Every party design should hinge upon this point: What kind of campaign is this? The answer has a huge impact on two fundamental questions: First, what is the tipping point for alpha-striking in this campaign? And second, how important are skills and/or rituals for my party?

Though the CO board is filled with advocates of kill-them-before-they-can-blink tactics, the game designers are demonstrating with the Essentials line that they are among those who beg to differ. And alpha-striking does have two major drawbacks. First, it can make the game boring for the DM, and without the DM there is no game. Second, the more alpha-strike capacity in a party, the narrower the margin between yet another by-the-numbers 2-round slaughter of Team Monster and a TPK. Before designing a party that deals thousands of hits in the first two rounds, consider the nature of the campaign. Should it last for years with a heavy emphasis on roleplaying? Then pull way back on the alpha-striking. Is it a convention one-off? Then knock yourself out. Just keep in mind that the foremost example of real-life alpha-striking is the raid on Pearl Harbor, which was tactically brilliant but strategically foolish. The DM is at all times the sleeping giant.

Skills and rituals generally have an inverse relationship to alpha-striking. In a long-term roleplaying campaign, an optimized party will have an expert in every skill and at least one PC who can efficiently cast the more important rituals. (Assuming that the DM hasn’t abandoned rituals entirely in his campaign.) No convention one-off is going to hinge upon whether one of the PCs can overcome a nasty skill challenge featuring History and Dungeoneering …

 

This guide is heavily biased toward optimizing for a long-term campaign with heavy emphasis on roleplaying. Its goal is to help establish a well-rounded party that does not have fundamental weaknesses that the DM must be shrewd enough to recognize and charitable enough to avoid if a TPK isn’t his intent.

If every member of the party deals damage around a common keyword theme, this can have large synergistic effects. If you decide to go this route, then all of your following decisions need to be filtered through the needs of the keyword theme. As of now, only three keywords offer this sort of potential: cold, psychic, and radiant.

A cold-themed party intends to take advantage of “Frost Cheese” or “PermaFrost” via the Wintertouched and Lasting Frost feats. These builds tend to be very reliant on having the right gear, so this probably won’t work if the campaign embraces some form of the new item rarity rules. There aren’t enough top-shelf powers with the cold keyword, so building a gear-independent frost team probably will have more opportunity cost than it’s worth.

 

The psychic-themed party is a relatively new concept. It would be centered around an Ardent spamming 1-point Ire Strikes. Possibly only the striker would need specific gear (eg, Githyanki Silver weapons), making it less equipment-dependent and more damaging than the cold theme. Note that this party should be built around a basic attack rather than multiattack striker (see Rule 3) for two reasons. First, Ire Strike serves a big MBA best. Second, though the Ardent isn’t a premium leader, the Talaric Strategist PP allows him to fake it. As a level 16+ Strategist, he can grant three extra attacks to any teammates who take Agile Opportunist. Again, a big MBA benefits most from this.

 

The radiant-themed party, or “Radiant Mafia,” is the gold standard of exploding DPR via keyword synergy. Any character can take a divine MC (if necessary) and Pervasive Light and deal faux radiant damage, so gear dependence is very limited, though the two feats do represent a significant opportunity cost. The center of the party probably would be an Avenger or Chaladin with the Power of the Sun feat and/or the Morninglord PP (assuming it’s long overdue date with the nerfbat still has not arrived). The best combination probably is the Chaladin and a melee Ranger, which in turn tends to steer the leader to become a Warlord, because he needs to be able to perform both Rule 5 buffing functions on demand. (If the Chaladin hasn’t recently hit, granting him an extra MBA takes priority. If he has, buffing the Ranger becomes Job 1.)

A fourth, similar concept is the proning party, in which some members specialize in knocking down Team Monster and some specialize in doing extra damage to prone targets.

 

Keyword themes are a specialized approach to alpha-striking, trading some considerable straitjacketing of character designs for improved DPR. This decision goes hand in hand with that in Rule 1. If the DM isn’t fond of keyword-themed parties, it’s probably best to avoid the concept altogether.

An optimized party really does not need more than one striker per five members. Why? Because once the first striker enters play, then every leader added to the party becomes a de facto striker with extra, really useful functionality. The leaders do need that one striker, essentially to act as the weapon that they wield, but multiple leaders can share a single weapon.

This can be a difficult rule to enforce, because a lot of players really want to play a striker. Strikers get more spotlight time than any other role. But the only thing that a multiple-striker party can do better than a single-striker-backed-by-multiple-leaders party is alpha-strike. The multiple-leader party already can bring more than enough of this capacity to the table, so a striker-heavy party will tend to be much too much of a good thing. Meanwhile, it will sorely lack the extra endurance that a multiple leader party will possess.

