Who will "fill in the grid"?

[Cryptos]

Do you think this is universal to controllers?

Defenders, by their nature, are going to be sturdy - they need the hit points, the AC, to take the punishment of monsters. Strikers seem less sturdy than Defenders; we're told the rogue weaker, defensively, than the Defender. And Leaders, at least to me, look pretty sturdy from a defensive perspective (and not as offensive).

So would this mean that controllers, by nature, are offensively potent due to their ability to effect multiple foes but easily smooshable? And how would that color a martial controller?

No, I don't think it has to be universal to controllers.

As I said on the Wizards boards a while back, your role describes what you do in combat, your power source just describes how you are able to do it, and your class describes how you execute it, other flavor, and non-combat functionality.

It's like "car" - something used to move people around (role), petroleum-based fuel (power source), black sports car with leather interior, small and lightweight, go-faster stripes, built-in satellite radio, climate control, etc, etc (class.)

However, a natural gas-powered (power source) bus - something used to move people around (role) - is not small or lightweight. Nor is an airplane, a cruise ship, or a train (classes.)

Until we get strong evidence to the contrary, I look at role as specifically dealing with the effect that a character has in combat - not how they do it. This sums it up:

Defender: "Hey! You're not going anywhere! Ignore them. Come back here and face me!"

Controller: "Hey! None of you are going over there. Or over there. Or doing that. Or... oops, now you're dead."

Leader: "Hey! Here's something to help you out, friends!"

Striker: "Die!"

That's about it, the way I see it. Whether they need a lot of hitpoints, or a weapon, or magic to do it is all a function of class.

When you look at a rogue, a ranger and a warlock, the only commonality is that they all seek to do damage. I think people are overreacting to the idea of roles and reading too much into what a role means. There are varying degrees of sturdy, squishy, stealthy, not stealthy, magical, not magical there.

Which is why it's especially frustrating when you get arguments that X idea can't be a martial controller because of this, or Y idea can't be an divine striker because of that, and so on. And frustrating that people object to the idea of finding ways to fulfill roles in all the power sources. I think people go to red alert when you start discussing roles because they're afraid they're some how going to take over class flavor or dominate everything a class does. They're not. Still, it would be nice to see a non-magic character do some controller-type things, for non-magical parties and concepts. And so on.

I also think that you're not necessarily right on defenders needing to be sturdy. All that's required is someone that can keep foes occupied and nailed down while avoiding or mitigating their ability to do damage.

Consider an enchantress-type character that does this by being alluring and sexy. Seriously. She says "Hey you, stop attacking my wizard friend and come over here." Now she only has to hold his attention while he drools on himself because of her amazing powers of arcane hotness. She doesn't have to absorb all his attacks directly, she's mitigating them in another way. She's defending the wizard by holding down one foe that was attacking while resisting his ability to damage to her. Instead of armor, shield, and hitpoints, she's just got to keep shaking that fine magical booty.

She's a defender.

See? You can really have a lot of fun with this, and generate interesting classes. A beguiler or enchanter as a defender seems counter-intuitive the way a lot of people are thinking, but they're not really controllers because if they could walk in and Dominate the entire battlefield, or large areas of it, there wouldn't be much challenge, would there? They hold down or take over one or a few foes. Nor are they necessarily leaders because the benefits of mind control don't go directly to their allies.

"Grid-filling" roles only seems unimaginative and limited or mechanical because I think people's concept of the roles is a bit too rigid.

I think everyone's defintions of these roles are a bit too narrow, which is a truly frustrating aspect to these discussions, although a necessary one.

 

[Dormammu]

EDIT: For and Archer to be a controller, he would have to be be able to pull of lots of amazing tricks with his arrows, while simultaneously being pretty bad at just shooting people with them, which makes no sense.

Actually that statement makes no sense! Wizards are clearly good at "shooting people", so a Controller is not specifically poor offense. In fact, one of the ways it describes Controllers affecting the battlefield is through infliction of damage at range.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Striker: "Die!"

I think it's more like...

Striker: "That was a costly mistake. Now you die!"

Everything I've seen seems to indicate that strikers need to have combat advantage in order to pull off their massive damage powers.

 

[Rechan]

As I said on the Wizards boards a while back, your role describes what you do in combat, your power source just describes how you are able to do it, and your class describes how you execute it, other flavor, and non-combat functionality.

It's like "car" - something used to move people around (role), petroleum-based fuel (power source), black sports car with leather interior, small and lightweight, go-faster stripes, built-in satellite radio, climate control, etc, etc (class.)

I can roll with that. That conceptualizes fairly easily.

Consider an enchantress-type character that does this by being alluring and sexy. Seriously. She says "Hey you, stop attacking my wizard friend and come over here." Now she only has to hold his attention while he drools on himself because of her amazing powers of arcane hotness. She doesn't have to absorb all his attacks directly, she's mitigating them in another way. She's defending the wizard by holding down one foe that was attacking while resisting his ability to damage to her. Instead of armor, shield, and hitpoints, she's just got to keep shaking that fine magical booty.

She's a defender.

I could argue that you come across situatiosn where "That monster just isn't going to find you sexy simply because your species and it just has nothing in common; an ooze or an illithid just Do Not mate like that." But the same could be accomplished with just a 'Bow Before my Might' Enchanter, or a hypnotist 'You are getting sleeeeeeeepy'.

So while I see what you're saying, I think someone who is going to be putting themselves on the front line is likely not going to be well served if they fail their thing and get splattered all over the field, you know?

