D&D 5E What are the Roles now?

[Nergal Pendragon]

I don't remember claiming that the word was the same. Merely that the concept was.

The concept is not the same. Even in a lot of MMOs, it's not; MMOs tend to have what would be called striker builds for quite a few classes; it isn't a secondary role like what 4E had, but one of several primary roles you can choose from. WoW is probably the best example.

So, pretty much, it is heavily recognized at this point, and was even recognized before 4E came out, that the role you play in combat and what class you play are not the same thing.

Right. Make me a healer fighter. Or a healer thief. Or a healer wizard. Oh, wait.

Fighter with a healing kit and healing potions.

Thief using Use Magic Device for scrolls/wands of healing and having a healing kit and healing potions. (From what I've heard of 2E, there were times when thieves were better at healing than clerics.)

Wizard who copied spells from the bard's list. Or, if you're playing Pathfinder, have the wizard steal quite a few spells from the witch. It's one of those areas where DMs were encouraged to use DM fiat to stop it since the rules technically allowed it as of 3E. 4E and 5E have both taken great pains to fix that.

Your role prior to 4e was absolutely married to your class. Indeed that is what your class does. Gives you a list of things you are good at. You can keep repeating that being good with weapons, armour, and having a lot of hit points didn't give you aptitudes for anything in particular and meant that you could contribute to your party however you liked (never mind that you had no aptitudes for magic or thief skills) but you are simply, objectively wrong.

Here's a funny thing... magic and thief skills are not combat roles; they are what people do. Having magic doesn't make you a controller; even 4E recognized that. Having thief skills doesn't make you a striker; even 4E recognized that. Having martial abilities doesn't make you a defender; even 4E recognized that.

So, what were the roles 4E gave? As a fighter, you were not just a defender; you were a martial defender. Wizards were not just controllers; they were arcane controllers. Notice how it is that the combat role has a descriptor in front of it?

Now, what was there that stopped a fighter in 3E from having a high charisma and acting as the party diplomat? Nothing except that people didn't build it that way. Same with the wizard, generally. What stopped the wizard from focusing on being able to hit one character hard? Nothing; in fact, there were even powergamer builds for it that Pathfinder only managed to refine. What stopped a party from deciding they only needed four clerics instead of bothering with having anything else? Nothing, and in fact it was known as being extremely viable. Seriously, four clerics can deal some pretty good damage and keep each other alive with ease.

And if I'm presented with a name like "Fighter" I'm, going to assume that it's for someone who wants to be good at fighting. This is no different. Your class indicates what you are good at.

But it doesn't indicate what combat role you take. A fighter who is focused on archery can be just as deadly as a sword-and-board fighter. And yet, 4E introduced the idea that not only was a fighter good at fighting, it was primarily good with defending. A wizard wasn't just proficient with arcane magic, but was primarily proficient with managing crowds. 4E assigned primary combat roles to classes that, in some cases, they may have not commonly been used for before.

And, yes, there were some effective fighter builds that were basically rangers in heavier armor without the magic and animal companion.

And a newbie is right to do so. They also probably shouldn't assume that you can play a thief as a meat shield or a wizard on the front lines. Unless you have a lot of skill and preparation that is going to get you killed in short order. Your entire problem here appears to be based round newbies being pointed at things that will work. And not pointed at things that are harder to get right.

The same is true of martial classes. Do you know how many fighters I've seen die in games because the people were not properly prepared? If anything, prior to 4E it could be extremely difficult to build a fighter meatshield that actually stood a chance of surviving to the end of the dungeon. Which is why, as of 3E, that role typically went to the barbarian (who was easier to learn on due to the greater health).

 

[Neonchameleon]

Player's Option/2.5e stuff was pretty controversial too. As was 4.5e/Essentials.

Heck, 2e itself -- despite being arguably the least dramatic edition change -- was hell of controversial.

Best thing to do would seem to be to ennable new things wherever possible.

