Imbalance in a party...

[princessarachne]

Ok, so I am going to need some help.
Everybody in the party wants to be an assassin or rouge... that means they're all strikers.

We don't have a defender, leader, or controller, and we need them badly.
Since I am making the character sheets, could I maybe hybrid them? Would that cover the roles needed? Like If i made someone a hybrid assassin/fighter? Or an assassin/hunter??

[theMycon]

Talk to them, and say something like "hey, everyone wants to be an assassin or a rogue. It's really hard to make fun encounters that challenge a party of all strikers; if you don't mop the floor with enemies in 2 rounds, either they kill you in 3 rounds, or I make something mostly harmless that prevents you from doing your shtick and the fight crawls along. Would anyone be willing to play a defender? Fighters still do a good amount of damage, and I can make it kinda stealthy. OK, would anyone be willing to play a leader? They do a lot more than healing, and slow/immobilize will seriously screw a melee rogue's day without someone to slide you around."
You can tailor this to what you think your players want.

If nobody said yes to either of those, ask again in a polite but firm manner. You really need something to improve survivability (and, hopefully, some way to work against at least some conditions) for most encounters to work as planned.
If someone said yes to at least one of them, follow up with something like "Now, with X rogues in the party control is still pretty good, but does anyone want to be a dedicated controller?" If they say no to that, use minions sparingly.


If they say no to that? Hybrid's an option. So is making every encounter tailored to their strengths. So is making one encounter that's easy but stressful and no fun (You're all immobilized! He's flying! Ongoing 5 fire for all!) and then seeing if they want to re-roll.

[NomGarret]

Wow. What's the adventure? This sounds like an awesome chance for a 'heist' game. Or a SpecOps style of game. Hopefully they all got the premise of the adventure beforehand so they will know if there are particular options to want or avoid. Hopefully they also know that everyone picked similar classes.

If that's the case, I say roll with it. Yeah, there are durability, healing, and status shortages, but done well they should have unparalleled ability to set up ambushes and sneak their way through and around encounters. It's a high risk high reward style of play, but it could be pretty awesome.

You certainly could make hybrids, but I wouldn't push the players into it. Multi classing and careful feat and skill choice should cover a lot.

[GPuzzle]

Refluff. Assassin or Rogue share the common trait of being sneaky. Have a Warlord or a Bard be the leader of the guild. A Fighter or Swordmage can work as a bodyguard of sorts. The Controller role's more difficult, but contacts are a thing.

You don't need to be a Rogue to be a rogue, you don't need to be a Paladin to be a paladin, you don't need to be a Warlord to be a warlord. It's called roleplaying.


It goes both ways. Your Rogue doesn't need to be a rogue, your Paladin doesn't need to be a paladin, your Warlord doesn't need to be a warlord. You can, but a Rogue can be a noble trained in fencing, a Paladin can have made a pact with a divinity, a Warlord can be the leader of a hunter group.

[Laserlight]

Ok, so I am going to need some help.
Everybody in the party wants to be an assassin or rouge... that means they're all strikers.

Do they want the job title "rogue", or do they want the class function "stab one guy at a time, and try to avoid getting hit"? Because those don't have to go together.

You might want to put it to them the way I did in Q5 of my New Character Questions:

Spoiler: Questions

Show

1. Do you put the good of the group first, or do you mainly look out for Number One? (If you look out for Number One and crush Number Two, that's Evil--don't be Evil).

2. Do your character feel "It's important to follow the laws", or "they're not really rules, more like guidelines", or "it's not illegal if you don't get caught"?

3. How well do you get along with people? Is there a group (race, species, religion, profession, etc) other than your own that you're particularly fond of, or hostile toward? ("I'm a grim loner who doesn't trust anyone" doesn't work well in a group game).

4. What does your character want? If the answer is "money, power, fame", what do you want to use it for?

5. Sometimes you get into a situation where you have to fight. How do you prefer to fight?
--do you want to get up close and personal with the enemy, or stand behind someone else and shoot?
--do you rely on your own strength and speed, or your skill with magic, or the power of your god?
--do you just want to hit your foe hard? Do you like to shut him down--immobilize him, reduce his ability to fight, hamper him? Are you good at fighting, but also good at aiding your own side--healing them, helping them get into position and fight better?
(if your response to a fight is "cower and hide", well, that's not heroic--and you're a hero!)

