How important is party composition?

[danzibr]

Usually you want at least one skill monkey, one healer/buffer, one blaster and one tank (I'd think).

However, I think it'd be more interesting (and maybe more realistic?) to just tell your players to make whatever character they wish. You end up with 4 Warblades? Hey, let's have a great time.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Well, in your example, the players all have a decent amount of skill ranks and can invest in cross-class. They also have save boosting maneuvers and white raven stuff.

For the tier 1s, you can just do a party of all four of those. Four wizards? Done. Clerics? Done. Druids? Done. You can also form a party of all tier 2s, as a sorcerer party would work.

An all barbarian party could work, if they're different. Like, one's a typical greatsword/greataxe wielding barbarian with power attack, shock trooper, leap attack, and all that good charging stuff, one's a spiked chain wielding wolf totem whirling frenzy barbarian with combat reflexes and ranks in survival (for the wolf totem's track), one's unoptimized, but the party skill monkey, as that one would take lots of skill boosting feats for the skill monkey, and the last one can serve as a tank, taking iron will and lightning reflexes to boost his saving throws, and improved toughness to increase HP.

[Moriato]

It really depends on the campaign. Are there going to be heavily trapped dungeons? Then a rogue or something else with the trapfinding class feature will be important. No NPCs that can Raise Dead / Resurrect? Then a cleric will be important. No magic mart? Then a caster with crafting feats will be important.

Now, that being said, it's certainly not impossible to play any combination of classes and still have fun. Certain ones may just make it significantly harder to survive but, again, that depends on what the campaign is like.

[Zaq]

Depends on the GM. Ideally (in my opinion), you'd have a GM who strikes a balance between a few points. On the one hand, staying aware of the party's capabilities and limitations is important, but on the other, you also don't want to just hand your party everything they could ever want so that they're never challenged. A party, I feel, should be able to deal with whatever challenges the GM throws their way, but they shouldn't necessarily be able to deal with them in the most straightforward way possible (note: the keyword there is necessarily).

To use a rather flat and imperfect example, let's take the trapmonkey archetype. If the party happens to include a player who wants to be the master of breaking and entering into dungeons, the GM should, on some level, indulge them, and should throw some traps into the works now and again. If the party does not have anyone who can find a trap without falling into it, well, the GM shouldn't necessarily say "hell with it, traps don't exist," but they also shouldn't say "OK, time to explore the Hall Where Every Square Is Trapped and find the Trapmaster waiting inside, who will challenge you with another gauntlet of traps." If the party doesn't have a character who can cure poison, that doesn't mean that every critter in the world should suddenly become nontoxic, but it also probably wouldn't be very fair or very fun to force the group through a poisonous swamp full of poisonous plants and poisonous critters and hostile residents who like to use poison, at least not without giving them some kind of warning and some kind of chance to prepare.

Really, though, it depends on the GM.

[Talvereaux]

That works fine, really. In D&D, minmaxing or creating a strong party is not necessarily the point of the game for everyone. There's a lot of wiggle room in easier campaigns. Of course, if everyone in the party picks classes with a significant power discrepancy, the players with underpowered classes are going to feel like they aren't contributing, while the overpowered ones will get the opportunity to solve most of the workload. For this reason, DM intervention or houserules to rebalance classes might end up necessary for the sake of everyone having fun if your players make this choice.


Usually you want at least one skill monkey, one healer/buffer, one blaster and one tank (I'd think).

A bit off topic, but I wouldn't call that party comp optimal, let alone necessary. Designated healers are pretty awful from a minmaxing standpoint, seeing as the rule of thumb is that prevention is far more effective than healing (it's helpful on the side, but it's way too reactive to function well as a primary role). Blasters are also shunned, seeing as most of the wizard's strengths come from buffs, debuffs, and battlefield control. Usually an 'optimal composition' is comprised of packing ridiculously overpowered, versatile classes like druids, wizards, and clerics who can just do everything better than everyone.

