The Fifth Wheel

[Djibriel]

Any class with a loosely defined role in the party is often considered a good 'fifth party member' or something, assuming a four-man team of Meatshield, Sneak, (divine) Healer/Buffer and (arcane) Controller/Blaster. Classes such as the Bard, the Factotum and Spellthief make a nice fifth wheel for utility tasks, or whatever the ruling opinion is.

Isn't the opposite true, though? Don't Jack-of-all-trades fare much better in a smaller party where much more options are not covered? I get that in a two-man team, you could prefer a more 'standard' role over a utility one, but a Bard next to a normal Fighter is needed for sneaking, healing, buffing and party face, while a Bard in a standard four-man group is able to shine ....using Forgery and Sleight of Hand and providing combat bonuses from the back row.

I never understood the sentiment; the smaller the group, the handier a generalist seems. What are your thoughts?

[The Rose Dragon]

The Fifth Wheel? A good party already needs five members.

Warrior, Priest, Savant, Criminal and Broker.

Or, if they are Exalted, one of each Caste or Aspect.

You might be thinking of "the Sixth Wheel".

[theMycon]

The Fifth Wheel? A good party already needs five members.

Warrior, Priest, Savant, Criminal and Broker.

Or, if they are Exalted, one of each Caste or Aspect.

You might be thinking of "the Sixth Wheel".

I respectfully disagree.
In theory, any of the above can become a criminal. While his way of thinking is important, there's nothing about the other roles which prevents one from having their mentality or ideas. A broker is pretty much, by default, a criminal; he merely needs the savant to cast silence & invisibility on him to replace the skillset. For a popular example, see "Shephard Book" from Firefly. Or, heck, everyone but the mechanic thinks like a crook, there.

In practice, the meatshield role can be taken over by anyone at all- magic is innately more interesting than a pointy stick, and thus they make it better than a pointy stick. See 3.5 Cleric for example.

[Hat-Trick]

Going by the Dnd standard, yes, smaller groups would benefit from having a generalist character to fill two rolls. The PHBII actually talked about it.

[The Rose Dragon]

I respectfully disagree.
In theory, any of the above can become a criminal.

Yes, but they'd have to spend Charms out of their specialty. Why not have a criminal take those Charms in the first place?

[AmberVael]

The Fifth Wheel? A good party already needs five members.

Not in DnD (at least in 3.5).

I'd agree with this sentiment. There's a common idea of the five member party in DnD, but once you get up to that number, someone is probably going to start feeling left out.

The real roles are Divine Magicker, Arcane Magicker, Warrior, and Skiller.

You can generally replace the Divine Magicker with anyone decent at giving buffs and party support.
The Arcane Magicker is nigh irreplacable. You can get people who can debuff, or battlefield control, or any other aspects of arcane magic, but in the end, they just cover too many things, too many little things which no one else can cover.
The Warrior can be made in a ton of ways. Gish, Combat Brute, even just a blaster or someone who deals damage.
And the Skiller. someone who puts points into Skills.


Yes, the classes that have a broad variety of powers tend to do better in games with less people. It isn't because they gain power, but because they're capable of filling more roles that are needed and have gone unfilled.
This is also why in games with more people, the classes with a broad variety do worse. It doesn't matter if you can heal, cast arcane spells, and fight. The Fighter can smash things down better. The cleric can heal things better, and the Wizard makes you look like a little ant.

[woodenbandman]

You could just as easily have a party of Cleric Meatshield/DPS/Buffer, Wizard Controller/Debuffer/Sneak (Invisibility and Silence go a long, long way), and nobody else. Throw in a Bard Sneak/Face/Buffer if you're feeling fancy. Heck, have a party of 4 Fochlucan Lyrists who are each all Buffer/Healer/Sneak/Combat/Controller/Buff/Debuff

[hewhosaysfish]

One possible reason could be that the Jack-Of-All-Trades is, famously, a master of none.
DnD in particular rewards specialisation. If you're party has a dedicated skill-monkey and no blaster-caster then he will be useful in some situations and not in others, while someone who attempts to be half a skill-monkey and half a blaster will often end up failing at both.

