I'll be running a homebrew 5th Edition campaign soon with the following party makeup:
Halfling Urchin Trickster cleric
Human or Elf Sage Knowledge cleric 1/shadowcaster X
Human? Sky Pirate (homebrew background) Swashbuckler rogue
Wood Elf (Urchin? Outlander?) Path of the 4 Elements monk
Aasimar (Sage?) Brontomancer (homebrew arcane school) wizard
Human? Half-elf? (Criminal?) Archfey warlock
So no barbarian, valor bard, fighter, paladin, or ranger.
Is this going to be a problem for the squishies? The two melee-types (monk and rogue) are highly mobile, so they might not be very good at standing between the casters and the monsters. I don't know if the urchin plans on doing melee, but fortunately I think she is the most developed character, so I know she plans on wearing medium armor and using a shield with a decent Dex, so I think she has AC 18-ish at 1st level.
But they might be leaning more towards a caper and infiltration campaign than a hack & slash campaign. Practically every character will have Stealth proficiency or can "borrow" it from the Trickster cleric.
I'm also eager to see what shenanigans will ensue with multiple spellcasters of the same type. 2 clerics mean only 1 has to cast bless, especially at mid- to high-levels when they can get the whole party with a 4th level spell slot.
I don't think a tank is a necessary party component. Any character that is not a tank (at least theoretically) adds more to the party's offensive output, except maybe for a healer or defensive buffer who at their core does the same as a tank: increase the defensive potential. In the end a more offensive party just needs to take out the enemy faster, so I don't think it makes a huge difference.
And in the end tanking doesn't really work in dnd or pathfinder the way it does in, say, a video game. The best tank build I could come up with in 5e is a battle master fighter with the Sentinel feat, Protection fighting style and maneuvers like goading attack as well as those centered around slowing and moving enemies around all that character could really do in terms of tanking was give a single enemy per round a bit of harder time attacking someone other than herself and perhaps punish the attempt with an opportunity attack. But opportunity attacks become less relevant with time since damage output per attack barely scales over the levels and HP multiply to more than 109 times the 1st level value.
So I'm not saying tanks are useless, but not having a tank is not a huge loss.
I just have to ask - what is a Brontomancer?
A brontomancer is a thunder specialist wizard. Deals with prognostication of the weather, thunder and lightning damage, some foggy and windy carrier effects. Kind of a cross between a divination specialist and an evocation specialist.
The hometown is situated above a constant stormcloud.
The hometown is atop a giant beanstalk.
In my game, we had a Monk (of the elemental variety at the time) who managed to out-tank the Fighter.
We had a party of a gnome rogue, tiefling bard, human paladin, and a tiefling warlock (me). It seemed that I was the one taking the most heat... High Dex, at-will mage armor (invocation) and ability to place a disadvantage on the opponent's Strength (hex spell) rolls makes wonders...
Now we have a human fighter and human barbarian/cleric in the party in place of the paladin, and it seems that I am less involved in melee combat, though we got separated and we are currently sought as dangerous rebels for now. We might end having to fight city guards but I'd like to avoid that. *sigh*
Note Hex doesn't affect attack rolls, it penalizes athletics if you pick Str.
Note Hex doesn't affect attack rolls, it penalizes athletics if you pick Str.
Which helps with grapples and push "attacks."
Our secondary campaign has a halfling Path of the Shadow monk, and he really likes making 4 attacks a round. Probably why he is going to be the Path of the Four Elements monk. He also plays a half-orc barbarian in our main campaign. He never played 3rd or 4th or PF, just 1st/2nd back in the day.
Don't worry about mathematical formulas for party makeup. Play to have fun and tailor encounters to suit the group. To many people get hung up on "we don't have a fighter, or a cleric, or a rogue, etc." Treat it as a challenge to DMing and make the campaign fun for yourself and the players.
D&D shouldn't be about optimizing, mixing and maxing, making the most powerful characters, having the highest ability scores, or having certain character classes in the group. It should be about having fun with your friends.
Don't worry about mathematical formulas for party makeup. Play to have fun and tailor encounters to suit the group. To many people get hung up on "we don't have a fighter, or a cleric, or a rogue, etc." Treat it as a challenge to DMing
Or alternatively if your players are up for it as a challenge for the party.
Yep
It's homebrew
Write to the pcs abilities, goals and background
Don't worry about mathematical formulas for party makeup. Play to have fun and tailor encounters to suit the group. To many people get hung up on "we don't have a fighter, or a cleric, or a rogue, etc." Treat it as a challenge to DMingOr alternatively if your players are up for it as a challenge for the party.
Absolutely. It's a challenge for both the DM and players, and that is a good thing.
That's cool. I like running monsters that do more than just do hit point damage anyways.
Update:
Eladrin brontomancer
Halfling tempest cleric urchin
Tiefling warlock (Pact of the Great Machine) hermit or homebrew scavenger
Elf Monk of the Four Elements
Human (?) knowledge cleric 1/shadowcaster X sage
Human (?) swashbuckler rogue sky pirate