I feel like unbalanced parties are the most interesting because you have to find new ways around issues that may have been simple to a more balanced one. My favorite was the Bard Party that happened at a Pathfinder Society convention I went to. What I found most fun was how we worked around all 3 combat encounters that were written into the scenario with bardy shenanigans! Like distracting guards while everyone else sneaks in, or annoying the informant so he misses his meeting with our adversary!
I always tell my players, "build what you want". Then we get together and see what party has been created and if there needs to be slight changes for the story. And yes I mean slight.
If you are making changes to characters for story reasons then there was a failure in communication! The players NEED to know story things that are important for character creation. For example, if I am running a campaign in Glantri on the Mystara world then my players NEED to that Glantri HEAVILY favors those with arcane spellcasting abilities and those who have Divine Abilities are HEAVILY shunned and often treated poorly.
@@JacksonOwex No failure in communication. I said slight changes. So, names or "magic is pink in this world, I don't care what you say". I use the player's backgrounds to create my backgrounds and some plots. Or the rare occasion the PCs clash because those specific players would never get along with similar backgrounds/characters
From a players perspective I don't worry too much about the party composition but I do still generally prefer to play a class (or at least subclass) that no one else in the same party is playing
@@JacksonOwex I disagree. There's something to be said about ignorance and dealing with it as it comes. A good player would work around their disadvantage. It's up to you as a GM to not be oppressive about it. For example with Glantri, just because it favors arcane doesn't mean there might not be a pocket of divine users akin to a rebel cell or something like that. If you use the " _Glantri are opposed to Divine_ " as a matter of oppressing that one singular player who wanted to be a cleric, then the problem would be on you, not the player. That's what I am saying here. Could even have it that the soldiers surround the players, like the King's personal guard under the pretext of being arrested, only to be taken to the terminally ill king, whereupon the players find out that he is secretly employing Divine users to try and save him. You have options. The time I do agree with you however, is when; " _Okay, we're gonna play a Stealth kind of game so I want you all to make a stealth focused kind of character._ " And this one guy goes " _So here's Burlap Burnisson, he dual-wields Dwarven hand-cannons while chewing a cigar._ " That's the moment you can say " _That's a great concept, but save it for another game perhaps?_ " tl;dr ::: The players shape the setting that you lay out for them. You don't shape the players, unless it's a very specific thing in mind.
Before I watch this video and agree on all the stuff know this: My wednesday group consists of one RangerRogue, one Sorcerer, one Rogue/Arcane Trickster, one Moon-Druid and one Wizard. No cleric, no fighter. Nothing. They managed to beat every encounter through cleverness, tactics and preparation. Sometimes they had to fall back but they could always resolve any encounter. Somtimes one or two drop but not dead. The druid only knows minimal healing. Awesome group ^^ My friday group consists of one artificer, one fighter, one warlock, one cleric and one rogue. We had 1 tpk and three extra characters dead. They had "tank" and "healer", "melee dd", "controler" and "ranged dd". They failed because they didn't use ressources (properly) often enough. Stay crunchy.
There's also the "versitle party". I usually see this evolve over time. A fighter that takes some skills in healing; a druid that becomes the party face; a wizard with high crafting and thievery. The players take on roles beyond what is expected for their class.
My favorite campaign idea that we started but never got to finishing was "Band of heroes", I don't think anyone needed explanation as to what meaning of band we were using.
One group I was in, we called ourselves the NBA. “No Bards Allowed.” It was a big inside joke with us and anytime a bard tried to join we playfully razzed them.
The idea of a perfect party, to me, is one where the players work together and play well together, regardless of class/subclass. That would be an ideal world lol
The ‘perfect party’ reduces opportunities for challenges to provoke PCs to come up with creative solutions. I like small parties because they will always have gaps in what they can do so have to think outside the box to overcome different encounters.
The problem with the "Perfect Party" concept is that all parties become the same same. I think it is a good idea to apply the "Make a character who is different to your previous character" at party level too: "Make a group composition different from the previous group". I think; too similar groups have the same problem, as too similar characters: Memories about them get blurred together.
I found it really hard for an entire unbalanced party with full overlap. Players often find it more fun when everyone has its own skill set and shines in its particular function. And there's always a Player who waits to fill the gaps by making "The role the party needs" (those players I found are often GMs themselves)
I'm a "fill in the gaps" player and definitely a GM. And I've found both as a GM and a player that the party having a decent balance with limited overlap makes for a more entertaining experience.
This is also me 😄 I always have a dozen or so PC's I would love to play and will fill a role other people haven't taken (it just gives more space for different players to shine.)
I'm a gap filler. Although it can sometimes be frustrating because one of my groups always picks the same roles so end up as the same 2-3 classes constantly. 🙃
As a GM, I try to have my players decide what they want to play independent of each other. As a player, I try to fill the role of the missing party member.
This is a great concept until I showed up to a game where all characters were made independently. An eldritch blast warlock, archer build ranger, crossbow wielding rogue, and a wizard. Every combat encounter was a Scooby-Doo chase sequence until some characters died and a more well rounded party came about.
@@sarahwhitely6878 Sure, consequences of terrible character choices will happen. Warlocks, pfft. However, having a goofy party and trying to think of how to get stuff done is part of the fun. I'm in a current game with three clerics. Three!
I disagree with a lot of what you had to say here, but I always appreciate the orderly way you present your ideas. The 'perfect party' comes from the original D&D game that only had 4 classes (fighter, cleric, thief, wizard). The whole idea, is that the GM doesn't have to tailor make the environment or challenges to the party, but can instead build a diverse and "realistic" world where it is that GM's job to create challenges and the players job to solve those challenges. If the PCs don't have the tools, well then they're going to need to come up with something else, BUT if they have all the classic skills, then they have answers for most problems. I suppose this comes down to the style of game the GM runs; is your game one in which the players shape the world around them, or are you running a game world that the PCs experience, but don't shape directly? Depending on which you do, the party make up becomes more or less important. So yeah, to each their own, but I feel like the imbalanced party, which is what happens without the 'perfect party', results in situations where one of the players is less useful and having less fun.
"Specialist' parties should be run in a game where the 'specialist' party would go on that type of adventure. EG: you wouldn't have an all 'Cleric/Paladin' party go on a quest to rid the town of the evil wizard and his horde that is terrorizing the town and countryside. Instead, a 'Holy Quest' to seek out the rumored location of a Holy Relic for the order/diety they worship and return it to the Priesthood. This would help to dictate the types of encounters they would come across. This doesn't mean you can't have 'non-cleric' type encounters (traps/locked doors/combat monsters/etc) but they would be tailored to the types of PC's. In this case, the 'locked door' could be a religious puzzle or riddle based on the priesthood, requiring some Religon / history checks. The Monster could be a demon/evil that the priesthood vanquished in the long lost past of the church that has been resurrected. So the GM needs to understand that is the type of 'adventure' they should be designing if they are planning to run a 'specialist' party group. And I would love to play in this type of game as well. "Thieves Guild - Rogue party", "Holy Quest - Cleric/Paladin party", "Monastic Teaching Scroll retrieval - Monk party", "Protect the Grove - Druid party", etc....
I believe that a party should have at least a solid core to work with. There are certain roles that just can't be bridged by supporting NPCs. In a small group, I believe that there is more pressure on the players and GM than needs be if the party becomes too imbalanced. In a bigger party, there is far more wiggle room, but I would still rather have a group that worked together during character creation to avoid conflicts, even if the outcome is far from 'perfect'. My group is a mix between 'perfect' and 'imbalanced'. Half of my party picks whatever idea they want to do, the consequences or other party members be damned, and the other half (which I'm part of) try to work together to ensure that our party has a solid core with a baseline of effectiveness that can be relied upon. Our GM is a wonderful fellow who weaves great stories... but places a heavy focus on immersion and logically sound environments. If we tried to go into a dungeon or tomb without someone that is capable of scouting, finding and disabling traps, well... we'd get smacked around and our healer would have to pick up the slack. We've never tried to go without a healer... but only because our party unanimously accepts the need for someone that can heal, whether we have a main healer type Cleric or two support type healers like Bards or whatever. Long story short, my party is very often suboptimal, but enough of us work together and build around our wild card teammates to get most jobs done. We've only truly failed once, which we did in a spectacular way, but imperfect success stories are not uncommon in my group. We're not perfect, but we usually get the job done and have a blast doing it, often with chaotic shenanigans arising from our mismatched characters.
After some 25 years was it my turn to GM the group, and as I know that some optimize their characters for the coming 6-8 levels already at level 1 did I decide to let DnDBeyond create some random characters for them, correct the most nonsical parts and let them pick one at random (of course with the option of correcting and changing altogether if completely unacceptable). They kept the characters, made backgrounds based on what stats etc. they had as opposed to the usual other way around, and are slowly evolving them into becoming more of a 'perfect party' each time they level up or have access to special items. This has IMHO given us a flavourful game with people not playing their usual thing, with characters trying to evolve into better people (but needing reasons to do so!). But that approach need to be accepted by the players beforehand to be a success.
So I've been running a specialized party of "Exorcists" (all clerics/paladins with a few multiclassing dips), and one thing I've found super helpful is the use of boons and items to help diversify the party. At around level 4, once I felt I had a good grasp of the characters and where the players wanted to take them, I dropped a series of short side quest that led each party member to a boon or item specifically tailored to their character from their God to help on the holy quest. It allowed me to emphasize those roles that they had already began to slot into through roleplay. One paladin became the striker/face, while the other became the tank/inventor. One cleric became an inquisitor/support, while the other became a crowd controller/spellcaster. Of course there are still gaps and weaknesses, but none of them are so fatal and each character feels totally distinct.
I guess this goes back to the problem of seeing dnd as a game to be beaten rather than a story told. I know some people really just view it that way, but I think those people would have more fun playing a video game with a focus on structure and mechanics. When Im a PC I start with a character story idea and pick spells and traits and feats for RP first. I find it fun to have a kludgy imperfect character and try to make do with what the fiction leads me to choose.
@@37thgungrunts the problem is the misalignment of the player's goals with the system's goals. The killer feature of a TTRPG is flexible human application of rules, which allows narrative and mechanical creativity. A player looking to beat a game is looking for predictable mechanics and clear objectives. There is a style of group and game for that in TTRPGs and of course they can play the and have fun. But someone who rigidly insists on healer tank and DPS and looking for quest markers would probably have more fun in an MMO. Id say the same to someone trying to play chess or settlers in a TTRPG group, and I think that's helpful and sincere advice, not gatekeeping.
@@bryan.conrad narrative and mechanical creativity allows for improvisation to beat and overcome challenges. The reason people want a tank/dps/healer (or control, damage and support as is more applicable to dnd) is because it's an efficient and optimal way to overcome those challenges, having that base foundation of someone to control the direction of the fight, remove threats, and support the party, allows for creative thinking to come forward to overcome challenges and not be beaten before the die is rolled. Its gate keeping to think that only your reading of the systems goals is correct. There are lots of people who want to overcome a mechanical challenge with creativity and improvisation. The idea that those people only want repetitive and predictable mechanics is so bizarre and uninformed Im genuinely staggered that you would lump so many people into one narrow category
Not so much a problem or not per se as it is a function of the variety of ways D&D can be/ is played. A dungeon-dive module would very much reward a more mechanical, resource-optimization based table/ team/ play style because the dungeon is literally an obstacle to be beaten or beaten by; but for a more narrative-focused team/ table/ group an 'optimized' party removes many options for your more interesting, completely-out-of-their-depth plot-hooks because the built-in skill broadness leaves all skills fairly evenly covered and relatively balanced, removing much of the interest from novel circumstances. Frankly, a group of players will almost always get more variety out of different GMs telling different stories in their own styles than they will by simply switching systems but keeping the same GM. To be fair, there are definitely systems out there that support dramatically more or less variety in GM/ story styles ( _FATE System_ on one extreme all the way to _Tenra Bansho Zero_ or _Blades in the Dark_ at the other end, for examples) but in general Wizards of the Coast has been making more and more open-ended, narrative-based-friendly systems as opposed to the crunch-focused tactical games that TSR originally produced, so modern D&D is more of a middle-ground on that scale than an example of the extremes. Imho, as long as the table are all on the same page and not actively dickish things usually work themselves out fairly quickly; even if that means the one "real" player has to find another table more suited to their play style so that they and the murderhobo's stop ruining each others fun.
