Monk AC Bonus + Bracers of Armor


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[QUOTE="Mysterious Stranger"What purpose of the fighter is to deal out large amounts of damage. This is true for any martial focused character although other martial classes sacrifice some damage for other abilities. The DEX/WIS based monk does not fulfill this purpose and does not offer much to make him a valuable member of the party. Maneuverability in itself is worthless unless the maneuverable character can take advantage of being able to get into position. The DEX/WIS based monk is spending too many feats to get what the STR based monk gets for free. That leaves him with fewer feats to boost his value to the party.

Let's replace the monk with a bard and just look at the rogue's damage output, do we not count the rogue's bonus damage from inspire courage as belonging to the bard, let alone the number of times the rogue wouldn't have hit from the attack bonus? Apply this to the monk with his #1 utility feature, stunning fist. The rogue goes from getting sometimes sneak attacks whenever the monk/rest of the party sets up a flank (which high maneuverability is also great for), to guaranteed sneak attacks on a stunned target; the sneak damage basically belongs to the monk in those instances. Since we are also assuming the cleric is not built for melee and is almost as screwed as the wizard if an enemy gets to them [laughs in Ecclesitheurge], the monk's mobility can be very useful for intercepting any incoming mooks that could on their own be no threat to the monk but unattended stop either or both of the cleric and wizard from doing their role. Honestly, Rogue probably isn't the right class for the counter comparison, as it *can* do very well against single targets; a melee alchemist or investigator, or a wildshape focused druid (hey look 3 more MAD classes) may be a better example of "can't do much consistently" where paired with a non-damage focused monk the party can fall behind.

Derklord wrote:
TxSam88 wrote:
if they don't have something other than a monk meant for offensive melee damage, then the party deserves to get trounced.

Everyone listen, the fun police has spoken!

It's telling that the people who claim Monk isn't good at dealing damage, and the people promoting dex-based Monk, are the same...

TxSam88 wrote:
Not every character can contribute to every encounter

A well made character can. I mean, not every imaginable encounter, but it's not hard making characters that can meaningfully contribute to every encounter in an ordinary campaign. And while that's obviously not the only way to play, it does make for a stronger party than a combination of one-track specialists.

Of course, that requires not clinging to the outdated, asinine concept of "party roles", so if you have players that do, you won't have everyone be able to contribute to every combat.

I'll admit half the problem is TxSam and I continuing the use of " can't contribute to combat" but you're also completely missing the intent of that phrase. Certain "party roles" can help in a fight without being the deciding factor of winning the fight. Party roles *are* still important, because if you don't have them, certain encounters (or strings of encounters) can just become literally impossible. On the flip side, if everyone ignores roles to just race for the highest damage output, it can create a very boring and unfun game to play even if it is "most optimal" when entire encounters can die before getting a turn. (Who needs a healer when you never get attacked?)

The Dex monk isn't just going to twiddle his thumbs because an enemy has a high health pool. It will still contribute to any encounter even if stunning fist, maneuvers, etc. aren't the *deciding* factor, and likely still windup helping about as much because of this cool feature of damage to HP values (which you at one point recognized) called "break points". It doesn't matter if the Dex monk did 30 damage or an alternate universe Str monk did 50 damage in a turn to an enemy when the barbarian overkilled it by 20.


AwesomenessDog wrote:
It doesn't matter if the Dex monk did 30 damage or an alternate universe Str monk did 50 damage in a turn to an enemy when the barbarian overkilled it by 20.

It may not matter in that niche case. But that's a niche case. The strength monk doing more damage on average is going to matter on average.

If you want to play a dex monk, then fine, maybe that's fun for you. At a table, I wouldn't even question the decision, because it's not my character. But if we are asking if it's "optimal", then I'd say that most of the time it is not. The feat and item cost to support being very dexterity based just isn't worth the investment on average. The free feats and wealth can allow the strength monk to achieve more things.


