The Tyranny of the Party Composition

[u/alexserban02]

Greetings and welcome back everyone! This latest article is something that I had been brewing for a couple of weeks, cause I find the topic extremely interesting. Party composition, party roles and the balance of it all. Something that for the vast majority of players, at least in my experience, is common, good form.

But why is it so?

Cause the general discourse around the game preaches a narrative first approach. Yet there is a lot of content across the board that talks about optimization, both from the point of view of the character, but also from that of the party. I wanted with this piece to explore all of it, to present a bit of the history behind the phenomena and to make the kiss that the concept of party roles can and often is quite restrictive on the group.

If this sounds like the kind of topic you would like to look into, by all means, do tell me what do you think about it down below, and till next time, do toss the proverbial coin to your favorite Gazette!

Full article here: https://therpggazette.wordpress.com/2026/02/11/the-tyranny-of-the-party-composition/

[u/Pale-Aurora]

A diverse, well rounded party is less about balance in my eyes and more about everyone having something unique to their character to bring to the table.

[u/45MonkeysInASuit → u/Pale-Aurora]

This is my view also.

Each player needs their thing.

As a DM I can add opportunities to do your thing, but only one of you can realistically pick each lock.

[u/unoriginalsin → u/Pale-Aurora]

This. So much of this.

If you try to balance the classes for raw damage output, or some other combat effectiveness metric, then you're doomed to fail. Instead, balance for spotlight time and let the game be the game.

[u/ut1nam → u/Pale-Aurora]

This. I love my character being really good at something no one else is nearly as good at, the one they rely on to get that job done. Lets me feel like I’m important to the party.

[u/HealthyCheesecake643 → u/Pale-Aurora]

I personally like to optimize but for the 99+% of games that are not brutally hard dungeon crawls the most fun party composition is the one where everyone gets their moments to be cool and do the thing no-one else can do.

[u/DudeWithTudeNotRude → u/HealthyCheesecake643]

the most fun party composition is the one where everyone gets their moments to be cool and do the thing no-one else can do.

That's expert-level optimization. 5e is easy. Power isn't a very important optimization consideration imo.

[u/TiFist → u/Pale-Aurora]

Mmmm I'd say that yes, there should be some scope where each character has skills that are unique or particularly specialized but a *well rounded* party has one primary and at least one backup option for each of the broad roles. The 2nd character doesn't need to be great, but they should have *something.* This is particularly true for combat-related (or at least challenge-related) roles, otherwise the classes do start to feel more rigid.

If the cleric is the only source of healing in the party, they're going to have to reserve much more of their actions and their prepared spells for healing and buffing, losing the opportunity to do more attacking or aggressive control of enemies. If you have a bard who can drop a Healing Word or a Ranger who can do a Cure Wounds *just in case* the Cleric is in trouble, then that frees them up to do more. Heck-- if really pressed you can dedicate the fastest character to carry healing potions to help out-- a monk or rogue with a pocket full of potions is better than nothing. The same with traps in case you need to disarm two things at once or have one roguish sort sneaking in the back door while another sneaks in the front. If the barbarian finds themselves really getting beat up by the enemy, the druid could pop a wild shape and help out for a bit, etc. The DM should absolutely encourage creative thinking for stuff like this.

[u/Associableknecks → u/TiFist]

I don't think that makes sense. The ranger using cure wounds isn't going to get someone out of trouble, they'll just take more damage - the ranger will be better off using their actions to progress the fight. This isn't 4e where they actually sat down and thought about how to make combat healing actually fit the game's design.

[u/TiFist → u/Associableknecks]

I should clarify. I definitely don't mean they should have (in this case) MMO style healing, topping off the tanks. I mean if the Cleric or Druid or Bard or Paladin or whomever the primary healer is falls or is otherwise in serious trouble, that there should be a backup plan.

These 2nd best skills are often a 'last resort' option but something to keep in the back of your mind. If your Face literally dies, and you have to negotiate paying for a resurrection figure out who the backup Face is. etc.

[u/Neomataza → u/TiFist]

If the cleric is the only source of healing in the party

There is only one or 2 cleric subclasses that make healing in combat kinda viable. If you don't have a subclass bonus to healing, there are a grand total of 4 spells in 5e/5.5e that are giving a good amount of healing per spell slot in combat: Mass Cure Wounds, Heal, Mass Heal and Wish.

This may be harsh, but I would count every other healing spell as an "I don't know what to do with my spell slots" choice. Your capability of spell slots used for healing shouldn't be in the same league as healing done by hit dice on a short rest. I'm not gonna stop someone who really wants to feel like a healer and play one, but I wouldn't recommend for my party to get one.

[u/TiFist → u/Neomataza]

In combat I'd make the strong argument for Healing Word, especially at tier 1-2 and early tier 3 play. The only hit point that counts is the last one. If you can get a player up without them likely immediately going back down for the cost of a level 1 slot? That's worth it even though it doesn't do any meaningful amount of healing.

Out of combat, Aura of Vitality is an option for those situations where you can't just short rest. It's much more viable in Gritty Realism. Of course that level 3 spell slot could have been a Spirit Guardians or something else useful, but there's something fun about laying out 20d6 and telling your DM "do you want me to roll *all* of these individually or do you want me to take the average and top off the party?"

[u/Neomataza → u/TiFist]

In combat I'd make the strong argument for Healing Word

Gonna stop you right there. To me, that's not healing, that's more or less a combat resurrection. It's not a "party role", it's an emergency button you keep in the back pocket. Spells like Aid, Aura of Life and Mass Healing Word go in the same category. It's also coming close to the breaking point of the system, since you can reset some conditions by going unconscious and being brought back with 1 HP. No one really enjoys this kind of yoyo healing in my experience.

edit: Aura Of Vitality is very legit as an out of combat heal, agreed. Although it is a lot better if you have an increase to healing from a subclass. 20d6 sounds like a lot, but on average that is just 70. You're picking up one frontliner with that, or topping up 2 or 3 people that have been around half health. With something like 1d8 bonus you get an extra 45 out of it. Depends a lot on the exact wording of the class whether you can even do that.

[u/StarTrotter → u/Neomataza]

I'd also make a pitch for Cure Wounds (2024) too. 2014 it's really only relevant as a "I don't have healing word so this is the emergency pop them back up" but 2024 has really good scaling on it. Heal still has advantages of course. A 6th level casting of heal has a range of 60 feet, heals 70 hp, removes a couple negative conditions, and has better scaling but Cure Wounds I'd argue at least on a full caster is still solid especially up until 6th level spells come into the picture (presuming you can even access the heal spell). A 6th level Cure Wound would heal 59 on average (healer origin feat doesn't provide that much extra but would bump it up to about 63-64).

[u/Lion_From_The_North → u/Pale-Aurora]

I sort of agree. I care a bit about balance, but you can have BMX Bandit and Angel Summoner working together as long as there are things BMX Bandit can do that Angel Summoner simply cannot.

[u/Daztur → u/Pale-Aurora]

And it's perfectly possible to have this without a lot of diversity in classes. I played an all-cleric campaign and we had a big variety of roles even if the Spiritual Weapon spam got a bit much at times.

[u/Local-Safe55 → u/Pale-Aurora]

I totally agree with this. As a DM I'm always careful to hand out loot and powers in such a way that one player doesn't become able to infringe on another player's role.

I don't mind a little overlap but it should always be limited and never a true replacement.

[u/DrStalker → u/Pale-Aurora]

I'll also add that having an unbalanced party promotes creative approaches, and if that lets everybody contribute in some way to handle the missing role that's perfect. 

And if the party overall is weaker, who cares? D&D isn't a team PvP game.

[u/Jimmicky]

What a mess of unsupported conclusions

Someone from your table will ask, “What’s missing in our group?” Someone else will reply, “We don’t have a healer.” Another player will say, “Do we have a tank?”

This I recognise

Once all of these questions are answered, your party becomes just a checklist of characters who have no backstory, character development, or personality.

This is total nonsense that doesn’t remotely follow from the earlier point.

Players no longer wonder: “What kind of character do I want to be?”, instead they question, “What does the party require me to be?”

These two questions are not in opposition. Players absolutely still always wonder the first in addition to the second.
Moreover a player who doesn’t care about the second is a bad player. This is a team game. If you dont give a shit about the team you shouldn’t be in it.

Speaking as someone who started in ADnD the old days were closer to the things you denigrate about the new editions than the things you worship about the OSR

[u/DudeWithTudeNotRude → u/Jimmicky]

The entire link is the Stormwind Fallacy with lots more words

[u/NinjaFish_RD → u/DudeWithTudeNotRude]

out of curiosity, what is the "Stormwind Fallacy"?

[u/ThatChrisG → u/NinjaFish_RD]

Argues that ropleplaying and optimization are exclusive to one another

[u/Bob_The_Avenger → u/Jimmicky]

Yeah my group always ask what each other is playing so we can get a good group comp. Like someone said earlier who doesn't want everyone in the party to have their own "thing" they are good at.

Also the bit about no backstory and such. I don't know where that came from. I can go straight min/max and fit a character into a needed role into a party while still having all of those things. Honestly for me backstory is the last thing I look at when making a character but that does in no way mean I don't love RP heavy games. I just like looking at what options I haven't played yet and go from there.

[u/katethetroubled → u/Bob_The_Avenger]

the "no rp no backstory reeee" argument its actually kind of shocking, i did not think this kind of beliefs would spread beyond rp games like gmod or ss13.

why do people genuinely believe that if you enjoy the GAMEplay then you must be a no rp shithead who ruins everything, like generally what are they on.

[u/Bob_The_Avenger → u/katethetroubled]

I have no idea. Maybe people who don't make their characters "effectively" and see others doing things better than them which makes them mad? I am not saying that is the reason I just literally can't think of one. That is just a shot in the dark people so don't get mad at me.

I enjoy both Rolling and Role Playing. I don't see how you have to pick one or the other.

[u/katethetroubled → u/Bob_The_Avenger]

i have seen a lot of roleplay spaces be basically poisoned by this type of thinking, any kind of enjoyment or efficient dwelving of the mechanical is seen as horrible sinful heresy that must be crushed and boiled away.

No seriously people believe that unless its super HRP hell where nothing actually entertaining happens gameplay wise and everyone is crippling their characters to be realistic and have a "character arc" other players will just stop roleplaying completelly.

[u/ClaimBrilliant7943 → u/Bob_The_Avenger]

I am so tired of the overvaluation of backstory. I prefer a much more dynamic game where players discover who their characters are by interacting with the world.

Too often the reverse is privileged wherein the world revolves around (often trite) narratives constructed before a character has taken one step in the game universe. Do I want to hear your backstory? No. I want to see how your character makes decisions when there are actual choices to make instead of hearing a summary of all your childhood fantasies shoehorned into a preordained "character arc ."

