The Controller Role Doesn't Exist

[drjones]

I demand that this issue be put to the ENWORLD council. We need to pass a strongly worded resolution, possibly sanctions are warranted.

But you KNOW the council is the the pocket of Big Potions they will NEVER cross their corporate masters!! Our only chance... is a dance off!

 

[Wolfspider]

Bold words for someone who hasn't seen the class past first level, and who is basing his opinion on interpretations of the controller role by random people on a forum.

You'd do better slaughtering a chicken and reading the entrails.

Have YOU read the entirity of the 4e PHB?

 

[Scribble]

Same Stuff, Different Description.

Not at all.

tactics is the best way to play the game.

Rules mastery is a game before the actual game ever starts.

Less reliance on Rules mastery means less crummy powers that might look cool to someone that doesn't study the rules.

Say I have two choices to take for my power slot: Either wall of awesome or bucket of suck.

Tactics means I can take either power and then figure out in game the best way to use them to max effect.

Rules mastery means in reality wall of awesome actually is 95% less effective then bucket of suck, it just doesn't actually tel me that anywhere...


I think it will be impossible to get rid of rules mastery. There will always be people looking to find any and all exploits possible taking advantage of unitended power combos. But it won't be set up to encourage that sort of play from the start.

 

[Zamkaizer]

The differences between the controller and defender are still too subtle. Both deal directly with the interference of their opponent's actions, and one of the primary methods through which the controller achieves this end -- forcing enemies to spread out to avoid getting caught in an area of effect power -- is so subtle as to not necessarily be apparent. The point has been raised in this thread that the controller may be too "meta". While the uses of various walls of vines, gouts of flame, and clouds of acid are obvious enough -- in spite of their also potentially affecting an ally -- the same cannot be said about the aforementioned area of effect spells, which the wizard seems to possess in greater number than the former. These powers also need to be perfectly balanced if an entire role is going to be dealing with them exclusively. Whether a dungeon master solves the game-slowing tactical conundrum presented by controllers by spreading out enemies or keeping them them huddled together will have profound effect on the adventurer's success if one option presents more of a tactical reward than the other.

 

[I'm A Banana]

A defender uses their special abilities to exert an influence over the actions of their enemies

Not really. A defender keeps the enemy's attention on themselves. They aren't concerned about the enemy's actions beyond "if you're going to be hurting anyone, I want it to be me."

The defender is a controller that sacrifices range of control (melee only) and scope of control (only blocks movement or imposing penalties for attacking other targets) in order to gain superior defenses (armor, hit points, and healing surges).

Nothing about a defender worries about melee. Nothing about a defender requires you to block movement or inflict penalties. The only think about the defender that requires superior defenses is the fact that you're probably going to be smacked in the face a lot, and it'd be good to be able to take a few hits (or dodge a bunch of hits).

They should have replaced warlock with druid and made the druid a controller with plant, stone, and wind shaping spells. d&d i feel always benefited from archetypes and symmetry. I think having 3 strikers was a mistake.

I'd have loved that, really. Though less from a symmetry angle, and more from a "I'd like to have a party without a Wizard in it if I want and not suck" angle.

I think the reason we have the warlock -- and the reason we have 3 strikers -- is because strikers (and the warlock specifically) are very, very sexy. It is so much fun to make the enemy take buckets of damage. It is so much fun rolling dice, adding them up, and knowing that the bigger the number, the more YOU WIN. It's been the best part of the game since fireball. It's half the equasion of "kill things and take their stuff." Most of the time, it's totally worth sacrificing defensive ability, knowing that your friends will handle it, just to give you space to roll some more dice. The defender, the controller, the leader -- all exist simply to get your buckets of dice to fall at the enemy's feet with as big a total as possible.

When you're mostly concerned about designing classes that are "cool," you're mostly going to design strikers, because strikers are the fun handed to you on a stick. It's a psychology thing, a power thing. This is even more true if the strikers are elfishly graceful and badass, or dark and powerful and mysterious.

I anticipate warlocks and rogues and (to a lesser extent) rangers getting SO MUCH LOVE they will need to put on lotion to pull up their pants in the morning. Fighters, too, because they do dish out damage in 4e, apparently.

I think that the 4e team was vastly more concerned with "cool classes" than they were with symmetry. And that's generally a good goal, but it leaves some gaps.

What if you where, say, sitting on Queen Elizabeth Throne? Would you come up with more or with less archetypes?

