![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerinYes, it's more random rambling about Dungeons and Dragons. I keep wanting to post reviews of the other books that have come out but I keep getting distracted by tangents about the new system, so I figure I'll just post a tangent and get it out of the way.
When the fourth edition core rulebooks came out, one of the things I was most suspicious and dismissive of was the assignment of "roles" to the character classes: defender, striker, leader, and controller.
First of all, since the modern descendants of each of the original core classes fits a different role, my first thought it was just a reworking of the AD&D category system but with the names changed to make it seem like the new classes weren't just reworkings of old themes.
Second of all, it just reminded me of how "video gamey" the new system seemed, especially since some of the roles shared names with character classes in City of Heroes... and the fact that a superhero game had desired combat role as the top-level category for character creation had always bugged me, so anything that reminded me of that did, too.
Third of all, by drilling characters down to their combat role, they seemed to be saying that this was all that mattered, and indeed the new system has way more detailed rules for combat than anything else. By labeling Rogues "strikers" and defining "striker" as a character who inflicts massive damage with precisely targeted attacks, they seemed to be saying "what makes a Rogue a Rogue is the ability to do lots of damage." Since one of my perennial complaints about D&D pre-3rd edition (and not completely gone then) was that the classes amounted to variations on "Fighter" and "Person Who Fights Using Magic", this seemed like a step backwards.
And finally, the name "leader" for Clerics bothered me. The rulebook stressed that a leader character wasn't necessarily the party's leader... so my reaction was "Why call it that, then?" I thought they should just call it a healer or buffer, since that's what Clerics were, obviously.
As I got to know the system better, though, I saw what they were doing. The fact that they had at least two examples of each role (except controller) in the core Player's Handbook helped me get past the third objection, because a Warlock, Ranger, and Rogue are all strikers, but they aren't remotely the same character.
The Warlock's curse and the Ranger's hunter's quarry abilities might seem like different flavors of the same mechanic (extra damage against designated targets), but the Warlock's version ties in much more deeply with the character's core concept and the two characters play way differently.
There are more superficial similarities between the Rogue and the Ranger, as both are martial characters, but sprinkled in with their special attacks Rogues do have abilities that let them use thiefy skills in flashy way in the midst of combat or high-pressure situations, whereas Ranger utility powers include things like being the typical know-it-all mentor type.
Realizing that helped me overcome the first objection. Even though Fighters are defenders, Rogues are strikers, Clerics are leaders, and Wiards are controllers, the role categories aren't just Wizards of the Coast creating genericized synonyms. Rogues are strikers, but not all strikers are Rogues. Under the old school categories, Warlocks would have gone with Wizards and Rangers with Fighters. Those old buckets are much closer to the new power source categories: Martial, Arcane, and Divine, among others. They define not what your character does so much as how your character does it.
I still spent a little time thinking that the old system of organization was better because it made so much more sense in-game... but of course, the of roles aren't an in-character concept. They're a tool the designers doubtlessly used to help balance each character class, to make sure each one was useful in a party, and they chose to present this information to players so we could see how different characters could work together.
But even as I came to embrace the role categories as a useful innovation, the "leader" one still irked me, which is sad, because it really is one of the masterstrokes of 4E.
Before, every party pretty much needed a Cleric because Clerics were the healers. There was no need to make Clerics cool because somebody would end up playing as one regardless. Some people liked Clerics, which worked out well for everybody... but even if nobody wanted to be Cleric, you had to have one (or some equivalent) in the party.
The original conception of the Cleric was a battle priest, which meant that when nobody needed healing or you were out of healing (and there was no undead to turn or you were out of that power) you could still hit things with your arbitrarily restricted mace in your role as The Fighter Who Isn't Quite As Good A Fighter As The Fighter.
4E weakened the importance of the Cleric's traditional main line by giving everybody the ability to heal by using a Second Wind once per encounter, and giving most front-line fighting types access to special abilities that heal some damage or give temporary extra HP or negate an attack/reduced damage. In doing so, they broke the chains that were shackling the concept of the Cleric, leaving them free to reinvent the class.
