NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 4712076" data-attributes="member: 2067">Sure. I think that's a good aspect of the roles system, too. I don't think that's entirely what roles are about, but it's a great benefit -- a party with any striker is "balanced" for combat.My concept continues that -- a party that meets the offensive and defensive side of each challenge is "balanced" for that challenge.The game still works fine if you're missing one of the roles, however. You don't NEED a rogue or a warlock or any striker. You'll feel their loss, but you don't need them to win a battle.No, it IS an abstraction. There is nothing inherent to "I use the powers of Satan to kill my foes" that indicates the role of a Striker. There is nothing about being the stealthy, sneaky rogue that indicates Sneak Attack. There is nothing about being a wilderness warrior that requires you be a phenomenal archer/two-weapon fighter.The sailor and the traps guy both ultimately do the exact same thing: get you where you're going. It's actually a bit similar to what the Striker does: going forward, directly, to reach your goal.That's an abstraction.That's a level removed.That's the same level that "Striker" exists at.You're not seeing the forest for the trees, I think.If you can understand the concept that combat is the same as a skill check, then you can understand how roles can get applied outside of combat.If you don't understand that concept, I can keep explaining it. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> But even if you never understand it, it doesn't make it any less true. And regardless of if you understand it or not, it doesn't make the proposed system any less useful. I explained -- a couple of times -- how different layers of division can be added, so you can wind up having a sailor and a trap-disarmer who can't easily solve each other's problems, if that's what you want. Just like how different warlock builds add levels of division to the Striker role, and play very differently. But you can construct a system on my concept that enables a sailor and a lock-picker to both contribute in a balanced (and exclusive) way to the non-combat encounter, including the possibility that if you don't have one guy who gets you where you're going, you can use another one. You're not thinking broad enough. You're not thinking with 4e "ends-justify-the-means" logic. Maybe you don't want to and that's fine, but 4e in general doesn't care. 4e doesn't want you to have a different role for slaying the Dragon or slaying the Zombie -- dealing high damage to the monstrous ooze with a knife or the goblin chief with a volley of arrows doesn't demand a separate role. All of these things are "striker." You probably shouldn't hold my concept to any higher of a standard than you'd hold the concept of roles in the first place. They do the same thing.</blockquote>

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