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Message: <blockquote data-quote="steeldragons" data-source="post: 6503317" data-attributes="member: 92511"><emphasis mine>I think the above bolded section is where a lot of the disagreement/misunderstanding comes through on this particular topic. It is not that they "now can do" that is causing the issues I see here. It is that they "always could." Those saying the 4e roles only labelled what was there before simply are ignoring the fact that any "role" is something a lot of different classes can do. Not 'now". Not 5e. Before 4e. Certainly everything up to 3. I don't really know 3x well enough to say, but since it didn't have the stringent labelling/built-in roles, I'm inclined to say it was, maybe not.4e-defined "Roles" did exist before 4e, sure. In certain, specific, characters...their player's choices. A player of a fighter could make a PC with lots of armor and lots of HP and some heroic/selfless [Good] sensibilities that would put him in the front line and the last to leave covering a retreat. Trying to keep the pointy edges off the squishy back-row guys (whether casting something, so trying to avoid interruption or missile weapons guys who didn't fair well up close). Sure. That guy exists/existed. The problem is, I've seen that character in a many many forms: various races, various classes, different armor and weapons, different ways to GET to the high AC with or without high HP, high HP without a high AC, etc etc. Call that guy a "defender"? Fine.I have seen just as many, if not more, characters do the same things. Clerics with their high ACs and decent HP, charging into battle and/or holding the line. Bolstering protection/defense of their allies through their spells. Mages creating "cover" [in the common sense, not the game term] to mask retreats with a wall of fire or ice or stone or force. Illusionists, even, with sphere's of darkness or walls of fog. Heck! I had a heroically minded elvin thief [waaay back in the day] "guard the rear" as a party was trying to flee...I only recall that I "slowed them down" for a single round and proceeded to roll up a new character not more than a half hour into our first session as 1st level PCs [Dyr "the Lucky" lives on in infamy!]. But hey, I covered the fleeing.Are those guys "defenders"? They are fulfilling a "defender role", sometimes repeatedly. In those moments, hell yeah they are. That's all a [as 4e would define] "role" ever was. Moments of the character's actions. When the player decides what they want their PC to do. Does this course of action [which could be called "defending, striking, controlling, etc..."] work for a given situation?I've also seen just as many PCs/Fighters who were the first to "turn tail." Fighters who were reluctant combatants [for whatever RP/backstory or player personality reasons]. Fighters who like pushing people around. Fighters who are only in it for the gold. Fighters who say, "If we use our brains and don't have to unsheathe our swords, that's a win!" Fighters who want to be the strategic/heroic/valorous/just plain physically damage-dealing impressive "leaders." Yes. Obviously "all of that was still possible with your PC in 4e" (if you were an experienced enough player/strong enough person to do that). But, according to the way 4e was designed and described, those guys are still Defenders. Because they were Fighters. The game said so.What you [the general 4vengers, not any specific "you"] don't seem to grok is that these "roles" you claim to have been in the game before and still are, simply were not. Defending/Controlling/Striking were all just a single choice in the round at hand. What you claim to be a "role" of a class is, to non-4eigners, a single course of action that anyone could fulfill in any scenario at any given time. A class's "role" was not a defining term/course of action or even "majority of the time" for most characters, let alone everyone of a certain class.That thinking/preference comes/stems from a video gaming "we need a tank/healer/whatever" mentality and/or, if you like, "game evolution" or whatever you want to call it that is non-threatening/-insulting to the fragile sensibilities oft seen around here. It is, objectively, not a "way D&D did things/always was." That is not a slam on 4e. That is not edition warring. That is simple fact.And, imho, it is not seeing/acknowledging that simple truth that, I think, leads to loads of these kinds of "ch'yeah, it was/nuh uh, it wasn't" sort of talking-past-each-other debates. For sure! Agreements all around! Cheers/Salut/Slainte!</blockquote>

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