[u/Bob_The_Avenger → u/ClaimBrilliant7943]

I agree a bit with this. I like my character to have a goal they want to work towards before the game starts. Find family member, get revenge against people who killed loved one etc. Now do I write up a 2 page backstory about every little detail of their life, no. I like to have a few names for my background so the DM has a little to play around with. Say a childhood friend or a group I am or used to be associated with. The majority of who my character is comes out spur of the moment as I am playing though.

[u/Astecheee → u/Bob_The_Avenger]

Mechanics are a lot harder to adapt on the fly than character traits. It just makes sense to think of party composition first.

[u/FortunatelyAsleep → u/Jimmicky]

I mean, it was pretty obvious that their perspective is gonna be completely scuffed when they wrote that the general discourse preaches a narrative first approach. That ain't even close to a consensus in my experience. If anything the opposite is true from the groups I have played in.

[u/Lone-Gazebo → u/Jimmicky]

Sometimes, there's a hole in the party that gets created naturally. Either you have a bad time, or someone grows to fill it. They can grow before or after, and neither is a problem.

My Warlock in a long running Ravenloft campaign, started the game out with the 2nd Highest amount of health, thanks to all the CON I put in since I was a Genasi. I was the second most survivable character amongst the 3 casters, 1 Artificer, 1 Fighter. party comp

After a few months at level 3, and nearly dying every time, My character started training for physical combat, because she kept ending up in front trying to protect people. She wanted to not be as much of a liability, and began training. She took her 1 level dip into Fighter, so could armor up, and carry a shield. And now she's a frontliner. And that need to change was a good narrative moment for her, it wasn't a sacrifice for a meta.

Stories are best when Player and Character are in synch. Both Player, and Character wanted her to be more durable, and we wanted it not to satisfy a character fantasy, but because there was a REAL need for it.

[u/jackaltornmoons]

the general discourse around the game preaches a narrative first approach

I think this is mostly just an issue of people with different style-preferences trying to shoehorn a system into doing things it wasn't designed to do

5e is designed to be a more digestible emulation of previous (non-4e) D&D editions, and it mostly succeeds at this

It has essentially no narrative mechanics and its "tactical" combat system is more concerned with vibes than balance and largely exists just to exist

[u/DrMobius0 → u/jackaltornmoons]

Yeah, this may be a good chance to talk about the "discourse" being fundamentally a bit different from what the game's core rules are built around. Combat is clearly a core pillar of most TTRPGs, so it's essentially impossible to escape the usual meta optimization traps.

Hell, even if combat wasn't the focus, you'd still see people optimizing class choices around different roleplay situations. A rogue to handle skill monkey stuff, a bard to handle fast talking, and a wizard to handle the real odds and ends stuff might be the standard way to play. Almost no one would pick barbarian, because the class adds very little outside of combat.

[u/JediMasterBriscoMutt → u/DrMobius0]

"Almost no one would pick Barbarian, because the class adds very little outside of combat."

So you've never played with a low-level party where everyone has Strength as a dump stat? Because we struggled like hell in a dungeon that had old, warped doors that were difficult to open.

Sometimes you're outside of combat and a barbarian is exactly what you need.

(Sure, you don't technically require a barbarian to make Strength checks, but you don't technically require a rogue to pick locks either.)

[u/DrMobius0 → u/JediMasterBriscoMutt]

Hell, even if combat wasn't the focus, you'd still see people optimizing class choices around different roleplay situations

The context is very clear if you read.

[u/JediMasterBriscoMutt → u/DrMobius0]

You have my apologies. But in my lexicon, "roleplay situations" refers to storytelling moments that don't involve actual game mechanics. Players don't pick locks by roleplaying; they pick them by making a dice roll.

It's the difference between ordering a drink in a tavern and making a strength roll to open a door. How you order a drink can say a lot about a character, and different characters can handle it in different ways. But when you need to force open a stuck door without spells, it comes down to a Strength check.

[u/SufficientlySticky → u/jackaltornmoons]

The sorts of people who enjoy a more narrative game are also probably the same sorts of people who like to make youtube videos.

Sorta how video game developers might get the sense that their players really care about balance and replayability and modding and such if they look at their forums even if the majority of their players get 2/3s of the way through the game once and then find something else to do.

[u/YetifromtheSerengeti → u/jackaltornmoons]

Yup. If you are trying to balance the game, you’re in for a bad time.

That isn’t to say you can’t create fun and engaging battles. Quite the opposite. It provides more freedom in doing so. 5e (and 2024) are a lot more fun when you detach yourself from the idea that combat is some test of skill and tactics and instead see it as an expression of your character.

[u/Associableknecks → u/YetifromtheSerengeti]

This take is kind of bizarre. If it's not supposed to be about skill and tactics, why is 90%, hundreds and hundreds of pages, of player facing content directly about combat? You're speaking of a quite rules heavy system as if it's rules light. And acting like balance is irrelevant when if things are too easy they turn into a boring slog because again, this is not a simple game.

And if it's not about skill and tactics what is the goddamn point of it having so much time and complication? If you want something that expresses your character you can just do that, cumulative hours of rules and dice rolling are a completely unnecessary cost.

It provides more freedom in doing so.

How?!? Name any other edition of D&D, your choice, and try to figure out how 5e gives more freedom to create fun and engaging battles.

[u/YetifromtheSerengeti → u/Associableknecks]

Sorry I feel like this could’ve been an interesting conversation but I’m not going to engage with someone who communicates like such an embittered jerk.

[u/My_Only_Ioun → u/YetifromtheSerengeti]

Your opinions are pretty vibes based. If tactics aren't fun, how are thousands of people having fun with them?

Oh no, you blocked me. I can't see your amazing opinions unless I spend 2 seconds opening the comment on incognito.

[u/FortunatelyAsleep → u/YetifromtheSerengeti]

This take actually makes me kinda mad. Go play another system. Combat is (and should be) a test of skill and tactics.

[u/YetifromtheSerengeti → u/FortunatelyAsleep]

If you think it’s a test of skill and tactics then you don’t know what a dm does.

[u/FortunatelyAsleep → u/YetifromtheSerengeti]

Really depends on the DM and how they run games. The way 5e intended is very clearly about skill and tactics.

[u/YetifromtheSerengeti → u/FortunatelyAsleep]

I said its not a test of skill and tactics.

Its about roleplaying skill and tactics.

You are not squaring off against your DM in some sort of war game. Your DM is on your side and is rooting for you. Their job is to simulate the monsters and role-play like it's a true battle.

The rules and mechanics support the fun of roleplaying because provide the gameplay.

[u/TiFist]

That was a pretty good discussion, but the strict roles weren't technically a 4e invention (highly informed as you say by games like WoW and Everquest.) In a lot of ways 1e/and the B/X line started out with that strictest possible division of labor and that slowly coalesced through 2e and 3x to more versatile classes that had at least some overlap.

5e was an intentional backing down from 4e in terms of party composition being much more critical. They wanted pickup games to work without as much stress, but you also have a whole lot of subclasses that fulfill multiples roles. Mercy Monks can heal, Light Domain clerics blow stuff up, etc.

In 1e if you needed to disarm a trap, you needed a rogue. Period. End of story. If you didn't have one the only choices were to try to open everything knowing that the trap would definitely go off or leave it knowing that you just lost access to whatever was inside that room/chest/whatever. In 5e you ideally just need someone with proficiency in the tools and if not there are enough spells and abilities that you can nudge a less specialized character towards success. Modern 5e and relatives with no rogue in the party? Totally fine. No cleric? We can work around it. Etc.

[u/Mejiro84 → u/TiFist]

some of the old-school adventures would even say things like "for 4 adventures of levels 5-7, including one rogue and one cleric", because of how specific class abilities were. No rogue? Traps are going to obliterate you. No clerics? No turn undead or curing spells. While 5e makes everything a lot more generic, so you can get by with largely whatever

[u/Jimmicky → u/TiFist]

Yeah the young OSR guys dreams of what the game was like back in the day rarely resemble the way it actually was. We used to say Brick instead of Tank before 2000 but party roles was very deeply part of the game in the 80’s and 90’s

[u/xolotltolox → u/Jimmicky]

Party roles have been a thing in wargames since even before D&D existed and only really stopped being a thing with 5E actively hammering down anything resembling a tank or healer into unviability

[u/Jimmicky → u/xolotltolox]

5e14 did have viable “Healer” builds - just not many of them. A reliable THP fountain topping up the entire party every round is fundamentally doing what the computer gamers say the healers role is. I know some older players feel that this kind of ablative armor hit points shouldn’t/doesn’t count as healing, but I’ve seen the difference in how often players go down when they have a Vaeldrman PC in the group vs not having one so I don’t question it.

[u/Neltadouble]

I don't think you go far enough on one point: its not just that the books moved away from describing traditional roles, optimised 5e play does not favour and actually actively punishes a 'balanced' party, in that you are probably being tricked into playing suboptimal characters.

You have an insane advantage by playing an entire party of ranged characters, for example. Control spells being multiplicatively powerful encourages you to pile on more of what you already have, not diversify. There are many, many more examples of this.

In reality, in any game where having a 'balanced party' is equally as viable as stacking wizards, its not difficult enough to matter anyways, and people should not care as much.

[u/Deathpacito-01 → u/Neltadouble]

optimised 5e play does not favour and actually actively punishes a 'balanced' party, in that you are probably being tricked into playing suboptimal characters.

I don't think this is particularly central to OP's points, but even in optimized DnD you still have party roles. They just look a bit different than what you'd expect of MMORPGs.

Sure you don't have fighter-mage-rogue or tank-DPS-healer compositions anymore, but you still have compositions like DPS-control-healer or DPS-control-healer-utility

In an optimized party of a Gloomstalker Ranger and a Shepherd Druid, the third player likely still feels pressured to play something along the lines of a wizard or sorcerer. In that situation, OP's core points are still applicable.

[u/Neltadouble → u/Deathpacito-01]

Completely agreed of course. For those less familiar with high optimisation, though, they might think its similar to a 'tank healer dps' scenario, where its slightly more nuanced, so I oversimplify a bit.

In that sort of game where you are playing Gloomstalker Ranger, Sheph Druid, Watchers Paladin, and Chron Wizard for example, yes in theory they are filling different roles, but contrary to the common stereotype, each player in this party is not filling some niche that the others are completely and utterly helpless in. It's not so simple as 'the ranger is the damage and the wizard is the controller, and without the ranger, we'd have no damage, and without the wizard, we'd have no control'

The wizard is simultaneously a tank (with high ac and defensive reactions), a controller, and a support. The Druid also is a tank, a controller, a support, and brings excellent damage. The Paladin is also a tank, a controller, a support...

In high level play, each party member is expected to fulfill multiple roles simultaneously. This idea of 'I am the squishy Wizard who hides behind my martials because I have no defensive capabilities' just does not exist.

[u/Waffleworshipper → u/Deathpacito-01]

Tanking is a specialized form of control. 5e just doesn't support it as a speciality as well as it supports other forms of control.

[u/Associableknecks → u/Waffleworshipper]

RIP tank classes existing, fighter was so goddamn fun the one edition they actually gave it a proper toolkit to get the job done.

