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I always see it less "What classes are needed?" and more "What services can be fulled?"
Something along these lines:
Trapper
Healer
Arcane/Knowledge
Divine/Knowledge
Face
Damage Dealer/Magnet
The /Knowledge means a character with those knowledge rolls. One of those kinds of casters/characters isn't that bad an idea either.
Face means a character who can get the party through social situations with little difficulty (there's always that nat 1....).
Trapper is a character who can spot and disable traps if need be. These are usually the characters with the highest perception, but it doesn't hurt to have one of those as well.
Healer and Damage are obvious.
If one character fills more than one service, then you have less to worry about. However, if a character takes on too many, you'll have a "Jack of all trades, master of none" situation.
"I can heal you!" He heals the 20/126 hp Fighter for 6 points of damage. "That's all I got. Need to know what spell he's casti--? oh, nevermind. Anyone know how to bury a body? Wait, I do!" Why do I know that!?
My two copper.
Than either you are over-powering your party or they don't understand there classes, because I have heavy hitter Paladin and Synthesist and a Barbarian is a war-machine. The bard is not a big hitter, but you have some amazing melee ability. So I'd look back on your encounters.My party includes a Paladin, a Barbarian, a Bard, a Battle Cleric, and a Synthesist Summoner. We lose every encounter because without a Fighter we just can't deal enough damage because we don't have anyone who fills the "hit things" role. I guess that's because we're all spoiled brats who want to play all these other classes when any true roleplayer would know that the original classic party is the only viable one.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a lawn to be told to get off.
Sarcasm is one of the many services Roberta Yang offers. ;-)
We do need some sort of indication a post is meant as sarcasm.
Why do you people keep saying I am sarcastic? I literally have a very busy schedule of receiving instructions to get off of people's lawns.
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Sarcasm is one of the many services Roberta Yang offers. ;-)We do need some sort of indication a post is meant as sarcasm.
No, people just need to improve their reading comprehension.
My experience running the game:
There are five roles: Damage Guy, Tough Guy, Healing Guy, Sneaky Guy, Social Guy. These can each be different character, or characters can have a smattering of several (a bard could take on the role of sneaky guy and healing guy, while a cleric takes on tough guy and healing guy, etc.) Party's can be fine without some of them being represented, but if they have each then they will never hit a wall.
The only one I would say is essential is the Tough Guy. If you don't have at least one character with high hit points and good AC, the party will never be able to fight big bosses because no one in the group can being hit by a single, really strong enemy. They'll be limited to encounters with groups of weaker enemies, which can get repetitive.
Example: My last adventure was with an oracle, alchemist, barbarian, and bard. They did really well with all sorts of different kinds of encounters until the barbarian had to leave and was replaced by another player playing a rogue. Suddenly enemies the party had no problem taking down were impossible to defeat without me nerfing their damage on the fly, and I had to rethink how encounters were structured.
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On the GM side of the table, I look over the list of characters that my players have created and ask myself, "How can I modify the encounters in this modules so that those characters will be effective?" A few months ago, my players entered the Spires of Xin-Shalast module with a party specializing in information gathering. For them, the deadly lost city designed for a combat-focused party transformed into a place of intrigue, where one evil faction would aid mysterious outsiders for a chance to eliminate their rivals.
If my players want to play a magus, an inquisitor, a ninja, a kitsune sorcerer, a goblin firebomber, and a good-aligned necromancer in addition to the more traditional fighter and cleric while fighting goblins in The Brinewall Legacy, it is my job to provide those characters with ways to seem awesome. I needed to add more challenges anyway, due to the eight-member party. Could the civilized goblin fool the local goblins? A few, when it mattered. Is the party in danger because the goblin raiders have their own firebomber hidden up a tree? The sorcerer took that one out. Do the skeletons serving an honorable duty beyond death listen to words that the party serves the heir of their former lord? When the necromancer rolls well to get their attention and the inquisitor explains convincingly.
If I adapt challenges to the party, then all roles are filled.
In contrast, some challenges are too classic and too common to leave out. I expect the party to be able to deal with:
- Battling a horde of weak warriors,
- Subduing one incredibly strong giant brute,
- Overcoming an arcane spellcaster protected by terrain,
- Overcoming a divine spellcaster protected by minions,
- Tracking the bandits to their secret hideout,
- Avoiding the army that could easily crush them and scouting out the army's weak point,
- Defending against an assassin in the night,
- Convincing the local authorities that they are the good guys,
- Defeating a rival party of less capable adventurers, and
- Trekking through trapped corridors with a dozen rooms of weak encounters to reach a macguffin at the end.
