Your Group is Missing a Role

[babinro]

I've only ever played or DM'd in a party where all roles were covered once.

From experience, I've found the controller role to be easily bypassed in the game without problems at all. That being said, we did have a fey warlock in the party, who plays a little like a controller in the later levels.

I've had two games in which no one wanted to play a defender. In both these games, we had an armored leader act as the tank (melee cleric, heavily armored warlord). This was also very successful albeit a more tense on the party as the leader was typically most likely to fall first.

I've yet to find a game where in no strikers existed...however, I'm sure the impact would be minimal. Fights would likely last a couple rounds longer but the party would have much greater survivability.

I'm confident that the only thing you must have in a party is one leader. Any other party composition could be played as normal from a DM standpoint.

 

[Aulirophile]

Two Person Party:

Leader+Striker

Three Person Party:

Defender+Leader+Striker

Highly Optimized Two Person Party:

Controller|Leader Striker|Leader (Artificer|Wizard+Cleric|Ranger)

It really comes down one thing. Surviving long enough. Strikers help out the "surviving long enough" part by doing damage faster. Controllers do it by lessening incoming damage. Defenders do it by increasing damage or reducing damage via the law of averages (their defenses are higher, they get hit less). Leaders do it by mitigating damage and enabling allies or preventing the enemy disabling allies.

However there is an issue that playing a Striker well is easy: Do damage. I am confident I could hand anyone an optimized Ranger and they'd do fine. Defender/Leader are about even (with some variance based on class, mostly having to do with the fact that the worst defenders are the hardest to play well, and the best leaders are the hardest to play well). Controllers just trump the out of that though, controllers are the hardest role to play well. An all controller party with one ranged striker would dominate LFR module play if they were all played well.

Realistically, in home games, you're playing with friends and your friends are not all going to be tactical geniuses (becomes less likely that even one of you will be in a smaller party).

Also Defenders are technically specialized controllers. So.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I have been playing in a game where we were originally 2 strikers (starlock, rogue), a leader (str cleric) and a defender (sword & board fighter) - so, no controller. We did okay, though I felt that we really could have used a controller... minions were a real PITA, and the wizard in the game I DM (same players) really is a star player.

Then when PH2 came out, the DM let me swap from warlock to sorceror, and we got an invoker for a while... and our problem with minions went away. Indeed, now even with the invoker gone, they aren't a problem - primarily because the DM doesn't use them anymore, feeling that we kill them too fast. I would argue with him if I didn't remember how frustrating they were before.

Now our defender plans to switch to a slayer, which will mean that we will have 3 strikers (chaos sorceror, PH1 rogue, slayer) and one leader (the str cleric)... it will be interesting to see how things go. The fact that the slayer will still likely serve as a meetsock will certainly help, though I expect the cleric (who was already taking more than his fair share of the hurt) and the rogue will be taking more damage than they should. In one respect, our (mainly the rogue's, actually) relatively poor teamwork will mean that the change will be less than it would otherwise, as the defender wasn't soaking up hits for the rogue anyway. I think the main thing that will let it work, though, is that usually we have pretty short adventuring days.

 

[Mengu]

Players pick their characters for what they CAN do, but what their characters CANT do is just as much a part of the game experience. If an encounter comes along which is not suited to what they do, I wouldnt deviate the encounter because they are ill-prepared and more than I would alter an an encounter they are well prepared for. If my party finds an encounter a cake walk, I let it be a cake walk. If my party finds an encounter killer difficult, I let it be so. I dont alter encounters to find the happy middle ground.

Dealing with things outside of your characters comfort zone is just as much a part of the game as dealing with encounters in your comfort zone.

I guess I mostly agree with this. When I design encounters, it's just the presentation of a challenge. I won't change the challenge for the party composition.

If the challenge level is easy or standard, I won't worry at all about party composition, any composition party can handle a standard encounter.

If the challenge level is high, then I just try not to design the encounter to be frustrating. For instance, I might shy away from using zillion hit point elite brutes against a party without strikers. Maybe I chop off a quarter of their hit points, and add a couple more minions to the encounter. I don't see it as making the encounter easy or watered down, just less frustrating, more fun, for the party that will be playing through it.

 

[Lancelot]

(96 dead PCs) My head is spinning at this number. Do you guys play 125 hours per week? When do you take extended rests (err.. sleep)?

Either that are you are just brutal!

Well... We have a weekly game on Thursday evenings. Every week since 4e was released. The sessions run about 5 hours, and we typically complete 3-5 major encounters in that time.

We also do a fortnightly (every 2 weeks, for my American friends) game, even since 4e was released, that typically runs slightly longer.

That's... a lot of sessions. Hundreds.

They're all experienced players, so you can't put the casualty rate down to not knowing the rules. However...