So, what else did Clerics gave going on besides healing? Mostly they "buffed"... i.e., cast protective and bonus-giving enchantments. They also had a smattering of attack spells, but they couldn't have too many... that was Wizard territory.
But in 4E, there's no more "cast twenty spells before going into combat and then try to win before they wear off or somebody dispels them." To keep things dramatic, most bonuses last for a single round or even a single action.
This doesn't mean there's no buffing... it just changes the nature of it. Instead of doing that one thing at the start of combat and then hanging around to heal as needed, a buffer has to decide what to do each turn... and with two At Will options and a repertoire of once-per-encounter and once-a-day selections, they have to coordinate what they're doing with what everybody else is doing.
And thus the "leader" is born. Each of the leader classes unveiled so far has an almost-identical special healing ability they can use twice per encounter, flavored for the particular character class, but they really are so much more than a healer.
We didn't have a leader in our party the first time we tried playing 4E because we didn't yet understand the role and we figured that with everybody being able to heal themselves a little, having a Paladin's healing ability was enough.
We didn't do so hot in combat.
Later on we made new characters to improve the party balance and I made a Warlord. I was thinking of the Warlord as "a fighter type", classing them with Warriors and Paladins and Rangers. I was thinking that this would boost our offense, which was what I figured was lacking. I soon realized that the Warlord's attack powers weren't actually all that devastating... but that the advantages using them conferred on my teammates made a lot of difference. Pretty soon we were building our combat strategies around the Warlord.
In each game since then, it's gone like that, though it's usually been a Cleric instead of a Warlord. I mentioned before, in a post about 3 Seas, how ridiculously awesome (and ridiculous and awesome) my Eladrin Swordmage character is. It's totally true... she is awesome, and she has pulled off some incredible moves in combat. But it's our party's Cleric who is the cornerstone of the party's combined combat efforts. Everybody else's actions hinge on which powers she uses.
The same thing happened in the game I DMed, with a different player playing a Cleric. I haven't yet played or DMed a game with either of the leaders from the second Player's Handbook, the Bard or the Shaman, but I'm dearly looking forward to a chance to play a Bard, as I recognized the potential for 4E to do the class justice the first time I played a Warlord. I went from thinking "why is there another warrior type?" to thinking "hey, this is basically a butched-up bard." In fact, considering that Bard had been a core class in 3rd Edition and seemed conspicuously absent from 4th Edition, I first wondered if they'd given up on the class, if the Warlord was what was left of the Bard with the new, more focused approach to character class design and the systemic focus on combat.
But no, they hadn't given up at all... and good thing, too, because as of 4E, the Bard has officially arrived. I said in a comment on an earlier approach that as far as I'm concerned, the Bard is a brand new class because no previous edition of D&D could have handled it. No longer a weak hybrid of Fighter/Magic User/Rogue with some lore and/or music-flavored abilities to remind you that it's supposed to be a Bard, the character is now Bardic through and through, inspiring allies and confounding and enraging enemies, supporting and upholding their side.
The power system... whereby each character class has a whole spellbook worth of unique abilities to choose from... means that everything a Bard does in combat is at least a uniquely bardic spell and is more than likely phrased as a song, satire, refrain, etc. The leader role gives a place in combat for somebody whose strength is making sure the other PCs are where they need to be, making sure they're protected, making sure they hit... a place for a character who makes the most of everybody else's abiliies, in other words.
The next character I play as... assuming it fits into the campaign and the party... is definitely going to be a Bard. Possibly a Human Bard, for the extra At Will power (that extra versatility is a great asset for a leader character) and the extra feat (as I'll probably be multiclassing to Wizard with the Arcane Initiate feat right away... being able to throw a thunderwave spell once per encounter is useful and fun), though Gnome is also an option. I really like the way Gnomes came out in this edition... not just another short race edged out by Halflings and Dwarves, but genuine wee folk.
