PC Roles (New Design and Development Article)

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Couldn't the monk be a controller? High speed tumbling all across the battlefield shoot-kicking and body-pushing monsters left and right. Add high throws and quivering palms for more martial, controller, awesomeness.

-What's that ability called where a monk pushes a column of air 30' with his palm in order to push over an opponent?

What you're describing is the striker role: highly mobile and deadly against a single opponent at a time.

The controller is the one impacting the health and mobility of multiple foes on the battlefield, simultaneously.

 

[el-remmen]

I prefer D&D to be a game of hard choices.

Attack the monster and hope to finish it or stop and heal a companion who needs it? It is these kinds of choices that make the games exciting for me.

I am not down with the "you can do two things at once" (except for some occasional exceptions at higher levels with spells or feats at the end of chains) thing.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

The Sorcerer can be a controller and still be different than the Wizard. Arcane users naturally tend towards that role, just like Martial types tend towards Melee combat, for the most part.

Yeah, but he'd still be redundant in the PHB.

We have four roles: leader, defender, controller, striker.

We know of three sources of power: arcane, divine, martial (I'm assuming "nature" powers are divine, for the moment -- if they aren't you could ditch all the nature classes like range, druid, and barbarian for a supplement).

That implies at least 12 distinct character class possibilities to explore before you start overlapping roles & sources of power. I'd rather see them all explored first.

So if I were writing 4E, I wouldn't have the sorcerer and wizard both in the PHB if both were arcane controllers. Convert the sorcerer to an arcane striker -- make him like the warlock with more HP, spells and abilities that are single target focused or affect the PC's own mobility and protection -- and then he's a worthy inclusion in the initial PHB. But then, you only have one controller in the PHB, and I really think they should start with two classes of each role (and let the balance of sources of power be damned).

So if limited to 8 PHB classes I'd vote:

Fighter (martial defender)
Cleric (divine leader)
Wizard (arcane controller)
Rogue (martial striker)
Paladin (divine defender)
Warlord (martial leader)
Druid (divine controller)
Ranger (divine striker)

You could change the ranger up to make him arcane ... but I think not if the assumption nature = divine holds. Frankly, I'd rather limit races and see all 12 class options of role/power mix in the PHB.

 

[D.Shaffer]

Attack the monster and hope to finish it or stop and heal a companion who needs it? It is these kinds of choices that make the games exciting for me.

I am not down with the "you can do two things at once" (except for some occasional exceptions at higher levels with spells or feats at the end of chains) thing.

I dont really see it as giving you less choices, just changing the nature of the choices. It's no longer this OR that. It's Pick Option from List A combined with Pick Option from List B.

"I can attack this monster and rely on my healing aura to patch up my friends in the hopes it drops now, or I could drop everything and concentrate on healing him while providing a defensive bonus to the rest of the party, or maybe I can concentrate fully on attacking with a divine spell and hopefully this will trigger a healling boost anyways"

 

[jasin]

The controller is the one impacting the health and mobility of multiple foes on the battlefield, simultaneously.

Is that WotC's description of the role?

Think of a swordsage focusing on the Setting Sun discipline. A 4E monk might well look something like that, and I think most people would describe that skillset as a controller, even if it doesn't exactly fit your definition.

 

[Mercule]

I do. Still edgy, but less punky and belt-buckly.

Agreed.

 

[el-remmen]

I dont really see it as giving you less choices, just changing the nature of the choices.

Seems to me like it is mitigating the possible bad consequences of a choice. . .

 

[Mercule]

Ranger (divine striker)

I know WotC has said ranger will be a striker, but I still think they could play to controller, if the archery and skirmish powers are beefed up.

Either way, I'll be extremely disappointed if the Ranger ends up under the "divine" power source. They should definitely be martial.

Oh, and Bard = arcane leader.

 

[Pseudopsyche]

I dont really see it as giving you less choices, just changing the nature of the choices. It's no longer this OR that. It's Pick Option from List A combined with Pick Option from List B.

"I can attack this monster and rely on my healing aura to patch up my friends in the hopes it drops now, or I could drop everything and concentrate on healing him while providing a defensive bonus to the rest of the party, or maybe I can concentrate fully on attacking with a divine spell and hopefully this will trigger a healling boost anyways"

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.

 

[Jer]

iii) If it's a non-arcane controller - I'd bet on the druid - then I can see only one arcane class in the PHB. I think WotC would try to avoid this as well. Unless either the ranger or warlord are actually arcane classes.

I'd be disappointed if they go with the "druid-as-controller" route - it's a natural fit for one type of druid character, but not for the shapeshifting druid (which is more of a defender type, at least at my table). I'd like to see a beefed up druid focusing more on the shapeshifting than the area-of-effect spellcasting myself.

Also, I'd like to see a martial controller. I have no idea what that would look like, but I would like to see it. Of course, I'm assuming that a "controller" means "able to affect large groups and/or the terrain of the battlefield" and that may not be what Wizards means by it. But if it is, I'm not sure how you do a martial controller without adding gunpowder or something to the mix

Some of my assumptions have to be wrong, but I'm not sure which. Either WotC don't mind having only one arcane or controller class, don't mind that all the controller classes are arcane, the ranger or warlord are actually arcane, or at least one of the Paladin, Ranger or Warlord isn't in the PHB.

One of them might be a prestige class (though I doubt it - and have they said anything about prestige classes in this edition yet?). I wouldn't mind it if the ranger became an arcane class instead of a divine one - the only reason he's really been a "divine" class in the past is because of the nature connection, and because he shared that nature connection with the divine druid class. Heck, I wouldn't mind seeing the ranger lose the divine powers and become a martial class, except that would mean that we would end up with two martial strikers (since rogue is also a martial class).

My guess is that there will be a sorcerer or a warlock class as an "arcane striker" class and we'll only get the one controller class in the PHB. No real reason for the guess, just a hunch on my part.