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<blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 7526015" data-attributes="member: 71699">I've experimented a bit with this, and must certainly add the caveat that (at least at my table) players tend to play what they feel drawn to. They do ask one another things like &quot;What will you play? Oh, I better think about an X or Y then&quot;, but it always seems quite ad-hoc to me and not really planned for efficiency or anything like that.With that caveat, I think an ideal* and also likely to be chosen mix is something like: 1-2 melee, 1-2 ranged (includes half-casters), 1 full-caster (either divine or arcane), 0-1 stealth/skillful character. That 1 full-caster is often an omission, yet experience and testing suggest that it's a pillar role. A big part of why this is ideal is its resilience: it can deal with a very wide range of scenarios.*Given DMs can and do shift level of challenge to match their groups, what does &quot;ideal&quot; mean anyway? I think it is most clearly defined as picturing a difficulty curve that arcs over each encounter threshold. A whimsical party is down on the left-hand side of the apex, so they experience the encounter close to its narrative description, e.g. &quot;Deadly&quot; does mean deadly. An &quot;ideal&quot; party is somewhere right of the apex, so they experience the encounter to be weaker than its description, e.g. &quot;Hard&quot; feels more like easy or medium. &quot;Ideal&quot; in this sense isn't a comment on fun or righteousness, it's only a comment on experienced difficulty relative to game baselines. Since they can deal with more, ideal parties might well level in less time (their DM faces them with tougher encounters, that are worth more XP). That doesn't matter in the end, because the whimsical party is still having fun.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="clearstream, post: 7526015, member: 71699"] I've experimented a bit with this, and must certainly add the caveat that (at least at my table) players tend to play what they feel drawn to. They do ask one another things like "[I]What will you play? Oh, I better think about an X or Y then[/I]", but it always seems quite ad-hoc to me and not really planned for efficiency or anything like that. With that caveat, I think an ideal* and also likely to be chosen mix is something like: 1-2 melee, 1-2 ranged (includes half-casters), 1 full-caster (either divine or arcane), 0-1 stealth/skillful character. That 1 full-caster is often an omission, yet experience and testing suggest that it's a pillar role. A big part of why this is ideal is its resilience: it can deal with a very wide range of scenarios. *[SIZE=2]Given DMs can and do shift level of challenge to match their groups, what does "ideal" mean anyway? I think it is most clearly defined as picturing a difficulty curve that arcs over each encounter threshold. A whimsical party is down on the left-hand side of the apex, so they experience the encounter close to its narrative description, e.g. "Deadly" does mean deadly. An "ideal" party is somewhere right of the apex, so they experience the encounter to be weaker than its description, e.g. "Hard" feels more like easy or medium. "Ideal" in this sense isn't a comment on fun or righteousness, it's only a comment on experienced difficulty relative to game baselines. Since they can deal with more, ideal parties might well level in less time (their DM faces them with tougher encounters, that are worth more XP). That doesn't matter in the end, because the whimsical party is still having fun.[/SIZE] [/QUOTE]

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