[Divide by Zero]

Depends on the specific classes. For example, Tiers 1 and 2 can all cover multiple roles very effectively, as can some of Tier 3 if built properly. If you've got something like Fighter/Rogue/Healer/Warmage, though, then yeah, you'll need more specialized roles.

However, keep in mind that D&D is not a MMO (at least in 3.5 :smalltongue:). Tank, in particular, is not really a viable role by itself, due to the lack of an aggro mechanic (with a few exceptions, like the knight, that are typically unreliable).

[Frozen_Feet]

In answer to the title: it varies enermously. Sometimes, it's even more granular than that, with a party being unable to complete a task because they didn't have a specific ability at hand even though technically having the right class for it.

[erikun]

The party composition determines what the party can do well, what they do poorly, and what the campaign should preferably focus on. Other systems show this off well: A Shadowrun or World of Darkness campaign with a lot of face/stealth characters would focus a lot of social situations and sneaking around, and only a little on big melee fights.

The issue with D&D is that it assumes every party will be running around in a dungeon, stabbing monsters in the face and taking treasure from trapped areas. As such, you tend to want one character who can take a lot of punishment, one character who can deal a lot of damage to a lot of things, one character who can get past traps, and one character who can heal damage off your party members. This has traditionally been the roles of Fighter-Wizard-Rogue-Cleric (respectively), although with 3.5e there is little stopping the Cleric from walling opponents, from the Wizard bypassing traps, and from everyone holding usable healing items. Who is in your party matters a lot less than what they have and how prepared they are.

[Eldariel]

Usually we try to build somewhat competent parties; that is, parties that have all the bases covered. However, thanks to the wide open nature of 3.5, that doesn't really require much in terms of classes. A party of 4 Warblades could have one character take a level or three of Factotum and the party would be covered pretty well.

But usually we discuss what kinds of characters everyone wants to play before game so we can work out what manners of roles we naturally have covered and go from there.

[Hiro Protagonest]

However, keep in mind that D&D is not a MMO (at least in 3.5 :smalltongue:). Tank, in particular, is not really a viable role by itself, due to the lack of an aggro mechanic (with a few exceptions, like the knight, that are typically unreliable).

What about the spiked chain fighter with combat reflexes and improved trip? Of course, that and wolf totem barbarian are the exception, not the rule.

[Zaq]

Depends on the specific classes. For example, Tiers 1 and 2 can all cover multiple roles very effectively, as can some of Tier 3 if built properly. If you've got something like Fighter/Rogue/Healer/Warmage, though, then yeah, you'll need more specialized roles.

However, keep in mind that D&D is not a MMO (at least in 3.5 :smalltongue:). Tank, in particular, is not really a viable role by itself, due to the lack of an aggro mechanic (with a few exceptions, like the knight, that are typically unreliable).

While it is very true that tanking in 3.5 doesn't quite work the way it does in 4e or a lot of video games, it IS possible to draw aggro with a sufficiently scary fightin' man (usually with a nice lockdown/chain-tripping build), either through being a big enough threat that you're hard to ignore, denying the foes the option to move anywhere else, or some combination thereof.

It doesn't always work, of course, and it takes much more effort than it really has any right to, but it's theoretically possible.

[Divide by Zero]

What about the spiked chain fighter with combat reflexes and improved trip? Of course, that and wolf totem barbarian are the exception, not the rule.


While it is very true that tanking in 3.5 doesn't quite work the way it does in 4e or a lot of video games, it IS possible to draw aggro with a sufficiently scary fightin' man (usually with a nice lockdown/chain-tripping build), either through being a big enough threat that you're hard to ignore, denying the foes the option to move anywhere else, or some combination thereof.

It doesn't always work, of course, and it takes much more effort than it really has any right to, but it's theoretically possible.

But that's not really tanking so much as battlefield control. It relies more on your ability to keep opponents from escaping your reach than your ability to take hits. If, on the other hand, you're "tanking" by being a credible threat, then you're focusing more on DPR and still functioning in multiple roles. I said that it's not really viable by itself, not that it isn't viable at all.

