Question du jour: Sommes-nous balancés?

Depuis quelques parties, je me pose la question à savoir si nous sommes un groupe bien équilibré ou non. Le tout premier semblait, à mon avis, l'être. Mais maintenant nous avons un groupe Defender, Defender, Controller, Controller, Striker. Ça semble bien fonctionner mais cela nous pose tout de même certaines lacunes (tel que le healing ce qui empêche souvent Bel de se concentrer sur son rôle principal). Hier le premier fight a simplement mal débuté. Le plan n'a pas vraiment aidé si ce n'est qu'il nous a permit de travailler ensemble. Au lieu d'aller dans 3 directions différentes nous nous sommes concentrés sur 2 fronts en tentant de nous couvrir mutuellement nettement mieux.

Donc mon point est que notre groupe ne manque en fait pas tellement d'équilibre, si ce n'est plutôt qu'il manque souvent de cohésion. Nous tentons tous, d'une certaine manière, d'agir en héros à chacun de nos tours. Bien entendu nous en sommes, mais cela devrait être pour le restant du monde et non pas entre nous. Il y a certaines actions qui ne semblent pas concertées ou qui manque cruellement de vision plus globale de la situation. Elric (et étonnamment tous mes autres personnages... non, ça n'a aucun rapport avec le joueur) agit souvent de façon égoïste soit en voulant tuer le monstre dont il veut se venger, rentrer le premier dans une pièce pour y voir avant les autres les mystères et les trésors qui s'y trouveraient ou simplement de façon aveugle (sans peser suffisamment les conséquences de ses actes). Mais il n'est pas le seul. Il y a eu plusieurs exemples au cours des dernières games mais l'exemple que je vais prendre est le dernier combat d'hier. Oui la pièce était difficile. Oui, il aurait été difficile de s'y préparé adéquatement; cependant, durant le combat nous avons (à mon avis) mal joué. Pourquoi? Simplement un manque de communication et un manque de cohésion. Nous avons réagit probablement exactement tel que les développeurs de la pièce ont imaginé qu'un groupe désorganisé agirait. Le manque de communication a failli être fatal pour l'un d'entre nous, mais la cohésion et la soudaine réorganisation a, par exemple, (probablement puisqu'il lui restait tout de même encore quelques tours dans son sac) permit à Elric de survivre (il était à moins d’¼ de hp ce qui est effrayant pour lui – ce n’était que la deuxième ou troisième fois que ça lui arrivait dans sa carrière) pour ensuite aller supporter un allié dans une autre pièce. Le manque de communication a fait en sorte que l'un d'entre nous à perdu son temps près d'une statue et tout en le laissant vulnérable. Nous n’avons strictement pas communiqué entre nous. Cela résulte probablement d’un autre de nos problèmes (qui en est un très gros pour moi puisqu’en dehors des villes et des cours je n’interagis que très peu in-character) soit le fait que nos interactions perso-à-perso sont très… hum… modestes/minimalistes. Je suis le parfait exemple de cela mais il va falloir travailler là-dessus puisque la pièce nous a owné. Il n’est pas nécessaire d’avoir des desserts à la vanille (i.e. décès dans la famille) pour que l’on puisse dire que l’on a été owné (à mon avis – mais peu importe j’ai bien aimé la game d’hier pour la difficulté des embuches que l’on a rencontré – on en a fait beaucoup moins que je l’imaginais… j’espérais un attempt sur le vrai Karavacos pour être honnête). Nous nous sommes trop fiés au plateau de jeu et non à ce que nos persos voyaient réellement, les limites que cela imposait et nous n’avons pas suffisamment communiqué pour se signaler ce qui se passait chacun de notre côté. Il aurait fallu parler continuellement pour se communiquer nos états respectifs et ce qui nous entouraient. Le fait de dire l’on pense qu’un ennemi est près de nous puisque l’on a reçu des coups de couteaux ne donne aucun avantage aux adversaires mais peut nous aidé grandement (la communication est essentielle mais elle a également des limites tel qu’annoncé que l’on est presque mort et requiert des soins urgents, cela ne peut qu’inciter les ennemis à nous achever plus vite – quoiqu’Elric pourrait bien tenter de bluffer son désespoir et son état pour créer une diversion).



