D&D 5E Is there a general theory of party construction?

[Blue]

"Needed" is an interesting word here. In 5e, no bases are needed or required.

Desired? Wanted? Sure.

So, what do we want?

We want to be able to cover the various common and uncommon situations in all pillars of play. Some of the pillars require one set of coverage, such as wilderness exploration, party face, or dealing with traps. While other aspects, like combat, are an all-hands-on-deck situation where everyone is expected to contribute.

Want at least one
Party face. (Could be split between several.)
Wilderness exploration (could be split between several, like a druid good at Survival and someone else good at Nature).
Locks.
Traps.
Scouting (stealth & perception together, sometimes with other movement modes)
High society & low society (more likely covered by two different backgrounds, or add in things like thieves' cant.)
(This isn't exhaustive, but I have to hit Post sooner or later.)

Combat
Protect
Damage (inflicting "Condition: Dead" is the goal of many/most encounters)
Heal / remove debuffs
Buff
Crowd control
Action-denial & debuffing
Skirmish/movement/kiting

Many characters will cover several of these. A heavy armor cleric might be both a middle/front-liner who will stop people from getting to the squishiest, and several of the other categories either primary or secondary based on spells.

 

[Bupp]

In 5e clerics are best served not healing in combat. Causing damage and taking out enemies will save you more hit points than you could hope by using the same spell slots to heal.

 

[tiornys]

Furthermore, at-will Commander's Strike won't work in a 5e style game. I understand people enjoyed that mechanic, but it's simply not coming back without significant redesign or limitations because it would break the game. It triggers Rogue Sneak Attack, Paladin Smite, Ranger damage bonuses, and so on. It didn't do any of that in 4e. In 5e it's literally just Action Surge for martial classes; everything that combos with Sentinel combos with Commander's Strike. 5e isn't built to support it like 4e was. Battlemaster's Commander's Strike, costing an attack, a bonus action, a reaction, and a superiority die, really is the best you're going to get because the game has a half dozen classes whose primary source of damage is 5e's equivalent of the basic attack or something that triggers from that.

I'm not sure I agree that Commander's Strike can't work in 5e, but I certainly don't agree that this comparison is valid. In fact, 4e Commander's Strike does interact favorably with most striker damage enhancement; Rogue Sneak Attack and Warlock Curse are once per turn and work. Barbarian bonus damage comes partly from big weapons and partly from rage bonuses, both of which will work. Sorcerers just do bonus damage on every hit. The only striker feature I can think of that is once per round instead of once per turn is the Ranger's Hunter's Quarry, and that is a pretty minor piece of how the Ranger generates high damage.

Commander's Strike lets the Warlord replace their at-will/basic attack damage with a boosted basic hit from another character, ideally a Striker. In some cases a Striker's basic attack is significantly weaker than an at-will attack but in most cases the damage is easily comparable. The real combo potential comes when a character has been boosted by multiple attack/damage bonuses and Commander's Strike gives them an extra chance to exploit those boosts.

The Battlemaster's Commander's Strike is different. The Battlemaster isn't replacing their full at-will damage with an attack from another character, but rather a fraction of their at-will damage with an attack from another character. That's not great if used on a character who gets spreads their at-will damage across multiple attacks (like a Battlemaster) but can be excellent if used on a character who concentrates their at-will damage into a single attack. So yes, something that can replace a fraction of a character's at-will damage with another character's full at-will damage needs to be more restricted than 4e-style Commander's Strike.

The real translation of 4e Commander's Strike would be something like "You use your action to empower an ally. That ally can use their reaction to immediately attack as if taking the attack action on their turn." Now you're using up your full action damage potential to let an ally use their full action damage potential at the cost of a reaction. I don't see any serious balance issues with this sort of ability.

 

[Bacon Bits]

I'm not sure I agree that Commander's Strike can't work in 5e, but I certainly don't agree that this comparison is valid. In fact, 4e Commander's Strike does interact favorably with most striker damage enhancement; Rogue Sneak Attack and Warlock Curse are once per turn and work. Barbarian bonus damage comes partly from big weapons and partly from rage bonuses, both of which will work. Sorcerers just do bonus damage on every hit. The only striker feature I can think of that is once per round instead of once per turn is the Ranger's Hunter's Quarry, and that is a pretty minor piece of how the Ranger generates high damage.

Commander's Strike lets the Warlord replace their at-will/basic attack damage with a boosted basic hit from another character, ideally a Striker. In some cases a Striker's basic attack is significantly weaker than an at-will attack but in most cases the damage is easily comparable. The real combo potential comes when a character has been boosted by multiple attack/damage bonuses and Commander's Strike gives them an extra chance to exploit those boosts.

Yeah, but the game was balanced around it happening. It was designed with the knowledge in mind from the initial release of the game that there would be effects that trigger attacks. And there were many effects in 4e that would trigger bonus basic attacks, especially for Leaders and sometimes for Controllers. It wasn't a unique or uncommon ability. The only thing unique to Warlord was that it was an at-will and could be a build-around. In 5e, about the only way to accomplish this is with Battle Master or Haste, a 3rd level single target concentration spell that doesn't amplify Extra Attack or Sneak Attack (though it does work with Smite, but that's mainly Smite being broken).