Thus the best place to introduce the Jack-Of-All-Trades is when as the roles considered essential have been filled. To continue the above example, a party with 2 skill-monkeys and a blaster will not be worse off than one with one and a half of each, so here the choice to play a skill-monkey vs a skill-monkey/blaster is not as important.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

A party of two can fill every role with a Druid and a Beguiler (or preferably Beguiler/Wizard/UM). The jack-of-all-trades classes typically end up not being viable in any role at all, so they're even worse in a small party than as a fifth character. Some of those classes can choose to specialize in one particular area, but a character who tries to be good in too many areas will almost never be very good at any of them. Smaller parties are best with classes that are versatile enough to be strong in multiple roles, rather than highly specialized characters or classes that can't fill any role well because they were designed to be too versatile. If some characters can fill multiple roles such as the above example, then the rest of the party could be exceptional-at-nothing characters without worrying about the group having any glaring weaknesses.

[kamikasei]

There are different ways for a class not to have a fixed role. It might be a dabbler, doing a little of everything and not very well. It might be flexible in build, being capable of taking the class and churning out a character whose abilities are fixed but not determined entirely by the class. Or it might be flexible in play, being able to specialize and compete with specialists but change its specialty day-to-day (e.g. binder, totemist).

In a small party, it does no good to have either of the second class if you need both, say, a fighter and a healer at once. You might be able to scrape by with the first type, but you may be better off just picking a specialist and compensating for the lack, because generalists aren't so well supported in 3.5.

In a large party, however, all types can be supported. A dabbler still isn't very good, but can assist the specialists wherever one needs assistance, without leaving an important role unfilled in order to do so. Depending on the class and its abilities, the dabbler may also be able to boost everyone, as a bard can. The day-to-day role-changers can adapt to whatever the party needs most at any point in the adventure. And the flexible-class, fixed-character types can be built to fill some fairly specialized niche without, again, leaving the party high and dry in some vital area.

[oxybe]

depends on the group really.

smaller groups need generalists to cover the bases the specialists can't/don't. they're not as good as a specialist, but they do the job. going core only, the 2 of note are the bard and the rogue.

the bard has enough dabbling to do the job as is, but unless min-maxed, his only specialty is being the "face". he can heal, but less then the cleric. he can fight... better then mage, worse then the fighter. he can cast some buffs... though weaker/slower rate then the mage or cleric, ect....

while the rogue can't cast, he does have access to enough skill points to do various tasks other then "sneak about"/backstabber and he has access to the UMD skill, which allows him to be a substitute mage/healer/whatnot... for a price.

larger groups benefit from having generalists provide backup in multiple areas. while the rogue is a "stealth specialist", having another sneaky guy back him up isn't a bad idea.

a generalist with some melee capacity might not be the best damage dealer or have the stellar defenses, but he provides a great flanking buddy for the real combat threat. this can cause problems for the flanked enemy: focus on the guy beating your face in, or get rid of the guy slowly whittling through your defenses? either way, he gets hurt. if he turns his back to the real threat, he'll get his skull smashed in. if he ignores the backup, he just won't die as fast.

now there are downsides to this. a stealth specialist going around with the substitute does have a larger risk. while the rogue might not be caught, the other might and this could blow the rogue's cover. on the flipside, if the rogue is caught, at least he has backup.

the melee-capable generalist is also more fragile then the specialist. if the bluff & strategy doesn't work properly, he'll have to leave his ally to the enemy's maw as he either runs to lick his wounds or get ragdoll-tossed across the room into a pool of blood.

[Umael]

The notion of "fifth wheel" only applies if you are running a traditional game. It also implies that if you have all four of the traditional roles covered that the addition of a fifth cannot distinguish itself in repeating one of these roles.

For a game that encourages creativity, the adherence to the "roles" is a bit disappointing.

[theMycon]

Yes, but they'd have to spend Charms out of their specialty. Why not have a criminal take those Charms in the first place?

