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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 6528716" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Generally by asserting that they're both inaccurate to some degree. More on this in a bit.I agree that it's wrong to say 4e's roles, in an exacting (and particularly "precise mechanics") sense, have always existed forever. I disagree that they never existed at all, nor that they existed only for some people and not for others. Fighters have always had high health, skill with weapons and in particular skill with the best armor and shields available, and features intended to increase their durability. They were also often (either overtly or as a side-effect of the aforementioned things) good at dishing out attacks, whether to enemies that tried to pass, or low-level enemies. Clerics have always been the source of healing, buffing, and force-multiplication. The Rogue and its antecedents have, to the best of my knowledge, always had Sneak Attack and been (as a result) good at hitting really hard, when they hit. Wizards could do practically anything (except heal), to be sure, but the vast majority of spells that aren't "kill stuff dead" are tricksy-clever things, of the Stone to Mud/Passwall/Glitterdust variety, things that change the nature of the battlefield.I don't see how you can say that these roles are thus "exclusive" to 4e. Being explicit about them isn't even exclusive; plenty of 3e material talks about precisely this sort of thing. Did you ever see any of the "X with Class" articles? They clearly recognize the existence of roles, more or less as 4e does, just with loquacious terms rather than single-word ones--and this is back in 2004. E.g. Cleric-types are referred to as "divine spellcasters," Rogues are the "stealth expert" (which includes Monk and Ranger despite them having...no real bonuses to stealth!), Fighters are the "front-lines," etc....well, they aren't, and they were never intended to be. They're combat roles. They tell you what a class has been made to be good at in combat. That's all. They don't tell you the kind of personality you should have, they don't tell you "how to play your character" as a person. If you've been thinking of these as doing anything even remotely close to that...well, again, I think you've just been trapped by conflicting senses of the word "role."Would you have preferred they be called "specialty"? Or "focus," or maybe "mission" or "job"? All of these things are hitting the same point: the "role" tells you, only and exclusively, what the designers made the class to be good at doing. It informs the player, "This is where the natural in-combat strengths of this class lie." It has nothing whatsoever to do with the persona you act as when you role (persona) play (act).So you dislike the name. That doesn't mean it "limits" the role. The role does what it does. "Leader" is just the name the devs thought was fitting. It doesn't actually determine any part of what the role does. You're making a baseless assertion to the contrary. Yes, semantics matters, and it's unfortunate that you so strongly dislike the name. Presumably, the devs wanted to avoid a clinical-sounding name like "support," hence why in the books they go to great length to discuss why the role is named "Leader," but doesn't actually say anything about the personality or interpersonal influence of the character. Leaders "lead the attack," metaphorically speaking--they make other people better at combat. Again: 4e roles should not be interpreted as personality traits. As I understand it, Leader (much like Striker and Defender) actually come pretty much directly from football/soccer terms; I'm not sure if "Controller" also does, but it might.Okay...how do they "only server to artificially limit what a player might do with a particular character"? Again, from a player standpoint, the only function a 4e role serves is telling you what the designers made [Class X] to be good at in the field of combat specifically. It tells you nothing about the aesthetics of the class (generally unique to each class), nothing about the manner in which they perform their actions (generally that's stuff like Martial, Divine, etc.), and nothing about the non-combat abilities a particular class brings to the table (Warlords, Clerics, and Bards are all Leaders, but they have vastly different non-combat elements)....I...what? How on earth can a Wizard actually protect anybody, other than blowing a spell slot (which they've always been able to blow on doing something protective--even in 4e, as I understand it)? Bounded Accuracy has nothing to do with whether a Rogue can heal or ameliorate negative effects (they straight-up can't, not without feats AFAIK), nor with whether a Fighter can cast Teleport (I don't believe there are any EK spells for that?) As always, when this "people can do whatever they want!" card is thrown out, I'm left confused--no, people really can't do whatever they want round-to-round, unless they overtly invest training and character resources into doing so...which was completely possible in 4e as well, so there's no difference there.Actually, it's...really not, on any of those.Fighters, in 4e, are widely recognized (by fans) as the most damage-dealing of the Defenders (Martial characters in general are very high-damage, colloquially considered to have Striker as a common sub-role). Although this is admittedly implicit, Fighters have a lot of Striker-like powers and features. They Defend by mashing face, most of the time. So...I don't really think it's true that Fighters have to choose. They can have their offense and their defense, too.Rogues are still characters that do the things you describe. They need to sneak around, or get distractions like an ally adjacent to their targets, in order to get their Sneak Attack (or is it Backstab? I don't recall) stuff. That's...pretty clearly offense, I'm not sure how you can call it anything else. They also still get skillmonkey stuff.I'm noticing a distinct pattern here: instead of using the terms as  defined within the context of 4e, you're taking the general terms,  asserting that they must mean what they generally mean, and  then concluding that the game does horrible things because the general  meanings conflict with basic sense. "Controller" = "Manipulates the  battlefield (and does lots of area damage, usually)." This is something  Wizards have always been good at: Sleep, Fireball, Lightning Bolt,  Grease, Color Spray, Ray of Enfeeblement, Expeditious Retreat, and most  of those are just the 1st-level spells (Fireball and Lightning Bolt  being 3rd)--you also have things like conjurations, walls of  fire/earth/force, etc. Even things like Invisibility are a manipulation  of the battlefield, manipulating the information available to the enemy  (though, admittedly, some of this blurs at the edges with support  abilities).In a world where terms can't have a specific meaning within a game, sure, the roles are bizarre, limiting, and so forth. But just like "Paladin" doesn't mean "one of Charlemagne's head knights" in the context of D&D, "Leader" as a role doesn't mean "person at the top of the party chain of command" in 4e.</blockquote>

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