User:Majorminor50

ROUGH DRAFT:

Party Composition:

A party is made of 2 or more characters. In order to begin discussing Party Composition, we need to discuss generally what a characters "role" is within a given party.

Characters can fill specific roles within said party based on a variety of factors such as class, items, playstyle, role play potential and ability scores.

Roles are just one way of viewing how a party is comprised and built. Many classes and characters can often fulfill multiple roles within their party. Overlap can and will occur depending on how the character or player chooses to play, how they level up, the class, race and other factors can all contribute to overall character diversity, their role and how those characters build a party.

Roles:

What is a role? A role is in a general sense what your character is good at or fulfills within a party. Just because your character might be "generally" good at something, does not mean you "have" to fulfill a particular role. Typically, your characters role can be broken down into 2 distinct areas. In Combat, and Outside of Combat.

Roles

In Combat Roles	Out of Combat Roles
- What does your does your character do in a combat scenario? Do they hide in the bushes and attack from the shadows? Do they run head first into danger? Perhaps they cast spells to blast their enemies away, or instead buff allies. Many different factors, abilities, spells, items and other things can impact what your character "generally" gets up to during any given combat encounter.	- What does your character do when exploring the world? Are they learned in history of the region? Are they perceptive enough to see hidden clues? Do they have knowledge of Arcane Magic and able to utilize it when found? Do they have knowledge of lockpicking or perhaps are skilled with using magical items? Your party will encounter obstacles throughout your travels and depending on how you want to approach those obstacles, particular characters might be better (or worse) at overcoming them.

In Combat Roles

- What does your does your character do in a combat scenario? Do they hide in the bushes and attack from the shadows? Do they run head first into danger? Perhaps they cast spells to blast their enemies away, or instead buff allies. Many different factors, abilities, spells, items and other things can impact what your character "generally" gets up to during any given combat encounter.

Out of Combat Roles

- What does your character do when exploring the world? Are they learned in history of the region? Are they perceptive enough to see hidden clues? Do they have knowledge of Arcane Magic and able to utilize it when found? Do they have knowledge of lockpicking or perhaps are skilled with using magical items? Your party will encounter obstacles throughout your travels and depending on how you want to approach those obstacles, particular characters might be better (or worse) at overcoming them.

Factors that Affect Roles

Ability Scores

A characters ability scores (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma) play a vital role in not just character creation, but the role your character could play. A character who has a large amount of strength might focus on dealing damage with melee weapons. A character with high Charisma might focus on conversations or buying and selling items to merchants (the "face" of the party). A character with high intelligence might perform certain ability checks

Class

Certain classes receive innate proficiencies with particular skills and weapons. Additionally, classes have many differences in regards to the actions and spells they might have access to, impacting what they might do both in and out of combat.

Race

Your race can impact a variety of things, such as the proficiencies you acquire (Weapons, Armor, Skills), starting Attributes (Humans receive +1 to every attribute to start) and more thematically, race can change how the world of the Forgotten Realms perceives you (A Drow character might be met with suspicion while a Halfing might be welcomed into a tavern or inn more easily)

Role Play

Dungeons and Dragons at its most simple is a Role Playing Game! Regardless of class, race, even ability scores, what you want your character to do, feel and react to in the world around them will impact what role they might be playing with a party or game.

Would you like your character to be the know it all who jumps at the chance to explain an important detail? Or perhaps the lovable buffoon who fights on the frontline to protect their friends from harm? How you choose to play your character can impact the role that you fulfill.

Out of Combat

Outside of combat, generally speaking, your character or party will encounter other people, races, scenarios and other events that allow you to flesh out your character and the actions they would take given the scenario. A characters out of combat role varies greatly depending on the person playing them. While the factors noted above will still impact your Out of Combat Role, for the most part, any character can attempt to fulfill any out of combat role. The factors noted above will instead help determine how "good" or "bad" a particular character might be at any given task.

For Example:

I've made a party below along with the stats they started with (Strength/Dexterity/Constitution/Intelligence/Wisdom/Charisma)

Tav 1: Barbarian - Stats - 17/10/16/8/10/10

Tav 2: Rogue - Stats - 10/16/14/12/10/10

Tav 3: Wizard - Stats - 8/14/14/17/10/10

Tav 4: Bard - Stats - 8/16/14/10/10/16

Our above party looks to investigate a creepy dungeon. The door to the dungeon is locked. In order to find a way into the dungeon, they could break in (lock pick), use some magical means of opening the door, break the door down, or perhaps persuade a local into giving them the key.

The Rogue, with his high Dexterity, would stand the best chance of succeeding in lockpicking the door open.

The Wizard might have a spell or would be more likely to succeed an Arcana Ability check on the door. Investigating it for magical influence.

The Barbarian could perhaps try bashing the door down with his incredible Strength.

The Bard could start up a conversation with a local who might know more about opening said door. His high Charisma will help with any persuasion, deception, or intimidation checks that might be needed in order to obtain the key.

How a party approaches different obstacles or interact with the world around them will vary wildly. This is also not to say that characters outside of a "typical" class can't also attempt those same actions.

Perhaps the Wizard is quite boastful and attempts to break the door down with his staff. Or the Bard, teasing the Rogue, tries his hand at lockpicking. Just because a particular character might be the "best" at any given task, doesn't mean that other characters can't attempt them. How you choose to play and how your characters play off one another and the world around them all contribute to a fun and enjoyable campaign.

Combat Roles

Striker/Blaster:

DPS (Damage Per Second) or in the case of turn based combat, Damage Per Turn. A class or character who's main focus is dishing out damage and doing so consistently.

Tank:

A tank draws aggro (enemy aggression). A character who can take a few hits, while drawing enemy attention away from their allies whether through certain abilities (Goad) or by simply playing right in the enemies face.

Support:

A support focuses on buffing allies and debuffing enemies, typically through abilities or spells.

Controller:

A character who through their spells/abilities/playstyle focus on CC (Crowd Control) and/or controlling the pace of the fight itself.

Summary

Generally speaking, certain classes or characters might be "better" at fulfilling certain roles within a party, just because of how their class is built, what attributes work well with a given class, and what abilities or spells they have access to.

But any character, with enough thought put in, can fulfill almost any role!