D&D 5E What are the Roles now?

[Ashrym]

not in the fighter... the warlock I could get behind way more. I might make a case for paladin... but in general, I have to say no... In that way your right...

It depends on the type of fighter. Second wind would be a utility ability and is similar to some 4e utility powers for fighters. It's just moved to a short rest type of utility. Indomitable is a daily power, and eldritch knights definitely have more daily powers.

 

[Ashrym]

No, my complaint is that he's not a CONTROLLER. Stop moving the goalposts. Controllers cannot do what a fighter can do. Thus, a fighter is not a controller. Also note, that the fighter STILL can only do this burst attack, against 4, maybe 5 targets, ONCE per short rest. Regardless of whether he has a reach weapon or not.

Now you've made a very weak controller - a reach of ten feet that, regardless of how many enemies he can actually reach, can only attack a limited number of them. Again, not a controller.

Just make a DEX fighter who uses a bow. Best range options in the game, and they always have multiple attacks from 5th level at the latest while spell casters generally don't have multiple attacks at will. If the fighter gains access to black market poisons from the DMG while using crossbow expert as a feat and save or unconscious poisons then 3 or more targets at range at-will becomes more appealing. Action surge is a nice boost once per short rest (twice at very high level) but doesn't preclude existing multiple attacks.

 

[pemerton]

IIRC, the magic items in the playtest Keep on the Borderlands were unchanged from the original, so I wouldn't use that as an example of typical magic item availability.

I was talking about the original.

 

[pemerton]

I think I'm going to accept that I can't explain it that well and bow out of this.

It certainly wasn't my intention to try and bully you into bowing out, and I hope I haven't done so.

I'll have another go at restating the view that underpins my posts in this thread.

Upthread, another poster said that, before roles, for many players (perhaps most) what drove their character building was a conception of the character as "a warrior", "a shaman", etc - some sort of fantasy figure or archetype.

My response was that if a player describes or conceives of his/her PC as a miracle-working healer, but mechanically the character in question has no ability to work miracles, heal injuries, etc, then something has gone wrong. In other words, I think it is fairly key to a roleplaying game that mechanics and fiction complement one another.

The role labels in 4e are pointers to mechanics, with an eye to linking those mechanics to fiction.

This also relates to my exchange with [MENTION=92511]steeldragons[/MENTION] upthread. I stand by my comment that to describe the role of a warrior as (say) solving the problems the game poses by strength of arms does not give the right sort of information to help players build characters where the mechanics and fiction match. This is because it simply a statement about the fiction - the warrior solves problems by strength of arms - but it tells us nothing about mechanics.

A swashbuckling Errol Flynn type solves problems through strength of arms. So does a knightly Lancelot type. So does a Jet Li-style martial artist. But in most fantasy RPGs they are mechanically rather different, and not necessarily all equally viable. (Robin Laws' Hero Wars/Quest might be an exception, and maybe other free-descriptor systems like FATE.)

To give some examples of elements of action economy and broader action resolution that matter to this sort of thing, in Rolemaster being surrounded by enemies in melee is extremely punishing, because most defence comes from parrying, and parrying is limited to one target per round. In AD&D, being surrounded is less punishing because most defence comes from AC, which is pretty constant across all targets (there are a few issues about shields and flank/back attacks). In Marvel Heroic RP being surrounded is not especially punishing at all, because defence comes from a reaction roll and there is no limit on the number of reaction rolls per round.

To try and make Jet Li-style martial artists viable in RM, there are special rules whereby unarmoured warriors can obtain a parry-like defence that applies against multiple targets. To make Jet Li-style martial artists viable in AD&D, there is the monk class (which gets a level bonus to AC) and the rules for kensai and martial arts in Oriental Adventures, which also allow the gaining of AC - ie all-purpose, multi-target defence - without having to wear armour.

I would expect a player wanting to build a Jet-Li style martial artist in either of those systems to have regard to those rules, which establish the mechanical framework within which s/he is able to realise his/her character concept.

