D&D General Party Building Constraints: The Five-Man Band

[Xeviat]

For my next game, we're planning to do a less combat focused game than my games typically are. To facilitate this, we're looking at using slow recovery (short rest is 8 hours, long rest is 48 hours of no more than light activity, basically a weekend). But, while we were discussing thing, my group (which includes 4 writers) came up with a character design constraint we're going to try out.

The 5 players are going to work on their characters together and expressly design around the Five-Man Band trope. I'm the DM, and I trust this group to handle having someone as "the hero/the leader" without actually bossing the other players around..

The other constraint we decided upon is the players are going to ensure that the five characters all have different highest/primary stats. Since Con isn't really a prime stat, that means we'll have one Str, Dex, Int, Wis, and Cha focused character.

I'm really excited to see what they end up building, and am largely waiting for characters and backstories to be written before I start work on the campaign. I haven't done a free-form campaign for a while, after running a pre-made for the last 3 years it will be interesting.

What do people think of the design constraints? What would you make within them? Do you know of any tools or other systems that I can point my players to in order to help them work on some backgrounds and backstories.

 

[Richards]

What game system/edition will you be using?

Johnathan

 

[Xeviat]

What game system/edition will you be using?

Johnathan

A5E, but I figured a lot of this is system agnostic.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Its a good idea, tropes are always fun to play with. Eck, 30 years of JRPG showed us that the 5-man-band is nearly a must have in Fantasy

Leader: tends to be more martial OR a reluctant hero, so I'd go with a Folk-Hero Rune Knight Fighter (str)
Lancer: now we need the opposite of our Fighter, so I'd go with the ever-cool, broody Noble Wizard (int)
Smart-One: I'd go with a Far Wanderer Inquisitive Rogue (dex)
Strong-One: I'd go with a Gladiator War or Order Cleric (wis)
Chick: Depending if you want to go edgy or quirky, I'd go with a Performer Celestial or Undead Warlock (cha)

 

[Blue Orange]

If you wanted to bring personality type into it, TVTropes has the Leader, the Lancer (guy who fights with the Leader), the Smart Guy/Gal, the Bruiser, and the Chick (their word, not mine--the peacekeepr and 'heart'; I'll call 'em the Heart).

So I'd go with Cha-Leader, Dex-Lancer, Int-Smart Person, Str-Bruiser, Wis-Heart.

EDIT: Ninja'd by Vincegetorix!

 

[mrpopstar]

The "core four" cleric, fighter, rogue, and wizard account for the wise hero, strong hero, dextrous hero, and intelligent hero straight out the gate. Add a bard (the "core fifth") to account for the charismatic hero and you have yourself a five-man band!

 

[mrpopstar]

For my next game, we're planning to do a less combat focused game than my games typically are. To facilitate this, we're looking at using slow recovery (short rest is 8 hours, long rest is 48 hours of no more than light activity, basically a weekend). But, while we were discussing thing, my group (which includes 4 writers) came up with a character design constraint we're going to try out.

The 5 players are going to work on their characters together and expressly design around the Five-Man Band trope. I'm the DM, and I trust this group to handle having someone as "the hero/the leader" without actually bossing the other players around..

The other constraint we decided upon is the players are going to ensure that the five characters all have different highest/primary stats. Since Con isn't really a prime stat, that means we'll have one Str, Dex, Int, Wis, and Cha focused character.

I'm really excited to see what they end up building, and am largely waiting for characters and backstories to be written before I start work on the campaign. I haven't done a free-form campaign for a while, after running a pre-made for the last 3 years it will be interesting.

What do people think of the design constraints? What would you make within them? Do you know of any tools or other systems that I can point my players to in order to help them work on some backgrounds and backstories.

The "core four" cleric, fighter, rogue, and wizard account for the wise hero, strong hero, dextrous hero, and intelligent hero straight out the gate. Add a bard (the "core fifth") to account for the charismatic hero and you have yourself a five-man band!

 

[Xeviat]

The "core four" cleric, fighter, rogue, and wizard account for the wise hero, strong hero, dextrous hero, and intelligent hero straight out the gate. Add a bard (the "core fifth") to account for the charismatic hero and you have yourself a five-man band!

Can easily if the group wants to be classic with it. I have a feeling they're going to surprise me though, since one's a novelist, one's a screen writer, and one's a comic book writer/artist, along with the others being in arts and entertainment in general.

I'm more worried about the battle for who gets to be the Lancer! Hahaha

 

[Charlaquin]

Considering the constraints of both the 5-man band and having each character use a different primary ability, I feel like The Briiser basically has to be the strength based one, right? Probably a fighter or a barbarian. Obviously the Smart Guy has to be the intelligence based one as well, so wizard or artificer. That leaves dexterity, wisdom, and charisma for The Hero, The Lancer, and The Chick, and there’s probably a few ways you could go with that. Maybe The Hero is a cleric and The Lancer is a Warlock, clashing over religious beliefs, with The Chick being a femme fatale rogue. Or make The Lancer the rogue and have The Chick be a charming bard. Or maybe The Hero is the bard, The Lancer is a brooding Ranger, and The Chick is a nature-loving druid.

 

[Xeviat]

Considering the constraints of both the 5-man band and having each character use a different primary ability, I feel like The Briiser basically has to be the strength based one, right? Probably a fighter or a barbarian. Obviously the Smart Guy has to be the intelligence based one as well, so wizard or artificer. That leaves dexterity, wisdom, and charisma for The Hero, The Lancer, and The Chick, and there’s probably a few ways you could go with that. Maybe The Hero is a cleric and The Lancer is a Warlock, clashing over religious beliefs, with The Chick being a femme fatale rogue. Or make The Lancer the rogue and have The Chick be a charming bard. Or maybe The Hero is the bard, The Lancer is a brooding Ranger, and The Chick is a nature-loving druid.

"Strong guy" cooooooould be interpreted to just be the heavy hitter. Likely it will be the high str character. Smart guy is also very likely to be Int, but I could easily see someone pushing a Charisma character who outsmarts in the same role.

There is definitely a lot more flexibility in Hero, Lancer, and Heart. Interestingly, that's kind of the nature of the archetypes too.