In my current group, we are having a very serious problem with the players outright refusing to fill any of the major (or even minor) roles in the party. This has been a problem since the inception of the campaign, when I tried to get everyone together for party planning.
First, I had not wanted to play a tank (only because I had played the tank in our last campaign, voluntarily and happily I will add, and wanted to do something different), but ended up rolling a barbarian when everyone else was dead set against playing a tank. Then we had to coerce another player into being the rogue. He ultimately was incredibly dissatisfied with his character and basically ran him straight into a golem so he could roll up a new one. Finally, one player was literally railroaded into being the healer, merely due to being the last one to arrive at our planning session. All in all, it was not an auspicious start...
The original party began like this:
Orc Barbarian (me)
Human Cleric (7 Con + no desire to be a healer = 90% of our healing resources went to saving him, followed by very early death)
Changeling Rogue (spec'd almost entirely for dps, meaning very low perception, no social skills, and ultimately what amounted to a suicide)
Human Monk (more on this later)
Gnome Summoner (a magical crit followed by an unlikely draw from the crit hit deck followed by a horrible roll on a VERY generous save DC... Well, he got planeshifted)
Elf Sorcerer (unfortunate rampant absenteeism by the player means this is really a non-presence in the campaign)
From the beginning, nobody put any ranks (at all, yes really) into knowledge or social skills, nobody prepared spells for buffing, debuffing, utility, or crowd-control, nobody had any sort of ranged dps except for (a few) attack spells. The GM had to seriously fudge some things just so we could have a chance to figure out what was going on. It was bad.
Player deaths have exacerbated the problem to the extreme. My own, last night, leaves the current party composition:
Elf Fighter/Bard (building to a spring attack style duelist)
Human Monk/Cleric (multi-classed after previous healer's death, heals when necessary, but does very little else, i.e. no buffs, no combat, no direct damage spells, some minimal crowd control)
Half-Orc Barbarian/Rogue/Alchemist (don't really know what to say... low hp, decent AC, low dps, low skills, self-only buffs, and bombs seem to do more damage to party members than enemies. this character seemed to have been built in response to my first suggestion that party roles were not being met, though I'm not sure how this helped...)
Changeling Magus (good dps, but very little else)
Currently, we have a healer and dps and well, nothing else. My Orc Barbarian, who can only Intimidate, has had to function as the party face, because nobody else can, or will. Knowledge checks are generally in the teens or lower. Nobody can spot a trap, and we have no way to disarm one if we found it. Getting through a locked door generally involves me smashing it. Combat starts with the barb/rogue/alch and the magus self buffing while my barb soaks a ton of damage and tries to interpose himself between enemies and group (usually unsuccessfully).
If you've read this whole post to this point, I'm sorry. That was just me venting some frustration. I think this campaign is about to implode. I believe I am finished with it, until we start something new. But, when that time comes... How do you and yours work out party roles, and how do you enforce them?
P.S. Please do not suggest a new group. These are my friends and we have played campaigns before and never had this problem. In fact, I have never seen anything quite like this...
Party balance? We make sure someone can use the wands of clw, but thats mostly it.
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Indeed. Hate to break it to you Crusader, but the problem is not they players' unwillingness to fit roles - the problem is the idea that the roles are necessary.
Sphar mentioned PFS; have you ever tried it? You end up with a pretty much random party, sometimes lacking one or two members of the "classic party" (fighter, cleric, rogue, wizard). I once ran a table with 3 monks, a cleric, a paladin (with no healing abilities), and a sorcerer (with no damage spells). And you know what? It all worked out just fine.
Pathfinder doesn't have codified roles, it has traditional roles.
With the advent of archetypes, it has become fairly easy to fill in gaps in the lineup.
I highly suggest you all forget the words "tank", "healer", etc. The GM needs to keep an eye on lopsided combinations (all casters requires special consideration, as does all martials) — however, the game is wide open.
Groups that break the traditional four-man party roles don't break the game. On the contrary, they make it more interesting.
