Combat, skills, healing, spells... any more role to be added?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


Combat is done by the fighter...
Skills are taken care off by the rogue...
Healing is done by the cleric...
Spells are taken care off by the wizard...

Hence the usual 4-member party...

However, over the years, has there ever being new roles that were added? Many games have more than 4 players, so having more roles to fill can help a lot.

Aside from these 4 roles mentioned above, is there new roles that a party member can fill?


Support

That guy who makes other people better at their job, or who helps them spread their resources out longer, usually done by the Bard but just about every class can be designed into the role.


The Witch controls the fight by making enemies weaker. An enemy with -4 to hit is a suffering enemy.

I've built Aid Another fighters in the past that grant massive bonuses to Hit and AC to their allies. That's support.

Really, there are three basic roles, as covered by Tark's thread about the Forge of Combat:

Hammers - These guys hit things hard.

Anvils - These guys make it easier to kill enemies by controlling them or by making them weaker.

Arms - They make the other guys tougher and better at fighting. This includes healing.

And virtually any class can fill virtually any role. I've seen wizards as Hammers, Anvils, and Arms. I've seen Clerics in all three roles. Fighters can fit all three roles, too. Etc.

EDIT: Lookie this.


I think that four roles is a bit too simple each of the basic three roles (Combat, Skills, Spells) can be expanded out further.

Something like:

Combat
-Smasher (High damage)
-Tank (High AC, Health)
-Flanker (High speed)

Skills
-Face (diplomacy, bluff, sense motive, intimidate)
-Thief (stealth, disable device, Sleight of Hand)
-Scholar (Knowledge Skills)
-Crafter

Spells
-Healer
-Blaster
-Buffer
-Summoner
-Debuffer

So a classic 4 person party would be more like.
Fighter-Smasher, Tank
Rogue-Face, Thief, Flanker
Cleric-Tank, Healer, Buffer
Wizard-Scholar, Blaster, Summoner, Debuffer

but could also be this:
Barbarian-Flanker, Smasher
Bard-Face, Thief, Scholar, Buffer
Paladin-Healer, Tank, Smasher
Druid-Summoner, Buffer, Flanker

It would generally be important for each party to have some sort of Tank to take the brunt of the enemy attacks, a healer, and some access to other magic but the four roles is really just a guideline not character descriptions. The reduction of characters to roles was one thing I disliked about v4.


So explain to me how your tanks manage to absorb the brunt of enemy attacks.

While you're at it please tell me what rogue options you would pick that would make him a high mobility flanker.


Standing out in front usually does the trick. If you hit really hard, and running past you will provoke an AoO from you, the enemy won't want to do that. The support can also alter the terrain or enlarge the tank to create choke-points. There are a number of feats and class abilities that can help interpose a tank in harm's way. If your enemies are at range, then yes, it's hard to make them target you.


So how does a tank stop arrows or magic attacks? Or from people eating the AoO's to allow others past?

In fact, given that the enemy will often also have some support and almost always home advantage what's to stop them from choke pointing you?


Arrow Magnets, Sandals of Interception, Ulfen Guard prestige class. Magic is trickier to stop, but your casters should take care of that themselves. It is not the tank's problem unless the tank is a Cleric/Bloodrager/Oracle/Paladin, etc. that can cast spells.

EDIT: For the choke-point question, the only thing stopping the enemy from using good tactics is the discretion of the GM. Many GM's DO play their npc's like that, provided they have a decent Intelligence score.


Plus the Tank doesn't need to stop all attacks. If he is tying up the raging orcs at the front, the other three members of his party can deal with the shaman at the back.

I often see the Tank's role as stopping the smashers getting to my wizard/druid/cleric/oracle buddy so he can blast/control/summon and so on.


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Cuuniyevo wrote:
Magic is trickier to stop, but your casters should take care of that themselves. It is not the tank's problem unless the tank is a Cleric/Bloodrager/Oracle/Paladin, etc. that can cast spells.

Actually if your job is to absorb damage for the group than it is in fact your problem. If the casters can take care of themselves from magic and archery than they can take care of themselves from the melee as well.

Quote:


EDIT: For the choke-point question, the only thing stopping the enemy from using good tactics is the discretion of the GM. Many GM's DO play their npc's like that, provided they have a decent Intelligence score.

So basically, this role is useless because it relies on enemies to play into your chosen strategy, rather than theirs.

Listen, I already know this dance goes I was just curious to see what answers I would get.

The only function a tank as defined serves is a mobile piece of battlefield control. This is a thing that can be accomplished with animal companions, eidolons, or other such disposable features. Player characters are very poor choices for taking damage.

That is if your group needs one at all.

A tank as described can function just fine in cramped environments where a body can plug a choke point.

However that same tactic also stifles your own offense as your archers have to shoot through you and your 'high mobility' rogue has to somehow manage to get into a flanking position.

Ironically on my switch hitting ranger nearing the end of the red hand of doom the most useful implement at my disposal so far has been my bow due mainly to the sorcerers love of Evards Hentai Fandom. And this is in a dungeon where the prescribed tactic of "shove a meat sack in the hole" would do fine. But, at the moment at least, all its cost me are arrows.

Honestly the only advantages to having really high AC and hit points are survivability because you are playing a melee character and those at the front do tend to take more damage and second because a high enough defensive skin can actually produce action advantage in the form of wasted actions on your opponents part.

You cannot reliably force an opponent to attack you.

What you can reliably do is force them into using poor actions. Making them move around and not attack, making them have to walk through waves of AoO's or otherwise do nothing. Or present to them low priority targets.

It's a subject I've gone over at length

Ok so what else?

Bardarok definitely has the right idea in believing that the same character can cover multiple roles and redundancy is good.

However you're adding in unnecessary things in the description of "how" rather than the "what".

Like what does a blaster do? Damage.

What does a heler or buffer do? Support.

What does a tank, debuffer and summoner do? Control.

When you've boiled it down to that point it's simply a question of do we have this covered and can we adequately cover the out of combat needs.

Now the reason I don't cover out of combat is simply for the fact that while you can reliably have combat in about 99% of your games (even combat light games still have combat) there's no guarantee, for example, disable device, survival, or Swim will come into play.

At most we can guarantee those skills that involve combat will come into play like stealth, perception, intimidate, and knowledge rolls for example.

After that, it's exceedingly campaign dependent.

But, that's a subject I'd want to discuss at length in another medium.


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Starting new campaigns we usually split roles into combat roles & noncombat roles:

Combat:

Melee damage
Ranged damage
Buff
Nerf
Control
Healing
Scouting
Stealth

Non combat:

Face
Knowledge
Craft
Contacts
Stealth

Some chars will be able to handle several jobs, but we agree that each char must be good at 1 role from each group...

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