The problem is that if you enable too many things you end up sinking the game under its own weight. And in practice 1e, 2e, 3.0, 4e, and PF as played ended up at the same weight - just light enough to play and heavy enough to be a burden. I like more focussed game design rather than piles of things I won't need for at least six months - which admittedly is why I favour 4e and RC/BECMI.

Prior to 4e, and in 5e, the idea that "healer" is an identifiable and necessary character trait would be foreign to a number of groups.

In 3.0/3.5 the healer is a dispensible character trait because of the Wand of Cure Light Wounds. But I've yet to speak to anyone from any group that didn't try to get someone to play the cleric most of the time. Because healing was that essential due to the way spell and hit point recovery both worked. (It's most dispensible as a role in 4e of course due to healing surges and extended rests giving you everything on the same timescale). And anyone who didn't think it was an identifiable and necessary trait in 2e must have been isolated enough from gamer culture to avoid Knights of the Dinner Table - and to have avoided seeing what happened without clerics in Dragonlance. Indeed, just as meatshield was often slang for the fighter, healbot was often slang for the cleric and they boosted the cleric for good reasons.

 

[Sacrosanct]

[MENTION=15700]Sacrosanct[/MENTION], I said Tomato tomato meaning that they are two different words for the same thing. Which they are. Neither is your actual occupation - .

???

You were the one to call on 2e as an example to try to prove your point, and in the 2e PHB, it says "occupation". I even quoted it above. So, according to you, an occupation isn't an occupation? Are we just redefining words now to fit our preconceived biases?

 

[I'm A Banana]

The problem is that if you enable too many things you end up sinking the game under its own weight.

I think that's a debatable proposition. It's certainly one possible outcome, but I would need more evidence before I subscribed to the idea that it was an inevitable outcome.

I like more focussed game design rather than piles of things I won't need for at least six months - which admittedly is why I favour 4e and RC/BECMI.

This statement befuddles me a little because there's 4e classes and races that I never saw in play for the entire 6 year span of the game, and the latter tiers of BECMI were rarefied places that it seems few characters ever managed to get to. "Things I won't need for at least six months" describes 90% of the word count of ANY edition of D&D except perhaps OD&D (and maybe 1e, though there were too many monsters there).

But I've yet to speak to anyone from any group that didn't try to get someone to play the cleric most of the time. Because healing was that essential due to the way spell and hit point recovery both worked.

I think your experience is too narrow here to expand it to a generality. While I imagine one would likely find that "most" groups probably cajoled someone into playing a cleric "most" of the time, it would not take very much effort at all to uncover quite a few counterpoints to that. D&D is diverse. Healing is only essential if you're in a group that's getting in a lot of fights and taking a lot of damage over the course of multiple days in pre-3e D&D. This doesn't necessarily reflect how large swaths of the player base actually use the game. *Especially* the more narrative/story-driven DMing contingents popular during 2e.

And anyone who didn't think it was an identifiable and necessary trait in 2e must have been isolated enough from gamer culture to avoid Knights of the Dinner Table - and to have avoided seeing what happened without clerics in Dragonlance. Indeed, just as meatshield was often slang for the fighter, healbot was often slang for the cleric and they boosted the cleric for good reasons.

When you take the experience of those hardcore enough to know KoDT or use the term "healbot" prior to 2000 and generalize it, I think you're ignoring a huge amount of D&D player diversity. These things were hardly ubiquitous presences. Those who know of them hardly speak for the majority of the player base. ENWorld probably has more than a few of those, and I'd certainly not call this place a representative sample of the millions of folks who play the game on a semi-regular basis.

Basically, I don't buy your characterization of those groups as "isolated." I mean, I'm hardly a D&D Lite user, and I've read maybe 3 KoDT strips in my life (all probably linked from gaming websites like this) and didn't hear the term "healbot" until my brief stint with MMO's circa 2004 (and never heard it apply to D&D until 4e). I might be exceptional, but I've definitely played this game with more people who wouldn't know a Gazebo reference than people that would.