We would come up with as many as we would desire, and we would, of course, have exactly the appropriate number for the occasion.

I think group synergy is the new rules mastery that you can achieve in 4E. You won't be able to build a useless character, but you can still play him like one. Or you can optimize the teamwork.
If the Controller affects more targets then any other class, it makes sense to reason that the potential for synergies are even higher, and mastering them is possible. Time will tell if it's really true.

You still get the problem of "uneven threat" in that case, though: where, in order to challenge the tactical, you need to hose the non-tactical. If your party uses group dynamics to yawn their way through every encounter, you need to ramp up the challenge, which, in official products, is going to wind up hosing parties that DON'T use group dymanics.

I'm pretty sure the 4e team steered away from this as a prime source of "accidental suck" like it was in 3e (AC's so high that the fighter hit 50% of the time, but the non-optimised rogue could only hit 10% of the time).

But, Kamikaze Midget, could you please stop defending and soundly explaining 4E design concepts?

I like a lot of 4e. Sometimes I just think that those who really love 4e can be more than a little boneheaded in their eager embrace of it, and their even-more-eager dismissal of anything else.

Remember my catchphrase for the month: "Some of 4e's worst enemies are really its biggest fans."

 

[Zamkaizer]

I think the reason we have the warlock -- and the reason we have 3 strikers -- is because strikers (and the warlock specifically) are very, very sexy. It is so much fun to make the enemy take buckets of damage. It is so much fun rolling dice, adding them up, and knowing that the bigger the number, the more YOU WIN. It's been the best part of the game since fireball. It's half the equasion of "kill things and take their stuff." Most of the time, it's totally worth sacrificing defensive ability, knowing that your friends will handle it, just to give you space to roll some more dice. The defender, the controller, the leader -- all exist simply to get your buckets of dice to fall at the enemy's feet with as big a total as possible.

When you're mostly concerned about designing classes that are "cool," you're mostly going to design strikers, because strikers are the fun handed to you on a stick. It's a psychology thing, a power thing. This is even more true if the strikers are elfishly graceful and badass, or dark and powerful and mysterious.

I anticipate warlocks and rogues and (to a lesser extent) rangers getting SO MUCH LOVE they will need to put on lotion to pull up their pants in the morning. Fighters, too, because they do dish out damage in 4e, apparently.

I think that the 4e team was vastly more concerned with "cool classes" than they were with symmetry. And that's generally a good goal, but it leaves some gaps.

This one of the other "issues" with roles I mentioned in my first post. Not only will strikers receive a disproportionate amount of playtime, but they also present a much larger potential design space than either leaders or defenders. I'm sure not everyone shares my concern, but it would be nice to see roles with more subtle methods getting more love.

 

[katahn]

doublepost

 

[katahn]

Not really. A defender keeps the enemy's attention on themselves. They aren't concerned about the enemy's actions beyond "if you're going to be hurting anyone, I want it to be me."


Nothing about a defender worries about melee. Nothing about a defender requires you to block movement or inflict penalties. The only think about the defender that requires superior defenses is the fact that you're probably going to be smacked in the face a lot, and it'd be good to be able to take a few hits (or dodge a bunch of hits).

1. If a definition of a controller is one who "limits what an enemy can do on the battlefield" then what a defender does can be described as "melee range controlling" if one wanted to torture and twist definitions sufficiently.

2. My entire post was largely satire aimed at the OP with the point being "if you torture and twist things enough, the roles are just different ways to help your side win". I sort of hoped the <highlander> </highlander> bit at the end around "there can be only one" would make it clear I wasn't being serious.

 

[Fifth Element]

Have YOU read the entirity of the 4e PHB?

The person making the positive claim (such as "the controller role does not exist") has the burden of proof to demonstrate the claim to be true, especially when said claim contradicts what the designers have told us. Since the OP does not have access to the information needed to support such a claim (the PHB, as Cadfan pointed out), the claim appears to be unsupportable. The designers have full access to the information, while the OP does not.

Such a claim may be defensible after the PHB has been released and we can all see what the powers of a controller look like. But until that point, I'll side with those who actually have the information. Heck, they created the information.

 

[Cadfan]

Have YOU read the entirity of the 4e PHB?

In all the debates between the haters and the fans of 4th edition, with each side throwing out lines like "you can't say that without having seen the full rules!" at each other, "x does not exist in 4e" has become the one example of a statement that absolutely everyone agrees cannot be supported without having read the PHB.