Melkiador wrote:
It's really neither of those things.

The idea that you need to have dedicated party roles, or that having dedicated party roles makes for a good party, is indeed outdated and asinine.

I didn't say that playing characters that can't do everything was asinine, I called the concept asinine. The concept is about seperated, decicated party roles being a beneficial thing that leads to a strong and so-called "balanced" party that's superior to others.

If you want to play a character that can only do one thing (and the other players don't mind), that's fine. If you tell others they have to build characters that can only do one thing, that's despicable.

Melkiador wrote:
Though there is certainly a bias towards certain kinds of hyper-specializing in Pathfinder.
    Not quite. The game rewards specialization, while punishing overspecialization.
    The game does reward focussing on one thing rather than multiple styles, but only in situations where you can use it. What the game really rewards is rather than having different offensive tools for different situations, having one offensive tools that you can use in every situation.

To create an example, the specialization that is rewarded is giving the pouncing Barbarian flight rather than trying to branch off into a half-assed throwing build. Adding 50 more damage to your 10th level Barbarian that ragelancepounces for 200 damage already, while having the Barb be useless against flying enemies? That is not rewarded.

AwesomenessDog wrote:
Party roles *are* still important, because if you don't have them, certain encounters (or strings of encounters) can just become literally impossible.

Name them, please. Name an encounter type (or a challenge within an encounter) that you need a dedicated character for.

I mean, I'm operating under the assumption that you have some understanding what "role" means. A character doesn't have 10 different roles, that's not what the word means. A role defines you.


Personally, there are 4 kinds of encounter.
Combat, Social, Reconaissance, Research.

Having a character that can contribute in all 4 isnt that hard.

I prefer having character that are actually good at combat and social, as that is the meat of the game for me. The investment to be capable of sneaking 30 feet behind a possible recon specialist isnt all that high either.
I somewhat dislike recon as its solo apart from the party in many cases.
It is however good because the intel gained, or observing interaction by NPCs, can be pretty good.

The investment to be a research assistant, with a smattering of +4s or +5s in various knowledge skills, also isnt that high. However, research is typically "roll knowledge X", roleplay light, and I dont see why I should focus on it.


Mightypion wrote:

Personally, there are 4 kinds of encounter.

Combat, Social, Reconaissance, Research.

Having a character that can contribute in all 4 isnt that hard.

IMO - having a character that's good in all 4 is a waste. with 4-7 players in our local game, there is no need to be able to contribute significantly to all 4. pick 2 to be your main focus, and a 3rd that you can help with. ignore the 4th.

When too many people can do something, then no one gets their turn in the spotlight at doing it. however, if you have 1 that super excels at it, they they get their day in the sun, and the other get their day later.

I've also found that if everyone can do everything, then the party never fails. and that's flat out no fun.


TxSam88 wrote:
and that's flat out no fun.

I'm sure it's not fun for some. Maybe even true for most. But there are ways to enjoy the game other than being challenged.

Personally, I do enjoy the struggles of something being the perfect counter to what i do, as long as being countered isn't a constant occurrence.


In my view, party roles are more of a "make sure everything is covered" than anything else. If I'm joining a group and the other players are bringing a cavalier, slayer, and barbarian, then I'm not bringing my fighter. I'm bringing my cleric. My thinking wouldn't be "Party HAS to have a heal bot." It'll be "If NO ONE can do any healing, we'll get TPK'd for sure."


The classic party roles from D&D in the 80’s was outdated before the decade was over. The old cleric, fighter, magic user and thief was an ideal that was only useful when those were the only classes. That being said ignoring roles in a game tends to leave weaknesses in the party. Roles should be about being able to overcome obstacles, not having specific classes or abilities. How you overcome them does not really matter, but you have to be able to overcome them.

