Editing Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition (section)

===Roles===
Arguably one of the biggest class-based mechanical changes in 4e was the introduction of '''Roles'''. Whilst often compared to [[World of Warcraft]], this actually stems from the designer team asking themselves "Okay; the iconic D&D party is a Fighting Man, a Cleric, a Magic User and a Thief - now, why is this? What does each class give to the party?"

Roles were their answer; a simple "mission statement" of what a class aims to achieve ''in combat''. The most popular classes are always those that have a strong mission statement, and when that statement gets wobbly, then you end up with problems - hence the infamous Tier system of 3e. Roles became a defining outline for creating classes, both for the designers and the players; a clear shorthand as to what sort of stuff this class should do in order to meaningfully contribute to a battle.  Roles also allowed for a divorce of sorts between what a character did (role) and how they did it (power source), allowing for characters to engage in certain types of actions without being tied to a particular archetype.  This is especially notable with the Leader role, which allowed for skilled healers that weren't divine spellcasters (in core 3rd edition, the only non-divine healer was the Bard, who wasn't a full caster).  

'''Defenders''' are the "tanks" of the party. A defender's job is to keep the party alive by intercepting enemies and keeping them away from the squishier members of the group. To this end, WoTC decided that a proper defender should not just be capable of taking hits, but they should also be "sticky"; they needed some way to mechanically encourage enemies to not want to get away from the defender, and to punish them if they did - what good's a fighter if the enemy just shoves past them, taking a hit in the process, and proceeds to whomp the wizard? Each defender has their own unique way of pulling off this stickiness; the common [[Fighter]] is more focused on pouncing on enemies that try to back off, whilst the [[Swordmage]] is more of a hit-and-run character, since they can punish "fleeing" enemies from a range. All of them have some way to enforce "marks" on an enemy, a sort of means of catching the enemy's attention so that they have a harder time targeting anyone else.

'''Strikers''' are the "critical hitters" of the party. Opportunist attackers, strikers specialize in dealing out lots of damage to opportune targets. They usually can't take so much damage, but they can bring down big foes quick, which is their job. These are second-line warriors, working in tandem with defenders when done well; the defender's the anvil, the striker's the hammer. All strikers have some unique way to boost up their damage against an individual target, such as the iconic [[Rogue]] sneak attack.

'''Leaders''' are the "supporters" of the party. They focus on aiding the other party members, be it by healing, granting extra opportunities, buffing, etc. What makes them different to the "healbot" cleric of editions past is that WoTC noted a lot of people complained that whilst clerics were ''useful'', they were often ''boring''. So, leaders were designed to have "double-duty" powers; abilities that would help the rest of the party ''and'' still let them get stuck into the fray. Leaders tend to have at least one class feature that lets them provide a passive boost to their allies - for example, the [[Warlord]] has the Commanding Presence feature, a subclass-based boost to any ally who spends an action point.

'''Controllers''' are the "tacticals" of the party. They manipulate the overall flow of battle, specializing in winnowing out weaker foes (mowing down minions with Fireball, for example), impeding stronger foes, and in manipulating the battlefield to force enemies to make hard decisions that benefit the party. Controllers don't tend to have any unifying class features; their ability to alter the battlefield and blast large groups comes from their [[AEDU System]] powers more than anything.

It bears repeating that Roles do '''not''' apply outside of combat. They measure your tactical contributions/combat specialty in the party '''during''' a fight, and that's all. The player with a Leader type class does '''NOT''' have to be the party's meta-game leader unless the party wants them to be. It is perfectly acceptable, if not encouraged, to set up interesting contrasts between a character's Role and their personality. For example, the snooty, supremacist aristocratic [[elf]] [[warlord]] whose tactical genius can't be denied, but who is such an asshole that the party only keeps him around because he's useful in a fight, and certainly doesn't let him dictate what they should be doing outside of battle.