Turning to 4e: if a character wants to play a swashbuckler-type, who is mobile, hits hard, but is vulnerable to being surrounded and taken down by mobs, s/he should start by looking at the classes labelled "striker". If a character wants to play an uber-dreadnought type, who is happiest when surround by enemies that s/he is beating to a pulp, then s/he should start by looking at the classes labelled "defender". (This also alludes back to the "strong guy" discussion upthread - this is why [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] thinks that characters like Superman, The Hulk and The Thing instantiate the defender role - because they do their thing most effectively when surrounded by enemies that they are beating to a pulp.)

The function of the role labels isn't to tell anyone what to do, or how to play a character. The rules - for PC building, for action resolution - nowhere reference the roles. They reference class, ability scores, sometimes power source (arcane, divine, martial, etc). The role labels aren't prescriptive - they are information-carrying labels that, in a rough-and-ready way, indicate what sort of fiction the mechanics of a given character class will tend to produce, if played in the default way.

The roles are somewhat prescriptive for game designers, in the sense that game designers are expected to build character classes which can function effectively in one (or more) of the roles the game acknowledges. The prescription is, in my view, not all that tight - if you look at the way the game evolved over time, you see a wider and wider variety of classes and mechanical options within them (sub-classes) being published.
[MENTION=6680772]Iosue[/MENTION], upthread, said that the level of system mastery needed to build a wide variety of PCs in 4e is greater than in 5e. I've got not reason to doubt that - as a long-time Rolemaster player whose current group has its origins over 20 years ago with hardcore university wargamers, I've got a high level of tolerance for system complexity and so am not badly sensitive to its presence. I know that my players will spend their own spare time reviewing options for their PCs looking for choices of feat, power, etc that either singularly or in combination will produce the build outcome they want. I can see that people who don't like working with a complex build system would find it harder to build a range of characters in 4e.

But even then, for me the main complaint would be that the game only permits the building of a fairly narrow range of characters; whereas 5e might permit a broader range of characters. It wouldn't follow that those 5e characters don't have things that they are better at or worse at, as a result of the mechanical abilities that they possess. Bounded accuracy can mitigate some of that, in the sense that even someone with a less-than-optimised bonus can still have a go; and Iosue has given an example upthread of how that opens up some build options that aren't easy to achieve in 4e. But 5e PCs will still have things that they are better at and things that they are worse at, as a result of the abilities they have, which are the result of choices made by players in building them.

 

[pemerton]

Even Action Surge replenishes on a long or short rest... so is it daily? No... because it will replenish on a short rest... is it an encounter? No... because it can recharge on a long rest

This makes no sense. 4e encounter powers recharge on a short rest or a long rest, but by your reasoning that means they're not encounter powers?

The true answer is that it is of the essence of an "encounter power" that it recharges on either a short or a long rest; whereas a "daily" power recharges only on a long rest. (I use scare quotes because the temporal labels are nothing more than handy tags; the recharge rules give you the technical information about resource availability.)

 

[pemerton]

From HotFL
Controller: Controllers deal with large numbers of enemies at the same time. They favor offense over defense, using powers that deal damage to multiple foes at once , as well as subtler powers that weaken, confuse or delay their foes..."

So the main characteristic of a controller is dealing damage to multiple foes at once

I don't think your paraphrase is very accurate.

The passage you quote to says "controllers deal with large numbers of enemies at the same time". "Deal with" is not synonymous with "damage", and this is spelled out by the next sentence, which refers to "powers that deal damage to multiple foes at once, as well as subtler powers that weaken, confuse or delay their foes".

