D&D 5E What are the Roles now?

[Tony Vargas]

I have found that it works just fine with class systems, particularly in games that stress roleplaying and aren't as focused on combat and constant dice-rolling. When I get players who have a good character idea and are having trouble finding a way to do it within the given classes, I work with them to create a balanced new or hybrid class (or tweak a current class a bit) until we get something that will work.

What you're saying is that build-to-concept works fine even in restrictive class systems, as long as you ignore the actual system and/or re-write it to fit the concept.
I can't argue with that. Because, well, at that point, you're no longer doing a build-to-concept /with/ the class system.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

What you're saying is that build-to-concept works fine even in restrictive class systems, as long as you ignore the actual system and/or re-write it to fit the concept.
I can't argue with that. Because, well, at that point, you're no longer doing a build-to-concept /with/ the class system.

The rules are there to serve my needs as a DM and the needs of the campaign. There is nothing sacrosanct about them.

Even if you stick strictly to the rules, though, a character's role in a party can still vary from the obvious roles that come with the class, depending on how you roleplay the character.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The rules are there to serve my needs as a DM and the needs of the campaign. There is nothing sacrosanct about them.

I didn't say there was. But, they do constitute the system. A GM is always free to ignore, add to, or modify the system he's using. If, in doing so, you open the possibility of custom-building a unique class for any player whose concept doesn't fit the existing class options, you are no longer using a class system, but an open-ended, freestyle build system - essentially classless, at bottom. Which is fine. But it has no bearing what class systems are like nor what they're useful for.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

What you're saying is that build-to-concept works fine even in restrictive class systems, as long as you ignore the actual system and/or re-write it to fit the concept.
I can't argue with that. Because, well, at that point, you're no longer doing a build-to-concept /with/ the class system.

What interferes with build-to-concept isn't classes per se--it's mechanics. If you try to model a concept within a system whose mechanics don't support it, it won't come out right even if it's a classless system. No matter how many times you try to build a fireball-chucking D&D wizard within GURPS, it never really works because GURPS magic just doesn't support discretized, resource-based magic with a uniform scale ("2 rounds per level"--although 5E has now dropped this concept). You can attempt to emulate it to some degree by bolting on an Unlimited Mana system instead of the regular FP-based system, but 1.) that constitutes a change in the mechanics, 2.) it still doesn't work well. Another example is that the concept of "a voodoo wizard who is able to kill or even control people at a distance, provided he can only gain access to their possessions/hair/fingernails" just doesn't exist within D&D 5E RAW. (Frog God's Book of Lost Spells has some interesting spells like Twig Torture which do support this concept to a greater or lesser degree, but I would argue that that is also a pretty significant change in the mechanics.) You may have a great Shadowrun-inspired concept of a spirit-walking Troll shaman who confounds everyone's expectations by attacking things from the Astral plane instead of with direct assaults--but since Astral Travel is a 9th level spell in 5E, your concept will not work in 5E. The gameworld physics simply don't support the concept you had in mind.

The trick is to find a system whose mechanics support the kind of character and game that you want to play.

 

[Tony Vargas]

What interferes with build-to-concept isn't classes per se--it's mechanics. If you try to model a concept within a system whose mechanics don't support it, it won't come out right even if it's a classless system. No matter how many times you try to build a fireball-chucking D&D wizard within GURPS, it never really works because GURPS magic just doesn't support discretized, resource-based magic with a uniform scale .

I'm no fan of GURPS, but you can certainly play a fireball-chucking wizard in it. It won't work mechanically like a D&D fireball-chucking wizard, but, then, the mechanics of GURPS and D&D are /very/ different. But, they'll both be wizards, and they'll both chuck fireballs.

Now, with an effects-based system, like Hero, you can even emulate the mechanical quirks of another system. So you can have the straight-up fireball /memorizing/ magic-user, if you wanted one for some reason.

 

[Uchawi]

I'm no fan of GURPS, but you can certainly play a fireball-chucking wizard in it. It won't work mechanically like a D&D fireball-chucking wizard, but, then, the mechanics of GURPS and D&D are /very/ different. But, they'll both be wizards, and they'll both chuck fireballs.

Now, with an effects-based system, like Hero, you can even emulate the mechanical quirks of another system. So you can have the straight-up fireball /memorizing/ magic-user, if you wanted one for some reason.

What GURPS lacks versus D&D is scale of effects, but that is because hit points grow proportionally to level, while health in GURPS is very hard to raise. So based on scale, GURPS is very flexible in comparison. But it suffers the same problem as D&D, where magic starts to dominate and martial classes become less interesting. You can specialize a martial character in GURPS, but it ends up being a one trick pony.

GURPS is able to create magic items just as easily, and even has rules to bridge over magic to mundane characters with knacks.