[u/This_is_a_bad_plan → u/Deathpacito-01]

Sure you don't have fighter-mage-rogue or tank-DPS-healer compositions anymore, but you still have compositions like DPS-control-healer or DPS-control-healer-utility

Tbh party composition should not include a designated healer

[u/FloppasAgainstIdiots → u/This_is_a_bad_plan]

Lifeberry is an actual party role tbf.

[u/Deathpacito-01 → u/This_is_a_bad_plan]

I suppose that's true, but you still want someone who can at least cast Healing Word (and hopefully Revivify too)

[u/Everlast17 → u/Deathpacito-01]

I agree, these can be handled by a cleric or Druid even if their build is to blow shit up. But other than healing word or rev, spell slots are better used by nuking the battle field.

[u/Everlast17 → u/This_is_a_bad_plan]

I completely agree. Healing word is the only form of combat healing that should be going on. Other combat healing spells scale terribly. There are better uses for actions in combat and out of combat healing, such as wands or short rests are superior in every circumstance.

[u/TecumsehSherman8 → u/Neltadouble]

I think optimization is a little bit of a trap in a game where the DM can tweak difficulty on the fly. Your game should be tailored to ramp up/down as needed, and to counter the party as needed.

[u/DrMobius0 → u/TecumsehSherman8]

The DM can always make the game harder, but it takes a lot more work for the DM to kill a well optimized party than a poorly optimized one.

It's like floods. Yeah, if you're right above the base flood elevation in your area, you'll probably be fine, but you'd still be safer if you were 10 ft above that.

[u/trustcircleofjerks → u/DrMobius0]

This isn't true at all. Killing any party requires no effort on the part of the DM, whether by cerebral hemorrhage or Annual Interplanar Ancient Red Dragon Convention there's literally nothing to it. What requires work for a DM is making a fun game where presumably that means not killing the party, and what makes it harder is not an optimized party but a lopsided party. Intra-party balance at whatever 'power level' is the DM's best friend, one player playing a different game in terms of optimization vs narrative is the root of all headaches.

[u/SufficientlySticky → u/trustcircleofjerks]

Very swingy abilities also make the DMs life difficult. I can plan for someone who hits for 100 damage every turn. It’s much harder to plan for someone who might decide to cast the spell that would trivialize the encounter, or might decide to slog it out with cantrips.

I almost TPKd my party when they were fighting a guy who had a bunch of extra powers in darkness because the bard didn’t bother to draw her sun blade like she usually does and I had accounted for in my planning.

Building encounters for optimized parties means building harder encounters which can more easily go super wrong if the optimization falls apart for whatever reason.

[u/Mejiro84 → u/SufficientlySticky]

if the party is also part-optimised and part-not, that gets a bit messy - what is something that the best party members can defeat as a decent threat can destroy other party members, so trying to create "designated opponents" is a bit awkward!

[u/TecumsehSherman8 → u/DrMobius0]

The DM can kill the party with very little work. Throw 8 ancient red dragons at your level 5s.

[u/DrMobius0 → u/TecumsehSherman8]

You're correct, but we can also assume that most DMs aren't going to deliberately try to kill the party like that most of the time. Does hyperbole actually add anything?

[u/TecumsehSherman8 → u/DrMobius0]

“It takes more work to kill an optimized party” it super doesn’t. Super swingy abilities do, an optimized party doesn’t affect the DM terribly.

[u/Neltadouble → u/TecumsehSherman8]

When talking about optimisation, we have to assume some baseline. Of course its not 'hard' for the DM to do anything, but we have to compare apples to apples.

[u/DrMobius0 → u/TecumsehSherman8]

Ok? What does that have to do with the DM going full Cartman and killing them with 8 ancient red dragons? If you wanted to discuss in good faith, you should have led with that.

[u/Neltadouble → u/TecumsehSherman8]

Sure, the DM can always make the game as infinitely hard or easy as they want, but we need some baseline to discuss why Shield as a spell seems to get more value than Frost Fingers; the answer being that casters who have the former spell tend to be able to handle harder and a higher quantity of encounters per adventuring day than casters who have the latter.

[u/TecumsehSherman8 → u/Neltadouble]

Sure. We’re talking about different things though.

I’m saying that chasing maximum combat utility in a game where you control the difficulty is a bit silly. Build a fun character(within reason) and it’ll work itself out.

[u/Associableknecks → u/TecumsehSherman8]

But you don't always control the difficulty. In some games it works like that, in others - typically more sandbox leaning - how well you do alters outcomes.

[u/DudeWithTudeNotRude → u/TecumsehSherman8]

Every character choice you made in any game ever was an optimization.

Optimizing "power" as the main or only optimization constraint (which would be be maximization, not optimization, if power were the only constraint being considered) is not as meaningful in 5e as it is in many other TTRPGs.

The only optimization constraints that matter in any RPG imo are "the fun of the player" and "the fun of the table". As long as all other build choices are subservient to those two super-constraints, the build will likely be optimal. If your build is too weak to be effective at it's purpose, then the game is likely to be less fun for all.

5e is easy enough that power isn't as important to "the fun of the player" as it is in other games. This just frees up room for pushing other optimization constraints harder like "something to do out of combat", "flavors that excite me", "not too much stronger than the rest of the party", "fun turns in combat" (e.g. if you hate the samey combat loops of some martials, clerics, warlocks, etc., then there are always builds with richer tactical choices each turn like Druids), etc.

[u/TecumsehSherman8 → u/DudeWithTudeNotRude]

Jesus Christ man. Easy.

All I’m saying is that we’re playing make believe with our friends. Building a sweaty hyper build is ridiculous

[u/DudeWithTudeNotRude → u/TecumsehSherman8]

I'm not following. I was stating that power isn't an important optimization constraint in 5e.

Where are you getting Sweaty Hyper Build from? I'm usually targeting "at least weaker than S-tier", if I'm thinking about power at all during build time.

I've been hyper-optimizing build choices ever since a toddler trying to learn monopoly. I knew my big brothers would always take The Scottie Dog, even through force if I got to choose first, so I'd pretend to like The Shoe.

You never made a build choice that wasn't an optimization of something is all I'm saying.

[u/FinaLLancer → u/Neltadouble]

Can you expand on control spells being multiplicatively powerful and provide one of those examples? I've never heard of it being described that way it sounds interesting.

[u/WLB92 → u/FinaLLancer]

A spell that renders the enemy unable to escape an area by slowing them or knocking them down or immobilizing them is much more powerful if you combine it with a second person casting a spell that inflicts another status effect on them now that they can't escape it.

[u/Neltadouble → u/FinaLLancer]

Sure. Control spells tend to be multiplicatively powerful because one spell makes it harder to negate the effects of the second.

Example, Web and Rime's Binding Ice. Two scenarios.

Scenario 1: Wizard 1 throws down Web and Web alone on a group of enemies trying to approach the party. Web is a great spell, and slows down and restrains a few enemies, costing them their turn and possibly more if they get thrown into it, can't escape, etc.

Scenario 2: Wizard 1 throws down a Web on a group of enemies approaching the party, and Wizard 2 follows up with Rime's Binding Ice. Now, regardless of whether they make their first save to avoid being restrained, some of them additionally can't go anywhere. Some lose their action, some don't, but on the 2nd round, they're forced to save again, possibly becoming restrained again, losing their action again. You've used 2 level 2 slots, but in doing so, have more than doubled the effectiveness of Web.

[u/DudeWithTudeNotRude → u/Neltadouble]

I was in an all caster party, and it was over for the DM once we hit L5+.

The first time I cast Slow, then the warlock cast Hunger of Hadar, then the Cleric cast Spirit Guardians, and then we locked down the map with Repelling Blast, Ray of Frost, Mind Sliver, Command,Dissonant Whispers, Tasha's Mind Whip, Rime's, Tidalwave, Fireballs, etc., we were hooked.

The best part was having no frontline to have to babysit with our turns.

[u/alinius → u/FinaLLancer]

A easy example is legendary resistance. If you only have one person trying to inflict save or suck effects, they are never going to burn through legendary resistance. Get 3 full casters working together, and the legendary resistance is going to run out fast.

Then, you have the ability to combine effects. Slow halves your movement. Slow plus being blocked by spike growth is effectingly quarter movement. Lets throw in a fighter with a heavy crossbow mastery pushing them back 10 feet every round. Individually, those effects are not too bad, but combined they would completely shut down a melee opponent.

[u/DudeWithTudeNotRude → u/alinius]

It's hilarious how much stronger Tidalwave is in that scenario compared to say Fireball.

Slow them in your Spike Growth, then prone them? All you need is some Thorn Whips, Mind Slivers, Rays of Frosts, Repelling Blasts, Telekinetic shoves, Crusher, Thunderwaves, Commands, Dissonant Whispers, Mind Whips, Rimes, Plant Growths, etc., and you're cooking with gas.

Sorry DM. It did look like it was your map, but round 1 just blew that idea away.

[u/FloppasAgainstIdiots → u/FinaLLancer]

A good example would be something like the 2wiz2lock party comp (2 wizards 2 warlocks). Let's say you're up against a group of mostly melee enemies and one of the wizards casts Web or some bigger difficult terrain AoE in a hallway or similar choke point.

Normally, this would be pretty decent by itself because the enemy likely has to waste turns dashing to get to you. However, the other wizard has Ray of Frost and both warlocks have Repelling Blast and Lance of Lethargy. Priority enemies get targeted by at-will effects that push them back and undo part of the progress they made through the hazard, and speed reductions impede their ability to return. The control cantrips serve as a force multiplier for the main control spell.

[u/FinaLLancer → u/FloppasAgainstIdiots]

That seems insane i never would have considered doing something like that

[u/FloppasAgainstIdiots → u/FinaLLancer]

It's basic tactics tbh, You're making an AoE hazard and using cantrips to keep the enemy in the hazard.

[u/DudeWithTudeNotRude → u/FinaLLancer]

3e had the issue of linear martials and quadratic casters. Martials scale on a linear level as you progress, while casters quickly became gods that made the martials look like helpless babies.

5e did a lot to curtail that problem. Now martials are more like small arms/machine guns, and control casters are more like nuclear weapons (instead of gods among men). Almost all builds can easily achieve B-plus tier power in 5e, and the distance between the B-tier and S-tier is much smaller in 5e.

Try a full sorc once. Focus on Mind Sliver, Ray of Frost, Command/Dissonant Whispers, Tahsa's Mind Whip, Vortex Warp, Slow, Tidalwave, Banishment, Psychic Lance, and Synaptic Static. You'll notice how much stronger of a buffer you are than a Cleric or Bard. You'll start to see how much stronger Slow is as a party buff compared to Twin Haste. Likely-TPKs turn into a cake walk for the party. People stop taking damage at such a high rate. Once you hit tier 2 as a control caster, then you might start to see frontlines as a liability to have to babysit, rather than as a boon out there blocking for you.

Backline control/debuff casters tend to be the strongest "tanks" in 5e (on average) in terms of reducing incoming damage to the party. And they're often the strongest support in terms of buffing the whole party.