[big teej]

Usually you want at least one skill monkey, one healer/buffer, one blaster and one tank (I'd think).

However, I think it'd be more interesting (and maybe more realistic?) to just tell your players to make whatever character they wish. You end up with 4 Warblades? Hey, let's have a great time.

that's what I did with my campus group. in fact, I explicitly told them "don't coordinate your class with each other"

party ended up being...
Human Paladin
Dwarf Fighter
Half-Elf Ranger
Human Barbarian
Human Ranger
Elf Druid
Human Ranger

thats right
3 rangers.

it was great :smallbiggrin:

and then two of the rangers were brutally murdered died heroically in battle with a bugbear and it's orc cronies.

[PanNarrans]

Iron Guard's Glare is a first level Devoted Spirit stance that gives +4 AC to any ally within the Crusader's reach.

So you can tank with ToB.

Edit: no it doesn't! See Swiftmongoose below. The spirit of tanking still applies, though.

[Eldariel]

What about the spiked chain fighter with combat reflexes and improved trip? Of course, that and wolf totem barbarian are the exception, not the rule.

You can "tank" just fine, but you can do that just as well or even better with a spellcaster (Cleric or Druid in particular really shine there higher up). A more applicable split for 3.5 would probably be:
- Warrior: Durable, high damage, potentially some control tools, little outside combat.
- Thief: Squishy, extremely high damage, item wizardy, a bunch of options both for combat and out of there.
- Arcanist: Squishy, controller, high damage, some buffs, spells to do whatever.
- Divinist: Durable, lower damage output, heavy buffs, some control, spells to do whatever, though little less whatever.

Or well, that's the basic idea, anyways. Of course, how it works in practice falls a bit by the wayside. Anyone can gain some control tools through the appropriate build, for example, though they're probably the most iconic for Arcanists and Warriors (and most necessary, while also harder to come by, for the latter).

It's also interesting to note that in mid optimization environment (people are competent, understand the system and want mechanically functional characters while avoiding the truly ludicrous amounts of gamebreakers in the system), the damage from all archetypes is quite similar. Warriors and Thiefs actually output a very similar damage when built for it (outside stupid amounts of multipliers) and Divinists can do a very convincing Warrior-impersonation for as long as their spells last (I'm not assuming DMM: Persist level optimization here since that actually leaves Divinists far ahead of Warriors; just normal buffs with Quicken) while Arcanists can get similar damage with some work with spells.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Iron Guard's Glare is a first level Devoted Spirit stance that gives +4 AC to any ally within the Crusader's reach.

So you can tank with ToB.

That's not how it works. :smallconfused:

It doesn't give a bonus to AC to allies within the crusader's reach, it gives a penalty to attack to opponents within the crusader's reach.

[Flickerdart]

I believe the classic party composition is Big Stupid Fighter, Glass Cannon and God. You generally want the first two, and then as many Gods as you can fit.

[Big Fau]

Generally speaking, buffing is more important than healing. Anyone can be a "healer" with the right equipment.

Blasting is better regulated to the Tanks, since they tend to do more damage than most of the popular blasting spells (not to say that a blaster can't outdamage a Charger, but when you have a charger, why waste spell slots trying to do his job?).

Tanking can be done in several ways (summons, Wildshape, or an actual tank), however most parties actually need someone in this role.

As for the skill monkey, it varies based on what the campaign is focused on. Dungeon Delving? Spellcasters can get the job done without needing to make skill checks (Summon Elemental reserve feat, a wand of Knock, etc). RP-focused? While a spellcaster can replicate the social skills with Enchantment, those spells are a poor focus for a spellcaster. The actual role would be handy in these situations.

[ericgrau]

Usually you want at least one skill monkey, one healer/buffer, one blaster and one tank (I'd think).

