Do you believe in a balanced party?

[National Acrobat]

Nope

I don't care what the character class distribution is, but I do warn my players to be prepared to have to solve certain problems with what they have. I don't tell my players what the party needs or to play certain characters.

I don't change the campaign for that either however.

 

[Corsair]

I voted no, with a caveat though: I do feel that characters need to be sufficiently different from each other for good enjoyment of everyone. A game with an enchantment specialist sorcerer and a psion(Telepath) might lead to friction if they are seen as stepping on each others toes, whereas a game with two fighters and a barbarian might be just fine if one is an archer, another is a mounted knight, and the barbarian is a feral kobold bearwarrior specialized in claw fighting. (Speaking of which, I think I know what my next character will be!)

 

[Jdvn1]

I prefer when all the roles are filled, but it's not absolutely necessary. I rather people focus on playing what they want to play.

 

[Nifft]

If they're not going to go "classic", they should be prepared to use unconventional tactics, which play to their strengths. For example, a party of a Rogue, Ranger, Bard and Monk should use stealth and mobility to their advantage, since they won't last in a stand-up fight.

I'm very much in favor of "theme" parties, where there's a common subset of abilities that all PCs can use -- everyone's a horseman, everyone's stealthy, everyone's a sailor, party of mountain climbers, whatever.

-- N

 

[Voadam]

When I first saw the thread title I said to myself, yes I like having the party power balanced between PCs so that nobody really overshadows everybody else in combat all the time.

Then I read the actual thread and have the opposite view on niche balance. I think an ars magica all wizard game would be fun. Or a thieves guild all rogue one. Or tribal barbarians on the rampage. Or holy order of a single god. Lots of great "unbalanced" group ideas.

 

[drothgery]

I voted yes, but you can come up with some odd parties that fill all four basic roles (especially if you figure that a psionics-user can substitute for an arcanist). My current tabletop game is a wizard, a cleric, a scout with a 2-level dip in fighter (me), and a monk, which works okay (the monk stalls bad guys while the cleric heals him until the wizard and I can pelt them with spells/arrows), and while the lack of a tank or a pure rogue is sometimes a little problematic, the unique abilities of the tweener classes have helped out a lot.

 

[ForceUser]

I picked "kinda." As DM I have no mercy on player groups who don't choose to have a healer in the party--meaning that I don't coddle them, alter the difficulty of my encounters, or add a tagalong NPC healer to the group to be a walking band-aid. If they want healing, someone better play a healer. It has been my experience that if someone doesn't, someone eventually will IYKWIMAITYD.

Typically, I feel that any group should have at least one front-line fighter and at least one primary healer. Other than that, anything goes.

 

[the Lorax]

Completely unimportant. The players will take what classes they want. If they feel that the party need some other role filled, they can either look for some NPC allies, take leadership, or multiclass into something that covers the missing role. As a player, it is nice for the basics to be covered. Sometimes it is a drag having to modify your concept based upon the reality around the character.

I play a Teifling Rogue/Bard in one game, and all of the Fighters keep getting killed - repeatedly - as a reaction, I've taken some Ranger levels along the way as well, now my character, which was designed primarily as a role-playing challange character (teifling bard with a couple of rogue levels) serves as one of the primary melee combatants (it helps that I've been the only character fortuneate enough to have never died, and am 2-3 levels above the other 4 PCs) along with the Half-Orc fighter who joined us recently.

 

[MadMaxim]

I believe in a balanced party, but the role that is most essential is the healer. That can be anything from a cleric to a bard, but if the party is without a healer they're in trouble. I don't mind if the players pick something completely different and go for fighter-types only, but I usually point out that a healer of some sort would be handy.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Right now I have a fighter, a paladin, a druid, and a cleric...so no, not really.

But then, what with UMD, if there's a rogue or bard, they can use cure wands.