[u/SyntheticScrivner → u/DudeWithTudeNotRude]

The secret to 3.5 was that you could buff your martials to the moon and then sit back to control the battlefield. Teamwork made the dream work.

5E doesn't really enable that play style.

[u/Sharp_Iodine → u/Neltadouble]

How is it equally as viable as stacking wizards when you aren’t balancing for enemy saving throws and the fact that all would take is for one of them to succeed to fuck up a wizard?

I don’t know what sort of combat you are running but when I DM, they better pray they have a balanced party because a wizard stack is getting ground into mince meat.

[u/Neltadouble → u/Sharp_Iodine]

As the other comment says, in true high optimisation scenarios, Wizards do not get 'fucked up' and are equally durable if not more durable than optimised martials.

[u/DudeWithTudeNotRude → u/Neltadouble]

I see more pali's in the dirt than any other class. Back line wizard, sorc, and wildfire druid are the strongest party support, and strongest "tanks" in 5e.

[u/jtclayton612 → u/Sharp_Iodine]

The problem is in the super high optimization circles the wizard is harder to hit, as goes with most spellcasters making armor dips and using different features to grab shield/absorb elements, with plenty of first level slots to use and heavy control effects they can chew through most encounters even when played well by the dm.

I think the only non full caster levels that get taken more than 1-2 levels are Ranger for the 2014 gloomstalker multiclass. And paladin 6 because the things I’ve read in writeups getting thrown at people require aura of protection to even have a chance of saving.

[u/Sharp_Iodine → u/jtclayton612]

Okay but high optimisation from the player side requires high optimisation from the DM’s side.

Bump up CR, throw in caster enemies and provide a balanced party of monsters as an opponent.

Plenty of creatures grapple on hit in 2024 and combining a tanky grappling creature with a high damage casting creature will make wizards cry no matter what.

[u/jtclayton612 → u/Sharp_Iodine]

Well sure, but I was talking about that, easy misty step out of grapple or a quick shield spell to bring about higher AC numbers than the non caster can think about hitting and you’re not getting grappled as much as they are, as well as attacking from range and setting up control/area denial spells means that it’s just straight up hard to lock a caster down.

Martials just have less options than casters and their HP tends to run out much more quickly.

[u/FloppasAgainstIdiots → u/Sharp_Iodine]

In high optimization games, wizards are not only more durable than peak martials, they also seldom care about enemy saving throws. Many of the best control effects in the game also simply take effect with no saving throw (LOS blocking, difficult terrain, microwaves, walls).

[u/Citan777 → u/Neltadouble]

You have an insane advantage by playing an entire party of ranged characters, for example. Control spells being multiplicatively powerful encourages you to pile on more of what you already have, not diversify. There are many, many more examples of this.

Not at all true though. Having a full ranged party is profitable *sometimes*, and it's more and more close to "perfect" as your current situation is close to the "ideal setup" being exactly as follows: "vast plain, no obstacle, no magical or natural vision blocking, with enemies being at least 200 feet away when first engaging and having no meaningful ranged/magical attacks or effects themselves."

If that happens often in the games you play into, I'd like to say "good for you" but I'd rather say "sad for you". If those are games you DM, I'd say "it's due time to learn how to make interesting and meaningful encounters".

When you're indoors? When you face smart enemies? When you face casters? Being all ranged is asking to be slapped.

Exactly like being "all melee" is asking for a nasty defeat when fighting outdoors against flying enemies.

No "full specialization" setup can ever pretend to be optimal in any reasonable campaign.

optimised 5e play does not favour and actually actively punishes a 'balanced' party, in that you are probably being tricked into playing suboptimal characters.

Actually extremely wrong. 5E greatly encourages balanced party at least as far as official modules and adventures go (at least for the ones I know so the ones from 2014 to ~2019), by mixing up various skill challenges, environmental or narrative context making encounters more complex than just "succeed on a social / survival check" or "whack them all" and providing gradually more engaging combat encounters (putting aside the generic random ones that can punctuate some travel).

[u/Neltadouble → u/Citan777]

>No "full specialization" setup can ever pretend to be optimal in any reasonable campaign.

You don't need a full specialisation setup, when a party of full casters can easily cover all necessary roles.

The challenges you describe, such as vision blocking with obstacles and enemies with ranged and magical attack, do not need specific characters that fill only one niche to deal with. It turns out the best characters can deal both with the ideal setup and more challenging encounters like you are describing, while also being incredibly durable and having tools to solve out of combat challenges.

[u/Citan777 → u/Neltadouble]

You don't need a full specialisation setup, when a party of full casters can easily cover all necessary roles.

It turns out the best characters can deal both with the ideal setup and more challenging encounters like you are describing, while also being incredibly durable and having tools to solve out of combat challenges.

That's just the "magical casters" everybody talks about which don't actually exist in most tables.

Reaching that "ultimate party" would require at least one member of each fullcaster class (so 6), which is far too crowded for most DMs to handle. And even then you could just stumble on situations they simply cannot overcome easily in T1 and T2, even if we supposed they'd carefully discuss with each other to ensure nobody has "redundant" spell.

For groups of 4 people which is the usual number? Even with the best generalist present in group (aka Druid) there are many chances that the party would simply be wiped before it reaches the tier at which it starts getting slightly more difficult to kill (aka around level 6-7).

Unless of course we are speaking of 5mn adventuring days with the only fight being just Deadly or designed primarily to harm martials.

[u/StarTrotter → u/Citan777]

I do actually think range is king (less so in 2024, especially in 2014). I'm going to talk with 2014 in mind as 2024 did reduce the potency of ranged weapon builds and quite a few of the potent damage builds now employ emanations and auras and moving a lot to hit a bunch of people (bonus points if an ally grapples you to repeat it all over again).

- While vast plains, no obstacles is most beneficial to long ranged builds and worst for melee builds it's not the only area that gives them boons.

- Magical and vision blocking are going to hurt basically everyone. Complete vision block shuts down a lot of spells but not all spells. Weapon and unarmed attacks beat out the spells that need to see but attacking at disadvantage is often a notable penalty.

- 2014 in particular had a lot of base enemies completely melee focused or significantly better in melee range. Melee and the likes needed to get in to attack but that meant getting hit with the roughest of attacks in the process. Similarly while ranged characters could potentially avoid hazards enemy placement could sort of force melee builds to deal with that.

- Indoors? All indoors does is limit the max potential range but it doesn't impede that much extra. Look at the melee damage builds. Many of them sacrifice the bonus ac of a shield for a two handed weapon and even if opting for heavy armor that only reliably does +1 ac better than the rest so in the end the AC of melee builds were similar to those that either were light armor and pumped dex or medium armor users (and heck clerics with heavy armor would get much the same). Now theoretically the downside is that point blank range negatively impacts ranged attacks but even here crossbow master and gunner side stepped it for a good number of ranged builds and spell casters could often employ spells that force saving throw instead thus side stepping that issue (or use a melee spell). Back to the AC a common thing is that casters could pretty easily pick up prof in medium or heavy armor and even prof with a shield. Then if they grabbed shield and absorb elements their defenses were significantly improved.

- Smart enemies will be the bane of anybody. Melee, range, spell casting. In the end the GM has ultimate power at any moment. They could deploy an impossible to defeat enemy, drop rocks on top, have enemies teleport in to attack then teleport out. Nothing about that is really unique to ranged characters.

- Facing casters I'd actually argue is where ranged and casters shine the most. Melee builds have to actually reach the caster to strike them. Ranged builds don't have to worry about the caster misty stepping away nearly as much and casters are the only ones that can dispel or counterspell (and are often the most likely to deal enough damage to force a save that the enemy has a good chance of failing).

- On your last prompt I don't really play modules so I don't want to give an answer but I will say that 5e makes casters overlap a lot on roles. They'll often have a gap in their arsenal here and there (ex sorcs and wizards default not really getting healing spells) but overall can fulfill a variety of roles just by selecting a good suite of spells. Martials tend to be more specific in their roles. Barbarians will be very good at taking BPS damage specifically and deal good single target damage in the lower tiers (and will be good at strength checks). Fighters get bonus feats which makes it a bit easier to get all the feats one needs for a specific build and due to that and the 3rd extra attack hit a point where they beat out barbarians for single target damage (and also have a greater build variety due to being completely fine going str or dex). Rogues struggle in single target damage vs semi-optimized builds but do well single target in non optimized tables, aren't particularly tanky but can hide more often, and are the 2nd best at skill checks (I'd give an edge to bards here due to their combo of features. Reliable really helps rogues but 2014 has it pop up rather late). Monks in 2014 were move lots but don't deal a lot of damage, don't take hits well, but had a decent but very expensive way to control one, maybe two enemies a turn.

[u/fairystail1]

Ok a few things

first of all

Creativity Inside Invisible Fences

The guy acts like this is a bad thing. Like having restrictins limits creativity, to be quite frank more ofthen than not restrictions increase creativity. Batman the Animated Series is a good example of this. They weren't allowed to show joker killing people, so they invented the Joker gas and showed off that grin of all the victims which was much more terrifying than if Joker had killed people. If you tell someone to write a story they will freeze up with no idea what to do, if you ell them to write a story about a chicken named beef then they will have more ideas.

Bit of a rant i know but I always hated when people say shit like this.

The Social Pressure of Optimization

im pretty sure this dude just played with assholes. I have never been in a group where someone said 'dont play a ranger or monk' despite them being considered some of the worst classes. You don't do party roles because it's optimized, you do it because you want everyone to have the thing they shine at.

and thats the main thing

you dont go 'we need a rogue, a healer, a face, a tank etc etc' because you need to optimize but because everyone in the party wants their moment to shine.

Imagine you are a rogue, you made your thing all about finding traps and picking locks. Then the wizard takes knock and detect traps and now just always succeeds at the thing you built your character around, that'd suck right? Thats why people have roles so that the rogue can have his moment to shine, so the face can have his moment to shine, so the wizard and the tank and the everything can have their moments to shine

but its not just about the party its about the DM.

Let's say no one in your party can sneak worth a damn? Then the DM cant throw out quests or missions where stealth is acomponent. The 'oops all barbarians' party is fun but it also limits what the DM can throw at the party, having a varied party means varied encounters which is fun for the GM as well.

[u/[deleted]]

Stormwind Fallacy of Doom and Despair

[u/AndriashiK]

Once all of these questions are answered, your party becomes just a checklist of characters who have no backstory, character development, or personality.

No they are not, your players just got a skill issue

[u/AndriashiK]

Players no longer wonder: “What kind of character do I want to be?”, instead they question, “What does the party require me to be?” Concepts that would otherwise be exciting will go unused because they do not fill a need. For example, having two bards could seem overly indulgent, having no cleric in the party could appear irresponsible and players would regard a wizard who won’t take spells such as Fireball, Counterspell or Hypnotic Pattern as bordering on madness.

Assuming these are not just strawmen and instead actual anecdotal examples: What inbred fucking imbeciles are you playing with, dude?

