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GoatBoy
2010-08-27, 07:57 PM
This is a pretty basic and broad subject, so the first thing I will do is apologize if there's been a trillion topics on the subject already.

I refer to the idea of the "tank, caster, expert, healer" party. I know the game's dynamic has changed and it certainly isn't necessary (or even optimal) to devote oneself to a single role. A rogue's UMD can work as a healer, clerics probably make better tanks than fighters, and if a wizard can't fill the role then he can summon something that can.

But in a contemporary party, do any of the roles simply lift right out? That is, there's no need to worry whether the party even has a tank/caster/whatever? Or are there roles that need to be filled despite not being part of the traditional "party"?

Temotei
2010-08-27, 08:02 PM
It depends on the campaign/DM. Since D&D is a tailored game, you can play with anything in the party (three druids and a ranger, two sorcerers and two clerics, etc.) and have just as much fun as with a "rounded party" (fighter, rogue, wizard, cleric).

Snake-Aes
2010-08-27, 08:04 PM
The core is still there. You still want a caster, an expert, some form of healing and someone who can take the brunt of the enemy's damage.

(casters can perform all of those at once so please stop pointing out that because it's not going to add to the discussion).

Since there are so many different mechanics and classes, who actually fills those changes a lot. A beguiler can be the caster and the party face, while the crusader minors in healing and majors in asskicking, and then you suddenly have everything covered on a moderate-to-reasonable level.

Drakevarg
2010-08-27, 08:09 PM
Personally, I always create my character seperate from the rest of the party, and as such party role is never taken into account. Works out that way when I'm in the DMing chair, also.

Party I'm Playing In:
Gnoll (With no class levels.)
Fighter
Ranger
Sorceror
Sorceror
(Used to have a cleric, but he was booted.)

Party I'm DMing:
Rogue
Samurai
Hexblade
Swashbuckler
(Used to have a ranger, but she quit.)

Soren Hero
2010-08-27, 08:30 PM
you briefly touched on why party roles can be suboptimal when you mentioned different classes filling in nontraditional roles...the complete answer is the Tier system...a Tier 1 character class can fill many different party roles even better than classes designed to do that one thing really well...to expand your example, a wizard can summon monsters that are better melee combatants than the party fighter, a wizard has spells that makes it a better skill monkey than a rogue, a wizard has better options for stealth and reconnaissance, etc...some other Tier 1 classes include the druid, cleric, archivist and artificer...an explanation of tiers is available here (http://www.sfuarc.com/forums/gaming/dd_35e_class_tiers)..however a problem these classes run into is the action economy...these casters can only do so much at one time, and their resources are finite...it is actually more optimal to have each role covered by one of the players with other characters providing overlap...a druid has their animal companion and wizards/clerics have their summons, all three of which are as good if not better at melee than any fighter and provide great front line support to help the tank out...but the Tier 1 classes' resources can be better used elsewhere, mostly in the areas that other classes don't have access to, such as buffing, debuffing, battlefield control, etc...

so to answer your question, its yes and no...the system is "outdated" because some roles can filled by non-traditional classes in much more efficient and powerful ways...it is always a good idea to have all your bases covered, but if they aren't, thats ok, as long as your DM takes that into their calculations and tailors the campaign around the strengths of the players...it can be difficult for a party full of fighters to take on certain challenges, such as a Tarrasque or Balor, but a party of fighters might make an excellent squadron in a low magic, war setting...The last campaign I DMed went five sessions without any healing...it was difficult, especially when my players made stupid decisions

Temotei
2010-08-27, 08:31 PM
The core is still there. You still want a caster, an expert, some form of healing and someone who can take the brunt of the enemy's damage.

(casters can perform all of those at once so please stop pointing out that because it's not going to add to the discussion).

Since there are so many different mechanics and classes, who actually fills those changes a lot. A beguiler can be the caster and the party face, while the crusader minors in healing and majors in asskicking, and then you suddenly have everything covered on a moderate-to-reasonable level.