I did a mounted campaign once. Everybody knew they would be dealing with big open fields for that campaign. We still had a diverse party, but it was still really like a team
@@leovaeg mountains nobles actually. We had a mounted archer, a barbarian lancer on a dinosaur, and a paladin on a camel. The group was both similar and really different at the same time. The open field battles were fun, and the battles with more obstacles all became puzzles due to trying to charge in straight lines and positioning.
I hope to always have my players build their characters together, as well as tell me how they got together. This works toward a cooperative feel for the group. They'll often work out between themselves what they'd like to do. Now, when it comes to the "role", it's less class based and more ability score based. There will be challenges ahead that target these ability scores. If there are heavy loads, climb challenges, swimming or rolling heavy boulders away from caves, do you have a way to sort that out? What about balancing across thin planks, sneaking quietly or dodging dart traps? Do you have someone who's educated such that they can study arcana, religion, history, or speak multiple languages? What about concerns over perception, medicine, or whom are skilled with calming beasts? Do you have a social butterfly who'll trick, persuade or demand actions from NPCs? These aren't classes. They're skills and tasks based on Ability scores. I assure you, you had either have the ability to solve a problem, or have a way to fake a solution with a spell, class ability, or conjured ally. Otherwise you'll need to get really inventive. As a DM, I'm all about inventive solutions, but there's only so far I'll allow the physics of the world to bend. Plan ahead. Furthermore, there are many classes that wear more than one hat. Bards and Druids fall into the multi-task role, because they can be built to do almost anything, and the variations on Cleric alone allow for it to be almost anything too. Subclasses like the Arcane Trickster, Eldritch Knight, Ranger and Paladin mix weapon and spell options, allowing for more versatility. And that's the key. Versatility. Can your character do more than one thing, or did you write yourself into a corner? Building versatile characters expands play to the point where "Role" is shared and there's less concern over the grognard "tank/healer/thief/wizard" argument. You'll find that those who demand these roles be filled tend to be the "paladins are always lawful good knights" and "all rogues are greedy thieves" category. I tend to see the world as a series of problems where the solution is out there, and I'm open to how my players might want to solve it. No Rogue in the party, but you have a Trickster Cleric or a stealthy Ranger? You should be fine. No wizard but you have an Eldritch Knight with a Familiar, or a Tomelock with Ritual Caster? You should be fine. No Cleric but you have a Divine Soul Sorcerer? You should be fine. It's up to the DM to be open to solutions from the players, but it's incumbent upon the player to plan for problems. No healer of any kind? Okay, better pack healing potions. No scout of any kind? Well, do you have a Familiar or spell that can see ahead? No fighter or big bruiser? Okay, do you have a War Cleric, or an Enlarger spell? Maybe the Druid could turn into Bear? How as the party do you intend to solve problems that target your weaknesses, and what will you do to solve these issues? As DM, that's not MY problem. That's YOURS. I'm here to arbitrate your decisions, not solve your problems. Prepare. Think. Take chances. Be heroes.
I started playing D&D back in the 70's, and for us back then, as it still is the case, for my group, the "Perfect D&D Party" = Any types of characters who the players have fun playing. We've had every mix of classes and races in every combination possible, and we've always made it work. We've even enjoyed parties where there were multiple crap characters as results of bad dice rolls in there. No matter what we got, we made it work. Modern D&D is too.. forgiving for my group when it comes to character creation and character abilities. We really enjoyed that, "My character could die instantly at any moment!" sense of danger from back in the old days. We spent a LOT of time just having fun making characters. We always had binders of characters just ready to go when the eventual death happened. Then again, my group just didn't have the type of players who got overly attached to their characters unlike a LOT of groups that I've seen over the years. Our characters were always canon fodder for whatever dangerous horror was going on, and we enjoyed the hell out of it. So many of those deaths impacted the world, and future stories, and characters, in countless ways. The perfect party = any party the players have fun playing and that make the story fun.
3.5e and RIFTS are my party and I's favorite systems, precisely for the danger they offer. My parties and I still run multiple characters at a time. Not in every game. But quite often in D&D. Though there's nothing wrong with character attachment, they are pieces of ourselves after all. There's been many a tpk where we took a break and raised a toast to the gloriously fallen.
@@rcschmidt668 Yep. And we made it work. Balance? What's that? We didn't care. My group had a thing. Roll the dice. Whatever you got for a character, you got. You were forced to be very creative to keep those characters alive. "Make it work" was a mantra for up. And character death was part of the fun.
@@BlackburnBigdragon That is one of the problems I have with CR... There were way too many returns from death. Also, side story and self-promotion at the expense of the group adventure. Just IMHO.
I ran with a specialist party through a module. We were all different kinds of rogues and it was honestly a blast!(no one was an edgy rogue so that helped) I do recommend anyone who wants to try it, to try it! Totally different experience
9:10 My kids and my friend and I regularly do this at Origins in Columbus when we do John Arcadian's tarrasque event. We played it straight the first year. The second we played as an all Druid party. The last year (before covid), we did it as an all bard party. Absolute laugh riot. Our favorite tactic was polymorphing one of the bards into a clay golem and then he proceeded to fight the tarrasque and force it to swallow him. At that point, as a clay golem he was not subject to acid damage, and just kept pummeling it until it got thrown up. In the end, with everyone dead but one last bard, she went ethereal for a few hours, then returned, and brought everyone back to life.
I more like the idea of the GM being a storyteller, and the players want to play it with freedom to do what they want to their hearts content, and potential consequences of the story. I don't like the idea of asking the players - what they want to do, because that makes you more of a director. But I guess that could work if you also intend to be a player in the game. But it's each to their own.
Yes, but it is due to many is still stuck in the "War Game Age" of role-playing. The transition stage in the evolution from "War Games" to "Role Playing Games". You can often recognize them as they do not have a GM. Instead, they have a Disaster Master Most often they play Death and Disaster.
I think all parties are perfect, rather over numbered or under numbered. Especially the ones with flaws and deficiencies, that argue and don't always get along "perfectly". Ones that you look at and say "how does this mismatched group of dysfunctional miscreants ever manages to get any traction?" but then watch them enter initiative and look at them go, like a well oiled machine. Heroes aren't always perfect, but they're perfect when it truly matters. All my favorite players inject their insanity into the game at precisely the correct moment to stupendous effect each and every time. And as a GM I love rewarding clever plays that swiftly end combat or even better, ones that prevent combat. And if you manage to turn an enemy into an ally, whooo boy I'm gonna give your PC SO much favoritism after that lol. Anyone can murder hobo, it takes a certain kind of class to befriend your enemies. Great video, as always. And the comments section is always fun too.
I played in a dungeon/castle crawl one-off where we had two bards (one of which was me), two rogues, and two rangers. The rangers were almost exactly the same. Same subtype and they both had wolf companions, which were named Fluffy and Also Fluffy. It was a blast, and totally worked even though we were pretty much all sneaky (except the flamboyant rogue who just chose not to be sneaky or rolled terribly), not particularly tough (dex for the win!), mostly had non-magical attacks (fighting a ghost, which was interesting--but yay for vicious mockery and psychic blade), and were generally very unbalanced. Funny thing is, we made our characters together, fully aware we were going to have unbalanced chaos. It was great.
Really just depends on your style of GMing. For meticulously planned encounters, I can see why this is important. For people who wing it, like me, this isn't even a consideration.
I run two campaigns right now. One party has two Rangers, a Fighter, a Rogue, and a Wizard. The other has a Monk, a Fighter, an Artificer, a Wizard, and a Bard. In the first group, the Rogue picked proficiency in Medicine. In the second one, the Bard is their healer. It's interesting to see what these two different groups can do.
I once played in a con WFRP game as one of six dwarven trollslayers. It was great fun, even though all of us really only had one tool in the toolbox: HIT IT WITH AN AXE!!! I also ran a couple of one-shots where the party were all roadwardens. There, I took a leaf out of the game All For One: Regime Diabolique, and had all the PCs be already in their second careers. I think there's a fourth party type, where the players create characters as part of a kind of group, like mercenaries. WFRP3 codified this with its 'party sheets' which actually granted special abilities of their own. The old FFG 40K games mostly did that: you were all Space Marines, or Imperial Guard, or Inquisitorial agents.
I feel like this video goes really well with the previous video about total party wipes! haha I had a group of x2 Wizards, Sorcerer and a Druid. The druid became all purpose tank and healer. It was actually a lot fun- but then I had some thugs from the king show up demanding that one of the PCs go with them to see the king (the party knew this king was not the "good guy" of the story) Where I expected combat they just let the one wizard go see the king. (this is where the panic began) I had him go- and the king demanded that a magic item they had found be given to him the wizard refused and I was like okay combat starts. I had stats for the king and his body guard and I knew this pc was in trouble but I figured they would "knock him out" and then the rest of the party could come and we could do a prison break type thing. Rather than fight the guard he chased after the king taking opportunity attacks and then had 2 nat 20s in a row. I was shocked the group was shocked. The king was dead. So rather than a prison break I was like okay they can try and stop the execution. That went wrong with PC mistakes and also bad dice rolls. It honestly felt epic though so I think everyone was okay with it, they were all far more experienced players than I am and apparently this was a first party wipe for all of them.
In our group we also had problems with Skill overlaps. 3 Out of 5 characters are specialized in nature stuff and 4 survival. We have other overlaps too. Spells for example (detect magic, and such things) so the same person did all the stuff. But i think everyone found his place by now. It is getting better with more skills etc available
*I am a first time DM* with a party of 3 players; a _Lycantrophy Blood Hunter,_ a _Scout Rogue_ and the third character will be a _Ranger_ (Archetype to be determined) Not entirely specialist, but a lot of overlap and similar gaps in skills. Should be interesting!!
The perfect party I think makes it easy to coordinate between players, and can potentially be a source of inspiration if a player doesn't have a character concept in mind, but it can be a bit boring predictable and can potentially force someone to play something they know they won't enjoy. The independent party I generally like, as each person definitely gets something they want to play and is likely to have a more personal connection with their character, but on the other hand I have been in parties where someone else had my skillset but better and it's crushing. I'd love to try a specialist party, but I also think that puts the most pressure on the DM because they then have to tune challenges for them and possibly make the system do something it was never designed for. Unless the DM is up for it, maybe even the one to propose the idea, a specialist party could be a major headache. Also, there's a possibility that having a specialist party means you're actually using the wrong system, as there might be another that's a better fit for the theme.
One of the best parties I was a part of had 2 fighters, a monk and a damage oriented rogue in DnD 3.5. If the quest involved killing a big thing we were stupidly good for that, but we were lacking in so many other areas that we had to adapt our playstyle as well - the rogue started investing skill points into Use Magic Device so that we could somewhat reliably heal from a wand of cure light wounds etc. Although, the GM has to cooperate and adapt as well. But definitely would recommend for everyone to try it out.
I have heard you talk about a specialist party for some years now. This idea has been stuck in my head ever since aswell. I do hope I will GM a group like this one day.
I prefer to have everyone in my group fill different roles, just cause it's more fun when everyone has a niche where they can shine. As a player, I always pick my class last, just to round things out a little more.
@@ninjafohhiya Been in this hobby 23 years. I've done both. My brother and I both DM, so we both run a couple games and are players in each other's games. Benefits of having a dad that was into this stuff pretty much since the dawning days of this hobby.
