D&D 5E Party composition with only 4 players

[pming]

Hiya!

...and for adding in my 2¢... 5e is very forgiving of group composition as long as everyone at the table realises their parties weaknesses and does instantly see them as signs of "a broken rule system" (which I see faaaaar too often..."My Thief can't stand up in a fight as well as the Fighter! This system is broken!"). In my (paused) 5e campaign, I have four players (plus one drop-in-when-he-can-make-it). Their party is a Paladin, Warlock, Thief and Thief. They all just hit level 4. They are doing just fine...but they realize they will have a lightly harder time at healing, and large-scale melee brawls. They work around it..sometimes by being quite clever in their tactics, I must say (they were all 2nd/3rd level and took on *4* Ogres...and won most soundedly! Planing and tactics...well placed spell here and there, some good recon, tactical choke-point...I almost felt sorry for those ogres...).

Anyway...4 is the assumed party size and all that...but really, 5e is designed in a really organic way. Clever play and slick ideas and planning can have a HUGE effect (usually by giving Advantage to PC's and Disadvantage to the baddies). A party of all arcane caster types could probably do quite well...or a party of all fighter types, or thief types, or cleric types. I wouldn't worry about it. Just play on, and as long as your DM plays without bias and always with the "what would logically happen in this situation", I think everyone will do just fine.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Cannyjiggit]

Had a similar situation when we started. 2 completely new players, 2 inexperienced, then me and the DM. We let the newbies pick whatever they fancied first (Bard and Paladin), then the less experienced (Fighter and Wizard were their preference and would still work so they went with that).

This left me to try to build a character to fill the holes. I needed to cover healing, stealth (no idea which way the bard was going to go) and if possible still be able to add damage and/or tactical assistance in a fight. After much deliberation, a High Elf (for message cantrip) Light cleric with high dex and the urchin background has covered everything more than adequately (with a backstory that makes it work as well).
I'm almost playing as a rogue and the main stealth member of the party and using the Light Domain damage is a major boost. I'm actually hardly using any healing spells despite being the cleric. Damage is usually either minor enough for the bard and paladin to cover or severe enough that the party needs a long rest. What we do find is that numbers of monsters are the biggest potential threat to the party but all of myself, the wizard and the bard have area damage spells available and can put out some serious damage if we need to.

I'm trying to hold back a little more recently as the character combination is so versatile that I'm in danger of dominating the sessions over the newer players and thats something I really want to avoid. Of course, I don't mind the "its all going to hell - nevermind the elf saved us" situations but I need to let them develop rather than pre-empting them I think

 

[Gecko85]

Thanks for the replies. We're meeting tomorrow to help everybody create their characters, so I'll wait and see how it plays out. I'll set up my bard to fill in any gaps.

 

[SirAntoine]

The party that can meet the most diverse challenges is the core four, one fighter, one wizard, one cleric, and one rogue. You need to stick to these until you know your DM, in my opinion.