Mon but n'est pas de critiquer les actes individuellement (qui aurait du faire telle action de sorte à empêcher telle situation). Je ne veux pas non plus pointer et attendre des explications/arguments pour savoir comment/pourquoi vous avez agit de telles ou telles manières ; le cas n’est pas désastreux puisque nous avons survécu, mais il est possible (et impératif à mon avis) que l’on tente de mieux s’organiser et de jouer comme un groupe expérimenté et qui a passé presque 10 niveaux ensemble (bon cela n’inclut que 3 personnes mais bon l’esprit d’équipe devrait tout de même être présent). Je me rends compte de plus en plus au fil de mes réflexions et de mes lectures que la 4eme édition est vraiment basé sur le travail d’équipe, je suis conscient que l’on a tous une volonté individualiste et que nos inclinations nous poussent à vouloir être plus indépendant même en combat (Elric est le cas typique de cela) mais malgré la personnalité de nos persos (et notre volonté propre en tant que joueur) il va falloir être mieux organisé.



Je veux dons simplement vous faire prendre conscience (si cela n'est pas déjà fait pour vous - honnêtement ce n'est que ce matin que j'y ai réellement pensé et l'article qui suit m'a forcé à y penser et m'ouvrir l'esprit sur ce point) de nos lacunes et des efforts que l’on devrait mettre à tenter de pallier à la situation. Expérimentés, créatifs et débrouillards que nous sommes nous pouvons passer outre un état (lire composition d’un groupe) jugé selon une partie de la communauté donjonnèse (hum… je ne sais pas comment dire ça donc je me base sur le mot dijon…) comme déséquilibré, cependant il ne sera pas toujours possible de passer outre le problème de cohésion sans augmenter (de façon draconienne) les risques de conséquences funestes.

L’article qui suit est ce qui m’a motivé à partir ce fil. Je l’ai trouvé très intéressant et j’aimerais connaître votre avis sur la question puisque sur plusieurs points je suis en désaccord et d’autres me surprennent mais semblent véridiques.






This post has gone through three major revisions. Here is the fourth (and probably final, barring small improvements) draft, which approaches the topic from a new angle based on thought prompted by the feedback in this thread. It also changes a few terms to conform (where applicable) with the Party Building article in Dragon 373.

The third draft is archived deep in the thread; I didn't think to archive the first two, but then they weren’t much. A few of the following comments won't make sense in light of the original post having been completely different.

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RULE 1: Define Party Functions
Before you can define the most optimized party, you have to define what it is that your party ideally can do. Following are 30 party functions ranked in three tiers by (arguable) order of importance.

LEGEND
The assumption is that only one party member needs to be able to perform a given function. An (s) following the function name means that having more than one of these is ideal. An (1/all) following the function name means that you really only need one party member to have the ability, or every party member should have it. A single asterisk (*) means that the function is situational; its importance will rise or fall depending on DM and campaign style, and certain facets may be controversial and house-ruled. A double asterisk (**) means the function is highly situational, and you need to think very carefully about how far you want to exploit it based on DM/campaign dynamics.

Comments in brackets [] explain how the function interrelates with other party functions or characteristics. An arrow (^v) before the related topic means that importance rises or declines as the party increases its ability in the related topic; eg, Healing [vA3] means that the need for healing declines as a party increases its nova capacity, because a team of elite novas doesn’t expect combat to last long. An arrow (^v) after the related topic means that the related topic’s importance rises or declines as the party increases this ability; eg, Many Targets [A9v] means that the utility of MultiAttacks declines as the party’s AoE capacity increases. An exclamation point (!) indicates synergy with the related topic; eg, Black Hole [!A1] means that marking has synergy with itself, in that having two defenders often can be more than twice as good as having one.

In addition, four functions have upgrades that both wholly replace and substantially alter the nature of that function.

TIER A
1. Black Hole(s) (markers) [!A1, ^A7]
2. Healer(s) [vA3]
3. Nova(s)** (very high damage dailies) [A2v, !B3]
4. Many Targets(s) (AoEs) [^larger party]
5. SoloLock* (single-target control) [vA3, vlarger party]
6. Debuff(s) [^A7, vB2]
7. Artillery(s) (ranged builds) [^larger party]
8. Booster(s) (buffs)
9. NAD attack(s) (vs. Will, Fort, Ref)
10. Tactician(s) (extra attacks and moves) [^A7 (escape moves), B4^]

COMMENTS: Nova is highly situational because, taken to excess, it can be irritating to DMs, and keeping the DM happy has as much to do with party success as anything on this list. (We're real-world optimizing, here.) If the DM slaves over his plotlines and encounters, then you expect to snicker-snack through everything by spamming Blade Cascade like a bunch of unruly teens devouring a gourmet meal, well, you're begging for payback. SoloLock is situational because the most common method (orb wizardry) will often be house-ruled.

