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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 6505906" data-attributes="member: 58197">I feel like the people arguing that the four roles existed in early D&D are watering down the definition of "role" so much that it ceases to mean anything.Some characters deal more damage than others. That has always been the case. It's hard to see how it could be otherwise. So, you can rank the builds in order of average damage output, pick the top 25%, and label them "strikers." Presto! The striker role has existed throughout D&D!But has it really? "Average damage output" depends on a host of assumptions--there are so many environmental variables, from the monsters you face to the party level to what you rolled for stats, that any ranking you come up with is going to be invalid for a large fraction of campaigns. But even setting that aside, what have you learned? You took a continuous spectrum of values and imposed arbitrary categories. A character at the 76th percentile of DPR is a Striker. A character at the 74th percentile is a Non-Striker. But there's no real difference between them; without seeing their character sheets, you'd have to watch them for multiple sessions and do careful statistical analysis to tease out which was which. That's not a meaningful distinction.Is any quantifiable character trait the basis for a role? Is there a Speedster role for characters with high movement rate? An Anti-Wizard role for characters with good saves against magic? A Smartypants role for characters with Int 15+?</blockquote>

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