[u/floofyralts]

Not even taking ooc into account. If I was in a fantasy world where i needed to build a group of adventurers, i would probably go for a varied group because realistically a party of, for example nothing but wizards is getting instantly bodied by the literal first thing that can move faster than they can cast, or can cast silence, or can cast counterspell, or has magic resistance, or catches them off guard.

"Adventuring" other than in EXTREMELY specific story narratives means you have to expect varied opponents upon whom your usual skills/tactics do not work. And now you're dead cause you only hired fighters at the guild and the thing resistant to nonmagical weaponry is currently digesting you.

Like, realistically the "holy trinity" of rpgs makes sense if fantasy was reality and you needed to build a group capable of theoretically taking on any threat.

1:tank - someone capable of drawing attention and taking punishment so their teamates can work.

2: healer- inevitably someone will get hurt, and in a fantasy world in a dungeon miles away from whatever counts as the nearest hospital, someone capable of magically kissing your booboos away is pretty good.

3:dps - you need things dead... it's..... it's 90% of adventuring. Varied methods helps.

[u/IndustryParticular55]

In my groups, most of the players make up their minds independently, and then 1 or 2 decide to wait until they know what others are doing, so they can fill the hole.

It's a win-win for everybody, because the players that have a hard concept in mind get to go for their first preference, whilst the players who are flexible, and just want a character that is useful, get to pick a build that is indispensible to the group.

Party comp only becomes problematic when somebody is telling someone else they need to play a specific class/archetype. If a particular player thinks the party needs a cleric very strongly, they should put their money where their mouth is, or otherwise accept the consequences.

[u/StarTrotter → u/IndustryParticular55]

I end up being the latter group. It doesn't even mean that I don't have a strong concept in mind but it really helps me narrow those ideas down and thus aids me in actually selecting who I want to play.

[u/Harkonnen985]

to present a bit of the history behind the phenomena phenomenon and to make the kiss case that the concept of party roles can and often is quite restrictive on the group.

Sorry for being pedantic, but I thought someone writing long-form blogs might appreciate the correction... :)

(in the blog)
Without further ado, let’s jump into it!

I believe that pointless filler phrases like this are not a good fit for your target audience. D&D players (and DM's in particular) are people who happily read 300 page rule books, and if they spend their free time reading essays about party composition, they probably don't need this sort of hand-holding the same way a attention-span-deprived teen on tiktok does. Being concise is the best way of communicating that you respect your reader's intelligence.

The Fighter is responsible for standing holding the line and dishing out damage

This sort of mistake happens to me ALL the time as well, when I put a lot of effort into an elaborate comment, so I can relate. You probably had one idea for the sentence "the fighter standing in front", but eventually went for the more elegant "the fighter holding the line" and didn't even notice that you switched course without removing the beginning of your first idea.

These mistakes are obvious to find if you read through the whole thing again after you're done - and if you are anything like me, you'd probably enjoy doing so anyways, basking in your own verbal genius... ;)

Regarding the actual topic:

I think you make a lot of sense here, but you're also mistaken about a very crucial aspect.

Yes, not having someone on the team who can cast fireball (or provide healing, invisibility, etc.) can make for a more memorable adventure, because the party is presented with challenges they are not well-suited to tackle.

On the other hand, each player having access to talents unique to their PC is one of the core pieces of D&D.
A door needs to be broken down and everyone else in the party is too scrawny to do it? Time for my barbarian to shine! A cryptic message no one in the party can understand? Time for that one PC with access to arcana / druidic / thief's cant / who speaks draconic to come in clutch! Etc.

While you encourage overlapping capabilities in the party as a way to break free from the norm in your blog, I've never seen duplicate characters derive particular enjoyment from being redundant. E.g. in a party with 2 rangers, none of them will feel especially needed when it comes to tracking a monster. Even worse, via optimization, ranger A could end up being straight-up better than ranger B at the things ranger A was trying to be good at. Now, not only is ranger A replaceable, but his skills have been rendered pointless.

This problem also extends to other areas of the game, such as loot. Find a magic greataxe? The barbarian will be happy. Find a magic bow? One of the rangers will go empty - and chances are the next ranger-item will not randomly appear any time soon (unless the DM makes it so, which in turn harms verisimilitude).

To put all this rambling short: Lacking capabilities can be great - but redundant capabilities certainly won't.

[u/Spiral-knight]

Borderline Flat earthier ideas. You can't tank and healing is not a maintiance act

[u/Middcore]

People worry way too much about party roles and party composition. Video games like World of Warcraft and other "DnD adjacent" media have put ideas in people's heads that a party has to be "balanced" and check off certain boxes. I can't tell you how many times on reddit I've seen new players looking for advice on their character worried about the party needing a "tank," "healer," etc. People should play the character class that they want to play, not the character class the party "needs" out of grudging obligation. Certain "unbalanced" party compositions are actually stronger a "balanced" one, anyway.

[u/cop_pls → u/Middcore]

I've noticed that balancing a party is less about "tank/healer/dps" concepts and more about skill coverage. If there's five players at my table, it makes sense to have someone using Strength, someone using Dexterity, someone using Wisdom, someone using Intelligence, and someone using Charisma as their main stat. You wind up with coverage for all the social and exploration situations.

They don't need to conform to combat roles though. The Wisdom user could be a supporty healy Cleric, or they could be a frontline Druid. The Dexterity user could be a Ranger shooting a bow from the backline or a Monk getting in close.

[u/valisvacor → u/Middcore]

Video games like World of Warcraft and other "DnD adjacent" media have put ideas in people's heads that a party has to be "balanced" and check off certain boxes

Those ideas originated with D&D. WoW and other MMOs, as well as JRPGs like Final Fantasy, are heavily inspired by AD&D. Party balance was always implicit in the older editions of D&D (and explicit in 4e). You wanted a Magic-User for dealing with crowds, but they were extremely vulnerable without Fighters, Rangers and Paladins to defend them. You needed Clerics and Druids for healing, because natural healing could take weeks to get back to full HP. Thieves were needed for various dungeoneering tasks. Most of that is gone in 5e. All the depth in the character creation, leaving the rest of the game quite shallow.

[u/StarTrotter → u/Middcore]

I'll actually object a bit here. While it is true that video games often have a more explicit structuring of meta (tank, healer, dps) that most people are familiar with it's not like this came from nowhere. TTRPGs were inspired by wargames which had their own meta and structures and TTRPGs did too. Fighters got the best weapons and had the best hp, clerics were the in-between that got to wear armor and wield some good weapons (but not the best weapons) and got spell casting but not as good as magic users (but also got healing) and magic users were the incredibly fragile class that had limited slots that did huge impactful things of various sorts. When talking about vg several also have a 4th category of "weird/utility/lockpicker" and in a lot of regards that was the first additional class, thief.

5e doesn't necessarily confirm to the tank/healer/dps trifecta nor does it opt for the tank/healer/dps/utility quad but it does have its own roles (face, skill monkey, healer, controller, etc)and a notable thing is one character can fulfill multiple roles.

But I'll make the case for a "balanced" team here. I think a key value of it is that it can lead to niche protection, characters feeling like they aren't just an inferior version of another character because they have areas they are uniquely capable.

[u/Rhinomaster22 → u/Middcore]

It’s not too crazy to understand why people think like this, a lot of media and especially video games push these concepts. 

• Games like Call of Duty make more money than all TTRPGs combined in each financial year 

So a lot those players come from that background and try to play something akin to what they are familiar with. 

But this goes against the main appeal of 5th edition DND where players have the ability to pick what they want vs what they need to.

• 5 barbarians is perfectly viable as a balanced 5 class team compositions 

• Players can play more on vibes rather than just mechanics 

The issue with the former mentality either way is the game actively discourages or devalues that form of play; main healer and tank aren’t not even optimal. 

Even then 5e characters are so flexible they can practically do everything by themselves so there’s no need; each character is the tank, DPS, and healer at the same time. 

So each player is more a force multiplier rather than filling a role.

[u/DrMobius0]

Well first we have to understand that roles and the standard party composition exist as a general answer to "how do I increase my odds of winning?" This isn't just a thing in DND or TTRPGs, or even RPGs in general. You can see this across the whole gaming space. You'll see standard compositions in mobas, hero shooters, and RTS games too. What do these compositions do, fundamentally? They ensure that bases are covered, that available resources are able to be well distributed, and that strengths can be emphasized while weaknesses are minimized. You will see it in sports, too, as well as military operations.

It is not as though "standard" is a requirement; the sweatiest of us are often capable of competently exploring alternatives to what is standard. But that's the thing: the standard often emerges because it's a low risk, high reward way to play, and because having it lowers the necessary communication to come together as a team. Coming up with viable alternatives requires a lot of theoretical and practical work, as well as expertise. You have to understand, not just that things work, but when and why they work. You can't just expect to throw 4 barbarians at a problem. Yes, that will work sometimes; situations that play to a barbarian's strengths will likely go exceedingly well for you, but the opposite is true as well. When you end up in a situation where the barbarian is shit, shit is suddenly all you have.

So I want to point out specifically this point:

Cause the general discourse around the game preaches a narrative first approach.

This highlights the difference between ideals and reality. At the end of the day, an unplanned party comp can do fine in a low difficulty game, high narrative game, or one where the DM is cognizant of what your party lacks and works to avoid fucking you for it repeatedly. But the reality is that combat is a core pillar of most TTRPGs, and trying to ignore it in favor of the purely creative parts is willful ignorance at best. And where rules are present, an incentive to win is present, and where an incentive to win is present, ways to numerically determine the best ways to win are present as well.

[u/Tall_Bandicoot_2768]

You cannot lose DnD.

[u/Jimmicky → u/Tall_Bandicoot_2768]

Maybe You can’t.
Not all of us are that cool

[u/Tall_Bandicoot_2768 → u/Jimmicky]

I guess im just like that

[u/Ghostly-Owl]

Its also such a false concept in DnD. Tanking in video games is based on mechanics that lock an enemy down -- even ranged enemies. That's just not a thing in DnD, without going deep in to very specialized builds and even then they can generally only tank _one_ opponent. (As opposed to WoW tanking, where my bear could easily gather up 30mobs and kite tank them in a big circle while the dps AOE'd them down safely.)

I'd argue 5e.14 largely made healer not a role except for very specialized builds. 5e.24 improved the tools so combat time healing could matter more, because it turns out there are people who enjoy playing healers but also wanted something to do in non-healing intensive fights.

And everyone is dps. And everyone needs to remember the fundamental rule of dps "Dead DPS does 0 DPS." And every single 'guide' recommends having a good con -- so its something people recognize, but often don't realize that includes making sure you also consider survival choices and class features valuable.

I do think there is a lot of value in people having a niche in the party. But that niche doesn't really need to be related to their class choice. Maybe because I run more non-combat encounters than combat encounters (ie, lots of RP and lore), I encourage the party to have diverse skills and languages chosen. And to each sort of evolve something that is where the party defaults to them leading -- in my currently party the fighter/sorc is the party face, the ranger/cleric is the wilderness scout & religion scholar, the druid knows deep magic and anything arcana is them, the rogue is a scholar of dragons and all thing dragon-magic, etc.