 

Once you’ve sorted everyone out and determined who will have the privilege of playing the lone striker, you have to determine which sort of striker that will be. Truly optimal strikers come in two flavors: multiattackers (Rangers and various overwrought Half Elf builds) and monstrous basic attacks (Avenger, Rogue, Slayer, Thief). The Barbarian isn’t quite optimal at either approach, but is unique in being quite good at both.

 

Usually, the striker also must serve as the team scout. A truly optimized party has an optimized scout, built on Dexterity and Wisdom and possessing the Perception, Stealth, and Thievery skills. (The scout also needs Athletics, Acrobatics, or reliable means to emulate the functionality of those skills.) The bow Ranger, Scout, pursuit Avenger, and off-statted Thief all can fill this niche easily. The melee Ranger, Brutal Scoundrel, etc can come close enough in a pinch. While optimizing for DPR is top priority for the striker’s build, a modest investment in scouting functions is not just forgivable but advisable.

An optimized party will have one defender per five members. Every defender has its staunch advocates (and with the possible exception of the Fighter, its devoted critics). Probably, the best defender is the defender that fits the striker best.

For most melee strikers, the Fighter probably is best. He’s comfortable in flank and makes it very painful to swing at the striker. Rogues and parties with controllers and leaders who specialize in forced movement may prefer the Knight, here. Another notable exception is the pursuit Avenger, who has less need for CA and pairs best with a shielding Swordmage who runs away and forces the OoE victim to either chase him and trigger the Avenger’s damage buffs or swing futilely at the Avenger through the Swordmage’s aegis. The most tricky is the melee Ranger, who from paragon on prefers to be all by his lonesome next to the target with Prime Punisher/Called Shot triggered. A purpose-built Paladin with plenty of ranged encounter powers can fit in here, while a polearm-wielding Fighter will do the job best.

 

Ranged strikers often fit best with a different style of defender. Battleminds work well here, because they don’t necessarily need to mark a target first to break up its attack. A good Warden build can work even better, by indefinitely tying up multiple targets for as long as the bowman needs to do his job.

 

If the striker just isn’t a good fit as scout, then it’s worth considering a defender build that can fill the role. A Strength-Wisdom Fighter with enough Dexterity to qualify for Armor Specialization (Scale) also can fill in as a decent scout, lacking top-notch sneakiness but making up for it with excellent mobility via Athletics. (Keep in mind that, for this purpose, a character with superb Perception and modest Stealth generally is just as sneaky as a character with superb Stealth and modest Perception. If you can locate the enemy in difficult circumstances then they must locate you under the same penalties.) The main problem is that defenders don’t tend to have the proper class skills. The DM will need to allow a good skill-swapping background, or a multiclass feat will need to be invested, probably both.

Just like the defender, the leader should be matched to the striker. Optimal leaders generally do one of three things: buff a striker’s existing attack, grant him an extra basic attack, or heal fantastically. Rangers are mostly interested in buffs—they bring their own extra attacks to the party just fine—while all other strikers usually will get more benefit from extra attacks. (Except the Barbarian, who will gladly exploit anything that a leader gives him.) The Artificer has quality buffs, with the caveat that they are missing at some levels so a hybrid Artificer often outperforms a pure build. The Shaman, Ardent, and to a much lesser extent the Bard, can grant extra attacks. The Warlord does both well.

Healing is the Cleric’s forte. The Cleric doesn’t help a striker do his job all that much, but he does help the striker stay upright and do the job longer. If your party design already leans toward more nova potential than your DM may prefer, it may be prudent to slot in a Cleric rather than a more offensively minded leader. In particular, a Pacifist Cleric vastly increases party durability.

 

A special consideration here is whether the DM is a strong believer in getting in multiple encounters per “workday.” The game is designed around four encounters per day, but if an early encounter goes south and the party wants to lick its wounds, many DMs will find that prudent and just move along. Others will penalize the party, or find means to compel the PCs to carry on. In the latter case, the Artificer gains a great deal of value, because he has the unique ability to trade healing surges among party members, which in turn improves endurance. To remain optimized, this party should feature a Ranger or Barbarian, and in turn a defender suited to supporting that striker.

 

If the party still needs a scout, this probably isn’t the place to look. Leaders generally lack the attributes and the skills. A Shaman could use a background and a multiclass feat to gather the skills, then use Speak with Spirits to pump his rolls, but it wouldn’t be reliable.

Controllers are generally regarded as the most expendable role. Determining whether your party needs one can be an important decision.

