D&D 5E What are the Roles now?

[Mishihari Lord]

It's always been hard to nail down roles for D&D across the editions because there are so many things a PC can specialize in that affects combat. This is even leaving out primarily noncombat PCs like social, loremaster, or exploration types.

Here's a short list:

Single opponent damage, proximate
Single opponent damage, ranged
Multioppponent damage, proximate
Multioppponent damage, ranged
Buffer
Debuffer
Summoner
Healer
Position control (e.g. web spell or a fighter that can "hold the ground" although D&D has always been really bad at representing the latter)
Terrain control
Stealth
Mind control
Condition spells (fear, petrification)
Condition protection
Damage absorber


And I'm very sure I'm missing a lot of them

One of my turn-offs for 4E was that the focus on just 4 roles meant that a lot of character ideas that didn't fit well with those roles weren't well developed.

I see some utility in listing 5E roles so that you have a list of ideas to consider when making a PC, but very little otherwise.

 

[Pickles JG]

Well, you might be waiting a while I suspect. It seems apparent that any major healing of hit points during the middle of combat (IE anything more than just like a single HD's worth from something like Second Wind) has been given to the purview of magic. So the idea that a class would be made that gave a Cure Wounds amount of healing (especially at higher spell slots) that was not based upon magic but instead just inspiration and inner reserves... does not seem to me to be something WotC has interest in making, at least in the short term. Maybe eventually they will... but right now it seems to me they are more comfortable in letting each individual table just design or adapt their own fighter-esque class that could grant Cure Wounds levels of hit point recuperation while fluff-wise still not be a "spell".

But that's neither here nor there for this thread discussion.

TBH most of the time you do not get massive amounts of hit points back even with magic. It was the same in 3e can't remember previous editions - probably not much but damage was less then too. 4e could get lots back but was mostly spot heals & you could lose lots too.

What the spot healing mostly does in 4e and 5e is keep everyone on their feet fighting back almost all of the time. Magic and Healers kits carried by Thieves especially do this, Rally the pseudo warlord ability definitely does not. Making that a heal and not a Temp granter would hugely fix non magical healing.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

to all of you that think that striker is gone, and those of you that think striker wasn't in 3e... or 2e for that matter I have a question about rogue/thief.

Lets say I sit at your table (2e,3e,4e doesn't matter, and it just surprised someone in my 5e character creation night) and I say I'm making a social rogue that isn't very good in a fight. I don't really know how to stab people, I just am a face and a sly trickster... as the game levels how do you keep that feel?

when we made characters Tuesday night the player in question found himself having (with only leather armor and a dagger) was the 2nd best AC, 2nd best HP, good attack, and most important highest melee and ranged weapon damage potential in the game...

in 2e if you strike from hiding (and later if you flank... now in 5th if another player is attacking that target) you deal extra damage. x2 and later x3 damage enough to be more then a critical... later editions changed that to +xd6 sneak attack...

in my Tuesday night game that striker feature is at +3d6... the rogue had a 14 Dex (not high at all) and the fighter with an 18 str and an axe is doing less damage if both engage the target... 1d10+4 (9.5) compared to 1d4+3d6+2 (14.5)

I mean even if you don't like the word striker (witch in this context means doing good single target burst damage) then you have to admit the rogue and even the thief was always built to do good single target burst damage, and as far as I know has no option not to...

 

[I'm A Banana]

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.

Again, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case "most of the time at most tables," but where I'd be cautious is in expanding that to mean "this is how the game was played except by isolated groups." You wouldn't have to swing a dead cat very hard to hit a bunch of exceptions. The point is that the D&D player-base is diverse in how they play this game, so when folks say "roles were a 4e invention that isn't in the history of D&D!", they're not ignorant or marginal, they're just from one of those multitudinous traditions where roles weren't A Thing before they hit 4e. They're also *wrong*, because they're narrowing the game to their own experience, too, and ignoring other large swaths of how the game was played. But 4e only served a narrow subset of the game's fanbase.

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.

Arguably, it was because magic items had an economy where wands were arguably under-valued, magic items were considered part of character construction, and CLW appeared on a lot of class lists. Combine this with a tendency to "swingy" encounters and there's a lot of things to look at, design-wise, in addition to an "everyone needs a healer!" mantra that not all groups consider relevant.

I mean even if you don't like the word striker (witch in this context means doing good single target burst damage) then you have to admit the rogue and even the thief was always built to do good single target burst damage, and as far as I know has no option not to...