When the fourth edition core rulebooks came out, one of the things I was most suspicious and dismissive of was the assignment of "roles" to the character classes: defender, striker, leader, and controller.
First of all, since the modern descendants of each of the original core classes fits a different role, my first thought it was just a reworking of the AD&D category system but with the names changed to make it seem like the new classes weren't just reworkings of old themes.
Second of all, it just reminded me of how "video gamey" the new system seemed, especially since some of the roles shared names with character classes in City of Heroes... and the fact that a superhero game had desired combat role as the top-level category for character creation had always bugged me, so anything that reminded me of that did, too.
Third of all, by drilling characters down to their combat role, they seemed to be saying that this was all that mattered, and indeed the new system has way more detailed rules for combat than anything else. By labeling Rogues "strikers" and defining "striker" as a character who inflicts massive damage with precisely targeted attacks, they seemed to be saying "what makes a Rogue a Rogue is the ability to do lots of damage." Since one of my perennial complaints about D&D pre-3rd edition (and not completely gone then) was that the classes amounted to variations on "Fighter" and "Person Who Fights Using Magic", this seemed like a step backwards.
And finally, the name "leader" for Clerics bothered me. The rulebook stressed that a leader character wasn't necessarily the party's leader... so my reaction was "Why call it that, then?" I thought they should just call it a healer or buffer, since that's what Clerics were, obviously.
As I got to know the system better, though, I saw what they were doing. The fact that they had at least two examples of each role (except controller) in the core Player's Handbook helped me get past the third objection, because a Warlock, Ranger, and Rogue are all strikers, but they aren't remotely the same character.
The Warlock's curse and the Ranger's hunter's quarry abilities might seem like different flavors of the same mechanic (extra damage against designated targets), but the Warlock's version ties in much more deeply with the character's core concept and the two characters play way differently.
There are more superficial similarities between the Rogue and the Ranger, as both are martial characters, but sprinkled in with their special attacks Rogues do have abilities that let them use thiefy skills in flashy way in the midst of combat or high-pressure situations, whereas Ranger utility powers include things like being the typical know-it-all mentor type.
Realizing that helped me overcome the first objection. Even though Fighters are defenders, Rogues are strikers, Clerics are leaders, and Wiards are controllers, the role categories aren't just Wizards of the Coast creating genericized synonyms. Rogues are strikers, but not all strikers are Rogues. Under the old school categories, Warlocks would have gone with Wizards and Rangers with Fighters. Those old buckets are much closer to the new power source categories: Martial, Arcane, and Divine, among others. They define not what your character does so much as how your character does it.
I still spent a little time thinking that the old system of organization was better because it made so much more sense in-game... but of course, the of roles aren't an in-character concept. They're a tool the designers doubtlessly used to help balance each character class, to make sure each one was useful in a party, and they chose to present this information to players so we could see how different characters could work together.
But even as I came to embrace the role categories as a useful innovation, the "leader" one still irked me, which is sad, because it really is one of the masterstrokes of 4E.
Before, every party pretty much needed a Cleric because Clerics were the healers. There was no need to make Clerics cool because somebody would end up playing as one regardless. Some people liked Clerics, which worked out well for everybody... but even if nobody wanted to be Cleric, you had to have one (or some equivalent) in the party.
The original conception of the Cleric was a battle priest, which meant that when nobody needed healing or you were out of healing (and there was no undead to turn or you were out of that power) you could still hit things with your arbitrarily restricted mace in your role as The Fighter Who Isn't Quite As Good A Fighter As The Fighter.
4E weakened the importance of the Cleric's traditional main line by giving everybody the ability to heal by using a Second Wind once per encounter, and giving most front-line fighting types access to special abilities that heal some damage or give temporary extra HP or negate an attack/reduced damage. In doing so, they broke the chains that were shackling the concept of the Cleric, leaving them free to reinvent the class.
So, what else did Clerics gave going on besides healing? Mostly they "buffed"... i.e., cast protective and bonus-giving enchantments. They also had a smattering of attack spells, but they couldn't have too many... that was Wizard territory.
But in 4E, there's no more "cast twenty spells before going into combat and then try to win before they wear off or somebody dispels them." To keep things dramatic, most bonuses last for a single round or even a single action.
This doesn't mean there's no buffing... it just changes the nature of it. Instead of doing that one thing at the start of combat and then hanging around to heal as needed, a buffer has to decide what to do each turn... and with two At Will options and a repertoire of once-per-encounter and once-a-day selections, they have to coordinate what they're doing with what everybody else is doing.
And thus the "leader" is born. Each of the leader classes unveiled so far has an almost-identical special healing ability they can use twice per encounter, flavored for the particular character class, but they really are so much more than a healer.
We didn't have a leader in our party the first time we tried playing 4E because we didn't yet understand the role and we figured that with everybody being able to heal themselves a little, having a Paladin's healing ability was enough.
We didn't do so hot in combat.
Later on we made new characters to improve the party balance and I made a Warlord. I was thinking of the Warlord as "a fighter type", classing them with Warriors and Paladins and Rangers. I was thinking that this would boost our offense, which was what I figured was lacking. I soon realized that the Warlord's attack powers weren't actually all that devastating... but that the advantages using them conferred on my teammates made a lot of difference. Pretty soon we were building our combat strategies around the Warlord.
In each game since then, it's gone like that, though it's usually been a Cleric instead of a Warlord. I mentioned before, in a post about 3 Seas, how ridiculously awesome (and ridiculous and awesome) my Eladrin Swordmage character is. It's totally true... she is awesome, and she has pulled off some incredible moves in combat. But it's our party's Cleric who is the cornerstone of the party's combined combat efforts. Everybody else's actions hinge on which powers she uses.
The same thing happened in the game I DMed, with a different player playing a Cleric. I haven't yet played or DMed a game with either of the leaders from the second Player's Handbook, the Bard or the Shaman, but I'm dearly looking forward to a chance to play a Bard, as I recognized the potential for 4E to do the class justice the first time I played a Warlord. I went from thinking "why is there another warrior type?" to thinking "hey, this is basically a butched-up bard." In fact, considering that Bard had been a core class in 3rd Edition and seemed conspicuously absent from 4th Edition, I first wondered if they'd given up on the class, if the Warlord was what was left of the Bard with the new, more focused approach to character class design and the systemic focus on combat.
But no, they hadn't given up at all... and good thing, too, because as of 4E, the Bard has officially arrived. I said in a comment on an earlier approach that as far as I'm concerned, the Bard is a brand new class because no previous edition of D&D could have handled it. No longer a weak hybrid of Fighter/Magic User/Rogue with some lore and/or music-flavored abilities to remind you that it's supposed to be a Bard, the character is now Bardic through and through, inspiring allies and confounding and enraging enemies, supporting and upholding their side.
The power system... whereby each character class has a whole spellbook worth of unique abilities to choose from... means that everything a Bard does in combat is at least a uniquely bardic spell and is more than likely phrased as a song, satire, refrain, etc. The leader role gives a place in combat for somebody whose strength is making sure the other PCs are where they need to be, making sure they're protected, making sure they hit... a place for a character who makes the most of everybody else's abiliies, in other words.
The next character I play as... assuming it fits into the campaign and the party... is definitely going to be a Bard. Possibly a Human Bard, for the extra At Will power (that extra versatility is a great asset for a leader character) and the extra feat (as I'll probably be multiclassing to Wizard with the Arcane Initiate feat right away... being able to throw a thunderwave spell once per encounter is useful and fun), though Gnome is also an option. I really like the way Gnomes came out in this edition... not just another short race edged out by Halflings and Dwarves, but genuine wee folk.