) will never be a leader in the way a genuine leader class is, but an Invoker with the Covenant of Preservation a good buffer and secondary leader - whereas one with the Covenant of Wrath is much more strikery. (And one with the Covenant of Malediction doubles down on control and playing the squishy to the point he overchannels and dazes himself regularly). A Mage specialising in Evocation and Pyromancy is for most practical purposes most of the time a striker with limited control despite the fact a wizard is a controller.

You might argue that instead 3es frontloaded multiclassing rules were the problem and 4e improved upon that, but 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.

Of course not. You have much more system mastery with 3e. On the other hand I'm pretty good at both. And although there's more fine tuning possible in 3.x, 4e's classes are superb and IMO superior at setting up almost any archetype I want and doing so without creating someone either ridiculously strong or ridiculously weak by comparison to everyone else. And making them very distinctive while I do so. There aren't only a handful of strong builds with everything else being weak by comparison. 3.x had a very strong tier system of classes whereas in 4e everyone is tier 3 (arguably the ranger is pushing tier 2, the fighter and wizard are both blue, and the assassins and vampire are red). Which means that any of the archetypes explicitely supported by the game are viable - much more of a range than 3.x offers.

But since it would be quite easy to retain roles behind the screen while eliminating them from explicit apperances in the books, I think WotC would be well served to pulll them away from the cameras focus.

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

 

[Danzauker]

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. It gives on to class bloat, because you then try to cover all roles for all power sources (or whatever they decide to call them, expicit or implicit).

Did we really need an Ardent class separated from a Psion? And when a "fighter" is limited just to be a defender, well (although old odition fans tend to forget that a class name is just a game label and nothing more) I can understand why some think it's diminished.

I'd surely prefer that classes are designed to cover at least 2 primary roles, which can be specialized via power choice, feats or whatever.