Party optimisation philosophy

[Valmark]

The Dream Team with which I'd go into most challenges, uh...

1) A paladin to help out with saves. At my tables DMs often spring saves on the party as a surprise which can be both a mindflayer out of a bush or the druid licking the evil altar while in deynonichus form. The latter's something I did! I even ate the sacrifice!
Also for nova and tanking! And they can help out in the social field too.

2) A "healer". I put it like that because by healer I really mean somebody capable of casting Revify/Raise Dead/Resurrection/True Resurrection AND couple Aura of Vitality and/or Goodberry with Disciple of Life. Makes it so damn easier to recover after fights hp-wise. My personal favorites are either a Life Cleric with maybe a single level of Druid (problem: metal armor) and Mark Of Healing halfling or Lore Bard with a single level of Life Cleric, stealing Aura Of Vitality and maybe Goodberry (...that's a pretty lousy MS, honestly. I wouldn't personally do it. But it's possible). Out of the two I'd pick the cleric (though probably single classed to not lose the capstone)...

3) AND the bard. Of course only one takes on the 'official healer' role. Possibly the cleric, while the bard gets expertises and makes sure to get all the social skills. They both have plenty of stuff they can do out of the role they have been assigned.

4) Wizard. I'm currently playing two campaigns with no wizards (Life Cleric, Hexblade Warlock, Battlemaster Fighter, Duelist Rogue the first and Totem Barbarian, Something Paladin, Moon Druid, Lore Bard the second) and I feel the lack of a wizard. Personally I'd pick an Illusionist or an Evoker as subclass, but there's plenty to choose from- something that is working out awesomely in another campaign is an Abjurer with a single Life Cleric level. It's just awesome.

If there is a fifth slot I'd fill it with a Sheperd because nothing says "**** you" like 16 animals with enough hps to take an AoE unless the DM hates your guts. Also you know... Druid.
A Moon would be useful too. Honestly, the druid and wizard are probably exchangeable with no particular worry.

Plus, two out of Wizard, Bard and Druid can easily handle exploration.

[KorvinStarmast]

For a general adventuring party playing level 1-20 I would suggest something like this is about as optimized as you can get. Maybe splash in a bit of multiclassing.

SS+CE BattleMaster Fighter (Damage)
Subclass Undecided Cleric (Tanking/Defense/Healing/Out of Combat Utility)
Divination Wizard (Control/Out of Combat Utility)
Lore Bard (Social Pillar/Backs up other characters in their respective roles as needed)


Fighter helps ensures casters don't need to use many resources except in hard battles. Especially important in tier 1 and tier 2 when spell resources are less powerful/run out quicker, but still useful in tier 3 and 4.

Cleric tanks as needed. Early game the high AC and healing should be plenty enough for that. Tier 2+ you get Spirit Guardians to round that out. Clerics can also make ranged attacks with cantrips when not trying to tank.

Wizards, it's a wizard which I think is enough said.

Lore Bard, the social king and back up healer/controller/damager/additional out of combat utility.

For a game with no feats: what?
For a game with no MC: what?

That's why I feel we need to establish the categories first, and then do as you suggested above, present a team and why.

[MaxWilson]

For a game with no feats: what?
For a game with no MC: what?

That's why I feel we need to establish the categories first, and then do as you suggested above, present a team and why.

Can't we just tag a particular team by its constraints? FrogReaver's contribution is for a party that requires feats, but not multiclassing. (None of his suggestions are multiclassed.) We've already had a bunch of suggested categories/tags: feats, multiclassing, CAW vs. CAS, rest pace, encounter tendencies (mobs vs. solos, spellcasting NPCs or MM monsters, etc.), magic item dependency, goals (Punching Above Your Weight Class vs. Avoiding Catastrophe vs. Minimizing Incompetence) etc.

What I'm trying to say here is that there's nothing wrong with refining categories further, but I doubt they're actually going to get much more refined than they already are. Either you start filling in with parties and/or comparing them to each other under specific constraints (arena fights? preconstructed adventures?), or this thread dies for lack of oxygen. People want to move from meta-optimization (talking about how to have the conversation) to actually sharing their specific ideas.

