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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TwinBahamut" data-source="post: 4654003" data-attributes="member: 32536">Because of its effects on class design alone, the roles system is a huge improvement over previous editions. The existence of different roles is directly linked to game designers thinking about how people actually use the classes in play. It is both a product of that line of thinking and forces future classes to be designed with that line of thinking in mind. This is a far better situation for creating fun and balanced classes than the much less focused older mentality, which often created overly focused (often underpowered and boring) or overly broad classes (often overpowered and game-wrecking).In other words... The roles system gave us a Wizard that isn't a horrible fusion of every magical archetype ever conceived, a Fighter that has a clear purpose and doesn't interfere with the creation of new "non-magical warrior" archetypes, a badass Ranger, the Warlord (this one would not even be conceived without roles), a Bard that actually is distinct and useful (from what I have heard, at least), a new kind of priest class that is inarguably distinct from the Cleric (the Invoker), and countless other great improvements. It gives us classes that are designed to work together as a part of a greater whole, rather than classes that try to emulate countless stories seen in other mediums rather than actually work as part of a greater game.Monster roles are very useful guidelines. They fulfill a very different purpose than class roles, so I am not sure if they really belong in the same line of conversation (you don't use monster roles to create a "balanced" group of monsters), but they are just as useful as class roles. Without them, it would be a lot harder to actually discuss what kinds of encounters are good or bad given different kinds of terrain and different party compositions. Advice like "don't give a group of Artillery monsters a surprise round and superior tactical positioning unless you want a TPK" isn't really possible in older editions, but 4E makes it pretty easy to discuss and think about the game in such terms. That is a huge aid for DMs. This is a large part of the reason I vastly prefer the encounter-building advice in the 4E DMG compared to the 3E DMG, actually.However, I am beginning to suspect that the original poster hasn't read the Monster Manual, based on his comments about monster roles. If nothing else, saying that the "Leader" role is a Cleric, the Controller is some kind of mentalist, and that they should fold the two together totally ignores everything about the actual implementation of those roles in the game... The Leader role is only seen as a added "sub-role" to creature of other roles, and is hardly Cleric-like (it looks more like a tactical warlord, typically), and the average controller is hardly a "mentalist". In fact, even saying that the Lurker is some kind of rogue or assassin ignores a number of cool implementations of the idea.</blockquote>

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