Holy cow my party has 3 strikers in it

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

In the group I DM there is a Dwarfen Wizard. I target him quite often, actually, and I do it. But I can't seem to keep him down. And in the meanwhile, he's Thunderwaving his attacks around (and he is intentionally setting himself up to do so), and when he puts out his dailies, he really ruins the enemies days. (But to be fair, that is also true for the Clerics dailies...)

[Herschel]

Originally Posted by javcs

My experience is vastly different than yours, then.

In one of my games, the group is currently composed of 3 strikers, 1 leader, 1 defender, 1 controller, consisting of a fighter, a ranger, a rogue, a warlock, a warlord, and a wizard. I joined about 2 sessions in, and apparently no-one before then had really gone down. My initial character was a rogue,....

...The wizard, the warlord, and the fighter each have gone down/come closer to going down, more times than each of the strikers, and possibly more times than all of the strikers combined.

I'm curious as to what levels these encounters are at. Your party has all the roles covered and seem to be doing their jobs. Your DM focus fires on the leader and the controller (depending on the fight, sometimes going after the controller makes a lot more sense than the strikers, especially the mega-minion fight or at substantial levels) while the fighter does his job, this is how a party is supposed to work. Maybe he's making an odd choice in not targeting the strikers in some cases also, but an exposed leader is almost always the top choice to bring down. I think you'd find even smoother running if one of the strikers changed to a defender or possibly a second leader for even more balance.

[Old Gumphrey]

Originally Posted by Mustrum_Ridcully

In the group I DM there is a Dwarfen Wizard. I target him quite often, actually, and I do it. But I can't seem to keep him down. And in the meanwhile, he's Thunderwaving his attacks around (and he is intentionally setting himself up to do so), and when he puts out his dailies, he really ruins the enemies days. (But to be fair, that is also true for the Clerics dailies...)

I think that probably has more to do with the dwarf second winding as a minor than the fact that he's a wizard.

[Trevelyan]

Originally Posted by Old Gumphrey

I think that probably has more to do with the dwarf second winding as a minor than the fact that he's a wizard.

You're assuming that the dwarf wizard regularly uses his second wind.

You're also assuming that one extra standard action for the wizard makes all the difference in a fight, which is strange given how little respect you have for the wizard's ability to deal damage and given taht the potent wizard daily powers generally only take a minor action to sustain.

But to reiterate, my human wizard is equally durable and second winds as a standard action, although I think I've only ever used it twice and we are now level 6.

[Old Gumphrey]

Right.

Originally Posted by DMG pg. 10

No Controller: Not having a controller can free teh defender up to move around more, since at that point the defender lacks a soft ally to protect.

Suffice to say that leaders and strikers are not soft targets, and controllers are, in fact, the softest target there is. Yeah...you can build a defensive wizard, but it's going to have less defenses and HP than a defensive leader, and less ways to GTFO than a striker.

[Trevelyan]

Ok, you win. If the DMG says something then it must be true and we can't possibly be right if our experience suggests otherwise.

Wait a moment, doesn't pg. 10 of the DMG also say this:

"The absense of a striker is perhaps the easiest to cover. The defender and controller might need to find ways to increase their damage output to bring down monsters faster."

All ahil the great DMG for it has spoken and ruled that the striker is, in fact, the most superfluous role.