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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5088891" data-attributes="member: 2067">My thoughts currently run like this.In early editions of D&D, the balancing mechanism was the dungeon itself. This is why, theoretically at least, the Fighter and the Mage and the Thief and the Cleric were all balanced with each other. They each had something to contribute Fighters would kill monsters, Thieves scouted ahead for danger, Mages were "utility knives" that could deal with magical and strange obstacles, and Clerics could recover the party from a failure.To make rituals (and skill challenges) matter, we need to pull back the focus from the encounter, to the bigger picture that the encounter is embedded into: the dungeon."Supporters" should be able to help the party recover from a failure (healing rituals, Endurance, Heal, Survival, etc.). This maps to "leader.""Scouts" should be able to look ahead (divination rituals, stealth skills, movement stunts, perception skills). This maps to "striker.""Solvers" should be able to bypass things that are blocking progress (flight, lock-picking, riddle-solving). This maps to "controller.""Sentinels" should be able to deal with NPC's and let the party set their own pace (intimidation, social skills, illusion rituals, etc.). This maps to "defender."These are the "noncombat roles" of the PC's.The dungeon could be a literal dungeon, but it could be any sort of challenge, really, that would usually be covered with a Skill Challenge. Any sort of event where all the characters need to participate. Rituals (and utility powers) then become "noncombat powers" that the classes get to let them do special, unique, interesting things in these kinds of challenges.Clerics are "Supporters" in that they can heal your long-term wounds, remove persistent diseases, raise the dead, etc.Thieves are "Scouts" in that they can move deep into the dungeon with stealth, use keen perception to ascertain what's going on, and have light, unencumbered movement that lets them haul back to the party.Wizards are "Solvers" in that they can undo barriers to progress, solving riddles that prevent progress, giving the party flight over big cliffs, and teleport you accross the world.Fighters are "Sentinels" in that they can intimidate monsters, know the most defensive camping position, know how to keep fire without it attracting attention, etc.Maybe when you're trying to convince the haughty Chancellor to let you have an audience with the king, your Thief has gathered dirt on the Chancellor that he might expose to the light of day, your Wizard has a brilliant logical argument, your Fighter has unquestionable loyalty that makes the Chancellor unable to launch his own volley, and your Cleric is there to remind the Chancellor of all your contributions, even if he doesn't believe the Wizard.Druids are "solvers," Rangers are "scouts," Barbarians are "sentinels," Shamans are "supporters." Bards are "sentinels," Assassins are "scouts," Monks might be "supporters," Psions can be "solvers." Maybe Fighter powers are better at dealing with dungeons, and Bard powers are better at dealing with city environments, and Barbarian powers are better at keeping the party alive when they go explore the Wicked Wastelands. When the party goes to explore those Wastelands, even a Fighter knows the basics of desert survival, and the Bard has heard many tales from this land that have given him cautionary lessons, even if there's no Barbarian in the party.Roles are useful for this, it's just a matter of envisioning any encounter like a combat encounter, and making the cut in the right places.It's subtler than that. Rules inform playstyle to a certain degree by providing support. There is a TON of support in 4e right now for combat. LOADS AND LOADS OF IT. This is really a pretty good thing. Combat eats up most of most games, and it should have the most support.Both rituals and skill challenges have some issues in them that are still pretty deep, and they are basically the only support the rules give for making out-of-combat activities fun and engaging.A DM is always free to do whatever they want, and a good DM will probably make non-combat fun even without a lot of rules support, but most average people will need substantial rules support, and most average people probably don't run pure-combat D&D games, when the game is mostly sold to you as an "Imagination Game" or a "Storytelling Game," not a "Combat Game."</blockquote>

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