However, I think it'd be more interesting (and maybe more realistic?) to just tell your players to make whatever character they wish. You end up with 4 Warblades? Hey, let's have a great time.

Skills tend to be underused unfortunately so that can often be skipped or handled with a 1 level dip. Healing is usually best done in emergencies or between combats, so anyone who can use a wand is fine; again do-able with a 1 level dip, or many half-casters or UMD will work. Potions can handle emergency healing. Damage dealing is in fact a roll but it's usually better done with melee rather than casters. Everything can protect themselves pretty well so you don't really need a tank. What's missing from your list is casters or magic items to handle strange challenges. Also crowd control isn't an essential role but it's extremeley helpful. Arcane casters especially excel at this but martial classes can do it a little too.

So... 4 warblades with single level dips or magic items for the minor roles listed plus some crowd control abilities or tripper builds or etc. could work.

[Lonely Tylenol]

In my first group, I was called to fill in the Wizard role, because I seemed the type to want to play a Wizard. Sure enough, arcane magic was the only thing they were really missing.

In my second group, it was more of a "pick what you want" deal with the first trio of players (we wound up with a Human Rogue, Dwarf Barbarian, and Human Oracle), but we decided not to make the party too imbalanced when it got large.

In my opinion, smaller groups are more conducive to a "play what you will" mentality, both because there are fewer people tripping over each other to do the same thing, and because the "missing" roles are more obvious in a larger party. For instance, when seven or eight people fight a CR-appropriate encounter and get pretty beat up, that missing healer is going to be a little more obvious.

[Flickerdart]

A healer costs 750gp. It's not enough of a requirement to dedicate an entire party member to until Heal becomes available.

[Curmudgeon]

Blasters are entirely optional. Have the magic user focus on battlefield control and you'll do better with a ranged combat specialist instead. Who needs blasting (and Reflex saves) when enemies can get hit with 8 arrows every round?

Skills tend to be underused unfortunately so that can often be skipped or handled with a 1 level dip.
You may have atypical experiences with your DMs. I've rarely seen a dungeon or indoor encounter which didn't involve more Open Lock checks than spellcasters had 2nd-level slots. (Knock is a level 2 spell.) Not to mention the usefulness of Spot, Listen, Search, and Gather Information in avoiding blundering along in a perpetually clueless state. :smallamused:

[Darth Stabber]

That question lacks a simple answer, it is dependent on a number of differnt factors, two of them being in detail below.

1)Type of adventure
In a military campaign a party of fighter, barbarian, paladin, and scout could be reasonable. In a hiest style campaign a rogue, factotum, ninja, and ranger could work well, and you can extrapolate from there. If the adventures are going to take a departure from the standard dungeon crawl there is generally a viable option apart from the standard party make-up. If a GM knows that the players want to play an odd setup like this, and is creating custom content for each session (this is how I generally run things), and the players build together to maximize specific functions this works.

2)Tier, Optimization, and Speciality
As stated before a party of wizards or clerics or druids would fuction fairly well. The tier 1 and 2 classes are (by the definition of those tiers) able to do whatever you want them to do. Specialization by members of the same class also allows for a class to fill a different role than would normally be expected of them, example a cleric party with different gods would not be a team of healbots: a cleric of Olidammara could fill the skill monkey role, Kord's cleric would tank, baccob's cleric takes the role normally filled by the arcanist, with a cleric of Pelor filling the normal cleric niche.

One of the best examples of non-standard party make-up I can remember playing is the heist campaign. It favors rogues and to lesser extent wizards. The basic idea is instead of robbing undead and abberation infested tombs, you instead rob the stuctures of a modern humanoid society. This is a very player driven campaign. Basically you set up a world where churches, governments, and even major trading companies have wherehouses that contain things the party wants to take (for whatever reason), and they spend half the session going over the schematics of a building, and the second half of the session trying to pull off their plan without setting off the alarm, and calling the entire town guard on their heads. Traditional fighter and cleric types will not function in this type of work, and even wizards probably want to rethink their normal build choices, but it is a rewarding departure from the standard dungeon crawl, though the same strategy can be applied to a standard dungeon crawl (by avoiding fights throigh stealth and subterfuge).

