A friend is running a 4e campaign. I have spent a few hours pouring over his advice on creating a level 1 Avenger and I feel like I've been through a seminar. Strikers and shifting and at will and so on...my brain hurts.
One of the things that struck me though was that every character, no matter the build, could be separated into one of four roles: Striker, Leader, Defender or Controller. Now, I've heard these used as slang along with tank or healbot and so on in the past, but in 4E it's like a religion.
Is this 4-role strategy built into or observed in PF? If so, is it as intregal or necessary to the game as it appears to be in 4E
|
It'a more of a case of 4e being more blatant in its rules than Pathfinder. Since the emphasis in 4e is on tactical combat, the character creation reflects that. You could, of course, make a charming, slightly neurotic, Avenger who hates cats, loves dogs, and obsesses about chess, but none of that would be shown on your character sheet, because the core of the game isn't about that.
Similarly, while Pathfinder doesn't prescribe certain roles to certain classes, it doesn't mean that the roles don't emerge in gameplay. It's just that, again, they don't appear on your character sheet.
The "traditional" roles in a D&D party going back to original edition were:
"tank"
"healer"
"skill monkey"
"artillery"
There is a loose correlation between those roles and the 4e roles. The biggest difference is that over time in D&D a fifth role evolved or became recognized that we usually called "battlefield controller". The archetypal D&D class for that role was the bard. Which is why not many people played the bard. Battlefield controllers are more complex to play and require more tactical awareness than any of the traditional roles.
For 4e they sort of split the functions of the battlefield controller into functions and divided them between their "defender", "leader" and "controller" roles. Similarly they sort of split the functions of artillery and split them between the "striker" and "controller" roles. The "healer" mostly conforms to the 4e "leader" but certain "controllers" also have significant healing abilities as well.
It's a slightly different approach. It rearranges the tactical elements a bit differently between the roles so that four roles are all that are "needed". Even so you will see a lot of five person 4e parties whose components map very closely to the old D&D model.
PF has roles, but they are not linked to classes (strictly speaking).
There is no role you really need.
Healer : wands, incombat healing is not crucial
Tank: if you controller/debuffer is good enough, no need
Skill monkey: spells and roleplaying
Artillery: everyone doing mediocre damage and save or die spells
Of course it helps to have those roles. But it's no 4E. (I'm no expert on 4E and I might be wrong)
The Gamer's Guide to Pathfinder podcast recently did a show on party roles - definitely worth a listen if you have the time. The idea of party roles isn't strictly defined and individual roles aren't bound tightly to specific character classes. More than anything else you'll want to talk with your fellow party members and discuss how you'll handle different situations that might arise and figure out how to cover or mitigate the roles that fall between your character concepts.
A good example of this is having a character that has Cure Light Wounds on his spell list so he can wield a Wand of Cure Light Wounds out of combat rather than having a designated in combat healer*, as Richard Leonhart suggested above.
http://35privatesanctuary.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=categor y&id=53&Itemid=65
* With rare exceptions the PF mechanics don't favor healing in combat - it's very difficult to heal your PCs at a rate faster than they are being damaged and since so long as your allies have positive hp they incur no penalties you are almost always better using your action to bring the fight to a close more quickly.
It'a more of a case of 4e being more blatant in its rules than Pathfinder. Since the emphasis in 4e is on tactical combat, the character creation reflects that. You could, of course, make a charming, slightly neurotic, Avenger who hates cats, loves dogs, and obsesses about chess, but none of that would be shown on your character sheet, because the core of the game isn't about that.
I guess that's what is making my brain hurt and why I don't anticipate straying from PF anytime soon. I don't have a problem w/the roles per se but in 4E everything is SO combat driven that by tying each of the character builds to a specific combat role it seems like everyone becomes a pile of tactical abilities, not characters.
In my next PF game I wanted to make a grim Inquisitor who's all about intimidating; Judge Dread. I tried to translate that to 4e but there are no powers that just make your opponents afraid or whatever. There doesn't seem to be any ROLEPLAYING, only "Roll" playing.
It'a more of a case of 4e being more blatant in its rules than Pathfinder. Since the emphasis in 4e is on tactical combat, the character creation reflects that. You could, of course, make a charming, slightly neurotic, Avenger who hates cats, loves dogs, and obsesses about chess, but none of that would be shown on your character sheet, because the core of the game isn't about that.I guess that's what is making my brain hurt and why I don't anticipate straying from PF anytime soon. I don't have a problem w/the roles per se but in 4E everything is SO combat driven that by tying each of the character builds to a specific combat role it seems like everyone becomes a pile of tactical abilities, not characters.
In my next PF game I wanted to make a grim Inquisitor who's all about intimidating; Judge Dread. I tried to translate that to 4e but there are no powers that just make your opponents afraid or whatever. There doesn't seem to be any ROLEPLAYING, only "Roll" playing.
I play a 4e ranger. Rangers are perhaps the single most stereotyped class in 4e. They are the damage per round kings by design and that's what everyone does with them.
But that doesn't mean they can't also perform significant battlefield control functions, especially if they take advantage of magical ammunition or low level magic weapons. My ranger carries a quiver full of magic arrows and has a dozen magic daggers he can quickdraw at any time. They are all (cheap) +1 or +2 arrows and daggers, but because he's a ranger, he can frequently buff up his attack rolls to insane levels (he frequently can only miss on a 1, and that's because it's an auto-miss). So I buff up his attack roll, toss a +1 dagger of dazing, and bingo, ranger does crowd control.
So even in 4e, if you are creative, you can push those class "boundaries" quite a bit.
@AD: I hear what you're saying; you can be creative w/your powers and move outside your intended role like a wizard w/the right spells MIGHT make a decent sub for a striker or whatever, and I agree w/you. But all I know about your ranger is how well he does in combat.
I had a fighter who never laughed, wore all black and was lawful evil - he made comments like "War...is ETERNAL." I had a female wizard w/an affectation for dolls who eventually went on to become an Effigy Master prestige class so she could make an army of effigy dolls. Neither had optimized builds, had any notably amazing combats or anything, but I remember them fondly for the character I invested in them.
Now I'm making the avenger and my GM gave me an overview of the game mechanics and the class. I still haven't read EXACTLY what powers to choose from but I have a general idea what they do. But this is usually the point in character gen where I get all revved about my new guy and come up with some cool background points to make him live and breathe, maybe even give the GM some plot points to work with. All I can envison in my mind's eye is a featureless elf with an impossibly huge bladed sword a la final fantasy bouncing back and forth on the balls of his feet, waiting for me to hit the attack button.
