Does the "holy trinity" of roles apply in D&D 5e?

[Armok]

This is a topic I've been thinking on for a while now. As far as I'm aware, the "holy trinity" of party composition originally came from video game terms, specifically MMOs. Tanks have a lot of defense and soak up the damage, DPS is an acronym for their job of dealing the most possible damage per second, and the Healer keeps the group hale and hardy.

But does this terminology really apply to D&D in its current iteration? The terms get thrown around so much that I'm honestly not sure anymore. For the longest time I've been in the camp that they don't... after all, a fighter can be just about anything from a lightly armored archer to a platemail powerhouse. Clerics can be just as armored and right up in the action as any martial class, and nothing's stopping a wizard from focusing entirely on weird utility spells and only dealing damage if it's absolutely necessary. (Heck, it's my preferred way to play them!)

As far as I've seen, no class is locked into any role, yet the terms keep popping up in conversation at the table or online. So am I wrong? Do they have a place in D&D? Should parties cover these roles to be successful, or are people just bringing terms they're familiar with into a game whose structure doesn't require them?

[Toadkiller]

Well, there are as many answers as there are games. It all depends on what people want to play. I'm setting a campaign where combat is going to be a sideline, for example.

[Millstone85]

4e called them Defender, Striker and Leader.
It is clear that 5e has moved away from that.
But how much, I am not sure.

[JumboWheat01]

D&D is based more around a "holy quartet." Warrior, healer, spell caster, thief.

Though now-a-days, you can pretty much do what you want, fit in multiple niches, and get away with it quite nicely. Want your warrior to be a War Cleric? Can do. Your thief a Paladin with training in thief skills and tools? Can do.

While it's not set in concrete, classes do in a way have certain roles, and I'm gonna get yet at for bringing this up, but their terminology is different.

Defenders - Your "tank" classes, designed to keep people alive. This is actually a pretty hard niche to fill, as unlike MMOs, there are no real dedicated taunting skills to force enemies to fight you. Think Fighter and Paladin here.

Strikers - Your "DPS" classes, designed to obliterate things as quickly as possible, whether through martial, arcane or divine power. Think Warlock and Barbarian here.

Leaders - Your "healer" classes, designed to keep others fighting, or improve their fighting skills. Think Bard and Cleric here.

Controllers - Another "DPS" class set, though more about dealing with multiple enemies, either with massive AoE attacks or heavy control powers. Think Sorcerers and Wizards here.

Faces - An out-of-combat role, generally used to deal with NPCs and the like. Bards and Rogues are generally pretty obvious Faces.

Again, nothing's concrete. You could totally make a Barbarian into a Defender, and he'd rock at it. Clerics could be tuned more to Controller, or Striker, depending on your choices. Really, it's an open-ended system. While it never hurts to have a front-line fighter, a healer, a dpser and a skill user, you can build however you want, and often succeed.

[Gryndle]

the classes are much less locked into those roles in 5E. certain classes still lean towards a specific role but are versatile enough to break out of it with minimal effort.

[Millstone85]

Controllers - Another "DPS" class set, though more about dealing with multiple enemies, either with massive AoE attacks or heavy control powers. Think Sorcerers and Wizards here.Yeah, that was the fourth and last term used by the previous edition.


Faces - An out-of-combat role, generally used to deal with NPCs and the like. Bards and Rogues are generally pretty obvious Faces.I have seen this described as a form of the more general "skill monkey".

I would say an alternative trinity of D&D is that of skills, weapons and magic. It is not just about the thief, warrior and mage who specialise in them, or the bard who dabbles in them all, but the system itself. Many discussions are about how they don't all shine as brightly.

[MBControl]

I think the theory, if not the term is practice is. The nice thing about D&D 5e, is the flexibility of the classes, allows players to adapt favorite class types to suit the different archetypes.

[MeeposFire]

Yea D&D traditionally for a long time has essentially four main roles and 4 classes (or groups of classes) that filled them for much of its time (oddly not right at the start but not too long after and these 4 types are the ones most know today).

The four roles in basic terms was a warrior (most needed in melee generally), a caster that can do AOE damage/control/special effects/probably all of the above, a healer, and a specialist (many times called a skill monkey). The classes most associated with these roles were fighter, magic user, cleric, and thief.

Of those the thief was the last one added. Before the skills that the specialist brought to the table were done by everybody else but with little mechanical backing. After the thief many things like searching for traps were mostly if not wholly done by the thief

As time went on other classes were added to each role.

In 3e these roles technically still existed (in fact the designers thought that they did and balanced the game around those expectations) but they became a lot more diffuse. Wizards and clerics now had the tools in easy abundance that they could do most of the jobs that used to be done by warriors and specialists. The easy multiclassing rules (and prestige classes) and the lack of anything interesting at higher levels in core classes as class features meant that class concepts broke down considerably. Healing could be easily done by wands and the like (in fact this was more efficient) so needing an actual healing class to heal was no longer required either.

