4th Edition DnD - Recommended Party Role for Beginners?

[Coidzor]

So, I've played some DnD 3.0 and 3.5 but never 4th edition before. I'm considering trying out with this RPGA affiliate(proper term?) in town where they run 4th edition.

So I'm basically asking to be sold on what roles make the most sense considering my background.

[Townopolis]

Striker. Specifically, Ranger.

A striker is the simplest role to play. You hit things. Hard. That's about it. A ranger is widely considered to be the simplest striker.

1. If you have access to the adventurer's vault, grab Superior Weapon Proficience: Greatbow
2. Take Twin Strike as one of your at-wills
3. Quarry the nearest non-minion
4. Twin Strike them to hell
5. Take additional feats, skills, and powers to taste. Greatbow+Twin Strike will keep you well in hand for the first few levels
6. As you become more experienced with the system you will be able to adjust your character to more and more complex tactics based on your own experience

Also, as you play your ranger, you will be able to observe everyone else. If you're really interested in a controller, watch the wizards and invokers. See what they do, what works, what doesn't, and what just looks really fun on paper. When the time is right, strike you can scrap your ranger and switch to your heart's desire with a strong grasp of the base mechanics and a good idea of what to do with your new character.

[Gralamin]

So, I've played some DnD 3.0 and 3.5 but never 4th edition before. I'm considering trying out with this RPGA affiliate(proper term?) in town where they run 4th edition.

So I'm basically asking to be sold on what roles make the most sense considering my background.

Controller is hardest. Striker is Easiest. Defender is easier then leader, in my opinion.

Striker is just "Deal damage."
Defender is just "Mark, mark, more mark"
Leader requires careful choice of the correct leader for the group.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Striker. Specifically, Ranger.

A striker is the simplest role to play. You hit things. Hard. That's about it. A ranger is widely considered to be the simplest striker.

+2 to this, playing a striker is easy, you can always contribute to the party ( IME many strikers can also double as skill monkeys rogue, assassin and ranger for example) and fun to play.

[Vitruviansquid]

Rangers are easy, but kind of boring.

I find the Fighter both very fun and full of the right mix of simplicity and complexity. Frankly, if you're already familiar with DnD, I don't see you having much difficulty learning 4e. I say just grab the class that seems to resemble what you liked most in 3.5 and go from there.

... Okay, maybe don't play controllers because you need to know what you're doing for them.

[Kaun]

Yeah + 1 to ranger if your looking for a class that is hard to get wrong.

But in all fairnes it is a lot harder to gimp your self in 4e as it was in 3 and 3.5.

[Reluctance]

What sort of characters do you most enjoy in 3.x? Strikers are the easiest role, but that's not to say defenders or leaders are hard.

[Swordgleam]

Strikers are great for new players, but I recommend against playing a Sorcerer as a new person. Just because their tendency to cause friendly fire on fumbles is a great way to get off on the wrong foot with a new group. Aside from that, they're a ton of fun to play.

[Coidzor]

What sort of characters do you most enjoy in 3.x? Strikers are the easiest role, but that's not to say defenders or leaders are hard.

So far I've mostly played low level clerics (1-4) and a lock-down tripper/skillmonkey at middish-levels (4-10).

So I'm guessing I wouldn't be too unhappy with something like a striker or defender // skillmonkey sort of deal.

The only thing I really "know" about 4e is that I can get some limited access to an unknown quantity in my bro's belongings but have yet to take advantage of it, and the fact that there is no actual spellcasting in the game, just rituals and powers.

So, most of the appeal/necessity of being a caster is gone from what I understand.

If I'm going to a pick-up game, what are they most likely to try to stick me with? Or is it such that it's probably just going to be whatever they don't have, barring something like controller that newbs are not wanted in.

[cupkeyk]

So far I've mostly played low level clerics (1-4) and a lock-down tripper/skillmonkey at middish-levels (4-10).

I hate being heal bot, but the cleric plays much the same way in 4e and 3.5. If you liked the trip build, try a polearm momentum greatspear fighter.

A striker is the simplest role to play. You hit things. Hard. That's about it. A ranger is widely considered to be the simplest striker.

I think rangers are complicated because of all their out of turn attacks. barbarian would be a more straight forward striker; the striker mechanic is built in, vis-a-vis a class feature like sneak attack or hunter's quarry.

[Delta]

Striker. Specifically, Ranger.

This. Easiest Striker class to play, easiest way to get bonus damage, high damage potential, made of win.

[Thajocoth]

An archery style Ranger is a nice pick. An Elf would be a good choice here. A fairly common pairing, really... They get a power called "Elven Accuracy". Most of your damage at lower levels will be in your quarry dice (once per round when you hit your quarry.) If you miss both shots of your Twin Strike, use Elven Accuracy on one of them to get a 3rd chance to hit (once per encounter only). The extra speed, lack of needing real sleep, and the stat bonuses of Elves are nice to have as well for an archer Ranger, without being a lot to remember, or being too situational.

[Kurald Galain]

So I'm basically asking to be sold on what roles make the most sense considering my background.

