Rule of Three 14 NOV 2011...

[Droogie128]

Strikers tend to do a lot more than just "I do damage", though. They play very differently, and all seem to vary greatly in their tactical options.

The rogue is best at hit and run tactics, while the Avenger functions best if it is singling out an enemy striker (controller, artillery, lurker, skirmisher), and forcing it to go toe to toe with him. The Barbarian is mostly trying to charge as much as possible, and/or can stand on the front line with the defender and trade blows with the tougher enemies. The monk is going to use his insane mobility to try and get between multiple enemies and spread the damage around to as many as possible.

Unfortunately, the e-martial classes have sort of taken the Barbarian's schtick and did it better... especially the Slayer.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I stil think we need sharper focus and edges with design and mechanical elements, but ability to soften those inherent in the class/character designs.

For example, keep the four roles (or something very much like them). Add "role" features (replacing class features that deal with role concerns). Give every class 2 roles, not merely a secondary role with no features to back it up. So now you have:

Striker/Defender
Striker/Leader
Striker/Controller
Defender/Leader
Defender/Controller
Leader/Controller

... for your strong combinations. You'll note that half of those are strikers (as with any single role), but the opening classes will probably focus more on the striker combinations rather than having a proportional division. In the first 16 classes, there might be only one each of the last two.

Then I'd also allow a class, where it made sense, to trade features on one side for features on the other. A rogue would be a striker/controller who traded half of his controller features for more striker features--thus making him a bit of an "ur" striker. You need multiple role features per role to make this work.

That of course is all with the current roles. I rather like the idea of "scout" as an explicit combat role. The one drawback to it is that unless you eliminate striker, it could be too narrow. However, by giving two roles to every class, you can afford for some roles to be a bit narrower.

 

[wedgeski]

I stil think we need sharper focus and edges with design and mechanical elements, but ability to soften those inherent in the class/character designs.

How does introducing hybrid roles result in a sharper focus? I must admit I'm flummoxed by the repeated calls to water-down the design in this way. If you're going to have a game full of Defenders who are also Strikers and Leaders who are also Controllers, you may as well dump the Role framework entirely for all it'll actually mean at the table.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

How does introducing hybrid roles result in a sharper focus? I must admit I'm flummoxed by the repeated calls to water-down the design in this way. If you're going to have a game full of Defenders who are also Strikers and Leaders who are also Controllers, you may as well dump the Role framework entirely for all it'll actually mean at the table.

The main benefits of sharp focus in design are transparency and fidelity to the design. The thing is the thing is the thing--and we all know it.

However, this is in tension with the way most people view characters. Even in a game as niche-conscious as D&D traditionally has been, we'd like for there to be some acknowledgement that the thing being modeled is part of a character. These characters need rounding.

If we try to do the rounding by watering down each element individually, we could easily get mush. And in fact, the more this happens, the more people want to water down the elements, making it even mushier. Why this call for making everyone a striker (thus cancelling the role)? Because doing damage is important, and the balance of characters who should be doing it is not accurately reflected by making it one of four roles.

OTOH, you can have a relatively soft mix of hard elements. The more variety people have in combining those hard elements, the softer the character will be--and the more hard the elements will then be allowed to be. You can make the striker roll even more meaningful, because any concept that is high damage can now include it.

 

[keterys]

You could also let everyone pick a primary and secondary role... so maybe the primary striker does 30, secondary striker does 25, and not-at-all striker does 20.

Could be interesting, similar to a more basic class plus a hybrid in effect (but with less ways to break things)

 

[I'm A Banana]

If every class has viable melee and ranged options, can do striker damage some of the time, and often times have AoE ranged attacks, equivalent armor and access to every skill (You are aware of backgrounds, right? That's how you get Arcana on a Fighter...) out of the gate, then where's the differentiation? When someone says "I want to play a lightly armor wearing guy with close and ranged attacks, capable of dishing out decent damage", what class do you suggest? All of them???

Oh yes. A game where any class archetype is capable of doing any particular role during one particular round is great!

I'd love to be able to allow any player to play any class without futzing with party balance!

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Fighters can very easily be comparable to strikers with 2h weapon talent. Also, there is a pure striker fighter... the Slayer

Roles are not straight jackets.

I'm not sure if you agree with one of my positions or not?

I agree there are 100 different strikers out there, in guises of defender, leader, controller and... striker. They're very popular I know. There are even ways for non-strikers to act like strikers, again because they're very popular.

Building a role around striking however? Not too balanced if you ask me. How often do you see a striker heavy party compared to, say leader heavy? Making DPR the centre-piece of a class treads on the effectiveness other roles - Monte summed it up nicely why.

Also roles may not be strait-jackets, but they still place a lot of limits on your character. Again, Monte's ranged fighter example.

 

[Incenjucar]

Most strikers have a strong secondary role available to them. The issue will tend to come up more when you focus entirely on striking.

 

[Stalker0]

Doing damage is what ALL classes should be able to do. This would start taking care or the perceived grind. If a wizard uses an area spell they should do average damage to multiple creatures, but if he uses a single creature spell is should do STRIKER damage to that creature. Both options should be viable. Some of the long range attacks from other classes should work like area attacks, doing average damage to multiple creatures.

I agree with this from a design standpoint. While I am find with certain roles gain a suite of abilities (marks for defenders, healing for leaders, etc), I don't feel that damage should be the purview of the strikers.

That said, there are many classes that become perfectly viable strikers.

A fighters with a big weapon taking Multiple W type powers does plenty of damage.

Wizards can actually do sick damage with the right dailies. Heck just look at flaming sphere at first level. Add up the damage that thing does all combat and you get a huge amount of extra pain.

 

[Stalker0]

Originally Posted by D'karr View Post
I agree. My point is that doing damage is not sufficient for an interesting role.

I actually completely disagree with this, and I think this was a wrong direction for 4e to take.

Look at a 1-3rd level character in 3e. Often times there isn't that much "interesting stuff" you can do. Yet after playing a 4th edition game, then dming a 3rd edition one, my players had more fun aroudn the 3rd level....yet having far less options at their disposal.

The difference? Raw damage. There is something eminently satisfying about ripping a monster in two with a single swing, about rolling a big crit that can kill a monster three times over.

I like that you can do more conditions in 4e, but at the end of the day, death is the ultimate condition.