Should There Even Be Roles?

[nnms]

I've grown to dislike roles after running 4E more than once a week since the quick start rules in Keep on the Shadowfell. Essentials helped some with its classes crossing over into other roles, but I would have preferred from day 1 to have the ability to choose a class and then specialize or generalize into roles as one sees fit.

 

[Ahnehnois]

You've never had a cleric or druid to heal the party? Or a fighter with a big sword? A wizard with fireballs, charms, summons, and/or illusions? Really?

I've never had a cleric or a druid lead the party, in any sense of the word. If anything, they tend to be reactive followers, inside and outside of combat (regardless of whether they focus on healing or not; most of them don't). My players' wizards and sorcerers have been almost exclusively blasters; I don't think there's ever been one who made much of an attempt at controlling the battlefield (and I wouldn't associate most of those examples with "control" anyway). They mostly just deal damage and teleport people. I've had fighters with big swords, but they tend to use those for attack and not defense, especially since D&D doesn't have much in the way of parrying mechanics. Their fundamental role has always been to attack and deal damage (even at epic levels), the durability more of a side benefit.

In other words: yes, really.

 

[Spatula]

I've never had a cleric or a druid lead the party, in any sense of the word. If anything, they tend to be reactive followers, inside and outside of combat (regardless of whether they focus on healing or not; most of them don't). My players' wizards and sorcerers have been almost exclusively blasters; I don't think there's ever been one who made much of an attempt at controlling the battlefield (and I wouldn't associate most of those examples with "control" anyway). They mostly just deal damage and teleport people. I've had fighters with big swords, but they tend to use those for attack and not defense, especially since D&D doesn't have much in the way of parrying mechanics. Their fundamental role has always been to attack and deal damage (even at epic levels), the durability more of a side benefit.

In other words: yes, really.

Strange. I said, "You've never had a cleric or druid to heal the party?" and your answer is, "I've never had a cleric or a druid lead the party." I don't get it.

"Leaders" in 4e are healers, removers of afflictions, and providers of buffs. If you've had a cleric in your party as your healer, you've had a "leader," in 4e role terms. If you've had a fighter with a big sword who puts the hurt on things, you've had a "striker." If you've had a mage burning things into the ground, you've also had a "striker," or maybe a "controller" if he/she was heavy on the AOE spells.

About the only way to have played D&D without ever seeing the "roles" in action is to have not actually played D&D as it's written. Because the roles are drawn directly from the game.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Strange. I said, "You've never had a cleric or druid to heal the party?" and your answer is, "I've never had a cleric or a druid lead the party." I don't get it.

"Leaders" in 4e are healers, removers of afflictions, and providers of buffs. If you've had a cleric in your party as your healer, you've had a "leader," in 4e role terms. If you've had a fighter with a big sword who puts the hurt on things, you've had a "striker." If you've had a mage burning things into the ground, you've also had a "striker," or maybe a "controller" if he/she was heavy on the AOE spells.

About the only way to have played D&D without ever seeing the "roles" in action is to have not actually played D&D as it's written. Because the roles are drawn directly from the game.

My original point was not that roles don't describe the game, it was that they're descriptions of play, not mechanics, and more to the point, that 4e got the roles wrong. There are a lot more than four, and the ones they picked don't seem to line up with any of the major roles in classic D&D. Oddly enough, you skipped "striker" which is the closest fit to a rogue in play, albeit a dreadfully limiting one.

It may be in the 4e rules, but I don't equate "leading" with "healing" because those words don't mean the same thing. As I explained, the two concepts are close to antithetical. If they had called the role "healer" my objection would be less (though many of my PCs' parties didn't have one of those either, and I don't think that or any other role is fundamental). In any case, I felt is was more appropriate to address the literal meaning of what the game actually presented ("leader") rather than a specific person's question.

 

[TrippyHippy]

About the only way to have played D&D without ever seeing the "roles" in action is to have not actually played D&D as it's written. Because the roles are drawn directly from the game.

Utterly untrue. They may have been drawn from some tactical heavy combat gaming group, but they certainly weren't from my experiences of the game growing up.

