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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aenghus" data-source="post: 5814611" data-attributes="member: 2656">I have seen a lot of hostility to the idea of combat roles in 4e, and I have a theory that at least some of this is about the competing ideals of the individual PC vs the group in D&D.In previous editions of D&D, while teamwork amongst the PCs was typical, there was also room for competition between PCs,  and possibly PC vs PC conflict or violence. It was possible to generate a PC and come up with a background in isolation, then turn up on the night of game and expect to play with whatever the other players had devised. This lack of collaboration produced a wide range of results from crazy fun to awful. While a shiny paladin can be plot deviced into a group with a ruthless evil assassin it takes player collaboration to make it work. 3e was the individual edition, it allowed massive customisation of PCs, and with system mastery it was possible to create PCs of wildly different power levels,  and mitigate or remove weaknesses from PCs to create one-man-armies who didn't really need to work with anyone, in or out of combat. Teamwork in combat was mostly about buffing spells applied beforehand, once in combat there wasn't a vast amount of synergy to exploit.4e is the teamwork edition. PCs have specialities and are expected to work together. The classes have weaknesses it's difficult or impossible to bypass.  In combat there is huge amounts of possible team synergy, provided the PCs are designed collaboratively to avail of it - the major min-max potential in 4e is at the group level, not the individual . An integrated group of PCs will work far better than a loose collection of individuals, The design doesn't really permit meaningful PC vs PC combat, as the combat roles pretty much dictate the odds - strikers have the best chances, defenders next, with controllers and leaders in last place. Outside combat, the skill challenge mechanism again emphasises group teamwork, over individual glory.I've added a poll to see how people value balancing rugged individualism and effective teamwork and collaboration. There's an other option for dissenting opinions, please post to elaborate.</blockquote>

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