We had a party of bards, a traveling theater group. Nearly everyone was multiclassed to broaden the skills but it was a bucket of fun. RP situations were in the bag. Utility characters may not be amazing at everything but they are great, or inspired
Same observation as you. My best campaign adventure (as a GM) were the ones were I pushed my player to a "thematic" party (with semi-prebuild character, with idea like "build whatever you want, but you have to have this skill and in your background you have this and this event). Like, a full rogue party preparing an infiltration. So no "warrior", no "priest" etc... But variants of the same class, with each their other form of specialisation. With yes, some being able to brew healing potion, some to fight/tank/... more efficiently. But each time they only are marginally better. So everyone could fill in if needed, but still each specialised skill could shine when needed. Also, as you point out, my rules is the NPC dont join the party. They are just temporary helpers (and not often that willingly, or with a counterpart if they temporarly join). And it's so much more fun! Because they have to get help from NPC, find way to workarond their gaps. Which leads to player being more cautious, and thus often more resilient (because even if one player fumble, crumble etc... then the party isnt doomed).
I've always been in advocate for the inbalanced party out of the simple reason: Play what you want to like to play or you think you'll get the most joy out of the game. This comes with one of the biggest problems, which is also mentioned here, giving the players a reason to why they want to travel together to begin with. Sometimes the session 0 brings them together but sometimes it just doesn't and they fail to find a reason and I fail to give them a reason to stick together I can use: "Oh wait there is an invasion happening!" only that often before it gets boring/too repetitive. Sometimes players will find a task where they need each other but it doesn't mean that they will stick with each other it's more of an "welp we need you so we gonna do it together" and than their charackters just don't bond over time of the task etc. It's hella difficult to find a magic glue.
What you call a "perfect party" is something our group calls the "hyperspecialized" party. The fighter only fights, the cleric only heals, the wizard only blasts enemies, and the rogue only sneaks around. I encourage the players to overlap their skills. One character is excellent at a particular skill while the other is moderately skilled. For example, the rogue is highly skilled at Stealth, but the wizard also has some skill in Stealth as well. That way if one character goes down, the other can pick up the slack.
One of my favorite characters I played was a utility wizard but who's first combat option is hitting enemies over the head with a customized spellbook (briefcase 1+str mod)
The randomly mixed party has the same weaknesses as the other two combined. If they for example have one healer and two fighters, if the healer falls away it has the same effect as in the perfect party. They also have lacking skills in some areas as the specialist party does. The biggest problem I see for ovelapping players is the one guy mentioned with one player overshadowing the other. However play the character you want imo. There can be slight adjustments to make the party stick together better but not huge ones. If you enjoy your character it's easier to enjoy the story and the other characters. If something really doesn't fit often a solution can be found afterwards. If it is discussed what kind of game/campaign it's going to be one can make a fitting character they also enjoy.
Pathfinder was based on buidling the perfect party it has set characters unlike 5th after 2 years the Cleric complained that he was always healing the group and was bored with it apart from him only other person who could heal was my Ranger who could cast cure light wounds at most 3 times. This is one reason why I like 5th more less restriction plus way less rules and feats to remember.
Just come up with something interesting, whether it be a Human Fighter, a Kobold Warlock or a Warforged Ranger crossclassed with Artificer. As long as all at the table all have fun we're laughing. Be CHARACTERS, not roles - that's limiting everyone.
The issue that I've seen the most with a specialist party is that sometimes you run into a character who ends up completely overshadowed by the others. A major advantage of a diverse party is that everyone has their own time to shine inherently built into their character.
We did an oops all barbarians. One was a traditional barb, another was a shape shifter, and i did one that had some spellcasting ability. It was very fun because different players would rage at different times. Traps were walked through since hp was not a premium.
A party of all starfighter pilots sounds really badass tbh. It’s just screaming for dogfights, ship customizing oneupmanship, and impromptu racing. Now I really want to do this
The perfect party is the party that is perfect for the campaign. I will always talk with the players about what kind of adventure we've decided to run and work with them on what kind of characters would fit well (or fit poorly in an awesome way) with the adventure that we've all picked to play together.
Guy hinted at it early in the video. The game system that you are running ultimately determines the recommended role composition. If the chosen system is structured with specialized roles and the players want to play characters outside of the recommended role composition, then you need to either: alter the rule set with house rules, or not play that game system and instead play a system that allows for such game play.
In CRPGs my favourite style of play is single-minded powergaming: I build and test candidate perfect parties, optimising them to the absolute limit. In TTRPGs that is simply *not fun* , for me or for the other players. I absolutely focus on "filling a slot" in a party composition if I see an obvious one, but I make sure the character is most definitely *not* optimised. A flaw or two make the game way more interesting. Plus we do stats the 3d6-in-order way, so there's almost no way to optimise from that. :D Characters are _all_ squishy, and we have to work hard to resolve encounters!
Ahh disappointed, I thought you gonna talk about players / the people at the table, not group composition in regards to classes. 😅 I observe that players with the meta composition (tank, healer, dd and cc) tend to be effective but approach every situation kind of the same way.
In 1E you needed someone from one of each of the 4 groups because there wasn't a Skills section on the sheets, so things like picking locks or finding traps was Only possible by "rogues" as an example. Now the skills exist that isn't as big of a deal. I know you can play as all of one class now and get along fine as long as the GM makes adaptions for that, but I think for ease from everyone you (In my Opinion) can succeed better If you at least have one person that has some kind of healing, and one fighter or tanky kind. Of course, as I said, its not required, just easier.
My next Campaign is looking to be an All Necromancer Party. I can't wait to see what they do when they head into the undead haunted waste land that the quest is leading into!
My preferred option is an "imbalanced party", but I don't think it should ever be built completely in isolation. Before my session zeros I tell my players to think of what they might want to play, and then at my session zeros I have them all discuss it as a group. That way, people can adapt their character to be a better fit for the party, like not making an Assassin Rogue when somebody else wants to do that so your skills don't overlap, or generally not having personalities that heavily clash.
So in a Pathfinder first ed, We have somewhat accidentally created what I've started to call the "Double Perfect Party". Four Mythic Characters who all have two specializations from a roll standpoint. A Paladin Guardian who can tank Pretty much anything and heal cause first ed paladins be da broken. An Inquisitor Hierophant who knows a surprising amount of arcane secrets and other skills, and is a good healer. A Flesheater Barbarian Champion who focuses on anti-hoard fighting and tanking hits. And finally. A Mindblade Magus Archmage who nukes the rest of the party on a fairly regular basis. Also she specializes in AoE magic and skills. They are Kinda unstoppable, and we love it cause it allows us to focus on the Interplay between them. Like how the Inquisitor is Terrified of the Barbarian cause he's a hunter and she's a kitsune (fox-folk). Or how the Paladin is trying to cope with a leadership position she never wanted to be in. All while fighting Hoards of demons. Good Times, can't wait to get back to playing it. tl:dr Party is so broken we can split it in half and still be a "perfect" party
First thing is that multiple classes can do multiple different things. For example my bard could heal if needed for those but she also served as a basically an evocation wizard because of all the damaging spells I took. I don't really consider the need for a perfect party. If there's no one with any healing or little healing you can just give them healing items. I personally don't try to make the perfect party. Honestly I just try to make sure that I don't have a character to similar to any others. For example if someone is playing a college of lore bard I probably won't be a bard but if I do be a bard I for sure won't be that sub class and will make sure I have some spells different than them. I do agree with having changes need to be made is you can't have them do that.
In real life I have found it useful to have significant cross-training within a group. This applied to military experience and industrial experience. Being able to continue when one or more member is missing is necessary. But hey, don't let real life ideas interfere with fantasies.
Had a DM run a mirror match party to counter our strengths it was fun and challenging. Back in my Pathfinder 1E days. Same game our session 0 was going to have three rogues and a fighter which sounded like a sitcom, but we ended up with a Fighter, Rogue, Summoner, Alchemist.
Excellent channel mate. Just stumbled across this video and I'll be back for more. Well done and clearly spoken. A valuable trait in a world of mumblers.
I'm playing in a campaign were we're all relatively squishy ranged classes. We have to get creative in fights because none of us want to stand in melee. :p We also can't do anything related to strength like forcing open an entrance...
My Variant Human Monk looking over at the other two members of my party: a Tiefling Sorcerer that only (and I mean ONLY) does fire damage spells, and the Gnome Ranger who likes to throw hands axes from 30 ft away. "Yeah, perfect party."
Did the Tiefling burn his family to death because his "teacher" told him they were traitors and he later discovered that they were not?! And by ONLY DOES FIRE DAMAGE SPELLS do you mean they have NO spells that aren't offensive or just that all their damage spells only deal fire damage?
I always advocate that players play whatever they want. I currently have a group of 4, 2x Rogues and 2x Artificers. I always set up my games to be resolved in any of the 3 pillars of DnD, so they tend towards Exploration and Roleplaying. Right now they plan on running a heist to acquire a piece of a giant abomination so as to gain allies in hopes to rescue their friends from an opposing army. Less combat focused and more in line with their skill sets. It's a lot of fun, and we're constantly cracking up in laughter.
I try to "fill the gap" so I tend to wait and see what the party has but the party I am currently in had a ranged rogue, a frontline rogue, a support bard, frontline barbarian, and we knew we were getting a frontline cleric so they said play something fun and I chose to play my shadow monk bloodhunter lycan build that's pretty versatile but I tend to be frontline because I haven't tried it before. The ranged rogue changed into a ranged sorc and we got another ranged sorc. So it seems our party is pretty balanced. My monk can throw darts, deflect missiles, and because he is bloodhunter can use more ranged weapons. I took the archery fighting style in bloodhunter because I figured it would help in case I'm stuck in the back, not being able to shadow step into a good position (right now tho I'm 3 monk 3 bloodhunter so I can't shadow step anyway). I think a good party would have 2 healers, a tank, a ranged, and a support. An old dm I had almost did a tpk because he had 2 healers setting in the back healing each other and the other creatures while one creature layer out an aoe crowd control spell to keep us in one spot so the frontline couldn't do anything and the ranged were doing very little. I now build characters that can get out of those crowd control effects.
A really fun game I joined in pathfinder set up the group as red mantis assassins. A specialist party of assassins, but each person went about it a little differently, yes there was the typical rouge assassins but one person was a cleric/assassin who almost never healed anyone and I chose to play a witch to use magic and manipulating other to kill people for me. Super fun game.
I remind my player as often as posible, that only they deside what kind of character they want to play. If there are two players who want to play the same kind of specialist, I am fine with that. I will do my job and provide a fun experiance no matter what they want to play. The adventures will alway give them problems the can not solve by default, but will alway give them the freedom to work around things they can not fix rigth away.
D&D is different in that your Class does not define your Roll in the party because your class allows you to cover multiple facets of the “Perfect Party”. Clerics can be Tanks or Healers. Same for Paladins who can do both of those things and smite for loads of damage. Wizards can be Blasters or Control. I’m currently playing a Warlock and I’m our party’s Healer/Ritual Specialist in ToA. Eldritch Knights. Arcane Tricksters. Bladesinger Wizards. Hexblade Warlocks. They were all created to allow you to have even more Roll combinations.
never had a perfect party and I love it that way. It's nice when the party has a weakness that can be exploited. And they are aware of it too so it always adds tension to encounters. Best so far was a party of all rouges (bunch of heist/assassination missions, big tension when fighting multi attack monsters) and a party of all fighters (awesome skirmishes and pure dread when they encounter a high lvl wizard)
I've done it both ways. I've run campaigns where everyone agreed that they were ok with rerolling characters so I gave them no freebies. Ive also run ones where they didn't want to reroll so I didn't go for the party wiping quests.