Obviously, the number of opponents in an encounter slides from bucketsful (minions) to roughly 1:1 (standard monsters) to just one (an antisocial solo). There’s many intermediate encounters (minions with 1 or 2 standard monsters, a solo with a bit of support), but they still fit within this scale. 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 can be very vulnerable to lockdown tactics.

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. A party of four or fewer probably should not have a controller, though the other members will need area or multiple attacks to cover the minion-clearing function. A party of five probably should have one, and a second controller probably should be added if party size ever reaches eight.

 

In a keyword-themed party, it’s probably best to pick the class with the best array of powers sporting the proper keyword (generally, Wizards/Mages for cold, Invokers for radiant, and Psions for psychic). In a non-themed party, an orb Wizard or Mage probably will be best; if the DM plans on using rituals pick the former, otherwise the latter.

 

Still seeking a scout? The Hunter is a repurposed striker and excellent at that job. The Druid also is well worth considering. The latter will still need to jump through hoops to pick up Stealth and Thievery, but Wildshape is very handy for a scout. This is a particularly good choice for a party of four whose other members lack any area or multiple attack capacity, because the Druid isn’t a premium controller but can hang in melee better than most. (This also has a very nice real-life knock-on effect. One flaw in the game’s design is that strikers get the most attention in combat, while scouts get the most attention out of it. The same player doesn’t need all that love. Giving the controller’s player a little spotlight time between encounters is only a good thing.)

So far we’ve added a striker, defender, and leader to a party of three or fewer. For most parties, a controller would be the fifth member. That leaves one slot open for the fourth member of a four- or five-PC party.

Generally speaking, a second leader will add the most in this slot. Again, with a good striker in front of him a good leader does as much (or more) damage as a striker while adding healing and durability to the party.

 

At this point, however, it’s also prudent to begin thinking in terms of skill selection. Obviously, we’ve been trying to find a party scout for most of this process. Ideally, this character will cover the three Dexterity skills (Acrobatics, Stealth, Thievery) and at least one Wisdom skill (Perception), preferably more. Between the leaders and controllers, most parties already will have a high Intelligence character who should take all of Arcana, History, and Religion. The defender usually covers Athletics, and often Endurance. So, most parties at this point will need either a high-Charisma party “face” (invested in Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, and Streetwise) or a backup high-Wisdom character (to pick up any of Dungeoneering, Heal, Insight, or Nature that the scout lacks). If your party still needs both roles, then you probably ought to go back and rejigger your lineup. Again, we’re optimizing for a campaign experience, which goes well beyond just winning fights. We need to field the right man for the right skill challenge when that time comes.

 

Fortunately, a leader can fill either role easily, it’s just a matter of picking the right leader. A Bard makes an excellent party face, though the Ardent or BravuraLord are stiff competition for the role. For parties needing another Wisdom-based build, a Cleric would be a natural choice assuming that wasn’t the first pick, with Artificers and Shamans giving them a run for their money.

 

Note that each character in the party is expected to pick up every skill for his primary (and possibly secondary) attribute, with the exception of the two Wisdom-based characters who split the five Wisdom-based skills among them. This will tend to steer skill-optimized parties toward a Dex-Wis scout, one more Wisdom-based character, a single Charisma-based build, and a single Intelligence-based build. Often, a stumbling block for five-member parties is wanting to have two or more Intelligence-based builds (the controller and at least one leader). This tends to leave either Wisdom or Charisma skills uncovered by the party as a whole.

 

Those builds that have skill slots left over after covering their responsibilities should invest in the obvious choices: Perception, then Heal. In a campaign with strict item rarity and grittily realistic medieval terrain, Athletics should join this elite group.

 

Stealth is a special case. Every party needs a single scout, because knowledge is nearly as important as mad skillz when it comes to consistently winning fights, but most parties don’t need anyone else with the skill. That said, it would be perfectly valid to build a party around a “SEAL team” concept in the right campaign. If everyone can find a way to purchase both Stealth and a modest Dexterity, then a lot of fun tactics will open up for the group. In practice, this will be pretty hard to implement. There aren’t that many leader builds that can even pretend to be a Ninja Lite.

At this point you’ve essentially completed the first draft of the party. It’s time to proofread, and the first thing to look for is overreliance on melee or (much less commonly) ranged attacks. If no one in the party can attack an enemy 6 squares away, it’s time to start over, and ideally everyone in the party can contribute at least some form of attack up to 10 squares away. (All hail the mighty javelin.) Optimizing melee DPR is tempting, even addictive, but an alternate party that can bring 85% of the melee heat and 300% of the ranged heat will have a longer career.