If GURPS had a class based system to bring it all together, and allowed for more options for martial based characters, it could definitely re-vitalize itself in the RPG market.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I'm no fan of GURPS, but you can certainly play a fireball-chucking wizard in it. It won't work mechanically like a D&D fireball-chucking wizard, but, then, the mechanics of GURPS and D&D are /very/ different. But, they'll both be wizards, and they'll both chuck fireballs.

The important part of "Fireball-chucking D&D wizard" was "D&D Fireball". As in, large fireballs that roast lots of people at once, not dinky little things comparable to a pistol shot. Later on in the paragraph I elaborated on the concept of discretized, resource-based magic (spell points/slots) which scales based on a uniform resource ("rounds per level"). GURPS just doesn't do any of that. It's possible to make GURPS magic scale on a uniform resource by virtue of a generic Magic skill which all spells default off of, but that doesn't recreate a generalist wizard a la D&D--it actually encourages hyperspecialization, not generalism. I tried extensively to get GURPS: Dungeon Fantasy to model the kind of wizards I like (because that's the best part of D&D) and failed. If it had worked I never would have had reason to check out 5E in the first place, because martial combat is actually better in GURPS.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

What GURPS lacks versus D&D is scale of effects, but that is because hit points grow proportionally to level, while health in GURPS is very hard to raise. So based on scale, GURPS is very flexible in comparison. But it suffers the same problem as D&D, where magic starts to dominate and martial classes become less interesting. You can specialize a martial character in GURPS, but it ends up being a one trick pony.

GURPS is able to create magic items just as easily, and even has rules to bridge over magic to mundane characters with knacks.

If GURPS had a class based system to bring it all together, and allowed for more options for martial based characters, it could definitely re-vitalize itself in the RPG market.

I think I agree. (Although GURPS does have a class-based system in Dungeon Fantasy in the form of templates, I think it is not restrictive enough to be useful.)

The big problem with GURPS is that it's a classless, point-based system and therefore exploitable. It relies almost entirely on the DM to identify and veto combinations/builds by marking certain abilities as "exotic" and requiring "unusual background," which is an economy outside the normal character point build system. It really made me appreciate the benefits of a class system: GURPS is like the knapsack problem, D&D is the 0/1 knapsack, and 0/1 knapsack is faaaar more interesting because it's not trivially solvable. In GURPS you can trivially build yourself a "kill everything" power on budget of 30 points or so; in D&D broken comboes do exist (SorLock), but there's an opportunity cost because you have to jump through hoops with multi-classing and feats to get everything you need for that combo. Imagine what 5E would be like if you could just trade away Moon Druid spellcasting and delay elemental wildshape in order to get the Archdruid "unlimited wildshape" ability at 6th level. That's what classless systems are like.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The important part of "Fireball-chucking D&D wizard" was "D&D Fireball". As in, large fireballs that roast lots of people at once, not dinky little things comparable to a pistol shot. Later on in the paragraph I elaborated on the concept of discretized, resource-based magic (spell points/slots) which scales based on a uniform resource ("rounds per level").

Nod. And some of that is just getting into emulating a mechanic, not a concept.

Like I said, I'm not a fan of GURPS and haven't kept up with it too closely. I thought that some of the later stuff presented more on the fireball front than the dinky ones that, like you, I remember from it's first take on magic back in, what as it, '86?

Now, with an effects-based system, like Hero, you can even emulate the mechanical quirks of another system. So you can have the straight-up 20'r fireball /memorizing/ magic-user, as 'discretized' as you liked - if you wanted one for some reason.

The point though isn't that a classless system lets you get precisely the same result as a class system, but that it lets you build-to-concept - any concept - more readily than a class based one. For instance, turn your example around: can you build a c1986 GURPS:Magic mage using D&D? No.

'Wizard who works exactly like a D&D wizard' /is/ one concept out of the millions a player might come up with. The only concept of you can do with a wizard in D&D, one that you can't do, precisely in GURPS, though you can do dozens of others GURPS:Magic might be able to do, that you couldn't in D&D, and one of thousands you could do in Hero.

Class systems are just restrictive. Some, like classic D&D, more restrictive than others, like 3.5 D&D, but all restrictive.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Class systems are just restrictive. Some, like classic D&D, more restrictive than others, like 3.5 D&D, but all restrictive.

They are restrictive, like 0/1 knapsack. And because they are restrictive, they are more interesting to me. Regular knapsack just isn't an interesting design space. YM obviously V.

The larger point though was about mechanics. If the mechanics don't support your concept, you can't play that character in that system. If you want to play Scrooge McDuck who solves problems by throwing money and giant robots at them, you can't play D&D. If you try to do it anyway you'll come away unsatisfied.