Tag: Controller

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Adventuring With A Sub-Optimal Party (Part 3)

The Dungeon Master’s Guide recommends that an adventuring party be comprised of five adventurers with all four roles being covered. Of course there are going to be instances where only three of four roles are represented in an adventuring party. Maybe you’re playing in a public game, like and LFR adventure, and none of the players brought a PC to fill one of the roles. Or maybe none of the players in your group enjoy playing a particular role.

Some would argue that the controller is not an essential role. Of the four roles most players feel the controller is easily the most dispensable. About a year ago we ran a poll asking which role a party could do without. The controller won that dubious honour hands down. While the early heroic tier might support this viewpoint, it quickly becomes evident that controllers are indispensable by the time a party hits the middle of the paragon tier. Controllers are more than capable of carrying a party forward to victory. The fact is you want a controller in your party.

But what happens when this vital member of any adventuring party is missing?

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Adventuring With A Sub-Optimal Party (Part 2)

Delving through dungeons with a non-standard party is an invitation to failure in most instances. What happens when the most stereotypical member of the adventuring party is missing? Defenders represent the key trait that all adventurer’s need, toughness. Defenders are the embodiment of nobility, honour, duty and physical perfection. Legend and fiction are full of characters that embody the spirit of the defender: Lancelot, Conan, Elric and Beowulf all fit the description. Warrior’s any adventurer would want by their side.

What happens to an adventuring party when this key element is missing? What happens when the tank, the individual who absorbs all the damage, is missing? What adjustments does a party need to make to ensure it can successfully navigate the challenges that face it?

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Adventuring With A Sub-Optimal Party

Recent events in the Dungeon’s Master home game have resulted in a sub-optimal adventuring party make-up. What do I mean by sub-optimal? One of the four roles is missing. In our case we are blindly adventuring without the benefit of a leader to keep us healed and buffed up.

The subject of playing in an unbalanced party is one we have covered before. However, over the next few weeks we will take a deeper look at what it means to adventure when one of the four roles is missing. Today our focus is on the absence of the leader.

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PHB3 First Look: The Seeker

seekerThe Seeker, the most recent Player’s Handbook 3 preview content, was released a few weeks ago. This past week my regular gaming group began a new mini-campaign, which gave me the perfect opportunity to play test the Seeker.

I was actually rather excited about playing this new primal controller, due in part to my growing appreciation of the controller role.

In reading the Seeker class in Dragon #380 it became clear to me that the designers enjoyed creating this class. Many of the powers were developed and tested during earlier editions of Dungeons & Dragons, however from a mechanics standpoint they didn’t fit those earlier visions. Enter 4e and those idea’s have a new format to find life.

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Playing In An Unbalanced Party

The PHB suggests that all adventuring parties should have at least one PC representing each of the four roles: controller, defender, leader and striker. Most parties, in my experience generally follow this guideline. But what happens when this balance is disrupted. What if your party make-up is missing some of the roles? How will that affect your game?

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You’re a Striker, He’s a Defender… Big Deal: Looking at Roles

Do you define your character by his class or his role? We continue to look at roles in 4e and their defining characteristics. We’ve already explored the idea of how to make the Fighter a striker and we pondered whether the roles could be redefined. But this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to looking at roles. Since this is a new element in 4e perhaps it can be done better. We think there is room to introduce some new house rules around roles, but before we start developing them we thought it prudent to take a deeper look at how the existing presentation of roles affect the game.

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Redefining Character Roles

The advent of class roles to 4e D&D changed our perception of character classes. All classes now fit into one of four predefined roles within the party: controller, defender, leader and striker. Even though we’ve only had these four roles since the release of 4e last summer, they have become engrained in the discussion of gaming groups.

These four classifications are quickly becoming more than just roles. You could argue that they have become the new default character classes and that the current classes as we know them are just archetypes of the controller, defender, leader and striker. What I’m seeing more often are players deciding to play the striker and select whether they’d like to try the arcane, divine, martial or primal archetype of that class.

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