Roles have been around, but not quantified and focused. Though I think it is a mistake to concentrate on Roles as much as 4th edition has, it is a great design tool in which to build a class around, something that the previous edition didn't do well once it got past the four staples. (Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, Cleric) That the rampant Multi-Classing in 3rd deluded this even further is part of the reason why it had become a munchkin haven or a newbie grinder.
I think you meant "diluted". Although I've seen a couple builds that make me wonder if maybe "deluded" is right...
In my opinion, they did not go far enough with roles in 4E, probably because they wanted to assign one role per character and assemble a complete party with four characters.
Here's a draft of how I would mark out the roles:
Melee striker (damages enemies in melee) Ranged striker (damages enemies at range, possibly long range) Area striker (damages enemies in bunches - often at short range) Defender (protects allies) Buffer (improves allies' attacks, damage, defenses, saves, and mobility) Enabler (hands out extra actions to allies) Debuffer (decreases enemies' attacks, damage, defenses, saves, and mobility; imposes vulnerabilities) Healer (hands out hit points and saves to allies) Battlefield modifier (alters areas of the battlefield to make it easier for the party to get tactical advantage)
Most characters will have either two primary roles and maybe some secondaries, or a primary role and at least two secondary roles. A character who has one primary role should be better at it than a character who has two will be at either one of them.
Example: My Archer Warlord is a primary ranged striker and enabler, secondary debuffer and healer. Example: My Tempest Ranger (hybrid) is a primary melee striker, secondary ranged striker and defender.
"The world does not work the way you have been taught it does. We are not real as such; we exist within The Story. Unfortunately for you, you have inherited a condition from your mother known as Primary Protagonist Syndrome, which means The Story is interested in you. It will find you, and if you are not ready for the narrative strands it will throw at you..." - from Footloose
I think the idea of getting an RBA in on an enemy because they melee'd your buddy doesn't work conceptually. I know allies don't get in the way of your shots, technically, but it just feels wrong. I'll give it a try:
Archer Talent: Replaces fighter weapon talent. You gain a +1 to hit when using a bow or crossbow, and may use STR instead of DEX for attack and damage with a Ranged Basic Attack.
Archery Challenge: Replaces Combat Challenge. When you make an attack roll, you may choose to mark the target until the end of your next turn. When a marked enemy who is not adjacent to you makes a ranged, area, or close attack against an ally who is not adjacent to him or moves or shifts closer to an ally of yours through a square that doesn't grant cover, you get a ranged basic attack against that enemy as an immediate interrupt.
This represents 'pinning down' enemies with agressive ranged attacks.
Combat Opportinuity: Replaces Combat Superiority. When an enemy adjacent to you provokes an Oportunity Attack, you may shift your WIS modifier away from that enemy, then make a Ranged Basic Attack against it as an Opportuinty Action.
Yeah, that's all three class features, might as well be a different class entirely.
The big problem with all of these sorts of attempts is that you end up getting a large number of RBAs. Basically an enemy almost can't function at all anywhere on the field of battle once its marked without taking the punishment. In your specific version this could easily be true even if the enemy is attempting to engage the defender. Your typical fighter doesn't actually make THAT many OAs or CS attacks. Certainly they will average less than one a round with most DMs. Assuming some moderately appropriate power support the effective DPR of a ranged defender is going to be right up there with the TSing archer ranger, yet you have defender hit points, defender armor, and a mark and punish mechanic that the ranger doesn't have. This (the questionability of the basic concept aside) is the main reason it hasn't been done. Existing defenders have to get in close to the enemy and there are tactical possibilities for that enemy to mitigate the defenders mechanism. With a true ranged defender that become so much harder that almost any design which is able to provide worthwhile punishment becomes a striker plus.