Eh? You seem to have a different definition of "Criminal" than I do. I was more thinking of it as "someone who has the mentality, morals, and moxie to ignore the rules and finish a job". From what I can tell, you seem to define it as "someone who has a list of special powers which could be used to break the law." To someone who hasn't seen exalted, you'd be defining it as "someone with a home-made bracelet and no sense of fashion."

[AstralFire]

It depends on whether the fifth wheel is the type which switches roles or the type which performs multiple roles at once and grants buffs at the same time.

The former is better in small groups, the latter is better in large ones.

[aje8]

Note: This post is DnD 3.5. I don't understand enough about any other system to make a strong argument.

The problem with any 5th wheel argument is the very idea that there are 4 wheels at all. Most rolls aren't neccasary:

Healing is a role that many seem to consider crucial.... but honestly if each party member simply pays the paltry amount for a Belt of Healing from MiC then you need no healer.

Skill-monkeying is perhaps the most useless role of all. Any character with high int who takes Able Learner can be a skill monkey fairly easily. For example, a Wizard with his 18 int has 6 skills per level.... that should be enough to skill monkey fairly easily.

You need a melee brute you say? This is not need either. A Wizard easily fills this role by going Wizard 5/Malconvoker 10/X 5..... his summons are going to be on par with most fighting classes.

An arcane caster is a roll that it is hard to do without.... but I think you might be able to manage it with a Cleric who takes the right domains and some judicious use of UMD but it'd be hard.

Thus, 1-man party:
Wizard Summoner who goes malconvoker and takes able learner in addition to buying a healing belt in order to cover all the roles pretty well.

This one is admitadley hard to pull off.

2-Man Party:
Wizard: Arcane caster/skill monkey via Able Learner.
Druid: Melee Beatstick/Divine caster.

Healing is covered by the belts and wands of lesser vigor.

[tiercel]

There are different ways for a class not to have a fixed role.

This is the way I see it as well.

If your party is too small/focused to have some kind of coverage of all the roles, it becomes more important to have someone in the party who is at least reasonably good at covering more than one role, to fill the gaps.

If your party is large enough to have at least some coverage of all the roles, it can be more useful to have someone who can help cover whichever role you need more of *at the moment*.

The first kind is more of a dual-class style character; either literally two classes (often tied together by PrC), or one class that has sort of dual roles it can fill well. Even a somewhat focused 3.5e bard build can work well here.

The second kind is more of an actual jack-of-all-trades; even though you will be a master of none, you want to make sure you are at least *useful* in two or more roles though, and not spread yourself so thin that you are rubbish at everything. A more traditional 3.5e bard can be this sort (and can either be really good or really rubbish, depending on the player).

[JaxGaret]

There are classes such as the Bard and Dragon Shaman which are 5th-wheel type classes IMO because they grant class feature buffs to the whole party; these classes work well in larger parties, for the obvious reason that an all-party buff hits more people the larger the party is.

The fact that the Dragon Shaman is woefully underpowered and that Bardic Music buffing is underpowered without considerable focus on it is besides the point. IMO one shouldn't use class balance issues as part of the argument about what a fifth wheel class should or should not be. Of course a Cleric/Druid/etc. is going to be better than a Dragon Shaman as a fifth wheel, as they are a better specialist and generalist - but that's beside the point.

A class like the Factotum can also be classified as a 5th-wheel because it has class features that allow it to emulate any necessary role. Redundancy is always good; if the primary stabber/sneaker/blaster/healer/etc. goes down, and you need that role filled, you got it covered.

[Lappy9000]

We have very rarely have characters who are specialists. The skillers tend to brawl alongside the tanks, the diviners are often the face of the party. We've had tanks who control the battlefield, arcanists who fight in the front lines, and tanks who held down the social battles. Everyone can often do the job of anyone else.

[Mike_G]

I played a Beguiler once who had to fill pretty much every role except the tank.

The party had a Swordsage, a Barbarian, a Fighter and a Monk.

Needles to say, it was not terribly optimized. When I joined and asked what they needed, the answer was "An arcane caster, a healer, and a skillmonkey. So pretty much a guy to do everything except smack stuff."

Fortunately, the Beguiler is good at everything else, including healing through UMD, so things worked out OK.

