D&D 5E What are the Roles now?

[FormerlyHemlock]

How? In AD&D melee is sticky: you can't move and attack unless you charge; if you come within 10' of a melee combatant you are locked into melee and can't withdraw at full speed without suffering a free rear attack sequence. 3E radically changed this, making freedom of movement in melee the default. 5e, like 4e, follows 3E in this respect. It is not like AD&D at all.

5E isn't like AD&D at all? In 5E, withdrawing requires the Disengage action (which halves your speed compared to Dash, the closest analogue to an AD&D move action) or else you eat an opportunity attack. That's quite similar to AD&D, the difference being that now an opportunity attack is tied into the action economy (takes your reaction) and doesn't allow multi-attack. (Honestly I don't remember any way at all to disengage even NOT at full speed--I only remember eating opportunity attacks--but I'm trusting your memory on that point.)

In most situations not involving a goblin conga line AD&D and 5E are equivalently sticky by "default", it's just that 5E has lots of ways to become unstuck (Cunning Action, Mobile feat, etc.). But AD&D monsters were fully capable of eating an attack sequence to get to the back-line squishies if they wanted, so I don't think the claim that there is more mechanical space for a "defender" in 5E than AD&D holds.

TLDR; opportunity attacks, by any name, don't create true stickiness. AD&D and 5E take similar approaches to opportunity attacks.

 

[AxisofJedi]

The "Roles" are going through a renaissance of sorts. For years we have had only class and race to choose from. Everyone has always had some sort of background or history for their PC, but it was never RAW. Now you have a 3rd element added with the backgrounds. Class, Race and background. That opens up a whole new layer of how the Roles are defined and what they really are, and all that is very subjective from player to player and DM to DM.

Say you have 4 Human Fighters in your party. One has the soldier background, one has Criminal, one has Acolyte, the last has Folk Hero. Same race, same class, 4 very different "Roles" based on their backgrounds. Add in Feats, skill proficiencies and alignments and the math gets ridiculous as far as options.

Its actually pretty cool to see IMO.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Let me add a follow up to my point earlier. In Basic D&D, the same class (a fighter) could be (and was, depending on how the player wanted to play him or her)

* Strength based. The brutal warrior who focused on doing as much damage as possible
* Dex based. Either the heavy armor&shield type to be as hard to hit as possible, whose role was to be on the front line taking the brunt of the attacks.
* Dex based. Ranged weapons. The bow or javalin. Hit and run fighter
* Con based. Has as many HP as you could get to extend your survivability.

Or you could play a cleric that also fit all of the above if you wanted, in addition to a healer, protector, smiter, etc. I don't think there is any need to talk about how a MU could focus on damage dealing spells, or utility spells, or control spells, etc, etc--filling any number of roles that could change literally every day.

What people are forgetting about Basic D&D was that every weapon did the same damage (d6) unless you used an optional rule. And every class got the same bonuses to abilities. A cleric with a 16 STR would do more damage with a weapon than a fighter with a 15 STR forever until that somehow changed. This allowed classes to take on these "roles" you associate with different modern classes. Also, for the meat of the game (up to level 10), the attack matrix for fighters compared to a class like the cleric weren't really that far off. Heck, in Basic (the version we're talking about here as per what GM said that I replied to), there is no difference in the attack matrix. Everyone got better at the same rate when they hit level 4.



When I talk about roles in D&D, I'm talking about the entire game. If 4e changed that to mean that roles only mattered in combat, then that's a HUGE disservice to the game. Because like the thief in early D&D, your role wasn't combat focused for one. You still had just as much importance to the group as anyone else overall, so placing the value on combat seems to short change yourself, because D&D is sooo much more than combat. To me, roles are based more on archetypes you want to play. And in Basic, the roles are very basic (no pun intended) and loose. Nothing so narrowly defined as striker, controller, healer, etc. It was "magic user" and "fighter" and "thief" and "cleric" because each of those classes could do one of several different roles, depending on you choose to play them. Not something automatically predetermined when you choose the class.

 

[Aenghus]

Wrong again! You need to talk to Mike Monard. A guy who was there from day 1 and played with Gary in his original group and often played a magic user. Guess what the most common spell was that MUs cast? Charm Person.

Not magic missile. Not sleep. Charm Person.