Depending on the nature of the campaign what those obstacles are and how often they come up will vary from campaign to campaign. Each character should be able to significantly contribute to overcoming 1/X of the obstacles the party expects to encounter, with X representing the number of characters in the party. So, in a party of 3 each character should be able to be able to significantly contribute to 1/3 of the obstacles. All characters should be able to contribute something to about ½ of the obstacles. These are rough guidelines to ensure that each character pulls his weight.

Each character should have something useful that they do better than any other member of the party.


Derklord wrote:
AwesomenessDog wrote:
Party roles *are* still important, because if you don't have them, certain encounters (or strings of encounters) can just become literally impossible.

Name them, please. Name an encounter type (or a challenge within an encounter) that you need a dedicated character for.

I mean, I'm operating under the assumption that you have some understanding what "role" means. A character doesn't have 10 different roles, that's not what the word means. A role defines you.

Well let's start with just the list of roles that I use on an excel to help the party see and understand what everyone else is playing:

We have Melee Offense, Melee Tank, Ranged Single Target, Ranged AoE, Buff, Debuff, Healing, (Crowd) Control, Face, and technically there is a "skill" role but we just list who is covering what skills based on how many ranks they will be putting in/level.

Now lets list an encounter from even a single AP (I'll just pick Crimson Throne because it's what I have by far the most experience running) where you would be at a very serious risk of losing if you didn't have a given role, since clearly if they don't exist, then this shouldn't happen.

Obvious story reasons:

Melee Offense: Should be obviously useful at all times but the times it is obviously most powerful is when the surrendering leader of the Grey Maiden parks her dragon on the ground so it can't become a ranged menace. Eventually the dragon realizes what is up, and can escape, but locking it down or severely punishing its escape means it won't get multiple acid pools on the party.

Melee Tank: There are several instances where you will be fighting multiple of the assassins the queen sends out at you, including at the final fight in book 4. Having someone who can actually endure those attacks or waste them from high AC means the rest of your party isn't getting killed in one or two sneak attacks.

Ranged Single Target: Setting off the alarm in the last dungeon of Book 2 (Basement of the Blessed Maiden) is extremely easy and causes most every threat in the area to centralize to a main room. This consists mostly of clerics that are both strong enough to challenge a front line that pushes them and have spells like spiritual weapon to immediately punish an overextend to try to get the wizard in the back. The wizard in the back however can virtually kill a PC on every turn.

Ranged AoE: There are some very nasty monsters that you don't want to get into a melee with, namely a trio of barbed devils. Attack them in melee and take damage per hit, stick around in melee and they will grab you and constrict for even more damage while also frightening you to prevent you from being able to escape. Hit them with some lightning at a distance and they fold fairly quickly.

Buff: Either/both of the Arkona Rakshasa, which have ACs well in excess of most unbuffed attack rolls at the level you meet them. If you want to have a chance to kill them (and really you are meant to run away, but there are rewards for success), then you need someone to stack buffs to hit Bahor's 34 AC (39 when he uses combat expertise which he has the to hit to do, his damage is the limiting factor unless you let him get a flank somehow).

Debuff: Final Ileosa fight where she not only sees the party coming and is herself a Bard in a room full of 6 bard simulacrums, she has a total of useful 11 spells to have precast upon herself. Either dispel her, or apply some debuffs or you will have a very hard time hitting her, not being hit by her, or affected by her spells.

Healing: Virtually the entirety of Scarwall is unpassable without some form of healer; because the party cannot leave the castle's binding effect unless they are essentially leaving anyone who failed the will save to die, they are forced to rest inside the castle which is highly unreliable, making consistent healing on a 24 hour refresher a must (unless the GM simply lets you bankrupt every owner of a Cure Wand from all of Varisia to Belkzen before you even know why this would be necessary). The AP even gives the party 2 clerics (original, 1 cleric and a summoner with cure spells in remaster) to make sure you have *some* form of healing and restoration access.

