D&D 5E What if 5e had 2 types of roles

[catastrophic]

I'm just not sure I see anything resembling a unifying mechanic or a basis on which you can assign PC capabilities to a unified set of mechanisms that makes each of these really distinct.

It's not really difficult at all to design such a system, or to design a chassis that different types of events could be based on.

For instance, the basic system could establish a certainly range of risk vs reward, and then different types of Tasks (or examples of a given task) would set those dials are various points.

Traveling overland is normally not that risky, but infiltrating your enemy's secret as is. Both could use the same system, with the infiltration having a higher risk rating.

 

[Ryujin]

[MENTION=2011]KarinsDad[/MENTION] - Exactly the issue. When background options give a mechanical benefit people will tend to seek that benefit, over the role playing options. It would be nice if backgrounds were clearly defined as having out-of-combat benefits, only, in order to help enhance the role playing side of things. They can even confer mechanical benefits, just not ones that are combat based.

 

[KidSnide]

I think that well defined rules for combat roles are great. You are a controller that dazes. You are a defender that attacks multiple foes. There can be a little bleed over, but the controller really cannot defend too well.

I think that well defined rules for non-combat roles are extremely questionable. You are an sophisticated infiltrator that only does this via guile. Because of your role, you don't infiltrate via stealth. That's a different role.

In this example, a guile-infiltrator and a stealth-infiltrator are two different examples of the same role, in the same way that a paladin and a fighter are two different examples of the defender role. The whole point is that, a GM can look at a party and be assured that, if there is an infiltrator, that character will be well equipped to handle infiltration challenges.

You just named 7 non-combat roles off the top of your head. There are 4 combat roles in the current game. I bet you can come up with 30 or more non-combat roles.

That's not quite true. I bet I could name over 30 non-combat "classes". Once I did that, I would try to group those classes into roles, the idea being that two different "classes" in the same role should be potential substitutes, in that they could both perform the same types of challenges, but also complementary, in the sense that they approach the same types of challenges in different ways. I'm not sure how many groups of abilities (i.e. "roles") you come up with, but it's much smaller than the number of concepts.

Non-combat roles are different from combat roles in that the balance is much more game dependent. In each case, the objective of giving characters roles is to make sure that the "spotlight" is fairly divided among the PCs. With non-combat roles, the usefulness of the role (and how much "spotlight" in brings) is going to be heavily dependent on the type of game that is being played. For example, an "explorer" role might be unusually useful in a Kingmaker game due to the high amount of wilderness exploration, whereas a "face" role might dominate in a more social game.

That said, non-combat roles are a little more self-balancing so long as the players have a good understanding of the campaign. Sure, a "face" role might be super-useful in a court intrigue game, but multiple PCs are likely to take a "face" role in such a game. Those PCs will end up dividing the "face" spotlight, which mitigates the balance problem.

In a split of combat and non-combat feats and potentially roles, PCs are somewhat forced to be semi-decent at both. They cannot lean in one direction or the other too much. That takes away from the game instead of adding to it.

That runs counter to my experience. The games I've played have been stronger by forcing the PCs to be semi-decent at both combat and non-combat. Both combat encounters and non-combat encounters can be quite long (in real time) and they tend to "chunk", in the sense that you can have many hours of playtime without significant combat but that, once combat begins, you can be fighting things for many hours as well. I think the game is stronger for making sure that each character is equipped to participate in both aspects of the game.

Yeah, you can create a dumb barbarian that just drinks and fights, but someone playing that character is going to be seriously bored between fights. Far better to play an dumb barbarian with a canny eye for danger and expertise in navigation and survival.

-KS

 

[KidSnide]

One other point, with respect to themes...

IMO, the major failure of themes is that they primarily reflect a non-combat aspect of the character, but the primary mechanical effect is to provide a combat mechanical advantage. I believe this disconnect leads to players picking themes for their mechanical advantage, rather than for their connection to the character.

-KS

 

[KarinsDad]

[MENTION=2011]KarinsDad[/MENTION] - Exactly the issue. When background options give a mechanical benefit people will tend to seek that benefit, over the role playing options. It would be nice if backgrounds were clearly defined as having out-of-combat benefits, only, in order to help enhance the role playing side of things. They can even confer mechanical benefits, just not ones that are combat based.

