Help Build a Party

[Legildur]

Here's how I'm building a druid- Human, ranged more than beast form.

...

With 4 others to go, I suggest 1 striker, 1 defender, and 2 leaders.

After having only a quick scan of the PHBII, I came to same conclusion that a ranged-based druid would make an effective controller to play.

As for the party balance, I read somewhere that WotC recommends a second defender first, followed by a second striker for a party of six (on the assumption that you start with 1 of each role to begin with).

 

[ilmoin]

With a five-character party it doesn't matter too much what the role of the final character is, so long as you have one of each. They all work, just with slight different emphases. You can even drop characters from some of the roles, but you should have at least one defender and one leader--not having strikers or controllers is a problem, but not the end of the world.

The second thing you want to think about is melee / range balance. You need some characters (and at least one defender) who can stand on the front line of the party and go toe to toe with the enemy. Not having this means you forfeit your ability to control which of your characters your enemies attack. Similarly, if you overload on melee characters the tactical terrain will cramp up and you also won't have the ability to focus fire so effectively or to deal with primarily ranged opponents.

As a rule of thumb, you want slightly more than half your characters to be primarily melee, or at least able to stand on the front line. In a five character party, three melee and two ranged is ideal. Personally, I like 2 defender parties, because you have a really strong front line. (You can fudge this in all kinds of ways, though: for instance, infernal warlocks and protector druids do fine as a third frontline character; shamans and beastmaster rangers add another character to the front line.)

After that, it is really about much more detailed synergies. It is possible to make groups with very complex and powerful interlinked abilities, but that takes away a lot of choice from your players. The good news is that there are so many combos that your players will discover them as they play. With a little bit of retraining and some thought about what is and isn't working, the group will come together on its own. Just try to avoid the three striker / no leader parties, or ones with all ranged and no melee characters--even these parties can work, but they get themselves into trouble.

Good luck!

 

[Pickles JG]

The second thing you want to think about is melee / range balance. You need some characters (and at least one defender) who can stand on the front line of the party and go toe to toe with the enemy. Not having this means you forfeit your ability to control which of your characters your enemies attack. Similarly, if you overload on melee characters the tactical terrain will cramp up and you also won't have the ability to focus fire so effectively or to deal with primarily ranged opponents.

As a rule of thumb, you want slightly more than half your characters to be primarily melee, or at least able to stand on the front line. In a five character party, three melee and two ranged is ideal. Personally, I like 2 defender parties, because you have a really strong front line. (You can fudge this in all kinds of ways, though: for instance, infernal warlocks and protector druids do fine as a third frontline character; shamans and beastmaster rangers add another character to the front line.)

After that, it is really about much more detailed synergies.

This seems the most important party balance feature to IME.
With 5 you want 3 people who are happiest in melee & one who can cope.

I think controllers are optional though with 5 you probably want either 2 defenders or a defender & a controller (not a sorcerer - he is DPS).

A leader makes things go smoother - healing is most useful in very hard fights, often when you have a run of bad luck. If you have 2 they ought to bring some buffing or DPS along too - too heal specced laser clerics would be unhelpful. Some leaders do benefit more if the party is constituted in particular ways - Tactical warlords that use commanders strike want someone with a good basic attack.

Wardens & Fighters are the tankiest fighers especially the busted Battleragers, you need less tankiness though if you have more defenders or other robust melee types (eg Avangers, some Barbarians)

Strikers are the bestest - they make the fights finish soonest & all types but some warlolcks do their job.

So I would take

Defender
Defender or controller
Melee striker or leader
Ranged leader or striker
Someone else. I would want damage buffs or damage from this guy but any role could do this.

Really with only a druid we do not have much to work with (especially me who has not figured out druids...) but if you had 3 characters that people were keen to use people could provide good guidance on how to fill out the rest of the party.

For what little it is worth I did decide after PHB2 came out that my ideal party would be:-

Fighter or Warden (Defensive)
Tactical Warlord
Battle Cleric
Barbarian
Sorcerer

This has 3-4 solid meleers Good targets for Tactical Warlord buffs. Good healing/buffing form the cleric. Good single target & AOE DPS.

It does not have a druid though .

 

[Futzy]

In general, I agree with the general consensus on here, a little bit of everything is important. My personal preference for a group of 5 is a defender, a controller, a leader, and 2 strikers, one melee, one ranged.

In particular, I recently built a party of 5 for a group, and here's what I came up with that seems to be working well (though we're only through a couple of battles so far). A minotaur warden (minotaur is in MM and was fleshed out in a dragon magazine article, so I don't know if you can use that), a goliath barbarian, an elf cleric, a deva invoker, and an elf archer ranger. So far the warden and barbarian have been able to keep all the enemies off of the other 3, so they can just hang back and do their thing. Only two battles so far, but honestly, they have yet to break a sweat.

