Mad Hamish
First Post
How things tend to work in my group is we have a couple of players who pick what they want and then the rest of us look to balance the roles out.
Pre-Campaign Strategeoryizing
- Thread starter TikkchikFenTikktikk
- Start date
In my experience there is often a couple players who will only play if they can use class as no other ones interest them. For the sake of attempting to keep a smooth gaming session going, the left over player/s will co-ordinate to best fill remaining roles.
Though it has been my experience that the only pivotal role in 4e is having one leader to which we ensure at least one player will play. The game can run without a leader role, but it often takes adjustments on behalf of the DM.
Usually after playing a level or two of the campaign we'll start to see retraining for synergy benefits. I'm a planner myself...ideally I'll like to build synergistic parties from the ground up...but its never worked out that way.
Though it has been my experience that the only pivotal role in 4e is having one leader to which we ensure at least one player will play. The game can run without a leader role, but it often takes adjustments on behalf of the DM.
Usually after playing a level or two of the campaign we'll start to see retraining for synergy benefits. I'm a planner myself...ideally I'll like to build synergistic parties from the ground up...but its never worked out that way.
Primitive Screwhead
First Post
When I run a campaign, I tend to let the players know the setting, timeframe, and any specific limitations {race, etc..}
I have also taken to asking players to choose thier character based on what they want to play... its my job as the DM to manage off-kilter groups.
Generally this still results in a 'balanced' party. My current campaign group has up to 8 players.. so depending on who shows up we can have a striker only, leader only, or mostly balanced
Striker and leader only is fairly easy to deal with.. just alter the hit points of the monsters.
Controllers and defender only are harder to deal with.. and I fortunatley haven't had to deal with this yet.
I have also taken to asking players to choose thier character based on what they want to play... its my job as the DM to manage off-kilter groups.
Generally this still results in a 'balanced' party. My current campaign group has up to 8 players.. so depending on who shows up we can have a striker only, leader only, or mostly balanced
Striker and leader only is fairly easy to deal with.. just alter the hit points of the monsters.
Controllers and defender only are harder to deal with.. and I fortunatley haven't had to deal with this yet.
Obryn
Hero
We're planning ahead for my upcoming Dark Sun campaign.
Everyone's played only one role for about the past 2 years. Different characters, same roles. So I'm giving bennies for trying new roles. Specifically, if you play something different, you get to build on 23 points instead of 22. Helpful, but far from game-breaking.
Everyone's getting into it, too, apart from one guy who is dead-set on strikers. He can go ahead; it's not like he'll end up crippled or anything!
I'm also offering bennies for (1) making a human, or a different race nobody else is playing (aka the "please everyone don't be thri-kreen" suggestion); and (2) picking a theme nobody else is playing. These all give you "death tokens" since resurrection is really not so much happening otherwise.
-O
Everyone's played only one role for about the past 2 years. Different characters, same roles. So I'm giving bennies for trying new roles. Specifically, if you play something different, you get to build on 23 points instead of 22. Helpful, but far from game-breaking.
Everyone's getting into it, too, apart from one guy who is dead-set on strikers. He can go ahead; it's not like he'll end up crippled or anything!
I'm also offering bennies for (1) making a human, or a different race nobody else is playing (aka the "please everyone don't be thri-kreen" suggestion); and (2) picking a theme nobody else is playing. These all give you "death tokens" since resurrection is really not so much happening otherwise.
-O
Ktulu
First Post
Well, as the DM I can say my group spoke a lot. A new player ended up playing the dead character of another player's in the previous campaign (same world) come back as a revenant.
The two divine/radiant weilding guys teamed up to ensure one was providing vulnerability while the other one handed out damage.
Still another built his whole character off a throwaway idea by another player whilst talking over the campaign themes.
The closest we had was A: an all martial group, and B: a group comprised of 3 defenders out of six players.
The group chat aspect works great, imo. When players work together to create cohesive characters, whether mechanic or story, the game goes better.
As far as the one role thing? Well, the all martial was awesome. It led to insane fights that felt very Howard-esque (conan) in style.
The three defender thing was just kinda funny. It wasn't intentional, just happened that way. While damage wasn't as high, they punished enemies with their marks.
Nytmare
David Jose
Every game I've run in at least the last 15 years has been a "Everyone sit down, and let's figure out what the group is and what they're doing" game.
Pre 4th, we did it all the time. Post, I think my players have talked about an all wizard party, but that's as close as we've come. We did an all Eladrin party, and I played briefly in an all reskinned dragonborn paladin party (paladin, sword mage, warlock, and cleric, all built as paladins of The Silver Flame)
Repeat after me: "strategizing"
I think perhaps you mean "strateej-uh-reeationalizing."
We've never had all the same role though our first game was all Martial (one of each PHB). Our last one was almost all Primal but one guy insisted on playing what he wanted. Sheesh.
When we're not playing DnD everybody just takes what they want. Generally (read always) that's with a classless system. We just make sure someone can heal if it fits the genre and run with it.
For 4e the group I GM they just pick what they want and in confabbing one will end up with a leader. Anything else I'm willing to adapt to.
The group I am generally a player in, we basically put dibs on a role since it's a smaller group and we generally want a leader. Honestly, there are enough classes around that most of us have multiple classes in every role that we want to play.
Oddly enough, in the five games I've been involved in, this is the first time anyone has played a pure controller (wizard) and that's a new player so we actually have all four roles. We've seen a Warlord/MC wizard (very heavy MC - all 3 power swaps, Spiral Tower PP) but that's it.
When we're not playing DnD everybody just takes what they want. Generally (read always) that's with a classless system. We just make sure someone can heal if it fits the genre and run with it.
For 4e the group I GM they just pick what they want and in confabbing one will end up with a leader. Anything else I'm willing to adapt to.
The group I am generally a player in, we basically put dibs on a role since it's a smaller group and we generally want a leader. Honestly, there are enough classes around that most of us have multiple classes in every role that we want to play.
Oddly enough, in the five games I've been involved in, this is the first time anyone has played a pure controller (wizard) and that's a new player so we actually have all four roles. We've seen a Warlord/MC wizard (very heavy MC - all 3 power swaps, Spiral Tower PP) but that's it.
My 4e group also started with seven players. We ended up with three leaders, though (cleric, warlord, bard).Well, we've got 7 players, so we just choose whatever classes we wanted. We covered all 4 roles, but interestingly ended up with 3 controllers! Druid, Seeker, Wizard. Should be really fun for us, but a nightmare for the DM.
So far fights had an interesting dynamic, since the group didn't have a dedicated defender (they had a greatweapon fighter). Typically, early in the fight, the strikers (barbarian and ranger) would drop and then the leaders had their hands full trying to get everyone up again while avoiding to be dropped themselves...
Since everyone was new to the system I've been very lax, allowing everyone to change feats and powers around until they found something that worked for them.
Quickleaf
Legend
Wow! Really? You'd think that with 3 leaders you'd be spamming healing all over the place. Did the lack of a defender make that much of a difference? Were they just not able to keep monsters from getting to their back line?
You've got me wondering if our group with one leader (a runepriest at that) will have enough healing going around 7 of us.
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