D&D 5E The simplest and most effectiv 3 PC team

[Voadam]

So... Wich one ?
(Yeah... I'm not really sold on the Life Cleric)

Warlock zaps with eldritch blast effectively in combat then uses its healing spell every short rest. From a mechanically and decision point perspective it is straightforward.

Sorcerer can do more healing per day and more spells, but they have more complicated mechanics of slots per day and shifting slots to metamagic points and such and deciding whether to use spells for offense or save them for healing etc and in general will be a little less effective with their cantrip attacks than eldritch blast but can do more non-cantrip spells. It is a little less straightforward and a little more tactical and resource management intensive.

 

[Ancalagon]

I've run more than one campaign with 3 players... in fact, the only reason this isn't my preferred way of GMing is because if one person is missing you kind of have to cancel the session. The biggest advantage is that you can, as a GM, give a lot of spotlight and attention to each player.

Simple characters though? that's hard. One of the thing I have found is that is is much harder, in a 3 character party, to have a "squishy" characters that is screened by the others (like your classical wizard in the back slinging spells). Thankfully there are several way in 5e to make certain characters tougher. For instance, if you really want to play a wizard, perhaps an abjurer would be best.

The second aspect is "multi role" characters, but that is definitely stepping away from the "simple" requirement, so most of my ideas about that are a bit too complex. But a rogue with the scout subclass and the outlander background and the healer feat is simple and does a lot for a party.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Dwarf Champion fighter Str/Con with mediocre Dex, Background Noble Str 17, Con 16, Dex 13, Wis 10, Int 8, Cha 12
Wood elf Champion fighter Dex/Wis fighter with mediocre Con, Background Outlander Str 13, Dex 16, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 16, Cha 8
Half Elf Bard Cha/Int with a splash of dex, background Urchin. Str 10, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 16, Wis 8, Cha 16

Optimal? No! But you have all Stats covered and yu have archetypical characters. And you can pick skills that have everything covered:
Outlander: Don´t get lost in wilderness
Urchin: Don´t get lost in city
Noble: Don´t get lost in social situations

Dwarven melee fighter -> Classic
Elven Woodsy archer -> Classic
Half-Elf Bard -> DnD Classic, easier than Cleric. Condensed spell list. Song of healing, Jack of all trades are all quite easy to use.

If you want it even simpler and use feats: Human Dex/Cha Thief with the Healing Hands Feat. (No magic then... but you can cover all with a healing kit and potions).
You can also replace the Dwarf with a variant human with Heavy Armor Mastery. Easy to use very effective. The sttandard array allocation I used for the dwarf also allows to just take Heavy Armor Mastery which is still good at level 4.

 

[Laurefindel]

I've run more than one campaign with 3 players... in fact, the only reason this isn't my preferred way of GMing is because if one person is missing you kind of have to cancel the session. The biggest advantage is that you can, as a GM, give a lot of spotlight and attention to each player.

Three players is my absolute favourite by far, because of the spotlight ad attention to each player as you said, but also because it's much easier to gather four of us (including DM) on a single night than five or six people. And if the DM knows about it ahead of time, a small group is easier to split coherently should a player be absent.

On roles with three players: You can cover most roles with three players - especially if the players work together to for a party - but chances are that one typical adventuring role will be lacking (or missing altogether. Backgrounds can help immensely there. But for me; that's also a plus in the "pro" column of three-player games; the party has a weakness. The chances of multiple players competing for the same niche is also reduced, and even when two characters are strong in the same role, that becomes one of the party's strength rather than "wasted resources".

The main drawback IMO is that when one character is down, the party is amputated of 33% of their resources, which is huge!

So I stand with my proposition; two fighters give the party enough durability. One Str-based provides the essential frontline defense/offense. With a minimum of wisdom, that one can fill the athlete/explorer/outdoorsman role as a secondary role. The second Dex-based can specialise in ranged attacks but should be able to hold their own in melee. High Dex allows the sneak/scout/infiltrator as a secondary role. Divine Sorcerer can cover both arcane firepower and divine healing/buffing with enough spell slots to be well affirmed as a spellcaster. Bard can do that too but in my experience, the bard is a fun character to play, with simple enough mechanics, a good known spell repertoire for a spontaneous caster, but it's not a easy class to play. Sorcerer is a bit more straightforward IMO. The hardest mechanics is spell slot / sorcery point conversion, but metamagic is relatively easy to grasp.

 

[FrogReaver]

A paladin, ranger and wizard would be a really fun party and not that bad if you pregen the spells.

 

[bedir than]

In a lot of ways, I think you have to have one be a Fighter and another be a Thief. The usual tropes are likely part of the appeal. Those classics need to be involved.

And then a spell caster of some sorts with healing has to be the third. It needs to have healing. With it being a pregen I think the celestial warlock or the favored soul sorcerer fit that quite well.

Depending on what appeals to them, I would offer the classic races of human, high elf, and mountain dwarf. Maybe there's a modern story that inspires them more than LotR, but I doubt it.

 

[Shiroiken]

Uh... first of all I'd have them start at level 1. New players generally learn the game better from the beginning, rather than jumping ahead.

With that in mind, I'd go with a Fighter, Cleric (heavy armor variety), and Wizard. One of the PCs should be a criminal background to gain access to thieves tools (probably the wizard), and one PC should have a social background for Persuasion/Deception and maybe Insight (or split the two to make them all useful).

 

[Laurefindel]

Uh... first of all I'd have them start at level 1. New players generally learn the game better from the beginning, rather than jumping ahead.

With that in mind, I'd go with a Fighter, Cleric (heavy armor variety), and Wizard. One of the PCs should be a criminal background to gain access to thieves tools (probably the wizard), and one PC should have a social background for Persuasion/Deception and maybe Insight (or split the two to make them all useful).

I think the OP wanted to avoid all prepared casters, particularly clerics and druids, because knowing every spell on their spell list puts strain on players, and the OP aims for simplicity and ease of play.

 

[FrogReaver]

I think the OP wanted to avoid all prepared casters, particularly clerics and druids, because knowing every spell on their spell list puts strain on players, and the OP aims for simplicity and ease of play.

They don’t need that. Just give them pregen spells on level up.

 

[Laurefindel]

They don’t need that. Just give them pregen spells on level up.

So make them spontaneous casters instead of prepared? That'd be easy enough. # of spells the cleric/druid/wizard can prepare = spells known is easy enough to implement.