Meh. I've played partys with no healing. It does stop "whack a mole" but usually between death saves and stabilization, players still survive.
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D&D 5E Is there a general theory of party construction?
- Thread starter Blue Orange
- Start date
Scott Christian
Hero
I agree. In 5e, they do survive. But I definitely think that is because the DM alters the number of encounters per day more than the game doing a balancing act.
I think in 5E this is completely backwards. In 5E when in doubt add wizards because they can really fill any role in 5E and in most cases with the right spells, race and background they can actually do it better than any other class.
As far as rule 2 - that only applies if you are playing with story-based leveling. If you are using XP limit it to a hard 4 characters.
Gammadoodler
Hero
You don't think it could be fun to have the whole "band" dynamic, feuding vocalists, underappreciated songwriters, a drummer and/or bassist who are quietly the glue holding the whole thing together?
I don't think so. With hit dice, short rests and temp hit points you can do really well.
I think I would be the Rogue or Wizard who joined the party and is pulling his hair out that every time we go into a tavern they want to sit down in front of the hearth and entertain the crowd.
It is fun, but I've never actually played a Bard myself because it does not appealt to me and while I can put up with one or maybe even two in the party, I think in character a whole party of them would drive me nuts.
Benjamin Olson
Hero
Honestly 5e and contemporary adventures are robust and forgiving enough that an unbalanced party that doesn't cover every role well can be fun to play through the handicaps of rather than just impossible to succeed with.
I think the main thing to keep in mind with party composition is to make sure the assumptions you are making about the party for how your own character will operate within it hold true. Being a Rogue, for example, is a lot more fun if someone else is going to consistently be in the thick of melee giving you sneak attack opportunities.
I think the main thing to keep in mind with party composition is to make sure the assumptions you are making about the party for how your own character will operate within it hold true. Being a Rogue, for example, is a lot more fun if someone else is going to consistently be in the thick of melee giving you sneak attack opportunities.
Bacon Bits
Hero
I'd identify the roles below. Whether or not you can do without one or more of these roles is wholly depended on your DM and your campaign.
Combat Expert -- You need some characters that are very good at winning and not dying in combat. Not just in being able to deal damage, but in being able to absorb a few hits. In a game like D&D, this is everyone's secondary role and it doesn't really suffer from diminishing returns. In other games, however, the cost of being capable in combat weighed against how often it comes up can mean that it's not worth it. There's a lot of depth here (melee vs ranged vs AoE) but outside of situations where you can't melee an enemy, there isn't any one type that is more or less viable in the general sense.
Exploration Expert -- This character is capable of scouting, sneaking, tracking, trap finding, and noticing danger. This is fairly easy to accomplish as a secondary role for any character with high Dex, and the opportunity cost of Perception proficiency is so low that it's questionable that any character should be without it. D&D is somewhat unique in that magic exploration is siloed off of everything else. The ability to cast detect magic, have high skill in arcana or religion, and access to magical divination are generally orthogonal to other types of exploration. Magic exploration is typically much more expensive in terms of resources, and that alone generally makes it less feasible. It simply can't come up as often. The abilities that fill this role are somewhat spread across more than one class, but they are overly focused on Dex-based classes (except for the more Int-based magic exploration). This role suffers diminishing returns unless all characters are capable of it, in which case you get entirely new options.
Social Expert -- You need a character who can communicate with NPCs. In D&D that means you have a high Charisma, and may have one or more related skills. There's little else that is beneficial or required. In the worst case the character with the player who can role-play the best can fill the position. which is why so many people criticize D&D for having poor social support. This role suffers from diminishing returns, too, since it's often not beneficial in practical terms to have multiple PCs capable of filling the role.
Support Expert -- In many ways this is increasingly a historic role. It's a character that is capable of curing and healing to keep the party alive, or capable of enhancing other characters. Healing turns out to be so unappealing to such a broad range of tables that it has been rolled into the base game as much as was feasible. Today it amounts to the ability to cast lesser restoration, revivify, greater restoration, and raise dead. General support still exists, but the best effects are generally very low cost. This role suffers from diminishing returns particularly badly, since these characters are often not as good at any other role, may not be able to help themselves, and even though they can help each other the result isn't as effective.
Combat Expert -- You need some characters that are very good at winning and not dying in combat. Not just in being able to deal damage, but in being able to absorb a few hits. In a game like D&D, this is everyone's secondary role and it doesn't really suffer from diminishing returns. In other games, however, the cost of being capable in combat weighed against how often it comes up can mean that it's not worth it. There's a lot of depth here (melee vs ranged vs AoE) but outside of situations where you can't melee an enemy, there isn't any one type that is more or less viable in the general sense.
Exploration Expert -- This character is capable of scouting, sneaking, tracking, trap finding, and noticing danger. This is fairly easy to accomplish as a secondary role for any character with high Dex, and the opportunity cost of Perception proficiency is so low that it's questionable that any character should be without it. D&D is somewhat unique in that magic exploration is siloed off of everything else. The ability to cast detect magic, have high skill in arcana or religion, and access to magical divination are generally orthogonal to other types of exploration. Magic exploration is typically much more expensive in terms of resources, and that alone generally makes it less feasible. It simply can't come up as often. The abilities that fill this role are somewhat spread across more than one class, but they are overly focused on Dex-based classes (except for the more Int-based magic exploration). This role suffers diminishing returns unless all characters are capable of it, in which case you get entirely new options.