 

[Hussar]

No, but, KM, I imagine when you heard the term healbot, you instantly recognized the meaning. It's not like it's some bizarre, rarely seen event that a group has someone fall on the cleric grenade at chargen in most versions of D&D. "Who's going to play the healer" is a pretty common refrain from a lot of different tables. Or, if you were the last guy making your character, I've seen more than a few times that that last guy got stuck playing the cleric.

Now, me? I liked playing the cleric, so, it was no skin off my nose, but, I know that when I DM'd, it was almost always a negotiation at the table to get someone to play the cleric.

I mean, there's a reason that wands of cure light wounds became such a common thing in 3e - and it's not because healing wasn't needed.

 

[dd.stevenson]

I mean, there's a reason that wands of cure light wounds became such a common thing in 3e - and it's not because healing wasn't needed.

It was (and continues to be) because in pathfinder and 3E, clerics/druids are quite powerful and patching up other characters mid combat isn't usually an optimal use of either their spell slots or their action economy. CLWWs are superior in every respect, except in extreme cases.

 

[Psikerlord#]

One of the things I don't miss from 4e is the death of the Striker roll. By moving that out of being a particular set of classes niche, nobody now has to suck at damage dealing. I did not like the feeling that an attack from a non-striker was worthless at higher levels.

I wholeheartedly agree. The "striker" role was the main fail of 4e for me. (Dont get me wrong, I liked 4e overall, we played it for 3 years - although for me the best levels were 1-10). But making only some classes do good damage was a huge mistake. As for roles in general, I dont think the game need or is more fun with more strictly defined roles as striker, defender, etc.

Instead, I like to think of PCs as covering niches, and the more niches you have covered, the more flexible your team is. You can all be hulking, mirthless, plate clad deadly warriors, but your team will have more options if one or more are also highly persuasive, can dispel magic, can disarm traps/palm weapons, can transform into animals, and so on and so forth.

 

[SirAntoine]

I think this is just one area where we're going to have to agree to disagree. Roles in D&D are as old as setting up the marching order or picking out which spells to use.

I get that anything that even smells vaguely like 4E causes people to become upset, but perhaps if you think of it using different words "meat shield," "squishy," "glass cannon," "medic!" or something similar it won't be as upsetting. Or not. You don't have to officially acknowledge the roles to be effective at combat in D&D, they come out of things that just make sense.

A fighter protecting other physically weaker characters? That's being a defender. A wizard dropping spells like sleep, hold person or using a Wall spell to segment off the battlefield? Control. Clerics keeping the group alive and casting spells like Bless? Leader. And any character who's optimized for damage, especially spiked damage? Striker.

I think the big thing that happened in 5E that makes people think roles are gone is what they did to the fighter: the defender options have been lessened a lot and the class now is back to doing more damage. The thing is, the defender role is something that a lot of different classes can do now if they use the right feats. But the high hit point and AC character being a meat shield? Still there.

So yeah, don't agree with pretty much anything you wrote, other than how it's all about the characters and a good story. We can agree there.

I feel I should respond. This is the second time I find myself being assumed to hate 4e. Even though I believe the roles from 4e were unique to that edition, and represent a departure from tradition which 5e makes an effort to return to, I have not expressed that I am upset at anything that "even smells vaguely like 4e". The disagreement here should be about the facts, as we are dealing with the thread's question of what are "the roles" now. In my opinion, and I think it is strongly supported by the facts and also by the arguments of others here, is that the roles from 4e aren't in 5e anymore and the roles are now more or less the same as they were traditionally (as in before 4e). These old roles are the cour four classes, the fighter, the wizard, the cleric, and the rogue (known as the thief before). This is both to say that there were roles in D&D since the beginning, and the roles in 4e were different. I could highlight their appeal, and their strengths, but it suffices to call them unique. The term is hardly derogatory, and I did not express that the 4e roles were "bad" or "unimportant" to this discussion.

