Party of four or five?

[jbear]

In my party the leader is a cleric, damge out put is high with two strikers (2 weapon ranger and a warlock), a controller (wizard) and a defender (fighter). The cleric heals a bit but is pretty aggressive as well. To balance that all the other characters are more defensive (staff wizard with leather armour, ranger has taken 2 weapon defense, warrior has the regeneration utility lvl2 power, and the warlock has taken the infernal pact to get temporary hps. Only lvl 2 nearly lvl 3 so far but they seem pretty well balanced so far.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I think Defenders and Leaders are the first group of roles I'd suggest to double up. (Though I think once you have selected your 5th spot, the 6th can be any)

My reasoning:

The Leader is responsible for most of the in-combat healing. If you add more characters, this means more characters need to be healed. Theoretically, it should still work fine most of the time since the damage is also distributed more among the various PCs. But area effects can change that.
For that reason, a Defender is a good alternative - this ensures that only two characters are hit most, or that they can switch around if it looks getting dangerous for them.

Of course, maybe I am discounting the ability of Strikers to just take down enemies so much faster that the extra damage that could be taken will be minimized, or the Controllers ability to keep enemies at bay.

 

[vhailor]

We will propably form a party of 4. All replies have been very helpful. Thanks a lot.