FrogReaver's party sketch looks like it would do fine without magic items (Cleric can always supply magic weapons when needed), has decent crowd control, decent wizardry, decent damage. My single biggest concern would be how squishy the wizard and the lore bard are (and to some extent the battlemaster and the cleric), which means potential problems with concentration and being forced to react to enemies instead of proactively forcing them to deal with you.

Reminder from post #25:

A related way to think about party optimization could be "how robust is this party against player error?" Are there certain PC classes which rely less on player skill, perhaps to the point where an incompetent or malicious player still cannot lose?

The Holy Grail of one approach to party optimization (Punching Above Your Weight Class) might be "a party build which is so strong that, when played by skilled players, it can fight its way through an army of 5000 orcs and mind flayers and then kill Tiamat at 1st level at least 50% of the time, without even taking a short rest."

The Holy Grail of another approach (Avoiding Catastrophe) might be "a party build which is so reliable that you can run 10,000 Adventurer's League tables with this build through the same WotC adventure without a single TPK."

The Holy Grail of a third approach (Minimizing Incompetence) might be "a party build which is so reliable that one semi-competent newbie and three covertly-malicious saboteurs who are actively trying to TPK by displaying abject cowardice (Dashing away instead of fighting) and mistakes like Fireballs which 'accidentally' harm more PCs than bad guys will still successfully complete a typical WotC adventure at least half 90% of the time."

I conjecture that these three types of party optimization lead to very, very different party builds.

FrogReaver's party is so squishy and caster-heavy that Minimizing Incompetence just won't work for that party. You'll wind up with the lore bard and the wizard front-lining and getting destroyed (wasting their Portents on unimportant saves) while the cleric wades into melee with Holy Weapon cast on their own dumb mace and the battlemaster blows their action surges and dice on the first combat of the day (and then never rests after that).

The party is vulnerable to many attack vectors, but not ones that are common WotC hardcovers. (E.g. a squad of 8 quicklings strafing in and out of total cover and 18 goblins (NOT in Fireball Formation) shooting arrows from out of the darkness is probably off the table even at 12th level where it's merely a Medium fight on paper.) They'll do fine against any WotCish DMG-balanced adventure day. Therefore, this seems like an Avoiding Catastrophe party, not a Punching Above Your Weight Class party.

I haven't formed an opinion of Benny89's and Valmark's contributions (more detail would help). Would love to hear FrogReaver's and everyone else's opinions in more specificity. E.g. FrogReaver let me know if you think the quickling/goblin fight is fair game at 12th level and how the party would easily deal with it. Also much more detail on wizard and lore bard spell selections--one of the downsides of having only one wizard is that there are so many must-have wizard spells that you simply can't afford to learn, with only two picks per level. Lore Bards are even more constrained. So for example, is it a wizard spec'ed for divinations and auguries, or summoning, or DPR-based crowd control, or charm-based crowd control, or teleportation, or buffing, or safe resting--what combination of these can you afford and how deep will you go in each?

[KorvinStarmast]

nice post

One point is that
I do not agree that minimizing incompetence is a valid category for this exercise.
The very premise of optimization is antithetical to that. The rest of your post seems on point .

The title of this thread is party optimization philosophy, not "toss in your concept of optimized party"

What I want to see out of this thread is a consensus on the philosophy part. We can offer separate threads on each category or class.

[Gtdead]

Party optimization in a vacuum is a daunting task. Without benchmarks for the various aspects we seek to optimize, this discussion will never bear fruit. It will just be an opinion akin to a tier list. Won't be much different than a poll on best classes.

We need to define what it means to
Deal good damage
Have good defenses
Be a good support
Have good nova
Be a good face
Be good at the exploration pillar
Be good at stealth

People throw these around but what do they mean really? One may say that warlock deals good damage, and another may say that he deals bad damage. What do we compare it against? We need a difficulty curve so we all will be on the same page, and not have to argue about personal experiences and changing the goal post.

Damage is the easier to quantify, so let's create a benchmark to see how common classes stack up (this is an example):

IIRC, most CR 1 monsters have around 30 health, and it increases by 15/CR till up to 18.
So we can create a difficulty curve that the party has to beat. It will look something like that:

Deadly encounter for level X: 2 CR 5 monsters, 7 CR 1 monsters. An average of 390 health.
Party of 4 members consisting of Shaolin Monk, Peace Wizard, Cat Barbarian and Shame Bard.