Conversely, a party of ranged specialists better have someone who can stand tall in the thick of melee. Generally this isn’t an issue for any party with a defender. But it’s even better if the ranged characters have some sort of option for helping the meat shield clear a 25-by-25-foot gatehouse full of goblins. Sentinels who specialize in summoning and Shamans add a great deal of value to ranged parties, because their companions and summons can serve as shield walls.

A lot of builds will be centered around a particular paragon path, and that’s fine, but from the party optimization perspective the best paragon paths are those that benefit the party as a whole. Five PCs each benefiting from five powerful knock-on effects at level 16 are way ahead of five PCs each with a single slightly more powerful effect. Some of the best of the best include:

Battle Captain: The gold standard for buff-at-will optimization.

Battlefield Archer: If Battlefield Expertise applies to the whole party, this just adds win to win.

Divine Oracle: This still adds a huge party benefit (no surprise), even if it was a lot sexier on a Wizard before the Cleric=>Templar nerfs.

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

Guildmaster Thief: Two huge effects. AP redistribution is extremely powerful.

Hospitaler: De facto makes the entire party much tougher.

Moonstalker: Does for proning parties what Morninglord does for Radiant Mafias.

Morninglord: The straw that stirs the Radiant Mafia drink into a cheesy froth. May be considered setting and religion specific.

War Chanter: Listening to “Carmina Burana Carl Orff-O Fortuna” over and over again is a small price to pay.

So what have we missed? The original version of this post described 30 party functions, broken into three tiers of 10 each. They were sorely outdated, so let’s revise then review them to see if any are particularly lacking:

TIER A

 

1. Nova/alpha-strikes [situational (see Rule 1), reduces need for healing, tends to synergy with multiple attacks or big basic attacks]

 

2. Marking/defender aura [more than one is good, inverse relationship to nova capacity]

 

3. Healer [more than one is good, decreases in importance as nova capacity increases]

 

4. Multitarget and/or AoE attacks [at least one is extremely handy to “acid test” for minions, larger parties need more and benefit more, to the extent that really large parties may be best optimized with nothing but AoE specialists]

 

5. Extra attacks and moves [less important for mobile ranged parties, big basic attacks add value]

 

6. Debuffs [more important for ranged parties, terrain-making can be a substitute]

 

7. Buffs

 

8. Ranged attacks [gain in importance with party size]

 

9. NAD attacks (particularly vs Reflex and Will)

 

10. SoloLock [nerfed heavily, but an orb Wizard remains handy, larger parties can round-robin this function with stunning attacks]

 

TIER B

 

1. Trapmaster [Thievery, ideally integrated with Sneak for a perfect scout, varies by DM fondness for traps]

 

2. Sneak [Stealth, ideally Perception and Thievery too]

 

3. Terrain-making [zones, etc, more useful in forced movement—heavy party]

 

4. Big basic attacks [adds value to extra attacks]

 

5. Single-target multiattacks [adds value to keyword themes]

 

6. Hawkeye [Perception, useful among all PCs]

 

7. Face [Diplomacy, ideally all 4 Charisma skills barring C5 being filled]

 

8. Synergys [spare resources dedicated to partywide benefits]

 

9. Uniques [detect chaotic evil, tiny shapeshift, etc]

 

10. Ritual caster [depends on DM, needs high Intelligence and ideally Wisdom]

 

TIER C

 

1. Wall (tanking defender) [great in dungeons fronting ranged parties]

 

2. Companions (animal, spirit, etc) [great for smaller and/or ranged parties]

 

3. Lay healers [useful among all PCs, especially thanks to skill powers]

 

4. Athletics expert [varies dramatically with magic item rarity]

 

5. Intimidate expert [not necessarily the party face in this case, given there are Str-based builds]

 

6. Dungeoneering expert

 

7. Acrobat expert

 

8. Sprinter [generally more useful as partywide emphasis]

 

9. Endurance expert

 

10. History expert

 

See anything there you missed? Time to go back and refine your party dynamics. At this point, of course, you’ll have to rob Peter to pay Paul, so don’t expect to be able to do everything with any given standard-size party. However, a well-designed five-PC party can bring a respectable (if not outlandish) nova and fill 25+ of these functions without breaking a sweat.

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.

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.

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.

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 …

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).

SoloLock is not nearly as simple as it used to be. Back in the day, when the boss monster reared its ugly 500-HP head, the orb wizard would elbow his way up to the front of the party and growl, “Stand back, boys. I got this.” Orb wizards can’t hold their locks that long anymore, and good solos have tricks for avoiding stunlock anyway.

 

 

 

 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.