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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5735050" data-attributes="member: 42582">In the November 14 Rule-of-Three column, Rich Baker said:I mentioned last week that the striker was essentially new to D&D in 4th Edition [...] The primary functions of the leader, defender, and controller revolve around damage mitigation … and the best damage mitigation of all is killing stuff before it attacks you [...] 4th Edition is, for better or worse, a striker's game.This is interesting, but doesn't entirely fit my own experience (which undoubtedly is a hell of a lot narrow than Rich Baker's).My game has two strikers. One is an archer ranger. His turns are quick - choose a target (or targets) and shoot. The other is a sorcerer. His turns are quick, too, but he has more immediate actions than the ranger and so gets to act more often.On the other hand, the controller (wizard) and the melee controller (polearm fighter) have long turns. They choose between options, weigh pros and cons of shifting a target here or there, look for synergies with the other PCs etc. And when the wizard does something like Arcane Gate or conjures a Wall of Fire, it creates a visible effect on the table (we use red counters for walls of fire, and the player of the wizard uses a couple of his d6s as the markers for the Gate portals). And its effect on the combat is highly visible over multiple rounds.I think to describe all this as "damage mitigation" is really a misdescription. It's like saying that, in a classic dungeon exploration, the player/PC who contributed to solving the puzzles, finding and opening the secret doors, disarming the traps on the chests, ect, were really just contributing to the ultimate act of putting the coins into the sacks! Yes, the strikers killing things is the culmination of combat, but it's not necessarily the bulk of, or even the focus of it.And then there's the further question of whether killing things in combat is the main aim. In some of the combats I've run recently, a lot else has been at stake besides killing things.A bit like my comment upthread about Encounters - I don't think Rich Baker, in the passage I quoted, is doing the best job he could of selling his game!</blockquote>

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