Author Topic: Standard roles a party needs  (Read 8176 times)

Offline darqueseid

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Standard roles a party needs
« on: March 09, 2012, 01:16:37 PM »
I'm trying to list the standard roles that any given character can fill in a D&D game.  The ones listed below are from Treantmonk's "guide to being god"  wizard guide: 

"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.

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."


-Along with the above roles Treant further broke "god's role" into 3 parts:
Battlefield Control
Party Buffer
Debuffer
So we could leave god as "primary caster", or further break that role up into the above three.

In addition to treant's treatise on the subject there is also the four iconic D&D roles to consider:
Primary Melee
Healer
Arcane caster
Skillmonkey


Which roles are correct?
Are there more roles than I've listed? if so, what would you add?
Are there Roles here that Don't make sense or are unneccesary?


This is not about Treant's guide, but strictly about establishing a list of roles in D&D, I just used Treant's guide as a starting point.  if anyone is interested to read the full guide its here: http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19873034/Treantmonks_guide_to_Wizards:_Being_a_God

Offline Unbeliever

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Re: Standard roles a party needs
« Reply #1 on: March 09, 2012, 01:22:11 PM »
Wasn't there an old "breaking the boxes" thread that dealt with this pretty well? 

That being said, in my humble experience with reasonable levels of optimization the roles thing isn't super helpful.  I think it's a good beginner's guide, but after that, I'm not sure how useful it is.  I find that in the games I play in -- in part b/c we don't have that many players (typically 3 PCs) -- a lot of the traditional roles aren't covered.  But, we cover their effects through creative means with other characters. 

I also think TreantMonk's are good default understandings.  It's really hard to build a good healbot or a good sneak, and the default ways of doing so in D&D sort of suck.  But, I could very much see the role of damage/condition mitigator as a better understanding for Healer, which with squinting, could be filled by a BFC Crusader, at least. 

Sorry if that's not really helpful.

Offline darqueseid

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Re: Standard roles a party needs
« Reply #2 on: March 09, 2012, 01:57:02 PM »
Agreed optimization can demolish the roles, wherein one class can do multiple roles or get around multiple different things, however, that doesn't negate the fact that a particular role, or thing needs to be done

I'm not really looking for specific examples of how one class or another can do a specific thing in a party really, at least not yet, I'm looking to establish just what things does a D&D group need to do to be successful?

Offline veekie

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Re: Standard roles a party needs
« Reply #3 on: March 09, 2012, 03:17:52 PM »
The roles are really a bit of a pity on the game design level though, some of them establish minigames where most of the party cannot participate meaningfully in, due to crippling overspecialization, they can only make things worse.

Lets see, personally what roles I'd define...these roles are non-exclusive, you can be multiple.
Out of combat:
The Radar - The one with great senses, exotic senses and generally dealing with the Knowing of whats going on. Darkvision, high perception skills, Scent, Sense Motive, Search, Detect Magic, Detect Evil, Tracking are low level capabilities of this role. Arcane Sight, Blindsight, etc are staples at high. Note that only persistent detection capabilities are counted, you cannot be party radar effectively if you have more limited usage, on the basis that you can't turn stuff on until you know theres something to react to.
Benefits from being redundant, and can have multiple characters participate in different ways(packing different exotic senses, etc). A necessary role, since awareness is necessary to prepare for and deal with hazards and opportunities.

The Sneak - The one with concealment, subtlety and doing things without being known to be doing them. High stealth skills, Darkstalker, Invisibility, Hide in Plain Sight, Lead Sheets, Bluff, Sleight of Hand, Silent Spell. You don't need to do this all day(though its nice to be able to), only to do something without being known to.
Benefits strongly from complete coverage, but also optional, since you can just take things straight on the table.

The Negotiator - The 'offensive' social abilities, used to make people do things you want, but they don't. Diplomacy, Intimidate, Charm Person, Dominate, etc, as well as language ability and telepathy. Also only necessary in bursts, so limited use abilities are fine, success rate is critical for coercion based negotiators, as without Sneak options, the opposite outcome can be obtained.
Nice to have some redundancy(so the whole party doesn't sit out while one person talks), but ultimately you only really need one.

The Transport - Getting from Point A to Point B. At low levels, you have mobility skills like Climb, Jump, Swim, Ride, and Survival(to get to the RIGHT Point B), at higher flight and teleportation dominates. Requirements vary, but until one movement can deal with everything between A and B(e.g. teleport) you're going to need them persistently available.
Extremely useful to have redundant, unless one member can transport another(as with teleport), one person getting stuck would have the whole party stopped.

Obstacle Removal - Getting rid of, or ignoring obstacles preventing particular actions. Some overlap with Transporter, this consists of Open Lock, Disable Device, Dispel Magic, some of the immunity/resistance effects, Freedom of Movement, etc. Usable in bursts, but frequency required can vary widely.
Redundancy is optional, but where obstacles are common, extra removal ability can be valuable, as does a variety of removal options that covers different obstacles.

The Observer - Getting information on specifics. This covers a combination Sneak/Radar character scouting, scouting minions, Scrying, and a variety of divinations. Useful mostly in bursts, persistent observation ability can rip any semblance of mystery from the plot to bits, or for the matter the plot itself.
Redundancy unnecessary, one way of getting remote information is as good as another.

The Library - Getting general information, mainly associated with Knowledge skills, decipher scrip, spellcraft and divination spells, but also gather info. Mainly acts as plot keys and backs up Radar and Observer roles by allowing action based on the information.
Redundancy is useless, but there is a wide spread of knowledge types and multiple people can have them to ease the load on any one's skill spread.

I think that should cover most of the out of combat roles.
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Offline TauFirewarrior

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Re: Standard roles a party needs
« Reply #4 on: March 09, 2012, 04:36:51 PM »
I agree with Unbeliever, the role discussion certainly doesn't boil down to number of PCs.  I'm also used to playing in a games with only 3 or so PCs, and the one I'm in currently we don't have anyone optimized for any roles really.  Except maybe 'The Library'.  I'm a JPM gish, we have a Dread Necromancer that can kind of tank but is more into RP so he doesn't involve himself in combat a ton unless it involves him.  Third person is the Save Monkey.  Mettle/Evasion and lots of dipping to make himself anti-spellcaster.  He tries to be the party leader but he's failing at it and due to rogue levels, he's trying to be the trap guy/skill monkey, but he's failing at that too because his skills are way too spread out.  But still!  We have no dedicated healer and even at mid (8th) levels we're getting by with UMD and healing belts.