Fundamentally, I believe that over-directing players into playing specified roles, takes away their own ability to choose how they want to play the game - effectively reducing the 'roleplaying' aspect of the game. The Roles, as introduced in 4e are an egg.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Roles should not only be kept, but expanded. Yet don't tie them to classes directly. That is, the "defender" stuff should be common in the "defender role", and anyone can pick it. You won't be very good at it if you are a wizard, because you'll lack the hit points to make it stick, but some short guidelines on this would go a long way. (Or given a robust enough design, perhaps a defender wizard replaces the swordsage or whatever that thing is called. ) A cleric or barbarian could certainly pick "defender" if they wanted.


Though I do agree that the six monster roles are a better list, and there might be room for two or three more. I'd really prefer the roles more narrowly defined, and let each character pick two. You get a lot more variety in the resulting characters that way.

And though it is a side effect not the main goal of such a design, this will also make some people happier about the labels things have. If you pick up the "skirmish" role on your "fighter", he can be good with a bow.

This necessarily means simplifying classes somewhat from 4E, but that should be done anyway. Where it might cause more trouble is that some classes would potentially become unnecessary. If you've got a "cleric defender", do you need a paladin?

 

[TrippyHippy]

This necessarily means simplifying classes somewhat from 4E, but that should be done anyway. Where it might cause more trouble is that some classes would potentially become unnecessary. If you've got a "cleric defender", do you need a paladin?

If you have a Paladin class, do you need a 'Cleric Defender' role?

 

[Aldarc]

In defense of roles: the design paradigm of roles and power sources gave 4E the ability and gumption to do what 2E could not - completely remove divine classes and spellcasting from Dark Sun. That does speak to their ability to allow modularity.

If you have a Paladin class, do you need a 'Cleric Defender' role?

But why do you have a paladin class and not a cleric defender role?

 

[Spatula]

My original point was not that roles don't describe the game

You said that you've never seen a single character ever fit into the damage dealer, healer, meat-shield, or battlefield control role. If the roles do describe the game, how is that possible?

it was that they're descriptions of play, not mechanics and more to the point, that 4e got the roles wrong. There are a lot more than four,

If the roles are wrong and there are lots of different roles, that's an argument to redesign and/or expand the concept, not scrap it, no?

and the ones they picked don't seem to line up with any of the major roles in classic D&D. Oddly enough, you skipped "striker" which is the closest fit to a rogue in play, albeit a dreadfully limiting one.

As [MENTION=32536]TwinBahamut[/MENTION] mentions upthread, the roles are based on the archetypes of the "classic" classes. Striker ably describes the 3e rogue. The OD&D and AD&D thief doesn't really have a combat role. Lurker perhaps, if you allow backstab in the middle of a fight.

I skipped striker? What?

It may be in the 4e rules, but I don't equate "leading" with "healing" because those words don't mean the same thing. As I explained, the two concepts are close to antithetical.

They're orthogonal. Playing a support role in a fight and "leading" the party, whatever that may mean to you, are completely independent concepts. I must have missed your explanation of how they are mutually exclusive.

Utterly untrue. They may have been drawn from some tactical heavy combat gaming group, but they certainly weren't from my experiences of the game growing up.

So your fighters did what exactly in a fight? Hide in a corner? Did your clerics never cast spells? I feel like I'm missing out on some secret meaning of what is a descriptor of what someone mostly does in combat.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Combat roles need to be shot in the head.

Look, 4e went farther than ever before in taking the idea of a "healer" and putting it in something that wasn't the cleric. This is yay.

We need to go even further, and put the idea of "healer" into the hands of anyone who wants to be a healer for a round. This is more yay.

No one should be "forced" to play a Defender or a Leader or a Controller, anymore than they should be forced to play a cleric.

Combat roles also get the balance of the game wrong, because they encode a class to do something in combat but (and I'm going to make this big):

combat is only one aspect of the game.

It's certainly not important enough to all players to hard-code it into every character's class choice.

Now Adventuring Roles...that I could get behind. Warrior. Face. Explorer. Sage. Those are the roles more like they played before 3e (and, to a small degree, in 3e).

Of course, if we make this all about options, then, yes, combat roles should be something that people who really like them should be able to turn on. It should be pretty quick to present four "role mechanics" that you can make as part of a class, if that's what your DM has turned on.