If someone takes a given background to gain the Diplomacy skill, they are already gaining an out of combat benefit.

The current system already allows for this. Changing it to a non-combat only advantage will force that type of gain and will do nothing to enhance the roleplaying. It's when there is a mechanical advantage to background and themes that players are encouraged to take them only for the mechanical advantage.

In other words, the solution being proposed doesn't resolve this issue at all.

 

[KarinsDad]

That runs counter to my experience. The games I've played have been stronger by forcing the PCs to be semi-decent at both combat and non-combat. Both combat encounters and non-combat encounters can be quite long (in real time) and they tend to "chunk", in the sense that you can have many hours of playtime without significant combat but that, once combat begins, you can be fighting things for many hours as well. I think the game is stronger for making sure that each character is equipped to participate in both aspects of the game.

Note the word "forcing".

By splitting the game mechanical gains into a combat side and a non-combat side, the player no longer choses the strengths of the PC. The PC will get a similar amount of both combat and non-combat strengths as every other PC.

Forced.

That's the opposite of choice.

I think that players react to the type of games they are playing in. If a game has a lot of skill challenges and many roleplaying opportunities, many of the players will take some feats and/or powers that help in those areas. If a game has a lot of combat, many of the players will take feats and/or powers that help that.

 

[KidSnide]

[MENTION=2011]KarinsDad[/MENTION] - Exactly the issue. When background options give a mechanical benefit people will tend to seek that benefit, over the role playing options. It would be nice if backgrounds were clearly defined as having out-of-combat benefits, only, in order to help enhance the role playing side of things. They can even confer mechanical benefits, just not ones that are combat based.

In other words, the solution being proposed doesn't resolve this issue at all.

I agree that the non-combat roles solution does not resolve the issue of players seeking mechanical benefits over role-playing backstory, but it is not designed to do so. The purpose of non-combat roles is:

1. to ensure that each character has an area of non-combat competence (a non-combat "niche" as it were);
2. to place similar non-combat abilities in a common context so, for example, magical forms of stealth can be balanced against non-magical forms of stealth; and
3. to provide a shorthand way of understanding a party's ability (e.g. "This party has three infiltrators, a face and an explorer. I know what they're well suited for...")

And, yes, I think such a system would need to provide for some off-role abilities. For example, and intimidating "face" barbarian would play differently than a canny "explorer" barbarian. But the face barbarian should be able to gain some level of wilderness expertise, just as the explorer barbarian should be able to gain some level of intimidate. Those levels of proficiency should allow the character to participate in off-role challenges, but they shouldn't be able to dominate a companion for whom the challenge is in-role.

-KS

 

[KidSnide]

I think that players react to the type of games they are playing in. If a game has a lot of skill challenges and many roleplaying opportunities, many of the players will take some feats and/or powers that help in those areas. If a game has a lot of combat, many of the players will take feats and/or powers that help that.

True, but games also have to adjust to the characters built for them. It's hard to run a skill / role-playing based game if none of the PCs have useful skills, or -- for that matter -- if one or two PCs choose to play combat-only characters and sit around bored whenever the other PCs use their abilities.

And I'm not really sure why you're against putting combat and non-combat abilities into different silos. It's not like anyone got up in arms that they had to use their skill points on skills or couldn't use their non-weapon proficiencies to enhance their combat power...

-KS

 

[mneme]

This basically already exists. When you build a class, you're claiming various non-combat roles as part of your skill (and class feature) selection. Do you mean you -don't- look to non-combat balance when forming a party? I find it crucial. IMO, they could make this more apparent/obvious/balanced by:

1. Stating the basic non-combat roles up front just as they state the combat roles.

2. Making it easier to gain cross-class skills and move abilities around (for instance, if powers never had a key ability). As it is, Rogues can grab just about any non-combat role (and can grab at least 2), but Fighters have a much more limited in-class selection, and need to use backgrounds if they want to get many of the ones they're suited for.