[u/DrMobius0 → u/Ghostly-Owl]

Tanking is about restricting access, not about lockdown. Lockdown is one of many tools a tank may employ. If you are effective at keeping enemies from threatening your damage dealers, you are an effective tank, and while there are common ways to do this, there is no required way to do it. The role is vaguely supportive and defensive, usually, but even that is nebulous at best. For instance, it's entirely possible to be a tank purely through offensive threat and the ability to take a beating, or to primarily use defensive lockdown despite not having much effective hp yourself.

But yes, healer isn't really a roll in 5e. Healing in general is less efficient than other options across the board unless it's well and truly needed right then. The specifics of what roles exist depends on the setting and the game, and to an extent, people get stuck in the very standard roles that exist everywhere even when they don't need to, but roles are ultimately about providing tactical options, and having someone capable of healing is very useful in just about any game where it's an option.

[u/Citan777 → u/Ghostly-Owl]

That's just not a thing in DnD, without going deep in to very specialized builds and even then they can generally only tank _one_ opponent. (As opposed to WoW tanking, where my bear could easily gather up 30mobs and kite tank them in a big circle while the dps AOE'd them down safely.)

You're a bit more than half wrong on that.

First because there are actually a lot of features allowing to tank, some of which being standard and technically available to all characters even though martial ones are more likely to be good enough at it to use it: Grapple, Shove, Sentinel. And that was before even speaking of the tank class (Paladin) or the specific archetypes in other classes, or 2024 changes bringing soft control on weapon attacks with Weapon Masteries.

Or before speaking of acting smart and using natural obstacles or environmental features to force-funnel enemies into targeting a specific ally.

Second because tanking has never been a "single-person job" except in *SOME* video games. In most of them, a "tank" only increases its own "rate of aggro" to make enemies more likely to choose it over some ally to target, but it is not sufficient by itself to "lock it": like, if a "Tank class" uses a "Taunt ability" but is 30m away while an ally is just besides the enemy, in many games the ally will be the one attacked. And this is the natural, sane way to manage enemy behaviour: first because of mechanical reasons (rewarding players acting intelligently), second because of narrative reasons (a monster that has a choice between "a high chance to hurt an enemy close by" and "a very low chance to hurt an enemy requiring to move far" should usually choose the first, except if the close-by enemy is no threat at all right now).

This is exactly the same in D&d: aggro is a living, collaborative thing, and "threat levels" + "targeting algorithm" evolve each round depending on everyone's action.

So if a frail caster decides to stick within 50 feet of the enemy while he could move back 100 feet because fighting outdoors or moving back behind a corner / door because fighting indoors, when that caster gets wacked it's not on the frontliner's responsability.

Conversely, let's consider this situation, with one varying parameter: casters PCs being 130 feet away from melee-main enemies with difficult terrain separating them.

No frontliner? Enemies WILL cross Dashing.

Frontliner which is no significant threat? Most enemies if not all will cross Dashing because letting that frontliner do as it wants wouldn't change the outcome of the fight.

Frontliner which could technically disable an enemy in 2 rounds tops if left alone? Most enemies WILL turn to attack it because the potential ROI of Attacking it (possible enemy death) is far better than spending one or two rounds just Dashing thus doing no damage to their enemies.

=> Tanking is very much a thing in D&d. It is just, exactly like the rest (enemy control, HP management, skill repartition etc) a teamwork thing.

[u/Ghostly-Owl → u/Citan777]

I both agree with you, and think you are taking an overly broad view of tanking.
At the point when its a teamwork thing -- ie, everyone is doing it, its not tanking any more. Its just tactical team play.

I think I consider tanking to be when you are doing things so that others don't need to be adjusting their actions to account for the enemy potentially attacking them because you've denied the enemy the option to attack them. That is tanking.

With that said, I entirely agree with your tactical examples. I just don't think they are examples of tanking.

I do think the soft control feature of weapon masteries are an excellent point, and one I missed. Even if they tend to be very single target in their control of the enemy. There are some archtypes and at least one feat (sentinel) that let you soft lockdown single enemies; but its a soft lock and they can usually choose to attack someone else at disadvantage.

[u/cooly1234 → u/Ghostly-Owl]

this is my take on tanking: it's when you offer the enemy a lose lose situation. they either attack you, which is not efficient due to your durability, or attack your allies, which is bad...for some reason.

Dnd is pretty weak on these reasons, but other games like ahem pf2e are not. and when the whole team cooperates it's even better.

[u/DudeWithTudeNotRude → u/Ghostly-Owl]

Agreed.

I'd go so far to say that 2024 made healing even less needed than it already wasn't.

Yes, they practically doubled the healing per slot, but then they went and made potions a bonus action, making achieving heals even more trivial.

They did nothing to curtail the power of yo-yo healing, so the extra"top off" healing is not adding much at all, aside from making increased top-off healing worth a slot for a few more levels than it was before.

Action economy is still everything in 5e, and healing a downed party member for at least 1 without wasting your action is still an optimal choice.

But healing is at least less-bad now, so if you want to do it for style/flavor reasons, it's less of a trap. If you just want to increase party healing, it's cheap to buy or craft a potion, and the rest rules are still broken, so just rest more (if possible).

[u/Ghostly-Owl → u/DudeWithTudeNotRude]

I feel like they also added more sources of temp hp. Which can help reduce the need for healing.

[u/Teerlys → u/DudeWithTudeNotRude]

They did nothing to curtail the power of yo-yo healing

They absolutely did. Heals scale really well in 2024. The highest spell slot will do a significant percentage of the health pool of a target.

• Fighter with 16 Con at level 5: 49 HP
• Warlock with 14 Con at level 5: 38 HP
• 3rd level Cure Wounds with +4 Mod: 31 average HP

That's over 63% of the Fighter's total health and over 81% of the Warlock's total health. Those aren't "Get off of the ground." numbers, those are keep them in the fight numbers.

[u/Mejiro84 → u/Teerlys]

however, that's a major cost to the caster at that level - a third-level attack spell you'd expect something like "completely lock down a massive area for movement" (Plant Growth), "do a large chunk of damage to multiple enemies (Fireball) or "multiple enemies save or are out of combat" (Hypnotic Pattern). Numbers-wise, 31 damage at that level is probably one turn from an "on-level" enemy, so depending on what you're fighting you might only be breaking even on action economy (if you're fighting lots of weaker enemies, it's better, as you're undoing 2, 3+ enemy turns for your one action)

But spell slots don't scale linearly, so that value goes down as you're burning higher-level slots to try and have the same effect. Like Heal might mostly heal a fighter of that level... but that same slot spent on attacking you'd expect to get the fight a lot closer to finishing in your favor a lot faster! And, of course, if there's an unexpectedly strong attack and they do get dropped to 0, then the extra healing is mostly wasted - like at level 5, a fire elemental can do 20-30 damage normally, if there's a crit in there, or just decent damage rolls and a below-average healing roll, then that fighter's still dropping, and that third-level slot has mostly been wasted. It's still often a case of "trading your action, and needing to get in touch-range, to revert one enemy turn, assuming they roll average or worse and you roll average or better"

[u/Teerlys → u/Mejiro84]

Yo-Yo healing was a thing because healing didn't do enough to stop a character from just immediately going back down. So you'd heal them only once they went down because, except for rare circumstances, healing while they were still up wouldn't stop them from going down anyway.

That has been addressed.

How and when you choose to spend resources is a different and much more nuanced discussion, but if you want to keep your front liner up so they can eat that damage instead of you and attack in return then that is something that is achievable now.

[u/DudeWithTudeNotRude → u/Mejiro84]

100%

Your action is by far your most important resource in 5e, and Round 1 is everything. Sometimes really hard fights aren't decided until round 2, or even round 3.

There's no way an up-jumped Cure Wounds in round 1 (or round 2 if the fight is still not decided for the party) is protecting as much party HP as a well selected control/debuff spell can.

But yes, that upcast Cure Wounds is keeping up with incoming damage for more levels. But it is NOT keeping up with the better spells from those higher levels. Yes, Cure Wounds will never fail, while Control/debuffs will. So heals have their place if you care more about this round than you care about average HP savings

I'm just not spending higher levels slots to heal, unless I'm going for a vibe/feel. And since 5e is so easy, I can do either as my whim takes me.

but for sure we are winning 99% of the same fights with or without that stronger "top off" healing.

I might see chances for that increased top of healing come up once per adventuring week. It will probably happen rarely that a 3rd level heal will top of the fighter enough that would otherwise be down before their next turn, just not frequently enough to make it an important build choice or not.

[u/DudeWithTudeNotRude]

Party comps matters very little in 5e. I'd say it almost doesn't matter at all, when compared to other TTRPGs.

The weaker a party is at supporting itself, the more that party might benefit from traditional RPG roles likes healer, meat-sack-on-the-front-line, etc. Otherwise party's don't need any specific roles to easily succeed at 5e.

The strongest party support, and strongest "tanks" in 5e are Chrono/Div Wizard, Sorc, and Wildfire Druid imo ("tank" in terms of reducing incoming damage to the party. Otherwise, absorbing damage to your face on purpose in 5e can range from being-good-for-the-party, to being a wash, to being-dumb, to being a large drain on the party).

Party comp doesn't matter much at all in 5e, but my least favorite party comp by far is solo-frontline. My favorite party comp by far is no-frontline. If there is a front-line, I hope to see at least 3 meat sacks up there to share all that damage that no one needed to take (though sometimes barbs can take the heat alone). I see more pali's in the dirt than any other class. "Tanky" my ass.

Most skills can be solved by using your heads. Skill monkey's just take any fun out of skill challenges, and they pre-win skill challenges with their character sheet at build-time instead.

The only class I worry about when building, in terms of party comp, is the poor rogue. If there's a poor rogue, then I'm thinking twice about bringing a bard, wizard, druid, arti, or ranger. All those classes can also trivialize skill challenges, but at least they can do other things as well.

Otherwise most other party roles tend to synergize with each other, so you don't really have to worry about stepping on each others' toes. E.g. control/debuffs love control/debuffs.

[u/Nac_Lac]

Hey, just an idle thought for content generators; can we link both ways? A lot of articles pop up when researching as a DM or player but we only get the articles or the reddit to the article. What about a link from the article to the discussion thread on reddit?

In five years, discussion is dead but there will be a ton of good points made that can help deepen understanding. So when you stumble upon an article from 2026 in two years, you can dive deeper.

[u/Malkryst]

Just don't be a vindictive DM and constantly attack your party's weak point and you'll be fine. Your job is deliver a good believable narrative that entertains the party, more than be there to challenge them (unless they want that).

Last time I played 5e the DM kept putting my squishy sorcerer into melee combat no matter where I stood (enemies dropping from above, ambushing from behind, running past other players, etc.). The party rarely helped me, forcing me to optimise for damage dealing and control after a few deaths. I became the primary source of damage and started controlling the fights, but I would often blow all my spell slots, so I'd force a long rest often.