The way backstab was used functionally was wildly variable. It ranged in effectiveness from "we literally never use it because it's too hard to set up" to "I use it in every fight, sometimes more than once!", depending on DM interpretation and flexibility.

So plenty of tables never saw the thief as a huge source of damage -- indeed, it was often considered one of the first "underpowered" classes because its skills just replicated 1st-level or 2nd-level spells with less of a chance of working, and its other abilities weren't any great shakes.

Again, D&D is diverse. The gameplay isn't something done largely the same way at every table.

 

[Psikerlord#]

to all of you that think that striker is gone, and those of you that think striker wasn't in 3e... or 2e for that matter I have a question about rogue/thief.

Lets say I sit at your table (2e,3e,4e doesn't matter, and it just surprised someone in my 5e character creation night) and I say I'm making a social rogue that isn't very good in a fight. I don't really know how to stab people, I just am a face and a sly trickster... as the game levels how do you keep that feel?

when we made characters Tuesday night the player in question found himself having (with only leather armor and a dagger) was the 2nd best AC, 2nd best HP, good attack, and most important highest melee and ranged weapon damage potential in the game...

in 2e if you strike from hiding (and later if you flank... now in 5th if another player is attacking that target) you deal extra damage. x2 and later x3 damage enough to be more then a critical... later editions changed that to +xd6 sneak attack...

in my Tuesday night game that striker feature is at +3d6... the rogue had a 14 Dex (not high at all) and the fighter with an 18 str and an axe is doing less damage if both engage the target... 1d10+4 (9.5) compared to 1d4+3d6+2 (14.5)

I mean even if you don't like the word striker (witch in this context means doing good single target burst damage) then you have to admit the rogue and even the thief was always built to do good single target burst damage, and as far as I know has no option not to...

It's not about not being able to build for low damage. It's whether all classes have potential builds for high damage, and not having just a couple of classes doing crazy damage.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

The way backstab was used functionally was wildly variable. It ranged in effectiveness from "we literally never use it because it's too hard to set up" to "I use it in every fight, sometimes more than once!", depending on DM interpretation and flexibility.

I actually have seen some tables where in 2e it was almost impossible to Backstab...ok, so tables that interpreted (or atleast in my experience the worst of them were really house ruleing)rules in such a way to negate the class ability find that the class doesn't work the same as with the class feature... not sure how that proves anything, I could houserule away sneak attack in 4e and they stop being strikers...

So plenty of tables never saw the thief as a huge source of damage -- indeed, it was often considered one of the first "underpowered" classes because its skills just replicated 1st-level or 2nd-level spells with less of a chance of working, and its other abilities weren't any great shakes.

I often say that about even the 4e rogue...so I agree

Again, D&D is diverse. The gameplay isn't something done largely the same way at every table.

witch is true at every edition basic,1e,2e,3e,3.5,pathfinder,4e,5e.... so again not seeing where it matters.

It's not about not being able to build for low damage. It's whether all classes have potential builds for high damage, and not having just a couple of classes doing crazy damage.

I don't understand...

rogue starting at 3e add extra short swords to there hits (xd6)

 

[yakuba]

It's always been hard to nail down roles for D&D across the editions because there are so many things a PC can specialize in that affects combat. This is even leaving out primarily noncombat PCs like social, loremaster, or exploration types.

<snip>


And I'm very sure I'm missing a lot of them.

One thing about roles is that they're isn't a unique set. For example, in 4e you can have the 4 PHB class roles, but you can just as easily reclassify the classes into the more expansive DMG monster roles (i.e.: Sorcerer as Artillery, Rogue as Lurker). Neither is right or wrong, there just isn't a unique correct solution to what the roles are.

Also the roles are dependent on the context. 4e roles are explicitly combat roles. Because 5e explicitly widens the context to social and exploration in addition to combat a good 5e role set should include those.

I'd use a shorter list:
Tank
Melee damage
Ranged damage
Face
Exploration
Buff
Debuff

 

[yakuba]

[MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION]

The difference between pre-3e and 4e is how roles fit into class definition. In 4e classes are (largely) defined by a combination of power source and default role. Martial Striker vs Arcane Controller, etc. In the pre-3e classes are largely defined by power source(s) alone. The fighter is the guy with access to all weapons and armor and best at using them. The wizard mainly uses the arcane power source. The paladin can use all arms and armor very well and tap the divine power source. While certain classes were certainly were better or worse at particular roles, it was the power source not the role that actually defined the class.

