I’m a veteran of more than a few MMORPGs and I’ve spent enough time with more than a few roleplaying game systems to know that archetypes really don’t work in today’s day and age. No matter how well structured you want to make your game, the people aren’t going to be happy with just having one role as an option in combat. It was one of the core concepts of EverQuest II, and it quickly went away as the realization that trying to create diversity within such limited confines always resulted in the failure of most of the classes in regards to being able to do their job equally to the few others that excelled at it. And I believe this is a road that the designers of 4e D&D have not truly considered, or just acting about as ignorant as one can get (but, knowing some of the designers and their ideas for game design, I’m going with the former).

Now, let me first say that you can just have an archetype based game. EverQuest II could have stuck to having just two classes or so per archetype, for a total of 8 adventuring classes, and they could have easily have balanced the gameplay based on the archetype roles. But the archetype concept doesn’t lose out because it can’t work, but because the players quickly get bored with the limitations within such a concept. And in order to please your players, which is key in any gaming industry, you must provide for them what they want.

This is why I imagine the gameplay for 4e D&D will either suffer in the end or they will do what everyone before them has done, break their core rule and implement hybrid concepts, classes that take a bit from two or more archetypes.

Current 4e will have four core archetype concepts:

  • Controller (Wizard) - a class that uses ability to manipulate opponents in various manners and deal damage primarily from range. The wizard is the primary controller concept and will use the typical entangle and hold control spells to manipulate the flow of battle as well as aid in the ability for other characters to kill targets.
  • Defender (Fighter & Paladin) - the meatshield. This is your fighter, who wears heavy armor, wields nasty weapons, and always goes toe-to-toe with opponents to keep his attention so that his party members can take strike without worry of damage.
  • Leader (Cleric & Warlord) - the healer and supporter. He possesses competent abilities in battle and can also wear the heavy armors, but his role outside of attacking opponents head on is to also boost his allies abilities and to heal them when needed.
  • Striker (Rogue & Ranger) - the high damage dealer, or in MMOGs we call them the dps class. He deals a lot of damage with his attacks, but he’s more vulnerable to damage if he grabs the undesired attention of his opponents. Typically strikes from range and/or benefits from combat advantages, such as flanking.

As you can see, most archetypes will have two class options at the start. The fighter will focus more on melee mastery while the paladin will focus less on melee mastery and add in divine abilities (smiting, heal procs, etc.). In other words the fighter will deal damage faster in most cases, but the paladin will have situations where he can output equal damage, but will rely on his self heals to last him through a longer battle period. Each of the classes perform the same role, just a bit differently. This is enough for some gamers, but most would prefer more options, something more tailored to their designed character history rather than having to design a history to the class itself (also something available in spades in 3e D&D).

Outside of the lack of class options, at first glance there seems to be nothing wrong with this, and the same was thought with EverQuest II. But it becomes more obvious when you try to add more classes within each archetype in order to give the players more options, which is what is planned with 4e. How well balanced is it when you add in a new class that deals more damage, but has less armor for protection? Is that enough to balance it off, or does he now also need more hit points per level? More healing surges? What about if abilities that would only give them the ability to do deal larger damage for a short period of time? Wait, if you do that, do you need to decrease his defensive capability when doing more damage, and if so, by how much? Wait, isn’t that the barbarian class from 3e?

You end up trying to balance each class within an archetype so much, but you will quickly find that no matter what you do, the composure of the party will in the end decide the overall power of the individual, and thereby the most powerful class will be the basic concept and not the classes that take less damage, but deal less damage or take more damage, have more hit points, and deal a bit more damage. Especially when your damage values are designed around dice rolls and not absolute values of damage dealt. The law of averages will win out and the most average of performers within an archetype will be the best bet in the end.

Much like EverQuest II and other MMOGs out there, you’re going to be stuck in a situation that can never be balanced within an archetype and that is actually less customizable to the player because you are trying so hard to balance it in such a manner. But, the truth of the matter is you will achieve a level of balance equal to what you already have but you will forfeit the overall customization and playability of the characters as a whole. Essentially 4e will have gone the route of all class-based MMOGs, strangely not learning from the faults of the games that were designed and built based on the core concepts of D&D and instead encountering the same pratfalls that they’ve created for themselves over the years.

Or, perhaps you’re just building some MMOG rules because we all know there’s probably more money in the $15/month subscription fee of an MMOG with 300,000 players over five years than there is in selling a million or so books. Oh, that’s right, 4e has absolutely nothing to do with MMOGs and WotC has no desire in moving towards yet another online game…