In 4e they made a big push to make class concepts being more important again and one way of doing that was to make sure that each class had a job that it could do really well. They changed the name of each of the jobs to broaden their ability to apply though if you look you can see that for the most part that they are the same with a different name.

Defenders are like the old melee warriors with abilities geared to make them hard to ignore. Leaders were like the old healers but put a lot of emphasis on not just healing but also buffing and positioning. One big change that made leader classes a lot more fun than in previous editions was that many abilities were tied to the minor action (sort of like the bonus action in 5e) so that the cleric could heal somebody and smack an orc in the head with a mace whereas before the cleric often had to choose and in many groups people did not like playing the cleric due to fears that they would only be the heal bot. Controllers tended to have attacks that had AOE and what was called hard and soft control effects tied to them. Strikers were the big change. The specialists original idea of being the skill monkey was given back to all the classes (though many strikers did have good skill access this was more done on a per class basis rather than as part of the role) and instead the emphasized how the iconic specialist class from before the thief/rogue had access to excellent damage in certain situations and made the idea behind the striker. Each striker had the ability to get bonus damage with criteria that had to be met depending on the class, some of which were easier than others.

At the start of 4e they only listed one role for each class but as the game progressed they found that while each class had a primary role each class could also partly fill other roles as well in addition to the original role. A fighter was an excellent defender but it was also highly damaging and was thus thought of as a secondary striker type class.

4e books recommended having one of each in a group of 4 but in reality any combo could work but you will find that while your party could be better in some ways (a group of 4 strikers will hit hard and put enemies down fast) it is also very vulnerable and not always able to cope with every situation (strikers are often not tough and cannot heal well on their own in a fight so if things go belly up they have little ways of doing anything about it outside of kill things quickly).

5e still has roles for classes though they are not very up front with them and in many ways they still fit with the original roles from back in older D&D and AD&D (which 4e roles are mostly based on too). Now the roles are more like tough melee class defender/warrior, controller, healer, and specialist/striker.

Many classes can fill different roles though many have certain roles that they fill best or easily. No role is absolutely required though just like in 4e and pre 3e not having a role filled can leave you vulnerable.

[Foxhound438]

the traditional roles aren't pushed nearly as hard in d&d as they are in a lot of MMO's, but they do still exist at the core. Moreover, I think that one character in d&d can fulfill multiple roles in a party, to varying degrees

For example, a cleric is generally going to have some degree of support, some degree of damage, and some degree of tanking. The exact split is up to the build.

[Sception]

I liked the idea behind 4e's role concept. Combat tends to be the most mechanically emphasized portion of your typical D&D campaign, that the idea was to make sure everyone had something meaningful to contribute, and that the party as a whole had to rely on each other - nobody could go it alone. The party would fall without the defender to pull damage away from more fragile members, the defender would fall without the leader to keep them up (and since the amount of healing was dependent on who was getting healed as much as who was dealing the healing, that emphasized that the defender should be the one getting hit & healed), the leader would run out of juice without the striker's damage to end the fight, and the whole party would get overrun without the controller to thin mooks and divide the fight into manageable chunks.

Unfortunately, like so much of 4th edition, the implementation didn't live up to the idea. In practice, the ability of any given class within a given role, and even given characters within the same class, varied far too widely, especially for strikers, many of whom were utterly eclipsed in their primary job by the more damaging classes among other roles. The controller role seemed poorly defined and understood even by the designers themselves. Was it an AoE striker? Save or lose? Some "controllers" hardly seemed to be able to do anything at all. Some mechanics that were meant to perform one role were easily coopted to over-perform in another. And just the overwhelming glut of content made the whole affair a system mastery nightmare, as familiarity with esoteric dragon content (or adherence to net builds), could mean wild effectiveness swings, especially for parties that were willing to coordinate build choices.


I have a hard time calling that a weakness of the system. I mean, no the Radiant Mafia really shouldn't have existed, at least not in as powerful a form as it was, but I have never played in a party that was such a well oiled machine, all the characters complimenting each others choices, and complimenting each other in game, as their features blended together to curb stop scenarios many levels above their own, and this from a player group usually ridden with backstabbing and in fighting. Heck, the decision to put everyone on the same resource management schedule, as much as it was derided for making every class feel the same (which, honestly, it really didn't in practice) also contributed to the party getting along and working together instead of at cross purposes.