Control: In Castle Korvosa when you think you are fighting Ileosa for the first time (it's really just another simulacrum), there are also 3 hell hounds controlled by an elite grey maiden each, and an enchanter wizard all alongside most other guards and devils you hadn't killed by the time the alarm is properly raised and responded to. There's nothing really to stop you diving the fake Ileosa, but there's still enough enemies to overrun or cone damage your party if not dealt with and the room set up doesn't really allow much for instant aoe killing. Confusion or similar AoE control however can stop the majority of it.

Face/Skill: Actually this is one of the few APs that kinda doesn't have any important skill check zones; traps are minimal, there are no major difficulties if you fail to pass a social encounter or don't identify a unique threat, and so on. The only events somewhat like this are the game played against Krojun but it's strength and fort save bonus dependent and the later Shoanti rite of passage but this strength and constitution dependent. The thing that try to deceive you on the other hand (the Arkonas, the immortal ichor, and so on) all kinda have too powerful of stats to have a chance at countering.

Obviously these all encounters can both just be won by building some uber cheese build that has +70 to hit and several hundred damage a hit, no risk of failing a save or getting hit, etc. but is that really fun for the player, let alone for the other players, even if they make similar game breaking power builds and are just damage racing each other? But that ignores the intent of d20 games being a resource management game, where you are supposed to be limited in power and resources such that one party member can't do every job (let alone do them well).

For your and other's fixation on classes being a role in themselves seems completely strange to me, both because we would use the word class if we meant class instead of role, and because different classes cover these roles in different ways and/or combinations. That's the entire point of pathfinder's flexibility. Even to center this entire tangent of a discussion back to the main point, you can build a Dex based monk that focused slightly more on defense/tanking than a Str monk otherwise would be for the cost of some later class activation and more item investment (that ultimately winds up being meaningless in late game, but I digress). Even going the Str monk, you lose ~2-3 AC over the Dex monk (which isn't as small as you'd expect), but you can still sit very nicely in a safe level of AC to not need to greed a bracers of armor over the wizard/sorcerer. Ironically, going the Str wizard and deciding you don't care about defense as much as offense probably means the wizard/sorcerer should take the bracers more, because you won't be actively guarding them as much in bigger fights.


Heather 540 wrote:
In my view, party roles are more of a "make sure everything is covered" than anything else. If I'm joining a group and the other players are bringing a cavalier, slayer, and barbarian, then I'm not bringing my fighter. I'm bringing my cleric.

These sentences are contradictory. The concept of party roles rests on characters having one main thing they defines them - otherwise, the word is misused. But if a party has "cavalier, slayer, and barbarian", you cannot cover everything with just one "role". What you want in that situation is a character that can do multiple things, to cover the multiple things that party can't do yet.

On a side note, it's not impossible for a party consisting of "cavalier, slayer, and barbarian" to be able to heal. Also, you can build a Fighter is both a party face and a healer: It's not impossible to make a Fighter that has 5+Int skill ranks per level, high Charisma, Bluff/Intimidate/Diplomacy/UMD as class skills, and can use healing wands without UMD, while still wearing heavy armor and doing respectable damage.

Mysterious Stranger wrote:
That being said ignoring roles in a game tends to leave weaknesses in the party.

No, it doesn't. It does the opposite. A mixture of hybridish characters makes for a much stronger party than a group of specialists. Rather than a skilmonkey with 8 skill ranks per level but no damage capabilities, and a dedicated damage dealer with two skill ranks per level, two hybrids with good damage and 5 skill ranks per level each are stronger - not only becasue they're very likely do more than 50% of the dedicated DD's damage output, but also because they'll have better skill bonuses due to synergy with existing ability scores.

Mysterious Stranger wrote:
Roles should be about being able to overcome obstacles, not having specific classes or abilities. How you overcome them does not really matter, but you have to be able to overcome them.

What you ignore is that part of "How you overcome them does not really matter" is that it's irrelevant if one character overcomes all challenges of a specific type on their own, or if multiple party members spread up the job among themselves. For example, it's irrelevant whether Mummy Rot is cured by a Cleric, or a Druid+Wizard working together. In the latter case, neither character is anything resembling a "healer role", but it simply doesn't matter.

