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| #1Pompadour64Jan 16, 2015 18:01:30 | As the title suggests, this is a thread about this classic dynamic that seems to be striven for among parties. As a relatively new player, I feel like I get the basic gist of the whole idea, but I wanted to hear the opinions of more seasoned players. Specifically, how important do you think this is? Should no party leave home without these core rolls (or similar classes to fill these rolls) filled, or does it not really matter all that much? Is it different in 5th edition than it has been in other editions? As a DM, would you go so far as to push your players in the direction of filling these rolls, or do you feel good about any interesting party combination as long as it has the potential to provide fun character development and interaction? If you've been in or DMed a game where a group was weighted heavily in one direction, did you find that it was more difficult for the characters to share the spotlight because of stepping on toes, or was it a detriment to the party in any other, possibly unexpected, ways? I look forward to your input! |
| #2Devils-AdvocateJan 16, 2015 19:51:03 | In my opinion, party balance is as important or unimportant as the group wants it to be. There are certainly benefits to balanced party composition - ideally, if every party member fills a different role, the group should shine in any given situation, and the spotlight should shift from one player to the other in a very natural, easy way. In practice, it doesn't always work like this, and of course the DM can always tailor the game to suit a party that isn't balanced by role.
Granted, a game that features four rogues is going to have a very different feel than one that features three wizards and a cleric, which is going to be very different than one that features a paladin, a bard, a druid, and a sorcerer. But that doesn't mean the characters will automatically step on each others' toes. The all-rogue party could make for a cool oceans 11 type game, where each party member has a different criminal specialty, and the game focuses on stealth, espionage, and intrique. The wizards and cleric party could prominently feature the nuances of magic and how each school of magic has its own strengths and weaknesses, with a side helping of tough questions about what's so different between arcane magic and divine magic anyway. The last party would just be a different spin on the old classic.
It does vary by edition to a certain degree. For example, 4th edition was really big on party balance in combat, and was the only edition so far to actually assign each class a combat role, roughly conforming to the healer/tank/dps/aoe roles common in MMOs. It wasn't really so important that you have a Cleric, a Fighter, a Wizard, and a Rogue, but it having a Leader, a Defender, a Striker, and a Controler dramatically improved your party's combat performance, and made it easier for the DM to design appropriate encounters. In my experience, this was also the case in the various iterations of 3rd edition, but the rules were not as transparent about it as was the case in 4th edition. I haven't found this to be the case in 5th edition, partly due to the complexity of combat being toned way down. But I believe my above answer still stands; even in 4E, the most tactically complex edition, a good DM can account for a party of any composition, so if you don't want to tailor your party for ideal combat balance, you don't have to.
If the group likes the feel that comes with the iconic party you see in every nerdy sitcom's obligitory D&D episode, that's great! If they would prefer a game where magic features prominently and everyone plays some sort of arcane caster, that's also great! There's no right or wrong party composition, and the DM will always have to take the party's composition into account when designing challenges for them, whether they be balanced by role or not. |
| #3AaronOfBarbariaJan 16, 2015 20:01:45 | I think the importance of the "well rounded party" varies greatly from one campaign to the next.
If you are playing published adventures, they most commonly assume the presence of characters which can handle certain tasks - a powerful character that can engage in combat and not be at extremely high risk of being killed, a character with ability to use a variety of arcane items found in treasures, a character with healing/restorative powers, and a character that can handle traps and locks.
It doesn't necessarily have to be 4 characters to hit those expectations, and they don't necessarily have to be the "big four" classes. Those are just the assumed default because all of the other classes are basically one of those big four with more A, less B, and trading in some C for D (example: a paladin is like a fighter, but has traded some of the potency in direct combat for some cleric-like spellcasting, and has traded features that make a better warrior through physical prowess for some features that make a better warrior through magic - or could be considered to be like a cleric that has traded some healing/restorative power for more combat power).
It also varies by edition, with the more modern editions seeking to provide alternatives to "needing" any particular class.
5th edition includes fantastic ability to have any particular character fill in suitably for a role not normally associated with their class (like one of my party's currently having only 3 characters, and yet all 4 of the classic roles are filled without anyone multi-classing - the wizard is perfectly capable of anything a rogue would be doing for the party outside of combat, and the combo of war cleric and berserker barbarian provides more than adequate coverage of any lost combat potency the party might have felt without a rogue). Things as simple as taking one feat, or having the right background, fill in where other editions would "need" an entire character.
As a DM, I push for the oposite in most cases - I want my players to be choosing their characters based on how much fun they think it would be to play that character, rather than restricting their view of what's possible in the campaign to make sure that a role is filled. I've even run an (AD&D) campaign that was nothing but wizards of different specialties in the party (and it was low-level too, 1st to 5th), and it worked out great (and no PCs died, either).