6. Quirky people tend to be more interesting than average people. What makes you stand out from the crowd?

[neonchameleon]

Simple answer: Don't sweat the small stuff. Too many strikers in the party is not a problem; it simply makes combat faster. In an all-striker party the only real thing you need is a panic button (any of the Healing Word abilities) so you can get the occasional downed PC back on their feet. But as a rule of thumb parties with too many strikers are more fun than those without.

[Kimera757]

If it's bad, it usually sorts itself out (eg after the third TPK, players get the hint).

Some groups have made this work, usually through multiclassing. There's practically a leader for every mental stat. My group (where I DM) currently has a super-healing leader, but of course he can drop, so there's some backup healing. The other group has two weaker-healing leaders, and most PCs have something (such as a dwarf warden who can use Second Wind as a minor action, or my wizard PC, who can use a healing surge and teleport to avoid incoming damage) to heal themselves.

[Kurald Galain]

Ok, so I am going to need some help.
Everybody in the party wants to be an assassin or rouge... that means they're all strikers.

I'd be more worried about the rogues upstaging the assassins. The rogue is a very strong class, the assassin is decidedly not.

But yeah, tell your players that they can be a shady thug without having to play any class in particular.

[Tafkam Hokie]

To me, this is one of the nice things about 4e. Sure, a balanced party has a defender, a leader, a striker, and a controller, but the game is very playable without a balanced party.

I've played in plenty of games without a controller...probably the most expendable role if you are in a pinch. Between healing items and second winds, a leader isn't necessary to keep the fight rolling. Besides, an all-striker party should be dropping the bad guys fast enough that in-fight healing (and, to a lesser extent, having a defender to draw aggro) isn't that much of an issue.

If anything, I think the only indispensable role in 4e is the striker. I briefly played in a game where everyone was a defender or leader. Party was tough as nails, but fights dragged on forever because no one could do any real damage.

Played right, the only real issue an all-striker party will have is their adventuring day will be a bit shorter. An optimized and balanced party might be able to pull off 6+ encounters between extended rests. An all-striker party is probably going to start running out of healing surges after about 3 encounters.

All that said, my personal preference is to let the players play what they want to play. That is one of the things I think 4e got right over previous editions is that you really can just play whatever you want without worrying too much about optimizing and balancing the party. The game is still quite playable. And it will likely be a lot more fun if no one is forced to play something they don't really want to.

[tcrudisi]

I've not read any of the replies, mostly because I'm lazy. Instead, I'm going to offer my 100% sincere advice:

THIS. IS. FREAKING. AWESOME.

Why are you complaining? This is perfect. Seriously, bear with me here.

Make them all Changelings. Boom - now they are all great at deception, sneaking around, and stabbing things.

They will rarely (probably never) get into a fight that they don't initiate. And that's what they need as a party of all strikers. They need to get into position before alpha striking? Not a problem - they rock the Diplomacy and Bluff rolls. Then - BOOM.

It makes fights boring? Well, this IS a highly trained group of assassins we are talking about. With the ability to make themselves look like anyone else. And ridiculously good Bluff and Stealth scores. Trust me, they'll dominate fights and won't be bored because they'll be dominating it because of the things they do before the combat starts.

Seriously, where is the problem?

[ScrivenerofDoom]

My first response after reading your post and before seeing the replies was pretty much what those replies have essentially all said: AWESOME!

This is a recipe for some really mobile combats. Sure, the absence of a defender and leader, in particular, is going to hurt but this will really force the players to focus on strategy and tactics.

This is also the ideal party for an urban campaign, one of the few locations where the executioner assassin can really shine. (I don't know that much about the shadow-based assassins as I have largely expunged them from memory after realising how crappy they are.)

So, my response is very much to embrace their requests. Where is your game going to be set?

[Laserlight]

If the party really does end up "all strikers", they might at least want to invest in some self-healing powers / feats / items.

And if you and your group don't like TPKs, you might want to prepare some reasons why the BBEG doesn't want to kill them. Just in case they run into an encounter where "yeah, we really did need a healer, after all."

[NomGarret]

It occurs to me no one asked if these were osassins or executioners. In case they are the former, might I suggest my house rules?

Increase hp to 12+con, +5/level. I understand the thematic reasons behind the choice to give them controller hp, but they need some help.

Give Hidden Insight free. Lurking in the shadows stacking shrouds is how an assassin wants to start every fight. Let them.