[Asheram]

I really don't mind when something is lacking.
"We don't have a trapfinder? Bring tenfoot poles and a bag of critters!"
"We don't have a healer? Good god! Bring the healing belts and potions!"

The only thing I worry about when it comes to party composition is when multiple people fill the same spot and it ends up in a "Anything you can do I can do better" situation, since that's usually just frustrating and no fun.

[Big Fau]

You may have atypical experiences with your DMs. I've rarely seen a dungeon or indoor encounter which didn't involve more Open Lock checks than spellcasters had 2nd-level slots. (Knock is a level 2 spell.) Not to mention the usefulness of Spot, Listen, Search, and Gather Information in avoiding blundering along in a perpetually clueless state. :smallamused:

My personal experience is that Open Lock is a poorly designed substitute for either Disable Device or an adamantine dagger.

[Dr.Epic]

So long as you have a means to heal that isn't resting, then you should be fine.

[Hiro Protagonest]

My personal experience is that Open Lock is a poorly designed substitute for either Disable Device or an adamantine dagger.

Or the stone dragon lockpick.

[Flickerdart]

I really don't mind when something is lacking.
"We don't have a trapfinder? Bring tenfoot poles and a bag of critters!"
"We don't have a healer? Good god! Bring the healing belts and potions!"

The only thing I worry about when it comes to party composition is when multiple people fill the same spot and it ends up in a "Anything you can do I can do better" situation, since that's usually just frustrating and no fun.
"Anything you can do" is perfectly viable when the people involved are roughly the same level of competence and the role in question is important. Two murderbeasts are perfectly fine, because there's always going to be fodder for them. Two people with healing capability are fine because you can't always wait for initiative to roll around. Two battlefield controllers can combine forces to raise some serious hell.
Now, when the optimization level is different, then that's a problem, but that's always a problem.

[tyckspoon]

There are party roles that should be handled, but the trick to understanding how D&D works is realizing that those roles are not completely separated and not necessarily just 1 role to a character, either; most characters could potentially build to handle most roles, depending on flexibility of their class and what kinds of items they can get, and the better classes and better built characters *will* be capable of handling more than one of them.

These are the roles as I perceive them:
Damage Output: Ends fights. Most characters have some aspect of this, even if it's not the primary function, but a character actually built with this as the intended role will do it very, very well. A well-done save-or-die/lose caster can also functionally fill this role, regardless of inflicting actual HP damage or not, as does the force-multiplication factor of a good offensive buffing build.
Fight Recovery: HP and status restoration. This usually does not require a specific character to build for it, thanks to the plethora of ways D&D offers to recover HP and treat conditions- a wand of CLW and some Healing Belts can generally cover HP, and scrolls and magic items are available to do condition treatment as long as you have one of the half-dozen or so classes that can use them.
Damage Control: Makes the enemies less threatening, reducing the need for the Fight Recovery role- a party that has this done competently may have little to no need for Fight Recovery, which is what allows that role to be handed off to magic items instead of a dedicated character slot. This is the realm of the debuffing Conjurer and the lockdown fighter, to name the most famous styles of this role.

That's your basic combat arrangement- people who end the fight, people who get you back in shape for another fight, and people who stop the fight from becoming too dangerous before the first group of people can end it.

Out of combat, you also get:
Knowing Things: The knowledge monkey, as per the traditional Bard/Wizard/Cloistered Cleric/Archivist. Inspects that Weird Ancient Widget and tells you whether it's going to blow your head off or buff you.
Getting Through Things: Sometimes things try to get in your way. It's kinda nice to have somebody who can help you get them out of the way. Subsets of this include locks, chasms, walls, and many varieties of trap.
Talking to Things: Decent Cha score and investing in one or more of Diplomacy/Bluff/Intimidate. Having access to many languages or Tongues is also useful, although sometimes not strictly necessary.. you have this guy around because sometimes killing things is not the right answer.