If one guy goes down everything collapses. Uhm thats not a perfect party. A perfect party is one where each person excels at something, and can cover for someone going down. No the cleric can't fight as well as the platemail clad fighter, but with their chainmail and magic mace they can fill the gap while the thief uses his wand of healing to get the fighter up.
I mean, I don't want to totally stomp on the party, but I also don't think it's fair to expect a GM to build encounters FOR a specific party, unless it's a bunch of friends who agreed to that sort of thing specifically. Normally, as a GM, I just build villains/encounters that thematically make sense and are relatively balanced for the level the party 'should' fight them at. As you've said, it's okay for the party or its members to die; a good part of staying alive is the PCs' responsibility; the GM just has to not be a jerk about it. To be clear, I don't think all encounters that are 'level appropriate' are actually good ideas. There are certain ways to build encounters to make them fun challenges, and there are certain ways to build them to make people cry. Don't do the latter. I think it's a matter of balance. I like to allow people to play what they want, but... At least in Pathfinder 2e, you basically need a healer and you need people who can fight. BUT I don't advocate for "the perfect party"; just make sure you've got healing and fighting and some skill variance.
The interesting thing about "perfect party" play deriving from video games is how many older MMOs from the pre-WoW days, themselves heavily inspired by D&D, just sort of threw class design against the wall to see what stuck. While there was clearly "optimized" play, where things got genuinely interesting were having classes fulfill a "secondary" role, usually in response to an emergency and sometimes due to lack of available optimal choices. The little I've played/seen of modern mainstream MMOs has kind of boiled down most classes to solely existing as one of the dps/healer/tank trinity, but the early days of games like EQ and FFXI were really fun for exploring unoptimized play out of necessity and it reminded me quite a bit of tabletop gaming (not that it was perfect- if your crew in FFXI didn't have a dedicated healer for anything marginally difficult you weren't going to get very far regardless of how clever you were)
No offense, but I'm going to have to push back *real* hard on the implication that the "perfect party" problem has anything to do with "video games" or the like. As you note, the idea of a balanced party goes back to, well, the introduction of the Thief as a class. Each character class had a role to with the adventuring troupe: Fighter handled combat situations (striker/tank), the Cleric dealt with healing and was essential protection against undead foes, the Thief handled traps and scouting, and the Wizard handled magic obstacles, and served as a jack-of-all trades problem solver and ace-in-the-hole. Modern iterations have moved away from adventure role balance to in-combat role balance, but the idea is much the same. Driving force behind this role specialization is at least as much simulationist (as in trying to roleplay a realistic response to a given scenario) as it is any gamist concern: unless your party is literally composed of a bunch of strangers thrown together by circumstance (something which certainly does happen in RPGs), then your adventurers are definitely take into consideration the sort of challenges they are expecting to face in the process of forming an adventuring party - seeking out appropriate companions with the skills & equipment needed for the job (including NPC hirelings). I don't think there is anything wrong with a little meta gaming as to party composition here - or that it is some how sacrilegious to suggest the players that they might not want to bring an all-Bard party to the planned and agreed about upcoming dungeon crawl. Keep in mind that group play is just that - group play - and the the GM is a member of said group. While I don't think the GM should be interfering with an individual player's character choices, there are plenty of times where the group's needs outweigh individual preferences. I also don't think it is reasonable to ask a GM to tailor an entire campaign to suit a poorly coordinated, unsynergetic, or outright outlandish party comp - unless playing such a party comp was the agreed on premise of the campaign in the first case. The real source of the "perfect party" issue is overspecialization made possible by the rise of mechanical character customization: specifically, the ability to min-max stats and the delineation of what a character can do into specific skills/perks/abilities/powers/etc./ such that a character without the requisite skill cannot (or cannot effectively) perform actions related to that skill. This is a system problem (to the extent that you view it as a problem). If you want to avoid this type of thing, then you need to build in mechanisms into the system that effectively "punish" over specialization... That sounds negative/punitive, but what I'm really talking about is making every stat at least somewhat important to every character, so you can't just "dump" one - or several - without consequence. Avoiding hyperspecialized skill/perk systems which make any capacity or competence dependent on substantial investment in specific skills is also important. If you want well rounded characters, you need to make a system where well rounded characters are A) viable in play, and by B) aren't completely blown away by specialists in terms of capability. Balance in this area traditionally something that has proven quite difficult for a lot of RPG systems.
What I happen to do is get a feeling of what the rest of the party and the DM might want, especially if I am replacing another player who left the group. While no role is needed, it still takes work for the GM to design the encounters, and the other players are probably used to play a certain way. This way, I can help things go a little bit smoother in the mechanical sense, which helps prevent everyone getting stuck in the planning phases. Of course, that's the way I do also because thinking about what I might want to do mechanically helps me come up with ideas for character concept and with backstories.
Ran an "Everyone's an Orc, dammit!" one-shot a while back. Lots of fun and some really interesting characters (Even if the half-ogre, goblin, and bone-'n-metal construct guys weren't _technically_ Orcs) but with a table as large as ours (7 players and a GM) it would be statistically improbable for at least _most_ roles not to be touched upon...
I started organizing perfect parties because it fits my setting better. I run a superhero campaign and I found that people really got a sense of being superhuman when they were the best at what they do. It's hard to feel like the greatest archer in the world when you are on a party with Hawkeye, Green Arrow, and Robin Hood.
Got the alert 19 hours later, and I've already watched it.... But hey, it's the thought that counts I guess On topic though. Of course there's a spectrum between functional and non-functional parties. Like, it would be much harder to have a gang of standard array totem barbarians. Obsessing over "perfect" is probably silly, but there's probably a need for "functional"
I once DM'ed a game that intentionally started as a specialist party. All Monks. I'd noticed in previous games that all the players would make martial arts references, but they never played monks. SO I created a world based on China, during the times it was ruled by Mongols, but with magic, etc. And told all the players their first level HAD to be Monk. After that they could diverge. Some of them did, moving towards the perfect party. However, several didn't. So they maintained that Monk flavor, and it was a lot of fun.
The specialist party reminds me of a post of a party of all clerics, each a different sub-class, called the A-men Party. Oh I just remembered it's from jo-cat I think
i needed this right now! what would you do to rebalance a game for a bunch of combat specialists without making it obvious the game has shifted to fit them? if its important to know your limits, how do you reinforce their idea of those limits without limiting the players themselves or relying on npcs? my cyberpunk party didnt build a single netrunner and it wasnt until the end of the second session when i realised how bad that could be
Try running CoS as written without a (near) perfect party. They will die off very fast. Try running CoS heavily modded like I do. If your party isn't able to function as a well oiled machine with a as good as you can get perfect party character deaths are going to be the norm. Now if you want beer and pretzels don't come to my session, the world is not going to go easy on you. A Nabassu is still a Nabassu, and 20 shadows will still wreck the party. Bruiser, tank, control, support, ranged and melee DPR. When these roles are filled (pending group size some might need to MC) you'll have a much easier time. Example: where I'm playing (I know, right?!) I fill the role of a ranged DPR support control that can multifunction as a melee DPR bruiser. Damphir swords bard with a breach loading rifle. And contrary to what Guy is saying: you don't need specialists, you need filled functions. A bladesinger can be a trolldprbruiser, pick a criminal background and you've also got scouting and traps covered. Since I didn't need to cover this aspect when I was playing I picked an RP background as entertainer who was also the logistician, the soul and the I've got a thing for all scenarios prepared (or I like to boast about it when I do for 99% of the situations). Perfect party is pending on group size. You can also make it as near perfect as possible without sacrificing RP and if your DM allows for it just take MC.
I wish more GM's did this. I get to play in 2 games a week atm and one is super cool (I play a bard, we also have a paladin, a wizard... and some rogue/cleric/ranger/sorcerer) and the other one that we have TPK uhh... 4 times since Jan 2021. That group generally likes to play more "this is what i am, if you dont like it. deal with it". This time we are going Swashbuckler rogue, Soulknife Rogue, Swarmkeeper Ranger and Beastmaster Ranger and tbh i feel for our lives that its just going to be another tpk in a month. Our GM generally just goes "oh this is cool" whith ZERO regard to the players class or skillset. Also the lack of background integration and they only like combat. Wish i could show them this stuff and they would even care. So to all the GM's out there who put effort and care into your players choices, I thank you.
I am fortunate as I GM for my wife, we play one-on-one. I run NPCs as needed to form her a party, depending on the advenure or campaign needs. Flexible and fun. Perfect party, ok. Imbalanced, no problem. Specialists, cool.
I like magic, and I recommend that when people play my games that at least one person has access to arcane magic, and one has access to divine magic because it's going to be present no matter what. But I don't care either way, and I'll let anyone play whatever they want.
To me I ran a game where they didn't have a cleric so I added an npc cleric for a few sessions never outshone the PCs just helped and healed where they were needed and avoided the dmnpc pitfalls as much as I could. What happens when the GM doesn't want to alter his campaign when he fcuks it up entirely and refuses to alter it when it makes more sense to do so?
Same. My current party doesn't have a tank, so there is an NPC who joins them from time to time. His catch phrase is "hey guys, what do want me to do?" But he's also got his own life and isn't always available.
I disagree that a GM should keep quiet on mechanical party build discussions. A GM might strongly care about the type of party they design for, or have quirks the players should know about. In other words, simulationists should be free to give their disclaimers. I'm pretty chill and try to work around players, but there's a common enough thing other DMs do that I will NEVER do: make everything you come across in the common language. I like translation-based riddles, I like the ambiguity of logographic writing systems, I like contrasting transliteration and translation, I like taking note about which fantasy language is written in which fantasy script. A party NEEDS someone who can translate in my games. Not because _they_ couldn't fulfill their goals without that, but because _I_ wouldn't be having fun without it.
I feel like perfect parties are totally overrated. As a GM it is your responsibility to make the game around the party that your players want to play. Nobody wants to play a cleric? So give them healing potions. Nobody wants to play a rogue? So don't put in skill challenges that your party is not equipped to handle.
Parties are as diverse as player groups. The only important thing is that everyone's on the same page. If everyone wants to play a specialist-type party, let's say sneaky, and one player wants to be super clumsy that may ruin the game for some people.
*Thanks for watching!* Lets us know in the comments below your thoughts on having the perfect party at your RPG table.
My players never think about party balance. They just play what is fitting from a roleplaying perspective.
I feel like unbalanced parties are the most interesting because you have to find new ways around issues that may have been simple to a more balanced one. My favorite was the Bard Party that happened at a Pathfinder Society convention I went to. What I found most fun was how we worked around all 3 combat encounters that were written into the scenario with bardy shenanigans! Like distracting guards while everyone else sneaks in, or annoying the informant so he misses his meeting with our adversary!
Character and player dynamic is way way way more important than this! But I also focus on narrative and relations in the game. ☺️
I always tell my players, "build what you want". Then we get together and see what party has been created and if there needs to be slight changes for the story. And yes I mean slight.
If you are making changes to characters for story reasons then there was a failure in communication! The players NEED to know story things that are important for character creation.
For example, if I am running a campaign in Glantri on the Mystara world then my players NEED to that Glantri HEAVILY favors those with arcane spellcasting abilities and those who have Divine Abilities are HEAVILY shunned and often treated poorly.
@@JacksonOwex No failure in communication. I said slight changes. So, names or "magic is pink in this world, I don't care what you say".
I use the player's backgrounds to create my backgrounds and some plots. Or the rare occasion the PCs clash because those specific players would never get along with similar backgrounds/characters
From a players perspective I don't worry too much about the party composition but I do still generally prefer to play a class (or at least subclass) that no one else in the same party is playing
@@JacksonOwex I disagree. There's something to be said about ignorance and dealing with it as it comes.