This doesn't mean you can develop your PC in a vacuum. Team building necessitates communication between the players about strengths and weaknesses, regardless of the class combinations in the party.
At the end of the day, it is the GM's job to adjust the challenge to hit the "sweet spot". For my group, the sweet spot is when the enemies bring the PCs to near-death at least once an adventure, and once in a long while someone dies outright. You can achieve this with any combination of classes.
You can make nearly every party work.
Have alot of arcane caster but no tank? So what, one of them probably is into summoning. So there you have your tank. Or someone got an AC.
Noone wants to be a rogue? Someone probably picked up diplomacy anyway, and the best lockpick is called "two-handed hammer power attack" anyway :) for traps either avoid them, or send your biggest HP guy (or a summon) trhough first.
Noone wants to be the healer? Ok thats a tad more challenging, but either you have someone with CLW on their spelllist (bard, ranger, paladin, witch) and they can use CLW wands for example, or someone does it via UMD. Less reliable but eventually works too. Yes, you probably miss out on the Channel heals but maybe get the Healing hex in return, or lay on hands or something.
Sure it makes stuff more challenging. But is that necessarily a bad thing?
Because as you noticed, the alternative to force people to play something they don't like doesn't exactly work too well.
So maybe suggest that everyone should roll what they like, and then see how you can make it work with what you have. Maybe suggest then, that the witch picks up the healing hex, if you're missing the healer or the wizard Summon Monster, if you need a tank. That's not the same really as forcing them into a role.
I think your obsession with "roles" like dps, tank, etc, which dont exist in Pathfinder, is leading to your troubles, not fixing them.
Re-reading my OP, I completely understand why this is your reaction/response. I know that these are not absolutes, and that "deficiencies" (?) in the party can be overcome with creativity and good role playing. But, there are just so many holes...
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I think your obsession with "roles" like dps, tank, etc, which dont exist in Pathfinder, is leading to your troubles, not fixing them.Re-reading my OP, I completely understand why this is your reaction/response. I know that these are not absolutes, and that "deficiencies" (?) in the party can be overcome with creativity and good role playing. But, there are just so many holes...
I still suspect you're placing too much emphasis on roles. Why does the party need a rogue, for instance? Arguably the most essential "role" is healer, but the single most efficient means of party healing (even more than spells) is tapping everyone with a wand of cure light wounds after combat is over. And anyone whose class can cast CLW can use said wand without a Use Magic Device check. Just in the CRB and APG, that includes:
• Bard• Cleric
• Druid
• Paladin
• Ranger
• Inquisitor
• Oracle
• Witch
That's 8 out of 17 (about half) of the classes that can serve as the "healer".
And it just gets easier from there.
Elf Fighter/Bard (building to a spring attack style duelist)
Ok, so you have off healing, some low level utility spells, and a great melee group buff. Works as great support, and with spring attack will facilitate a mobile party.
Human Monk/Cleric (multi-classed after previous healer's death, heals when necessary, but does very little else, i.e. no buffs, no combat, no direct damage spells, some minimal crowd control)
He's primarily a monk. He should have high survivability (compotent AC, good saves). Cleric gets him lots of low level buffs.
Half-Orc Barbarian/Rogue/Alchemist (don't really know what to say... low hp, decent AC, low dps, low skills, self-only buffs, and bombs seem to do more damage to party members than enemies. this character seemed to have been built in response to my first suggestion that party roles were not being met, though I'm not sure how this helped...)
Really wondering how this character can manage having low DPS. He is multiclassing with the 2 most frontloaded DPS classes in the game, Alchemist and Barbarian, and adding in a 3rd high DPS class (rogue is high DPS if you can consistently hit, and the str bonuses from mutagen, rage, and inspire courage should provide that). He should be able to have every necessary skill covered, especially when you combine it with the bard who can take everything else. His HP is average to slightly bove, unless he has rolled poorly. This can be a solid primary DPS. He doesn't have great long term survivability though, so he needs to be careful.