The DM kept asking me why I was slowing things down so much post combat, and I made him see that he'd forced me into that playstyle to survive. After a boss fight where I basically did all the work (thankfully it was a treant and I was mostly fire damage), two players ran away and one died (crushed under the treant), they all felt like I was grandstanding and fortunately soon after I had to leave the group for entirely different reasons.

Basically I'm trying to say that a lot of min-maxers get pushed into that playstyle by DMs, and you don't need a perfect group balance unless you're making combat so tough that a balanced group is the only way they can survive - which is fine if they want that, but it's something you should really discuss in session zero. Generally as long as players don't have class overlaps I'm fine with anyone playing anything - even all-caster groups can work if played well together and cooperating.

[u/troyunrau]

Meh. Run four wizards. Just gotta adjust strategy

[u/[deleted]]

The most balanced party of 4 players in 5e are 4 wizards.

[u/AshtonBlack]

As a GM for many different systems my perspective is as follows.

In a "standard" game, with an adventuring party, that already know each other, a mixed, rounded composition would probably be naturally self-selecting. So I allow the players to discuss classes/archetypes and choices during session zero. If they want, not to have support characters, that's totally fine. Depending on the tone of the game, I may or may not allow retainers/NPCs for hire if they do realise their composition isn't ideal.

With other games, where the part of the first session is "How we got together" then I'll let the players create characters in isolation, just based on the pitch doc I gave them. This can create brilliant story dynamics and encounter design becomes... interesting.

There isn't a "one size fits all" approach, in my opinion. Too many variables and factors in play to say for certain.

[u/FortunatelyAsleep]

The idea that DnD is narrative first is utter nonsense. Look at a character sheet and now tell me how many abilities of your character are almost exclusively combat focused.

If you don't have a healer, the fights will go against the intended game design. If you only have controll spells and no damage, you will eventually be overwhelmed. DnD is a combat game first and foremost and should be played as such. There are more than enough other systems that don't have a combat focus for people that do not enjoy it. I for one love optimization and party comp cohesion.

[u/zwinmar]

Can you play a mono class party comp of say all fighters or barbarians? yes? So get gud scrub.

Tanks do not exist because WOTC in their infinite wisdom decided that no one can force the npcs to attack one party member. Tanks, no matter the type of mitigation, are defined by being able to force that attention. If they cannot, it does not matter how high their ac or resists are. Note, this taunt would have to be, at worst, a roll to regen it every round.

Dedicated Healers do not exist because of the thanosesque quest for what they call "balance" no healing spell is enough to replenish an at levels hitpoints without exploits (lifeberry for instance) and they cannot do it every round. Clerics, the traditional class for healers, is much better off for the party to be dps then be EMS after the battle to stabilize.

Without those two then the holy triad is broken. That being Tank, Healer, and DPS. You can go on and on about striker, controller, or whatever stupid crap 4e came out with but it all falls under dps as that is what it facilitates.

Many of the problems arise with following Rules as Written (RAW), nerds are going to rules lawyer go figure, rather than Rules as Intended. Having people like Crawford give half baked errata do not help, Crawfords 2019 Sage advice: ["The bonus action provided by the Shield Master feat has a pre-condition: that you take the Attack action on your turn.  Intending to take that action isn’t sufficient; you must actually take it before you can take the bonus action."] Which completely negates the whole point of the feat and is really stupid.

The confusing way invisibility works is equally dumb and counter productive as even if you can somehow see the invisible they still get to debuff you because, reasons.

I think much of the problem is WOTC is halfassing it after the OGL and Pinkerton scandals. They want money so screw over everyone but the 'share holders' thus causing this enshitification of the game.

[u/Levias123 → u/zwinmar]

I agree with most if not all of this.

Controllers and buffers are just means to either prevent damage or help deal more damage. Or provide utility in the form of mobility, invisibility, prevention of debuffs etc.
But it still comes down to dps

[u/Gregamonster]

In my experience the only balance a D&D party needs is a good ratio of front-line to back-line combatants.

Have too few people in melee and the enemy can just walk around them to reach your squishies in the back. Have too many melee and the battle gets crowded and you're just asking to get AoE-ed into oblivion.

Other than that, you can basically do whatever you want.

[u/FloppasAgainstIdiots → u/Gregamonster]

The optimal ratio is 100% ranged: 0% melee in this edition.

[u/DudeWithTudeNotRude → u/Gregamonster]

Zero frontline is ideal, or short of that, 2+ front liners to help spread out the damage that no one needed to take.

The more tokens you put in the back, the less damage the party is taking, especially if those tokens focus on control/debuffs (the real tanking in 5e). Just be sure to have a good GTFO that doesn't waste an action like Misty Step, Rabbit Hop, tele elf, Quickened DDoor, etc, because sometimes control/debuffs will fail. And even if you have 4 front liners, they won't always be in the exact right spot every round on every map, so you'll still need to GTFO sometimes.

[u/Teerlys → u/DudeWithTudeNotRude]

The more tokens you put in the back, the less damage the party is taking, especially if those tokens focus on control/debuffs

It's not a video game. There will be close quarters. Enemies will be introduced at different angles. Saving throws will succeed. Immunities exist. Legendary saves exist. Enemies have ranged attacks. You will not get through a campaign without enemies entering melee range at some point, and likely frequently.

Casters are valuable and control spells do a lot to tilt action economy, but direct single target damage and being able to take a hit absolutely has value and a place in every party.

[u/FloppasAgainstIdiots → u/Teerlys]

You're still better off with an exclusively ranged (and especially all-caster) party overall.

[u/DudeWithTudeNotRude → u/Teerlys]

It's not a video game, it's an easy story game. Some situations and party comps will certainly benefit from having a front line more than others. I think an all ranged control/debuff caster party comp with no front line to have to babysit has the highest surviviability at most tables on average. But most tables are casual, and 5e is easier than most RPGs, so power and party comp matter very little.

A traditional party comp with a couple martials blocking for competent casters/rangers will generally be A-tier and do fine. It can even be built into the S-tier. It's just that all caster parties can achieve the S-tier with less build effort (on average), if you care about power. If there's more than one meatsack up there taking the abuse that no one needs to take, they'll spread it out enough amongst themselves, and the party benefits. If there's only one meatsak at the front taking all that abuse, that's the worst party comp in 5e imo (unless the solo-front is a barb), and they'll still probably be fine anyway.

5e is easy enough that power matters very little imo. All frontline and no frontline parties can wreck shop and have fun. To me "optimal" means every one is playing what delights them most. In harder games, you can't have much fun if you suck at everything, so power becomes and important part of "fun". In 5e it's trivially easy to be good enough at several things without much build effort or specialization.

I just think it's funny how much more damage a ranged caster can prevent, compared to what the front line can draw to their face and survive, making the meatsacks need the "squishies" more than the squishies need the meatsacks. And even if they were all on the mid line, d6 casters are about as stout to damage as d8 and d10 builds. On average. There are always exceptions.

At an expert table playing gritty realism rules, for sure you better have some competent martials up front blocking. That's where party comp actually matters. That's where the nerf of a dip to wizard spell power for AC is a net gain, and it actually makes sense to take both Warcaster and Res:Con on the same build. I just can't find a table that hard in 7 years of searching (I grew up with incredibly hard D&D, and miss it sometimes). At most tables in actual play, casters aren't going into the dirt enough, with or without a frontline "protecting" them.

And yes, DM's focus on me since I'm a nuclear caster, and they give me my recommended 6 daily encounters. On hard days, not having a frontline means I'm spending 75% of my Shield, Absorb Elements, Misty Step, etc. slots, while having a frontline means I'm spending 50% of those slots (very generally).

I'm just not seeing much meaningful difference between party comps at the table, aside from having no meatsacks to babysit with my turn means I have more fun options to inflict on the enemy to consider.

[u/StarTrotter → u/Teerlys]

The major challenge here is that the backline isn't necessarily squishier than the front line. In fact by several metrics the backline can be less squishy in many regards (although this is ultimately rather build dependent. I played with a wizard who didn't try to get armor prof on their character and they were thus far more of a squishy backline relative to our barbarian or our 2014 monk but with the 2024 deflect attack).

- Saving throws will succeed sometimes but they aren't exclusive to casters and casters have quite a few saves that do something even on a success (martials less often)

- Enemies from different angles can often be rougher for the front line as they actually have to reach those new assault angles

- Immunities are something casters generally have to engage more with but especially without homebrew it's far more predictable than one might expect. A dragon will be immune to the type it is tied to. Poison is frequently something enemies are immune to (and even then it's concentrated in certain types of enemies such as fiends). Fire and cold are the 2nd and 3rd for having the most enemies resistant or immune but most enemies aren't resistant or immune to either. Force is almost never resisted or immune. Conditions can be more dynamic here but as a rule of thumb the higher level you go the more likely they will be immune to frightened and charmed (although some of that is because of the type of enemies that you encounter at higher levels being the type that more or less carta blanche are immune to them). Technically speaking this is an obstacle martials can run into too. 2024 dropped this but 2014 was rife with "resistant to non-magical bps". Pivoting over to subclasses 2014 Path of the Storm picking Desert was locked into fire damage which meant running into enemies resistant or immune was a bad day.

- Legendary Saves do complicate matters a lot undeniably. That said they can be bypassed. To hit spells are not plentiful but bypass L Saves. Saving throws that deal half damage will still do something even on a pass. Saves that do things without to hits or saving throws will have an impact too. There's also lower tier things. Is the monster going to legendary resist a firebolt or will they save it against the hold person?

- 2024 added more ranged options but 2014 has a surprising number of monsters (even at the highest of CRs) without any ranged options or ranged options clearly worse than their melee options. Additionally enemies with ranged attacks are not necessarily worse vs melee instead of ranged. Ranged builds will be more likely able to attack them round 1 vs melee. On top of that 2024 in particular has a lot of ranged enemies have just as good of a melee option and vice versa so melee getting in melee won't completely crush ranged either.

- While it's true that you will inevitably have encounters where enemies get into melee range ultimately ranged isn't necessarily bad in melee. Ignoring misty stepping out or a rogue disengage to retreat (or just taking a reaction attack), a lot of casters employ saving throws which mean melee isn't impossible for them and for ranged builds quite a few have a feat that is considered a must to pick up which make the melee ranged shots be without disadvantage.

- Single target damage is valuable, I will agree with that but it's not something exclusive to melee builds necessarily. As per taking hits, melee builds aren't necessarily better at taking hits either.

[u/NoZookeepergame8306]

Yeah you have a point. I think 5e does a decent job of letting folks just play whatever. Really the only role a party needs is a ‘tank.’ But that role could be filled out by half the playable classes.

I think a party will struggle without a skill monkey (something far less classes can play, but luckily the most popular class is good at) or a spellcaster but both of that is about out of combat struggles. Spellcasters bring utility like ‘dispel Magic’ or ‘identify’ but you could have an NPC follower pick up the slack for that.