 

[Herschel]

Any reason you'd recommend Assault over Shielding?
I have to admit I'm a little stunned... don't think I've -ever- heard anybody recommend an Assault Swordmage before.

Mobility mainly. I especially like the Airsoul Manifestation. Mark, charge the backfield over the front line and have a way back if you get swarmed, pulling people out of danger, etc. Lightning Lure is a great At-Will for this also.

Example: Party Warlord slurped in by Gelatinous Cube. Mark external enemy, Dimension Swap with Warlord. External enemy hits lower AC Warlord and out I come.

Example 2: Party wizard at about 3 HP and we're in a room against Aura'd Undead that aren't going down easy. Move to middle to 1 square from a baddie, mark him, and Lightning Lure the baddie near the mage 3 away and pull his aura away from said wizard.

Also works great with Rogue for setting up flanks and extending his durability on the front line.

As the second defender especially, the Assault version gives the party more flexibility than his Shielding version. With a Fighter playing lockdown I don't need to hold the line every encounter and can play bail out defender.

As sole Defender the Shielding has some advantages.

The other thing I like is you can build him with controller aspects with some bursts and blasts. You get in a group of baddies' grills, area blast them to figure out which are minions and mark the biggest threat standing. Then the full controller can target the artillery/support/etc.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I have tried a 5 man party with two defenders and one with two strikers. The one with two defenders run out of healing surges.

If you have strikers like archer-ranger, avenger (dex based) or barbarian (dex as secondary stat), they have nearly as good AC as a defender, does more damage than a defender (except maybe fighter), and has better mobility.

What you need to keep this bunch up is superior healing. A cleric with 20 wis, a bard with 20 cha and the feat that grants temp hp. I actually prefer the bard, he typically heals for 12 at first level, and grants another 5 temp hp.

The tank needs to generate hp on his own. The battle vigor fighter or a paladin seems like a good choice. I would go for the battle vigor fighter due to not using healing surges. In addition, the battle vigor fighter is probably a dwarf, with second wind as a minor action.

I would never build a party without a controller. If I have two I would cut down to one striker. A druid has powers that are great together with a fighter or dex-avenger. An extra Invoker or wizard would probably be fun.

Controllers do more damage than a typical striker if they can target 3+ enemies and about the same damage if they can target 2. The Invoker has it easier than the wizard, but the wizard daily Flaming Sphere rocks.

 

[Herschel]

I've found multiple defenders works better than multiple strikers. I'm curious as to how you ran out of surges so often. The durability of multiple defenders has come in very handy. My favorite combo so far is fighter/assault swordmage for versatility. I've found Paladins to be hit-or-miss as they can be hard to play well. Actually, Swormages and Paladins seem to need a lot of finesse where fighters are more straight-forward.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

The party I am currently running has 2 leaders (taclord and a laser cleric) and a palladin for its defender - I've found it is really resilient, and I have to give quite high level enounters (n+4) to have them go through the leader's healing triggers. Given that we don't play often, this works for my group - but it may not for yours, as it requires sending larger (and thus longer) encounters. If your group is particularly grind sensitive, that may not be a good mix.

A few other notes: I heartily agree to having at least one of each role - the party I game in doesn't have a controller and groups of minions are extremely challenging for it.

As for the assault swordmage, I can see it being a very dynamic and interesting build. That said, I think to have one be effective, the party really needs a fighter as well - the assault swordmage simply doesn't have the ability to keep foes off of the squishier party members.

 

[Herschel]

The thing is, if you work with a rogue he really doesn't need to. Working together, I've found the Assault Swordmage to be a really great ally for the rogue. That means there needs to be another party member who can be comfortable in melee or the other party members need to learn how to take a hit and disperse damage.

In RPGA games there's a fellow who plays a Warlock we affectionately nicknamed "Sponge" because he has a good feel about when to step up and take a hit to disperse damage.

The defender soaks up hits and makes enemies suffer for not attacking him to an extent, but if you have a defender locking down a battlefield constantly by himself either the encounters aren't designed very well or the tactics of the DM are lacking.

Fighters are very straight-forward but there's more than one way to work the role. Some take a greater degree of tactical practice or awareness but a well-played wizard can even take some hits. I've played in games with three wizards where they each took turns taking hits for an encounter, not only dispersing damage but also surge use.

 

[Nail]

My first suggestion is nobody play a druid.

Why?

I just played a one-shot last night with a dwarf guardian druid 8...and he filled his role well. (The PC was focused on melee and close powers, and synergized well with our warden.)