And that's something that you and others for some weird reason insist on forgetting or ignoring. You say a MU is artillery (glass cannon) as the role in Basic. Flat out wrong, especially at low levels. The MU was simply a role you played if you wanted to be a wizardy type PC like Gandalf, Merlin, Sheebla, etc. You could play like a glass cannon if you wanted, but not only wasn't it the only role, it wasn't even the most common. Others have said the role was controller (and no, I don't buy a controller role being the same as an artillery role--they are fundamentally different). Not only does the fact that people can't agree on what they think the MU's role was in Basic proof that there wasn't any set role, but the most common spell memorized (charm person) didn't even fit into that area denial aspect that control magic does. It was "charm one guy, and use him as a meat shield for the rest of the adventure until you finish, or he dies."

A quick internet search found this article (no connection with myself) discussing the Charm Person spell's evolution.

Charm Person the spell has been weakening in effect through the editions, being most powerful in OD&D.

Charm Person: This spell applies to all two-legged, generally mammalian figures near to or less than man-size, excluding all monsters in the "Undead" class but including Sprites, Pixies, Nixies, Kobolds, Goblins, Orcs, Hobgoblins and Gnolls. If the spell is successful it will cause the charmed entity to come completely under the influence of the Magic-User until such time as the "charm" is dispelled (Dispell Magic). Range: 12". [Vol-1, p. 23]

A first level permanent enslavement spell - my MUs would have cast it if it worked that way in later editions. As the linked article discusses, Charm Person has consistently decayed in power since then through the editions. Subsequent saving throws were added in the Greyhawk supplement. The spell in Basic D&D and AD&D was considerably less powerful and it's results more ambiguous and so less reliable. No DM I knew would let Charm Person function as anything close to enslavement. IMO Sleep was a better bet in those editions as your single spell while dungeoneering.

As for relevance to the OP - PC roles are suggested, in part, but the most powerful options available to those PCs in practice. As these are the options most likely to be banned or houseruled, system-emergent roles can vary from group to group.

For a player who cares about in-game success in a game where system adjudicates success and failure, that system matters. PCs who are conceived independent of the system and implemented on a character sheet without system mastery are likely to be mechanically inefficient and may end up not being a good representation of the character concept, being highly ineffective in play or both. Roles are an attempt to give further advice on character creation to help avoid useless character syndrome.

As editions change, the strengths and weaknesses of each class have changed, and so the system-emergent roles of the classes have changed. Charm Person was a dominant(heh) choice until it was nerfed as overpowered. Sometimes changes in mechanics mean that the role of a class drifts or changes, which may not be welcome news to those emotionally invested in either or both of that class and that role.

e.g. high level fighters in 2e- had excellent saving throws making them tough, high level 3e fighters had some poor defences and trouble with full attacks making them potentially weak in high level play.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Roles in 5e are prettymuch what they've always been.

You've got your Tank, who's melee-oriented, and dishes out and soaks up fairly large amounts of damage, acting as a wall or front-line for the rest of the party.

You've got your Skill monkey, who's stealthy and deals with non-combat challenges that can't be obviated with a spell - or aren't worth expending a spell on.

You've got your healer who keeps everyone up and running.

And, you've got your caster who solves all the party's most important problems - assuming he has the right spell prepped and the right level slot left.

The roles wrap up into a resource-attrition-based team that manages hit points and spells to overcome challenges.


Sure, in 3e the class-roles were a little imbalanced, with the healer /also/ being a caster who can optionally tank - CoDzilla - while in 4e the roles were formalized and balanced (with the caster demoted to mere controller, the healer promoted to proactive 'leader,' and the tank gaining 'stickiness,' while sharing out his high-damage to the skill monkey so it'd have something to do in combat). But, while they were varied a bit over 40 years, there were still basically 4 roles, epitomized by the first 4 classes: Fighter, Cleric, Magic-user & Thief, no matter how much you re-jigger and re-name them.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Roles in 5e are prettymuch what they've always been.

You've got your Tank, who's melee-oriented, and dishes out and soaks up fairly large amounts of damage, acting as a wall or front-line for the rest of the party.

You've got your Skill monkey, who's stealthy and deals with non-combat challenges that can't be obviated with a spell - or aren't worth expending a spell on.

You've got your healer who keeps everyone up and running.

And, you've got your caster who solves all the party's most important problems - assuming he has the right spell prepped and the right level slot left.

The roles wrap up into a resource-attrition-based team that manages hit points and spells to overcome challenges.


Sure, in 3e the class-roles were a little imbalanced, with the healer /also/ being a caster who can optionally tank - CoDzilla - while in 4e the roles were formalized and balanced (with the caster demoted to mere controller, the healer promoted to proactive 'leader,' and the tank gaining 'stickiness,' while sharing out his high-damage to the skill monkey so it'd have something to do in combat). But, while they were varied a bit over 40 years, there were still basically 4 roles, epitomized by the first 4 classes: Fighter, Cleric, Magic-user & Thief, no matter how much you re-jigger and re-name them.