In 5e, it's been back to the usual motly crew of characters with comparatively little synergy between them, each mostly designed to do their own thing and exist in their own head-space, all inevitably clashing with each other over their wildly different approaches and philosophies. "Is that a Balor guarding the entrence?" "I need a short rest NOW!" "Ooh, can we make it a long rest?" "No, we just rested, and the Balor is RIGHT THERE!" "Can we sneak past it?" "No, the paladin's too loud" "SNEAKING IS FOR COWARDS, ANYWAY! THE HONORABLE THING TO DO IS BATTLE THIS FIEND!" "How about you guys wait here then and do nothing while me and the monk have our own mini adventure for forty minutes" "forget that, I just cast banishment" "it fails its save, encounter over." "Aw, I actually had a plan to fight that thing" etc etc.

I mean, team building for cooperative strategies can be done in 5e, I'm not saying it can't. It's just that, because it isn't explicit in the ruleset, in my experience it mostly just isn't.



Not that I'm saying I liked 4e more, the overall feel of 5e and the balance of the classes is a lot better. Certainly nobody is so overtly ineffective as the Assassin or the Vampire or the Sentinel, even if the elemental monk does try sometimes. And all the condition tracking and end-of-turn saving of 4e, ugh combat turns were tedious.

I'm just saying, the idea behind explicit party roles wasn't necessarily a bad one, imo.

[Vogonjeltz]

This is a topic I've been thinking on for a while now. As far as I'm aware, the "holy trinity" of party composition originally came from video game terms, specifically MMOs. Tanks have a lot of defense and soak up the damage, DPS is an acronym for their job of dealing the most possible damage per second, and the Healer keeps the group hale and hardy.

But does this terminology really apply to D&D in its current iteration? The terms get thrown around so much that I'm honestly not sure anymore. For the longest time I've been in the camp that they don't... after all, a fighter can be just about anything from a lightly armored archer to a platemail powerhouse. Clerics can be just as armored and right up in the action as any martial class, and nothing's stopping a wizard from focusing entirely on weird utility spells and only dealing damage if it's absolutely necessary. (Heck, it's my preferred way to play them!)

As far as I've seen, no class is locked into any role, yet the terms keep popping up in conversation at the table or online. So am I wrong? Do they have a place in D&D? Should parties cover these roles to be successful, or are people just bringing terms they're familiar with into a game whose structure doesn't require them?

I mean, for D&D it's always been more along the lines of the 4 classic roles: Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, Rogue.

That being said, nobody absolutely requires a healer, it's just nice to have (same way it's nice to have a tank, blasters, or someone as utility)

[AugustNights]

I think TreantMonk captured it best when they described the four in combat roles and four out of combat roles in their ever popular guide to playing wizards in 3.5
I'm not terribly keen on TreantMonk's use of language, but they do capture the ideas at the very least.



Out of combat you have 4 roles:

Social ("The Fop"): This guy thinks he's the leader. Whatever - he does the talking well everyone else lets him.

Sneak ("The Corpse"): This guy sneaks ahead to scout the enemy's lair and finds and disarms traps for the group. Why do I call him the "Corpse"? - reread what he does again.

Healbot ("The Gimp"): Anyone who spends his character's resources for healing is clearly the party Gimp. That said - you want a party gimp. Preferably - not you. (though it can be done with Arcane Disciple)

Utility Caster ("Everything Else"): The party transporter, the party Diviner. One way or another - this is the casters' role - in other words - this is you.

That's it - everyone else is just taking up space. You should have all those bases covered - but let’s face it - D&D is primarily about combat. No matter which of the above your character is good at, if he can't contribute in a fight - your character is a liability to your party.

In combat there are also 4 roles - these are the roles that get filled:

The Big Stupid Fighter: This role involves two things: Doing HP damage to BBEG, forcing BBEG to attack you with his viscous weaponry. The Big Stupid Fighter is not always a fighter (though stereotypically he is). He may be a Barbarian, a Summoned Critter, or a Druid. In order to qualify as a Big Stupid Fighter he should be any character that actively tries to be the target of enemy attacks. For those who wonder why I would label this character as "stupid" regardless of their INT score - reread the previous sentence.

The Glass Cannon: This role involves one thing: Doing HP damage to BBEG. The Glass Cannon is like the Big Stupid Fighter except he does not want to take damage. Usually this is not due to superior intelligence - but instead due to inferior HP or AC (or in most cases - both). The Glass Cannon is often a Rogue (Or Rouge for our 13 year old readers), a Gish, an Archer, or a Blaster (the inferior wizard).

God: When reality would entail the above two meeting a rather messy end - someone will need to make some adjustments to said reality in order for the above two to instead meet glorious victory. What other label could such a force be labelled as than "God"? Well - how about "Primary Caster" One label or another - this guy needs to make Reality his Witch (replace the "W" in your head.) in order to do his job effectively.

