Purposely NOT filling the four roles

[shilsen]

The party in Mallus' campaign (Burne's story hour, in my sig) currently consists of the following:

Ftr/Mnk/Samurai (3.0 OA version)
Ftr/Rgr/Deepwood Sniper
Marshal/Wizard
Shugenja

So the party lacks a tank, a trapspringer, and a dedicated healer. It definitely makes things interesting and requires us to play smart in order to survive.

 

[wmasters]

I regularly play with one (or more) of the core roles not filled. My main group, for a long while, had a 'party spell' courtesy of the Paladin, our only caster.

And, of course, our party of 6 bards (Cold Iron Maiden) lacked all of the main roles! Although that did end in a TPK... I think that was going to happen regardless of whether we'd filled the roles though.

I honestly don't think it's a problem, with a couple of reqiurements. You need someone able to heal, even if it's just using a WOCL (with UMD, ranger levels or whatever). And there's some classes don't need filling more than once. Rogues and Bards in particular.

 

[exile]

The current D&D game I am playing in is perhaps one of the most fun I have ever been involved with and the party is fairly unbalanced. At the start of teh campaign we were completely unbalanced.

We started with...

Ansley Greenshields- Human Scout (skirmisher, outdoorswoman, and skill monkey)
Arimylla Silvertree- Elven Bard (the great motivator)
Eran- Tiefling Rogue (sort of a skirmisher, trap and skill monkey)
Kellic Runefist- Human Monk (skirmisher and comedic relief)

Early on, the DM added...

Joshua- Half-elf Barbarian (who gives us extra muscle)

We also picked up another player who is playing...

Aquas- Dwarven Wizard (playing him as a fire elementalist, giving us some arcane punch, but little magical utility)

We are still dearly missing a divine caster and could probably use an arcane caster with a little more utility. That said, the game is going VERY well (tons of fun). This is partly because the DM designs encounters which challenges our party- he may pinch us for missing a class, but he doesn't knock us down and kick us in the ribs repeatedly.

Chad

 

[DerHauptman]

Sure, and had some of the best experiences doing so. It is dare I say more "realistic" to have a party of people not ideally suited to every task.

When I DM I plan the adventures around the party make-up and distribute magic items to help fill the roles. i.e. party without healer I pop in more healing items, party without a mage I plop in a necklace of fireballs or a wand that gives the cleric the ability to cast more of his offensive spells so he doesn't have to choose tween healing and damaging.

DerHauptman-Out!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'm currently in a large-ish party (8 PCs) so we have all the bases covered...but we have enough variety in the classes that we could see how we could do without one or another base role.

For example, my 19Int Ftr/Rgr/Diviner/SpSword has been almost as good in the scouting, traps & espionage department as the Rogue/Sorcerer.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

We played an all Divine Tank game one time, where everyone was a Cleric/Fighter or a Paladin. The lack of a trap finder or a blaster was really not an issue. The motto of that game was, "what does not kill you, only torks you off."

Later
silver

 

[Imp]

Sure, and had some of the best experiences doing so. It is dare I say more "realistic" to have a party of people not ideally suited to every task.

Yeah, the whole idea of a world where heroes group off into teams of four iconics is one of those things that rubs against my sense of disbelief pretty hard, and I tend to try to skew things off of that whenever I can... as a DM, perhaps relegating one of those roles to hired & occasional help if I can do so, and tailoring the adventures to the sorts of things an imbalanced party would seek out, and giving them a chance to take another angle if things appear to be going against one of their weak spots.

This thread reminds me, I've kind of wanted to run an "Ocean's Eleven" for a while now...

 

[Seeten]

I was just trying to avoid the traditional classes with my make-up.

I know, but the classes you used!

So I powergamed it for you =)

 

[frankthedm]

Ime

No healer = Death, Death and an addiction to healing potions. Happened not 5 hours ago in the depths of The lost city, only one death though

No Blaster = Low AC characters die from swarms if they fail to fight defensively. This happened a lot in my Horror on the Hill/ Dungeon of the fire opal rewrite..

No Rogue = Person in front dies messily unless PCs are very cautious. Nearly happened a lot in my Dungeon of the fire opal rewrite

No Tank = I can only imagine TPK unless the dm puts on kid gloves. The Fighter/Wizard{abjurer] player in my group is the longest running character. His favorite spell is stilled Shield.

 

[Tsillanabor]

My current part has no healer except a low-level paladin. Several times I've put them it situations only to discover that they can't get through because they're taking too much damage.