I don't think its utterly impossible to devise a ranged defender, but its going to have to have some limitations that aren't currently present in fighter style marking. The swordmage for instance, while not a true ranged defender, can defend from a distance, but he also has to focus on one specific enemy at a time and notice he has NO effect on the enemy's mobility because that creates too strong of a dilemma for the enemy. You end up defending the whole battlefield.
Roles have been around, but not quantified and focused. Though I think it is a mistake to concentrate on Roles as much as 4th edition has, it is a great design tool in which to build a class around, something that the previous edition didn't do well once it got past the four staples. (Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, Cleric) That the rampant Multi-Classing in 3rd deluded this even further is part of the reason why it had become a munchkin haven or a newbie grinder.
I think you meant "diluted". Although I've seen a couple builds that make me wonder if maybe "deluded" is right...
In my opinion, they did not go far enough with roles in 4E, probably because they wanted to assign one role per character and assemble a complete party with four characters.
Here's a draft of how I would mark out the roles:
Melee striker (damages enemies in melee) Ranged striker (damages enemies at range, possibly long range) Area striker (damages enemies in bunches - often at short range) Defender (protects allies) Buffer (improves allies' attacks, damage, defenses, saves, and mobility) Enabler (hands out extra actions to allies) Debuffer (decreases enemies' attacks, damage, defenses, saves, and mobility; imposes vulnerabilities) Healer (hands out hit points and saves to allies) Battlefield modifier (alters areas of the battlefield to make it easier for the party to get tactical advantage)
Most characters will have either two primary roles and maybe some secondaries, or a primary role and at least two secondary roles. A character who has one primary role should be better at it than a character who has two will be at either one of them.
Example: My Archer Warlord is a primary ranged striker and enabler, secondary debuffer and healer. Example: My Tempest Ranger (hybrid) is a primary melee striker, secondary ranged striker and defender.
*scratches head*
I'm sorry, bit confused here, are you talking Roles, or Generic Classes? I think that some of the classes go into a bit of a more focused Role than the basic Four, but if the Roles get too specific like you want then there would be no need at all for the separate classes.
I like the four Roles just fine, I just wish there wasn't a big pointer to them as one chooses a class.
Kit Build - A class build that is self sustaining and has mechanical differences than the normal scale. Started in Essentials. Most are call their own terms, though the Base Class should be said in front of their own terms (Like Assassin/Executioner)
Power Points - A mechanic that was wedged into the PHB3 classes (with the exception of the Monk) from the previous editions. This time, they are used to augment At Wills to be Encounters, thus eliminating the need to choose powers past 4th level.
Mage Builds - Kit builds that are schools of magic for the Wizard. A call back to the previous editions powering up of the wizard. (Wizard/Necromancer, for example) Unlike the previous kit builds, Wizards simply lose their Scribe Rituals feature and most likely still can choose powers from any build, unlike the Kit Builds.
Parcel System - A treasure distribution method that keeps adventurers poor while forcing/advising the DM to get wish lists from players. The version 2.0 rolls for treasure instead of making a list, and is incomplete because of the lack of clarity about magic item rarity.
They will Essentialize the Essentials classes, otherwise known as Essentials2.
The new sub-sub-classes will be:
* Magician. A subsubclass of Mage, the magician has two implements, wand and hat, one familiar (rabbit) and series of basic tricks. * Crook. A subsubclass of Thief, the Crook can only use a shiv, which allows him to use his only power... Shank. * Angry Vicar, a subsubclass of warpriest, the angry vicar has two attacks -- Shame and Lecture. * Hitter. A subsubclass of Slayer, the Hitter hits things. * Gatherer. A subsubclass of Hunter, it doesn't actually do anything, but pick up the stuff other players might leave behind.
Future Essentials2 classes include the Security Guard (Sentinel2), the Hexknife (Hexblade2), the Webelos (Scout2), the Gallant (Cavalier2) and the Goofus (Knight2).
These will all be detailed in the box set called Heroes of the Futile Marketing.
(Though what they should really release tomorrow is the Essentialized version of the Witchalok!)
I'm sorry, bit confused here, are you talking Roles, or Generic Classes? I think that some of the classes go into a bit of a more focused Role than the basic Four, but if the Roles get too specific like you want then there would be no need at all for the separate classes.
I like the four Roles just fine, I just wish there wasn't a big pointer to them as one chooses a class.
In an ideal world you could pick a role and an archetype and essentially have a class. Because there are things about doing that which are a bit too signficant to put on players, like inventing the details of the requisite mechanics to support the role you are playing, they really can't do that. Because they have finite resources they can't provide every archetype with the ability to fill every role either. To a large extent they just picked one role that each archetype fits best and left it at that. If they have a second one they usually make another class, though not always. So we have the ranger as the archer archetype and filling a striker role. We now also have the seeker class for that archetype that operates as a controller. They chose to use a warlord build to fill it as a leader instead of a full new class. Its an 'imperfect' system in an idealized way, but it does work.
Funny, I thought the "roles" in previous editions were "Arcane Caster", "Divine Caster", and "Ablative Meatshields".
Hey, those meatshields are pretty handy, they have saved my wizards from needing to have spell slots spent on dusting annoying vermin many a time. Of course you could just have clerics instead and be better off, but someone had to make sure all those random wandering fighters had a roof over their heads
Really though, I can remember back all the way to old D&D. Everyone was perfectly clear even then about roles. They were a bit more limited and not all the characters fit into EXACTLY the 4e roles, but it was close. Wizard was the controller for sure, they ran everything! They were the true strikers too for the most part. Fighters and such were definitely "defenders", though it was a less significant role in many ways. Clerics were buffer/healers, pretty much exactly as they are now, with a secondary meat shield role. Rogues were the most different. The OD&D thief sort of TRIED to be a melee striker, but they were really more utility characters with a bit of single shot damage thrown in. Still, it was pretty clear how it worked. Every party put a wall of fighters and clerics up front with the rogue somewhere lurking around, and the magic user behind them, with maybe another melee guy at the back just in case.
Back in the day, the only time anybody asked a Rogue along was to avoid having 13 men in their party.
No, actually rogues and fighters were what I used to call "Magic User Helper", they were there to make your spell slots go further and avoid wastage on expensive charged items. Run into a lock, sure the wizard can handle it, but the rogue is cheaper. Why risk yourself on dealing with a trap either? Let the rogue deal with it while you stay well back out of the danger zone. Why risk using your familiar to scout ahead when you can just send the disposable rogue? It was much the same with fighters. You could count on the fighter to usually dispatch weaker opponents and be enough of a roadblock to the stronger ones that you had time to use the cheapest way to dispose of them vs needing to roll out the special sauce. They also tended to keep the easy to kill but annoyingly high damage output giants and such occupied and safely out of your face. If you lacked a fighter then you needed to burn resources on flying around invisibly with a bunch of buffs on, which was costly.
So basically it was like the old Hamburger Helper stuff that made your expensive meat go 2x further. Having a couple of fighters and rogues around saved spell slots. Plus they could carry your stuff and whatnot. When you were really going to put together a party loaded for bear though? Just leave them home and bring along a couple of your wizard buddies, load up on scrolls, and figure its going to be an expensive day anyhow so you might as well go in with all guns blazing and no dead weight.
How can you hate something that is so helpful? It has no alterior motives. It only wants to help your hamburger.
Reflavoring: the change of flavor without changing any mechanical part of the game, no matter how small, in order to fit the mechanics to an otherwise unsupported concept. Retexturing: the change of flavor (with at most minor mechanical adaptations) in order to effortlessly create support for a concept without inventing anything new. Houseruling: the change, either minor or major, of the mechanics in order to better reflect a certain aspect of the game, including adapting the rules to fit an otherwise unsupported concept. Homebrewing: the complete invention of something new that fits within the system in order to reflect an unsupported concept.
