D&D 5E What's the WORST party composition possibly with 4 or 5 characters?

[Ancalagon]

Pretty much any party where everyone focuses on the same "role" - i.e. everyone is support, everyone is a healer type, everyone is DPS, or everyone is a "tank".

But the worst would probably be the party where everyone is lightly armored DPS with no ability to recover if things go wrong.

Basically all rogues.

Lack of variability is the problem... but rogues can have a lot of variability. It would have to be all 5 identical rogues.

 

[5ekyu]

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[Caliban]

Lack of variability is the problem... but rogues can have a lot of variability. It would have to be all 5 identical rogues.

Yeah, but no version of the rogue can heal (outside of the Healer feat), and the spellcasting version doesn't have a lot of utility (limited spell slots and spell selection). You would be all stealth and sneak attack - which is great up until the point something goes wrong. The main weakness is relatively low AC on most rogue variants and limited ability to heal in combat.

 

[5ekyu]

Yeah, but no version of the rogue can heal (outside of the Healer feat), and the spellcasting version doesn't have a lot of utility (limited spell slots and spell selection). You would be all stealth and sneak attack - which is great up until the point something goes wrong. The main weakness is relatively low AC on most rogue variants and limited ability to heal in combat.

Yet, one of my favorite campaign runs as player was very rogue heavy with no heavy fighter and limited healing from multiclass rogue-cleric.

Key was we looked for different ways to accomplish goals that fit strengths.

All rogues may be bad for repeated toe-to-toe slugfests but should be seeking other ways.

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[Caliban]

Yet, one of my favorite campaign runs as player was very rogue heavy with no heavy fighter and limited healing from multiclass rogue-cleric.

Key was we looked for different ways to accomplish goals that fit strengths.

All rogues may be bad for repeated toe-to-toe slugfests but should be seeking other ways.

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I didn't say you couldn't make it work - just that it's the "worst party composition" that I can think of. Adding almost any other class would make it better.

Which you did in your example by having one of the rogues multi-class into cleric.

 

[Jaelommiss]

Pretty much any combination of classes can overcome adventuring challenges by adjusting how they approach the problem. If you truly want to make a doomed party have it consist of nothing but "chaotic neutral" angsty edgelords that are all tragic and mopey, backstab each other for any perceived slight, and try to "win" everything by themselves.

 

[Eltab]

- All melee no ranged ability. A smart BBEG will send a fast-moving artillery against them.
- All ranged with no melee ability. A smart BBEG will send door-smashers when they are in a confined space.
- No healing at all. Try to get back up for Round Two.
- All solo stars. A bunch of guys trying to do it all their personal self, usually doing most things badly; everybody else is equally bad at it, whatever 'it' is.
- Active intra-Party sabotage. Party turns to infighting and accomplishes nothing.
- Characters that the players do not know how to make work. Ex: Assassin wants to charge across flat open field at enemy in broad daylight and get his special Assassin damage.
- Players do their own thing without considering the others, such as wander away from the party or Fireball the Fighter to hit more cannon-fodder enemies.
- NOBODY has any equipment or gear.
- Players all lack imagination or ability to think on their feet.
- Stoopid-alignment character(s). Could claim to be an LG Paladin or a CE Thief or even N Druid.

 

[5ekyu]

I didn't say you couldn't make it work - just that it's the "worst party composition" that I can think of. Adding almost any other class would make it better.

Which you did in your example by having one of the rogues multi-class into cleric.

"Adding almost any other class would make it better."

But that would apply yo almost any other "all one class" grouping. Same lack of versatility applies.

the point i was trying to make is that rogues **can** actually reduce your specific complaint "lack of healing" in quite a few ways and have ways to deal with the issue in-class with the stealth and damage outputs. they have built-in ways to avoid taking damage through surprise, avoidance and even just doing good damage output. healer feat plus sub-class gets you bonus action healing too.

With expertise available for all variants it should be easy for an organized and coordinated group of rogues to have a lot of bases covered well and ways to directly avoid or mitigate the need to heal tons of damage.

Not as true IMO for some other "single class" options but then, all classes have a fairly wide variety.

if i were to pick a single "one class group" for fewest types of solutions and reactions it would likely be five barbarians. their tricks are almost exclusively focused on either doing damage with weapons (melee mostly but not necessarily) and soaking damage. Thats not a lot of tools in their toolkits.

And like the five rogues, swapping one out for almost any class would help a lot.

As always, it comes down to challenge is two parts - "what you need to do" vs "what you are good at." Five barbies would solve a smaller set of challenges very very well but five rogues would solve a larger set of challenges - maybe not as flamboyantly. I

IMO.

 

[Caliban]

"Adding almost any other class would make it better."

But that would apply yo almost any other "all one class" grouping. Same lack of versatility applies.

Sure. Rogues are just the worst.

 

[Oofta]

A party of all wizards. This was before cantrips, but still. They did OK for 1 or 2 fights but after that a group of commoners may have been better off. Had they made it to higher levels they would have been a force to be reckoned with, but until then I could practically take them out with a clowder of kittens.

They were all level 3 and 4 of level 1 thugs knocked them all unconscious and sold them into slavery in what would have been an easy encounter for any other group.