 

[SirAntoine]

For someone who is accusing others of not reading, I'd hope you'd read yourself. So far your "read the 2e book, it's explicit" was wrong, and you're wrong about the 4e just being a suggestion. Go back and read page 15 and 16 of the 4e PHB. it flat out tells you that your PC needs to specialize in a role, and on the next page it says (doesn't suggest, but defines as): Controller (Wizard), Defender (fighter/paladin), etc.


Of course everyone who is experienced in RPGs knows hardly anything is a firm set in stone rule. But the book clearly implies that class X = role Y, and with a lot more firmness than a casual suggestion. It literally defines the roles as such. It seems like you are playing very fast and loose with the actual text to support your point while at the same time relying on the text RAW to try to make it, and that's just odd.

Yes. Where are new players supposed to get their impression other than from the text? What 4th Edition should be saying is "you can make up your strategic positions to work as a team, with these as one possible example". It's just advice, and it's not asked for by everyone.

 

[SirAntoine]

What is at issue is "which characters should you play", and the game has always asked us that first. What 4e did that caused people to become upset, is try to script how you play your characters. This was actually a departure from an unspoken contract between the game's writer whose voice at the table is often the DM, and the players, where the players are told that "in D&D you get to play a character who is like one of the main characters in a story, only the story isn't written already and you get to influence the outcome".

The player is assured he or she will get to play their character however they choose. Scripting that play with the added roles will naturally be unwelcome. It also can come across to players kind of like "kid gloves, or lead by the hand", with players feeling they don't need the game's writer to try to tell them how they should strategically play their characters. Many players don't want that kind of advice, or the infringement on their freedom to define their own role. And they may change what they do to fit each situation. As steeldragons tried to explain, the 4e roles are describing what have always just been particular moments, or particular strategies. In 4e, the roles try to highlight what the writer's think will be defining strategies, but they're just examples and all of it is just advice. An established D&D player would have known this, but people new to the game with 4e likely came across thinking those strategies and roles were bedrock.

Which brings me to the next point. Those strategies and roles are not the most defining for the game, and they haven't in fact always been in the game. I agree that plenty of people enjoy using them, and incorporating those strategies, but they are not so traditional or defining for the game. This, of course, for combat within the game.

2e calls the classes occupations precisely because the roles "most basically" are not supposed to "strategic aptitudes". The word, occupation, is used because it gets you into character better, helping to imagine their world and their life within it. That is more defining for who your character is, which is also the same as asking what role you are playing in the game. I would much prefer everyone use strategic role when talking about the roles like this.

Not every D&D character's occupation is actually adventurer. It's basically true from our point of view playing the game, but far and wide, DM's bring adventure to the player characters in ways that give them motives other than what might best be described as treasure hunting and fame and thrill seeking. In perhaps a majority of campaigns, the characters, drawn from different occupations, come together to face some great threats and try to be heroes. Their occupations establish what their skills and knowledge are, not how they will need to apply them.

That has traditionally been left up to the players, to figure something out creatively, and many find the assignment of strategic roles on top of class and occupation as drying down some of the challenge and some of the spark. I don't want to fade in and out of combat, every time trying to play these artificial positions. Sometimes that framework would be really intelligent and exciting, but the same over and over? I am surprised I haven't read more complaints about combat being boring than I have. It is not "4e-bashing" to express such an opinion. I applaud anyone for enjoying the game, and I am happy it delivers as much enjoyment as it does to them.

I think I have covered most of the real undercurrents. We need to say what we really mean. I would welcome a 4e player to my table, and be happy to play in a 4e game.

The 4e roles themselves are not the subject of this thread, but I could constructively criticize them, too, without taking away from their appeal or strengths. The striker is meaningless, as everyone in D&D tries to strike the monsters, the leader is the person in charge, not the healer or the supporter who keeps everyone going, and the controller is "What?" I never heard the term applied that way before reading about 4e. To say that the wizard's role is to be a controller is perhaps the ultimate restriction, not surprising given that they took away most of their spells in their haste to make 4e "balanced". The wizard used to enjoy the greatest variety.