TIER B
1. Trapmaster* (high Thievery)
2. Terrain Maker [vA6]
3. MultiAttacks* [!A3, vA4]
4. BigMak (big basic melee attack) [^A10]
5. Hawkeye (high Perception; upgrades to Skeptic)
6. Sneak(1/all)** (high Stealth; upgrades to Scout)
7. Synergy(s)* (partywide benefits; eg, frost feats, Morninglord, etc)
8. Base face (high Diplomacy; upgrades to Ace face)
9. Unique(s) (detect chaotic evil, tiny shapeshift, etc)
10. Int ritual caster* (Arcana and Religion)

COMMENTS: Trapmaster depends on whether the DM ever bothers with traps, and how often. Some MultiAttacks (Dual Strike, Rain of Blows, etc) are considered broken by some and may be house-ruled. Sneak(all) is highly situational; if the DM is eager to run a "high fantasy SEAL team" kind of game, and will count avoided encounters as beaten encounters, it's well worth the effort to design the party. Just about every Synergy power has been dubbed broken at some time; some options may not be available in your campaign. Given the amount of tinkering that probably goes on with the economic system, any sort of routine ritual use should be discussed with the DM; half-price magic items would make this high priority of course.

TIER C
1. Wall (tanking defender) [^A7, vlarge maps]
2. Companion (animal or spirit) [^A7, vlarge party]
3. Lay healer* (skill-based, upgrades to Wis ritual caster)
4. Athletics expert(1/all)*
5. Intimidate expert(s)**
6. Dungeoneering expert*
7. Acrobat expert
8. Sprinter(1/all)**
9. Endurance expert(1/all)*
10. History expert*

COMMENTS: Just about everything in Tier 3 depends on campaign specifics. Lay healing will depend on how many powered healers are in the group. Some DMs routinely will want every party member to be able to pass a Jump/Swim/Climb check one way or another; some will never pose that kind of Athletics challenge. If the Intimidate rules are used by RAW, every good candidate should take the skill; if one of the frequent nerfs is in place it's possibly not worth it for anyone to invest in it. Fielding a party full of Sprinters is difficult, but if you're not afraid to run and fight another day it can be a lifesaver (a rare case where the players’ outlooks are the variable rather than the DM’s outlook). Endurance and History both rarely come up, but there’s always that DM who goes out of his way to challenge the rare skills ...

UPGRADED FUNCTIONS
BB5: Skeptic* (Perception and Insight; replaces Hawkeye)
BB6: Scout** (Stealth, Perception, speed; replaces Sneak)
BB8: Ace face* (Diplomacy, Bluff, Streetwise; replaces Base face)
CC3: Wis ritual caster** (Heal, Nature, Ritual Caster; replaces Lay healer)

COMMENTS: A Skeptic is an easy upgrade from the nigh essential Hawkeye, and worth it in a highly social campaign. (He basically stands at the face's elbow and nudges him every time his BS-meter beeps.) In that same sort of campaign, the Face needs to upgrade to Ace Face. In a campaign where the DM enjoys and rewards player initiative, a true Scout can be a huge monster mystery debuffer, but admittedly a lot of DMs will railroad the Scout into futility. A Wisdom ritual caster also depends on the DM's outlook on rituals; often it's simpler to hire an NPC when this rare need presents itself.

***

RULE 2: High Nova or Low Nova?
What is or isn't nova can differ in the (central) eye of the beholder, but generally a nova character build spends most of its resources to build up a single extraordinarily lethal power or combination of powers, then recharge that "super attack" if possible.

A certain amount of this sort of thing is not only inherent to the game, but largely the point of the game. Using complementary powers and action points to overcome the session's climactic threat is good tactics and good gaming. No reasonable DM should complain about that, and thus the default here is "low nova" rather than "no nova."

"High nova" takes things past the point that the game design probably intended. Building a Strength-based Avenger is high nova. A group of players who expect that each character will get their hands on every single daily-recharge magic item as soon as it's available is definitely thinking in high nova terms, too. A lot of other builds are judgment calls. It's important to remember that the DM's judgment is what counts here.

