Ok. First some clairification. In American Football the quarterback is proected by the front line toughs as he manages the game. A quaterback that stays behind the "pocket of protection" is called a pocket quarterback. While one that runs around all over the place is called a scrambling quarterback. In DnD First Edition you had a similar concept with Wizards. They were easy to hit glass cannons that relied on the Fighter and Cleric to protect him, and the thief to proctect his "blind side". A good wizard player learned that to live beyond first level he needed to stay in the pocket of protection created by the other PC's.

Over the years, Wizards have gained more combat options and are far less than the one hit wands they used to be in the 1970's. This is even more true in Arcanis, where the classless character creation system has basicly eliminated many of the traditional combat roles of Tank, Damage, Heal, Nuke. Over all I view the progression a good thing. But I beg the question, have we as players forgotten the basic team work required to protect our less defensible brethern, be they Archers or Arcane casters?

Has anyone else seen this trend over the past several years? Thoughts on the trend?

Hello Eeric,

As some insight into the design of Arcanis, one of the mandates I asked Pete, Eric and the rest to keep in mind as we designed the system was that I DIDN'T want two dimensional characters like the old style wizard, etc.

"Every hero should be able to stand up to any challenge on his own."

Now obviously everyone shuld ahve a specialty - something that adds a little spice to the mix, but no one should just be he Tank, healer, etc. If that's what's wanted, World of Warcraft does it nicely.

So is the pigeon holed character dead? In Arcanis, I certainly hope so.

Very interesting Henry. Good to hear from you.

When I built my Gnome Necromancer I tried first tried for a AD&D style glass cannon. I simply could not build one in the Arcanis system. The only way to get close was to add extra flaws and min-max my stats to the point my avoidance was 15. Now that I am looking at Tier 1.4 with him, I am pretty much forced into boosting his defenses. So, on PC growth, he is going to become much more well rounded. Looking ahead to tier 2.1 and his weaknesses will reatively speaking be mitigated to flavor.

So if it was your design goal to bust the role types. You succeeded!

Hi Eric,

I agree that by and large you are correct. One thing I was glad to see, however, was the inclusion of the Challenge talent. When I saw it, I knew that I wanted to make a character as close to a traditional 'tank' as possible. Tower shield, myrmidon path, challenge talent, etc. There are limitations to Challenge, but it is useful for keeping the focus of elite threats, or taking a bad guy off a squishier character. So far I've been having a great time playing him.

At the end of the day, I think that the roles you describe have more to do with the player, and less to do with the ruleset. You will always have people who gravitate towards certain roles, insofar as the ruleset permits.

What I noticed at Origins was that groups that normally play together, and are familier with each other's pc's where very adaptable. But when mixed with players or PC's that have not played with each other it takes several combats to get a good table rythm together. The -only- think I miss about the WoW, 4th Ed, "Roles" is that is allows for players to quickly meet each other's expectations when sitting down at the table the first time. After that, filling pigeon holed roles, is very disatisfying long term.

Perhaps this issue can be improved by simply improving each PC's elevator speech to new tablemates. Any ideas on how to build a good PC introduction that includes both RP Flavor, and tactical functionality?

My main character Eisener is a Martial Archetype, Templar/Holy Champion of Nier who casts "utility" divine spells and smites things. Mechanically, broadly he is like an old school D&D Paladin. A tough front line fighter who has some healing and a little extra boom once in awhile. Conceptually he is a lot more like a WWII marine charging a beach somewhere in the Pacific theater ... with a certain irreverence and/or disdain for everyone who sits safely at home when out of combat. As far as other PC support ... He doesn't really need a lot from other characters since his goal is to go in the front door quickly and get to the "scrum." He just expects other people to also swing and hit things.

Teamwork and blockers are more important for my Expert Awakened Scion Tukufu who could broadly be described (from a mechanical function) as an Altherian gun Mage/trap monkey. He'd be a scrambling style of quarterback. If Tukufu gets surrounded he's in trouble since he doesn't have the AR to tank.

But maybe they should include a tactical evaluation in their "elevator" speeches or ask what support other PCs want or need. I agree that in broad strokes there is less teamwork at many Arcanis tables I play than I would see at the table of some other rule sets and campaigns. That's because there is no mechanical reason not to have a decent AR and or spell casting. If you want to have zero spellcasting or "be squishy" that's a roleplaying choice ... not the consequence of trade offs. Further the 4E role of "Leader/Healer" is largely obsolete with the current rules for damage and healing ...and "hard control" and mass mobility are really hard to do with the Arcanis spell list. So it makes sense to me that more characters have somewhat similar skill sets (damaging attacks, some attacks that do some more damage, some attacks that do some control).

For all that I also would also like to see more team work at cons. (That happens with home groups)

... so yes. The pocket caster is dead. At least for PCs.

The role my character plays is "Fixer". If you want something retrieved, he'll pilfer it. If you want something talked down, he'll schmooze it. If you want the group to get an extra boost to keep fighting, he'll motivate you. If you need the gate across the courtyard closed so that the hordes of devils stop entering the city but there's 4 lines of infernals waiting, he'll run up the side of the building, leap across rooftops, pick the lock on the gatehouse, and start closing the gates...

That's Kelb

one thing I tell people that are just starting to create characters is: "pick two things to be good at, or three (or four) things to be ok at"

and its pretty easy to do that, you can be good at fighting and psionics, or you could be good at social skills and clericing. Its pretty much impossible to stack that up and only do one thing well.
My main character is Good at fighting with his shield and Divine casting (and those two things synergize well). My secondary character is good at Good at being a magician, and he is ok at psionics, but he is also ok at knowing all the things.

the other thing your talking about is one of the greatest strengths of Arcanis players (and one of its weaknesses) is the familiarity of the player base, Take origins for example, some of the people there, I only see once or twice a year, some of those people Ive known for 15 years.

The only thing I can say to that is its like any other social group, play nice, make friends, meet new people and play games with them (not just arcanis, but cards against humanity, other RPGS, Board games whatever).

I personally try to meet new people every year, just throw myself into a new situation and see how they play Arcanis.

From my experience the pocket caster can be created, but there is a strong diminishing returns as a result. Combat makeup changes from fight to fight, making Johnny one note only useful in limited situations. So it is always practical to have the second side of the character to switch to.