This morning we published an article called Make D&D Better, Remove Fighters From the Game. In this article, Bauxtehude attacked the defender role, specifically the Fighter. We expected that his view on this topic would be unpopular, but we didn’t expect the level of negativity and disagreement that resulted. Bauxtehude has long held the opinion that he expressed earlier today and he choose to express his thoughts in a provocative manner.
Defenders suck. Well, maybe not ALL defenders. There are those rare exceptions where a player has come up with a particularly imaginative build like a Warden/Druid hybrid that turns into a swarm of bees and embraces the primal forces of nature. The defenders I’ve got a real beef with are Fighters, specifically any Fighter built like our good friend Conscore McSwordy.
Today we let Bauxtehude off the reigns. He’s got some very strong opinions about defenders. After listening to his ranting at the game table for the past year I buckled and let him have his say on Dungeon’s Master. I may not agree with everything he says in this article but I wanted to give him a chance to rant about it. I leave it to you, the readers, to put him in his place and let him know just how wrong he is about his stance on Fighters. – Ameron
I think we all have a Conscore McSwordy at our gaming table. You’ll recognize him by his heavy armor and shield (giving him an incredibly high AC), a starting Constitution score of 20 or higher and very little going on upstairs. Fighters built like Conscore McSwordy are simply annoying. I particularly hate that they can lock down combat with abilities like “if you attack anyone but me, I get to stop your attack, stop your movement and then pound you for 1W damage” and “I have the highest defenses and hit points, smash my skull all day, Int was my dump stat so I wont even notice.” Fighters are ruining D&D. I say we just get rid of them all together.
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?
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?
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.
The evenings gaming session is going great. So far you’ve had some great role playing, a unique skill challenge and now you’re entering the first encounter of the evening. The defender charges into combat. The NPC’s turn comes up and you decide to attack the defender by using one of the NPC’s encounter powers. You roll the dice and call out the attack score. This is going to hit you think, only to have the defender calmly announce that you’ve missed his AC by a long shot.
What do you do when session after session you can never hit the defender or when one player min/maxs their character to the point of absurdity?
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?
If you want to survive any D&D adventure you need to plan ahead. The better your advanced planning the more likely your chances of survival, and in the case of the Ultimate Dungeon Delve, the better your chance of victory. At this year’s GenCon they are running the next Ultimate Dungeon Delve: Fall of the Tower at Windrock. I’m signed up to play and I’m looking for an adventuring company.
In May we hit the four month mark as well as posting our 100th article. Things are going great and we’re still marching full speed ahead. We’ll continue providing these monthly recaps so that everyone can get a quick overview of what’s happened at Dungeon’s Master over the past month. Our readership and subscribers continue growing so thank you to everyone who visits and comments regularly. Knowing that you keep coming back lets us know that we’re on the right track. Here are the highlights from May just in case you missed anything.
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.