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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AngryPurpleCyclops" data-source="post: 4705471" data-attributes="member: 82732">The less dangerous a campaign the less healing matters.  That's pretty obvious.  The more encounters you have of N or N-1 variety the less you'll feel the need for healing.  There's two problems with this.  In N-2 to N+1 encounters, it hardly ever matters if you make tactical errors or have bad luck.  You're going to win those encounters 99% of the time.  It's my experience that if you're not in need of healing you're facing weak encounters.  I'm extremely tactical. I've been at the top of leader boards in many multi-player war games, CCG's and strategy games.  I don't think many pc's are operating in a much more tactically proficient manner than I normally do, so I can't easily accept "tactics" as a silver bullet fix.  Lets not forget the monsters have tactics too.   I agree.  I think you need to be able to handle the wide gamut of potential encounter types.  In magic the gathering there were tight decks that could win a high number of games in under 5 turns but in order to win a tournament it might serve the player better to make a looser deck with more provisions for handling other expected decks.  You might win fewer games in 5 turns sliding to 7 or 8 but not lose a game here or there.  The same analogy can be drawn of the "tight" striker/controller party.  In some encounters they will pound their foes to dust in just a few rounds, but at the expense of being vulnerable in other types of encounters.  Since DnD is pass fail and the pc's need to repeatedly pass it's much better to get 2 90's 6 80's and 2 70's than to get 8 90's a 70 and a 10.  Both have a B average but one leaves the pc's dead.This is all true. Amazing damage output, lots of flexibility, will steam roll some encounters other groups struggle with.  Then wind up just as dead in an encounter with disadvantageous terrain and the wrong creatures. the ghoul encounter is the perfect example.  Your mobility is ended as soon as 2 pc's are immobilized which against rangers is round 1.  Are you going to write them off and retreat with the three remaining?  I don't think you need to fill all roles.  I do think it's optimal.  Each role has encounter types where their presence is critically important.  The fighters mark saved us from the grell.  The flaming sphere has saved us numerous times.  The rogues damage output is sometimes critical in keeping us alive and yet the whole group feels the cleric is the most important character.  Take away a role and I'll give you examples of when we would have been in big trouble.  I can't really decide what's the optimum party but I can poke a ton of holes in the elf ranger/wizard party.</blockquote>

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