Back up Character idea help

[Krav And Regna]

Okay so I've been playing a swashbuckler rouge lately in my groups new 5e campaign and I've nearly died twice in the last session one was literally one damage point away from death I'm looking into back up characters just in case my rogue does indeed die I was thinking of forge cleric though I'm up to suggestions I'm currently the parties damage dealer should I still stick with that role?

[iTreeby]

Play the character you want to play. Don't worry about party composition cause it sounds like a deadly game

[moonfly7]

Play the character you want to play. Don't worry about party composition cause it sounds like a deadly game
Yeah. Don't worry about that. The party always finds a way, you worry about having fun, and you will.
As for your predicament, I am in the exact same campaign basically.
I've lost 3 different characters, and my latest backup was, coincidentally, a forge cleric. I chose warforged for race, and took the weapon master feat for a war hammer, but you should do what you think is fun.
If you want to play a forge cleric, that's great. They're consumate tanks, in my humble opinion. They get +1 whilst wearing heavy armor, and can bless that armor every rest to be +1 thus gaining a very respectable AC. As you might guess, I'm partial to the warforged here because it gives a great heavy armor AC to begin with (16+prof), and with the bonuses from a shield AND forge cleric, they can be amazing frontliners. And if you want to healbot, positioning yourself between the enemy and the wounded is an effective strategy.
But any race will work for this, in fact something like a kobold in full plate shaking a hammer shaped mace is downright adorable. Bottom line, if you wanna go forge cleric, it's a very fun choice.

[Nhorianscum]

Okay so I've been playing a swashbuckler rouge lately in my groups new 5e campaign and I've nearly died twice in the last session one was literally one damage point away from death I'm looking into back up characters just in case my rogue does indeed die I was thinking of forge cleric though I'm up to suggestions I'm currently the parties damage dealer should I still stick with that role?

Play what ya like regardless of role.

If you care about role, good news, damage dealer isn't a dedicated role.

[Tawmis]

As the others said, play what you want.

Otherwise, if you force yourself into a "needed role" you may end up playing a character you don't enjoy.

In the world of D&D, characters come together randomly. There's no queue, or team picking! So it'd be perfectly normal for whatever you want to play to join the party.

[Laserlight]

Contra everyone else, I tend to take into consideration what everyone else is playing. In a party with a lot of martials, I play a wizard with some control, utility, and AoE capability. In the previous campaign, nobody wanted to be the Face, so I dropped STR, bumped CHA, and so forth. If we ever had an All Caster party, I'd probably run a tank and try to protect them.

However, if I had a build I really wanted to try, I wouldn't be too worried about what anyone else had, except I would avoid duplicating an existing PC build.