A good player would work around their disadvantage. It's up to you as a GM to not be oppressive about it. For example with Glantri, just because it favors arcane doesn't mean there might not be a pocket of divine users akin to a rebel cell or something like that. If you use the " _Glantri are opposed to Divine_ " as a matter of oppressing that one singular player who wanted to be a cleric, then the problem would be on you, not the player. That's what I am saying here. Could even have it that the soldiers surround the players, like the King's personal guard under the pretext of being arrested, only to be taken to the terminally ill king, whereupon the players find out that he is secretly employing Divine users to try and save him. You have options.
The time I do agree with you however, is when;
" _Okay, we're gonna play a Stealth kind of game so I want you all to make a stealth focused kind of character._ "
And this one guy goes " _So here's Burlap Burnisson, he dual-wields Dwarven hand-cannons while chewing a cigar._ "
That's the moment you can say " _That's a great concept, but save it for another game perhaps?_ "
tl;dr :::
The players shape the setting that you lay out for them.
You don't shape the players, unless it's a very specific thing in mind.
"Build what you want"
(players show up with 5 chaotic neutral rogues)
"I should not have said that"
Before I watch this video and agree on all the stuff know this:
My wednesday group consists of one RangerRogue, one Sorcerer, one Rogue/Arcane Trickster, one Moon-Druid and one Wizard.
No cleric, no fighter. Nothing. They managed to beat every encounter through cleverness, tactics and preparation. Sometimes they had to fall back but they could always resolve any encounter.
Somtimes one or two drop but not dead. The druid only knows minimal healing. Awesome group ^^
My friday group consists of one artificer, one fighter, one warlock, one cleric and one rogue. We had 1 tpk and three extra characters dead. They had "tank" and "healer", "melee dd", "controler" and "ranged dd". They failed because they didn't use ressources (properly) often enough.
Stay crunchy.
There's also the "versitle party". I usually see this evolve over time. A fighter that takes some skills in healing; a druid that becomes the party face; a wizard with high crafting and thievery. The players take on roles beyond what is expected for their class.
My favorite campaign idea that we started but never got to finishing was "Band of heroes", I don't think anyone needed explanation as to what meaning of band we were using.
One group I was in, we called ourselves the NBA.
“No Bards Allowed.” It was a big inside joke with us and anytime a bard tried to join we playfully razzed them.
The idea of a perfect party, to me, is one where the players work together and play well together, regardless of class/subclass. That would be an ideal world lol
The ‘perfect party’ reduces opportunities for challenges to provoke PCs to come up with creative solutions.
I like small parties because they will always have gaps in what they can do so have to think outside the box to overcome different encounters.
The problem with the "Perfect Party" concept is that all parties become the same same.
I think it is a good idea to apply the "Make a character who is different to your previous character" at party level too:
"Make a group composition different from the previous group".
I think; too similar groups have the same problem, as too similar characters: Memories about them get blurred together.
This is especially evident when a player needs to miss a session. The remnant will make do.
I found it really hard for an entire unbalanced party with full overlap. Players often find it more fun when everyone has its own skill set and shines in its particular function. And there's always a Player who waits to fill the gaps by making "The role the party needs" (those players I found are often GMs themselves)
I'm a "fill in the gaps" player and definitely a GM. And I've found both as a GM and a player that the party having a decent balance with limited overlap makes for a more entertaining experience.
This is also me 😄 I always have a dozen or so PC's I would love to play and will fill a role other people haven't taken (it just gives more space for different players to shine.)
I'm a gap filler. Although it can sometimes be frustrating because one of my groups always picks the same roles so end up as the same 2-3 classes constantly. 🙃
We had an oops all barbarians, we did different barbarian types that allowed us to still have fun
17:23 I love the idea of them being best friends trying to prove each other whose faith is the better one for years
Perfect party: All clerics. Even better if your churches don't like each other.
Sounds like an absolute blast. Depending if there are any survivors that is
Only if they walk into a bar.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Sounds like a perfect disaster.
The cleric only party: the A-men
As a GM, I try to have my players decide what they want to play independent of each other.
As a player, I try to fill the role of the missing party member.
OMG! I'm not the only one!?
This is a great concept until I showed up to a game where all characters were made independently. An eldritch blast warlock, archer build ranger, crossbow wielding rogue, and a wizard. Every combat encounter was a Scooby-Doo chase sequence until some characters died and a more well rounded party came about.
@@sarahwhitely6878 Sure, consequences of terrible character choices will happen. Warlocks, pfft. However, having a goofy party and trying to think of how to get stuff done is part of the fun. I'm in a current game with three clerics. Three!
The perfect party is the one having fun, who cares how they’re built?! Lol
Always appreciate your videos.
I disagree with a lot of what you had to say here, but I always appreciate the orderly way you present your ideas. The 'perfect party' comes from the original D&D game that only had 4 classes (fighter, cleric, thief, wizard). The whole idea, is that the GM doesn't have to tailor make the environment or challenges to the party, but can instead build a diverse and "realistic" world where it is that GM's job to create challenges and the players job to solve those challenges. If the PCs don't have the tools, well then they're going to need to come up with something else, BUT if they have all the classic skills, then they have answers for most problems. I suppose this comes down to the style of game the GM runs; is your game one in which the players shape the world around them, or are you running a game world that the PCs experience, but don't shape directly? Depending on which you do, the party make up becomes more or less important. So yeah, to each their own, but I feel like the imbalanced party, which is what happens without the 'perfect party', results in situations where one of the players is less useful and having less fun.
"Specialist' parties should be run in a game where the 'specialist' party would go on that type of adventure. EG: you wouldn't have an all 'Cleric/Paladin' party go on a quest to rid the town of the evil wizard and his horde that is terrorizing the town and countryside. Instead, a 'Holy Quest' to seek out the rumored location of a Holy Relic for the order/diety they worship and return it to the Priesthood. This would help to dictate the types of encounters they would come across. This doesn't mean you can't have 'non-cleric' type encounters (traps/locked doors/combat monsters/etc) but they would be tailored to the types of PC's. In this case, the 'locked door' could be a religious puzzle or riddle based on the priesthood, requiring some Religon / history checks. The Monster could be a demon/evil that the priesthood vanquished in the long lost past of the church that has been resurrected. So the GM needs to understand that is the type of 'adventure' they should be designing if they are planning to run a 'specialist' party group.
And I would love to play in this type of game as well. "Thieves Guild - Rogue party", "Holy Quest - Cleric/Paladin party", "Monastic Teaching Scroll retrieval - Monk party", "Protect the Grove - Druid party", etc....
I believe that a party should have at least a solid core to work with. There are certain roles that just can't be bridged by supporting NPCs. In a small group, I believe that there is more pressure on the players and GM than needs be if the party becomes too imbalanced. In a bigger party, there is far more wiggle room, but I would still rather have a group that worked together during character creation to avoid conflicts, even if the outcome is far from 'perfect'.
My group is a mix between 'perfect' and 'imbalanced'. Half of my party picks whatever idea they want to do, the consequences or other party members be damned, and the other half (which I'm part of) try to work together to ensure that our party has a solid core with a baseline of effectiveness that can be relied upon. Our GM is a wonderful fellow who weaves great stories... but places a heavy focus on immersion and logically sound environments. If we tried to go into a dungeon or tomb without someone that is capable of scouting, finding and disabling traps, well... we'd get smacked around and our healer would have to pick up the slack. We've never tried to go without a healer... but only because our party unanimously accepts the need for someone that can heal, whether we have a main healer type Cleric or two support type healers like Bards or whatever. Long story short, my party is very often suboptimal, but enough of us work together and build around our wild card teammates to get most jobs done. We've only truly failed once, which we did in a spectacular way, but imperfect success stories are not uncommon in my group. We're not perfect, but we usually get the job done and have a blast doing it, often with chaotic shenanigans arising from our mismatched characters.
After some 25 years was it my turn to GM the group, and as I know that some optimize their characters for the coming 6-8 levels already at level 1 did I decide to let DnDBeyond create some random characters for them, correct the most nonsical parts and let them pick one at random (of course with the option of correcting and changing altogether if completely unacceptable).
They kept the characters, made backgrounds based on what stats etc. they had as opposed to the usual other way around, and are slowly evolving them into becoming more of a 'perfect party' each time they level up or have access to special items. This has IMHO given us a flavourful game with people not playing their usual thing, with characters trying to evolve into better people (but needing reasons to do so!). But that approach need to be accepted by the players beforehand to be a success.
So I've been running a specialized party of "Exorcists" (all clerics/paladins with a few multiclassing dips), and one thing I've found super helpful is the use of boons and items to help diversify the party. At around level 4, once I felt I had a good grasp of the characters and where the players wanted to take them, I dropped a series of short side quest that led each party member to a boon or item specifically tailored to their character from their God to help on the holy quest. It allowed me to emphasize those roles that they had already began to slot into through roleplay. One paladin became the striker/face, while the other became the tank/inventor. One cleric became an inquisitor/support, while the other became a crowd controller/spellcaster. Of course there are still gaps and weaknesses, but none of them are so fatal and each character feels totally distinct.
I guess this goes back to the problem of seeing dnd as a game to be beaten rather than a story told. I know some people really just view it that way, but I think those people would have more fun playing a video game with a focus on structure and mechanics.
When Im a PC I start with a character story idea and pick spells and traits and feats for RP first. I find it fun to have a kludgy imperfect character and try to make do with what the fiction leads me to choose.
Why is it a problem to view it that way?
Its very gate keepy
@@37thgungrunts the problem is the misalignment of the player's goals with the system's goals. The killer feature of a TTRPG is flexible human application of rules, which allows narrative and mechanical creativity. A player looking to beat a game is looking for predictable mechanics and clear objectives. There is a style of group and game for that in TTRPGs and of course they can play the and have fun. But someone who rigidly insists on healer tank and DPS and looking for quest markers would probably have more fun in an MMO.
Id say the same to someone trying to play chess or settlers in a TTRPG group, and I think that's helpful and sincere advice, not gatekeeping.
@@bryan.conrad narrative and mechanical creativity allows for improvisation to beat and overcome challenges.
The reason people want a tank/dps/healer (or control, damage and support as is more applicable to dnd) is because it's an efficient and optimal way to overcome those challenges, having that base foundation of someone to control the direction of the fight, remove threats, and support the party, allows for creative thinking to come forward to overcome challenges and not be beaten before the die is rolled.
Its gate keeping to think that only your reading of the systems goals is correct.
There are lots of people who want to overcome a mechanical challenge with creativity and improvisation. The idea that those people only want repetitive and predictable mechanics is so bizarre and uninformed Im genuinely staggered that you would lump so many people into one narrow category
Not so much a problem or not per se as it is a function of the variety of ways D&D can be/ is played. A dungeon-dive module would very much reward a more mechanical, resource-optimization based table/ team/ play style because the dungeon is literally an obstacle to be beaten or beaten by; but for a more narrative-focused team/ table/ group an 'optimized' party removes many options for your more interesting, completely-out-of-their-depth plot-hooks because the built-in skill broadness leaves all skills fairly evenly covered and relatively balanced, removing much of the interest from novel circumstances.
Frankly, a group of players will almost always get more variety out of different GMs telling different stories in their own styles than they will by simply switching systems but keeping the same GM. To be fair, there are definitely systems out there that support dramatically more or less variety in GM/ story styles ( _FATE System_ on one extreme all the way to _Tenra Bansho Zero_ or _Blades in the Dark_ at the other end, for examples) but in general Wizards of the Coast has been making more and more open-ended, narrative-based-friendly systems as opposed to the crunch-focused tactical games that TSR originally produced, so modern D&D is more of a middle-ground on that scale than an example of the extremes.
Imho, as long as the table are all on the same page and not actively dickish things usually work themselves out fairly quickly; even if that means the one "real" player has to find another table more suited to their play style so that they and the murderhobo's stop ruining each others fun.
I did a mounted campaign once. Everybody knew they would be dealing with big open fields for that campaign. We still had a diverse party, but it was still really like a team
that sounds like a lot of fun :)
was it like nomadic horsemen tribes? mounted kings-guard? other?