Changeling Magus (good dps, but very little else) - magus has a great spell list, and the ability to add any wizard spell. Combined with the Bard and Alchemist, you more than have arcane spells covered.
Really, I have trouble seeing what you think your missing.
Pathfinder doesn't have codified roles, it has traditional roles.
With the advent of archetypes, it has become fairly easy to fill in gaps in the lineup.
I highly suggest you all forget the words "tank", "healer", etc. The GM needs to keep an eye on lopsided combinations (all casters requires special consideration, as does all martials) — however, the game is wide open.
Groups that break the traditional four-man party roles don't break the game. On the contrary, they make it more interesting.
This doesn't mean you can develop your PC in a vacuum. Team building necessitates communication between the players about strengths and weaknesses, regardless of the class combinations in the party.
At the end of the day, it is the GM's job to adjust the challenge to hit the "sweet spot". For my group, the sweet spot is when the enemies bring the PCs to near-death at least once an adventure, and once in a long while someone dies outright. You can achieve this with any combination of classes.
I think the issue is the dm has a certain kind of game in mind (that includes a fair amount of social interaction and investigation in order to acheive goals).
And even with the classes chosen, the players have very specific ideas on what they should do, there is no lean towards the inherant flexibility of the classes.
It seems that even though they are paying for it with characters, the players are still not interested in flexible character. Have a talk with your dm about this, I am sure he'd like to reduce his headache of dealing with the problem. One option offer up abilities so long as they are for something the character isnt already doing.
My group has a similar problem, where almost all the members of a fairly large group always want to play all martial characters. One possible solution is to allow them to take a super genius archetype without trading out the class abilities you normally would have to as layed out in these rules. But make it so you can only take these extra abilities if they arent part of what your character already does
So you could for instance add the wise archetype from Divine Archetypes, to you barbarian, and a solid amount of healing/regenerative magic to your character, but not provide a major boost in power, nor will it take away from your abilities to smash things angrily. The human monk could take an arcane archetype to a big of arcane utility to his character and the pure caster can take a martial archetype to add a little bit of survivability and combat punch to his character.
For me this is kind of a happy medium from using gestalt rules where there is a considerable bumb in pure power for the characters. So I recommend taking a look and talking it over with your dm. You might even want to consider picking specific archetypes for specific characters rather then giving lots of options so the dm can make sure the 'roles' are filled without forcing a player to give up whatever character he wants to play in the first place.
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We previously did a 1-10 levels campaign, and our group was like this :
1 Barbarian (2H)
1 Fighter (S&B)
1 Fighter (2H)
1 Swashbuckler (2WF, homebrewed 1-20 class with full BAB using Dex and Cha)
1 Ranger (archery)
1 Weirbrand (from Pathfinder database, updated to Magus when UM got out)
And it was awesome. God it was hard and every wizard looked like a god to us, but it was fun.
Our group (6 players + DM) usually just works it out in advance. We tend to swap roles from campaign to campaign so the same player doesn't get pigeon-holed into the same role over and over. With 6 players it's very easy to cover the bases (skill monkey, healer, melee, ranged, etc.) and we all just sort of settle into what we're going to play naturally.
The players work with the DM to make sure that necessary holes are covered or character concepts are feasible within the context of the campaign. Sounds to me like y'all need to have a sit-down and discuss what's going on in your current game. Maybe players are burned out? I would suggest you start your next session with a discussion about what's been going on. Good luck!
The obvious truth
It's. Not. Getting. Done.
Apparently, using the term "roles" closed down a lot of minds. Should a class be pigeonholed? No way. Do you need a rogue? A cleric? A fighter(type)? A high-damage-output-type? Nope.
But... Do you need to interact with NPC's? Do you need some ability to learn about your enemies? Avoid ambushes? Protect your allies? Engage in combat on something close to an even footing with CR appropriate adversaries?
If we can't do the "out-of-combat" stuff, like investigation, interaction, research, and you know... basic role-playing. AND we can't run combat efficiently, then there is a serious problem.
