Party optimization

[Nifft]

I think the character optimization boards don't talk about party optimization much since most of the characters they build are designed not to need a party (or if they do, they just need an abstract Tactical Warlord giving them a buff for their uber combo).

Untrue! (Though I am personally guilty of making some very self-sufficient CharOp builds...)

Some interesting recent work has been about pairs of characters that work well together (for example: Unleashing Feywild: Feysword and Feyblade - a hardcore teleporting damage combo! - Wizards Community). Party design is new territory. We will see it mapped out eventually.

In the mean time, more concrete suggestions:
- Battlerager Fighter who takes no Invigorating powers, and relies on a Valor Bard and a Laser Cleric for his temporary hit points. Throw in a Barbarian who uses a Bloodclaw weapon two-handed and you've got a second user of the free temp hp.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Oompa]

In my eyes party optimization is simple:

With 5 players seek out a roll for four of you;

Striker
Controller
Defender
Leader

Discuss what kind of character you would like to be, what can he do and what not.

Agree with the 5 of you what the 4 of them can do, the 5th player can discuss with the other 4 players what kind of role needs extra support or is more handy in the group set up.

Offcourse you can change the roles to how you like but the main thing important is to talk with your party members.

 

[LostSoul]

It's not so much in build but in actual play that you see it.

Imagine a party with a Fighter, Rogue, and Warlord.

There can be a ton of tactical play to optimize their choices in combat.

 

[interwyrm]

Some interesting recent work has been about pairs of characters that work well together (for example: Unleashing Feywild: Feysword and Feyblade - a hardcore teleporting damage combo! - Wizards Community). Party design is new territory. We will see it mapped out eventually.

This is a personal favorite of mine. You can expand on the concept by including other characters which have teleport other abilities. (Fey tactics feat, or several warlock powers.) It's gimmicky, but seems fun.

Specifically, there's some fun to be had with two Assault Swordmage|Warlock Feytouched marking enemies and using dimension swap to get out of reach as well do a little damage.

 

[Herschel]

In my eyes party optimization is simple:

With 5 players seek out a roll for four of you;

Striker
Controller
Defender
Leader

Discuss what kind of character you would like to be, what can he do and what not.

Agree with the 5 of you what the 4 of them can do, the 5th player can discuss with the other 4 players what kind of role needs extra support or is more handy in the group set up.

Offcourse you can change the roles to how you like but the main thing important is to talk with your party members.

I'd start like this but maybe take it one step further:

Start with the first defender. This is where it all begins. Discuss what the Striker and Leader want to do and see if the fifth/sixth players want to play melee types.

 

[Wardo]

I'd start like this but maybe take it one step further:

Start with the first defender. This is where it all begins. Discuss what the Striker and Leader want to do and see if the fifth/sixth players want to play melee types.

I'd actually start with the leader. A Tac-Lord demands melee strikers or maybe a second defender, and when you get a group like that moving in harmony it is really impressive. We had such a party going, and we didn't even need a controller.

By the same token, I'm sure another leader (lazer cleric, ranged bard, shaman?) would lend itself to a ranged party with two ranged strikers focusing fire and a controller and defender keeping the rest of the baddies at bay.

 

[Mengu]

There is a lot of what I'll call casual party optimization that can be done even without too much system mastery.

You want a front line, and you want some ways of making strong ranged attacks. You look at roles to try and figure these out. Someone said the choice starts with the defender, which in my opinion is fairly close. I'd say the choice starts with the front line.

Let's say your front line will be a fighter and a barbarian. Then you look at what will support them well. They could both use someone who will buff them and heal them. So maybe they can use two leaders. A tactical warlord could help either of them. And a cleric can help the whole party as well as introduce a divine/radiant element to the part that it currently lacks. Last you want to cover the range attacking as well as control, so you might go with a wizard who does a good bit of control, and little striking. Or you might go with a sorcerer who does a good bit of ranged striking and a little bit of control.

Then you re-examine the party for roles, and seeing you're a bit weak defender wise, for extra marking the fighter might choose to be dragonborn tempest. Again for the same reason, you might decide to build the barbarian as a goliath rageblood. The tactical warlord might go with a reach weapon for supporting from the second rank. The cleric might be unsure at this point whether he can sit back and do range strikes or step forward and do some melee, so he might decide to play a balanced Longtooth Shifter, and take whichever role is more needed at the time.

