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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 8308867" data-attributes="member: 87792">And the same is true in 4e. We still have a running joke between a friend and myself that it doesn't matter what class either one of us plays, she ends up as a striker and I end up as a controller. Complete with one notorious game where she was literally playing a controller (Wrath Invoker) and I was a Striker (Fey Warlock) and she was significantly outdamaging me - but I was locking the boss monsters down and handing out things like -5 to hit on all their attacks or making the entire party invisible to them making the DM tear his hair out.4e certainly did not prevent some barbarians being incredibly tough (which doesn't reach the bar for "defendery" in 4e, but never mind) and others focusing on all out damage. And given the greater degree of customisation in 4e there was, in my experience, more scope to do this than there is in 5e with the single exception that the Sentinel feat allows any melee combatant into the defender realms. Indeed it was made explicit to anyone who opened the rulebook that classes had a secondary role generally related to the power source, so martials were secondary striker, arcanists were secondary controller, divine characters were secondary leader no matter their primary role. It was also made explicit that there were subclasses - and those subclasses let you lean in a secondary direction, so a great weapon fighter was far more strikery - and a brawler fighter with their grabs was more controllery. Or a Thaneborn barbarian was more leadery and the stormborn more controllery.So 4e does exactly what you are saying you want and is pretty good at it. And I'm sure even you will agree that there's very little that can make a barbarian a controller or a wizard a defender (OK, maybe the bladesinger being significantly OP might...) Other than the complete watering down of the defender role and exiling Sentinel to a feat the roles are still there.What 4e making expected roles explicit did was two things:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">It focused the minds of the designers into thinking what the classes should be good at so we didn't end up with any flaily useless messes like any of the versions of the 3.X monk, or even the 3.X sorcerer. (OK, if you dig deep enough into 4e there's arguably the Binder and both assassins - but then even 5e has the PHB Ranger)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">It provided guidance to the player in what to expect from the class and how you were supposed to play them. Veteterans wouldn't need the guidance, but new players could see the roles and realise that the barbarian outdamaging their fighter was because the fighter was supposed to have other stuff they did.</li> </ol>Which of these do you think is a bad thing? Focusing the designers to make sure that every class could contribute or making it easy for newbies to know how their class was supposed to contribute?For that matter for all you talk about fluff-thin roles it brought out classes like the Invoker - a divine caster who wasn't supposed to heal  but instead bring down the wrath of their god. Not using the word "Leader" doesn't take away the expectation of a cleric being a healbot from either the designers or the players. But by making the Invoker an entirely different class the accreted expectations of the MMO role that has been the Cleric's since the beginning could be swept away.</blockquote>

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