Hi, this may be a very basic question...is it possible to set a condition that workflow that runs on tasks should only be triggered based on the role of the employee assigned to the the task?

You can add the User : Role as a condition.

Wouldn't that evaluate the role of whoever is logged into NetSuite? I'm looking to evaluate the role of the employee to whom the task is assigned...

For a Task Workflow that will be one hop too far from Task > Employee > Role. Employees can have multiple Roles. You could do what you want by populating an Employee Custom Field with the Role. Then use that Custom Field for your filtering.