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Sep 20, 2012 -- 11:54PM, Daganev wrote:

If the goal was to remove expectations, it would really be a very easy thing to do.
You give every "role" function to every charachter.

That does not remove expectation. It allows every character regardless of class to be able to function competently at any role they choose, which is something that I do like in a lot of ways as long as it's kept in check and doesn't end up like the 3.5 Druid again, but that's not the same thing as removing the expectation of contribution. If anything, that may even reinforce it.

Sep 20, 2012 -- 11:00PM, Crimson_Concerto wrote:

And let me be clear, being able to fulfill multiple different roles depending on build such that the class doesn't have one clear role is totally fine [...]; it's not being able to fulfill any very well without insight into optimization concepts that makes a class suck.

I thought this was off-topic?  I guess it's all relative.

In any case, one of the great things about 3.X was that it had a fairly lenient difficulty curve.  You could have a reasonable chance of beating almost any on-level encounter, even if you were playing a non-specialized bard alongside a dragon shaman and a paladin.  Every class ability was designed to be competent enough baseline that you could spend a turn to heal, or to attack, or position to intercept in order to protect weaker party members.  If anything, the adoption of class roles - where one character could take all of the feats to enhance tanking, and one could do everything possible to enhance healing, and another one could focus on dealing as much damage as possible - was where 3.X really started to break down.

Back to the topic at hand, though, I'm saying that I want my non-specialized cleric to heal a reasonable amount, so that it's worth a turn to cast such a spell, but also deal reasonable enough damage that it's worth spending my action to attack, and I don't want it to require some crazy focused build (getting your save DC super high) in order to have a control ability that might actually work.

It's entirely possible to design a game where being a jack-of-all-trades really is a viable option.  It helps if you reduce the benefits of specialization.  Any sort of WYTAA that benefits from a feat or stat is potentially one that favors specialization over generalization.  As it stands, Healing Word (not an actual WYTAA, but very close) benefits greatly from being used by someone with the appropriate specialty, which I think is kind of lame.

Actually, extrapolating out a little bit, I could get behind WYTAA as a method to specifically encourage cross-role participation.  Jab, for instance, doesn't benefit from Strength or Dex to damage.  Being able to perform two actions on your turn, as long as they were unrelated (and you couldn't just stack them for additional effect) would be a huge boon to getting people to break out from the single-role mindset.  Of course, even then it would be much more straightforward if we just called them minor actions, (and acknowledge that moving was its own separate thing aside from your action, but that's another topic entirely).

Sep 21, 2012 -- 1:55AM, Lawolf wrote:

@Daganev: There was an archer warlord that could heal. Also that makes an expectation. What is the archer's role in this scenario? Healer (leader in 4e terminology).  The roles could have been presented better in 4e to show they are more guidelines for how to play than shackles, but that doesn't change the fact that there have been and always will be roles in D&D.

I currently see a big problem with the wizard, the sorcerer, and the warlock because of their lack of a defined roll. What do any of those classes really bring to the table. Spells is not a valid answer. I don't see enough differentiation between those classes. They seem too similar to me.

Fine, so pick some other class set up that you don't think could ever heal, the direct example doesn't matter.

The point is, that while players might have roles, it's entirely possible to build a system where nobody has any expectation for a particular character to play that role.  Further, you don't have to balance a party with roles either, as any character can function in any role at any given time.   

If that's what you wanted of course.  I don't think that is what D&D wants. WYTAA, thus allows for role and role expectations without removing the large range of action choices from a character/player.