TxSam88 wrote:
I've also found that if everyone can do everything, then the party never fails. and that's flat out no fun.

This I fully agree on, it's something I've been saying for years. You shouldn't cover all your bases, having to find creative solutions to problems is much more fun. For me at least.


AwesomenessDog wrote:
We have Melee Offense, Melee Tank, Ranged Single Target, Ranged AoE, Buff, Debuff, Healing, (Crowd) Control, Face, and technically there is a "skill" role but we just list who is covering what skills based on how many ranks they will be putting in/level.

Evidently, I was wrong with my assumption that you know what the word "role" means. Because you just listed nine different roles, if they were all required, you couldn't succeed without having 9 PCs in the party.

Seriously, a role is one specific thing that defines you (or describes your most prominent characteristic). If you want to describe the various, numerous types of problems a character can solve or help solve, you should use a different term. I've been using the term jobs the part want done for a couple years now.

I haven't played Crimson Throne, and your list is pretty much useless for anyone who hasn't done so because you gave almost no useful information on the fights, but I don't really see anything where you need to have that aspect as the one defining characteristic of your PC. Additionally, there are often other ways around problems. That Rogue with the too high AC? Landing Stunning Fist actually helps out there. As would targetting touch AC.

AwesomenessDog wrote:
Obviously these all encounters can both just be won by building some uber cheese build that has +70 to hit and several hundred damage a hit, no risk of failing a save or getting hit, etc.

You can also win most encounters rather easily by simply having characters with high damage output, no cheese required. Unless you call a Druid who takes a single feat to increase damage as cheese.

AwesomenessDog wrote:
For your and other's fixation on classes being a role in themselves

I genuinly don't understand this statement. It makes no sense to me, and at no time did I equate classes with roles. Hell, I'm constantly saying that knowing the class doesn't tell you enough to discern what the character can do!

AwesomenessDog wrote:
Ironically, going the Str wizard and deciding you don't care about defense as much as offense probably means the wizard/sorcerer should take the bracers more, because you won't be actively guarding them as much in bigger fights.

If you have a Wizard or Sorcerer in the party, you should sell the bracers, because Mage Armor is vastly superior. Maybe buy a wand instead. Only if you have no feasible way of getting Mage Armor become bracers below +4 even relevant.


When it comes to party design:
--No 2 character should do "the same", what "the same" is is quite different between tables.
--Everyone should be theoretically able to do something impactfull for somewhere between 60-85% of session time. Impactfull for me is that you take an action that is highly relevant.
The majority of session time is typically combat or talking, and together, they are almost always the majority of it.
It is trivial in terms of expenditure to be pretty good at 1-2 social skills. The investment to do so is nearly always worth it in terms of enjoyment.

Oh, if I have a monk in the party, and am a Bloodrager, and there is no arcane caster, I will probably pick mage armor as a spell known and cast it on the monk.
Or get a wand of it and cast it on him. The argument for actually casting it is that its dispelled less easily.


Derklord wrote:
Heather 540 wrote:
In my view, party roles are more of a "make sure everything is covered" than anything else. If I'm joining a group and the other players are bringing a cavalier, slayer, and barbarian, then I'm not bringing my fighter. I'm bringing my cleric.
These sentences are contradictory. The concept of party roles rests on characters having one main thing they defines them - otherwise, the word is misused. But if a party has "cavalier, slayer, and barbarian", you cannot cover everything with just one "role". What you want in that situation is a character that can do multiple things, to cover the multiple things that party can't do yet.

Why does a party role mean the character can only do one thing? A role is just something that needs to be covered. One character can always do multiple roles.

Take a magus, for example. That one character can fairly easily cover the roles of DPS, skill monkey, and arcane magic that goes from blasting to utility. One character, 3 roles.

