Party Composition Advice

[Ciraq]

Hey folks,

I am hoping to get some advice in order to determine what type of character I will be rolling in an upcoming 5e campaign. Out of a 6 player party, I am the only person that has not rolled their character, and my goal is to fill in any needed gaps.

Here is what I know of the current composition, with everyone starting at level 1:

Cleric - Unsure of domain, focusing on healing
Fighter - Using a 2h and will likely go the Champion route
Rogue - Thief or Assassin
Warlock - Generic tiefling, likely will be going with the hexblade route
Wizard - Necromancy

At first, I was thinking of playing a monk, but quickly realized that the party would not need another striker. Lately, I have been going back and forth on two options.

1: Lore Bard - Even though the party has a rogue and a charisma primary class already, I was thinking that having a dedicated skill monkey. I was also thinking that the party really has no controller, so having a bard there could definitely help. With this option, I would go Lore Bard X/Warlock 2 in order to pick up Eldritch Blast + Agonizing Blast.

2: Barbarian - The party does not really have a dedicated tank or defender, so I was looking at going this route and picking up the Sentinel feat at level with as a human. I was also considering possibly going with the unconventional dex-based barbarian for higher base AC and an initiation modifier of "always going first." I would sacrifice some damage here, but the goal here is to be a tank, so I am not terribly worried about gimping myself slightly.


I am not completely set on going with only one of these options, so would be open to other suggestions, as well. Any feedback anyone could provide would be greatly appreciated!

[Nifft]

Lore Bards are great.


Dex Barbarian seems bad because Rage gives a damage bonus on Str-based melee weapon attacks, not all melee weapon attacks. On the other hand, Dex 20 + Con 20 = incredible AC. If you can live without Rage, or if you only use it defensively (e.g. Bear Totem), then a Dex-based Barbarian might be good. I like the idea of a skinny, unarmored Elf with a rapier... and yet he's the toughest mo'-fo' this side of Hell.

If you can scrape together enough points for Str + Dex + Con, then Barbarian looks really good.

Sentinel seems best with a Reach polearm and Polearm Master, since you can halt an oncoming creature and halt it when it tries to get in range. Those are all Str-based weapons.


The other jack-of-all option is the Druid. You can be either a melee guy, or you can be a primary caster with melee secondary, and you don't have to pick which one you are until level 3.


The party's deficits will become more clear when the Cleric picks a Domain. If you get a Storm Cleric, that's pretty strong in melee. If you get a Light Cleric, that might be a back-line caster.

[Sigreid]

It seems to me that what you describe leaves the party with two likely holes, social interaction and wilderness exploration/survival. The rogue will have the scouting thing covered, but likely not the keep everyone alive and fed in the wilderness. I'd go Bard or Paladin.

1. Bard: Clearly able to be great at the social stuff. With an Outlander background he will automatically be able to keep the party fed, watered, sheltered and hale and hearty in the wildest of places. For spells, grab a healing spell, and a couple of blasting and buffing spells. That will let you reinforce either the cleric or the wizard, as needed. I'm not much of a fan of most of the charm spells in 5e as I think they are exceptionally unreliable. If you do variant human, take inspiring leader for the ability to provide your party a pretty healthy hitpoint buffer before they even start getting hurt.

2. Paladin: High charisma character can easily fill the social aspect. Sufficient healing powers to back up the cleric. With the rest of your party you don't need to smite a lot so you get to be more flexible than it seems most paladins choose to be while still being able to nova like holy heck when needed. Eventually your auras start kicking in and nobody runs or fails saving throws anymore. Take the Folk Hero background for nice flavor, contacts and the skills necessary to keep your party hale and hearty in the wilderness.

You also have a great opportunity to play a ranger and be equipped with a bunch of special abilities that will keep the group at full efficiency in any environment. While rangers are decent strikers (the one in my campaign is pretty awesome) you'll have the ability to make nearly everything outside combat or social easier. You could easily also play backup to the rogue on scouting missions providing support/cover until the rest of the party arrives in the event stealth roles are failed. Could be fun to try out a beast master as your pet can aid you with all of your actions: survival, tracking perception etc. (at least that's how I'd rule it as DM).

I don't know if this helps or makes your decision harder. Good luck.

[djreynolds]

Like he said. Also Paladins create a lot of side dialogue and arguments with other nefarious types and that could be fun also. Role-playing the characters is fun

[Rhaegar14]

A Paladin wouldn't work with this party at all. You have a Necromancer and a "generic" tiefling Warlock, which to me implies Fiend Patron. Adding a Paladin to that is ASKING for party conflict unless he's an Oathbreaker (though that could be interesting; you'd buff your Wizard's undead minions).

[Ciraq]

A lot of great advice so far, thanks!

For the barbarian option, rage would only be used defensively for the damage resistance and bear totem, like Nifft mentioned. However, Polearm Master could still potentially be a viable option if I dip 1 or 2 levels into Monk. I would be surprised if this campaign would last to level 20, so I doubt I would miss out on the capstone.