If you actually look at a 4e PHB wizard, it is not terribly good at dealing significant amounts of damage to multiple foes at once; the PHB 2 sorcerer (labelled a striker) does a better job of this (though there is later, Essentials and post-Essentials stuff that can make a wizard a stronger AoE damage-dealer). What distinguishes the wizard is the ability to exercise battlefield control (which is where the phrase "controller" comes from, I think - it's certainly how it's understood at my table). The wizard in my game rebuilt as an invoker at level 15, so I can't comment on upper-paragon powers, but the encounter powers that I still remember clearly are Colour Spray (blast 5 daze, level 3) and Twist of Space (AoE hostile teleport, level 7). The at-will I remember is Thunderwave (blast 3 with a strong push effect). In each case these powers also deal damage (at a guess I would say 1d6 + INT for each of them) but it is not the damage that is important unless you are minion-clearing. It's the fact that you daze all your enemies, or put them wherever you want them, or push them all over a cliff, that makes these powers effective.

The invoker that the wizard was rebuilt as still has Thunderwave as an encounter power (wizard multi-class) but has as encounter powers Compel Obedience (blast 6 domination), Glyph of Radiance (AoE blindness) and Tide of the First Storm (AoE slow plus free movement for all your friends). The damage is, again, pretty minimal (maybe none for Compel Obedience). It is the effect imposition that marks out the character as a controller, rather than a weak AoE damage-dealer.

It is also very common to talk about single-target control (eg the warlock is quite good at this) which - of necessity - has little to do with handling multiple enemies.

I think the 5e wizard has a better range of damage-dealing options than the 4e one. I would expect most wizard builds to be (in 4e terms) either strikers, or controllers (both single target - eg charm spells - and multi-target - eg Web), or both (the latter would probably most closely resemble well-built 4e sorcerers, but with even better control).

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

It certainly wasn't my intention to try and bully you into bowing out, and I hope I haven't done so.

You have not done so. I examined my own posts and determined that my tone was edging too close to combative, despite not being intended that way. Plus, I am uncertain how to explain further without getting too far outside of technical detail. I can give it another go, but I beg your forgiveness if it comes out badly.

A lot of awesomeneess

I think I see our disconnect.

The issue is that, with the specific example of a miracle-working healer, we run into an issue that is one of the areas where 5E intentionally avoids a true mechanics write-up; there are quite a few areas where it does that, and simply gives ideas on how a DM might decide for themselves how, or even if, the game mechanics can be adapted. In essence, 5E seems to rely less on solid game mechanics in several areas. Combat still remains hard-coded, but skills are very soft-coded.

So, in my reply of saying the fighter took the Medicine skill, I was referring to a way it can be done without mechanics that still relies on how 5E treats mechanics. Whether or not a fighter is truly capable of miracle-level healing with that skill is pure DM fiat, as are all uses of the skill. So, if the player and DM are willing to work together, it is perfectly possible to build a fighter capable of miracle-level healing through a lot of roleplaying with some dice rolls to back it. So the concept can still exist in 5E, but realistically has no mechanical basis for existing.

The player and DM working together to decide what a skill is capable of is, from what I have read of it, the rule norm in 5E. This is definitely a wide departure from 3E. You brought up that it could be done in 4E, and I don't see any problem with that; seemed to be the norm in that edition as well. And from what I've heard about editions prior to 3E, I can say that 3E seems to be the outlier on how skills were handled.

I saw some discussion in your thread on if it is possible to perform a miracle using a skill that displays some of the ways that roleplaying miracle healing could actually work, and I think those items give an example of how it is possible with the latest ruleset. It's still not mechanically possible, but that's because it's relying on roleplaying to decide if the miracle part even exists. It would definitely be a character concept worth trying in play, but one really necessary for DM approval on. But, I don't think the cleric would complain about having someone else who can help with healing

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=6777649]Nergal Pendragon[/MENTION], I think we were (are?) working with different sense of what "mechanical" means. Thanks for the reply. Also, if you haven't posted in the other thread (I'm about to go and catch up on it) I'd welcome anything you wanted to contribute to it.

 

[pemerton]

The character classes themselves are all the roles you will ever need. Everything else is a discussion of tactics and strategy

I'm not sure how much this is definitional fiat - which is fine if that's how you want to use the words - and how much it goes beyond that.