The point of a high nova party is that it's more efficient than a low nova party; the PCs kill the enemy too quickly to need much healing or control. Conversely, many high nova parties require DM complacency (a fact that the players tend to overlook). For instance, they often take advantage of rules that could be reasonably called broken; they often depend on being able to obtain a custom kit of magic items with little difficulty; or they often have holes in their defenses and Tier B and C functions that they expect the DM to forego exploiting.

High nova parties are best played in one-off sessions or convention scenarios (especially if these begin at later levels with player-purchased beginning gear) or in a campaign with a laissez faire DM. In a home campaign with significant DM investment, it may be rude and/or unwise to field a high nova party. It's best to discuss with the DM beforehand what he considers to be simply good tactics versus what he considers to be exploitative.

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RULE 3: Determine the Number of Party Members
Usually, you’ll already know how many characters will be in play, because it’s usually one per player. (This doesn’t have to be the case. Some or all players can run two characters, or the DM can run an NPC. But it is generally the most comfortable arrangement.)

A small (3 member) party will have to pare its list of crucial functions ruthlessly. Any inconvenient Tier C functions should be discarded barring campaign requirements. The players will need to cherry-pick which Tier B functions they can plan to support.

A standard (4 or 5 member) party should manage every Tier A and B function that hasn’t been discarded because of campaign specifics. A few campaign-specific Tier C functions should be doable as well.

A larger party should reasonably expect to address every tier of functionality without sacrificing its linear (or better) growth in the Tier A essentials.

The core of any party tends to be defender, leader, controller. (Surprised? See Rules 4 and 5.) Beyond that, high nova parties should add striker, striker, striker, leader, controller in about that order. Low nova parties should add striker, leader, defender, striker, controller in about that order.

A reasonable alternative build from character four on is leader, leader, leader, leader, leader. This can be a relatively subtle way of combining low nova durability with nearly high nova lethality (ie, a DM who wouldn't approve of other high-nova approaches may not think that this is exploitative at all). The main drawback is that it’s hard to properly fill all functions from the leader class alone.

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RULE 4: Know How Party Size Influences Combat
Obviously, the number of opponents in an encounter slides from minions (many) to standard foes (roughly 1:1 with the party) to solos (only 1). There’s intermediate encounters (minions with 1 or 2 standard monsters, a solo with a bit of support), but generally the monster scale is minions--standard--solo.

Both monster lethality and vulnerability tend to be highest at each end of the scale. Minions can "machine-gun" a single character through sheer numbers but fall rapidly to area attacks. Solos are fairly lethal and have debuffs that lock down one or more PCs, while they themselves are very vulnerable to stun-lock.

As party size increases, minions become more dangerous and solos less so; this is because each individual party member becomes a smaller and smaller portion of the party’s overall capacity to endure damage. For instance, let’s say a level-appropriate minion encounter can reasonably reduce party HP by 15% in a surprise round, and a level-appropriate solo can reasonably stun-lock one character. For a party of three, a character death doesn’t occur until the 33% threshold, so the minions have no chance but the solo can reduce party offense by 33% with a single roll. In a party of seven, character death occurs at roughly 14% of party HP lost, so the minions have killed a character but the solo is still facing 86% of the party.

It can be a little counterintuitive, but this means that larger parties need more and more area and multiple attacks; ruthlessly dealing with minions becomes a higher priority, not a lesser one. This is why a second controller is recommended as the eighth party member in both builds in Rule 3, even though it’s commonly thought that you only ever need one controller. An optimized party should only skip the second controller if it’s fielding several other characters with area effect potential (Dragonborn, swordmages, etc).

Conversely …

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RULE 5: Determine Who Will Be the Solo-Lock
A Solo-Lock is a character who from paragon on can reliably lock down a single opponent encounter after encounter. Even though they are most hamstrung by the need to field one, small parties need a solo-lock far more than large ones. Partly this is because solos tend to be debuffers themselves, and losing one member to a stun-lock is far more hurtful to a party of three than a party of six (as explained in Rule 4).

Also, in lieu of a dedicated Solo-Lock, an optimized large party might be better off turning this into a group function. Most classes have one or two daily powers that inflict stun until the end of next turn; by selecting these powers then taking turns using them, the party inflicts a round-robin of stun on the solo while killing it. This takes some pretty good coordination, but it also means that the party’s Solo-Lock functionality isn’t vulnerable to losing a single member.