Then you look at skill coverage. With the Barbarian and Fighter you cover most physical skills, and the goliath can help out with nature. The cleric is the only wisdom based character in the group so he might decide to pick up a multiclass into warden to supplement his potential secondary defender role, and for perception. The sorcerer is the only dexterity based character, and multiclassing into rogue isn't bad to begin with, so at this stage he may decide he wants to be a halfling chaos or storm sorcerer and pick up rogue multiclass for thievery. He also may decide he wants to help the cleric with radiant attacks, and can pick up Blazing Starfall. He also grabs distant advantage to apply that sneak attack easier.

You continue the process till you are sure you have all bases covered, some of them doubly so if it's important to the group or the campaign.

Next you start looking at how to make each other work better. The group currently has no temporary hit point generation other than the barbarian. So the fighter may decide he won't go tempest after all, but will go with battlerager, pick up a shield for extra defense, and try to get some burst attacks for extra marking. The sorcerer at this point is noticing he won't be getting much help from the leaders, so he decides he will scratch out Blazing Starfall, and go with Acid Orb and Sorceress blade channeling so he can make melee basic attacks with help from the warlord. He picks Dazzling Ray as his undead killer power.

And you continue this iterative process until everyone is happy with the amount of support they provide and get from each other.

It's really just a matter of discussing among the group and making sure you have as many bases as possible covered in every area, and to make sure you don't have any poor overlap. Some redundancy isn't bad. But too much redundancy means you're missing some other crucial element elsewhere.

It's best if the group can agree to be flexible at the beginning. Otherwise when someone is dead set on a character, group optimization is not really an option. You just play what you want to play and make the best of it. Honestly, there is nothing wrong with that approach either. Whatever the party decides to do, the DM will likely adjust challenges accordingly anyway, so the fun and threat degree can be set at an enjoyable level regardless of which path the players decide to take.

 

[Tony Vargas]

In a basic sense, just covering the 4 roles will give you some pretty good party synergies.

There are plenty of particularly good ones. Little 'power combos' that can be brought into play at times. When a tactical warlord gives out an attack bonus, for instance, a controller or multi-attacking striker can make extraordinary use of it. But, in general, a balanced party /is/ optimized, mechanically. The group just has to get used to working together and taking advantage of the synergies.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

In a basic sense, just covering the 4 roles will give you some pretty good party synergies.

There are plenty of particularly good ones. Little 'power combos' that can be brought into play at times. When a tactical warlord gives out an attack bonus, for instance, a controller or multi-attacking striker can make extraordinary use of it. But, in general, a balanced party /is/ optimized, mechanically. The group just has to get used to working together and taking advantage of the synergies.

In theory, this is true. In practice, the official party roles are some of the most misleading aspects of D&D.

For instance, consider these two parties:

1. Ensnaring Swordmage, fey-pact warlock, preserving invoker, laser cleric, dark pact warlock.

one defender, two strikers, a controller, and a leader--there must be some synergy there, right? Hardly.

2. Tempest fighter, rageblood barbarian, archer ranger, wizard, inspiring warlord (with a focus on increasing party damage).

That second party has quite a bit of synergy and in 15 minutes will breeze through encounters that often leave the first party running out of healing surges in an hour.

Now consider party 3: Two blade ranger, thaneborn barbarian, chaos sorcerer, star-pact warlock, tactical warlord. No defender and no controller, just four strikers and a leader. But they will do vastly better than the first party.

A few principles to keep in mind:
1. Damage is everyone's job. Don't leave it to the strikers.
2. What matters is not having a class with one of WotC's role labels. What matters is having the tactical roles covered.

 

[Mengu]

2. What matters is not having a class with one of WotC's role labels. What matters is having the tactical roles covered.

I wanted to put this in big bold letters.

Just to add an example to Elder Basilisk's examples, consider the following party: Half-orc Tempest Fighter, Fire Genasi Assault Swordmage, Longtooth Shifter Avenging Paladin, Elf Predator Druid, Goliath Battle Cleric.

While seemingly without a striker, this is a party of mini strikers. The fighter can use daily/encounter powers for some impressive spike damage, the Swordmage will have some good interrupts and out of turn damage with some genasi feats, white lotus riposte and battle awareness to increase his damage output, the paladin has an at will can do [W]+str+wis damage which is almost striker level, the druid with good targeting can do 1d8+wis+wis damage with an at-will, and even the cleric has good potential between Goliath Greatweapon Prowess and Markings of the Victor.