The Waste of Space: This is the character of the player who thought a Bard/Monk/Sorcerer multiclass was an excellent idea - or who thought healing was a good "combat" role. This character just doesn't fill any of the above roles well enough to be anything but a liability to the group. You probably have had one in your group. Heck, you probably have one in your current group. Don't sweat it - as long as it isn't you.

* Why isn't the Healer useful in combat? Good question. There are two ways you can live your "pretend" life - reactively or proactively. God will alter reality to prevent damage, a healer will try to do "damage control" (pun intended) after the damage has been taken. Simple truth: The mechanics of the game make preventing damage more efficient then healing damage after the fact. That's not to say a well placed "Heal" or even "CLW" never has use in combat - but if you're doing your job - it should never be required as a primary role.

[Hawkstar]

5e's roles are Soldier(Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin), Arcane/Offensive Caster(Warlock, Sorcerer, Druid), Divine/Support Caster (Bard, Cleric, Druid), and Auxiliary (Ranger, Monk, Rogue)

[agnos]

In combat, most tabletop RPGs have four combat roles:
1. Tank--provide a frontline, protect the squishy characters, act as a damage/spell soak, etc. Basically the same as the MMO role. In 4e called a defender, but the 4e names were dumb.
2. DPS--Called a striker in 4e. Whether ranged or melee the idea is the same, to provide consistent damage to the important threat. Again, basically the same as the MMO role.
3. Healer--Called a leader in 4e. Same as the MMO role but with a minor twist. Healing in most tabletop RPGs can't keep pace with enemy damage output whereas in MMOs they are ideally only slightly below enemy damage output. Most RPGs use an out of combat healing system (wands in 3e, short/long rest in 5e, etc) to refill the HP pool. Instead a healer's role is to keep everyone above 0 HP so they get to take their actions. Generally, the healer (when not healing) is responsible for throwing out party buffs to protect the party or rebuffs to hamper the enemy.
4. Battlefield control--Called a controller in 4e. In MMOs, players have to "learn the fights" and have to move/react according to specific warnings of sorts. In tabletop RPGs, the battlefield control player's role is to create a favorable field of battle. They are responsible for using abilitys to negate long-range threats until players can base with and remove them; they're responsible for funneling enemy melee opponents into the tank and/or away from the squishies. In short, they're responsible for creating a battlefield so that the other three roles know how they're supposed to act and react. Secondarily, the battlefield control player is responsible for buffing the party, debuffing the enemy, and a modicum of DPS.

Another major difference between MMOs (in some regards) and tabletop RPGs is the existence of out of combat roles. Id argue that most MMOs guilds have a similar thing where they space out skills for obtaining resources or crafting items. E.G. In WoW you'll have a least one cloth worker, leather worker, gemsmith, armorsmith, cook, etc. in each guild to provide the basics buffs to stuff for fights. A party in an RPG often needs 5 roles:
1. The Face--Someone with in character, out of character and skill bonuses to talk to people. Whether haggling, lying, discerning truthfulness, persuading, finding rumors, etc. They need to be able to talk to people.
2. The Skill Monkey--Generally, this equates to being able to sneak to scout ahead, spot traps, disarm traps, track enemies, spot hiding things, unlock locks, etc. Just your basic B&E bounty hunter stuff.
3. The Bookworm--Knowledge is power. To be best prepared, having a party member know a lot about history, magic, items, law, noble lineage, proper etiquette, religion, lore, etc. really helps.
4. The Utility Guy--Whether by magic capability or gold an a lot of scrolls, you need someone to be able to enable everyone else. Detect Magic to find magic traps, Identify to figure out what items do, Teleport to globetrot quickly, Waterbreathing for that underwater adventure, Light for those schmucks who can't see in the dark, etc. Often in RPGs, there are niche spells that aren't worth having ready except for that one scenario; this guy is supposed to have it ready. He keeps the lights on and the power running.
5. The Jack of All Trades--Because the dice aren't always on your side, it's nice to have a backup. He's often not as great as the primary at anything, but quite often he'll cover your butt when something important gets missed.

The tricky thing about tabletop RPGs is that unlike MMOs, quite often the roles are blurry. In an MMO, a Tank's DPS and healing ability is often irrelevant. However, because there's often few to no real enforcement/taunt mechanic in RPGs, the tank needs to provide a credible threat (DPS) in order keep enemies stuck to him. In 3e that often meant Fighter wanted to trip/grapple opponents to prevent them from moving away and/or provide enough reach while doing lots of DPS to keep enemies off the hardcore DPS. So you can get a characters that fill a variety of roles; for example I have a Cleric that can Tank, DPS and heal with the best of them and a Druid that can Tank, Heal, and control the battlefield. Generally, the more roles both in an out of combat your character can fill, the more powerful the character is in RPGs. That said, for whatever reason, in RPGs people really love being glass cannons that put out insane damage numbers and hope that someone else keeps putting gas in the tank.