Best and worst Single Class parties?

[sayaijin]

This has probably been asked before, but which class would be best if all members of the party only used subclasses from that one class (no multiclassing) from 1-20?

On the flip side, which party would fare the worst if all were that single class 1-20?

For the purposes of this thought experiment, let's assume they will encounter all three pillars often.

My assumption is that clerics and paladins would do best and rogues would be the worst. I assume druids would do very well as long as they have a moon druid tank, and wizards would do well if they could survive past say level 5ish.

[MoiMagnus]

I think I disagree with rogue being the worst. The first levels will be rough, but they have so much skills that they should be able to avoid a lot of problems [Three of them should focus on an different mental ability score], on top of being a full group of high stealth and high initiative characters, which is great from running away from issues you can't solve and coming back latter on your own terms, possibly having recruited some allies on the way.

I personally feel that the Barbarian are the ones that have the most issues in handling every kind of possible encounters.

I will agree with Cleric and Paladin being the best here. Probably artificer too.

[Eldariel]

Well, obviously classes that are already insane are supergood with stacked teams:

Cleric
Druid

Bard

Those are the obvious "can do everything without breaking a sweat"-classes. It's pretty easy to round out a party by just bringing all of those together: all of their spell lists are capable of everything and they have subclasses for all purposes: brawling, superior casting, utility, etc. Bard is the odd one out in that it doesn't get superstrong minionmancy on 5. A Cleric party walking around with a horde of Animated Dead or a Druid party with Conjure Animals for every hour of the day is stupidly hard to challenge without going totally off the charts with numbers. Lore Bards can pick those up on 6 but it's still a one level delay and you probably do want one-two non-Lore Bards for low levels (Eloquence, Glamour and Swords in particular all seem worth having). OTOH, Bards completely rock the numbers game with a ton of Inspiration, Expertises, etc. across the the board combined with skill-buffing spells. Bard is also spells known which hurts a bit in terms of utility but between 4 casters you can generally cover most of your bases (still, laser focus on specific area is useful at times and that's something Team Bard can't do while Team Cleric and Druid can)

Then the next tier would be classes that miss one thing but can be built to cover for the weakness:
Wizard
Warlock

Sorcerer

Both of those stack beautifully. The primary issue with Team Wizard is the lack of combat recovery, which given how strong the death gate of the game is, is a serious issue. However, it's one that can be overcome. Jorasco Halfling is the most obvious way but item-based options with the worst case scenario being Magic Initiate for Goodberry to spread across minions (early on familiars and unseen servants) for bonus action/action free revival 10/day. Wizards excel hard enough in everything else that you can afford a bit of a deficiency in this regard: a party of 4 Wizards is doubtlessly terrifying to face with the best minionmancy, die manipulation, subclass abilities & control/offense and most of all, long duration utility in the game.

Same cannot be said for Warlock as such: Celestial Warlock is a thing and e.g. Hexblade has some self-recovery options too. No, Warlock's problem is a bit different. They don't have room for anything but long duration spells. OTOH having 4 Warlocks in the party means you get to abuse Darkness/Devil's Sight mercilessly, which is stupid strong when the whole party benefits and it's enough to have one in the party (Team Druid can abuse it too, with Fog Cloud + Giant Spider Wildshape being a level 2 option and e.g. Conjure Constrictor Snakes + Fog Cloud working higher up).

Sorcerer is probably a tier behind Wizards and maybe Warlocks, but they do get native access to divine magic via Divine Soul and their metamagic opens up shenanigans worth noting. They don't get innate warrior chassis nor ritual casting which makes 1-4 rough (probably the roughest among all these classes) but it's otherwise a decently rounded party and Divine Soul and Tasha's backgrounds do open up some of the options missing from the class (though not nearly all of them). It has decent access to minionmancy only through Divine Soul which does weaken the whole unless you bring multiple Divine Souls but Divine Soul loses out in spells known compared to Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul so this loses out on overall versatility on again a spells known chassis.


Artificer is pretty well rounded but lacks a bit in terms of power compared to the top of the line so I'd put it probably on the same level as the Sorcerer (still better than the half casters due to the unique stacking options granted by magic items and the class being overall quite well rounded with no obvious flaws on any front). Then Pally probably comes next alongside maybe Ranger and then, of course, the classes that can't cast spells with maybe Rogue, Monk and Fighter largely even followed by Barbarian. Fighter probably has a bit more problems covering all their bases than Rogue or Monk so while it's a fairly strong combat chassis, for adventuring overall I'd put it below those two.


If I tried to tier this based on my gut feeling (not rigorous testing, probably a lot room for improvement with closer research), I'd probably put it like this:
Tier 1
Cleric
Druid

Tier 1.5
Wizard
Bard
Warlock

Tier 2
Sorcerer
Artificer

Tier 2.5
Paladin
Ranger

Tier 3
Rogue
Monk

Tier 4
Fighter

Tier 4.5
Barbarian

[Lavaeolus]

So, I feel like build flexibility is an important part here. Both in terms of effectiveness and fun. A team of Bards, selecting different spells and subclasses, will probably be quite varied in what they can bring to the party. A race with medium armor proficiencies or natural armour, like Tortle, might be of extra value here. Shores up AC in the early levels.

A team of Barbarians, meanwhile, feel like they're going to be more pigeonholed. They're tanky and will be able to pump out a fair amount of melee damage. That might, honestly, be enough to get them through a lot of campaigns, but obviously comes with a lot of potential weaknesses to poke at. Enemy up a cliff and firing from range? Enchanter Wizard sitting in wait, hoping for to take advantage of some nice low mental scores?

Now, the lvl-3 Wolf Totem ability to give "advantage on melee attack rolls against any creature within 5 feet of you" might get some extra mileage if everyone's melee-based. At Barbarian 14, Eagle gives a limited flight speed, which may come in particular handy here.