• All dice are rolled openly. There is no fudging by the DM to save PCs. Ever. Also, some monsters will go for the coup de grace (e.g. undead, demons, etc), rather than just leaving dropped PCs to get back up again.
• As mentioned above, a massive predilection to playing strikers. Even the leaders and defenders tend to be geared towards damage rather than durability or healing potential.
• No magic items shops, and heavy restrictions on item enchanting. No PC can "pick and choose" their preferred equipment set.
• ...and [this is the big one, I suspect] most sessions virtually enforce a minimum of 4 encounters before the party can do an extended rest. How do they do this?
  • The party is in a hostile environment. If they try to do an extended rest, the monsters come to find them, rather than just waiting passively for the PCs to "recharge".
  • Time limits. Push through, or you "lose" (the princess dies, the villain escapes, the world is destroyed).
  • One chance only. The PC are trying to infiltrate a location. If they screw up the first time, the enemies will re-jig their defenses so it becomes impregnable the second time.

As a rough idea, 80% of our sessions have some kind of restriction on being able to extended rest. This is huge. Most casualties occur simply because PCs either ran out of surges, ran out of game-swinging dailies, or (in the most unfortunate cases) failed to use their dailies soon enough because they were concerned about running out of steam in later encounters.

But, yeah, also the role mix. If the guys picked Leader as their #1 choice, followed by Defender... and had a few more Controllers... I feel they would have far few casualties.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

We have a large group, but we typically have a lot of no-shows due to RW issues, so game night starts as soon as we have 5 players at the table (including the DM).

When we started off in our "shakedown cruise" of 4Ed, our mix was Wizard, 2 Rangers, a Paladin and my Starlock. By the end of the evening, the Paladin had become a Fighter and one Ranger had changed builds.

But for some aberrant rolls resulting in utter hilarity, everything went fine.

The next time, we had lost one Ranger player, but added a Rogue...and it wasn't until the session after that that we added a Battle Cleric.

Our only constants for every session have been the Fighter, Wizard and my Starlock, with the BC being the next most common addition since he commonly hosts.

While I can't say our combats have gone any more successfully- the dice really hate us in general, and the Fighter seems like he's wearing a bullseye- the Fighter is at least reaping the most visible benefit of having a Leader in the party. He's spending less time at 10% of his HP and more at 50%+HP and getting a few combat bonuses as side-effects of the BC's spells.

 

[BobTheNob]

• ...and [this is the big one, I suspect] most sessions virtually enforce a minimum of 4 encounters before the party can do an extended rest. How do they do this?
  • The party is in a hostile environment. If they try to do an extended rest, the monsters come to find them, rather than just waiting passively for the PCs to "recharge".
  • Time limits. Push through, or you "lose" (the princess dies, the villain escapes, the world is destroyed).
  • One chance only. The PC are trying to infiltrate a location. If they screw up the first time, the enemies will re-jig their defenses so it becomes impregnable the second time.

As a rough idea, 80% of our sessions have some kind of restriction on being able to extended rest. This is huge. Most casualties occur simply because PCs either ran out of surges, ran out of game-swinging dailies, or (in the most unfortunate cases) failed to use their dailies soon enough because they were concerned about running out of steam in later encounters.

Restricting extended rests. Thats not a brutality, thats a game requirement.

Its a little artificial, but we have house rules in place that
a) points where an extended rest can be performed are built into the adventure. Generally speaking, each "site" can only be used once. Number of sites depends on the adventure itself
b) If you are below 75% HP you cannot reserve spending HS at a short rest so the healer can keep cranking "healing word" (or equiv). Not only mechanical, its fluff too (what does not spending a surge mean anyway...Do you jog on the spot? Holding you Breath? Putting cuts on your arm? ...to me, if you can sit down catch your breath, you do = Spend HS)

They are artificial, but wow, it brought an end to "extended rest abuse" and now the party has to think about things to judicial use of dailies, things that bonus HS or HSValue, things that provide enhanced bonus at short rests.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

most sessions virtually enforce a minimum of 4 encounters before the party can do an extended rest. How do they do this?
The party is in a hostile environment. If they try to do an extended rest, the monsters come to find them, rather than just waiting passively for the PCs to "recharge".
Time limits. Push through, or you "lose" (the princess dies, the villain escapes, the world is destroyed).
One chance only. The PC are trying to infiltrate a location. If they screw up the first time, the enemies will re-jig their defenses so it becomes impregnable the second time.
As a rough idea, 80% of our sessions have some kind of restriction on being able to extended rest. This is huge. Most casualties occur simply because PCs either ran out of surges, ran out of game-swinging dailies, or (in the most unfortunate cases) failed to use their dailies soon enough because they were concerned about running out of steam in later encounters.

That sounds a lot like the way I and most or the guys I'm gaming with routinely DM over the past few decades...a solid way to run a game.

 

[Nifft]

BTW, a party of four Leaders is 100% viable, and fun (as they buff each other to Striker-level damage), and very strong.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Well, that will depend on the individual leader builds.

Personally, from a DM's perspective, from running a group of 4 with 2.5 leaders (a pacifist cleric, a taclord and a chaladin - the 4th is an wizard), it can be really frustrating - its really difficult to make an encounter that feels challenging without making it a potential TPK, given the multiple healing triggers that can be thrown around every encounter.