Dispensible: Warriors

     The next character archetype on the chopping block is the warrior. 
     As far as D&D is concerned, I'm referring mostly to fighters and barbarians; classes that are the typical "tank" in that they are designed specifically to deal and take damage. These are the classes whose job is to stroll out into the front of the battlefield and start swinging. 
     The line here gets a little fuzzy, though. D&D has a lot of classes that are considered "martial" classes. Mostly, these are classes that have the defining characteristic of having the best Base Attack Bonus and the most combat-oriented special abilities. However, many of these do not qualify as tanks, as far as I'm concerned. Rangers and swashbucklers, for instance, might be able to put out a lot of damage, but their limited armor selection and relatively low hit points make them mighty vulnerable in a front-line situation. The paladin suffers similarly, because they have a lot of nifty special abilities that are a nice touch, but that really just get in the way of essential tank-duties.
     The thing to keep in mind is that if a warrior wants to keep from lagging behind in the damage-dealing business, he or she really needs to focus. In my last post, when I was talking about the fighter dishing out as much as the warmage, I was talking about a high level character who had enough feats to really specialize. And the times he was dealing massive amounts of damage involved using Power Attack with a magical two-handed weapon that would cause a critical hit on every third or fourth attack. Weapon combat takes a lot of money and time to make as damaging as even the most basic arcane attack spell. It's really just Strength plus weapon damage, and neither of those increases much without a lot of levels and gold pieces (to buff up your ability points and to add bonuses to your weapon). There are a handful of feats (like Power Attack) that help a lot, but that's it. While I've seen a well-built fighter keep up with the damage-dealing, I've seen just as many fall behind. Using a single-handed weapon without Power Attack, for instance, isn't going to do much more than 10 points of damage on average (and that's even assuming an 18 Strength with a magical weapon). Compare that to the 17.5 average damage done by a single fireball from the lowest possible level wizard (minimum level 5 to cast third-level spells).
     So if you're looking for damage output, it's pretty easy to replace the tank with a combat-focused mage or even a good archer (especially with feats like Rapid Shot and Multishot). We've even talked about how a rogue can dish out roughly the same amount of damage in sneak attack dice. I can personally attest to this, since I just had a game session where my 5th level rogue did roughly 60 points of damage in three rounds. Built for melee, with a keen rapier (15-20 crit threat range) and the Telling Blow feat (which allows you to add your sneak attack dice to any crit), a rogue can fairly consistently crit and deal massive amounts of damage. Or, instead of relying on crits, a melee rogue can go the Bluff-Feint route, and still get their sneak attack dice more often than not. Not to mention that much of the time a rogue gets to attack a flat-footed opponent and a mage gets to make touch attacks (if they have to make any rolls at all), which helps make up for their lower BABs (as compared with a warrior). Either way, we see a lot of damage can be done by a non-martial classes.

Well, they normally wear good armor...

     Which leaves the tank's real purpose to be in attack-absorption. In all fairness, this is one place where no other character type can really compare. Warriors can wear the best armor and have the most hit points. They also are great at drawing a lot of attention to themselves. The horde of baddies are going to pay more attention to the full-plated fighter who is a whirlwind of blades or the frothing, raging, axe-wielding barbarian than they are those hanging back and doing things that are ostensibly less threatening. That is a drawback in a party that has no tank; the damage is likely going to be more distributed among the squishier classes. 
     This is not an insurmountable challenge. The key with a party without a tank is just that it needs a number of other front-line characters to help absorb the damage. Split up even among "weaker" classes, usually you won't get total party kills (provided that the GM is giving you appropriately-leveled encounters, no single encounter should be enough to drop you all).  So long as there is enough healing to go around, and as long as the party is smart about it (and not afraid to retreat if necessary), they should survive with no problem. 
     As far as parties that are missing key archetypes go, the tank-less party lends itself to a game that could be far more interesting in the long run. The non-fighter characters are apt to have the lion's share of the party's skills, anyway, so non-combat scenarios won't be affected. This type of party might even lead to a subtler, less combat-oriented campaign, which can be just as fun. So go ahead, give it a try!