Still, while you may want those things, you don't necessarily need them (unless you're going with adventures from Wizards of the Coast, and even then, you could probably get by without a tank or healer).

So, no, the party role isn't outdated, per se, but less prominent, perhaps, simply because so many classes are out there, and there are a ton of prestige classes, feats, skills, items, and other options allowing customization to a "character" level.

The Glyphstone
2010-08-27, 09:26 PM
The "tank/caster/healer/skillmonkey" dynamic may be out-dated - mainly because casters can be tanks, healers, or skillmonkeys as well - but having defined roles probably isn't. The way I tend to view it, I name the necessary roles as:

Beatstick - the ability to lay down the hurt on things in combat.
Problem Solver - the ability to deal with things outside of combat (sometimes, I split this into two sub-roles, the 'Finger' and the 'Face' for social interactions versus non-social interactions)
Guardian - the ability to mitigate or reduce threats to party members.
Healer - the ability to undo or reverse damage done to party members.

A "tank' - or as I call it, a Guardian, can be a chain-tripper or area denial melee combatant, but it can also be a summoner wizard or battlefield control caster. As long as they can perform the role, they're good. A Problem Solver handles things that can't be punched in the face, whether that's a trap, a locked door, or an obnoxious city guard/obstructive bureaucrat. The Beastick and Healer are self-explanatory.

The more roles a single character can perform, the better, because it adds both redundancy and combined support, as well as potentially freeing up a party slot for another role. The changed terminology is because 'tank' is generally associated with 'guy in heavy armor who gets in the way', when that's only one of the multiple ways to be a Guardian; a Problem Solver can do his thing with skills or magic, or both. Naturally, this highlights the problem with full casters, because they frequently can fulfill the roles of two or more slots at once. Items like Healing Belts let anyone be a Healer, so they're excellent.

Noneoyabizzness
2010-08-27, 09:33 PM
since most times been either in or running a 3 man group party roles rarely became a factor

The Glyphstone
2010-08-27, 09:37 PM
since most times been either in or running a 3 man group party roles rarely became a factor

What three characters do you usually have/play? Having people capable of covering multiple roles does become more important in smaller groups like this - you can't have one person for each job, but since the jobs still need to be covered, hybrids and multiple-threat classes become increasingly valuable.

Noneoyabizzness
2010-08-27, 10:05 PM
oh there have been three melee multiple casters, most balanced was the bard, warmage, and cleric combo.

survival means using your brains were party composition doesnt always work

The Glyphstone
2010-08-27, 10:09 PM
That is a good point to consider - when you simply have to go without one of the roles, playing smart becomes not a good idea, but an essential one.

In the case you listed, you've got (to toot my own horn) Beatstick, Healer, and Problem Solver covered. Unless the cleric goes 'Zilla, you have no Guardian, so you'd probably be a lot more likely to try and set up ambushes, use the Face to end encounters via diplomacy, or flee from fights you're getting outmatched in.

If you're in, say, a party of three Barbarians, you're definitely going to need some unconventional thinking, but then you're probably working with the DM for special circumstances at that point.

Crow
2010-08-27, 10:38 PM
I think I might look at things a little differently here. While I think the roles exist, I think it's not necessary to have classes specialize in them, and further, to prevent other classes from being able to fill "other than intended" roles.

In my experience with specialized parties, one unlucky break can eliminate an entire role from your party. Then you're boned.

The best parties our group has had have been filled with characters that were good at what they did, but not exceedingly so, because they had dabbled in other fields enough to become at least competent in them.

But, onto the roles as I see them;

I don't like the idea of a "tank". It pretty much screams MMO at me. Neither do I like "DPS". In my mind, if you're there to dish damage, you better be able to soak some as well, so I have;

The brawler.

If you have skills that the group needs, then you fall under;

The skills.

If you're a primary spellcaster of any sort, you are;

The caster.

