One class parties - which would work?

[Particle_Man]

Which 5 character parties would work well if they were all of the same class, if any? Which would be a really bad idea?

A Horde of raging Barbarians?

An Assembly of Avengers?

Rangers competing for the title of "Sexy Shoeless God of War"?

 

[bganon]

I think an all-Cleric party works quite well. You can cover both melee and ranged, they have one of the best melee at-wills, ranged clerics often can choose either "blasty" or "controllery" powers, and you'll certainly never run out of healing.

As for worst... Invokers maybe? They're squishy and bad at melee like Wizards but don't even have anything like "Staff of Defense" to help out.

In general, though, I think one-class parties are often surprisingly viable in 4e with some work, especially if you allow multiclassing.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

I don't think invokers would be so bad. They do have some retribution abilities and they do have some healing. They wouldn't be as good as clerics.

A gaggle of paladins would be OK, but their range would be troubling.

A flock of bards would be as good as or better than clerics. The ranged bard builds allow for pseudo-strikers and the Con-based bards would be fairly decent pseudo-defenders, especially given some bard abilities to mark (or at least to mark another bard with more HP).

A crowd of warders would be interesting. They would have almost no ranged attacks and not much healing, but they would have so many HPs that they could take pretty much anything in melee.

 

[LightPhoenix]

A group of Wizards would be pretty good, I think. Each of the Implement Masteries sort-of emphasizes a different role (Wand:Striker, Orb:Controller, Tome:Leader, Staff:ehhhh). Wizard abilities target non-AC defenses, and you'd have superb control over enemies. A lack of melee attacks is offset by superb range and close blast powers (ie, Thunderwave). Summoned creatures can act as HP sinks, and Wizards have a surprising number of defensive options (Levitate, Shield, Expedition Retreat).

The biggest weaknesses of the party would be health and skills. Luckily, these can be ameliorated with feats. You'd probably want one of your party taking Skill Training in Stealth and Perception to act as a scout. Everyone else should probably be taking Durable at the least. Another one should probably take Alchemy instead of Ritual Caster and make Potions of Healing, which are pretty decent for Wizards up through 7-8th level.

This is an interesting challenge, I might try it when I get home.

 

[Iron Sky]

I found a post on the 4e Character Optimization boards that had a party of all half-elf bards, multi-classed into various other classes that used all the half-elf and bardic multi-classing feats to enhance their role-specialization.

It looked scary; they were all pretty decent at their target roles, plus they had all the bardic tricks (like heals!). I'd link it but it's buried...

 

[Herschel]

I'll second Clerics.

Swordmages would also work pretty well. A mix of Aegis would be a total headache to DM against and would be hard to line up and hit something.

 

[James McMurray]

I think a party of Fighters would do well. They're good enough at thealing themselves that the loss of a leader wouldn't matter much, and they can output some major damage when built for it.

Warlords would be pretty scary together as well. They'd rarely miss an attack once they got going (assuming more Tactical ones than other types).

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

My vote for best 5 character party: warlords. It's a high complexity party concept but as long as you're in melee you're likely to end up with everyone going twice in the key round--three times if action points are included (and those actions will be 2-3 times as effective as normal due to the stacking bonuses from warlord presence (action point and get 1/2 taclord's int to atk, +taclord and resc lord int +1/2 level to damage, heal 1/2 lvl + insp lord cha bonus, make a save with +cha, and, if you hit, get an extra basic attack--ouch!) with hefty bonuses from things like warlord's favor and adaptive stratagem or warlord's strike or war of attrition.

The weakness of such a party would be ranged capability but selective multiclassing (taclord and resourceful warlord both have the potential to multiclass with wizard effectively and bravura and inspiring can multiclass with sorceror) can mitigate that--and in the end javalins don't completely suck.

If you want a party that will probably not work: 5 shamans. Their powers are great but their defenses tend to be weak and none of their powers or abilities are suited for melee--nor are they particularly good at avoiding it. If they couldn't just use their spirit companions to wall off their enemies (a tactic which would probably not work reliably--even with five spirit companions), they would probably be in real trouble.

5 rogues would probably work but would be prone to TPK. They would work well together to sneak around and avoid encounters but rogues tend to have lower healing surges than other characters and little self-healing and are thus vulnerable to a string of luck rolls. Also, they depend on positioning more heavily than other strikers and would probably face trouble if a string of unlucky rolls ruined their position.

I also suspect that a 5 warlock party would be in trouble. Warlocks can cover a range of roles but they would run into issues with not being able to curse and collect pact boons.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Double post

 

[weem]

I found a post on the 4e Character Optimization boards that had a party of all half-elf bards, multi-classed into various other classes that used all the half-elf and bardic multi-classing feats to enhance their role-specialization.

My buddy (Shaker) and I were talking about this earlier today - about how fun this would be to play. Like a traveling band, going town to town entertaining and more - he even joked it could play like Scooby-Doo - always solving mysteries, haha.

I would play this for sure