This is a bit of a tangent, but AD&D also had a broader role for priests, although not in the same way that 3E did. Priests weren't just healers; depending on which god they worshipped (and thus, which spheres they accessed) they could do anything from Mental Domination (Sphere: Mind) to opening wormholes (Sphere: Travel, I think) to arithmancy (changing the number of catapults you had in your squadron by deliberately miscounting them, and making that miscounting real; Sphere: Mathematics) to blessing your crops and ensuring a good harvest (Sphere: Plants). I skipped 3rd edition except via computer games, but I think it would be fair to say that AD&D opened up clerics/priests to fill the "skill money" and "general caster" slots you identified (though not generally in the same person as a healer-cleric), and then 3rd edition closed it back down again to stereotype by abandoning priestly Spheres as a game concept in favor of Domains.

 

[BryonD]

Roles in 5e are prettymuch what they've always been. .

Except for the mechanical implementation of them.

As Andy Collins put it:
"In a lot of editions of the game, classes compared to new classes were designed by [first] imagining what could exist in the D&D world, and now I assign the mechanics that make that feel realistic and then I’m done. Well the problem with that is, that you get an interesting simulation of a D&D world but not necessarily a compelling game play experience ... . A lot of the classes designed in the last 30 years are not interesting, are not compelling .... So whenever we were approaching a new class we had to home in on what makes this guy special and unique within in the game - not just in the world of D&D but, since we’re playing a game, why is this game piece different than another game piece and why do I want to play it instead another game piece. "

 

[Tony Vargas]

This is a bit of a tangent, but AD&D also had a broader role for priests, although not in the same way that 3E did. Priests weren't just healers; depending on which god they worshipped (and thus, which spheres they accessed) they could do anything from Mental Domination (Sphere: Mind) to opening wormholes (Sphere: Travel, I think) to arithmancy (changing the number of catapults you had in your squadron by deliberately miscounting them, and making that miscounting real; Sphere: Mathematics) to blessing your crops and ensuring a good harvest (Sphere: Plants).

AD&D 2e, yes, had spheres in the CPH, and it was a pretty cool little system that made the Priest (not Cleric, technically) more interesting.

I skipped 3rd edition except via computer games, but I think it would be fair to say that AD&D opened up clerics/priests to fill the "skill money" and "general caster" slots you identified (though not generally in the same person as a healer-cleric), and then 3rd edition closed it back down again to stereotype by abandoning priestly Spheres as a game concept in favor of Domains.

Domains were conceptually similar to spheres, but rather than giving up a lot of traditional cleric spells in a lot of other spheres to get a unique/interesting sphere, you kept all your cleric spells, and got 18 additional spells (one of each level, 1-9) from two domains, in addition. The basic cleric list, alone, was, along with spontaneous healing and wands of cure light wounds, more than sufficient for them to fill the healer, tank, and caster roles, if not exactly simultaneously. Domains were over and above that. Very different from 2e spheres.

I agree that Spheres, particularly the CPH version, seemed like a better mechanic than Domains, doing more to customize the priest.

 

[Imaro]

Except for the mechanical implementation of them.

As Andy Collins put it:
"In a lot of editions of the game, classes compared to new classes were designed by [first] imagining what could exist in the D&D world, and now I assign the mechanics that make that feel realistic and then I’m done. Well the problem with that is, that you get an interesting simulation of a D&D world but not necessarily a compelling game play experience ... . A lot of the classes designed in the last 30 years are not interesting, are not compelling .... So whenever we were approaching a new class we had to home in on what makes this guy special and unique within in the game - not just in the world of D&D but, since we’re playing a game, why is this game piece different than another game piece and why do I want to play it instead another game piece. "

But...if the roles have always been there, and the only change was that in 4e they were just explicitly called out (and they weren't mechanically enforced)... that begs the question why one of the authors of the 4e PHB felt it necessary to point out that the design and design philosophy behind the classes was different from every edition before...

 

[pemerton]

When I talk about roles in D&D, I'm talking about the entire game. If 4e changed that to mean that roles only mattered in combat, then that's a HUGE disservice to the game.

When the 4e rulebooks talk about role, they are talking about the fact that "Each character class specializes in one of four basic functions in combat: control and area offense, defense, healing and support, and focused offense" (PHB p 15).

In other words, "role" in 4e is a technical term to describe a class's default, mechanically supported combat function. It is not synonymous with your usage.