[Curmudgeon]

My personal experience is that Open Lock is a poorly designed substitute for either Disable Device or an adamantine dagger.
Disable Device doesn't open locks in D&D 3.5, except as a house rule. An adamantine dagger means that you're going to make a ruckus every door you come to, and your presence will be broadcast after the first door you destroy rather than bypass stealthily. Do you want to fight guards as they patrol in pairs, or en masse? As a DM I have no problems with a TPK if the party calls unnecessary attention to themselves and fights more enemies than they can handle at once.

[danzibr]

Tanking can be done in several ways (summons, Wildshape, or an actual tank)

Ahh, an actual tank. :P

On a side note, what's a stone dragon lock pick?

[Hiro Protagonest]

On a side note, what's a stone dragon lock pick?

Mountain hammer. :smallamused:

[Darth Stabber]

Ahh, an actual tank. :P

On a side note, what's a stone dragon lock pick?

The mountain hammer manuever deals normal weapon damage+2d6? And it ignores all forms of DR and hardness. It pretty much breaks everything, and it is the only really good manuever from the stone dragon discipline (which all three initiator classes have access to). Warblades can perform it every other round if needs be. Replaces open lock, disable device, and the knock spell.

[Hiro Protagonest]

The mountain hammer manuever deals normal weapon damage+2d6? And it ignores all forms of DR and hardness. It pretty much breaks everything, and it is the only really good manuever from the stone dragon discipline (which all three initiator classes have access to). Warblades can perform it every other round if needs be. Replaces open lock, disable device, and the knock spell.

I think when my DM first thought that my warblade was overpowered was when I used mountain hammer on a scorpion (a type of catapult). That and the fact that Leaping Dragon Stance doesn't specify if the +10 ft. bonus applies to high jumps.

[FMArthur]

As far as I've seen, there are only two parts on assembling nonstandard parties that make it an issue. The first concern is healing. A group of skilled players can be trusted to take care of it in some way of their choosing, but if they're not capable of such, it is the DM's job to hand out Healing Belts like candy. Yes, it's coddling, but unless you want a short campaign and a bad reputation, you simply can't assume they know how to take care of healing in nonstandard parties.

The other is traps. Let's set aside that excessive trap use is a horrible holdover from D&D's sadistic genesis and that they make the game boring and tedius even when the party is well-equipped to handle them. Let's say you want to include lots of traps because you're a traditionalist, don't have enough material to have players actually advancing through your dungeon at more than a snail's pace, or you take pleasure in finding new and exciting ways to feel like you've outsmarted your friends in a world you control every aspect of and have spent significantly more time thinking about.

That's fine, but a party that has no way to deal with traps at all presents a serious problem if you're using them. My second recommendation for such a scenario (because you already know my first) is to allow the PCs to hire mercs. Traps are a problem solved by a skillmonkey with Trapfinding, expendable minions, or a nigh-immortal tank build, and those first two are easy to get as paid services. A trained hireling (trapfinder) costs a minimum of 3sp per day, likely much more at DM discretion. Unfortunately you may find yourself needing to hire a trapfinder of nearly equal level to yourselves to keep up with DCs, so you might expect to have to give them a portion of your loot. The other option is to buy a ton of donkeys, which are 8gp, but you need to make extra preparation for moving them around (hilarious irony) and they won't be able to trigger things like door traps.

[Eldariel]

The mountain hammer manuever deals normal weapon damage+2d6? And it ignores all forms of DR and hardness. It pretty much breaks everything, and it is the only really good manuever from the stone dragon discipline (which all three initiator classes have access to). Warblades can perform it every other round if needs be. Replaces open lock, disable device, and the knock spell.

