Part three

Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies, and class roles.

D&D4th is really focused on you keeping your class. You base class never changes in the entire game, which runs to 30th level and then stops* However there are three distinct levels of play – Heroic (levels 1-10), Paragon (levels 11-20) and Epic (levels 21-30).

During your Heroic tier you fight monsters, but death is death, and you deal with local problems – orc infestations, or maybe a small dragon causing a problem. You get your main class abilities – and you can do some very basic multiclassing that comes through spending feats.

At Paragon levels things change. Death is something you can fix, fighters are city and region level, and you deal with all sorts of other kinds of monsters. You also gain what is known as a paragon path – this is a similar to a prestige class in D&D 3.x, but you don't take it instead of your main class it is in addition. The bonuses you get give nifty color, some cool abilities, and choices for some powers that come from the paragon path. In the PH each Paragon path only takes a page or so. It adds to your character, not overwhelms it.
You can choose to multiclass further into your class instead of taking a paragon path. What you get it slightly weaker, but it is much more versatile, you can really do stuff outside your role.
Epic Destinies are the path you take telling you where your character is going to end up for eternity – whether immortal or joining the essence of magic itself. At Epic levels you are dealing with region or world level threats, and death is a speedbump (direct quote from one of the designers). One of the powers available in an Epic destiny opens with “Once per day when you die....” Epic Destinies have some really fantastic and fun abilities.

I like the structure. It is interesting, and it allows GMs and players who want a particular feel focus on the aspect of the game they like – someone who is interesting only in “gritty” low level type adventuring might only allow Heroic play and cap level advancement at 10th. Someone who really like a big epic feel might start a game at 11th and go from there.
And.. hmm... where have I seen a game that splits different types of games into differeing levels like that... hmm... ummm... HERO? :)

Party Roles

Going all the way back to the origins of D&D “Every party is assumed to have a fighter, cleric, magic-user and thief, and adventures are written that way. If you are missing one of them your chances of finishing the adventure are made more difficult. Miss two and you might not make it through” (Paraphrased from the 1st Editition D&D).

4th has just made this a little more explicit, but expanded the idea. There are 4 party roles: Strike, Controller, Defender, Leader.

Striker deals a lot of damage, and deals it to single targets. Rangers Rogues and Warlocks. Rangers have an ability that lets them pick a single target and do an extra d6 of damage every attack. And he can switch the target of that ability.
Defenders fight, and suck up damage. Paladin, Fighter.They have better hit points, healing surges, and special abilities to keep the enemies focused on them. The paladin has an ability that targets an enemy, and if that enemy attacks someone besides the Paladin, it takes damage.
Leader have abilities to help the party members: Warlord, Cleric. They can cause extra healing surges (see healing and combat next time), they can give bonuses to allies, move enemies or allies around the mat.
Controllers deal area effect damage, and control the battlefield: Wizards. Example – Fireball, Wall of fire ect.

Monsters have their own roles too – Brute, Artillery, Soldier, Skirmisher, Lurker, Controller. All of the Monsters in the MM have these classification, to help the GM build encounters. (More on that later– building encounters and adventures)

I've got a give a take on this one – I don't especially like the roles, or having the characters pigeonholed... but it does work with the game that is designed, and with multiclassing you can get around the specifics of a role (my ranger has Fighter stuff, my Paladin does some cleric stuff ect).

What the roles do that is nice in that it give guidance for building classes. Further books (and make no mistake this game is uses the splatbook train publishing model) can have other power sources and classes that fill the role for the source. That will be interesting to see.

*I'm already planning what kind of house rules I'm going to run to play beyond that point.