Do you have a balanced party?

[Choranzanus]

It is a simple question: what is the composition (classes) of your party and do you consider it balanced?

I'm thinking about this: On the one hand party that has one of each is probably stronger and niche protection works. But on the other hand for purely roleplaying reasons: not every player wants to play that kind of "correct" character and "freak show" composition of many parties maky it rather unlikely they would get together in the first place.

 

[Crothian]

No, we are not balanced

Shifter Druid
Shifter Monk
Gnome Cleric
Halfling Rogue
Human Fighter

I gave up on the idea of a balanced party years ago. Players play what they want, they just have to be ready to deal with problems that can arise from the party compisition they choose.

 

[Someone]

One -imho great- thing about Living ENworld, the persistent pbp campaing world played in this board, is that parties are rarely balanced in composition or levels. Still, they make great games.

 

[GwydapLlew]

In the game I DM, the party composition is:

• half-elf cleric (Tymora) 6
• human monk 6
• janni 5
• underpowered bugbear (no racial HD) duskblade 6

It's vaguely balanced, although like Crothian (that's just funny) I don't believe in balanced parties.

The game I play in, the party composition is:

• diabolus barbarian 2/favored soul 1
• draconic dwarf fighter 2
• half-elf fighter (thug variant)
• human bard (bardic sage variant) 1/druid 1/human paragon 1
• human battledancer 2
• human monk 3
• lupin rogue 2

This one isn't really balanced, but there are enough people in the group to balance everything out. There are enough "sorta-casters" to make up for the lack of top tier casters, and enough fighters to keep everyone alive.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Let's see...

[My group that I run]

Paladin
Fighter
Druid
Wizard
Rogue

and [My brother's group, recently split off from mine when we got so many players]

Cleric (CN cleric of Olidammara with 18 Str.)
Barbarian
Barbarian/Fighter
Bard
Ranger
Rogue1/Wizard4

All except the Druid [dwarven] and the Cleric [half-orc] are humans.

and [The game I play in]

Dragon Shaman [dwarf, me]
Beguiler [elf or half-elf]
Scout/Rogue [human, I think]
Barbarian [human, probably]
Wizard [gnome]
Cleric [human]

The Beguiler, Scout/Rogue and the Barbarian are all new characters...everyone except the cleric has switched out characters at least once since we start the campaign about a year ago. I used to play a gnome wizard and the current wizard used to play a human fighter, the beguiler used to play a half-elf rogue/Warlock, the barbarian and the Scout/Rogue and the Barbarian were previously a psion and a wilder, and before THAT the Barbarian played a Scout.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Game I DM:

Human Fighter/Rogue/Gatecrasher 4/4/3
Human Wizard/Planeswalker 10/1
Bugbear Fighter 7 (ECL 11)
Half-ogre Barbarian/Cleric 1/9 (ECL 11)

Game I play in:

Spiker Paladin/Rogue 3/2
Kobold Spirit Shaman 5


I would call both balanced.

EDIT: Forgot to list my PbP party I DM for:

Human Bard
Shard Bard
Drow Spellthief
Human Warlock
Fey'ri Beguiler

Not balanced, but amazingly charismatic. I mean stupendously!

 

[Flyspeck23]

No, we are not balanced

Shifter Druid
Shifter Monk
Gnome Cleric
Halfling Rogue
Human Fighter

Although your group lacks some serious magic firepower, compared to our group I'd consider yours pretty balanced.

Warforged Fighter
Kalashtar Psion
Half-Elf Sorcerer
Human Artificer

Ah well, it could be worse, I guess. The lack of a cleric is compensated by the ability of the artificer to "heal" the warforged.

Funny, but in my games nobody wants to play a cleric. Ever.

 

[Thanee]

Balanced as in covering the four iconic bases... nope.
Balanced as in having mostly different characters with different abilities... yep.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Aeric]

The current party consists of:

Human bard
Human cleric
Human warlock
Human rogue
Half-elf fighter
Drow swashbuckler

So pretty balanced, although we'll be hurting for utility-type magic (scry, identify, teleport) later on in the campaign. Even then, the warlock plans on maxing out his UMD skill and having lots of scrolls to make up for it.

We also made a point to sit down as a group and make characters, so our party balance is by design, not accident. This is how it usually goes, though. There's always one or two people (myself included) who is willing to wait until everyone else has picked a character and make something that fills the gaps leftover. As you might imagine, I play a lot of clerics.

 

[shilsen]

Game I DM:

Human Wizard
Shifter Druid
Warforged Ftr/Scout
Human Clr/Paladin
Orc Druid (variant, with barbarian aspects)

So only really 1 of the iconic 4 classes, but they're pretty balanced. The wizard happens to be a alienist with some UA options to make him an uber-summoner, so they're horribly powerful in melee. The two druids and the paladin/cleric take care of healing easily enough. No trapspringer, but I don't use traps often and this party can usually walk through, take the damage and carry on. The one place where they're abysmal is social skills, with literally nothing between the paladin's +20 diplomacy and everyone else (wizard at Cha 10, is the next most charismatic).

I'd call them pretty balanced. Especially in comparison to the party in another game where I'm a player:

Human Monk/Samurai
Human Ftr/Ranger (archer)
Human Marshal/Wizard (variant)
Faen Magister
Human Shugenja

And the samurai's often not there, which means that though we have a great spellcasting back line, we have a front line consisting of an archer. The shugenja (my PC) isn't as good as a dedicated cleric healer, but makes do. No trapspringer. Good social skills, between the samurai (high honorable social skills) and my shugenja (high dishonorable social skills).

Most unbalanced party I've ever been part of, but we get by, usually by letting the bad guys distract themselves beating the crap out of the archer (Rackhir) and then blasting them into oblivion.