As far as characters stepping on toes goes, there is actually quite a bit less of that feeling that you would expect - a party with two rogue-types might find that they are both enjoying that, for once, there is no "sneaking off alone" since the pair of them can watch each others' backs, or that they can now more safely split up for short term, which frees the DM (me) up to present situations in which the party might split up without having to stress as much about "but what if [character that fills certain role] goes with the other half of the party?"
Then there is the fact that many classes have so many options within them that two characters of same race, class, and ability scores can be entirely different characters in play at the table mechanically - and classes that don't have so much diversity within them are often the sort of thing that everyone is glad to have 2 or 3 of around because they make the big scary monsters into the lifeless bloody messes the fastest.
I have an old saying: "You don't need a rogue to find and disable the traps, you just need enough hit points to shrug them off." |
| #4Devils-AdvocateJan 16, 2015 20:24:12 | Aaron makes a good point about published adventures. My answers assumed a custom campaign, but if you're running a prebuilt adventure module as-written, you may have to contend with the author's expectations about your party's ability to fill certain roles. |
| #5iserithJan 16, 2015 20:54:38 | My general rule of thumb as a player in a group that lacks a particular role is pretty simple: Don't play as if you're a group that does have the role and you'll probably be okay.
As a DM unless the players want me to focus on a particular pillar more than others, I try to have all three in any given scene if possible. So balanced roles are good to have. |
| #6RCanineJan 16, 2015 21:34:24 | I think it's much less important in 5th edition than it was in 4th.
In 4th ed, each role brought a very specific mechanic:
Depending on what you were fighting, each of these roles tended to fill an important niche in combat. Additionally, because of the way skill challenges worked, you needed a good spread of primary stats.
Now, in 5E, things are a bit different. First, classes can perform many different roles—the druid can do all four, and five of the nine classes can heal (and the best healer in the game is a warlock that multiclasses to a healer). In general, area control and action denial are more difficult, because they usually cost the party resources. There's no magic three-failure limit to skill challenges. And monster damage does not scale as fast as PC HP, so healing should eventually be optional.
Now, I have nothing to base this on, but I believe there will be two optimal types of parties for 5E. The first will be the 4E-style party-of-all-trades, although I believe AC & damage optimization are currently a little stronger than the other roles. The second party type is one that optimizes a single strategy, e.g. a stealth-optimized party; 5E's open-ended nature will allow these parties the ability to structure adventures to their needs, rather than the other way around. |
| #7IllithidbixJan 16, 2015 22:02:01 | As AaronOfBarbria said it very much depends upon the style of campaign.
The Fighter/Rogue/Cleric/Wizard combo is very good for “traditional D&D” - go down into dungeons, find goblins, kick them and take their stuff.
... But almost no game I've played in has actually involved much of that, and is often far more into fantasy espionage or just bimbling incompetence.
There is the odd possibility bizarrely of one of the traditional roles being sidelined because it's not a traditional game. Trap-finding rogues can be very hit and miss (I almost never have traps in my games), social focused characters as can how much use rangers and their exploring is. Even the fighter might feel left out if there is not much combat and they don't have other relevent.
One big thing they've done in 5E is to put far more sources of healing into the game than just the cleric, and allow even non-spellcasters to self-heal via short rests. (An approach inspired by 4E, but don't let anyone know.) |
| #8Brock_LandersJan 16, 2015 22:52:33 | I have never invested in the roles deal, when I DM (any edition), let the pieces fall as they may. |
| #9DiffanJan 17, 2015 7:49:41 | As a player I like to have all my bases covered. I'm usually the last one of the group to decide what to play after everyone else has choosen. What this does is narrow my focus into a few select ideas to which a character will emerge. For example in our latest 4e Dark Sun game there was a controller and a striker, which left out two other important roles (Defender / Leader). So instead of just playing any ol' character I now had focus. So I ended up playing a Swordmage|Warlord who used preservation magic so that I could perform both roles. The same holds true in pretty much any edition I play in, including 5e.
As a DM, I'm less caring about party balance. I leave that up to the players to decide and if they want to run a party full of Wizards or Rogues or Fighters, that' fine but I'm probably not changing up my adventure just to accomodate their composition. |
| #10ForjgenonJan 17, 2015 8:02:47 | The balanced party comes from the very earliest D&D. The idea of your party having a healthy mix of abilities is a good thing. However, making players take up such roles is never great. old fashioned, long dungeon delves, especially ones where the entrance is sealed and they must railroad through to a new exit, can last days. This can stress a party without suffficent healing ability--one of the most common problems. Dungeon design can compensate for this--but then as a Dm aren't you re-writing the dungeon to make up for what a party lacks?
And that is a point people have made. Pre-printed modules may assume a variety of skills that don't exist. Your question assumes an adventure reservation for a party-of-four. The magic standard in D&D. Well, what if you only have two players? Do you make them play 2 chracters each? Do you step the challenges down across the board? Do you provide more solutions within the adventure because the party lacks sufficient resources. I'm playing two nephews in the game. They're too young, 8 & 13, and aren't up to reading the rules & learning the game, so I'm playing a super-lite version. A wizard and a rogue are easy to kill off at 2nd level. I'm tossing softballs everywhere. But the dungeon has to change to suit their limits.
5E provides great ways for characters to have broader skills. The increased healers (although I thought druids should be natural healers beyond the shared healing spells). The idea that a paladin can lay on hands but Druids have no such innate power to heal or administer against posions seems a lacking in the flavor of the character class. 5E can defintely establish better balance, or more importantly broader skills across the party. That makes a party better prepared for ... whatever. But wouldn't a party of 8 characters be even better? Think of the diversity of spells alone prepared for an adventure? I look at required headcount and "recommended" class diversity as part of the same equation. In the old games, once a magic-user got a hold of Fireball, he became an offensive strength--and his role changed. The characters are dynamic, and , I think, the DM has to make the adventure dynamic to change with them. I mean if these adventurers are going to succeed and BE the heroes, you might have to add some potions of healing or a scrol of cure disease into the treasure to get them past hurdles their party can't handle. I find it hard reigning myself in when designing challenges for low level (2) players. I want to make them more interesting, but interesting can get deadly quick. |
| #11JohnLynchJan 17, 2015 10:34:06 | In our Pathfinder games we found having the four roles to be fairly important, although a wizard could (with some effort) replace the rogue. In 4th ed we found the controller to be completely optional and the defender to be somewhat optional. In 5th ed I've found all classes to be completely optional. Having a class (any class) will change how you approach certain problems, but any problem can still be surmounted (within a reasonable degree). |
| #12AshrymJan 17, 2015 16:22:12 |
The party makeup has changed with 5e. A good variety of abilities is optimal but no class is needed. For example, bounded accuracy and backgrounds opening up skills alleviated and need for a skill monkey class. It's nice to have extra skill benefits but a rogue could easily be omitted from the fighter, cleric, wizard, and rogue setup because anyone can be the the guy who finds traps. Similarly, healing is readily available in hit die healing, potions on the standard equipment list, class healing, and the healer feat. The cleric is easy enough to omit as well with a variant human taking the feat. There is enough overlap and variety in classes to simply list of party functions, divvy them up, and select from a variety of choices to meet the functionality of the tasks. 4 human fighters with various feats and backgrounds can be proficient in almost every skill, have the healer feat, inspired leader feat, ritual caster, and another feat of choice, for example.
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| #13BRJNJan 17, 2015 17:16:03 | In a home-play party, the DM will know what the heroes've got, and be able to craft encounters that work with that. He will also be aware of weaknesses, and so what to avoid doing (too often). Pre-written adventure modules assume a 'typical' party, just so the designers can include more Plot and Monsters than "adaptation advice".
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| #14Pompadour64Jan 19, 2015 14:31:54 | Wow, so many great responses! Iserith, I'm actually glad you responded because this thread was partially inspired by your "Actual Play Transcript." In Session Zero I believe, you asked your players what roles they wanted to fill between Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, and Wizard. I wasn't sure if this was a thing you did specifically for this game because it was meant to be a sort of learning tool, so a "classic" part composition would be ideal, or if this was something you always did. One thing I've noticed (and I might have read it somewhere as well) is that the average DC for skill checks in 5e is much lower than in 4e. Whereas before characters had inflated bonuses to certain skills, and consequently very high DCs, now DCs are at a point where sometimes even untrained players can accomplsh something if they get lucky enough. So I can see how that could contribute to making party diversity less necessary. Would you say that, because of this, creating a "skill monkey" character is not only less necessary now, but possibly suboptimal since a party will likely be able to overcome most, if not all, skill challenges without that sort of investment? |
| #15iserithJan 19, 2015 14:39:17 |
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| #16Pompadour64Jan 19, 2015 15:10:32 | No, thank you. It's been very entertaining, and your Session Zero and Character Discussion transcrips have been very informative for someone who hopes to be a DM someday. I admire a lot of your philosphies. |
| #17iserithJan 20, 2015 5:52:19 |
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| (Reply to #14)Ashrym |
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| (Reply to #18)Pompadour64 |
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