Obvious non-combat roles:

Infiltrator: sneak into guarded locations Stealth (or invis), Acrobatics, Athletics.
Face: Talk to people, make them do what we want: want Bluff, Diplomacy, or equivalent; Insight is really helpful, but Streetwise and Religion can cover in the right situations.
Spotter: Perception is the only thing that will do here.
Magical specialist: Religion or Arcana are the right skills here.
Ritualist: There are actually room for multiple ritualists, but yeah. All ritualists are knowledge specialists; not all knowledge specialists are ritualists.
Knowledge Specialist: Know/research stuff. Arcana, Relgigion, Nature, History, Streetwise, Heal, Dungeoneering. Note that here, often only right knowledge skill will do (sometimes you can do a sub), so it's often best to have mutiple knowledge specialists with different specialties.
Wilderness expert: Perception, Nature, Endurance, Heal.
Food tester: This is surprisingly useful sometimes, actually,even if you never design for it, exactly.. Heal, Perception, Endurance. This is the person you want taking the drinking contest.
Climber/Acrobat: Get into tight places. Arrobatics, Athletics, and/or flight/teleportation.
Trapsmith: Spot and deal with traps. Perception, Thievery, Arcana, Dungeoneering.

Of course, often not all the skills i a specialty are held by the same person.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I agree that the non-combat roles solution does not resolve the issue of players seeking mechanical benefits over role-playing backstory, but it is not designed to do so. The purpose of non-combat roles is:

1. to ensure that each character has an area of non-combat competence (a non-combat "niche" as it were);
2. to place similar non-combat abilities in a common context so, for example, magical forms of stealth can be balanced against non-magical forms of stealth; and
3. to provide a shorthand way of understanding a party's ability (e.g. "This party has three infiltrators, a face and an explorer. I know what they're well suited for...")

And, yes, I think such a system would need to provide for some off-role abilities. For example, and intimidating "face" barbarian would play differently than a canny "explorer" barbarian. But the face barbarian should be able to gain some level of wilderness expertise, just as the explorer barbarian should be able to gain some level of intimidate. Those levels of proficiency should allow the character to participate in off-role challenges, but they shouldn't be able to dominate a companion for whom the challenge is in-role.

-KS

But which of these things needs to be 'fixed'? Every character ALREADY has non-combat areas of expertise. Even the lowly fighter gets at least 3 skills right off the bat. Even assuming he takes Athletics, Endurance, and Heal as his 3 skills they have myriad non-combat uses and such a character will have plenty of opportunities to use these skills. He'll also have a pretty decent skill bonus in certain other skills, which he can use effectively as well. I don't see how a niche non-combat role is going to make any difference.

I don't understand what the difference between 'magical stealth' and 'non-magical stealth' IS. 4e makes no magic/mundane distinction at all. The two are already balanced, they are the same thing. Again, I don't understand how non-combat roles creates any kind of context any more than combat roles are required to gauge the balance between two characters that both do damage with their attacks. What creates that context is the combat mechanics of the game. Likewise non-combat mechanics create the context in which those kinds of abilities are judged. In neither case would role particularly contribute to that. If a wizard casts a damaging spell it can be balanced against a rogue using a damaging power. The fact that one is a striker and the other is a controller is only incidental.

I'm not finding any difficulty in knowing the capabilities of the party as it is though. 4e is already remarkably strong here. At most I might want to know the skill bonuses of the PCs so I can decide what DCs to use or what sort of challenges they will like to take on.

Again, I'd like to see IN PRACTICE, not as pure statement gathered out of vague theorycrafting, where non-combat roles really add to the game in a material way. Personally I like the flexibility that exists in the system now in that space. I don't see where there are compelling mappings between tactics and role as there are in combat, where they are very natural. Yes, there are general categorizations that you can make about characters, this guy is the 'face', but what he's going to DO and how he's going to do it are not going to be that consistent across challenges. Many challenges don't even meaningfully relate to a role. ALL combat encounters engage the combat roles, without exception. The two things simply aren't comparable and I would consider it a mistake to try to conform them to the same structure merely because that seems to fill a desire for meaningless consistency.

Really, it was a thought that was interesting to contemplate momentarily, but I just haven't found a compelling reason for adding mechanics to the game for this.