Mike Mearls on Combat vs Non-Combat roles

[Crazy Jerome]

The key thing is that both Build1 and Build2 will have a range of Martial Defender powers (at will, per encounter, per day) which they use to fulfil their defender role.

Feats can then be the icing on the cake - Build1 has icing on his out-of-combat options, Build2 has icing on his in-combat options.

A telling remark is that the rest of the party will be equally happy whether they have Sir Talkalot or Sir Killalot joining their party since both will be able to fulfil that 'martial defender' role.

Furthermore, fulfilling the martial defender role more or less equally is not the same as being equally effective in combat, in the ways we envision fighters working in our heads. It could very well be that Sir Killalot is a bigger dude in combat over all. He is simply not substantially better at making opponents either pay attention to him or wish they had.

 

[Hussar]

Perhaps a better way of saying it is that a balanced party's adventuring track record will be better than that of an unbalanced party. But still...

The problem is, I don't think this meshes with what we've been told. The reason they're scaling down casters, for example, and bumping up fighters isn't to make the party stronger, but to bring parity between the classes. Despite the fact that wizard and fighter have different roles, the power changes of the classes is to bring balance between the classes, not between the roles.

So a party with two fighters and no wizard isn't hosed. It might be less effective in some situations, and more effective in others, since its somewhat more specialized than a strictly balanced party, but, overall, it should be okay.

We shouldn't see situations where you MUST HAVE a given class *cough*cleric*cough* in order to succeed. Particularly in combat.

While direct balance is impossible (you'll never have all classes doing the exact same damage per round), you can make things more balanced than before. Wizards will no longer be able to outshine everyone at certain levels, a party of four clerics is no longer the strongest party you can make. That sort of thing.

Now, whether they succeed at this or not is another issue. But, hopefully, a party with a striker, controller and two defenders is no less effective overall than a party with all four roles. Outliers where the entire party is only one role can be ignored because they almost never come up in play.

 

[Stoat]

I suspect that it will be difficult to play a party lacking one of the four roles without the DM taking some effort to tailor the game accordingly. That is, I suspect that a typical adventure will contain a mix of encounters, some of which are significantly more difficult without one of the four roles. In particular, I am not yet convinced that a party could go the distance without some sort of designated healer.

However, it should be possible (particularly after a few more classes are released) to play a party lacking one of the various power sources. Thus, in world without divine magic, you could replace the cleric with a warlord. In a land where arcane magic is outlawd, you could replace the wizard with a hypothetical divine controller.

In other words, you could run a campaign where all players were members of a wizard's academy, or divine agents of a church, or hard-bitten mercenaries with no magic talents.

This I like.

 

[ruleslawyer]

The problem is, I don't think this meshes with what we've been told. The reason they're scaling down casters, for example, and bumping up fighters isn't to make the party stronger, but to bring parity between the classes. Despite the fact that wizard and fighter have different roles, the power changes of the classes is to bring balance between the classes, not between the roles.

Not quite what I was saying. I was merely supporting Irda Ranger's proposition that (1xD + 1xC + 1xS + 1xL) > (4x [D, C, S, or L]) for a default range of adventuring scenarios.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I became all hopefull then that they had split combat and non combat role into independent claases, so that one picked two classes at character creation, one combat and one out of combat, so you could play, for example, a fighter-crafter or a wizard-diplomat.

.....they might not have done that....


.....but it is an AWESOME idea.

I might just have to yoink it.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Could you give a source for this suggestion? This flies in the face of many things thus far revealed about 4e, particularly the radical limitations being applied to wizards, the big bad class of 3e.

The main problem with the 3E Cleric and 1E->3E Wizard was that they made the other classes irrelevant (eventually). It's pretty clear that one of 4E's major design goals is to make sure the Martial classes remain relevant at all levels. I don't think anyone contests this.

What I meant by "they aren't balanced" against each other is that they're doing really different things all the time; things that don't necessarily convert into a single currency (which is necessary to do accurate comparisons). But that's OK, because (in theory) you still need a Fighter at 25th level. He's relevant; the group cannot survive certain encounters without him. And against certain threats he really shines in a certain way that Clerics cannot duplicate (at least, that's what marketing tells us).

That looks like balance, but its subtlety different. The primary difference is that he's only relevant as long as the DM threatens the group with threats that the Fighter is designed to handle. In certain types of campaigns he may never use half of his abilities. It really depends on the encounter mix.

Now for DM's who only run published adventures, this is probably a null point. WotC won't ever release an Expedition to _________ that doesn't provide opportunities for every class to shine.

But one of the reasons D&D has been so popular over the years is that it allows a great number of different campaign options. You could always before have adventures designed for Martial-only, or Leader-only, or whatever. Or "anyone but Defender" adventures. Intrigues, Wizard-quests, etc.

So where am I going with this? I'm wondering if the idea the Roles is baked in to the 4E rules. What if all of the encounter tables in the MM, and the dungeon design chapter's generator charts, and almost every other rule in the game are built on the assumption of "Every role is represented." That would be a real headache for the DM who wanted to stray from that assumption.

One of 3E's built in assumptions (which caused me headaches) were big colorful Christmas Tree characters. I'm wondering if this is one of 4E's built in assumptions, and if so what the headache factor will be.

 

[cr0m]

Getting back to the guy who wants to play the Sherwood Forest campaign... my understanding was that you won't be in the situation where someone has to play the cleric, because all the classes have the ability to heal themselves to some degree in 4e.

Isn't that the main reason a party "needs" a cleric? I mean other than the fact that clerics pwn, etc, etc, etc Codzilla, etc, etc.