As far as my original example, can a fighter be a healer? Yes. Is a cleric going to be much more effective at it with much less investment? Also yes.


I personally tend to think people really overthink party composition. I've played and run loads of PFS games with (quite literally) random party composition, and never found it to be an issue. Are four bards going to handle a challenge differently than four barbarians? Sure! The bards will be better at some things (skill challenges) and worse at other things (close-quarters combat), and that's part of the fun of the game.


Heather 540 wrote:
Derklord wrote:
Heather 540 wrote:
In my view, party roles are more of a "make sure everything is covered" than anything else. If I'm joining a group and the other players are bringing a cavalier, slayer, and barbarian, then I'm not bringing my fighter. I'm bringing my cleric.
These sentences are contradictory. The concept of party roles rests on characters having one main thing they defines them - otherwise, the word is misused. But if a party has "cavalier, slayer, and barbarian", you cannot cover everything with just one "role". What you want in that situation is a character that can do multiple things, to cover the multiple things that party can't do yet.

Why does a party role mean the character can only do one thing? A role is just something that needs to be covered. One character can always do multiple roles.

Take a magus, for example. That one character can fairly easily cover the roles of DPS, skill monkey, and arcane magic that goes from blasting to utility. One character, 3 roles.

As far as my original example, can a fighter be a healer? Yes. Is a cleric going to be much more effective at it with much less investment? Also yes.

How exactly is Fighter a healer until they have enough Use Magic Device to "hack" a wand of CLW reliably?


You'd have to ask Derklord that.


Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:
How exactly is Fighter a healer until they have enough Use Magic Device to "hack" a wand of CLW reliably?

Child of Acavna and Amaznen, which casts spells from the Bloodrager spell list, which contains Infernal Healing.

Other elements of the build are Divine Fighting Technique: Desna's Shooting Star, the Fey Thoughts racial trait (possibly on a half-orc with the Skilled racial trait) for Bluff and Diplomacy, and the Dangerously Curious trait for UMD.

Heather 540 wrote:
As far as my original example, can a fighter be a healer? Yes. Is a cleric going to be much more effective at it with much less investment? Also yes.

For HP healing the Fighter can actually be better, because a good cleric can't use Infernal Healing wands, and those are more cost efficient than CLW wands.

Heather 540 wrote:
Why does a party role mean the character can only do one thing? A role is just something that needs to be covered. One character can always do multiple roles.

That's not what the word "role" means. You're completely misusing the word.

If you want to talk about a task or job you want done, why do you insist on reinterpreting the word role? The word has been usef for decades to describe one thign about your character.


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I have to agree with Heather about what a role means. I have worked at jobs that restrict access to locations and information for security reasons. To make things easier access is often based on roles. That way if someone is assigned a role they get all the access that role needs. Most people are assigned multiple roles. I personally had about 20 roles assigned to me. Most people I worked with had a lot of the same roles assigned to. Since one role provided access to the lab we worked in every person in the lab had that role assigned to them.

The group I have gamed with have used the word role in the since Heather is talking about for decades. There are usually more roles than there are party members and sometimes those roles are shared.

Dark Archive

Anyone can be a healer with a few feats and 1 trait
Healers hands feat, battlefield surgeon trait, skill focus (heal), signature skill (heal)

Or dangerously curious trait and skill focus umd. That starts you with +7 umd. Don't dump charisma and it shouldn't be a problem.


Ok, how about we use the word job instead of role? Would that work for you, Derk?


Mysterious Stranger wrote:

I have to agree with Heather about what a role means. I have worked at jobs that restrict access to locations and information for security reasons. To make things easier access is often based on roles. That way if someone is assigned a role they get all the access that role needs. Most people are assigned multiple roles. I personally had about 20 roles assigned to me. Most people I worked with had a lot of the same roles assigned to. Since one role provided access to the lab we worked in every person in the lab had that role assigned to them.