There's few other options worthwhile on certain levels in Stone Dragon but they are by and large held down by the annoying "must be on ground"-clause; it is, however, quite rare that you need to break a wall/lock/whatever while airborne so Mountain Hammer of course doesn't have that problem. Charging Minotaur, Crushing Weight of the Mountain and Roots of the Mountain are the other 3 I've occasionally used (and of course, everyone's played the odd Stone Dragon-focused character).

[ericgrau]

You may have atypical experiences with your DMs. I've rarely seen a dungeon or indoor encounter which didn't involve more Open Lock checks than spellcasters had 2nd-level slots. (Knock is a level 2 spell.) Not to mention the usefulness of Spot, Listen, Search, and Gather Information in avoiding blundering along in a perpetually clueless state. :smallamused:

On the contrary spot and listen get way overused even when they don't apply or the DC should be zero or trivial, and that only compounds the problem when all the other skills get ignored. And then it usually doesn't require a skillmonkey, it requires everyone to have the skill or be effectively blind, which is dumb. Search is common, but usually done poorly (e.g., can't take 10's or 20's). Open lock varies in commonality but often has the same mistakes regarding taking 20's as search. And it can often be handled by breaking the door down anyway. Note how all 4 can be handled without die rolls one way or another. But that usually doesn't happen and only makes the game tedious if you actually focus on them with a million rolls like that.

By putting gather information in your campaigns you're using 1 more real skill check (i.e., not pointless) than most do.

[Divide by Zero]

I think when my DM first thought that my warblade was overpowered was when I used mountain hammer on a scorpion (a type of catapult).

But if you had done that with a spellcaster, he probably wouldn't have blinked. Yet another instance of "melee can't have nice things."

[Hiro Protagonest]

But if you had done that with a spellcaster, he probably wouldn't have blinked. Yet another instance of "melee can't have nice things."

Well, it's because of it is the fact that I can do it every two rounds, as well as having d12 hit die and full BAB. My group is pretty low optimization, so I probably shouldn't have picked the best low level maneuver there is.

[Curmudgeon]

Search is common, but usually done poorly (e.g., can't take 10's or 20's). Open lock varies in commonality but often has the same mistakes regarding taking 20's as search. And it can often be handled by breaking the door down anyway. Note how all 4 can be handled without die rolls one way or another.
I don't see how some DMs making mistakes interpreting the skill rules is relevant to this discussion. You can always "take 10" if you're not distracted or threatened (or when otherwise disallowed, as with Use Magic Device). Open Lock has no listed failure consequences, so you can always "take 20" when you've got 20 rounds per lock. Search does have failure consequences sometimes, so you can't legally "take 20" in that case.

Symbol of Death or similar with trigger "looks at the rune" will normally set off the magical trap if you Search for it, but not when a Rogue with an adequate Search result does so. Yet the "taking 20" rules (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/usingSkills.htm#taking20) stipulate that failure always occurs before success, so the Rogue would automatically fail when they try to "take 20" with such a trap. Since whether it's legal to "take 20" on a Search check is dependent on the (not yet known) result of that Search check (i.e., whether there are traps that would be triggered by a bad Search), the DM can't permit "taking 20" on any Search check without metagaming.

[Leon]

Party composition is important as what you make of it, you could play with what is though of as standard (Tank, Heals, Caster, Skillful) every bit as well as playing with a group that was all monk.

Of course some concessions need to be made in a game that lacks somethings - if you don't have a skillful type that can deal with traps then encountering a lot of those will bring the value of play down a great deal.
So it stands to the DM to adapt a game to suit the group - it need not be fair to the group always but largely it should be adventure that they with their skillets can handle.

Tank is a loose role in most RPG - whoever is the one that is generally doing or has done the most damage will have the attention of a creature unless its tactics are otherwise - a animal will more likely go for what hurt it rather than a character in the distance not visibly doing anything.

There are some small concessions that are available create a Attention holding character but they are few compared to the amount of options for a damage dealing one or a support character

A good group should have (no matter what classes are actually used) most of the roles covered in some way but by no means should someone have to play a particular class just since the group doesn't have that area covered.