If they can handle all of those, then they have the essential roles covered.
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From most important to least:
- Person who brings snacks.
- Person who accurately keeps track of loot
- Person who can talk for party regardless of CHA score
- Person who can tell you what option is best for you and what book it is in
- Person who can keep track of the DM's plot and those silly subsystems
My current party is ...Bard, Bard, Monk, Monk, Witch, Wizard(razmirian priest), Fighter and now a Battle Cleric.
The first Bard is an Archer bard who provides a sizable amount of damage due to having four multi-attackers in the Zen Archer Monk, the Crane Style Monk, the Dual Wielding fighter, and the bard himself who uses a bow. We make fun of him for being "The Halfling bard" but he actually contributes a lot to the party. We have two reliable battlefield controllers in the witch and wizard, two familiars with wands of cure light wounds, and a cleric who can channel when we need it.
The other bard is the one that's kind of lame.
Heh, the "tough guy" that can "take a hit" from the BBEG can always be a summoned creature...
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For me, the only roles that have to be played are the ones the players themselves have to take on:
The smart one with the plan
The lucky one with the dice
The one who is willing to share his resources
The one who isnt planning to screw his party over
And the most important?
The DM/GM who realizes who is sitting at their table and what is being played and adjusting the adventure accordingly so ALL can have fun.
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For me, the only roles that have to be played are the ones the players themselves have to take on:
The smart one with the plan
The lucky one with the dice
The one who is willing to share his resources
The one who isnt planning to screw his party overAnd the most important?
The DM/GM who realizes who is sitting at their table and what is being played and adjusting the adventure accordingly so ALL can have fun.
*applauds* Couldn't have said it better myself.
the only role neccassary is the healer, whether it's an in combat heal, or out of combat heal, or negate a status effect you must have somone who can heal and restore.
Every other role is optional, including how well you do damage, but no healer and it's a no go.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the holy trinity (quadnity?) of Fighter/Rogue/Wizard/Cleric is actually, now, one of the poorer combinations, because there is NO overlap between each highly-specialized class. You lose one player, or one party member is killed, and your party is so much weaker. Instead, why not use classes like Ranger or Barbarian, instead of Fighter, who are almost their combat equals, have more skills, more versatility, and can fill other roles at need?
While I realize that not everyone likes to multi-class, adding a level or more of rogue to a lot of classes is far better than having a dedicated pure-rogue. Cleric can be good "pure", but dipping into cleric also provides backup or minimal amount of heal that can get a party back on their feet, etc.
A lot of people are also getting fuzzy-wuzzy about this, and stating that "fun is all that matters", and etc. We all know this, but I suppose it's nice to remind people now and then.
It seems to me that the point of this thread is to explore the traditional roles vs. the options now available, when considering party structure, and whether the DM should feel obligated to alter encounters to fit the PC class mix, or whether those PCs should find creative ways to use their class mix to defeat traditional encounters.
I'd also like to point out that since there IS a DM running the show (i.e. this is a dynamic game, not a pre-scripted video game), what is "essential" is really up to the DM and the players, since the DM creates the encounters, thus defining the problems that need to be solved, and the players have to overcome those challenges.
As examples, the players may find that given their "style" of combat or approach to the game, they NEED a healer, because no one is really good (or likes playing) a battlefield-control character, or a diplomatic character to "talk things out". You may have a DM whose monsters don't negotiate, attack on sight frequently from ambush, and usually have high stealth. This latter approach would force the party into combat no matter how clever they were.
Also - who says you need a healer? Proper battlefield control, and the application of the "15-minute adventuring day" (i.e. PCs don't press on but rather rest after each encounter, even if it means days of natural healing), actually removes the necessity of a healer (although it's still very inconvenient). As DM, you can encourage PCs away from that approach, or you can let the party get by without a healer by this adjustment of tactics (at least until they get healing potions or a CLW wand).
PS - Shoutout to Roberta: your posts are cunningly crafted pieces of trolling. I am still amazed how many people take those posts literally. Oh - and get off my lawn! ;-)
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ARISE MY CREATION, ARRIIIIISE!
Having a designated hitter is nice, but you shouldn't really need a specialist damage dealer so long as the party isn't full of cripples. Having a healer is also nice, but having a supply of consumables and a character or two that can use CLW wands will almost always suffice.
Hello there,
I realise this is 3 years old but i've been busy living life and had to step off the DnD bandwagon for a while (for those old brilliantgamelogist posters)
I'm finally caught up on pathfinder and thought I'd put in my two cents here.