[Mando Knight]

You might be thinking of "the Sixth Wheel".

It's called the Sixth Ranger (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SixthRanger). :smalltongue:

[FMArthur]

In my opinion, the jack-of-all-trades Fifth Wheel does not exist outside of the master of masks and chameleon classes, and only one 'trade' at a time even then.

Look at the Factotum, for example. It is roughly equivalent to 30% of a wizard, 20% of a cleric, 40% of a beatstick, and 90-110% of a rogue. I won't say that he'll be an utter failure whenever casting or healing, but most of the time a factotum is going to be a skillmonkey and a nimble physical attacker with little else to offer.

A bard is special in that it gets a variety of vastly inferior abilities to operate as a generalist, but is magnificent as a party-buffer and is almost always the social skillmonkey that blows the rest out of the water. These are things where the bard is doing what only bards do best and not pretending to be a fighter/sorceror/rogue.

Druids are not fifth wheels, they bump out cetain roles (usually beatstick) of the original four to 'fifth wheel' status, having no trouble monopolizing melee combat and casting useful spells in addition.

Rangers try to be partially skillmonkeys, partially casters, and partially beatsticks. The only way to succeed as a ranger is to be fully beatstick; even the Mystic Ranger variant that sacrifices class abilities for more casting is just a more efficient beatstick.

Spellthieves are skillmonkeys with unreliable casting ability. Nothing else but sneaking and casting there, unless I'm missing something. It doesn't add enough skillmonkey to make up for a party's lack of one, and the same can be said of its casting. In a party with all bases covered, though, it is obviated by better skillmonkeys but is a good facet for someone else's casting ability. :smallconfused:

Beguilers are just better skillmonkey casters, but are again primarily spellcasters and not really a blend.

Others: Duskblades and swordsages really only fill one role of damage-dealer, same as any barbarian. Psychic Warrior operates as a sort of exclusively self-buffing cleric... so just a beatstick.

Specialize or fail in D&D. The only generalists that succeed are just specialists with variable specialization.

[Frosty]

I played a Beguiler once who had to fill pretty much every role except the tank.

The party had a Swordsage, a Barbarian, a Fighter and a Monk.

Needles to say, it was not terribly optimized. When I joined and asked what they needed, the answer was "An arcane caster, a healer, and a skillmonkey. So pretty much a guy to do everything except smack stuff."

Fortunately, the Beguiler is good at everything else, including healing through UMD, so things worked out OK.

Beguilers require almost optimization. It's kinda hard to mess one up.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I'm surprised the Warlock hasn't been put forth as a decent 'fifth wheel'.

Arcane and Divine... he can take 10 on UMD, which makes him better in this role than Rogue or Beguiler.

He can be made to do very good damage output, so that while he's not exactly a meat shield, he can be a glass cannon.

He has some battlefield control ability, although his best one is a Greater invocation (Chilling Tentacles)

Best of all, his Invocations are at-will... he never runs out of juice. Which means he can cover butts if the party is on a time crunch and the wiz/cleric is running out of juice. Or just have the cleric/wizard hang back and let the Warlock and Beatstick clean up the mooks, saving their power for the BBEG.

[FMArthur]

I'm surprised the Warlock hasn't been put forth as a decent 'fifth wheel'.

Arcane and Divine... he can take 10 on UMD, which makes him better in this role than Rogue or Beguiler.

He can be made to do very good damage output, so that while he's not exactly a meat shield, he can be a glass cannon.

He has some battlefield control ability, although his best one is a Greater invocation (Chilling Tentacles)

Best of all, his Invocations are at-will... he never runs out of juice. Which means he can cover butts if the party is on a time crunch and the wiz/cleric is running out of juice. Or just have the cleric/wizard hang back and let the Warlock and Beatstick clean up the mooks, saving their power for the BBEG.

The Warlock is just a ranged beatstick with weird fluff. :smalltongue:
That said, almost any party benefits from an extra damage-dealer. Good UMDer though.