I think choosing to be a bow fighter, though, who favours DEX over STR and lighter over heavier armours; or to be an enchantment mage rather than a fire mage who chooses Charm, Hold, etc rather than Burning Hands, Fireball, etc; makes a fairly big difference to how a character plays. Some of that is about pure flavour, but in D&D quite a bit is about mechanics. For instance, the combat rules for bows are different from the combat rules for melee combat (range rules, cover/concealment rules, etc). And a firemage tries to best foes by depleting their hit points, whereas an enchanter tries to best them by bypassing their hit points. (D&D doesn't generally use "mental health points" to resolve fighting of the effects of enchantment.)

These differences don't obtain in every RPG: they aren't part of HeroQuest Revised, for instance, and aren't part of Marvel Heroic. But to build and play a character in D&D you really need to have some sort of handle on them.

These are the sorts of features of the game that role labels try and provide guidance on. For instance, the typical firemage is a striker, whereas the typical enchanter is a controller. 30-something years ago Lewis Pulsipher, writing in White Dwarf, drew the distinction by using the terms "artillery" and (from memory) "anti-personnel". He also linked the mechanical contrast to an aesthetic one, when he wrote that "Charming a dragon is elegant, but blowing it up is more exciting." (An assertion that is stuck in my memory to this day.)

 

[Sadras]

The former. Because the claim was made upthread that any PC in 5e can adopt any role, and this is a difference from 4e.

For the record I'm not making that claim – IMO the two games were designed differently, however 5e did borrow certain ideas from 4e, given what the designers were trying to achieve with this edition.

But I don't see a 5e fighter who can heal very significantly, nor who can deliver significant amounts of AoE damage.

@Imaro and myself have answered on the healing capabilities and various options available so far with the fighter so I won’t repeat it here which I understand would be a bug and not a feature for those that prefer 4e’s playstyle (more on that below).

When it comes to AoE, the problem I find you have is, you are comparing granular mechanics of 4e powers to 5e abilities, when in reality you should be comparing 5e abilities to a 5e game and drawing the conclusion as to whether the Fighter’s AoE are adequate in the 5e game.

Claims have been made, upthread, that 4e PC buildng, and 4e PCs, are inflexible in a way that is not true for 5e; that 5e
PCs can adopt any role depending on the mood of the player and the ingame situation.
I don't think that these claims are true. There are interesting points of difference between 5e and 4e, but I don't think this is one of them.

If one seeks to identify 4e roles in 5e, I believe one will. I don’t believe the 4e roles are nearly as important in 5e as they were in 4e –and that is due to the embedded mechanics of 4e. You keep judging 5e through your 4e lens instead of appreciating the game afresh. That is why, I believe, you make comments regarding specific fighter powers and then trying to emulate or find them in 5e and become despondent when you cannot find them.

Some people think it is a huge design breakthrough, for instance, to write a game in which instead of a fighter class and a warlord class you have a single class with two distinct sub-classes. I think this is a mere difference of labels. It doesn't actually open up the range or variety of PCs that can be built, nor the versatility of any given PC in play.

Actually I believe the huge design breakthrough derives from the increased niche protection and it doesn’t feel like everyone can do the same thing. So the 5e Fighter is not given the permission to outscream-heal the Cleric. Selecting a Cleric or Fighter is now a hard choice.
So the 5e Fighter cannot perform his once a day salsa-spinning-blade attack slicing 12 opponents anymore or play Simon-says moving 6 people to the left and only the Wizard can do this with his arcane spells. Selecting a Fighter or Wizard is now a hard choice.

So in that sense, I guess you could say 5e is more limiting, less versatile given the options available for all PC classes in 4e (but it is still early days of 5e design). On the other hand 5e delivers better in areas where 4e delivers poorly.

4e reminded me of V:tes (the vampire masquerade card game) towards the end, when all the vampire disciplines could mimic every other vampire discipline with regards to intercept, stealth, aggravated damage, combat actions, damage prevention.

IMO, "samey-powers" do nothing but make otherwise interesting choices, boring.