I find the notion of roles to be slightly outdated, the truth is you should build your party with only four thing in mind:
What are our parties strenghts
How do we leverage these strenghts
What are our parties weaknesses
How do we aleviate those?
Sure there are classes that can work better together for that, but it all boils down to this. And ultimately, like always, classes with more options shine more.
Let's take a party that has a severe deficit in one role that both traditional treantmonk style posts have defined as needed : The BSF, who was later redefined as the hammer
Let's make the party:
A wizard, a sorcerer, a witch and a bard.
Question #1: Extreme versatility, Extreme ability to buff/debuff, Extreme control
Question #2: Shaping the battlefield and using versatility to avoid direct contact with ennemies and to predict encounters.
Question #3: Lacking in the defenses department, very vulnerable to unplanned encounters.
Question #4: Quick Get out of jail free cards or contingencies, animal companions to shore up a quick defense, summons.
Of course this is a tier 1&2 party,
Let's look at a party that lacks the GOD type or more recently, lacks arms and anvils.
A Barbarian, A ranger, A Monk, A rogue.
Question #1: extreme damage, very high survivability.
Question #2: hitting hard and fast, inflicting as much damage as possible.
Question #3: No versatility and very little ways to affect positioning or mitigate ennemy encounters. No healing.
Question #4: Buy versatility items, or gear class abilities to shore those up. The ranger gets a lizard with a climb speed, the monk gets that ability that allows him to jump very high and grapple flying wizards, everyone invests in stealth in order to take ennemies by surprise. Get a wand of CLW.
As a closing statement:
Why are people still raving about the healer!
you don't need a freaking healer!!
just buy a wand of fiendish healing!
As a closing statement:
Why are people still raving about the healer!
you don't need a freaking healer!!
just buy a wand of fiendish healing!
For "healer" read "condition removal specialist." In general, battlefield hit point recovery is a waste of actions; you can't restore hit points anywhere near as fast as the bad guys can remove them, but once the combat is over, use whatever wands are convenient.
However, this doesn't apply to battlefield status removal. When your paladin is blinded, your fighter is panicked, your summoner is unconscious, your wizard is feebleminded, and your bard is paralyzed, you probably want someone around with the capability to address those.
As a closing statement:
Why are people still raving about the healer!
you don't need a freaking healer!!
just buy a wand of fiendish healing!
A healer is much more than someone who can wield a wand of Cure Light Wounds/Infernal Healing. It's also status removal, and support. In theory a healer can be completely replaced by a person with UMD and a stack of scrolls of Remove Paralysys/Fear, Break Enchantment, Raise Dead, and so on. But if you're unprepared (you either run out in the middle of nowhere, or got caught unaware), a Cleric has those at his command every single day. A healer is usually also a buffer/debuffer. I have a lot of characters that can smash face, but one of my favourite characters remains my support Cleric. He does very little in combat other than throw buffs on his allies and some emergency healing, and it can get quite stale, but it's also a puzzle: with all the resources at my disposal, how can I make sure this encounter will be over as soon as possible? For most martials it's simply attack more, but say the healer wins initiative and has nothing to heal. He can either delay until someone needs healing (reactive), or cast a spell to help the others along (proactive). Ideally, I'd do that every single turn and no one should need any healing. But say the party gets caught unawares and eats a Fireball before they can act in combat. They start the fight with a disadvantage, and while it's possible to still win that fight, having a dedicated healer around helps you overcome that disadvantage.
Plus there are so many different divine classes these days. Its not like you have to play a Cleric to be the healer. I mean just look at all of the people who can cast lesser restoration these days. Remove Fear, Remove Paralysis, and Break Enchantment are all also rather easy to get your hands on.
A full 18 classes have access to break enchantment if I'm counting right. That is nearly half of the entire cast of available classes. That access makes covering "essential" roles so easy, because many classes can pose and fill in for whatever role your party is currently missing.
In that optic, I will concede the usefulness of the healer, and ressources should indeed be spent, in a healerless party or not, to fulfilling that weakness.
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I prefer clerics when it comes to the full range of condition removal, but the fighter doesn't necessarily have to be the fighter.
And rogue and fighter can be easily covered using slayers, urban rangers, investigators, archelogist bards etc. The boundaries are not as fixed as people percieve them to be.
With evangelist archetype, your cleric can be a bard(for the purpose of inspire courage), though you lose out some healing in the process.
Again if you murderhobo fast enough, you can cut down on healing required.
Are there essential roles within a party?