While it's certainly true that the ranger is easiest to play, that doesn't mean you have to start with one. If you've been into gaming in the past, or have played earlier editions of D&D, then you can certainly handle more complex classes. 4E is designed to be easily accessible to a broad spectrum, and as a result none of the classes are hard to play, nor require complex tactics.

In my opinion, rangers are extremely boring to play. If you want a striker, rogues and sorcerers are more fun. Clerics are also easy to play, and a reach-weapon fighter works very well for lockdown. As stated before, controllers are indeed the least easy to play.

It's easy to make an effective character: pick a class, pick two ability scores to focus on, have them end up at 18 for the primary, 16 for the secondary after racial modifiers, and fill the rest in as you like. When in doubt what feat to take, pick a multiclass feat. (this is by no means the only way to make a character, it is just a simple one that works well). There are a handful of feats and powers to avoid, because they look effective but really aren't; feel free to ask the forum about that after you've picked a class.

[pasko77]

Since you are already experienced in d&d, there is no reason not to try something a little more complex than a ranger.

A rogue is a striker-utility, and a fighter is a defender who loves to deal damage.
I suggest one of these.

[Delta]

4E is designed to be easily accessible to a broad spectrum, and as a result none of the classes are hard to play, nor require complex tactics.

I wouldn't say that. Sure, there's nothing in 4E as complex as playing a full divine caster in 3.5, having to know pretty much the whole damn spell list to know your options.

But playing an effective leader in 4E can still be a complex thing to do, and I wouldn't recommend playing a mobility based leader to a 4E newbie unless he really wants to get into it, because there can be a whole lot of factors to watch out for if you want to maximize on your "chessmaster" abilities. It's just less about "rules mastery" than it is about "knowing the battlefield" and seeing the opportunities and traps of a given situation.

[Swordgleam]

But playing an effective leader in 4E can still be a complex thing to do, and I wouldn't recommend playing a mobility based leader to a 4E newbie unless he really wants to get into it, because there can be a whole lot of factors to watch out for if you want to maximize on your "chessmaster" abilities. It's just less about "rules mastery" than it is about "knowing the battlefield" and seeing the opportunities and traps of a given situation.

I think the difference is that while it takes work to be a very good leader or controller, you can still contribute to the party and not feel gimped even if you have very little idea what you're doing. System mastery isn't instant, and that's what makes it fun, but you can still be on the ground doing adequate damage/helpful buffs from session one.

[n00b killa]

My girlfriend played a ranged elven ranger and it work great for her.

Don't be shy and try to get a dex score of 20 (18+2 for racial adjustment). You will hit every single time for wonderful dmg and, if the party has a fair amount of melee characters or a good defender (like a fighter or warden), you will be safe from harm.

However, if you do have a good grasp of 3rd edition, you won't have any problems with any class (at least not with the ones on PHB 1)

[Artanis]

In my opinion, rangers are extremely boring to play.

I have to agree with this statement to a certain extent. I'm so fond of agile bow-users in RPGs that it's practically my default setup, and I'm loving my current shooty Ranger, but...well...

Just be prepared to spend a lot of effort trying to find interesting ways to say "I shoot him twice" every turn

[ghost_warlock]

I don't know if anyone in your area does them, but a local expanded group here is running the "D&D Encounters" every Wednesday. We usually end up with enough people for 2 tables.

Basically, the Encounters function as a weekly one-shot battle. There's typically an assortment of pregen characters to choose from or you can bring a character of your own to the table. There's nothing stopping you from playing a different character every week to get a feel for different classes, though you're just as welcome to play the same character throughout.

[Coidzor]

As far as I can tell, with the way this group/organization/whatever is, it's everyone starts out at level 1, so there's generally a starter game and then a game for higher level people. It's a weekly thing on fridays (that is, today).

How do the classes match up with the roles, anyway?

Fighter - Defender (with some smattering of striking or controlling?)
Rogue - Striker (with utility)
Ranger - Striker (either dual-wield melee or archery ranged?)
Sorcerer - Striker
Wizard - Controller (some striking?)
Cleric - Leader (of the buffing variety, there still some element of defender in there?)
Warlord - Leader/Defender depending on powers chosen?

[Swordgleam]

Pretty much right on the roles. The book lists them all - it's a core part of the system, not something people online came up with.

[Reluctance]

I'm surprised nobody here mentioned this yet. Especially the character builder demo should give you an idea what an actual 4e character looks like, which should help you see what parts look interesting to you and which parts don't.

[Vitruviansquid]

As far as I can tell, with the way this group/organization/whatever is, it's everyone starts out at level 1, so there's generally a starter game and then a game for higher level people. It's a weekly thing on fridays (that is, today).

How do the classes match up with the roles, anyway?

Fighter - Defender (with some smattering of striking or controlling?)
Rogue - Striker (with utility)
Ranger - Striker (either dual-wield melee or archery ranged?)
Sorcerer - Striker
Wizard - Controller (some striking?)
Cleric - Leader (of the buffing variety, there still some element of defender in there?)
Warlord - Leader/Defender depending on powers chosen?