How long does it take for this party to beat the encounter? We set a target for combat duration and an assumption that every aoe will hit up to a percentage of the monsters that makes sense (let's say half) and then start crunching dice numbers, modifiers and flat boosts. Once we have that, we compare it to the 390 and determine how much damage the party can do and how it paced it's resources. Did it passed the benchmark?

Do this for all levels and we have our answer. If the party beats the benchmark, then it doesn't matter if the main damage dealer is a paladin or a sharpshooter fighter. No point in getting into comparisons. If it doesn't pass the benchmark, we tweak it. We then proceed to pass the survivability benchmark, and then the next benchmark and the next, till we know that the party, at least on paper, is perfectly capable in every aspect.

[MaxWilson]

What I want to see out of this thread is a consensus on the philosophy part. We can offer separate threads on each category or class.

Ah.

I'm not a consensus-seeker by nature, and I don't expect to be part of any consensus growing out of this thread (my consistent approach throughout this thread has been more "it depends and here are some things to consider" than "here is The Way"). I don't know if the OP was looking for a consensus but in deference to you, Korvin, as the thread resurrector, I'll try to keep quiet.

[KorvinStarmast]

If I could take us back to page 1:

Are we trying to establish objective criteria for parties of 3, 4, 5, and 6 PCs in order to rank the combinations?

Aye, that would be the goal. Probably necessary to split the ranking by tiers and have some kind separate values for endurance and peak potential

DevilMCam (who has at least a general philocophy, or (borrowing an old military term)
a Concept of Operations.

In my book an optimised party has the following characteristics.
1. There is nothing every party member is bad at (stealth, social, exploration, and the various main combat toles), and any given task can be performed by at least 2 (3 if the group is large) party member
2. Every party member is the best at something
3. No party member has an obvious weekness that is not protected by at least 2 other party members

Followed by some of Max's framework suggestions:

Punching Above Your Weight Class
Avoiding Catastrophe

Since the original description of 1 was rather hyperbolic, I'd like us to come us with useful definitions for both.

So for clarity: Are you optimizing specifically for combat, or general use?

Since we're trying to do useful optimisation here, I think "general use" has to be the answer.

I now propose three main categories.
1. Optimized for tiers 1 & 2, beginning to end (which appears to be about the mean length of a given campaign.
2. Optimized for levels 1-12 or 1-15 (which seems to be the limit for published adventures)
3. Optimized for levels 1-20.

For this exercise, optimizing for a one shot defeats the purpose and is a separate category of optimization and great fun in any event. (We already have a lot of posts and threads on how to one shot party optimize ...)

Assumptions:
Class A. The party know what they will be facing before party forms.
Class B. The party knows somewhat what they will be facing before the party forms.

In terms of our framework, is everyone with me so far?

EDIT:
Ooh, wait, one example of how to approach party optimization was in this post which built a party from 1 through 6 ... interesting approach.

[GeistInMachine]

Hello, been lurking on this thread for a bit, just wanted to offer a bit of a party optimization strat I have been ruminating about for a while.

Specifically, Its a party comp that focuses on Strategic, Tactical, and Social Mobility I'd say this type of strat probably works best in games where many plates are spinning at once.
But, I think the value of this type of strategy parallels real life. Logistics, mobility, and response time are huge indicators of modern combat success that i think get overlooked in just number crunching.

It has a few roles that have to be addressed:

Strategic: Getting to where you need to be as fast as possible. Spells like Teleportation Circle, Dimension Door, Wind Walk, Transport Via Plants, Teleport, Plane Shift, Word of Recall, etc.
Heavily complemented by information gathering spells such as Augury, Arcane Eye, Scrying, Divination, Contact other Plane, etc.
The goal here is that by cutting down travel time, you can act on situations when they are still developing, or give more time to approach a problem in a smarter way before having to move on to the next problem.

Tactical In-combat Mobility. The effectiveness of a PC that can not hit a target because it is out of range is 0. Ways to increase movement speed or teleport are strongly valued to be able to apply your full force to an encounter whenever possible. Repositioning abilities are a big plus here as well, such as with Glamour Bards

Social Social Mobility involves getting to and from places you are otherwise barred from, or gaining allies or other tools that can solve problems. General Face stuff.