Social Expert -- You need a character who can communicate with NPCs. In D&D that means you have a high Charisma, and may have one or more related skills. There's little else that is beneficial or required. In the worst case the character with the player who can role-play the best can fill the position. which is why so many people criticize D&D for having poor social support. This role suffers from diminishing returns, too, since it's often not beneficial in practical terms to have multiple PCs capable of filling the role.
Support Expert -- In many ways this is increasingly a historic role. It's a character that is capable of curing and healing to keep the party alive, or capable of enhancing other characters. Healing turns out to be so unappealing to such a broad range of tables that it has been rolled into the base game as much as was feasible. Today it amounts to the ability to cast lesser restoration, revivify, greater restoration, and raise dead. General support still exists, but the best effects are generally very low cost. This role suffers from diminishing returns particularly badly, since these characters are often not as good at any other role, may not be able to help themselves, and even though they can help each other the result isn't as effective.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Hit dice provide at most one full heal-up without the aid of magic, short rests don't restore any HP on their own, and sources of THP that aren't magical in nature are pretty heavily limited. The only sources I'm aware of that can be given to other characters are Battle Master's Rally (usable at most 6 times per short rest, for at most 1d12+5 THP, at dramatic cost to fighting prowess) and the feats Inspiring Leader (which provides level+Cha mod THP once per short rest) and Chef (which provides proficieny bonus THP via a few "treats" after an hour's work).
Like, even if you had someone regularly pumping out the THP through these features, and actually get your DM and group on board for three short rests a day, you'd still only be getting maybe the equivalent of one more full heal-up a day. At level (say) 9, relatively achievable for most groups, Inspiring Leader provides 14 THP (9+5) per short rest when even a Con 10 Wizard has 6+4×8=38 HP. Chef grants an extra +3d8 healing (one for each short rest) and a whopping 16 whole THP for an hour's work (in units of 4). And you'd be rolling 1d8+5 at best for Rally, giving 9.5 THP four times per short rest. Since none of these can stack, they must be carefully doled out so as to not waste them.
So at a level where even the most fragile characters (d6 HD, -1 Con mod) should have ~30 HP, you can get about 14+4+10 = 28 THP per short rest, if you manage them absolutely perfectly and never allow a single one to go to waste. The absolute most fragile character (5+3×8=29) gets, under ideal circumstances with no unfavorable rolls and no waste, about a full heal-up. A character like a Fighter or (God forbid) a high-Con Barbarian will get far less, relatively speaking. 15+10×8=95 HP, so 28 THP isn't even a third of a moderately high (16) Con Barbarian's HP, and even a Fighter or Paladin should have at least 11+7×8=67 HP, getting less than half their HP as THP, again assuming perfect usage, zero waste.
I'm not as well-versed with 5e's damage numbers as I could be, but as I had understood it, growth of both damage output and HP values was the whole point of the so-called "bounded accuracy" idea?
For comparison, a 9th level Cleric doing something comparable to the BM, i.e. exclusively using spell slots to heal rather than anything more useful, generates 1d8 per slot level actual healing or 4+6+9+12=31, plus flat ability mod per spell cast, for a total of approximately 31×4.5+5×(4+3+3+3)=204.5 HP restored, not counting regained slots via burning Channel Divinity uses, nor any subclass features. They also have one daily 5th level slot, allowing 3d8+5=18.5 further healing applied to the whole group, which if we presume the usual minimum of 4 characters, that increases the Cleric's healing to 278.5 HP per day. For a similar party of four getting three short rests, each party member gets 28*3=84 THP, or about 336 THP. And all it took was a Fighter with maxed out Cha (at the expense of any other stat) blowing all of her damage bonus on THP, and someone else (or that fighter, if playing a race with a free starting feat). I will admit, I actually expected this to fall short of what magic can do and am slightly surprised that it does better. But I still am extremely skeptical that "THP and short rests" are anywhere near enough to actually deal with the expected damage output of 5e monsters. Particularly given how often people expressly say that almost every fight should be "Deadly" because anything else is a cakewalk...
Oh, and don't forget: you only regain HALF your HD every long rest, not all of them. So if you're reliant on HD to keep going, better be okay with full-day breaks in between each adventuring day!
Running games in 5e I found it doesn't really matter much. Older editions actually had Classes with specific roles, and if you were missing a role, certain situations were tougher. Nowadays, not so much.
my last campaign we had:
Cleric (Knowledge)
Cleric (Twilight)/Sorcerer
Rogue/Warlock
Wizard (Evoker)
Fighter (Arcane Archer - mostly didn’t show and did less than any of the above when he did)
the rest handled everything - fighting, healing, avoiding resource management (light spells, warlock genie patron with extra dimensional space ring), avoiding exploration (warlock familiar scouts, sending, message) and social (charm spells, zone of truth, etc). There wasn’t anything I threw at them that they couldn’t handle, unless I specifically built to challenge them, and then it was pretty obvious I was doing so.
They all fought in melee fairly well, all had about the same HP, the clerics had huge armor classes, etc. Easy peasy.
my last campaign we had:
Cleric (Knowledge)
Cleric (Twilight)/Sorcerer
Rogue/Warlock
Wizard (Evoker)
Fighter (Arcane Archer - mostly didn’t show and did less than any of the above when he did)
the rest handled everything - fighting, healing, avoiding resource management (light spells, warlock genie patron with extra dimensional space ring), avoiding exploration (warlock familiar scouts, sending, message) and social (charm spells, zone of truth, etc). There wasn’t anything I threw at them that they couldn’t handle, unless I specifically built to challenge them, and then it was pretty obvious I was doing so.
They all fought in melee fairly well, all had about the same HP, the clerics had huge armor classes, etc. Easy peasy.
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