It seems to me that you want to have a party that can handle all of the challenges that it faces, but certain challenges just aren't going to show up depending on the type of campaign- a game that takes place in a single city does not need someone who can cast plane shift or greater teleport, a game where all combat is in big open spaces doesn't really need a melee specialist, any given knowledge skill may never come up, etc.
There should, after all, be multiple solutions to any given problem just by the nature of these sorts of things. So if you have a party who is no good at melee combat or can't cast a specific spell, or whatever then they should be able to deal regardless.
It seems like rather than fill essential rolls, one's goal would be "I can do a bunch of things that are useful" and to avoid overlap (e.g. one person with max ranks in knowledge: dungeoneering is probably enough). It seems like you're more likely to run into trouble with classes that cannot do a bunch of useful things, not because the entire party does not cover every single useful thing conceivable.
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You can play whatever you want but I have always found that you need certain roles to properly have a balanced party. A good GM will always balance a scenario or campaign to accommodate whatever the players bring.
My personal preferred 4 player party build would be:
* A dedicated melee combatant. Two in a 5 player party.
* Scout/trap finder/trap remover. Preferably a rogue but other characters such as ranger can fit the role. Should be built for ranged combat as well.
* Healer/buffer. I prefer cleric for this role but the life oracle does the job extremely well too.
* Arcane caster and knowledge character.
I feel I'm in the minority when I say that a distinct role of "healer" is unnecessary. It should be a job for the party as a whole to lick their wounds, not force a single character to invest their resources to fixing boo-boos. If your party has a cleric, their spell slots tend to be better used smashing faces than they are fixing the fighter. That's what scrolls are for. They have a numerical value, and everyone can contribute to the cause. Sure, you need people able to activate those items, so a low level party is better off with someone who can do that. Hit mid-level, and anyone with a UMD score should be able to pitch in, too.
1. A necromancer, to animate the corpses of those the party kills.
2. A second necromancer, to animate the corpses those animated corpses kill (plus, it's not fair that one guy has to buy all the black onyx).
3. A cleric necromancer to channel negative energy to control the renegade spawn of those killed by the dead animated by 1 & 2.
4. A paladin, to spawn "should the paladin fall" threads.
I feel I'm in the minority when I say that a distinct role of "healer" is unnecessary. [...] Sure, you need people able to activate those items, so a low level party is better off with someone who can do that.
You're not actually arguing that "healer" is unnecessary; you're saying that everyone should invest resources (at least to the extent of attribute points to Charisma and of skill ranks to UMD) to be able to perform the role.
That, to me, sounds like you're saying that, far from being unnecessary, the "healer" role is actually so necessary that everyone should be able to fulfill it.
In particular, you wrote that
If your party has a cleric, their spell slots tend to be better used smashing faces than they are fixing the fighter.
That depends both on how "broken" the fighter is and how good the cleric is at smashing faces. If you're simply talking about hit point loss, that's something that can easily be dealt with after combat. But if the fighter is, for example, blinded.... well, that imposes at least a 50% miss chance on everything she does, in addition to any other tactical disadvantages (e.g., she's less survivable because is taking substantial AC penalties, etc.) The question then becomes whether the cleric can smash face at least half as well as the fighter... and often, the answer is "no," or at least, "no, not without spending a lot more spells and resources than it would take to fix the fighter."
So I disagree. Pathfinder, by design, rewards specialization. There are some character chassis that are well suited to smashing faces ("hammer," in terms of the forge model), but there are also character chassis that are better suited to other tasks, and you get the most efficiency and effectiveness if you let them be a good arm instead of a mediocre hammer.
Scrolls and wands add up after a while. Every remove blindness spell that the cleric can cast will save you roughly 750 gp that you can spend on other things -- that's roughly the same price as a +2 competence bonus to any skill you like (a cracked magenta prism ioun stone). I'd rather have the stone forever than the scroll once, if it were up to me.
I feel I'm in the minority when I say that a distinct role of "healer" is unnecessary. [...] Sure, you need people able to activate those items, so a low level party is better off with someone who can do that.You're not actually arguing that "healer" is unnecessary; you're saying that everyone should invest resources (at least to the extent of attribute points to Charisma and of skill ranks to UMD) to be able to perform the role.
That, to me, sounds like you're saying that, far from being unnecessary, the "healer" role is actually so necessary that everyone should be able to fulfill it.
No, darkerthought7 specifically said someone, not everyone. That's a really big difference.
He's correct, too. A dedicated healer is a waste. It's worth noting that there seems to be universal agreement in guides regarding this notion as well. None of the parties in campaigns I'm running, all of which consist of Paizo material actually built around the F/R/C/W paradigm, have a cleric or even a dedicated healer. The closest is a shaman or an inquisitor.