Additionally, 4e Commander's Strike only granted a melee basic attack, and the warlord himself had to be in melee range of the target, too. A sorcerer or warlock would probably not be able to capitalize on it. It was also the reason basically every Lazylord used a longspear. There were many party compositions where you could be limited to enhancing a defender, or forced into doing your own thing entirely (not that that was a big deal; you still had encounter powers).

Furthermore, those 4e striker abilities are often weaker than their 5e equivalent. Sneak attack for example is, if anything, a little bit harder to trigger in 4e (combat advantage vs advantage or an ally adjacent), and you also do much less damage. 2d6 up to level 10, 3d6 level 11 to 20, and 5d6 at 21 and up. In 5e you do 2d6 at level 3, 3d6 at level 5, and 5d6 at level 9. And everyone had a ~10 point HP bonus at level 1 in 4e, too, so it doesn't really start out better. Sneak attack is just less potent.

I'll be honest, I don't have as clear a memory of Barbarian, but I vaguely recall the rages themselves being somewhat self-limiting or otherwise only being modest bonuses (add attribute bonus as bonus damage in some circumstances, or only firing at the start of a character's turn). The real damage for Barbarians was the class ability that let them burn daily powers during a rage. High damage, but very expensive, and I don't think you could use a basic attack to do it like the 5e paladin's smite.

In other words, the 4e Barbarian and Rogue (and Ranger and by extension all the rest) were already designed around the idea that they would be triggered to attack by powers from other PCs. So the riders and bonuses and abilities were designed from the ground up to not be overwhelming or dominating or the primary source of damage from a single blow. The math might have been so tight in 4e that you'd hear dogs howling if your PC farted, but they did have a good handle on what was allowed to happen.

 

[tiornys]

Yeah, but the game was balanced around it happening. It was designed with the knowledge in mind from the initial release of the game that there would be effects that trigger attacks. And there were many effects in 4e that would trigger bonus basic attacks, especially for Leaders and sometimes for Controllers. It wasn't a unique or uncommon ability. The only thing unique to Warlord was that it was an at-will and could be a build-around. In 5e, about the only way to accomplish this is with Battle Master or Haste, a 3rd level single target concentration spell that doesn't amplify Extra Attack or Sneak Attack (though it does work with Smite, but that's mainly Smite being broken).

It's not really comparable to Battle Master or Haste. Both of those effects add action economy. The proposed 5e update of 4e Commander's Strike (like the other at-wills that granted attacks) trades action economy (at a slight loss, since it also eats a reaction). Even if I'm giving my action to a Rogue or similar, it can't be that unbalanced since I could otherwise just be a Rogue taking the same action.

Also, Voice of Authority (Order Cleric) grants an attack as a reaction, and spells like Command and Dissonant Whispers can force creatures to provoke OAs, so there's more out there that is actually adding extra attacks than just Battle Master and Haste.

Additionally, 4e Commander's Strike only granted a melee basic attack, and the warlord himself had to be in melee range of the target, too. A sorcerer or warlock would probably not be able to capitalize on it. It was also the reason basically every Lazylord used a longspear. There were many party compositions where you could be limited to enhancing a defender, or forced into doing your own thing entirely (not that that was a big deal; you still had encounter powers).

Yeah, I know how Commander's Strike works. You may not be aware that melee options (that counted as basic attacks) for both Sorcerers and Warlocks were printed.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't. And it's more than a little frustrating that that's so baked into the rules.

What on earth can be wrong with parties taking a day - hell, a week or a month or a season - off between adventures?

 

[Thunderfoot]

I remember running with a party of 5 clerics as the only thief in 1e. We were damn near unstoppable. Clerics could wear any armor, heal, turn undead, ward and had good hp, saves and combat abilities. I took care of the clandestine activities and they kept me alive long enough to get wand and use scrolls. We weren't dealing a ton of damage per turn but nothing could, hit, harm or kill us. Basically it was death by sandpaper.

 

[steeldragons]

I'd say a "general theory," like a general relative theory of party comp, could be boiled down to

The ratio of "Frontline/fighter-types/combat classes" to "casters, experts, and other support classes" should be 1:1. That is, for every caster, skill monkey, healer there should be a meat shield, er, I mean, warrior/fightery 'in your face" type to run interference and blocking for them.

So, ye olde [a.k.a. "classic"] party comp still stands. If you have...
1 Mage
1 Cleric
1 Thief
Then you need/"should" have...
1 Fighter
1 Fighter or Paladin or Ranger (or martial/combat focused cleric)
1 Fighter or Barbarian or Monk (or martial/combat focused druid)

Your party will almost certainly all survive...or most of them will...as long as you don't split the party

Also, numbers matter. A 6 (minimum) or 7 person party is going to function better and get further (and contain more diverse talent and skill to draw from) than a 4 or 3 person party.

 

[Argyle King]

Party construction needs to consider the group's preferred tactics (and vice versa).

For example, most parties want a solid tank as a frontline fighter. However, if the party relies more on stealth and mobility, the heavily armored tank may be a liability instead of an asset.

 

[FrogReaver]

Party construction needs to consider the group's preferred tactics (and vice versa).

For example, most parties want a solid tank as a frontline fighter. However, if the party relies more on stealth and mobility, the heavily armored tank may be a liability instead of an asset.

Or the tank simply stays back with their ranged Allie’s most rounds until an enemy gets near the party. Much more effective that way but much less fun.