For small parties, group Solo-Lock isn’t a valid option. Instead, they need to field either an orb wizard or the paladin PP Champion of Order (which works at least as well with fighters and is an interesting graft onto other classes). The orb wizard is the usual choice; at lower levels he can broom away minions with trivial ease (though admittedly this isn’t a huge priority for small parties). On the other hand, CoO also offers a Unique power (detect chaotic evil) that is great in a highly social campaign.

Of course, other varieties of SoloLock can be designed (orb wizard and CoO are simply the most straightforward), and in a very high nova party just about any stun effect until the end of the next turn might be sufficient to the task.

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RULE 6: Find Complementary Builds
Ideally, any optimized party will include characters whose functions relate well. For instance, a Dwarven BattleRager with his hammer o' doom wants a leader who grants extra attacks (such as a cunning bard) rather than a first-rate healer, whereas a relatively fragile Tempest fighter probably would opt the other way around. The function-defining in Rule 1 is a first step toward mapping out these sorts of relationships.

In addition, an optimal party will include at least one character maximizing each of the six attributes (for skill maxing) and there will not be a preponderance of members sharing the same poor NAD (for instance, it’s easy to field a party in which only the defender has a respectable Fortitude score).

Finally, it's important at this step to ensure that your party is at least low nova rather than no nova. If your characters can't put together some pretty powerful effects to start an encounter---maybe just once daily, but at least that often---it's probably a good idea to rethink your class mix.

Usually one or more players will have some strong preconceptions about what they want to play. As long as a single character build is fairly optimized, an optimized party can be built around it. Once two or three players bring to the table builds that don't really work together, then some level of optimization will just have to be lost.

Forging these relationships can be hard enough in a large party and extremely challenging in a small one. There are a few very solid trinities to be found: You may want to consider Half-Orc tempest fighter, Half-Elf valorous bard, and Deva orb wizard; alternately, Githyanki defending swordmage, Dragonborn charisma warlord, and Elven druid.

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RULE 7: Test for Over-reliance
Imagine everyone but character 1 fighting together, then everyone but character 2, etc. Does removing one character greatly reduce offense or survivability? This might often be the case in a single-leader party, particularly one without a paladin or other reliable backup healer. Sometimes it’s best to plan for something to go wrong, rather than to build a party that performs spectacularly but only when everything goes its way.

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RULE 8: Plan for the Optimal Basket of Paragon Paths
Some characters will need to take a particular paragon path to fill their role (eg, Champion of Order for the party Solo-Lock, or Pit Fighter for the party’s sole striker). Any character build that doesn’t have this need should take a strong look at a paragon path that benefits the party as a whole. A few examples include:

Divine Oracle: Huge party and self buffs. Should be fitted to a character with multiple vs Will attacks.

Flame of Hope: Adds strong leader buffs to a controller.

Hospitaler: De facto makes the entire party much tougher.

Morninglord: Huge Synergy with radiant weapons. Limits party ethics.

These are PPs that impact everyone on the team. Fielding as many of them as possible will improve optimization.

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RULE 9: Retest for Over-reliance at Paragon
By level 16, characters have changed dramatically. Reperform the Rule 7 tests, envisioning the party at this level. If anything, paragon and epic parties are more likely to lose one or two members in a single swoop than heroic ones, so it’s essential to have some redundancy and backup options for Tier A functions by this point.

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RULE 10: Plan for Epic: But Not Too Much
Have at least a rough idea for epic progression, but not much more than that. The campaign may not last that long, and if it does umpteen new epic opportunities will have been published in the interim.

J'écrirai une réponse plus étoffée ce soir, mais ma première impression, c'est que vous êtes tous très forts individuellement au niveau tactique, plus fort que ce que les développeurs attendent des joueurs.

Cependant, c'est vrai que ça manque de cohésion un peu. Et pour ce qui est du choix de classe, je dirais qu'il n'est pas optimal mais qu'il fonctionne bien quand même.

edit: On peut pas dire que history ne sert pas dans ma campagne.

Ce n'est pas la première fois qu'on en parle, mais je suis tout de même daccord avec ce qui est dit. Somme toute, même si d'une façon statistique nous somme loins d'être optimisés à mon avis, notre style de jeu plutôt défensif et notre bonne connaissance de nos classe nous permet d'en tirer beaucoup plus qu'un groupe optimisé sans expérience.