Roles - do they work?

[SKyOdin]

And frankly, I want to play a Wizard as a Striker, not a Controller, but the game doesn't seem to be letting me.. My most useful spell is Flaming Sphere. ... it makes me groan inwardly to keep using the damned repetative thing every "day", but it's the only blasted thing that fills in the tactics when we get into the big tussles. And I seem to wind up using my encounter powers in roughly the same order for the same ends every bloody enounter. ... I think if it weren't for the creativity I've been able to squeeze out of my cantrips, I'd go insane at the repetativeness. And unless there's a huge mess o' badguys, a Wizard can't but keep firing Magic Missiles into the melee everyone else is enjoying.

Is this really a problem with roles though? It sounds to me that you are simply not enjoying the Wizard class. If you want to play the Wizard like a Striker, why don't you play a class that is a Striker? The Warlock isn't that different from the Wizard in concept, particularly if you tweak the fluff to taste. You could also try the Sorcerer out when the PHB 2 is released. That is the reason multiple classes with the same power source exist.

I guess I simply don't understand why it is a problem for a class to built around a single role.

From the sounds of it, though, your problem may be more to do with the power system of 4E than with class roles.

Personally though, I enjoy playing my Wizard. Though I would prefer it if Force Orb actually hit something for a change.

 

[FireLance]

I don't like it when certain classes are forced into certain roles.

I have always liked loved bards, and I like shamans, for instance.. But I'm finding myself worried because I have not liked the look of playing Leader characters, from what I've seen of them with our Party's characters thus far.

And frankly, I want to play a Wizard as a Striker, not a Controller, but the game doesn't seem to be letting me.. (snip)

So yes.. Yes I think the Roles are a bad thing. The Roles are getting in the way of the Playing.

Let me turn the question around. If you want to play an arcane striker, why are you so wedded to the idea of playing a "wizard"? If you find out that the wizard class (which is labelled as a "controller") does not function well as a striker, it seems to me that the role system is actually working the way it should.

4e does require a particular shift in mindset. In previous editions, you'd decide you want to play a class on the basis of the class's name and your pre-conceived notions of what that class ought to be. If your notions of what the class should be happend to fit with those of the designer, well and good. Otherwise, you'd be quite dissatisfied with the class. The multitude of alt. rangers in early 3e is a testament to the fact that gamers as a whole couldn't decide whether rangers should be mystical spellcasting warriors, canny non-spellcasting woodsmen, archers, two-weapon wielders, etc.

4e breaks this up into two stages. First pick a power source. For now, this seems to be largely a flavor choice. Do you want to tap into arcane energies, by fueled by divine faith, or rely on martial ability? Next, pick a combat role. Do you want to deal lots of damage? Play a striker. Do you want to shape the battlefield? Play a controller. Do you want to protect your team-mates? Play a defender. Do you want to help and heal them? Play a leader. Then, and only then, should you pick a class. And if you're dead set on playing a character that calls himself a wizard when you want to play an arcane striker? Just reflavor your class abilities and call yourself a wizard in-game. Similarly, want to play a bard but don't want to inspire and heal your team-mates? Find the essence of what you want in playing a bard and find the class that best enables you to play that character, even if the class isn't called a bard.

 

[SKyOdin]

For monsters, the nonclemature is useful, though with monsters as simplistic as 4th edition monsters, I hardly need a label to tell how to use it effectively. Most of them only have one or two effective ways to spend their rounds and reading their powers it is not hard to figure out what those are.

The reason you can figure out so easily how to use those monsters by reading their powers is because the monsters were designed with a specific role in mind. Role is not just a descriptor to tell a DM how to use a monster, it is a guideline that a designer uses when creating the monster in the first place. That also extends to homebrew monsters: the guidelines that are given by a monsters role make designing a monster a simple process. For example, lets say I want to make a mid-Paragon tier Elite Soldier monster, based on a rough concept that I have in my head. Mechanically, I am already half-done creating the monster, since I can now just use the charts in the DMG to fill in most of its statistics. At that point, I really just have to design powers, and that is a breeze because I can just look at other monsters of the same role to get a general sense of what kind of power is appropriate. Creating custom monsters would be much more trouble without role to serve as a guideline.

