Purposely NOT filling the four roles

[EricNoah]

Anyone play a "standard" adventure with one of the four roles (tank, healer, blaster, sneaker(?)) not present? How did it go? What did you think?

I'm in a game right now where we have no real rogue and actually no real arcane caster. Battles last longer; we fall for every trap; but we seem to be OK on offense and on healing. It is funny how simple situations can flummox us when we don't have handy access to utility spells or a sneaky guy.

 

[el-remmen]

My 'OOTFP' game almost never had a rogue.

Well, we had a multi-classed ranger/rogue - but he was concentrated more on being a scout than being trap-finding sneaky guy. Later we had a fighter/rogue - but he was only with the group briefly.

But the group did have a wizard - and wizard's are very helpful with their utility spells to make up for this kind of thing - as can clerics sometimes (of which we had 2 multi-classed ones and later an additional straight-classed one).

 

[green slime]

My latest campaign has players creating their characters independantly of each other (thet don't know what the other players have chosen, or which affiliations). So far, no one is interested in any spellcasting class at all.

 

[Chimera]

My new group has a Psywarrior, Ranger, Psion and Rogue/Wizard. With an NPC Cleric for support.

Two sort-of-fighters, one sort-of-Wizard, one two-roler.

Not at all worried about combat with this group, but arcane and rogue-ish type challenges will probably have to be watched closely. Currently fighting Kobolds, but I honestly don't expect a lot of "into the burrows!" out of them. (The nature of the 'mission' doesn't require that sort of thing. It's just a "get our feet wet/kill as many Kobolds as possible" 3-session starting arc.)

 

[drothgery]

It's almost the default state with the group I play with to be lacking in a pure tank (we've got one -- an old-school half-orc fighter/barbarian -- in the current campaign, but that's a very rare thing). Usually our front line guys are skirmishers (monks, fighter/rogues, scouts, rangers), or self-buffing magic users (clerics, psi warriors, and I did a melee-based artificer once).

 

[Silver Moon]

The best example I ever saw of this was around a decade ago at a convention in a "Living City" game. All eight players brought in fighters! It was a nautical adventure fighting pirates on the high seas and because very challenging to the gamemaster given that we had no spellcasters or thieves among us. It was like playing a football game with only linebackers - but we did manage to finish and there was much unintended comedy due to the group make up.

 

[diaglo]

3d6 in order. sometimes the dice just don't fill the roles. still doesn't mean that the party can't do the job.

 

[Bront]

My current party:

Fighter/Monk
Artifacer (Retired)
Noble/Fighter
Rogue/Ranger
Fighter/Cleric
Cleric
Soulblade

Now, the Artifacer sorta filled in for the wizard, but not realy. Having the 2 clerics helps a bit, but honestly, these guys are so good in combat otherwise that the have had little need for the blast of a wizard, nor are they realy lacking in the trap finding department.

 

[EricNoah]

3d6 in order. sometimes the dice just don't fill the roles. still doesn't mean that the party can't do the job.

Oh no, not at all -- but it does require some different thinking. Classic example -- the group I described fought some trolls. Ok, a lot of trolls. We did great knocking them down. We did NOT do great keeping them down because we had very few fiery options to us. We didn't think to bring oil, we had no alchemists fire, and my paladin -- who had used a feat to learn the spell Fiery Ray -- was the only guy who could "make fire"!

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I was in an Eberron campaign with no mage or heavy fighter at 8th-level. We got wasted by a hydra. An ordinary CR-appropriate hydra.

A heavy fighter could have at least occupied it while a wizard could cast Glitterdust, Fear or some other such spell and probably end the fight immediately. (We were on a ship, and could outdistance a blind hydra easily.) Plus, our rogue would do nasty things to it with a ranged weapon from like 20 feet away for the next eight rounds.

There was a higher level campaign I ran where, instead of a cleric, we only had a psionic healer. Not a substitute. The inability to heal at range directly lead to the death of the barbarian character. The lack of "status ailment" spells was only a problem twice, when the PCs were hit by negative levels from fleshbound vampires wielding nasty swords and also Con damage from wraiths. Finally we ended up with a cleric, but he insisted on taking rogue levels and some weird PrC and being evil - I made him take a feat that still let him spontaneously convert spells to healing. The cleric player was inexperienced too - he was very surprised the first time I broke his concentration with a direct damage spell, for instance.

For some reason, groups I'm in, both as a player and GM, almost never seem to have a heavy fighter.

Without the core four, your party is weaker. However, party strength relies on teamwork, tactics and optimization and not just class composition. An experienced party (meaning players, not necessarily PCs) can quickly learn to partially fill in the gap.