A beguiler or enchanter as a defender seems counter-intuitive the way a lot of people are thinking, but they're not really controllers because if they could walk in and Dominate the entire battlefield, or large areas of it, there wouldn't be much challenge, would there? They hold down or take over one or a few foes.

This isn't true, not necessarily.

I don't see beguilers dominating the field. Looking at a lot of their spell selection, they're "You guys, over there, you're disabled." Glitterdust blinding foes, Crushing Despair, Hypnotic Pattern, Color Spray, Vertigo Field, Silence, etc. They can effect single targets (Blinding Color Surge, Daze, Vertigo), but there's a lot of cones and bursts. Phantom Battle and Legion of Steel provide flanking or AoOs for everyone - that's controllerish to a T, by basically discouraging people from moving through areas.

As well, illusions can hamper and contain, assuming they're powerful enough. Basically drop an illusion of Something in that area over there, and people likely won't enter it.

Everything I've seen seems to indicate that strikers need to have combat advantage in order to pull off their massive damage powers.

From what we saw about the Warlock, they apparently get damage to individuals they have currently Cursed. Little to do with combat advantage.

And I've not seen anything that has to do with combat advantage for Rangers.

 

[Set]

Instead of combat advantage, think 'situational damage.' Sneak Attack is situational. Skirmish damage is situational. Death Attacks are situational. Damage that you can only dish out after pre-Cursing / softening up your target is situational.

Now she only has to hold his attention while he drools on himself because of her amazing powers of arcane hotness.

'Amazing powers of arcane hotness.' Cool!

And it's true that most of these roles have already been tweakable in 3E, and I can't imagine 4E being *less* flexible and fun.

I've seen Druids who specialize in control (entangle, spike stones, wall of whatever) and others that serve as strikers (lions and tigers do some nasty damage, when buffed by an expert who then also turns into a lion...) and personally played a Cleric as a striker (using domain smites / death touches and nasty Spontaneous Inflicts). If any of the power sources prove incapable of covering multiple roles as well (or, ideally, even better than) the current arcane, divine, martial, psi power sources, then perhaps they need to be left to cook a little bit longer.

I kinda expect 4E to be an upgrade to 3E, yanno? If it's *less,* that's not a selling point.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Instead of combat advantage, think 'situational damage.' Sneak Attack is situational. Skirmish damage is situational. Death Attacks are situational. Damage that you can only dish out after pre-Cursing / softening up your target is situational.

Thank you, that was the terminology I was grasping for. Strikers are combat opportunists.

 

[Rechan]

Instead of combat advantage, think 'situational damage.' Sneak Attack is situational. Skirmish damage is situational. Death Attacks are situational. Damage that you can only dish out after pre-Cursing / softening up your target is situational.

Yes, that works for me.

 

[Felon]

Until we get strong evidence to the contrary, I look at role as specifically dealing with the effect that a character has in combat - not how they do it. This sums it up:Which is why it's especially frustrating when you get arguments that X idea can't be a martial controller because of this, or Y idea can't be an divine striker because of that, and so on. And frustrating that people object to the idea of finding ways to fulfill roles in all the power sources.

I think people go to red alert when you start discussing roles because they're afraid they're some how going to take over class flavor or dominate everything a class does. They're not. Still, it would be nice to see a non-magic character do some controller-type things, for non-magical parties and concepts. And so on.

Some people object because they realize that filling out the grid just isn't that important. Asymmetry is OK.

I seem to keep hearing about some hypothetical player that's going to feel slighted by the absence of a non-magical controller class. It's just not very compelling as potential concerns go. Not only has D&D survived for many-a-year without such a thing, it's survived with most players being blissfully oblivious to the concept of "controller" as a class role.

I also think that you're not necessarily right on defenders needing to be sturdy. All that's required is someone that can keep foes occupied and nailed down while avoiding or mitigating their ability to do damage.

Consider an enchantress-type character that does this by being alluring and sexy. Seriously. She says "Hey you, stop attacking my wizard friend and come over here." Now she only has to hold his attention while he drools on himself because of her amazing powers of arcane hotness. She doesn't have to absorb all his attacks directly, she's mitigating them in another way. She's defending the wizard by holding down one foe that was attacking while resisting his ability to damage to her. Instead of armor, shield, and hitpoints, she's just got to keep shaking that fine magical booty.

She's a defender.

No, she's more of a controller. Denying an opponent the ability to attack is controlling. Absorbing the attack is defending.

Of course, it can and, historically, has been argued that controllers and defenders are actually variations of the same role, but generally the functional difference between them (and their MMOG progenitors, mezzers and tanks) is that the defender takes the brunt of that which can't be controlled. Bosses in particular are highly resistant, if not outright immune, to being frozen in their tracks (i.e. "mezzed"), which is what you're proposing this enchantress would do. It's more-or-less OK for a boss to be "stuck" on a defender, because a boss is expected to have powerful offensive options that can make a defender's job rough. It's considerably less OK for a boss to be afflicted with action-denying effects

 

[Rechan]

I seem to keep hearing about some hypothetical player that's going to fill slighted by the absence of a non-magical controller class. It's just not very compelling as potential concerns go.

There's not a hypothetical person. I said in this very thread that I dislike there being only one controller in the book. And a lack of a martial controller is an annoyance; I want to see it.

 

[Felon]

There's not a hypothetical person. I said in this very thread that I dislike there being only one controller in the book. And a lack of a martial controller is an annoyance; I want to see it.

Why is it an annoyance? Why do you want to see it? There are players out there who want all kinds of things, for reasons ranging from compelling to petty. Do you have a compelling arguement why this should be done?