 

[DEFCON 1]

TBH most of the time you do not get massive amounts of hit points back even with magic. It was the same in 3e can't remember previous editions - probably not much but damage was less then too. 4e could get lots back but was mostly spot heals & you could lose lots too.

What the spot healing mostly does in 4e and 5e is keep everyone on their feet fighting back almost all of the time. Magic and Healers kits carried by Thieves especially do this, Rally the pseudo warlord ability definitely does not. Making that a heal and not a Temp granter would hugely fix non magical healing.

And that's exactly the kind of rules switch WotC seems to be putting onto each table themselves to make. If a table has a player who wants to play more warlord-ish, that player and the DM can easily decide that Rally grants actual HP rather than Temp HP. Or they can both decide to add or swap in the Healing Word spell into the Fighter chassis, call it Inspiring Word, and go to town. Easiest way to do that would be either add Inspiring Word to the Battlemaster manuevers list and "cast" Inspiring Word by spending a superiority die (and you can spend more than one die to raise the "spell slot" like you can if you are a caster.) Or if you didn't want to couple Inspiring Word to the BM maneuver system, another method would be to allow a fighter to exchange one of their attacks from Extra Attack to cast Inspiring Word, and be allowed to do that a couple times per short rest. There are many ways you can take the Fighter and drop in Inspiring (Healing) Word into their class features and get the healing you want for a "non-caster" healer.

Although of course... from what I've been reading here on the boards, one of the main issues for their desire for a warlord isn't the healing so much as it is the "moving allies around the battlefield" and the "buffs" you can grant to your allies (at a significantly higher rate than what you can give using BM maneuvers). And to get all that... you might have to go with the Eldritch Knight sub-class chassis, and then pick and choose spells across all the classes that most closely mimic the movement and buffing abilities of the Warlord as the Warlord's "spells" (or "Exploits") known. And then you just shave off the fact that it's "magic" and they are "spells", and instead they are a "Warlord Knight's" "martial exploits". And I mean heck... the EK using Intelligence too... which lines up perfectly with the secondary ability score the Warlord used.

But in every case of this... this is a design change that will need to be done by an individual table, because it's not something I think WotC will do in the short term. Heck... there already are several "builds" of potential warlord classes and sub-classes in the House Rules forum here that people could play... and I bet someone might easily now go build a Warlord "spell list" for an Eldritch Knight swapover that might have 4 to 6 spells at each level to select from... all renamed as "warlord exploits" with the fluff changed to make them non-magical. It certainly is doable. It just wouldn't be "official". But then again... unless you had your heart set on playing it as your Adventurer's League character, being "official" means absolutely jack at your own table.

 

[yakuba]

to all of you that think that striker is gone, and those of you that think striker wasn't in 3e... or 2e for that matter I have a question about rogue/thief.

Lets say I sit at your table (2e,3e,4e doesn't matter, and it just surprised someone in my 5e character creation night) and I say I'm making a social rogue that isn't very good in a fight. I don't really know how to stab people, I just am a face and a sly trickster... as the game levels how do you keep that feel?

when we made characters Tuesday night the player in question found himself having (with only leather armor and a dagger) was the 2nd best AC, 2nd best HP, good attack, and most important highest melee and ranged weapon damage potential in the game...

in 2e if you strike from hiding (and later if you flank... now in 5th if another player is attacking that target) you deal extra damage. x2 and later x3 damage enough to be more then a critical... later editions changed that to +xd6 sneak attack...

in my Tuesday night game that striker feature is at +3d6... the rogue had a 14 Dex (not high at all) and the fighter with an 18 str and an axe is doing less damage if both engage the target... 1d10+4 (9.5) compared to 1d4+3d6+2 (14.5)

I mean even if you don't like the word striker (witch in this context means doing good single target burst damage) then you have to admit the rogue and even the thief was always built to do good single target burst damage, and as far as I know has no option not to...

Well first I'd disagree with your definition from the last paragraph, in particular 'burst'.
In my experience the thief in AD&D and 2e was not a striker at all, because sneak attack is damn hard to get; it was generally only once per encounter if that. After that the thief was the least damaging member of party until the mages took out their crossbows. Clearly it's different in 4e and 5e. The thief, very deliberately, has a strong and consistent damage capability. The difference is that in 4e the ability to do strong damage is 'the' core competency of the rogue whereas in 5e it is 'a' core competency. The 5e rogue will (almost) never be a bad striker, just as they will almost never be a bad skill monkey. A player can focus on the striker aspect and still be a good skill monkey or focus on the skill monkey aspect and still be a good striker.