*Warning. this is a musing, not a well thought out post.*
There's been a bit of blog chatter about balance and 4e and what all this means to all of us. Jester had an interesting viewpoint on not wanting "balance", and Wrecan's response was much more tactile with definitions about party dynamics.
Further, Mike Mearls has been ruminating on the Cleric lately, and this has brought about a large amount of forum chatter about class roles and their relative measure of success and failure.
I've been thinking and here are a couple musings that I have come about with.
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Class roles are really expressed in 2 distinct forms (there may be others but this really accounts for 85% or so). Classes either have class features (like a defenders aura, a wralock's curse) that express it's intended role, or they have role influenced powers (similar to the Binder's power selection, the wizard's power selection, and even the Warlock's general power selection). Between these two sources a role is generated.
It is difficult to balance out these two methods of class role. Especially when multiclassing is used it can make certain high effect powers too potent with other class features. The opposite is also true (see the vampire class not being able to "strike" with it's multiclass feats).
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Now, for those unfamiliar, Iron heroes was an alternative take on the revised 3.5 rules. In it magic was basically not there, so all classes were martial by default. the class balance was re-done, allowing for the then underpowered martial classes to be competitive without magic items and support.
What was most interesting about this rule set is how classes were developed and presented based on how they accomplished the goal of combat. Since all combat (and by extension every encounter, combat and non) has the goal of "win" the idea that a class would be good at "winning" was a given. Instead the classes were designed to accomplish the goal in particular ways. The harrier gained all it's power by moving around, the executioner had a killer's eye and sought the flank in combat, pouring as much into a single attack. This was different from the thief that also had sneak attack but was focused more on hindering and deception than stealth and 1 hit kills. The armiger was there to draw fire, and gained power from having his armor absorb damage, while the berzerker gained power by taking damage. Basically while all classes were essentially strikers, they all played very differently because of how the powers keyed off various conditions. It was a fairly well balanced game because the variable of magic items was removed from the game. There was an element of predictablity that came from this, and this lead to much more even classes (though still not perfect by any means).
And it was designed basically entirely by Mike Mearls.
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So when we compare the weapon master, knight, and slayer an interesting similarity becomes apparent. The class features are what grant these classes their roles, and they are practically interchangable. For instance, the weapon master combat challange is essentially the same as the the defender's aura and both occupy the same conceptual design space as the slayers extra damage class feature.
So what if a class/subclass/what have you wasn't tied to a role? What if a weaponmaster could decide to have the striker role, by swapping the combat challange feature for striker damage? In this kind of way, how does a fighter play, regardless of it's role? is it distinct from other classes?
As more class archtypes are toyed with in this way (blackguard, binder, etc) I begin to wonder if that is some kind of some conceptual space they are heading into.
What if a ranger wasn't a ranger because of it's damage, but because of the way it moved around the battlefield and HOW its powers were triggered/activated. What if a Warlock was designed to opporate as a lurker, constantly moving and needing to strike from concealment to gain it's best advantage? In that way the powers could all have the trigger requiring the warlock to have concealment to gain the best advantage from them?
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What if for most all the class archtypes "role" the purpose of the class was to play uniquely at the table (or within a more unique framework) and the defense/control/healing/striker aspects were player choice, so you could be a healing, lurking warlock, a controlling choas sorcerer, a psion that could telekinetically hit for crippling damage, a cleric that played defense? That would unlock some of the most potent choices for players, the ability to dictate how they want to play AND what they're talent in combat will be.
In this way a class would be measurable on it's ability to function in terms of how it accomplishes it's job, and if that how is succesful, rather than comparing genitals to see whose striker is bigger.
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If you were wondering about the title of this blog, it's really a way of saying, "small thoughts in a large space" like a bicycle in an airplane hanger.
Also, I like Rob Schneider/happy madison films. 
