The last two D&D campaigns I've been in have had an interesting mix of characters. I don't mean just personality and role-playing wise, either (because I'm proud to say that my crew of gamers always come up with good stuff in that regard). But we've managed to pull off parties that are ostensibly missing essential archetypes.
I generally break down a standard four-person party as thus: the fighter (or barbarian, paladin, or other tank-like melee character), the arcane caster (wizard or sorcerer), the divine caster (cleric, or a druid built specifically for healing and spellcasting), and the rogue. Each has a specific role to play and niche to fill, and it's hard to make a go of any adventure without all of the different talents each one brings to the table.
Or is it?
In my first campaign with this particular group of mine, the players made it through the entire first half of the game (levels 1-10) without an arcane caster. Currently, we are about to wrap up the first leg of a campaign that has no tank (we're level 6, so we've made it pretty far, I'd say). From the standpoint of a traditional party, these groups shouldn't work. But they have.
Now, there are plenty of articles and blogs out there about how to get around in D&D without certain classes being present in the adventuring party. I've read some of these, and many of them are simple speculation based upon the rules. A quick tip for those of you not intimately familiar with rpgs: games rarely end up the way the rules say they should. Take this from the guy who knows how to build a pretty damn good character and can still suck 95% of the time because he can't seem to roll double-digits on a 20-sided die.
So I'm going to start a short series on how to survive in a party that is missing one of the key four archetypes. I'm going to base this on my own experience, not just what the rules say are possible or plausible. Some of it's going to work, but some of it just looks good on paper and really doesn't pan out in reality.
So, where to start...?
Personally, I've been pretty adamant that players play a character they can relate to and enjoy over what the group needs. Like you said, party balance does not have a huge effect in combat, and out of combat it forces players can think creatively. Anything the players need is another tool for the DM.
ReplyDeleteI remember Shawn and I playing with you, with our group of barbarian, paladin, cleric, and min-maxed wu jen which I'm pretty sure you wouldn't allow again. I'm ignoring my feeble attempt at monk, mostly because Crunk could do more damage in one attack than he did his whole life.
From the player side of things, not having a rogue did not enter my thoughts as far as meta gaming goes. Our characters were all head strong, and I actually wonder if having a rogue would have slowed things down as he did wussy roguish things like checking for traps and listening at doors. I'd be interested to see what you did differently/specifically because of our party combination.
There were a lot of interesting things done with that game which are different from the norm. The fact that you guys played multiple characters, for starters. But it worked, and it would be interesting later to explore some of the elements there (like the pros and cons of a single player running multiple characters).
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