I have not thouroughly examined my friends character sheets. I don't know where they have allocated their skill ranks, which feats they've selected, or what spells are being prepared. I certainly have never tried to tell them how to build their characters or how to run them in game (except to suggest in broad terms that the various needs (maybe you'll like that better than "roles") of the party were not being addressed).
Whether you like it or not, something has to stand between deadlies and squishies. Something has to return hp and remove negative effects. Something has to deal with the weird, and often hard to find/identify problems. Something has to interact with the fantasy world you're in. Call it whatever you like. Fulfill it however you want. Downplay whatever terms with which you're uncomfortable. But my situation has de-railed, and I would like to avoid it in the future.
The original party began like this:
Orc Barbarian (me)
Human Cleric (7 Con + no desire to be a healer = 90% of our healing resources went to saving him, followed by very early death)
Changeling Rogue (spec'd almost entirely for dps, meaning very low perception, no social skills, and ultimately what amounted to a suicide)
Human Monk (more on this later)
Gnome Summoner (a magical crit followed by an unlikely draw from the crit hit deck followed by a horrible roll on a VERY generous save DC... Well, he got planeshifted)
Elf Sorcerer (unfortunate rampant absenteeism by the player means this is really a non-presence in the campaign)
OK, well, exactly why did your cleric have a Con of 7? Other than that, with a rogue, monk, summoner and cleric in the party you have 4 with 3/4 BAB, and that's enough fighting power if you don't have a dedicated fighting type.
From the beginning, nobody put any ranks (at all, yes really) into knowledge or social skills, nobody prepared spells for buffing, debuffing, utility, or crowd-control, nobody had any sort of ranged dps except for (a few) attack spells. The GM had to seriously fudge some things just so we could have a chance to figure out what was going on. It was bad.
You see, I think this is actually your fundamental problem. It's not that your party consists of the wrong kinds of class so much as there is little thinking going into how the characters are made with regard to the rest of the party.
Player deaths have exacerbated the problem to the extreme. My own, last night, leaves the current party composition:
Elf Fighter/Bard (building to a spring attack style duelist)
Human Monk/Cleric (multi-classed after previous healer's death, heals when necessary, but does very little else, i.e. no buffs, no combat, no direct damage spells, some minimal crowd control)
Half-Orc Barbarian/Rogue/Alchemist (don't really know what to say... low hp, decent AC, low dps, low skills, self-only buffs, and bombs seem to do more damage to party members than enemies. this character seemed to have been built in response to my first suggestion that party roles were not being met, though I'm not sure how this helped...)
Changeling Magus (good dps, but very little else)
... and this just underlines that. But that doesn't necessarily mean you have a 'dud' party. They can evolve if needed, after all. I had a similar problem when we started a 3.5 game with:
Human rogue (inquisitive concept)
Elf mix of combat classes that made a combat monster
Human wilder (blaster concept)
Human cleric (dedicated undead scourge)
... and the campaign turns into an intrigue/investigation campaign. We were almost completely out of our depth ... but we adapted, spent further skill-points wisely, kept our concepts but adjusted them for circumstance and did well in the game.
It ain't what you got, it;s what you do with it!
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Do you need to interact with NPC's?
Yes, but that doesn't mean you need training in social skills. Sure it'll help, but having a bunch of battle-focused non-diplomats bumbling around can lead to very fun situations. Failing diplomacy checks can, potentially, be just as fun as succeeding at them. Meaning you don't necessarily need a party "face".
Do you need some ability to learn about your enemies?
If you mean recognizing an enemy during combat and making a knowledge check to identify its weaknesses, then no, you don't. Mr. Powerattack can just keep chopping without knowing he needs another weapon to get past the DR - and even then, it would be reasonable to give him a perception check to notice "Gee, this doesn't seem to be as effective as usual..."
Or, if you mean learning about the villain so they can formulate a plan, have them go to a library and read up. Maybe hire an NPC to do a little divination. They don't have to do everything themselves.