The ability to use a wand of CLW is spread across quite a few classes that you'd otherwise wind up with in a campaign anyway. Furthermore, the ability to use wands of CLW are not the only reason people put ranks into UMD. The fact that it enables that specific item is often just a byproduct of the larger goal of using things you can't otherwise use.
My experience as a GM (albeit brief) has been the following:
1. At least one full BAB melee character, or two 3/4 BAB characters.
2. A broad coverage of knowledge spread across as many characters as possible. Certainly bards, investigators, etc., will end up with the bulk of these.
3. At least one character that can either UMD a wand of CLW, or has it on his class spell list.
4. Trapfinding, but only if your GM builds a lot of traps into the campaign. Paizo APs and modules all use traps, magical and otherwise, rather frequently.
5. At least one character with high perception.
6. At least one character with a high sense motive (again, assuming interaction with NPCs and/or sentient creatures is part of your campaign).
7. Some magical ability, either divine or arcane, preferably both. Out of all the characters in my campaigns, there is only one non-magical character, so I have no idea what it would be like with no magic. I'm sure it's doable, but likely difficult.
8. Ranged is nice, but campaign dependent. In our Giantslayer AP, the archery focused ranger is the most potent killer. In our Mummy's Mask AP, ranged is an afterthought, something everyone can do, but none do well.
He's correct, too. A dedicated healer is a waste.
Only if you (incorrectly) interpret "healing" as excluding condition removal.
He's correct, too. A dedicated healer is a waste.Only if you (incorrectly) interpret "healing" as excluding condition removal.
Not really. Condition removal doesn't take someone dedicated to the role. It just requires it to be available when necessary. I agree that condition removal > hp recovery as levels increase, but the notion that it falls on a single party member to provide it IS a wasteful view.
He's correct, too. A dedicated healer is a waste.Only if you (incorrectly) interpret "healing" as excluding condition removal.
It's probably better to have at least 2 party members who can do the condition removal thing (including stuff like spreading potions around).
The Cleric can't cast remove fear if he rolls a nat 1 on that will save vs. the dragon, and so on.
He's correct, too. A dedicated healer is a waste.Only if you (incorrectly) interpret "healing" as excluding condition removal.
It's probably better to have at least 2 party members who can do the condition removal thing (including stuff like spreading potions around).
The Cleric can't cast remove fear if he rolls a nat 1 on that will save vs. the dragon, and so on.
This comment only furthers my argument: though potions are inefficient monetarily, they provide a wonderful emergency button for any party member to administer magical aid to themselves or others.
#brewpotionsaveslives
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Probably the player "type" I find the most important in a party is who'll be the one to take the initiative and lead the party(often the character who'll be the party face). It's good when the group leads together, but many games have seen complications or silent moments due to players awaiting someone else stepping up for the role.(I admit I don't like the lead role, much preferring giving suggestions to the leader instead of taking the final decision)
There's many things to play but the general Melee, Archer/Rogue, Healer & Aoe Caster is the simple way of things.
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I feel like the issue is less that "a dedicated healer is a waste" and more "a poorly optimized healer is one of the worst things you can have in your party." A well built Oradin or a double-life spirit guide oracle can be an obnoxiously effective healer, while also having considerable martial prowess or spell-casting respectively.
The cleric who wants to cast level-appropriate "cure [foo] wounds" every round is a bad character to play, sure, but that's not to say that swift action self-healing paired with life link or two full strength channel pools on a charisma based caster with the fateful channel feat isn't a worthwhile thing to play.
I don't think we should really discourage people from playing healers so much as from playing bad ones.
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For the most part there are more roles to fill than members of the group. This means that for the most part no one can afford to dedicate themselves to a single role. Even if the group is large enough that there are enough characters to only fill one role that is still a bad strategy.
Each role should have multiple characters that can help with the role. Often you will have a one character as the primary and one or more back up for the role. The cleric may be the primary healer but the druid, ranger and paladin can also help fill that role. Also how you fill the role is not that important. The role of healer can often make use of items like wands and scrolls. But even when using items you still need someone that can actually use the items. Having lots of wands and scrolls for healing allows the cleric to use his spells for other things, but he is still fulfilling the role of healer.
That brings me to my next point. Each character should be able to cover multiple roles. Obviously some characters are going to do better than others at certain roles, but the other characters can still contribute. The barbarian is probably going to do a lot more damage than the cleric in melee. But the cleric can still attack and do some damage. And all characters should have some sort of ranged combat ability. Sure the melee focused character can’t match the archer, but he can at least help by doing some damage.