Greetings fellow players!
In this new section called Building Blocks, I shall present my biased opinion on how to brainstorm along with your friends and fellows a Dungeons and Dragons™ party. This section's role is twofold: to create a binding momentum for your group and to enhance the fun of team play.
I. Foreword
Although there are many forums that talk about optimization of characters and creating the so-called combos to enhance and initiate momentum, I desire to present in the light of my bias this concept of party creation, to add perhaps something new to the sea of opinions on the matter.
Without further ado I begin by telling you that party creation is equally important with character creation. Since the fourth edition of D&D™, the focus of the game shifted from one-man armies and prima donnas, to team play and team effort. In this edition, few things may be accomplished by one character and one character alone, even with a great deal of optimization. The character's mortality and frailty although not visible in the beginning, starts to become an recognizable issue by late heroic tier. it is thus needed a new approach to D&D play as a group and as a team.
Indeed the game can be played very well without all these optimizations and brainstorming sessions. The fun will be roughly the same, and the momentum will be built as the characters progress in levels. Yet far greater results may be achieved with a bit of foreknowledge and preparation. One of my late groups from when the 4th edition was still in its infancy, used the latter method and by the early paragon tier they achieved a tremendous momentum but not only through leveling their characters but also through experience gained at the game table. It took them three months to reach there, but after that point, the session evolved from simple delves and treasure seeking, to kingdom upheavals and marrying the duke's daughter.
For a Dungeon Master, a party prepared ahead of time from first levels of play, reduces significantly the time to deal with the combat challenges and helps add other spicy elements like the queen's spy and the mad king conspiracy. It comes as no surprise to me that a party of veterans prefers to take things slow and gain momentum through experience at the table and the party of new players looks for preparation time and brainstorming. Veterans have expectations whilst new players approach a game that they have heard about mostly from other friends or magazines.
II. Brainstorming process
This process starts always with a story. All players be them veterans or new, envision their character as something unique that stands out from the general crowd: the predator like ranger or the ezio auditore like assassin. All of those with a twist or a habit or a mark upon that say "this is not ezio auditore. it may look like him, sound like him, but the twist is that he is african american and blonde". Uau! But why don't we take this to another level? Why don't we apply this concept to a party? The Dirty Dozen? The Reservoir Dogs? The Bad Company? All these concepts speak of groups of men and women fighting like a team against a common enemy, or working together for a common goal. And that is what D&D™ is about: team play.
Assuming you have the group of loyal friends that want to play D&D™ on a regular basis, you then proceed to create characters. Stop! Don't do this alone but gather the group, along with the Dungeon Master if possible and start asking questions. You can even make a list! Below is my example of possible questions for a possible Dungeon Master:
1. In what campaign setting is the adventure placed?
2. What does the story involve? Undead? Dragons? A bit of each?
3. What is the adventure's length?
4. What are the ground rules? And the house rules?
5. Are there any character class/race/feat restrictions?
6. How can we contribute in a meaningful way to your story?
This basic list covers almost all basic questions your party needs to know before setting up into the big adventure. The flavor, the main type of adversaries, the length and the rules. Armed with this information take the four character roles, the defender, the leader, the striker and the controller and each try to assume one.
Pro tip: A trick that I use as Dungeon Master is to give the players questionnaires taken from Player Strategy Guide™ and advise them accordingly to their results. As good practice it is advised to build a well rounded party with all the role gaps filled properly.
When the roles have been assigned and everyone is happy with the choice the next step is to take the Character Builder and explore the options there. As many as they are, the selection can be narrowed easily by setting the party objective in combat and outside it. For example, in a 5-man group it is decided during the brainstorm that the defender would need to be the bulky guy that soaks tons and tons of damage. A good end result is a Dwarf Battlerager Weaponmaster; due to his temporary hit points generation he can stay in the fight long enough to outlast even a dragon! Taking this example further, the leader goes along the idea and decides to help the party by making sure the enemies don't hit the party members too often; thus a Deva Devoted Cleric comes into view with its debuffing and healing capabilities. And the example goes forth for the rest of the group.
Pro tip: If your group is new to the game and still wish to brainstorm an efficient party, I found that sticking to a single power source is a good way to narrow down the multitude of options and also to form the efficient party you seek. The power sources come as follows: Martial, Divine, Arcane, Primal and Psionic. There is also the Shadow power source but it has only one representative class: Assassin.
III. Final Considerations
Brainstorming your character may look as an arduous process, but it pales in comparison to brainstorming a five-man party. Don't take ALL the options in the builder and parse them! Ask your Dungeon Master for help and suggestions and take them with a grain of salt. In the end it is the group's story and only you can tell it way better than any Dungeon Master. Let the DM craft the plots; you craft the legend. Add to your characters minor quirks and minor details from which a story could be weaved. Taking the Battlerager Dwarf from above, a good quirk is that he loses himself in the heat of battle so much that he simply runs amok through the enemies ranks. It might be a good thing in the fields of battle but it is totally uncouth at the Duke's court where this quirk makes itself shown through the character's lack of patience for silver-tongue negotiations.
After your group has reached a consensus about the characters they will play, start the second process: weaving the story of your group. How did you came together? What event tragic or comic brought the group to its small renown? And most importantly what is the group's objective? Here the best advice I may give is to start small and reasonable. You are heroes indeed, but remember that you have just became heroes and many deeds of legend await you down the road. Work with your Dungeon Master on this and give him or her as many details as you reasonable can.
After all is said and done, it is time to play!
Enjoy!
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