I would say, ideally, the classes go something like this

Cleric - Leader focused on buffing

Fighter - Defender focused on being really sticky and preventing movement

Paladin - Defender with some leader-like abilities (Don't really have much experience with paladins in my groups)

Ranger - Striker focused on high, consistent damage (Didn't have that much of a look at rangers, either)

Rogue - Striker focused on dealing high damage some of the time (as opposed to the Avenger, which focuses on dealing mediocre damage all of the time)

Warlock - Striker with some controller-like abilities

Warlord - Leader focused on manipulating the board. Extremely fun with a melee-heavy group

Wizard - Controller focused on doing AoE damage and... other stuff. (Don't really have that much experience with wizards either)

[oxinabox]

It's 4e - you can't go wrong. esp if you stick to PHB1.
I suggest not playing a stiker - everyone plays stikers.
But stikers are nice.
Go a fighter maybe.
Fighters are Awesome!

[Vitruviansquid]

Fighters are fun because, with the Reliable key word, one never has to exercise restraint again.

[greenknight]

Rangers are a fairly easy class to play, but yes they can get boring. Personally, I'd recommend an Elven Monk, if you have access to PHB3. The class is a Striker with some useful Control (especially the Centered Breath discipline), you have some interesting powers, and a very useful set of class skills which synergize nicely with the Elf race.

[MCerberus]

It's 4e - you can't go wrong. esp if you stick to PHB1.
I suggest not playing a stiker - everyone plays stikers.
But stikers are nice.
Go a fighter maybe.
Fighters are Awesome!

Fighter's are like Reeses cups, a delicious combination of striker and defender... except instead of little cups of chocolates it's decapitation, and they're quite fun.

Something make you mad, hit them in an axe. They try to run? hit them with an axe. They try to get at the others, hit them with an axe! Two things to hit with axes? no problem, just do everything twice because you are a whirling steel blur of death.

You can even get ways to make them hit themselves with your axe and laugh at their attempts to take you down SO YOU CAN HIT THEM AGAIN WITH YOUR AXE.

[Swordgleam]

Rogue - Striker focused on dealing high damage some of the time (as opposed to the Avenger, which focuses on dealing mediocre damage all of the time)

Rogues and Avengers are striker leaning controller. I can't speak for Avenger, but I had a ton of fun playing a controller-y rogue with all the forced-movement powers. Did a lot of damage and kept the bad guys away from the squishies.

[Thajocoth]

Oh another nice choice for someone completely new is a charging Barbarian. By being in melee, you reduce the boredom of simply firing 2 arrows every round, as melee combat is a little more interesting than ranged combat. It's still very simple to play, with very little extraneous info to keep track of. (This is one of the things I look for when choosing a class for myself, as I don't really want to think to much, even though I'm very familiar with the system.)

I once DMed a group that mostly had players who were too smart for their own good. One player though was a Minotaur Barbarian. Whenever the other players started getting into tedious discussion about how to gain some sort of upper hand in the coming battle, or how to turn it into a skill challenge, or whatever else... Ahmeks would add 2 words of reason to their discussion: "I charge." He brought the party many surprise rounds and prevented a lot of unintentional self-sabotage by the rest of the party with that short phrase. He was also a better Defender than the party's Swordmage by level 8... (Feat: Opportunity Gore makes any Minotaur very defendery.)

[Coidzor]

So I went with a human fighter with... blah blah blah

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high stat of 17 strength (+2 made it 19)
2nd highest stat of Wisdom 15
3rd highest stat of Constitution 13
the rest 10 except for a CHA of 8.

Not exactly the best idea. But I took some variant that let me use Wisdom instead of Dex for init and opportunity attacks and gave me better awareness scores. Was kind of semi-randomly choosing due to being in a rush.

Was a sword and board with a scimitar and heavy shield and scale mail.

Powers:

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At-wills: Tide of Iron = Weapon Damage + Push the enemy 1 square with the option to slide into their vacated space.

Resolute Shield = weapon damage + get a resist of Con Modifier(1 in this case) vs. Target

Cleave = Weapon Damage to one + strength damage to an adjacent enemy

Encounter: Covering Attack = 2 Weapon Damage + ally adjacent to target can shift.

Daily: Comeback Strike = 2 Weapon Damage + Healing Surge

Sub-optimal but I was able to use covering attack to some effect in 2/3 combats.

RPGA stuff that I haven't quite grasped yet. Got a certificate of some sort. And the opportunity to choose a bundle, but we stayed too late, so we skipped finalizing that so we all got a copy of what we could choose.

Probably not going to keep the character active since I didn't know what I was doing and a delay/problem with the computer that was printing out character sheets put us almost an hour late to start playing when we showed up 30+ minutes beforehand to create chars for the newbies.

It was Living Forgotten Realms setting rules, starting level 1, and I believe the ability score generation method is one of the default arrays in the character generator.

I'm going to have to find the website for the group again, actually...