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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 5706618" data-attributes="member: 996">With the current definition of 'class,' I think 'not very,' in most cases.  If you gave a Rogue a bunch of Fighter powers, he'd still be perfectly able to stealth around and sneak attack.  A Fighter with Ranger powers would still be marking.  In some cases it wouldn't work too well - and in others it would work too well, but it's plausible.  What powers really represent more strongly is source.  Martial powers are completely different from Arcane, for instance.  The former use weapon, the latter almost exclusively use implements.  One does mostly untyped damage, the other mostly typed and of wide variety, etc...Nod.  When classes are supposed to be game constructs and most NPCs and monster are not supposed to use them, the PCs get to be pretty unique, and the old feel of 'ah, he's using Magic Missle, a common spell, fortunately my Shield will stop it' is gone.  Not sure how important that feel is, but it's familiar.I think the use of class powers instead of features to support the Controller role is one of the more fundamental flaws in 4e design.  It's not unconnected to other issues, though.  The controller role isn't as well-definned as the others, for instance, so it's hard to say how you'd make a class feature to support it, since the role is mostly infered by what wizard powers do - it's support and definition of support is positively circular.'Metamagic' as a class feature to support the wizard's controller role sounds like a great idea, though.  Wizard spells put in the general arcane list could be given smaller areas, with less potent effects and/or shorter durration, and then the wizard 'metamagics' them up to larger areas or longer durrations or better effects.  Exactly how that might work I'm not sure.  It could be 1/encounter/meta-magic it might just rely on the action economy - making the wizard's spells 'take longer to cast' a minor or two to meta-magic, a standard to actually cast.  Wizards would have to do the classic 'stand still in the back and cast,' because they constantly trade in their moves for minors to do their more complex style of casting.  They'd have difficult trade-offs/tactical decisions when it comes to maintaining one spell vs metamagicking a later one...Yes, that could be quite good, I think.  Are they that much more different, now?  Both use prayers, tend to dish out radiant damage rather more often than other types, have a mix of both weapon and holy-symbol powers...  In the past, the Paladin simple cast off the Cleric list with a different progression, anyway.Class features need to strongly support role.  I suppose they also have to differentiate the class from others of the same source, but as long as you don't have two classes of the same role in the same source (like Warlock and Sorcerer or Artificer and Bard or Ranger and Rogue), role support and class differentiation could amount to the same thing. hopefully not.</blockquote>

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