I have a few example comps at different party sizes. Some of the choices may seem odd, but play into the greater party strategy to make the party more than the sum of its parts:


4 Members:
Eagle-Elk-Eagle Totem Barbarian -Melee DPS, But also highly mobile in combat with bonus action dashes, Big draw is the Elk Totem doubling overland travel speed
Horizon Walker Ranger - Ranged DPS. Has a number of teleports and mobility options, and finding Portals is of strategic value. Etherealness later on gets the ranger into places they normally wouldn't be able to go. COmbos with the Barbarian through reducing penalties for traveling through bad terrain.
Divine Soul Sorcerer - Support build, Twin Haste for martials. Also grabs a ton of strategic mobility, with DDoor, Teleport, Plane Shift, and Word of Recall as options
Dreams Druid - Unique return to save point mechanic is great for strategic mobility, and free teleports in combat great for tactical mobility. Wind Walk, Transport via Plants are great pickups, which is why all my comps have a druid

5 Members:
Eagle-Elk-Eagle Totem Barbarian - As above
Horizon Walker Ranger - As above
Divination Wizard - Injects information gathering much more strongly into the party, meaning the party can react quicker and travel more efficiently. Takes the load of the sorc for Teleport and Plane Shift, which allows the Sorcerer to be more combat focused.
Divine Soul Sorcerer - As above
Dreams Druid - As above

6 Members:
Eagle-Elk-Eagle Totem Barbarian - As above
Horizon Walker Ranger - As above
Divination Wizard - As above
Divine Soul Sorcerer - As above
Trickery Cleric/Glamour Bard - A tossup between Strategic information gathering and Tactical positioning abilities. Both get DDoor, which puts the entire party able to DDoor to any inaccessible location in pairs. Trickery is chosen here mainly for its spell list. Any other cleric has strong mobility problems both tactically and strategically
Dreams Druid - As above


So what are people's thoughts on the value of mobility as something to optimize for?

[Frogreaver]

Hello, been lurking on this thread for a bit, just wanted to offer a bit of a party optimization strat I have been ruminating about for a while.

Specifically, Its a party comp that focuses on Strategic, Tactical, and Social Mobility I'd say this type of strat probably works best in games where many plates are spinning at once.
But, I think the value of this type of strategy parallels real life. Logistics, mobility, and response time are huge indicators of modern combat success that i think get overlooked in just number crunching.

It has a few roles that have to be addressed:

Strategic: Getting to where you need to be as fast as possible. Spells like Teleportation Circle, Dimension Door, Wind Walk, Transport Via Plants, Teleport, Plane Shift, Word of Recall, etc.
Heavily complemented by information gathering spells such as Augury, Arcane Eye, Scrying, Divination, Contact other Plane, etc.
The goal here is that by cutting down travel time, you can act on situations when they are still developing, or give more time to approach a problem in a smarter way before having to move on to the next problem.

Tactical In-combat Mobility. The effectiveness of a PC that can not hit a target because it is out of range is 0. Ways to increase movement speed or teleport are strongly valued to be able to apply your full force to an encounter whenever possible. Repositioning abilities are a big plus here as well, such as with Glamour Bards

Social Social Mobility involves getting to and from places you are otherwise barred from, or gaining allies or other tools that can solve problems. General Face stuff.

I have a few example comps at different party sizes. Some of the choices may seem odd, but play into the greater party strategy to make the party more than the sum of its parts:


4 Members:
Eagle-Elk-Eagle Totem Barbarian -Melee DPS, But also highly mobile in combat with bonus action dashes, Big draw is the Elk Totem doubling overland travel speed
Horizon Walker Ranger - Ranged DPS. Has a number of teleports and mobility options, and finding Portals is of strategic value. Etherealness later on gets the ranger into places they normally wouldn't be able to go. COmbos with the Barbarian through reducing penalties for traveling through bad terrain.
Divine Soul Sorcerer - Support build, Twin Haste for martials. Also grabs a ton of strategic mobility, with DDoor, Teleport, Plane Shift, and Word of Recall as options
Dreams Druid - Unique return to save point mechanic is great for strategic mobility, and free teleports in combat great for tactical mobility. Wind Walk, Transport via Plants are great pickups, which is why all my comps have a druid