Avoid ambushes?
How interesting is a story where the heroes spot every ambush? Let 'em fight it out.
Protect your allies? Engage in combat on something close to an even footing with CR appropriate adversaries?
Okay, this sounds like a different problem altogether. This isn't about people not covering the bases. Every class is combat-viable, so if the party's having that much trouble in combat, it's likely got more to do with people not knowing how to play their own characters than with the party makeup being out of whack - the earlier-referenced alchemist throwing bombs on his friends has nothing to do with said friends' skill sets, after all.
If we can't do the "out-of-combat" stuff, like investigation, interaction, research, and you know... basic role-playing.
As delineated above, all that stuff can be done (especially the role-playing and NPC interaction) without building your characters in any particular way.
Essentially what I originally posted
I'm confused by your responses, now. The problem is not that I don't know how to do these things. Nor is it that my party doesn't have the potential to do them. It's that nobody is doing them. I honestly can't tell what it is they're doing a lot of the time, but it often amounts to little or nothing. At a guess, I would say everyone wanted to be high dps, changed gears when it wasn't working, changed gears again when player deaths shifted the party composition, shifted again when new holes appeared etc., etc., etc.
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Essentially what I originally postedI'm confused by your responses, now. The problem is not that I don't know how to do these things. Nor is it that my party doesn't have the potential to do them. It's that nobody is doing them. I honestly can't tell what it is they're doing a lot of the time, but it often amounts to little or nothing. At a guess, I would say everyone wanted to be high dps, changed gears when it wasn't working, changed gears again when player deaths shifted the party composition, shifted again when new holes appeared etc., etc., etc.
Okay, now I'm confused. In your original post, you kept talking about people getting coerced into playing a tank/rogue/healer/etc. People replied that you didn't need people to be the tank/rogue/healer/etc. Then you said that wasn't what you meant.
Then you said that people needed to build characters who are able to do X, Y and Z with their characters. I replied that X, Y and Z are either unnecessary or able to be done without building characters specifically for those purposes. Then you said that wasn't what you meant, either.
People have replied to both your general inquiries and to your specific examples, yet you seem convinced that your problems are not being addressed. I would suggest, then, that perhaps you need to take another look at exactly what the problems even are. The problems you've actually communicated have been addressed. If there are problems that haven't been addressed yet in this thread, then you haven't communicated them yet.
I think his problem has to do with people not playing the characters they have effectively and intelligently. This party can (or at least should be able to) deal with all of the issues that he has brought up. It seems more like people are intentionally not doing what needs to be done.
No one picked up perception? Really? Just max ranks will help you avoid most traps and ambushes.
You mentioned everyone lacking a ranged weapon. You don't need a party that has someone who specializes in ranged weapons. That doesn't mean everyone shouldn't have one. Everyone should, even if it is just a crossbow. Failing to pick one up is like not bringing rations or a 10ft pole.
Your routinely missing critical spells? Everyone has spells. It sounds to me like the party is failing in their selection and making bad choices. The magus needs to look at how often he actually needs a touch spell, for instance, and then add a few croud control spells onto his list.
Every one of the characters you have outlined can be built to deal with CR appropriate foes.
But... Do you need to interact with NPC's? Do you need some ability to learn about your enemies? Avoid ambushes? Protect your allies? Engage in combat on something close to an even footing with CR appropriate adversaries?If we can't do the "out-of-combat" stuff, like investigation, interaction, research, and you know... basic role-playing. AND we can't run combat efficiently, then there is a serious problem.
You don't need skills to interact. Even then, a few skill points will go a huge way. Half of these things can be done 3-4 different ways with different skills.
It seems to me like your problem is not with roles not being filled, but with people not using the resources they actually have to approach problems.
Yes, that is the crux of the problem. It's not that we're missing this piece or that skill. It's that we're missing so much. Somehow, we have all these characters with all these unique builds, yet every situation we seem to be nowhere. For some reason, in this campaign, with guys I've played with for years, nobody wants to be responsible for anything. Maybe they are just burnt out... Seems as likely as anything.