Speaking of UMD, I nominate the Artificer as a perfect fifth wheel. Artificers can make such a wide variety of things for their own and their allies' benefit that finding something useful to contribute should never be an issue for them (the problem is deciding which awesome options to choose). I'd still say bards are best fifth wheel for the sole reason that buffing improves as the party grows in size.

[Thurbane]

IMHO, some of the best "5th wheel" classes are the Dragonfire Adept, Binder and the Marshal. They all play well with others. :smallsmile:

[Limos]

Let's look at the roles here

Meatshield
Skillmonkey
Batman Wizard
Clericzilla

Technically all you need is the Batman Wizard and on top of that you have a Second, Third and Fourth wheel.

I have no idea where you are going to find a Fifth Wheel with all those superfluous wheels cluttering up my unicycle.

[Harperfan7]

Going core only, I've always thought that rangers are the best 5th wheel, not bards.

Here's why: In the standard party, you have

-dwarven fighter
-halfling rogue
-human cleric
-elf wizard
5th wheel - gnome bard

For some reason, elves are always wizards despite most of their racial abilities being wasted.

I say go...

-dwarven fighter
-halfling rogue
-human cleric
-gnome wizard
-elf ranger

You could make it elf rogue, halfling ranger, it actually might be better.

Why? Because rogues and clerics can cover social situations, but none of the traditional party members can cover wilderness/animals/plants. Besides, bards are crappy at fighting, and rangers aren't. Rangers should be whatever the rogue isn't - as in, rogue uses a rapier? Ranger is an archer. Rogue prefers archery? Ranger TWFighter.

If the ranger is an archer, her animal companion can help the rogue set up flanks or guard the wizard (and/or the ranger). Rangers can heal too, so now you have two healers (or at least someone who can use cure wands with no problem).

You can cover more bases and be more effective in combat with a ranger more than with a bard.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

The Warlock is just a ranged beatstick with weird fluff. :smalltongue:
That said, almost any party benefits from an extra damage-dealer. Good UMDer though.

Speaking of UMD, I nominate the Artificer as a perfect fifth wheel. Artificers can make such a wide variety of things for their own and their allies' benefit that finding something useful to contribute should never be an issue for them (the problem is deciding which awesome options to choose). I'd still say bards are best fifth wheel for the sole reason that buffing improves as the party grows in size.

Artificer is the perfect addition to any party because it's a Tier 1 class. Any of the Tier 1 or Tier 2 classes make the perfect addition to any party because they effectively ARE an additional party, by themselves.

Bards can be good, depending on their focus. They can free up the Wizard from having to cover quite so many bases. For example, a Wizard can freely ban Enchantment as well as Evocation if he knows he has a Bard in the party, who excels in Enchantment and can make up for that lack. He can also let the Bard deal with Haste and Slow, while he brings out Cloudkill on the Slowed opponents, and build Force Walls to hem them in for the kill.

A Warlock is more than simply a ranged beatstick (the term you are looking for, by the way, is "Glass Cannon"). They can be truly effective battlefield control, with Charm Person at will at lower levels, and Chilling Tentacles at higher levels. With Invocations like Hindering Blast, particularly in combination with Chain Blast, you relieve the wizard from having to cast Slow all the time, freeing him up to do more reality-warping magics. And even better, your 'slow' also deals damage, softening targets for meatshields to finish off. Warlocks also are much harder to hurt than a Bard, with Fell Flight and Retributive Invisibility, plus Flee The Scene for the particularly paranoid warlock.

Ranger is a good choice for 5th party member. Tracking can be very useful in certain situations. Animal Companion is going to suck, but it can set up flanking, assuming it survives getting into position. More importantly, he can be set up to be another 'tank', although with only a d8 HD. But better he gets beat up a little than the casters, and he's better at taking a hit than the Rogue is. He even gets Evasion, which lets him ignore most area-effect damage output, which makes him very handy to pin things down.

Druid, if not the primary divine healer, can also make a superb 5th wheel, although that's primarily because it's an entire party by itself. With Wildshape as a tank, can heal (or spontaneously heal with the right feat), can stealth with various small or innocuous shapes... it's everywhere you want to be.