Do You Need All 4 Roles in a Party?

[SDOgre]

I'm interested what those who've played in or ran groups have to say about this.

I ran 4 characters (fighter, rogue, ranger, wizard) through the one encounter with goblins, then the Kobold Hall dungeon in the DMG. They smoked everything without taking much damage until the final room.

I won't say what's in there except it's a solo creature. And I nearly had a TPK in the first three rounds of combat.

No healing bit them in the butt. It worked against kobolds but not against... it.

Have you begun to form an opinion on this?

 

[Saishu_Heiki]

I'm interested what those who've played in or ran groups have to say about this.

I ran 4 characters (fighter, rogue, ranger, wizard) through the one encounter with goblins, then the Kobold Hall dungeon in the DMG. They smoked everything without taking much damage until the final room.

I won't say what's in there except it's a solo creature. And I nearly had a TPK in the first three rounds of combat.

No healing bit them in the butt. It worked against kobolds but not against... it.

Have you begun to form an opinion on this?

It is very effective to have all four roles present in a party, but it is not vital. Instead, a party needs to take account of what they have. If a party has no controller, for example, those that can should make sure that they take burst and blast powers to have some element of AOE. Likewise, if a party has no leader, they should take powers that offer greater defenses and healing (fighter's regen level 2 power, for example).

If a party operates as solely autonomous units, they will have problems against smart or solo enemies.

 

[Branduil]

The Cleric multiclass feat is a nice option if you have no healers.

 

[Thasmodious]

It's not necessary. And not much compensation is required on the part of the DM. My group consists of a fighter, paladin, leader, controller. The fighter is built more like a striker, which helps a bit. So far, they work fairly well.

 

[thegrizz]

I think the real case here is that for the most part the game is designed with the idea of balancing those four roles. Given this idea any designed encounter is going to have the problem of either being too easy for a party to manage or to hard. However if you are making your own encounters you can take a party that does not have each role into account and modify encounters accordingly.

Again its all a matter of working with what you have I suppose.

 

[Zsig]

From my experience so far (which is not much):

1 Leader + 1 Defender

The rest is up to you.

 

[blargney the second]

From my experience so far (which is not much):

1 Leader + 1 Defender

The rest is up to you.

That's exactly what I was going to say. You *need* the defender to keep your squishies from getting squished. If you haven't got a leader, your lack of healing will be the death of you.

A well-built fighter can deal enough damage that you can get away with not having a striker. With only one ally to defend, his marking and defending job is a lot simpler. A high-Int tactical warlord can multiclass into wizard to get a minion-control power for a single feat. If he takes Commander's Strike, then the fighter gets to nail off even more very potent attacks.

 

[erik_the_guy]

Just make sure you have a defender.
Dragonborn Fighters are great at filling multiple roles: Breath weapon and cleave help make up for not having a controller and high damage attacks make up for not having a striker. It's good to have a leader, but otherwise the fighter should take more skills that can heal himself (such as abilities that give him regen or let him use a surge).

If they don't have a leader, go with smaller encounters, since they can use their surges after combat without a healer.

If they don't have a controller, try not to use too many minions.

If they don't have a striker, try not to use too many solo or elites.

Make sure they have a defender!

 

[Harsgault]

Five fighters can mow down entire armies
Five rangers can turn an ogre into a pincushion in 3.2 seconds
Five paladins break the fight up into 1v1's and lay the holy beatdown
Five rogues perform a cirque de solaughter
Five warlocks curse their foes into complete ineptitude, then blast them
Five clerics just. . . won't. . . die. . .
Five warlords get flanking combat advantage on everyone in 1 turn
Five wizards leave the orcs as tall piles of ash with blinking eyes

But each is vulnerable to being eaten alive by an enemy group that doesn't play into their strengths. The more roles you can represent in the party, the more angles you can cover. Which means you can counter more enemy tactics, as well as exploit weaknesses of your enemy.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I suppose you could say that all four roles are vital, but the classes that fill those roles aren't, because some classes can cover for another role to a small degree. The fighter can generate some heavy damage, partially making up for lack of a striker. A Paladin can be a little leaderish, and War Cleric defendery, a Ranger can do small-scale controller functions. You just need to emphasise that in your team. If you lack a controller, but your ranger chose a lot of debuff powers and the fighter is good at sweeping away minions, you'll get by.

Another thing that can work is to steer away from the weekness you're left with. If you lack strikers, choose your powers, equipment and tactics to make every fight a grindfest. If you lack a leader, make sure your party can hit level-apropriate foes on thier own, and bring them down fast - it doesn't matter if everyone is bloodied or worse, as long as you win, you can heal up with a short rest.


All that said, I think a controller is most easily done without, the leader and defender are the hardest to do with out, and the defender and striker are best to have more than one of in a larger party.