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Is there a general theory of party construction?
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<blockquote data-quote="teitan" data-source="post: 8544869" data-attributes="member: 3457"><p>There wasn’t, then there was, now there isn’t. Originally you just rolled up a random character and played what you got. Balance was handled by the DM and was a guideline in reference to not letting any one player outdo another player or steal the spotlight. There wasn’t a iconic party construction but there was a general understanding that a thief or ranger was necessary to deal with traps and a Wizard was good for lots of things but a party of fighters was still not going to necessarily get ground into hamburger like a party of wizards. Dual classing for humans and multiclassing for demihumans was there but it wasn’t like a party needed a tank, a skill monkey, a blaster and a support character to be viable and it wasn’t baked into the math. Especially in 0e where there wasn’t a thief class originally and the Paladin was basically a footnote buried in notes on Fighters, both found in Greyhawk and the rest scattered through Strategic Review and Dragon Magazine’s early issues. Even in Basic D&D sure humans had the four basic classes but there wasn’t the expectation of these four classes or similar were needed built into the math. 2e pushed that boundary further.</p><p></p><p>it was probably 3.x where the dungeon crawl made a revival and the “archetypal” party kind of became baked into the numbers. Having the have a healer, a blaster, an expert and a tank was a part of the math in monster design and the Xmas tree or golf bag of special weapons etc. 4e it was completely baked in as the classes were called out for their specific roles in encounters and tips were given for building your characters based on the party role you wanted to fill. Even monsters were structured in the same manner.</p><p></p><p>5e broke out of that expectation with expanded and accelerated healing, finally moving the cleric out of the healing monkey and into a more direct contributor for the party and the party make up not being based on an archetypal make up but what players wanted to play.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="teitan, post: 8544869, member: 3457"] There wasn’t, then there was, now there isn’t. Originally you just rolled up a random character and played what you got. Balance was handled by the DM and was a guideline in reference to not letting any one player outdo another player or steal the spotlight. There wasn’t a iconic party construction but there was a general understanding that a thief or ranger was necessary to deal with traps and a Wizard was good for lots of things but a party of fighters was still not going to necessarily get ground into hamburger like a party of wizards. Dual classing for humans and multiclassing for demihumans was there but it wasn’t like a party needed a tank, a skill monkey, a blaster and a support character to be viable and it wasn’t baked into the math. Especially in 0e where there wasn’t a thief class originally and the Paladin was basically a footnote buried in notes on Fighters, both found in Greyhawk and the rest scattered through Strategic Review and Dragon Magazine’s early issues. Even in Basic D&D sure humans had the four basic classes but there wasn’t the expectation of these four classes or similar were needed built into the math. 2e pushed that boundary further. it was probably 3.x where the dungeon crawl made a revival and the “archetypal” party kind of became baked into the numbers. Having the have a healer, a blaster, an expert and a tank was a part of the math in monster design and the Xmas tree or golf bag of special weapons etc. 4e it was completely baked in as the classes were called out for their specific roles in encounters and tips were given for building your characters based on the party role you wanted to fill. Even monsters were structured in the same manner. 5e broke out of that expectation with expanded and accelerated healing, finally moving the cleric out of the healing monkey and into a more direct contributor for the party and the party make up not being based on an archetypal make up but what players wanted to play. [/QUOTE]
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