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Message: <blockquote data-quote="smathis" data-source="post: 3906602" data-attributes="member: 56465">I don't have the source on me at this time but one of the designer's blogs or the Design & Development articles addressed this concern.As I recall, the designer said that a party does not have to have all the roles filled but that it would be a little bit more difficult for them if they don't.Not much different from a party not having a cleric nowadays. Possibly even less of an issue.At the very least, we're getting different options for the roles we were already used to: a "warlord" instead of a cleric, a melee-based ranger, etc. That shows good faith that the designers are aware of the issue (as does going ahead and officially defining the four roles up front).I can't recall how many times we've had discussions in a new group about why a player couldn't play a barbarian or somesuch because we already had three fighters and needed a cleric (or a thief or a wizard). That's been going on since at least 1981.At least now we can give those poor schmoes options. Instead of saying "you have to play a cleric" we can say "you can play a cleric or a warlord" and be reasonably assured that the group will not suffer as a whole because this player didn't choose to play the one class we really need to heal wounds or find traps or deal damage to incorporeal enemies, etc.Even better, it looks like they're giving different flavors of the class (ala PHBII) which broadens the field even more. I'm referencing the "melee-based ranger" bit here. So instead of saying that a player must play a cleric, we can now say that a player can play a cleric but we have all these different types like a straight-up priest/noble or a combat-heavy holy warrior or a shaman type, etc.Really if the designers come at us with 2 or 3 options like this per class (ala the Scoundrel in Star Wars Saga) we'll be getting not just 8 or so classes but 20+ spread across 4 party roles.Doesn't sound too bad to me.</blockquote>

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