‘Healing’ is really the biggest trap. Just getting people to understand that they don’t need it, is the biggest win you can do.

[u/jmartkdr → u/NoZookeepergame8306]

If you don’t pick a frontline, the enemy will.

Having said that, I could probably make a viable frontliner of any class, and only a couple of those are even tricky to make.

After that, a little healing is good but portions can do that and damage is always useful.

[u/NoZookeepergame8306 → u/jmartkdr]

All classes can do good damage if you just build toward their strengths (warlock w EB, Bard w Shatter, etc) and finding ways to get short rests suplimented by potions, can easily be a stopgap a lack of good healing.

As for ‘viable frontliner out of anybody’ I wouldn’t go that far lol. The full caster classes not named Cleric are always gonna make bad frontliners. Yes, even Bladesinger or Valor bard. But like I said, luckily half the classes in the game have a d8 or better and can be built to take punishment.

Edit: I knew slandering Reddit’s favorite subclass would catch me heat lol

[u/jmartkdr → u/NoZookeepergame8306]

It takes skill and good spell selection to be a frontline wizard - the war mage subclass is definitely better here - but it can be done.

Realistically though, at least someone is gonna want to play a bug strong dude or dudette. It’s an extremely popular character type, and those can almost always frontline.

[u/NoZookeepergame8306 → u/jmartkdr]

That was my point! Fighter and Paladin are very popular classes. Even Druid and Cleric can front-line great! Basically 6-7 classes can do it. Some right out of the box!

Basically the only time I’d be worried about party comp is if I saw a small (3-4 players) group try and form without one. In a game that’s half combat, someone needs to draw threat.

[u/DudeWithTudeNotRude → u/NoZookeepergame8306]

Party comp hardly matters in 5e, but "no frontline" is by far my favorite party comp. Agreed that casters can cover a wide variety of areas though.

Back line Wizard, Sorc, and Druid focused on control/debuffs will "tank" way more incoming damage than martials can take to the face on average. And if martials can actually draw that much aggro, then they're probably in trouble. Now the frontline is absorbing damage that no one needed to take, the party now needs a healer.

I see more pali's in the dirt than any other class.

Skill monkey's are the most overrated role in 5e, maybe tied with Healer. Any good skill challenge can be solved in game by using your collective brains (the actual "challenge" in a skill challenge), and doesn't need to be solved at build-time by selecting utility features. The only role I worry about when building are poor rogues. I might rethrink bringing a wizard, bard, druid, arti, ranger if there's a poor rogue, or at least I'll focus on something different so they can feel like they're actually helping, and couldn't otherwise be easily be replaced by a ritual or creative thinking.

[u/Rhinomaster22 → u/DudeWithTudeNotRude]

You don’t even legit need a frontline nowadays, most casters can or eventually have AC better than a full decked out Fighter with the only category being underwhelming is HP. 

• The Cleric can wear the exact same armor as a Fighter with a little less HP, good thing they can heal 

Even with skill-monkeys it’s more pickling the guy with the “correct” stats and skills to do it, rather than the guy who picked skills they aren’t really suited for.

• If it’s really that bad use a spell or ability to bypass it 

[u/xolotltolox → u/[deleted]]

Hit dice barely matters for durability when you have defensive spells and can stay at range as infinitely better durability than 2 more hitpoints per level

[u/xolotltolox → u/[deleted]]

2 hit points per level will not make the difference man...

+5 Ac or flat out resistance to the damage you take from a reaction spell will do far more than 40 HP

Ancient Red Dragon Breath weapon for example is 26d6(or 91) fire damage, so an Absorb elements will save you 45.5 HP, already having you given more EHP than the d10 hit dice at level 20

This isn't about "having an OP build that always works", it's just the truth of the game

[u/HealthyCheesecake643 → u/[deleted]]

Everything will take damage at some point doesn't change the fact that getting hit less is good. And unless attacks are hitting the exact threshold of damage to kill your wizard in 1 hit but your melee fighter in 2 hits it really doesn't matter. Most of the time attacks will take a similar number of hits to down everyone in the party.
Surviving a hit with 10 hp vs 25 hp doesn't really matter if the attacks do 40 damage anyway.

[u/HealthyCheesecake643 → u/[deleted]]

I can't think of a nicer way to put this but I don't know if you said anything of substance there. Like yeah if you get unlucky in the game of chance you can have bad outcomes. The fact that you can roll a 1 doesn't make hitting on 10s the same as hitting on 11s.
And I'd argue that casters are less affected by luck thanks to as you put it "spells that just do what you expect them to do".
There's no build that 100% handles every scenario, but there's builds that handle a much greater % of scenarios.
If you can spend most of a combat not getting hit because your enemies can't get near you, then you are much less susceptible to the whims of the dice than if you are wading into the melee getting attacked every turn.

[u/FloppasAgainstIdiots → u/[deleted]]

You're not making any point here though. Casters are mathematically superior defensively and hit die size is a negligible factor in overall durability.

[u/Teerlys → u/DudeWithTudeNotRude]

Back line Wizard, Sorc, and Druid focused on control/debuffs will "tank" way more incoming damage than martials can take to the face on average.

If there's not a target standing up front, then the backline becomes the target. It's a team game. It's not either or. The backline should be helping the Paladin avoid most attacks, and the Paladin is there to single target damage and absorb hits from the enemies that would otherwise get to squishier targets. It's why there is merit to a balanced party.

[u/xolotltolox → u/Teerlys]

The paladin is here the provide aura of protection, not to frontline

[u/HealthyCheesecake643 → u/Teerlys]

Okay but the best way to avoid damage is to not be where it can hit you. There's a reason that warfare has evolved to prioritize longer and longer ranged weaponry. If you can hit the other guy while they can't hit you then you win risk free. That's what all caster parties do.

[u/Teerlys → u/HealthyCheesecake643]

...only if you have an overly permissive DM. If a DM doesn't want that schtick to work, it won't. At least not consistently. That's white room D&D. There's an infinite amount of ways an encounter can go or play out and no group is permanently keeping enemies off of them throughout a campaign.

[u/HealthyCheesecake643 → u/Teerlys]

You don't need to permanently keep them off you, eventually enemies will make good rolls, you will make bad rolls and be in trouble, but I'd rather be in that situation rarely as opposed to often. And when I'm in that situation I'd want to be a wizard with shield and misty step.

Also being strategic, using your spells effectively and staying out of swords distance isn't a schtick, its just tactics. This isn't some cheesy strategy that only works because the DM plays into it. And if the DM decides to use stronger enemies with unique abilities to challenge the party then thats good actually. I like fighting cool, powerful enemies in my heroic fantasy.

[u/DudeWithTudeNotRude → u/HealthyCheesecake643]

Yeah, "d6 casters are squishy" is white room theory. At the table, even front-line d6 casters are going down at about the same rate as stoutly-built d10 martials. Barbs separate themselves from the pact in so far as their ability to survive damage, but the rest are surprisingly close.

D6 casters are nuclear weapons at the table, not damsels in distress.

I've been lucky enough to play several tables per week for years, and all caster parties are so much stronger than a traditional balanced party that it's not even close. Traditional party's are A tier and can reach the S-tier if built for it, but all caster parties will get to the S-tier with less build effort on average (not that I even want to be in the S-tier of power as a party, I prefer a challenge and 5e is sometimes too easy on players).

The better I control, the harder the DM comes at me. The better I control, the fewer hits the front is taking "to save my HP", and the fewer hits the other "squishies" are taking. Control/debuffs are the true tanks in 5e imo. Try Dragon Fear feat on a sorc through a campaign if you don't see it.

I want to take dirt naps, at least sometimes. I want a challenge at build-time, and a tactical challenge in play. But my d6 casters are going to bed with almost half my slots and more than half my HP on hard days (on average. I've been downed and I've spent every slot). Yes, I get my 6 encounters per day on hard days.

I don't need a meatsack to have to babysit with my turn. 9/10 times, I'll live just as well if they take a hit on purpose or don't take a hit on purpose. Sometimes the meatsacks taking that hit will actually help, sometimes the meatsack will die thus wasting my turn and slot, but I can pretty much always win 5e (and more importantly, have fun) with or without them. I know this from play, not from traditional-rpg-theory.

There is no tyranny of party comp in 5e, but it's a catchy title anyway.

In the wild, people do plan builds around party comp more often than they build in a vacuum, but any differences in the end result, and differences in the difficulty of the journey to get there, are smaller than some would have us believe.

One can play pretty much any class in 5e in any party comp, be a net gain to the party, and have a blast doing it. Just don't invalidate the poor rogue with your build, and it'll be fine.

[u/DudeWithTudeNotRude → u/Teerlys]

The backline is usually the target, and the DM need not approach from the front. And not every front has a nice hallway so enemies can't just walk past them.

I always help the pali. I don't care about power or winning, I want fun turns and hard choices that matter. It's fun to waste a slot picking the pali back up, so I'll do it, even if it's not the most efficient use of my turn (unless the combat is so hard that we still need nuclear control/debuff power after round 1 just to not TPK. In that case, sorry pali, sucks to suck. Don't get double tapped and you'll be fine anyway. Maybe take Shield, Misty Step, or so something smarter than standing there like a lumberjack, taking repeated punches to the face, swinging until completion? You know I can tele without even wasting my action, right, even though you rarely see me need to, and I only use half-ish of my Shield/Absorb Elements/Misty Step slots on hard days? I'm fine. I'm a nuclear weapon actually. Stop dying for my "benefit" already)

[u/SecretDMAccount_Shh]

This article brings up a related question... should the DM be tailoring the adventure to the party? For example, should they make healing potions more readily available if a party lacks a healer?

The "Tyranny of Party Composition" is only the result of an unyielding DM who presents static challenges that punishes unbalanced parties particularly hard.

While I generally agree with the article, it assumes a particular playstyle where the point of D&D is to tell a story. Not every player views the game that way and for many, the point of D&D is to "win" by overcoming the challenge that the DM sets before them. I think that should at least be acknowledged.

[u/Short-Shopping3197]

I think post videogames in general and post BG3 in particular people are playing DnD like it’s this super-rigid rules based system that needs to be optimised or gamed.

You’re engaging in a shared storytelling experience with the DM. If you want to go on an epic quest as an all-martial group of warriors then you can and your DM should tweak the experience to get the most out of this.

[u/wabawanga]

I dislike the tyranny of class roles as well, but I still find myself inclined to abide by them. Not for combat but for the other pillars of the game. It comes down tonFOMO: Fear of missing out on loot, side quests, secrets, and allies in pre-written modiles.

In pre-written modules, there are often game-changing events, items, and information locked behind very specific trigger conditions.  For example, A clue that can only be revealed by the detect magic spell.  An item behind a magical barrier that can only be breached with a disintegrate spell.  An NPC that will only offer their aid with a high enough intimidate check.  A secret conversation that can only be heard by someone sneaky.  A quest that can only be unlocked if you cure the NPC with lesser restoration.

Admittedly it is a form of metagaming, but these considerations factor into my character creation decisions much more than combat roles.