That said, I think minions are a terrible idea both from the standpoint of immersion and from the gameplay...

I couldn't possibly disagree more. I can't imagine going back to an RPG system that doesn't have minions. Minions don't bother me from an immersion stand-point, since I am already used to the concept of mooks as they appear in movies, television, and novels. And the gameplay mechanics for minions seem to work out very well in gameplay as far as I have seen.

 

[Ahnehnois]

The basic concept of roles is a kind of heady philosophical thing. What I'm sursprised at is the roles they chose. Leader/controller/striker/defender don't reflect at all how I look at pre-4e classes, or at the characters I saw and played.

I've never seen a true leader as one might find in fantasy literature; the PCs are always a democracy of some sort. I don't know what a 'defender' is; I see all characters as being defined in combat by the offensive capabilities more than their defense. I suppose a fighter could be 'defending' a wizard by taking hits for him, but the casters could just as easily 'defend' the fighter with various spells. Controller and striker are sort of niches; rogues are generally about dealing a lot of damage to one unlucky and unsuspecting target, while certain casters may like to sit back and manipulate the battlefield with spells like summoning; status effects; other conjurations.

Ultimately, though, 3e and earlier classes aren't defined by these combat roles. Fighters kind of are, but their fighting styles could make them a defender, leader, striker, or something else entirely. Rogues have always been defined more by their out-og-combat skills than by sneak attacking and backstabbing. Casters never fit into any kind of role; A necromancer is totally different from an evoker or a transmuter. A cleric is always totally different based on his deity.

This meant that there were more fundamental differences between classes than the 4e power selection would represent. These differences made each class good for a different type of player. 4e's move to dumb down the class system in the name of balance and ease of play has never made sense to me.

 

[Rel]

Thus far I've got no problems with the roles and how they work with our group. The certainly don't appear to lessen the roleplaying and they don't seem to be as pigeonholed as I'd have originally thought.

For example the Paladin is a Defender. The Paladin in our group is using a Greatsword so he's still a Defender but is trending a bit more toward the Striker area. The Cleric has actually done a lot of Controller type stuff with an area effect Encounter power and her Guardian Daily. The Warlock is definitely churning out some damage but is actively looking to get attacked (she's got a lot of extra Temp HP thanks to her Infernal Pact and Improved Dark One's Blessing) so is taking on some Defender aspects.

So it looks to me like it isn't that hard to straddle the line between roles based on how the character is built. Maybe that perception will change as they rise in level.

 

[AngeltheTechrat]

Let me turn the question around. If you want to play an arcane striker, why are you so wedded to the idea of playing a "wizard"? If you find out that the wizard class (which is labelled as a "controller") does not function well as a striker, it seems to me that the role system is actually working the way it should.

4e does require a particular shift in mindset. In previous editions, you'd decide you want to play a class on the basis of the class's name and your pre-conceived notions of what that class ought to be. If your notions of what the class should be happend to fit with those of the designer, well and good. Otherwise, you'd be quite dissatisfied with the class. The multitude of alt. rangers in early 3e is a testament to the fact that gamers as a whole couldn't decide whether rangers should be mystical spellcasting warriors, canny non-spellcasting woodsmen, archers, two-weapon wielders, etc.

4e breaks this up into two stages. First pick a power source. For now, this seems to be largely a flavor choice. Do you want to tap into arcane energies, by fueled by divine faith, or rely on martial ability? Next, pick a combat role. Do you want to deal lots of damage? Play a striker. Do you want to shape the battlefield? Play a controller. Do you want to protect your team-mates? Play a defender. Do you want to help and heal them? Play a leader. Then, and only then, should you pick a class. And if you're dead set on playing a character that calls himself a wizard when you want to play an arcane striker? Just reflavor your class abilities and call yourself a wizard in-game. Similarly, want to play a bard but don't want to inspire and heal your team-mates? Find the essence of what you want in playing a bard and find the class that best enables you to play that character, even if the class isn't called a bard.