I don't have a healer role, and really, I don't think it's necessary. Also, if you fall into any of the above roles, you should be able to at least minor in one of the other roles. Some classes get the shaft when it comes to trying to minor in something else, but however your group is composed, if you have the three roles above somehow, you're covered.

Ravens_cry
2010-08-27, 10:42 PM
It certainly helps, especially in modules that expect you to have certain spells or abilities at certain levels. But necessary? Not really. I have been in some pretty unconventional groups and we seem to muddle our way through in the end.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-27, 10:46 PM
This is a pretty basic and broad subject, so the first thing I will do is apologize if there's been a trillion topics on the subject already.

I refer to the idea of the "tank, caster, expert, healer" party. I know the game's dynamic has changed and it certainly isn't necessary (or even optimal) to devote oneself to a single role. A rogue's UMD can work as a healer, clerics probably make better tanks than fighters, and if a wizard can't fill the role then he can summon something that can.

But in a contemporary party, do any of the roles simply lift right out? That is, there's no need to worry whether the party even has a tank/caster/whatever? Or are there roles that need to be filled despite not being part of the traditional "party"?

Depends on system. For instance, 4e openly embraces the roles, and encourages a party with diverse roles. So, probably not so much there.

In 3.5, roles are very mutable, and be filled in a wild variety of ways. You have the traditional options, sure, but you can use creativity to find nearly endless combinations of quite functional parties, including all from the same character class, if you're so inclined.

Greenish
2010-08-27, 11:07 PM
I don't like the idea of a "tank". It pretty much screams MMO at me. Neither do I like "DPS". In my mind, if you're there to dish damage, you better be able to soak some as well, so I have;

The brawler.I do believe in MMOs that's called "a scrapper". :smallamused:

Leon
2010-08-27, 11:42 PM
But in a contemporary party, do any of the roles simply lift right out? That is, there's no need to worry whether the party even has a tank/caster/whatever? Or are there roles that need to be filled despite not being part of the traditional "party"?

The roles exist but if you have a fair DM and a sensible group then there should not a requirement to have those roles explicitly filled out.

The current group i play with has the following Classes and i'll approximate what we generally do with them.

Archivist/Barbarian - Tank/Heals/Support (When the **** hits the fan Rage helps out a lot)
Monk - Tank/Recon
Fighter - Damage
Bard - Heals/Support
Generalist Wizard - being a pest (new PC hasn't done much of worth so far except irritate the rest of us)
Evocation Wizard - Serious AoE Firepower/Crafting/Support

Tank in case here being a loose role given that unlike a MMO tank we have no way to force things to attack - just have high ACs


Some Classes are kinda fixed on what they can do and others are more flexible

High level game 3 PCs (mostly occasionally had a 4th)
Generalist Wizard
Ranger
Paladin/Holy Liberator/Cleric
Fighter/Rogue (the occasional 4th)

We got by without a dedicated Healer (Wizard used Limited Wish if really needed and pally had a few spells) through mostly item use and careful fighting, traps were a bit trickier but brute force and heals generally won through.

Ive been in games and had people be in my games have asked do you have X role filled and have told/been told that no but don't fill it if you want to play something else as the game is flexible and you can adapt to suit different ways to play.

oxybe
2010-08-27, 11:52 PM
the main reason roles exist is to allow the group access to a wider range of abilities so they can handle a wider range of problems.

this isn't just a class-based game thing, but something i see in pretty much any system, from GURPS to WoD. we played a short mini-campaign of Mage a while back and everyone had different abilities: i did research & acted as artillery of sorts, my roommate was the face & crowd control and the third, a friend of ours, was a tank of sorts and had "nimble" fingers.

the whole "role" thing is based off the wargames D&D originates from: your infantry, your artillery, your medics/supply units. an army without any artillery or medical/supply units can find itself picked off from afar or slowly whittled to death.