The group I have gamed with have used the word role in the since Heather is talking about for decades. There are usually more roles than there are party members and sometimes those roles are shared.

But... if you have 20 roles assigned, that isn't a "role", that is 20 roles. In the tech industry roles might overlap, and often do (eg an admin role typically would encompass the ability to do any other role that could be assigned as well). But a role is designed to allow a user/person to do one specific thing. That might include multiple security settings, but they are all based on doing that "one" thing.

If we try to compare that to a role playing game (and its not a perfect analogy - eg there is no "admin" role in RPGs - the class that can do well at everything), that might mean a cleric can heal HP damage, but can also heal ability damage, remove diseases and poisons, etc. All of those would be part of the healing role.

In RPGs, when I see people talking about roles they talk about things like healing, tanking, party face (one I particularly loathe), crowd control, etc. In my groups I do not often see people pick out and hyper-specialize in only one role. Usually a given character can do decent at 2-4 roles, depending on class and player. But note that is 2-4 roles, not one role.

So I agree with Derklord here that a role means (or should mean) one specific thing - that is what it means in the tech world too. It is actually kind of hard to make a character that is decent/good/excellent at only one role without very intentionally doing so. Even a two-handed fighter can do a decent job of being a tank if they are wearing heavy armor - not as good as a sword and board fighter, but good enough compared to the rogue/wizard/archer - but also not as good of damage as the 2-handed barbarian. Likewise the cleric can play both a healer and a tank quite easily. That same cleric can easily play buffer and/or crowd control in addition to healing and tank too (at the expense of burning through their spell resources faster).

The wizard could choose to be a blaster wizard, and only memorize evocation spells, but that generally weakens the wizard overall compared to a wizard with both blasting and buff and/or crowd control spells. But that more diverse wizard can fulfill multiple roles.


But that's what we're saying! A character can do MORE than one role! Yes, the role ITSELF is one specific thing. But the way Derklord is wording his arguments make it look like he is saying a character can ONLY do a single role.

Just look at one of his comments:

Derklord wrote:
Evidently, I was wrong with my assumption that you know what the word "role" means. Because you just listed nine different roles, if they were all required, you couldn't succeed without having 9 PCs in the party.

He is literally saying that 9 roles means 9 PCs there. That a character can't do more than one of those things.


There seems to be a lot of different opinions on what a role is supposed to be. When I talk about a role, I am talking about the ability to do one limited function. It is not an all-encompassing description of what the character can do. That is what a characters class is for. Even then a class does not include everything the character can do. Most characters will have more than one role, and often a role can and will be done by more than one character.

In the IT the admin is not the person who can do anything well, that person does not exist. Most network admins are not really that good at dealing with people and are often horrible technicians. What they are good at is managing network resources. Some technicians have limited admin rights so can take care of some simple network issues, but for the most part focus on other things. The game equivalent of this is the cleric being good at healing, but the paladin having some healing ability as well.

Roles are things like close combat, ranged combat, scouting, social interaction, information gathering, healing, battlefield control, deception, protection, and a lot of other things.


Heather 540 wrote:
Ok, how about we use the word job instead of role? Would that work for you, Derk?

Absolutely! It's a term I've started using four years ago because I realized that the term "jobs" was woefully inadequate.

I mean, if the term role wouldn't be used for anything else in the P&P RPG circles, I wouldn't even mind the derivation from the normal meaning much. It's just that the term is used differently, in a way that straightjackets players. People say stuff like "a party needs to have a healer", and you have to be pretty familiar with the game not to think "OK, so one PC needs to be focussed on healing".

In almost any game that uses defined roles, you pick one role, and it's the absolute primary characteristic of your character. Your "supporter" can attack, but they have the sole role of "supporter".
In a game like World of Warcraft, you can't do dungeons or raids without (a) dedicated healer(s), casting healing spells not supported by build and equipment after the fight simply doesn't suffice. But in Pathfinder, the equivalent to that is all the healing that is required.
And it's not just inexperienced players' misconceptions, it's people outright forcing others to play something that fits their very narrow definition of what consists a "healer", a "tank", and so on.

