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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 5735778" data-attributes="member: 22779">Something that has been tickling in my mind that finally came out as I was doing laundry.  People have been equating Combat Role with melee vs ranged and then saying how some characters could switch between the two.  Sure, I might buy that, but, that's not really changing combat roles is it?  If the fighter switches from a longsword to a bow, he's still doing essentially the same thing - hitting things with pointy bits in an attempt to kill them, by and large, one at a time.However, at no time can a fighter ever take over the other roles.  A fighter cannot become a support character.  He can't heal.  He can't buff.  He cannot help anyone do anything particularly.  The fighter fights.  End of story.  That's his combat role.  Sure, he steps back and shoots a bow twice a round for 2d6 damage, but that makes him pretty poor artillery compared to the wizard standing beside him who's dropping a fireball for 10D6 damage on fifteen different opponents in the same round.And the same works in reverse.  Give a wizard a sword and armor and put him in the front line and he dies.  He can't use the sword, can't cast spells in armor (or can with great difficulty in 3e) and doesn't have enough HP to survive.Clerics?  Well, they get a bit of both.  They can stand on the front line, but, they're going to be sucking hind mammery (sorry, didn't know the T word would hit the filter - is that actually rude?) behind the 18/63 Str fighter who's dishing out twice or three times as much damage on average.  They can stand back, but, pre-3e, their offensive capabilities with spells are seriously limited.  So, they turtle up and tank and then provide healing afterwards.Note, none of this means that this is all those classes do and that they do this every single time.  I'm painting with a fairly broad brush.  But, the mechanics of the classes does define their combat roles pretty strongly.  You can't switch between roles very easily.  Multiclassing does allow some degree of it, although that comes with its own problems and issues as well.But, at the end of the day, the classes were always pre-defined into fairly specific combat roles.  Fighters fight, clerics heal and provide support and magic users are artillery.  This isn't anything new at all.  This was recognized thirty years ago.  Again, as I said before, the primary difference now is that 4e has added a fourth option of splitting fighter into defender and striker.  Before, fighter (and fighter types) were really a bit of both but really, not all that great at either one.  4e simply recognized what was already there.</blockquote>

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