Items can be used to replace a Healer class or a Skillful class, although most classes capable of healing also can provide access to great buffs for the group so its a shame to miss out on those.

The 3 Roles that should be in a Party

- Damage
- Support
- Skillful

All classes can be in a Damage role and many can do at least one or more of the others.

[Rhaegar14]

I'd like to point out that, in my experience, more "traditional" party composition is about a billion times more important from levels 1 to 4 or so, because the casters are still basically useless and can't really adapt to do just about anything.

[Divide by Zero]

I'd like to point out that, in my experience, more "traditional" party composition is about a billion times more important from levels 1 to 4 or so, because the casters are still basically useless and can't really adapt to do just about anything.

Wizard uses Color Spray!
It's super effective!

[Rhaegar14]

Wizard uses Color Spray!
It's super effective!

Yes, the Wizard is still good at killing things, but he is not, for instance, good at getting around traps.

[Tvtyrant]

Yes, the Wizard is still good at killing things, but he is not, for instance, good at getting around traps.

Send summons forward to trip traps, then use etheral body, passwall, or several other spells to bypass them. At low levels this is true, at higher levels it stops being so.

[Rhaegar14]

Send summons forward to trip traps, then use etheral body, passwall, or several other spells to bypass them. At low levels this is true, at higher levels it stops being so.

Low level was precisely the point I was making though. XD

[Xyk]

Usually you want at least one skill monkey, one healer/buffer, one blaster and one tank (I'd think).

However, I think it'd be more interesting (and maybe more realistic?) to just tell your players to make whatever character they wish. You end up with 4 Warblades? Hey, let's have a great time.

I do exactly that in all my games. It gives me the challenge as a DM to invent challenges for them in their less-than-optimal group. The last group I DM'd for had a half-orc fighter2/barbarian1, a dwarf barbarian3, an elf sorcerer2/rogue1, and a human paladin3. It was pretty fun.

[Divide by Zero]

Yes, the Wizard is still good at killing things, but he is not, for instance, good at getting around traps.

That's hardly "basically useless," though.

[mykelyk]

I'm the only one that would hate to have a full X party?

I like to make my encounters varied and I don't want a TPK if hacking with a sword/spells/skill isn't a solution.

With a party with everyone so similar WILL happen that someone is substantially better than another 99% of the times and I don't like to have to tune each fight to make the worst build useful.

I could understand a full X party only if X is a tier 1/2, so they could diversify themselves, but when I DM I ban T1 and nerf T2 so..

[Zaq]

I'm the only one that would hate to have a full X party?

I like to make my encounters varied and I don't want a TPK if hacking with a sword/spells/skill isn't a solution.

With a party with everyone so similar WILL happen that someone is substantially better than another 99% of the times and I don't like to have to tune each fight to make the worst build useful.

I could understand a full X party only if X is a tier 1/2, so they could diversify themselves, but when I DM I ban T1 and nerf T2 so..

It's extremely class-dependent. I've played in an all-Bard party, and we hardly stepped on each other's toes at all. That said, the Bard is one of the most versatile classes in the game if you know what you're doing (and since I was orchestrating it, we definitely knew what we were doing), so that's obviously not the case across the board.

The point, though, is that in an "All X" party, the "X" is more important than the "All."

[El Dorado]

Our group used to stress party balance and took pains to make sure that The Big Four were covered. The lion's share of our formative gaming experience happened under 1e and 2e and, under those rule sets, each class filled a particular role and other classes were often poor substitutes in those roles, even at higher levels. With 3e, party composition is important at low levels, when characters haven't come into their respective strengths. However, the need for balance diminishes as each class advances in level. Characters (particularly spellcasters) are far more flexible than their early edition counterparts.

In our last long campaign, I know our DM scratched his head when my bard became designated out of combat healer, even though we had a cleric and druid in the party. They were having too much fun being combat monsters. :smallwink: