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3 years ago ::
Sep 29, 2010 - 11:40AM
#991
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Date Joined:
Aug 12, 2006
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Regarding wether the Fighter has been a Striker or a Defender in the past, if you go back to OD&D before the Thief was introduced, wouldn't he end up being both?
I am not sure that it is fair to OD&D or 4th Edition (or any other edition, for that matter) to try and figure out whether an OD&D Fighting-Man would be considered a Defender or a Striker (or Controller or Leader, whatever) in 4th Edition terms. It seems to me, the theories and expectations about how the game was to be played, that were used in the late sixties and early seventies by Gary and Dave to develop OD&D, are vastly different than the theories and expectations used to develop 4th Edition, today.
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3 years ago ::
Sep 29, 2010 - 11:53AM
#992
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Prior to 4th, classes were generally designed around a concept or archetype and then thrown whatever abilities seemed fitting. So the AD&D Fighter was the "knightly defender of the weak", the "fierce hunter of monsters", and the "bold commander of men" all rolled up into one. If you want to map roles, then they were defender/strikers at low levels and primarily leaders at high levels.
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3 years ago ::
Sep 29, 2010 - 3:55PM
#993
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Date Joined:
Sep 26, 2001
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What front lines? Was it assumed that the monsters always had to attack from the front? Was every encounter designed to allow for bottlenecking your enemies? I'm sure using terrain was important, but the PCs couldn't always have a terrain advantage.
A tremendous amount of early D&D was, indeed, in Dungeons. 10x10 corridors. Rooms with one or two exits. I know that must sound tedious, today, but there was a lot of it. As has been noted, the rules for moving and disengaging encouraged fairly static play. So, yeah, there was usually something amounting to a 'front line,' in most battles.
Not too long into AD&D, more 'creative' games started getting outside the dungeon, but the use of minis also dropped off, and you often had combats with no real tactical movement, so if the fighter said "I attack the Ogre" the fighter and ogre probably duked it out the whole fight. 2e likewise, until Combat & Tactics. (I'm talking in very broad generalities, based on my own experiences, local cons, and the pages of The Dragon, in case anyone wants to chime in with how their own group was different).
In 3.5, tactical movement was more detailed, minis were back - as were 10x10 corridors - but the rules still encouraged some fairly static toe-to-toe combats.
In 4e, tactical movement was emphasized even more, and the rules were changed to give no great advantage to staying toe-to-toe. Marking helped the defender role work in such less static combats. Don't know whether marking was added for that reason, or for some combination of reasons or whatever... but it did make fighters 'sticky' when the need for stickiness had suddenly increased markedly (npi).
Love 4e? Concerned about its future? Join the Old Guard of 4e"You want The Tooth? You can't handle The Tooth!" - Dahlver-Nar. "If magic is unrestrained in the campaign, D&D quickly degenerates into a weird wizard show where players get bored quickly" - E. Gary Gygax
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3 years ago ::
Sep 29, 2010 - 5:05PM
#994
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Of course, the Slayer could have been a two-handed-weapon-focused Ranger. He'd have almost as much trouble swapping attack powers with other ranger builds as the Slayer, but it'd've been less of a negative impact on the system than the new mechanics of a basic-attack-spamming 'sub class.'
I actually wanted that exact design
YES
they could have used the staff article for it as well, perhaps with a lot of improvised weapon skills
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3 years ago ::
Sep 30, 2010 - 1:13PM
#995
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Date Joined:
Jul 12, 2006
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I also agree that wou;d have worked splendidly. The slayer as a ranger build makes way more sense to me.
The horrible truth - "Their new marketing strategy (Evergreen Essentials) pretty much requires that anything new that sees print refer back almost exclusively to Essentials." Tony Vargas
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3 years ago ::
Sep 30, 2010 - 2:27PM
#996
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Date Joined:
Jan 22, 2008
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I also agree that wou;d have worked splendidly. The slayer as a ranger build makes way more sense to me.
To me too actually even has dex as a secondary stat.
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3 years ago ::
Sep 30, 2010 - 4:04PM
#997
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Date Joined:
Aug 23, 2007
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I also would have been fine with the Slayer being a ranger. I've played two Slayers, and I've put both in hide armour and one of them I even trained in Nature.
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