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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scars Unseen" data-source="post: 4658448" data-attributes="member: 10196">I think people are getting too worked up over the whole class/role association.  The only reason that all fighters are considered defenders is because there is a heading on page 16 of the PHB that says Defender(Fighter, Paladin), and another one on page 75.  That's it.  In all actuality you can create a build to do pretty much whatever you want.If you don't want to focus on roles in your group, then don't.  Take the RP approach rather than the tactical approach.  Think of a character concept, figure out what class it best fits under(if it fits any at all), then figure out what role what you thought of fits under as the last step before putting together a build.  Despite WotC's attempt at artificially shoehorning classes into a specific role, the actual system they made is very flexible.Let's try, shall we?  I want to make a lightly armored duelist, and I am not interested in sneak attacks.  Now I could make a rogue and use feats to try to fit in some fighter abilities, but that seems a poor fit, really.  Besides, the system is flexible enough that I can make my own little duelist build for the fighter class.So what do I want him to be able to do?  Well, first of all, as a duelist, he would be trained to fight a single opponent at a time, so that is how most of his abilities will be designed.  Second, he is going to need to be proficient at parries, ripostes and quick, deadly attacks.  Seems to me that we have a bit of a defender/striker hybrid going here.  Not exactly your "main tank," as they would say in MMOs, but capable of holding a single foe's attention and dispatching him.  OK, just so that we don't have powers all over the place, go ahead and establish that dexterity is going to be our primary ability, followed by wisdom and strength.We will start by following MP's lead and creating a class ability that you can take in place of the weapon talent:Duelist's BalanceYou gain a +1 bonus to attack rolls with light blades.      When wearing light armor, you gain a +1 bonus to damage rolls with melee and close weapon attacks against an enemy you have marked.  This bonus increases to +2 if you're wielding a light blade.I'm not sure if that is balanced or not, but it seems reasonable.  If you want to make a more defense related duelist, you could take tempest technique and use a parrying dagger.Next comes powers.  I could come up with some, but since this is not the house rules forum and I am currently feeling a bit woozy from the  percocet, I'll simply suggest that if one were so inclined and a bit lazy one could simply retool some rogue powers to work with the primary abilities I chose above and run with it.  It wouldn't really fit my concept, but as I said, you could if you wanted to.  Instead, let's pretend I came up with some really interesting powers involving my concept.I may actually do a write up on the concept later on when my head isn't spinning quite so much, but here I only wanted to demonstrate how it doesn't matter what WotC say the roles for each class are.  You can decide that for yourself in anything other than a RPGA event.  The system is actually more flexible than 3E.  About the only place that it really fails is with the gish concept, and 3E didn't do so hot at that either until well into the product's life cycle.</blockquote>

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