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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6541375" data-attributes="member: 42582">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.)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.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.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.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.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!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.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.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 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.</blockquote>

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