That doesn't mean characters in 4e don't do other things; just that the designers didn't think it was helpful to call out these other functions, in part because they are not associated in a default way with character class. (4e uses a very loose and open approach to non-combat resolution.)

Guess what the most common spell was that MUs cast? Charm Person.

<snip>

And that's something that you and others for some weird reason insist on forgetting or ignoring. You say a MU is artillery (glass cannon) as the role in Basic. Flat out wrong, especially at low levels. The MU was simply a role you played if you wanted to be a wizardy type PC like Gandalf, Merlin, Sheebla, etc.

<snip>

the most common spell memorized (charm person) didn't even fit into that area denial aspect that control magic does. It was "charm one guy, and use him as a meat shield for the rest of the adventure until you finish, or he dies."

I've mentioned Charm Person multiple times upthread. And it absolutely counts as control: it combines powerful anti-personnel with summoning.

As was well discussed in the magazines of the time, you also didn't play a magic-user to play a Gandalf-like character. Gandalf was more often modelled as a cleric (in part because he was strong in melee, in part because his magic was mainly supportive/restorative rather than artillery). To get the divinatory abilities of Merlin you also have to play a cleric.

5E isn't like AD&D at all? In 5E, withdrawing requires the Disengage action (which halves your speed compared to Dash, the closest analogue to an AD&D move action) or else you eat an opportunity attack. That's quite similar to AD&D, the difference being that now an opportunity attack is tied into the action economy (takes your reaction) and doesn't allow multi-attack.

After you Disengage you can then move. That is a move-and-a-half, making it hard for enemies to follow. That is very different from AD&D, where you cannot move further then your speed, and if you do so you eat a rear-attack attack sequence.

I think he is speaking to a wider picture of "roles" as opposed to a singular detail of one class...which honestly still isn't very sticky in the bigger picture unless the terrain or luck is helping the fighter out... the fighter's opposition if already engaged with another target is free to continue attacking said target in AD&D witgh no immediate reprecussions (no way to mitigate him continuing to attack the squishy)... the fighter's opposition can just move around him and attack someone else

In AD&D melee targetting is randomly determined. So if a fighter injects him-/herself into a melee, s/he can reduce the chance of a "squishy" in melee being attacked.

Also, by forming a front line fighters can draw enemies who come within 10' into melee.

AD&D melee is actually very sticky.

Also when it comes to stickiness in AD&D how do you view the "Falling Back" and "Parry" maneuver

The parry manoeuvre gives an extremely modest AC bonus (equal to the STR bonus to hit). If you are referring to a 2nd ed AD&D option then I'm not familiar with that - I'm talking about Gygax's AD&D.

As for fighting withdrawal, it is at half speed and permits an opponent to follow.

What does this have to do with 5e roles again??

I'm responding to posts that were made. The AD&D "parry" manoeuvre doesn't have anything directly to do with 5e either, but you talked about that!

if you want to argue with the community about what is and is not popular, then you need a view broad enough to perceive them.

I don't, really, and particularly not in this thread, which is about the mechanical structure of systems and the consequences of that structure, not about who buys what.

The way 4E feels does a very poor job of delivering the experience I want.
The way AD&D worked did a very good job of delivering the experience I want.
5E reflects AD&D well in a way the 4E does only very poorly.

That doesn't tell me whether or not any of these games has classes that have default functions resting on the intersection of mechanics and fiction, though.

I'm guessing you wouldn't like the feel of Tunnels & Trolls, but it definitely doesn't have roles in the 4e sense.

It is almost a game to find Gygax quotes that support any given position.

Then by all means show me the passages from his AD&D rulebooks that explain how classes in that game have no default approach to play.

I played AD&D for years and never sat there thinking about melee being sticky. Remember, we have had numerous conversations about how I'm not a "gamist" guy. I was using AD&D to tell stories and it WORKED.

<snip>

Comments about the origins of AD&D provide little insight into how the game was actually enjoyed by the masses.

<snip>

comments about how Gygax famously opinionated evaluations of "correct" play don't fit within the context of why vast numbers of people enjoyed the games in ways that contradicted these statements.

I haven't made any comments about the origins of AD&D. I've quoted the sections in the rulebook about creating characters, which correspond (in location in the book, in teaching function) to the section on roles in the 4e PHB.

Is your point is that people ignored the AD&D rules - be they the rules on advancement, or the melee rules about movement and targetting, etc, perhaps the rules about action resolution altogether (in my experience the latter was quite common in 2nd ed AD&D play) - and thereby didn't experience roles? That may be true. And I think 4e has features that would make it less appealing to players who want to ignore the rules - in that respect it is in the tradition of early games like RuneQuest or more modern "indie" games.