I play a wizard because the wizard has the magic, the spellbook, the rituals, and most importantly, the cantrips. THAT is the flavor I want. Not the warlock's flavor, nor the sorcerer's lack of a flavor. But it's bogged down in area effects that stop you from being anything but a controller, and targetable effects that are sub-par to the targetable powers of other classes.

Yes. It is my opinion that you should be able to tailor a class you want into the role you want. I really don't think that's an unreasonable opinion.

As for Bard, yes I do want to play a character that enhances and heals party-mates, but I also want to be able to use more direct abilities as well. What I DON'T want, is to be moving other people around and puppeting them as seems to be all our party's Warlord does. A little bump and boost is fine, but you also need the pomp and flash. I mean.. We're talking about a bard here. A performer!

As a player my experience has been the same. I find 4E's version of class roles to be more restrictive than I am used to, and certainly more than I enjoy. As for monsters, I've been on the receiving end of their attacks enough to recognize the power types but so far I haven't had the chance to GM them. But I'll be GM'ing a game next week so I hope to have a better handle on things afterward.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but the only monster role that I dislike is the minion, which IMHO appears to be little more than a justification for the existence of the wizard / controller. But since I only have the 3 core books to work I really don't know if the primary controller role has moved beyond that of a minion slayer.

Nope, it hasn't.. You still get to try to blast as many minions as possible at the begining of a combat, before the rest of your party gets in there and blocks the rest of your abilities, reducing you to ping-ing off targets with Magic Missile until one or more of your foes kicks into the "Kill the Wizard!!" mentality and you revisit negative hp until the paladin or cleric helps you sit up again.

 

[malraux]

Yes. It is my opinion that you should be able to tailor a class you want into the role you want. I really don't think that's an unreasonable opinion.

You are describing something other than a class based system though. Certainly you should be able to taylor any power source to whatever you want, but if any class can do anything you want it to, then the roles are meaningless.

 

[Sadrik]

If you don't like the arcane controller why don't you play the arcane striker or defender. A common sentiment. There is a certain nostalgia for names like "wizard" but it is more than that, players and DMs want to type-cast their character (generally) into groups. These groups don't necessarily fill any single role as defined by 4e.

The wizard guild, is a good example of this, since there are at least 5 arcane wizardy classes that I know of right now how does each one of those fit into a wizard guild. They don't, each class was designed with a separate and distinct background. Classes are pigeonholed into a single role both in mechanics and greater role in the story. Five arcane character types with more on the way, how does each of those roles fit into the world? I think this second part is being forgotten.

It is sort of the, having too many character races problem, it makes each race less distinct. The same thing goes here, each class is trying to be very distinct in flavor but that distinctiveness is lost. Lost to filling in that role/power source matrix. Arcane characters will be bland and so will divine, primal and shadow and ki and psi because there will be so much class glut, and role stepping on, that nothing will stand out and shine.

Going back to the sentiment of well if you don't like the arcane controller play the striker... Should character concept first be derived from your role? Then be forced into some tangential sub-genre of a character concept? I don't think so, I think that many players want to play a warlock because they like the warlock's shtick and don't really care about the role. The same goes for every class. This can be very frustrating when you want to play that shtick but are forced into a role that doesn't play the way you want it too.

This really is a shift in approach from 3e in which I think an attempt was made for many classes to fill many roles. A wizard simply does not minion clear, for instance. Each class could be a leader, defender or striker. The filling in of a matrix to get every power source/role combination is appealing but what do you get. Has anyone actually stopped to think about what the outcome of this is?

 

[Cadfan]

I'd rather have mechanically sound classes and change the flavor than have versatile flavor and have to work around the mechanics.

 

[Sadrik]

I'd rather have mechanically sound classes and change the flavor than have versatile flavor and have to work around the mechanics.

I don't think it is an either or statement. And I don't think 4e models your sentiment.

It can be flexible in both flavor and crunch. Crunch generally is designed to support flavor. This is definitely the case for 4e.