NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Runestar" data-source="post: 4571505" data-attributes="member: 72317">Frankly, the concept of roles irritates me. A lot. Or at least the way Wotc chose to approach it. If anything, 4e seems to drive home the implicit assumption that a PC must fall into one of four roles - 1) Front line melee2) Trapfinding/sneak attack but less front-line capability3) Fragile caster with utility/offensive/control spells4) More durable caster with healing/support spellsAnd ideally, all 4 roles should be filled out. Supposedly, the game is balanced along these assumptions. The fighter moves to the front, rogue attempts to flank and SA, cleric moves close to whoever needs healing, while wizard stays far away from the thick of combat (or some minor variation thereof).And classes are built around the role pre-allocated to them. So it becomes something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. In theory, your fighter doesn't have to be a defender, as roles are supposed to be little more than a guideline on how he might be played. But in reality, he can never be anything else other than a defender, because all he does get are defender'ish abilities which basically let him defend better. You could try playing him like say, a striker, but he won't be very adept at it, and will probably fare worse than a dedicated striker. So in the end, to ensure that you can haul your own weight in the party, you have to obediently resume the mantle of defender, since that was your core competency to begin with.I can come up with a million different ways of portraying and fleshing out my PC's personality and background, but I am ultimately limited to just 4 approaches my character can take to adventuring? What the heck...?!? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" />Honestly, I prefer 3e's free-form multiclassing system more, where roles were something you had the liberty of building your character concept around, rather than being hard-coded into your choice of class. This allows you access to builds which did not necessarily have to conform to the 4 standard roles, resulting in your own hybrid creations tailor-fit to your individual preferences.Anyone share my views, or am I alone here...? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /></blockquote>

Verification