@@leovaeg mountains nobles actually. We had a mounted archer, a barbarian lancer on a dinosaur, and a paladin on a camel. The group was both similar and really different at the same time. The open field battles were fun, and the battles with more obstacles all became puzzles due to trying to charge in straight lines and positioning.
That sounds fun. Why didn’t anyone play cavalier? Their riding abilities sound like they would have been useful.
@@GrapeCheckerBoard everyone though someone else was going to play a cavalier
I hope to always have my players build their characters together, as well as tell me how they got together. This works toward a cooperative feel for the group. They'll often work out between themselves what they'd like to do.
Now, when it comes to the "role", it's less class based and more ability score based. There will be challenges ahead that target these ability scores. If there are heavy loads, climb challenges, swimming or rolling heavy boulders away from caves, do you have a way to sort that out? What about balancing across thin planks, sneaking quietly or dodging dart traps? Do you have someone who's educated such that they can study arcana, religion, history, or speak multiple languages? What about concerns over perception, medicine, or whom are skilled with calming beasts? Do you have a social butterfly who'll trick, persuade or demand actions from NPCs? These aren't classes. They're skills and tasks based on Ability scores. I assure you, you had either have the ability to solve a problem, or have a way to fake a solution with a spell, class ability, or conjured ally. Otherwise you'll need to get really inventive.
As a DM, I'm all about inventive solutions, but there's only so far I'll allow the physics of the world to bend. Plan ahead.
Furthermore, there are many classes that wear more than one hat. Bards and Druids fall into the multi-task role, because they can be built to do almost anything, and the variations on Cleric alone allow for it to be almost anything too. Subclasses like the Arcane Trickster, Eldritch Knight, Ranger and Paladin mix weapon and spell options, allowing for more versatility.
And that's the key. Versatility. Can your character do more than one thing, or did you write yourself into a corner? Building versatile characters expands play to the point where "Role" is shared and there's less concern over the grognard "tank/healer/thief/wizard" argument. You'll find that those who demand these roles be filled tend to be the "paladins are always lawful good knights" and "all rogues are greedy thieves" category. I tend to see the world as a series of problems where the solution is out there, and I'm open to how my players might want to solve it.
No Rogue in the party, but you have a Trickster Cleric or a stealthy Ranger? You should be fine. No wizard but you have an Eldritch Knight with a Familiar, or a Tomelock with Ritual Caster? You should be fine. No Cleric but you have a Divine Soul Sorcerer? You should be fine.
It's up to the DM to be open to solutions from the players, but it's incumbent upon the player to plan for problems. No healer of any kind? Okay, better pack healing potions. No scout of any kind? Well, do you have a Familiar or spell that can see ahead? No fighter or big bruiser? Okay, do you have a War Cleric, or an Enlarger spell? Maybe the Druid could turn into Bear? How as the party do you intend to solve problems that target your weaknesses, and what will you do to solve these issues? As DM, that's not MY problem. That's YOURS.
I'm here to arbitrate your decisions, not solve your problems. Prepare. Think. Take chances. Be heroes.
I played in a party of Three Wizards and a Rogue, shit was soooooooooo much fun.
Sounds like a sitcom
How? After like 5th level there's so many spell slots that everything is trivial.
I'm currently in an all warlock party. It's amazing. Screw the "perfect" party
I started playing D&D back in the 70's, and for us back then, as it still is the case, for my group, the "Perfect D&D Party" = Any types of characters who the players have fun playing. We've had every mix of classes and races in every combination possible, and we've always made it work. We've even enjoyed parties where there were multiple crap characters as results of bad dice rolls in there. No matter what we got, we made it work. Modern D&D is too.. forgiving for my group when it comes to character creation and character abilities. We really enjoyed that, "My character could die instantly at any moment!" sense of danger from back in the old days. We spent a LOT of time just having fun making characters. We always had binders of characters just ready to go when the eventual death happened. Then again, my group just didn't have the type of players who got overly attached to their characters unlike a LOT of groups that I've seen over the years. Our characters were always canon fodder for whatever dangerous horror was going on, and we enjoyed the hell out of it. So many of those deaths impacted the world, and future stories, and characters, in countless ways. The perfect party = any party the players have fun playing and that make the story fun.
3.5e and RIFTS are my party and I's favorite systems, precisely for the danger they offer. My parties and I still run multiple characters at a time. Not in every game. But quite often in D&D. Though there's nothing wrong with character attachment, they are pieces of ourselves after all. There's been many a tpk where we took a break and raised a toast to the gloriously fallen.
@@lonestarbob5519 PALLADIUM?! EWW!! ;)
I guess you could be playing Savage Worlds Rifts, that seems to be less crunchy than standard Rifts!
Mages were especially fragile in the old days. 1 spell, a dagger, and a sling.
@@rcschmidt668 Yep. And we made it work. Balance? What's that? We didn't care. My group had a thing. Roll the dice. Whatever you got for a character, you got. You were forced to be very creative to keep those characters alive. "Make it work" was a mantra for up. And character death was part of the fun.
@@BlackburnBigdragon That is one of the problems I have with CR... There were way too many returns from death.
Also, side story and self-promotion at the expense of the group adventure. Just IMHO.
I ran with a specialist party through a module. We were all different kinds of rogues and it was honestly a blast!(no one was an edgy rogue so that helped) I do recommend anyone who wants to try it, to try it! Totally different experience
9:10 My kids and my friend and I regularly do this at Origins in Columbus when we do John Arcadian's tarrasque event. We played it straight the first year. The second we played as an all Druid party. The last year (before covid), we did it as an all bard party. Absolute laugh riot.
Our favorite tactic was polymorphing one of the bards into a clay golem and then he proceeded to fight the tarrasque and force it to swallow him. At that point, as a clay golem he was not subject to acid damage, and just kept pummeling it until it got thrown up. In the end, with everyone dead but one last bard, she went ethereal for a few hours, then returned, and brought everyone back to life.
Most players and GM's seem to forget that they are weaving a story together, not staging a combat royal with the players VS the GM...
Wait, really? How else am I supposed to win my chicken dinners?
I more like the idea of the GM being a storyteller, and the players want to play it with freedom to do what they want to their hearts content, and potential consequences of the story. I don't like the idea of asking the players - what they want to do, because that makes you more of a director. But I guess that could work if you also intend to be a player in the game. But it's each to their own.
Yes, but it is due to many is still stuck in the "War Game Age" of role-playing.
The transition stage in the evolution from "War Games" to "Role Playing Games".
You can often recognize them as they do not have a GM. Instead, they have a Disaster Master
Most often they play Death and Disaster.
I think all parties are perfect, rather over numbered or under numbered. Especially the ones with flaws and deficiencies, that argue and don't always get along "perfectly". Ones that you look at and say "how does this mismatched group of dysfunctional miscreants ever manages to get any traction?" but then watch them enter initiative and look at them go, like a well oiled machine. Heroes aren't always perfect, but they're perfect when it truly matters. All my favorite players inject their insanity into the game at precisely the correct moment to stupendous effect each and every time. And as a GM I love rewarding clever plays that swiftly end combat or even better, ones that prevent combat. And if you manage to turn an enemy into an ally, whooo boy I'm gonna give your PC SO much favoritism after that lol. Anyone can murder hobo, it takes a certain kind of class to befriend your enemies.
Great video, as always. And the comments section is always fun too.
I played in a dungeon/castle crawl one-off where we had two bards (one of which was me), two rogues, and two rangers. The rangers were almost exactly the same. Same subtype and they both had wolf companions, which were named Fluffy and Also Fluffy. It was a blast, and totally worked even though we were pretty much all sneaky (except the flamboyant rogue who just chose not to be sneaky or rolled terribly), not particularly tough (dex for the win!), mostly had non-magical attacks (fighting a ghost, which was interesting--but yay for vicious mockery and psychic blade), and were generally very unbalanced. Funny thing is, we made our characters together, fully aware we were going to have unbalanced chaos. It was great.
Really just depends on your style of GMing.
For meticulously planned encounters, I can see why this is important.
For people who wing it, like me, this isn't even a consideration.
I run two campaigns right now. One party has two Rangers, a Fighter, a Rogue, and a Wizard. The other has a Monk, a Fighter, an Artificer, a Wizard, and a Bard. In the first group, the Rogue picked proficiency in Medicine. In the second one, the Bard is their healer. It's interesting to see what these two different groups can do.
I once played in a con WFRP game as one of six dwarven trollslayers. It was great fun, even though all of us really only had one tool in the toolbox: HIT IT WITH AN AXE!!! I also ran a couple of one-shots where the party were all roadwardens. There, I took a leaf out of the game All For One: Regime Diabolique, and had all the PCs be already in their second careers.
I think there's a fourth party type, where the players create characters as part of a kind of group, like mercenaries. WFRP3 codified this with its 'party sheets' which actually granted special abilities of their own. The old FFG 40K games mostly did that: you were all Space Marines, or Imperial Guard, or Inquisitorial agents.
I feel like this video goes really well with the previous video about total party wipes! haha I had a group of x2 Wizards, Sorcerer and a Druid. The druid became all purpose tank and healer. It was actually a lot fun- but then I had some thugs from the king show up demanding that one of the PCs go with them to see the king (the party knew this king was not the "good guy" of the story) Where I expected combat they just let the one wizard go see the king. (this is where the panic began) I had him go- and the king demanded that a magic item they had found be given to him the wizard refused and I was like okay combat starts. I had stats for the king and his body guard and I knew this pc was in trouble but I figured they would "knock him out" and then the rest of the party could come and we could do a prison break type thing. Rather than fight the guard he chased after the king taking opportunity attacks and then had 2 nat 20s in a row. I was shocked the group was shocked. The king was dead.
So rather than a prison break I was like okay they can try and stop the execution.
That went wrong with PC mistakes and also bad dice rolls.
It honestly felt epic though so I think everyone was okay with it, they were all far more experienced players than I am and apparently this was a first party wipe for all of them.
In our group we also had problems with Skill overlaps. 3 Out of 5 characters are specialized in nature stuff and 4 survival. We have other overlaps too. Spells for example (detect magic, and such things) so the same person did all the stuff.
But i think everyone found his place by now. It is getting better with more skills etc available
*I am a first time DM* with a party of 3 players; a _Lycantrophy Blood Hunter,_ a _Scout Rogue_ and the third character will be a _Ranger_ (Archetype to be determined)
Not entirely specialist, but a lot of overlap and similar gaps in skills. Should be interesting!!
This video came at a perfect time for me. Thanks a lot for opening my eyes to different views on this matter!
The perfect party I think makes it easy to coordinate between players, and can potentially be a source of inspiration if a player doesn't have a character concept in mind, but it can be a bit boring predictable and can potentially force someone to play something they know they won't enjoy.
The independent party I generally like, as each person definitely gets something they want to play and is likely to have a more personal connection with their character, but on the other hand I have been in parties where someone else had my skillset but better and it's crushing.
I'd love to try a specialist party, but I also think that puts the most pressure on the DM because they then have to tune challenges for them and possibly make the system do something it was never designed for. Unless the DM is up for it, maybe even the one to propose the idea, a specialist party could be a major headache. Also, there's a possibility that having a specialist party means you're actually using the wrong system, as there might be another that's a better fit for the theme.
One of the best parties I was a part of had 2 fighters, a monk and a damage oriented rogue in DnD 3.5. If the quest involved killing a big thing we were stupidly good for that, but we were lacking in so many other areas that we had to adapt our playstyle as well - the rogue started investing skill points into Use Magic Device so that we could somewhat reliably heal from a wand of cure light wounds etc. Although, the GM has to cooperate and adapt as well. But definitely would recommend for everyone to try it out.
I have heard you talk about a specialist party for some years now. This idea has been stuck in my head ever since aswell. I do hope I will GM a group like this one day.
