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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aenghus" data-source="post: 6528526" data-attributes="member: 2656">Is this a change in your position? Before you said there were no roles at all in pre-3e D&D, not just 4e roles?4e combat roles apply to 4e and emerge out of its design and explicit effort to support those roles.Other D&D editions suggest somewhat different roles, depending on the exact rules and houserules being used. In most cases IMO there are some similarities to the 4e roles, but differences as well.For instance in early D&D character generation was often random, as was magical item generation. Players could by prevented by this from playing their desired role if they didn't get the right stats or items to support it. In early D&D strikers were the the fighters and fighter subclasses lucky enough to get high strength and/or magic weapons. Fighter types lacking these, particularly sword and board, were defenders by comparison, with high defence and lower offence, though lacking much supporting mechanics. (I never played in the older "gp give xp, looting is king, fighting is failure" style of game). Given a particular party has individual strengths and weaknesses it makes sense tactically to make maximum use of those strengths and minimize the weaknesses. Thus high AC fighter types in the front to make a battle line, other high AC types such as conventional clerics in support and squishier classes in the rear. When you say "no roles at all" all I can see is fighters cowering in the rear, and wizards fighting in front, which is something I have seen in games, briefly, and it didn't end well. To me ignoring RPG roles means trying to ignore your characters strengths and weaknesses, going "La la la I can't hear you", and using the PC as you want even if it's trying to force a square peg in round hole.The roles witnessed by the players also depend on the particular campaign, player tastes and in particular the DM. Some DMs always make monsters attack the fighter types first, some the weakest party members first, some divide them evenly etc etc. If wizards all get killed at low level you will never see a high level PC wizard and what they can do. Ditto rogues, bards etc. Lots of traps probably favours high hp classes and classes that can find or have advantages evading traps. Depending on the optional rules in play, even before houserules which were very common in older games, knowing just a PC's class tells you something about the character but it's not necessarily useful. For a long time now you need to see the PC's full character sheet to get a full idea of their theoretical capabilities.</blockquote>

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