I am thinking that the cleric may be going with the Light domain. Without heavy armor, he will likely be on the back line, or at least between the melee and the necro.

I looked over the ranger options, but am not a huge fan of the spell reliability, and my DM is only allowing options from the PHB, so the spell-less ranger variant from Rodney Thompson's Class Design Variant article would not be allowed. I had also considered a paladin, but Rhaegar14 is correct, a paladin would not mesh well with a necro and a tiefling fiend warlock.

So far, I am leaning more towards the lore bard option. Since this is my first 5e campaign, though, how important is having a controller/debuffer compared to 4e?

[DivisibleByZero]

A Paladin wouldn't work with this party at all. You have a Necromancer and a "generic" tiefling Warlock, which to me implies Fiend Patron. Adding a Paladin to that is ASKING for party conflict unless he's an Oathbreaker (though that could be interesting; you'd buff your Wizard's undead minions).

Welcome to 5e, where Paladins are no longer even mistakenly generally accepted (as in earlier editions, where it was a common mistake) as being required to play the valiant knight trope.
A paladin works perfectly fine here. An Oath of Vengeance Pally especially, but any in truth.

I second the Paladin suggestion. It gives you what you want from Barbarian, while also doing it with Dex as you wished. But I just don't like Barbarians. Never have. So I'm biased.


So far, I am leaning more towards the lore bard option. Since this is my first 5e campaign, though, how important is having a controller/debuffer compared to 4e?

In 4e, each class had a "Role" and if you didn't have all of the "Roles" covered, you were going to suffer as a party.
In 5e, none of the classes have predefined "Roles" and you decide what role you want to play regardless of class. You don't need to cover all of the "Roles," you just need to cover all the roles and work as a team.
You could literally run an entire party consisting of all the same class, and it will still work if people build and think with the team in mind.

Example:
Player 1: <Str based> [any race] (Champion) Fighter to tank.
Player 2: <Dex based> [Half-elf] (any subclass) Fighter with the criminal or urchin background and the skilled feat for stealthy skill monkey
Player 3: <Str and Cha based> [any race] (Battle Master) Fighter with well chosen maneuvers and the Healer feat as a controller/medic/party face.
Player 4: <Str or Dex and Int based> [any race] (Eldritch Knight) Fighter for casting.

That's a fully functioning party consisting of ONLY Fighters.

[Sigreid]

In our campaign, we don't have anyone who spends time debuffing. As far as the controller, so far we do it mostly with tactics and using the area.

[Corey]

The default choice for stealth/sneaking seems to be groups of two. Given that, having a rogue is no reason not to play a skill monkey bard.

Two levels is a lot to pay for having a good at-will attack, however. That doesn't mean you absolutely shouldn't do it, but you should think whether the party really needs that damage.

Also, a natural fit (even more natural if you didn't already have a cleric) is a one-level dip into Life Cleric for the armor. Then you get Sacred Flame, which certainly isn't near EB/AB for damage. But it's something.

How far will the game go anyway? As long as everybody just has a single attack, Vicious Mockery seems like a decent cantrip. It's only when there are multiple attacks, or multiplication of cantrip damage, that it looks really bad.

[ImSAMazing]

Go monk. Monks are fun to play and really versatile.

[DanyBallon]

Wanna try something kinda crazy? Since your party is already well rounded, I suggest roling 3d6 (or 4d6 it doesn't matter) place your attribute in the order that you rolled them. From there figure out which kind of character would be cool to be played with those stats. Once you've done this, ditch your attributes, you now have a character concept with strenght and weakness. You just need to use point buy to on par with the other players, of if you rolled extremely well, beg your DM to use those rolled attributes instead :)

[djreynolds]

A Paladin wouldn't work with this party at all. You have a Necromancer and a "generic" tiefling Warlock, which to me implies Fiend Patron. Adding a Paladin to that is ASKING for party conflict unless he's an Oathbreaker (though that could be interesting; you'd buff your Wizard's undead minions).

But wouldn't a little conflict be fun. And I never thought about oath-breaker. One of my characters is a lawful good wizard and we have chaotic neutral barbarian and we are always at odds and I think it shows just how important group dynamics are and how fun it is when players are really invested in the character and play their alignment. We are total opposites in game play, I play controlled and safe and he is reckless and its fun because he plays his chaotic neutral so very well.

[Toadkiller]

So one thing about the Warlock 2 thing. There's already a Warlock in the party. Dipping their class just to skim the cream can crimp their character. At least talk with them about it and listen for what they may be too polite to say.

[Ciraq]

So one thing about the Warlock 2 thing. There's already a Warlock in the party. Dipping their class just to skim the cream can crimp their character. At least talk with them about it and listen for what they may be too polite to say.

If he ends up going with a chain or tome build, I would likely not end up MCing there at all. However, if he goes the hexblade route as I suspect, he would be focusing on melee attacks more, and I would essentially only be picking up eldritch blast/agonizing blast for a bit of extra damage. If I end up going with the bard over the barbarian, I would talk to him before we started so that we would not be overlapping strengths. I definitely appreciate the advice, though!