This is why I play Pathfinder 2e with the free archetype variant to give my players a wider toolbelt.
I prefer to have everyone in my group fill different roles, just cause it's more fun when everyone has a niche where they can shine.
As a player, I always pick my class last, just to round things out a little more.
Hold on... You DM, but also get to play? That sounds magical.
I'd do the same though. I don't mind filling the holes as needed.
@@ninjafohhiya Been in this hobby 23 years. I've done both. My brother and I both DM, so we both run a couple games and are players in each other's games. Benefits of having a dad that was into this stuff pretty much since the dawning days of this hobby.
We had a party of bards, a traveling theater group. Nearly everyone was multiclassed to broaden the skills but it was a bucket of fun. RP situations were in the bag. Utility characters may not be amazing at everything but they are great, or inspired
Same observation as you. My best campaign adventure (as a GM) were the ones were I pushed my player to a "thematic" party (with semi-prebuild character, with idea like "build whatever you want, but you have to have this skill and in your background you have this and this event).
Like, a full rogue party preparing an infiltration. So no "warrior", no "priest" etc... But variants of the same class, with each their other form of specialisation. With yes, some being able to brew healing potion, some to fight/tank/... more efficiently. But each time they only are marginally better. So everyone could fill in if needed, but still each specialised skill could shine when needed.
Also, as you point out, my rules is the NPC dont join the party. They are just temporary helpers (and not often that willingly, or with a counterpart if they temporarly join).
And it's so much more fun! Because they have to get help from NPC, find way to workarond their gaps. Which leads to player being more cautious, and thus often more resilient (because even if one player fumble, crumble etc... then the party isnt doomed).
I've always been in advocate for the inbalanced party out of the simple reason:
Play what you want to like to play or you think you'll get the most joy out of the game.
This comes with one of the biggest problems, which is also mentioned here, giving the players a reason to why they want to travel together to begin with. Sometimes the session 0 brings them together but sometimes it just doesn't and they fail to find a reason and I fail to give them a reason to stick together I can use: "Oh wait there is an invasion happening!" only that often before it gets boring/too repetitive. Sometimes players will find a task where they need each other but it doesn't mean that they will stick with each other it's more of an "welp we need you so we gonna do it together" and than their charackters just don't bond over time of the task etc. It's hella difficult to find a magic glue.
What you call a "perfect party" is something our group calls the "hyperspecialized" party. The fighter only fights, the cleric only heals, the wizard only blasts enemies, and the rogue only sneaks around. I encourage the players to overlap their skills. One character is excellent at a particular skill while the other is moderately skilled. For example, the rogue is highly skilled at Stealth, but the wizard also has some skill in Stealth as well. That way if one character goes down, the other can pick up the slack.
One of my favorite characters I played was a utility wizard but who's first combat option is hitting enemies over the head with a customized spellbook (briefcase 1+str mod)
The randomly mixed party has the same weaknesses as the other two combined. If they for example have one healer and two fighters, if the healer falls away it has the same effect as in the perfect party. They also have lacking skills in some areas as the specialist party does. The biggest problem I see for ovelapping players is the one guy mentioned with one player overshadowing the other.
However play the character you want imo. There can be slight adjustments to make the party stick together better but not huge ones. If you enjoy your character it's easier to enjoy the story and the other characters. If something really doesn't fit often a solution can be found afterwards. If it is discussed what kind of game/campaign it's going to be one can make a fitting character they also enjoy.
Pathfinder was based on buidling the perfect party it has set characters unlike 5th after 2 years the Cleric complained that he was always healing the group and was bored with it apart from him only other person who could heal was my Ranger who could cast cure light wounds at most 3 times. This is one reason why I like 5th more less restriction plus way less rules and feats to remember.
Just come up with something interesting, whether it be a Human Fighter, a Kobold Warlock or a Warforged Ranger crossclassed with Artificer. As long as all at the table all have fun we're laughing. Be CHARACTERS, not roles - that's limiting everyone.
The issue that I've seen the most with a specialist party is that sometimes you run into a character who ends up completely overshadowed by the others. A major advantage of a diverse party is that everyone has their own time to shine inherently built into their character.
We did an oops all barbarians. One was a traditional barb, another was a shape shifter, and i did one that had some spellcasting ability. It was very fun because different players would rage at different times. Traps were walked through since hp was not a premium.
A party of all starfighter pilots sounds really badass tbh. It’s just screaming for dogfights, ship customizing oneupmanship, and impromptu racing.
Now I really want to do this
The perfect party is the party that is perfect for the campaign. I will always talk with the players about what kind of adventure we've decided to run and work with them on what kind of characters would fit well (or fit poorly in an awesome way) with the adventure that we've all picked to play together.
Guy hinted at it early in the video. The game system that you are running ultimately determines the recommended role composition. If the chosen system is structured with specialized roles and the players want to play characters outside of the recommended role composition, then you need to either: alter the rule set with house rules, or not play that game system and instead play a system that allows for such game play.
In CRPGs my favourite style of play is single-minded powergaming: I build and test candidate perfect parties, optimising them to the absolute limit.
In TTRPGs that is simply *not fun* , for me or for the other players. I absolutely focus on "filling a slot" in a party composition if I see an obvious one, but I make sure the character is most definitely *not* optimised. A flaw or two make the game way more interesting. Plus we do stats the 3d6-in-order way, so there's almost no way to optimise from that. :D Characters are _all_ squishy, and we have to work hard to resolve encounters!
Ahh disappointed, I thought you gonna talk about players / the people at the table, not group composition in regards to classes. 😅
I observe that players with the meta composition (tank, healer, dd and cc) tend to be effective but approach every situation kind of the same way.
In 1E you needed someone from one of each of the 4 groups because there wasn't a Skills section on the sheets, so things like picking locks or finding traps was Only possible by "rogues" as an example. Now the skills exist that isn't as big of a deal. I know you can play as all of one class now and get along fine as long as the GM makes adaptions for that, but I think for ease from everyone you (In my Opinion) can succeed better If you at least have one person that has some kind of healing, and one fighter or tanky kind. Of course, as I said, its not required, just easier.
My next Campaign is looking to be an All Necromancer Party. I can't wait to see what they do when they head into the undead haunted waste land that the quest is leading into!
My preferred option is an "imbalanced party", but I don't think it should ever be built completely in isolation. Before my session zeros I tell my players to think of what they might want to play, and then at my session zeros I have them all discuss it as a group. That way, people can adapt their character to be a better fit for the party, like not making an Assassin Rogue when somebody else wants to do that so your skills don't overlap, or generally not having personalities that heavily clash.
So in a Pathfinder first ed, We have somewhat accidentally created what I've started to call the "Double Perfect Party". Four Mythic Characters who all have two specializations from a roll standpoint.
A Paladin Guardian who can tank Pretty much anything and heal cause first ed paladins be da broken.
An Inquisitor Hierophant who knows a surprising amount of arcane secrets and other skills, and is a good healer.
A Flesheater Barbarian Champion who focuses on anti-hoard fighting and tanking hits.
And finally. A Mindblade Magus Archmage who nukes the rest of the party on a fairly regular basis. Also she specializes in AoE magic and skills.
They are Kinda unstoppable, and we love it cause it allows us to focus on the Interplay between them. Like how the Inquisitor is Terrified of the Barbarian cause he's a hunter and she's a kitsune (fox-folk). Or how the Paladin is trying to cope with a leadership position she never wanted to be in. All while fighting Hoards of demons. Good Times, can't wait to get back to playing it.
tl:dr Party is so broken we can split it in half and still be a "perfect" party
First thing is that multiple classes can do multiple different things. For example my bard could heal if needed for those but she also served as a basically an evocation wizard because of all the damaging spells I took. I don't really consider the need for a perfect party. If there's no one with any healing or little healing you can just give them healing items. I personally don't try to make the perfect party. Honestly I just try to make sure that I don't have a character to similar to any others. For example if someone is playing a college of lore bard I probably won't be a bard but if I do be a bard I for sure won't be that sub class and will make sure I have some spells different than them. I do agree with having changes need to be made is you can't have them do that.
In real life I have found it useful to have significant cross-training within a group. This applied to military experience and industrial experience. Being able to continue when one or more member is missing is necessary. But hey, don't let real life ideas interfere with fantasies.
Had a DM run a mirror match party to counter our strengths it was fun and challenging. Back in my Pathfinder 1E days.
Same game our session 0 was going to have three rogues and a fighter which sounded like a sitcom, but we ended up with a Fighter, Rogue, Summoner, Alchemist.
Excellent channel mate. Just stumbled across this video and I'll be back for more. Well done and clearly spoken. A valuable trait in a world of mumblers.
Rant? About DnD? I'm here for it! My chat on Twitch constantly goad me into DND rants.
I'm playing in a campaign were we're all relatively squishy ranged classes. We have to get creative in fights because none of us want to stand in melee. :p We also can't do anything related to strength like forcing open an entrance...
My Variant Human Monk looking over at the other two members of my party: a Tiefling Sorcerer that only (and I mean ONLY) does fire damage spells, and the Gnome Ranger who likes to throw hands axes from 30 ft away.
"Yeah, perfect party."
Did the Tiefling burn his family to death because his "teacher" told him they were traitors and he later discovered that they were not?! And by ONLY DOES FIRE DAMAGE SPELLS do you mean they have NO spells that aren't offensive or just that all their damage spells only deal fire damage?
I always advocate that players play whatever they want. I currently have a group of 4, 2x Rogues and 2x Artificers. I always set up my games to be resolved in any of the 3 pillars of DnD, so they tend towards Exploration and Roleplaying. Right now they plan on running a heist to acquire a piece of a giant abomination so as to gain allies in hopes to rescue their friends from an opposing army. Less combat focused and more in line with their skill sets. It's a lot of fun, and we're constantly cracking up in laughter.
I try to "fill the gap" so I tend to wait and see what the party has but the party I am currently in had a ranged rogue, a frontline rogue, a support bard, frontline barbarian, and we knew we were getting a frontline cleric so they said play something fun and I chose to play my shadow monk bloodhunter lycan build that's pretty versatile but I tend to be frontline because I haven't tried it before. The ranged rogue changed into a ranged sorc and we got another ranged sorc. So it seems our party is pretty balanced.
My monk can throw darts, deflect missiles, and because he is bloodhunter can use more ranged weapons. I took the archery fighting style in bloodhunter because I figured it would help in case I'm stuck in the back, not being able to shadow step into a good position (right now tho I'm 3 monk 3 bloodhunter so I can't shadow step anyway).
I think a good party would have 2 healers, a tank, a ranged, and a support. An old dm I had almost did a tpk because he had 2 healers setting in the back healing each other and the other creatures while one creature layer out an aoe crowd control spell to keep us in one spot so the frontline couldn't do anything and the ranged were doing very little. I now build characters that can get out of those crowd control effects.
A really fun game I joined in pathfinder set up the group as red mantis assassins. A specialist party of assassins, but each person went about it a little differently, yes there was the typical rouge assassins but one person was a cleric/assassin who almost never healed anyone and I chose to play a witch to use magic and manipulating other to kill people for me. Super fun game.
I remind my player as often as posible, that only they deside what kind of character they want to play. If there are two players who want to play the same kind of specialist, I am fine with that. I will do my job and provide a fun experiance no matter what they want to play. The adventures will alway give them problems the can not solve by default, but will alway give them the freedom to work around things they can not fix rigth away.
D&D is different in that your Class does not define your Roll in the party because your class allows you to cover multiple facets of the “Perfect Party”. Clerics can be Tanks or Healers. Same for Paladins who can do both of those things and smite for loads of damage. Wizards can be Blasters or Control. I’m currently playing a Warlock and I’m our party’s Healer/Ritual Specialist in ToA.
Eldritch Knights. Arcane Tricksters. Bladesinger Wizards. Hexblade Warlocks. They were all created to allow you to have even more Roll combinations.
People forget D&D has a GM somehow.
It doesn't matter what you pick and play, as long as its fun the GM can and will accommodate to your party.
never had a perfect party and I love it that way. It's nice when the party has a weakness that can be exploited. And they are aware of it too so it always adds tension to encounters.
Best so far was a party of all rouges (bunch of heist/assassination missions, big tension when fighting multi attack monsters) and a party of all fighters (awesome skirmishes and pure dread when they encounter a high lvl wizard)
I've done it both ways. I've run campaigns where everyone agreed that they were ok with rerolling characters so I gave them no freebies. Ive also run ones where they didn't want to reroll so I didn't go for the party wiping quests.
If you want to play in a successful Specialist Party, play Shadowrun or L5R 4th ed. They both are very friendly towards that.
If one guy goes down everything collapses. Uhm thats not a perfect party. A perfect party is one where each person excels at something, and can cover for someone going down. No the cleric can't fight as well as the platemail clad fighter, but with their chainmail and magic mace they can fill the gap while the thief uses his wand of healing to get the fighter up.
I mean, I don't want to totally stomp on the party, but I also don't think it's fair to expect a GM to build encounters FOR a specific party, unless it's a bunch of friends who agreed to that sort of thing specifically. Normally, as a GM, I just build villains/encounters that thematically make sense and are relatively balanced for the level the party 'should' fight them at. As you've said, it's okay for the party or its members to die; a good part of staying alive is the PCs' responsibility; the GM just has to not be a jerk about it.
To be clear, I don't think all encounters that are 'level appropriate' are actually good ideas. There are certain ways to build encounters to make them fun challenges, and there are certain ways to build them to make people cry. Don't do the latter.
I think it's a matter of balance. I like to allow people to play what they want, but... At least in Pathfinder 2e, you basically need a healer and you need people who can fight. BUT I don't advocate for "the perfect party"; just make sure you've got healing and fighting and some skill variance.
The interesting thing about "perfect party" play deriving from video games is how many older MMOs from the pre-WoW days, themselves heavily inspired by D&D, just sort of threw class design against the wall to see what stuck. While there was clearly "optimized" play, where things got genuinely interesting were having classes fulfill a "secondary" role, usually in response to an emergency and sometimes due to lack of available optimal choices. The little I've played/seen of modern mainstream MMOs has kind of boiled down most classes to solely existing as one of the dps/healer/tank trinity, but the early days of games like EQ and FFXI were really fun for exploring unoptimized play out of necessity and it reminded me quite a bit of tabletop gaming (not that it was perfect- if your crew in FFXI didn't have a dedicated healer for anything marginally difficult you weren't going to get very far regardless of how clever you were)
Well, Gygax's company _was_ called "Tactical Studies Rules", after all. ;^)
No offense, but I'm going to have to push back *real* hard on the implication that the "perfect party" problem has anything to do with "video games" or the like. As you note, the idea of a balanced party goes back to, well, the introduction of the Thief as a class. Each character class had a role to with the adventuring troupe: Fighter handled combat situations (striker/tank), the Cleric dealt with healing and was essential protection against undead foes, the Thief handled traps and scouting, and the Wizard handled magic obstacles, and served as a jack-of-all trades problem solver and ace-in-the-hole. Modern iterations have moved away from adventure role balance to in-combat role balance, but the idea is much the same.
Driving force behind this role specialization is at least as much simulationist (as in trying to roleplay a realistic response to a given scenario) as it is any gamist concern: unless your party is literally composed of a bunch of strangers thrown together by circumstance (something which certainly does happen in RPGs), then your adventurers are definitely take into consideration the sort of challenges they are expecting to face in the process of forming an adventuring party - seeking out appropriate companions with the skills & equipment needed for the job (including NPC hirelings). I don't think there is anything wrong with a little meta gaming as to party composition here - or that it is some how sacrilegious to suggest the players that they might not want to bring an all-Bard party to the planned and agreed about upcoming dungeon crawl. Keep in mind that group play is just that - group play - and the the GM is a member of said group. While I don't think the GM should be interfering with an individual player's character choices, there are plenty of times where the group's needs outweigh individual preferences. I also don't think it is reasonable to ask a GM to tailor an entire campaign to suit a poorly coordinated, unsynergetic, or outright outlandish party comp - unless playing such a party comp was the agreed on premise of the campaign in the first case.
The real source of the "perfect party" issue is overspecialization made possible by the rise of mechanical character customization: specifically, the ability to min-max stats and the delineation of what a character can do into specific skills/perks/abilities/powers/etc./ such that a character without the requisite skill cannot (or cannot effectively) perform actions related to that skill. This is a system problem (to the extent that you view it as a problem). If you want to avoid this type of thing, then you need to build in mechanisms into the system that effectively "punish" over specialization... That sounds negative/punitive, but what I'm really talking about is making every stat at least somewhat important to every character, so you can't just "dump" one - or several - without consequence. Avoiding hyperspecialized skill/perk systems which make any capacity or competence dependent on substantial investment in specific skills is also important. If you want well rounded characters, you need to make a system where well rounded characters are A) viable in play, and by B) aren't completely blown away by specialists in terms of capability. Balance in this area traditionally something that has proven quite difficult for a lot of RPG systems.
When I am playing I have a hard time hot trying to "fill" the empty spots that might exist in a party!
Aim for utility if a class can be good at a bit of everything if that works for you.
What I happen to do is get a feeling of what the rest of the party and the DM might want, especially if I am replacing another player who left the group. While no role is needed, it still takes work for the GM to design the encounters, and the other players are probably used to play a certain way. This way, I can help things go a little bit smoother in the mechanical sense, which helps prevent everyone getting stuck in the planning phases.
Of course, that's the way I do also because thinking about what I might want to do mechanically helps me come up with ideas for character concept and with backstories.
Ran an "Everyone's an Orc, dammit!" one-shot a while back. Lots of fun and some really interesting characters (Even if the half-ogre, goblin, and bone-'n-metal construct guys weren't _technically_ Orcs) but with a table as large as ours (7 players and a GM) it would be statistically improbable for at least _most_ roles not to be touched upon...
I started organizing perfect parties because it fits my setting better. I run a superhero campaign and I found that people really got a sense of being superhuman when they were the best at what they do. It's hard to feel like the greatest archer in the world when you are on a party with Hawkeye, Green Arrow, and Robin Hood.
Also, it introduces another layer of how your specific party solve problems.
Got the alert 19 hours later, and I've already watched it.... But hey, it's the thought that counts I guess
On topic though. Of course there's a spectrum between functional and non-functional parties. Like, it would be much harder to have a gang of standard array totem barbarians. Obsessing over "perfect" is probably silly, but there's probably a need for "functional"
I once DM'ed a game that intentionally started as a specialist party. All Monks. I'd noticed in previous games that all the players would make martial arts references, but they never played monks. SO I created a world based on China, during the times it was ruled by Mongols, but with magic, etc. And told all the players their first level HAD to be Monk. After that they could diverge. Some of them did, moving towards the perfect party. However, several didn't. So they maintained that Monk flavor, and it was a lot of fun.
A party can ten dads. That's it, no kids. A party can also be ten kids without a dad among them.
Birthday boys. Love that show
The specialist party reminds me of a post of a party of all clerics, each a different sub-class, called the A-men Party.
Oh I just remembered it's from jo-cat I think
Fun fact about video games with perfect comps
The game is usually based around "Enough gameover(tpk's) will make it beatable"
Well done! If you ever want to run a specialist one shot I'm down!
I don’t think the ‘perfect party’ is needed, but I certainly think variation is good.
i needed this right now! what would you do to rebalance a game for a bunch of combat specialists without making it obvious the game has shifted to fit them? if its important to know your limits, how do you reinforce their idea of those limits without limiting the players themselves or relying on npcs?
my cyberpunk party didnt build a single netrunner and it wasnt until the end of the second session when i realised how bad that could be
Honestly, the time I played a sorcerer in a game with 3 other wizards was a wild fun time
Try running CoS as written without a (near) perfect party. They will die off very fast.
Try running CoS heavily modded like I do. If your party isn't able to function as a well oiled machine with a as good as you can get perfect party character deaths are going to be the norm.
Now if you want beer and pretzels don't come to my session, the world is not going to go easy on you. A Nabassu is still a Nabassu, and 20 shadows will still wreck the party.
Bruiser, tank, control, support, ranged and melee DPR. When these roles are filled (pending group size some might need to MC) you'll have a much easier time.
Example: where I'm playing (I know, right?!) I fill the role of a ranged DPR support control that can multifunction as a melee DPR bruiser. Damphir swords bard with a breach loading rifle.
And contrary to what Guy is saying: you don't need specialists, you need filled functions. A bladesinger can be a trolldprbruiser, pick a criminal background and you've also got scouting and traps covered. Since I didn't need to cover this aspect when I was playing I picked an RP background as entertainer who was also the logistician, the soul and the I've got a thing for all scenarios prepared (or I like to boast about it when I do for 99% of the situations).
Perfect party is pending on group size. You can also make it as near perfect as possible without sacrificing RP and if your DM allows for it just take MC.
I wish more GM's did this. I get to play in 2 games a week atm and one is super cool (I play a bard, we also have a paladin, a wizard... and some rogue/cleric/ranger/sorcerer) and the other one that we have TPK uhh... 4 times since Jan 2021. That group generally likes to play more "this is what i am, if you dont like it. deal with it". This time we are going Swashbuckler rogue, Soulknife Rogue, Swarmkeeper Ranger and Beastmaster Ranger and tbh i feel for our lives that its just going to be another tpk in a month.
Our GM generally just goes "oh this is cool" whith ZERO regard to the players class or skillset. Also the lack of background integration and they only like combat.
Wish i could show them this stuff and they would even care.
So to all the GM's out there who put effort and care into your players choices, I thank you.
I am fortunate as I GM for my wife, we play one-on-one. I run NPCs as needed to form her a party, depending on the advenure or campaign needs. Flexible and fun. Perfect party, ok. Imbalanced, no problem. Specialists, cool.
I like magic, and I recommend that when people play my games that at least one person has access to arcane magic, and one has access to divine magic because it's going to be present no matter what.
But I don't care either way, and I'll let anyone play whatever they want.
To me I ran a game where they didn't have a cleric so I added an npc cleric for a few sessions never outshone the PCs just helped and healed where they were needed and avoided the dmnpc pitfalls as much as I could.
What happens when the GM doesn't want to alter his campaign when he fcuks it up entirely and refuses to alter it when it makes more sense to do so?
Same. My current party doesn't have a tank, so there is an NPC who joins them from time to time. His catch phrase is "hey guys, what do want me to do?" But he's also got his own life and isn't always available.
I disagree that a GM should keep quiet on mechanical party build discussions. A GM might strongly care about the type of party they design for, or have quirks the players should know about. In other words, simulationists should be free to give their disclaimers.
I'm pretty chill and try to work around players, but there's a common enough thing other DMs do that I will NEVER do: make everything you come across in the common language. I like translation-based riddles, I like the ambiguity of logographic writing systems, I like contrasting transliteration and translation, I like taking note about which fantasy language is written in which fantasy script. A party NEEDS someone who can translate in my games. Not because _they_ couldn't fulfill their goals without that, but because _I_ wouldn't be having fun without it.
I feel like perfect parties are totally overrated. As a GM it is your responsibility to make the game around the party that your players want to play. Nobody wants to play a cleric? So give them healing potions. Nobody wants to play a rogue? So don't put in skill challenges that your party is not equipped to handle.
Parties are as diverse as player groups. The only important thing is that everyone's on the same page. If everyone wants to play a specialist-type party, let's say sneaky, and one player wants to be super clumsy that may ruin the game for some people.
I've always wanted to see the all paladin time/ planes cops game