in a game of D&D, a group without any sort of ranged support can quickly find itself at a disadvantage should they face enemies attacking from a higher vantage point or even flying. on the flipside a group without access to "face" skills means they will have a much harder time in negotiations or information gathering.

also by spreading out the spread of abilities it helps stop the "stepping on each other's toes" thing. if you have a party full of TWF rogues and they're all the lockpick/disable device kind it's hard to stand out and find your niche in the group (though having one "main" and one "backup" at any given task is never a bad thing).

the lack of these skills also means the GM is limited in what he can throw at the party and expect them to succeed without resorting to an NPC/DMPC coming along and filling that role, especially if he's tailoring the encounters to the group's abilities.

can you play/run a game without defined "roles"? yes, but people IMO, tend to gravitate to some sort of specializations and create roles between themselves whether they are clearly spelled out or not.

a_humble_lich
2010-08-28, 02:41 AM
I agree with Crow; overspecialization can be a big danger. Characters can (and should) have specialties that they are good at. However, if a character can only do one thing that be dangerous for the party (it sucks when the party's only healer dies).

Also, IMHO overspecialized characters can be less fun to play. Overspecialized character often miss out on parts of an adventure that does not need their speciality. The best example is deckers in the old Shadowrun rules. A good decker would kick ass in the matrix, but generally suck in the real world. So he/she would be bored for most of the adventure, then have a solo adventure in the matrix when everyone else takes a smoke break.

BobSutan
2010-08-28, 07:47 AM
This is a pretty basic and broad subject, so the first thing I will do is apologize if there's been a trillion topics on the subject already.

I refer to the idea of the "tank, caster, expert, healer" party. I know the game's dynamic has changed and it certainly isn't necessary (or even optimal) to devote oneself to a single role. A rogue's UMD can work as a healer, clerics probably make better tanks than fighters, and if a wizard can't fill the role then he can summon something that can.

But in a contemporary party, do any of the roles simply lift right out? That is, there's no need to worry whether the party even has a tank/caster/whatever? Or are there roles that need to be filled despite not being part of the traditional "party"?

Tyndmyr already wrote about this in the thread, but what's on his blog was good as well.

potatocubed
2010-08-28, 07:54 AM
the main reason roles exist is to allow the group access to a wider range of abilities so they can handle a wider range of problems.

It's also because every player wants to be good at their particular 'thing'. It's a lot easier to keep the spotlight time evenly distributed when everybody has their schtick that only they can do, or that they can do better than everyone else. The 'role' setup just codifies this for ease of use.

aje8
2010-08-29, 12:03 PM
Roles are mostly loose or non-existant in 3.5 In fact, you can cover some with gold alone, no need to devote a party member to it.

Here's why:

Healer: Have each party member buy a healing belt. Congrats, you just covored a 'role' for less then 1,000 gp each. Seriously, healer is for sure not a real role.

Beastick/Tank/Whatever: While I admit you need someone to enter melee combat and kill things, that someone can be a Riding Dog you purchase (Later upgrade to a heavy warhorse), the Druid's companion, summons.

Skills: Honestly, the only portion of skills that needs to be covered is trapfinding. Getting by without a face is not hard. Trapfinding can even be avoided if you simply don't go into dungeon crawls. Of course, depending on the nature of the DM's game, you may be forced to enter a trapped dungeon to save the world. If this is the case, then you do need trapfinding. However, it's very easy for any class with trapfinding to cover this role on the side. Also, a class that can summon repeaedly can cover trapfinding the old-fashioned way, Celestial Monkey summons. Seriously, a Wizard, Cleric or Druid with spare low level spell slots can easily cover this on the side.

Arcane Caster: Yeah this is the role I think is actually a major blow to the party. Not only because of his in combat options, (how else do you deal with something invisible?) but because being unable to fly and teleport and suggestion people ect. limits you out of combat options considerably. Divine Casters may be able to cover this if they take appropiate domains, or in the case of archivist, get spells from obsurce sources. However, for the most part I think this role is crucial.

