PC Roles (New Design and Development Article)

[Lord Zack]

I definetly think a ranger should not cast spells. I also think you should have more weapon styles than archery and two-weapon fighting, like mounted combat. The ranger shouldn't just be a woodsman either. You could have plains rangers, mountain rangers, swamp rangers, underdark rangers, ect.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I still just don't like the whole 'Role' concept. It feels to me that they're going to have to pigeonhole classes into one of these, instead of just saying, lets make a class cool with different abilities from the other classes.

If I recall correctly, they've already said there will be role-mixing classes in the future.

 

[Lord Zack]

I definetly want the classes to be able to fullfill different roles, like a fighter who is a striker or a rogue who is a controller. The Warlord class is probably unneccesary as you could just build a leader fighter.

 

[Reaper Steve]

I'm just chiming in to say that I strongly hope that rangers will be martial only, with no inherent arcane or divine abilities/spells. What I really want is the Scout, so I'm happy that the rnger kills him and takes his stuff. But hopefully he then drops the magic in the process.

If a character wants it, he can multiclass/prestige class. Or maybe they can set up the talent trees such that you can have a purely martial/mundane Aragorn type if you like, or choose certain talents that start crossing the lines into druid territory.

Of course, I'd also like the Ranger to lose the auto-two-weapon fighting. I thought that was a horrible idea in 2e. I like how they handle it in SWSE, where it's a series of feats and there's no real point taking them for the first few levels. That being said, I also understand that they are powering up 1st level chars in 4e to be able to play a hero right out the gate. With that in mind, I'm fine with it staying since it's part of a pardigm shift.

Continuing the stream of conscious rambling...what makes a ranger a ranger? If they get the talent trees, multiclassing, and prestige classes right, one should be able to build Aragorn out of Fighter/Rogue combos. If so, what's the point in having a Ranger class? Therfore, a Ranger class needs to be different enough from a Fighter/Rogue to justify its existence as a base class. While part of me thinks this means it will have some arcane/divine abilities, I also have a hunch (backed by the Tor playtest report) that characters can do signature cool stuff from day 1...and the ranger didn't do anything arcane or divine. My guess is that delayed spell casting (i.e., getting 1st level spells at 9th level) is a thing of the past (further supported by the conclusion that spell-level = char level from Rodney's 25-th level spells secret.)

 

[Remathilis]

I definitely want the classes to be able to fulfill different roles, like a fighter who is a striker or a rogue who is a controller. The Warlord class is probably unnecessary as you could just build a leader fighter.

Ya see, there is a difference between doing something and doing it well...

A paladin can be a healer, but not as well as a cleric can.
A ranger can be a tank, but not a sell as a fighter can.
A cleric can be a blaster, but not as well as a wizard can.
A bard can be a sneak, but not as well as a rogue can.

That's called niche protection. If fighters could be just as good of a leader (read buffer) as a cleric, why have a cleric class?

So you can have a paladin who is a "leader" or a cleric who "defends", they just won't be as effective in those roles as if they were in in their normal role.

 

[Lord Zack]

Yeah, that sounds right. But they shouldn't be completely incompetent in anything that's not they're classes role if they build to be that role.

 

[Nikosandros]

In 3.0, with 3.0 haste, it was good. Because it stacked with power attack, cleave, and off-hand attacks. I remember a character of mine charging (while hasted) in the middle of an ennemy hord, and killing it in three or four rounds. WW + great cleave was alot of fun. It was kind of cheesy, but it's always fun to sit atop a real pile of fallen monsters... His nickname was "mixer-sama" cause he was somewhat samurai-ish.

Ah, 3.0 haste... I still have nightmares about that spell...

 

[Acts]

The Warlord class is probably unneccesary as you could just build a leader fighter.

Unless you didn't want to. I think they've established that the Warlord is a leader like the Cleric, which means they will heal, and having a healer will at least be helpful, if not necessary to a party. Having too often played the party Cleric, I welcome any new options for the 'buff and heal' guy. Including a system that doesn't make necessary a 'buff and heal' guy.

I welcome as many options as they can fit into the book, and into each class for that matter. The fighter that can heal, sure, why not. If the Warlord provides some different flavor and abilities that make it on par but completely different from a fighter with some healing ability, okay.

You bring up a good thought. At some point, I've got to imagine that the new multi-classing overlaps some of old ideas that brought us the "Spellmage" or "Fighter-Thief" builds. Freeing the designers up to create some really unique classes, not just combo-bots.

 

[Merlion]

I do not believe more variety of choice is neccessarily a good thing. In fact, sometimes it is bad thing, more often leading to indecision and/or regret.

But having little variety merely leads to frustration. I have seen a lot more players become frustrated by limitations than having indecision or regret over choices not made.

 

[Merlion]

Good point. In 3rd edition, the combat situation often leaves the cleric only one viable choice: cast a healing spell on the fighter. (Unless you count the choice of which fun cleric spell to spontaneously convert into cure whatever wounds.) Now perhaps the cleric will be able to choose between casting Cure Serious Wounds or making some sort of smite attack that also grants the fighter some smaller amount of HP (or AC or whatever).

Of course, maybe it's just a matter of degree. You could say that when the Defender needs maximum healing, she needs maximum healing. But it sounds like WotC is trying to make the cleric's choices at least more interesting, and interesting choices is the name of the game. Of any game, really.

Except that tactically, the Cleric generally already has far more choices than that...and healing is often one of the least effective. Especially at mid or high levels it'd be more useful for a Cleric to cast a killing or disabling spell on the enemy, or turn themselves into a Fighter and wade in than cast a Cure spell which is simply going to be a trade of hitpoints with the enemies attack. Heal of course is an exception to that.

I like all this about support roles being able to both support and act more easily, but I hope they balanced the Cleric class before hand.