5 Members:
Eagle-Elk-Eagle Totem Barbarian - As above
Horizon Walker Ranger - As above
Divination Wizard - Injects information gathering much more strongly into the party, meaning the party can react quicker and travel more efficiently. Takes the load of the sorc for Teleport and Plane Shift, which allows the Sorcerer to be more combat focused.
Divine Soul Sorcerer - As above
Dreams Druid - As above

6 Members:
Eagle-Elk-Eagle Totem Barbarian - As above
Horizon Walker Ranger - As above
Divination Wizard - As above
Divine Soul Sorcerer - As above
Trickery Cleric/Glamour Bard - A tossup between Strategic information gathering and Tactical positioning abilities. Both get DDoor, which puts the entire party able to DDoor to any inaccessible location in pairs. Trickery is chosen here mainly for its spell list. Any other cleric has strong mobility problems both tactically and strategically
Dreams Druid - As above


So what are people's thoughts on the value of mobility as something to optimize for?

The problem with strategic mobility:

1. It’s not even possible till tier 3. This places it low on the priority list.

2. It’s primarily linked to how the DM frames an adventure and even then, without teleportation/plane shift (level 7 spell), you are still going to have an adventure. You are still going to be able to change the world. You are still going to have the opportunity to stop the BBEG because that’s How D&D is ran.

[KorvinStarmast]

So what are people's thoughts on the value of mobility as something to optimize for?

If we frame this as "Optimization for a Tier 3 or Tier 4 campaign" that might hit a sweet spot. (Also, I like the way that you think on this)

Shoot, move, communicate.

how do the above parties fare in Tiers 1 and 2?

[GeistInMachine]

The problem with strategic mobility:

1. It’s not even possible till tier 3. This places it low on the priority list.

how do the above parties fare in Tiers 1 and 2?

I think the Tiers 1 and 2 are going to be carried by the Ranger and Barbarian. Strong DPS is never not useful, but the combination of their abilities makes the party much faster overland, with Elk Barb doubling overland movement speed, and if you use Natural Explorer to make something like Mountains and Forest not slow your group's travel, you really speed along. I have seen this combination work to great effect in hex crawls or West Marches settings. That is why these two are in every party I listed, because they are the early game Strategic Mobility options, then later game it transfers to the casters.

2. It’s primarily linked to how the DM frames an adventure and even then, without teleportation/plane shift (level 7 spell), you are still going to have an adventure. You are still going to be able to change the world. You are still going to have the opportunity to stop the BBEG because that’s How D&D is ran.

This is true of any metric for optimizing. You will still have an adventure even if unoptimized, just an easier one, or one where you have more failures than successes in achieving a party's goals. What this type of party in theory allows is to tackle more problems in the same amount of time as other parties, which means you can spin more plates of quests with time limits, or have more opportunity to do side missions to grab powerful items or allies. I think overall, especially in dramatic campaigns with lots of time crunches, this party design means having a lot more capacity to accomplish both sides of what is normally an either/or decision.

Ultimately, I think if optimizing for power or survivability means the ability for your DM to throw harder challenges at you and still succeed, this approach by contrast allows the DM to use more concurrent challenges, and have the party still succeed.

[Waazraath]

I think the Tiers 1 and 2 are going to be carried by the Ranger and Barbarian. Strong DPS is never not useful, but the combination of their abilities makes the party much faster overland, with Elk Barb doubling overland movement speed, and if you use Natural Explorer to make something like Mountains and Forest not slow your group's travel, you really speed along. I have seen this combination work to great effect in hex crawls or West Marches settings. That is why these two are in every party I listed, because they are the early game Strategic Mobility options, then later game it transfers to the casters.

No new content to bring here atm, but wanted to say that I really like this part. I never played these types of games (don't even know what a 'hex crawl' is), and rated the class features used here as (really) low on my own lists. Illustrates really nicely how ones own game experience shapes what one thinks is 'good' or 'optimized'.

[Gignere]

If we frame this as "Optimization for a Tier 3 or Tier 4 campaign" that might hit a sweet spot. (Also, I like the way that you think on this)

Shoot, move, communicate.

how do the above parties fare in Tiers 1 and 2?

Should be fine the divination wizard will carry the party lmao, no but seriously some of the subclasses he suggested are really great from tier 1 to tier 4.

Like divination wizard, divine soul sorcerer, and Druid, these are all powerhouses.

Barbarian is a solid BSF and HW ranger is one of the better ranger subclass.