Yes, that is the crux of the problem. It's not that we're missing this piece or that skill. It's that we're missing so much. Somehow, we have all these characters with all these unique builds, yet every situation we seem to be nowhere. For some reason, in this campaign, with guys I've played with for years, nobody wants to be responsible for anything. Maybe they are just burnt out... Seems as likely as anything.
That could be. Maybe they all just want a break, and the best thing to do is not stress over it but let them have one.
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Yes, that is the crux of the problem. It's not that we're missing this piece or that skill. It's that we're missing so much. Somehow, we have all these characters with all these unique builds, yet every situation we seem to be nowhere. For some reason, in this campaign, with guys I've played with for years, nobody wants to be responsible for anything. Maybe they are just burnt out... Seems as likely as anything.
Ah, well that's remedied easily enough! Just take six months or so and stay away from in-depth games like RPGs or TCGs. Play online flash games (Robot Unicorn Attack is a good one), classic video games (non-RPGs, though - think Double Dragon or Sonic the Hedgehog), maybe some good old fashioned Yahtzee or Uno. Heck, solitaire. Then come back fresh later on. It'll probably be more fun then.
Yes, that is the crux of the problem. It's not that we're missing this piece or that skill. It's that we're missing so much. Somehow, we have all these characters with all these unique builds, yet every situation we seem to be nowhere. For some reason, in this campaign, with guys I've played with for years, nobody wants to be responsible for anything. Maybe they are just burnt out... Seems as likely as anything.
Hate to repeat myself, but it's also possible that most players don't like that they've been forced to play a certain "type" of character. So you officially have a healer but he deliberately goes out of his way to not heal, and gives himself 7 con so that maybe he dies faster.
If people don't like their characters, they usually don't put much effort into playing them effectively.
Crusader, it sounds like they need a little coordination and leadership. Do you think you could rise to the task without being bossy? If so, that's probably the best solution.
Crusader, it sounds like they need a little coordination and leadership. Do you think you could rise to the task without being bossy? If so, that's probably the best solution.
Piggy backing on Evil Lincoln's post, call them out on it. Don't run to the forums with this expecting answers. Every answer that has been given in this thread has been speculation and platitudes. In management I've found that the best possible way to get your point across is to talk to the other person face to face. So next game, you need to take the lead and voice your concerns. Chances are your concerns are valid. If the group is burned out, the campaign needs a break. If the group doesn't have any interest in being responsible, roll with it! I once played in a group with no dedicated healers and no arcane casters. It was a barbarian, a polearm fighter, and a ranger/rogue. And we melted faces. It didn't matter that we had the diplomatic skills of a steel gauntlet. We got the job done our way and had a blast doing it. So the point of this is that as long as the other players are enjoying the characters, who cares? Just relax and enjoy the ride if the atmosphere is good. You'd be amazed at how competent a group can be once they start to gel into a unit.
TL;DR: Talk to your players for advice, not us.
Hate to repeat myself, but it's also possible that most players don't like that they've been forced to play a certain "type" of character. So you officially have a healer but he deliberately goes out of his way to not heal, and gives himself 7 con so that maybe he dies faster.
If people don't like their characters, they usually don't put much effort into playing them effectively.
Agreed. In a case like this it's not a bad idea to see if anyone's character could believably pick up the needed skill by GM gift.. need a trap dude?... do some sessions involving the thieves guild and teach someone a reasonable level of disable device as a class skill & give them a free skillpoint/level for it. do similar for a healer, give someone channel positive energy through in game eventss that can lead to it making the players their existing class plus a bit extra
edit:oopd your not the GM, talk to the GM about something like the above, maybe letting you get killed & reroll as a pseudo-gestalt with the ability to fill some rolls better. The GM probably hates having to handicap himself to blatantly TPK every encounter & might be happy to let you