RPG MythBusters: PC Party Balance Is Essential! … Maybe Not as Much as You Think?

3 Wise DMs

Party balance: It’s the most important thing every new campaign needs, right? Maybe not. Is there anything a party really NEEDS to have? Can your players survive without a healer? Or a thief? Or a meat shield warrior? Will they still have a good time?

In general, we’re big fans of letting each player play whatever they want to play and working out party balance as we go. But what do you do when that leads to overlap and obvious weak spots? Is party balance as important as some players make it out to be?

In this episode, Thorin, Tony and Dave take a deep dive into what party balance and imbalance do to the game, what it means to the DM, and what it means to the players — some of whom might not be entirely copacetic about playing in a game where the party isn’t balanced the way they want it to be.

2:00 Do we, as DMs, care whether the party is balanced or not?

5:00 Cool things DMs can do with unbalanced parties

10:00 Ways an unbalanced party limits what the DMs can do

13:00 Even if you don’t care about party balance, the players might

15:00 Hired Goons! Wizards are executives, so the all-wizard party should hire meat shields

17:00 How to use subclasses in D&D 5E to make sure PCs of the same class still feel different. IE: The 4 Wizards are an Evoker, a Conjurer, a Diviner, and a Blade Singer

23:00 What you gain when the PCs do have a balanced party

29:00 Players tend to care that the party is balanced and handle that themselves

35:00 What to do when a player is worried about party balance and won’t just go with the PCs everyone has brought

39:00 Exploiting weaknesses against high-stat PCs

43:00 Does the importance of party balance change with different systems? (and why it never really matters to the DM)

51:00 The real problem with an unbalanced party? Players don’t like other PCs stepping on their toes? (and why whatever the PCs can or cannot do, at the end of the day, it’s the DM’s problem)

58:00 How do you help the players accept the party’s overlap and deficiencies?

63:00 Final thoughts: Myth confirmed, busted or inconclusive?