Heather 540 wrote:
But the way Derklord is wording his arguments make it look like he is saying a character can ONLY do a single role.

Not do only a single role, have only a single role.

Mysterious Stranger wrote:
I have worked at jobs that restrict access to locations and information for security reasons. To make things easier access is often based on roles. That way if someone is assigned a role they get all the access that role needs. Most people are assigned multiple roles. I personally had about 20 roles assigned to me. Most people I worked with had a lot of the same roles assigned to. Since one role provided access to the lab we worked in every person in the lab had that role assigned to them.

I've never seen to word "role" be used like that in my life.


I guess we are just arguing around definitions, but I tend to think of people having multiple roles as well.


But why? Why should a character have just one? Yeah, having one be the main focus is fine, but they can and should do other things too.


They can and should do other things, those simply aren't their "role".

An actor usually has one single role in a play (or movie), why should a character have more? That is where the term comes from, after all.

To show what I'm talking about, please take a look at this thread: Here, the OP talks about "the 4 traditional roles (fighter, mage, priest or rogue)". That is how the term "role" is widely used. Not to describe the one of 20 thigns your character can do in soem large or small amount, but that one, single defining feature. Note: That's just the first thread like those I could think of, there're plenty others I could link.


Derklord wrote:


Mysterious Stranger wrote:
I have worked at jobs that restrict access to locations and information for security reasons. To make things easier access is often based on roles. That way if someone is assigned a role they get all the access that role needs. Most people are assigned multiple roles. I personally had about 20 roles assigned to me. Most people I worked with had a lot of the same roles assigned to. Since one role provided access to the lab we worked in every
...

It is fairly common in IT and security in large corporations. It allows you to assign multiple security rights and clearances that a person will need by attaching them to the role. Let’s say a person working in on a project needs physical access to a restricted lab, and the shares for the files for the project. By creating a role IT can assign both the access to the network shares to the user and add the card reader access so your security badge will grant you access to the lab.


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The character isn't the actor, though. The actor only has the one role - to be the character. The character is more than that.


The 4 traditional roles have been outdated for a long time. Even in that thread there are multiple posts arguing that the traditional 4 roles are no longer relevant and have not been for decades.


Mysterious Stranger wrote:
The 4 traditional roles have been outdated for a long time.

Yes, but that's what many people think of when they encounter the term "party roles". If you say "ignoring roles in a game tends to leave weaknesses in the party", you will have people who'll take that as "you need a [mage, priest, fighter, thief]/[tank, damage, skillmonkey, caster]" or whatever. The term party roles is widely used to describe this, as we fully agree on, outdated concept.

"As for why bard rather than the others... in short, because he didn't understand that I was ok with filling in any role gap (in the classic martial / skill / divine / arcane sense.) Since a skill gap was left for me in arcane, I rolled an earth sorcerer."

"Is there a tank in this party? Is it the unchained monk, because I don't really see them meant for that role."

"What Are the Class Roles?
Fighter: Tank
Rogue: Skills
Cleric: Healing
Wizard: Damage
"

Need I continue?


Hmm. I feel the unchained monk can be pretty good as a tank, especially in a team game where he is helped out with mage armor by the friendly wizard-type character in the party.

A lot of semi-intelligent monsters will even prioritize the unarmored character, making him better as an attack magnet. You can even have fun with this idea and give him a staff, pointy hat and wizard robe. Suddenly every intelligent enemy will be attacking the strange "wizard" out in front of his party.


Just because a word was once used in a particular manner does not mean that the meaning cannot evolve over time or have more than one meaning. The term role is actually the best term for describing the idea of overcoming obstacles. If I use this and the person I am talking to misunderstands what I mean I will simply let them know what I am talking about. I am not the only one on this thread that has a similar idea about what the term role means.

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