So of the three real roles, Cleric can cover 2 and a half, Archvist can cover 2 and a half, Druid can cover 2, and Wizard can cover all of them.

That's why they're Tier 1 and broken I guess.

Morph Bark
2010-08-29, 03:09 PM
If you define the party roles more basically as "someone who makes sure we don't get hit by standing in the way", "someone who prevents us from dying and suffering nasty things by healing us up", "someone who gets the tricky tasks done" and "someone who can handle magic things", then they can all be easily covered by as much as 1 PC with the right build.

I won't call it outdated, a "party role" is simply what those part of the party assign themselves as part of a group that works together.

Lord_Gareth
2010-08-29, 03:16 PM
Party I'm DMing:
Rogue
Samurai
Hexblade
Swashbuckler
(Used to have a ranger, but she quit.)

...Sorry to stray off-topic a bit, but when this party dies a horrific death, please post what happened. I'm certain it'll be fascinating.

Drakevarg
2010-08-29, 04:41 PM
...Sorry to stray off-topic a bit, but when this party dies a horrific death, please post what happened. I'm certain it'll be fascinating.

The best part is that it's a heavily undead-themed campaign. (Not that I told them the slightest thing about the plot until after their characters were rolled.)

Oh, and the Hexblade is slightly insane. Not "socipathic pyro" insane, "thinks inanimate objects are whispering obscenities at him" insane.

RebelRogue
2010-08-29, 04:56 PM
It's true that character roles got blurred in 3.5, but let's face it: that was because of bad balancing/game design. Well, maybe not bad as such, so much as the fact that the classes turned out to work in ways the designers didn't really foresee. In fact, most agree that the 'best' 3.5 party consists of casters filling the traditional roles. Some may find this a fun way to play the game (and there's nothing wrong with that of course).

To me, however, as an "old schooler" of sorts, that just feels wrong on some level - characters should have a niche to fill, and the iconic classes should be the best (or at least competent) at filling them (that does not mean that there shouldn't be wiggle room within these categories). And that's why, in retrospect 3.5 - as much fun as I've had with it - feels the least D&D of the editions I've played. Needless to say, I think 4e went in the right direction there. This is of course very subjective - others have grown up on 3rd edition and may think of these quirks as 'a basic premise of D&D', and again there's nothing wrong with that, it's just weird to me. A question of feel, basically.

tl;dr: I want the character classes to be, maybe not exactly what it says on the tin. But the main ingredients should be in there.

WarKitty
2010-08-29, 05:19 PM
I kind of like it where any class has the option of filling most any role - but no class can fill every role at once. Like, PF druid. I can up my physical stats to be a wild shape beast - but I have to sacrifice much of my spellcasting ability. Or I can be the healer, at the cost of having battlefield control.

What I really hate is the way the rogue is the only class that can handle trapfinding well. It just seems so jarring that no one else can even try to learn it.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-29, 05:26 PM
It's true that character roles got blurred in 3.5, but let's face it: that was because of bad balancing/game design. Well, maybe not bad as such, so much as the fact that the classes turned out to work in ways the designers didn't really foresee. In fact, most agree that the 'best' 3.5 party consists of casters filling the traditional roles. Some may find this a fun way to play the game (and there's nothing wrong with that of course).

While that is a fun way to play, I find that having someone with actual hp and ac is much handier than optimizers give credit for, especially at low levels. Sure, you CAN summon replacements, but they tend to be less effective than a decently built tank would be.

So, I certainly wouldn't advise against melee entirely. There are some things they do very well, and if someone likes the style of them, they can certainly contribute. I view the lack of distinct class roles as enabling. Most party members will specialize in something anyway, but this gives them a great deal more freedom in how they do so, without constraining anyone to do something specific. I'm glad to get away from "well, we need SOMEONE to be the cleric/healbot" mentality.