Fun thought experiment, what fictional characters would make up your ideal 5-6 character dnd party? How would you build the characters out in dnd (race/class/backgound) assuming say level 5 or 6? By fictional characters I mean literary, comic, movie, tv series characters.

The Fellowship of the Ring: 4 Halfling Bard-Rogues (1 of which has a sentient and cursed ring of invisibility), 1 Elf Ranger, 1 Dwarf Barbarian, 1 Human Fighter, 1 Human Fighter-Ranger, 1 Human Wizard. I mean, how D&D can you get? 

Okay, let's get into this...

We need a tank, and right up front we're gonna want the biggest, manliest bruiser we can find, and who's manlier than He-Man himself? The Dude's basically a Barbarian/Paladin multiclass with a Sabertooth Tiger mount.

Next we want some DPS and movement on the field, and that means a Monk, and if speed is a priority then we're gonna want Cheetara... she's basically a Tabaxi monk with boots of haste.

I had someone else in mind at first, but I'm switching my pick for Rogue to none other than Miss Carmen Sandiego. While other thieves are out there stealing jewels, art, maybe just straight up cash... Carmen's out there stunting on them stealing the Statue of Liberty. She's stealing monuments. She's stolen a Great Lake before. How do you even steal a Lake? Do you pump out all the water? Do you fill it up afterward? I don't know, but she did it, and you know her stealth is maxed out, since no one knows where in the World, in Space, or even in Time she is.

We've got melee combat pretty well covered, but we're gonna need some support, and one of the most versatile supports you can get is from an Artificer, and no one does Machines like my boy Donatello. My dude has access to whatever falls into the sewer and still managed to create multiple fully functional flying machines and converted a junky old BMW into a friggin tank.

Finally we need a dedicated spellcaster, and I'm pulling a wild card here and adding Professor Valerie Frizzle, PHD, aka The Frizz. I have no idea what her powers are, I just know she has a whole dang lot of them that she can throw around casually, plus she has a fully sentient shape-shifting, plane-shifting, everything-shifting construct she can summon and command at will.

Quote from ArntItheBest >>

I think the best Rogue you could get has to be Nightcrawler (aka Kurt the Wagoneer) from X-men. He's a Soulknife / Shadow Monk multiclass. This gets you teleportation when in dim light, teleportation when you throw your daggers, and an extra Misty Step from Fey Touched feat. You get loads of movement, supplemented by the Mobile feat, which basically makes you the master of the battlefield. 

He's a Tiefling, of course, which gets you Thaumaturgy to let you create your own dim light, and Darkness from both this and the Shadow Monk. I have considered throwing in two levels of warlock to get Devil's Sight, but that feels like a little too much spell casting for Kurt.

 

Excuse me, but Nightcrawler is 100 percent a Swashbuckler

The Hulk, as a (not at all RAW) gestalt artificer/barbarian.

Luke Skywalker, psi-knight-dex based with a sunblade. (don't @ me, there a whole other thread if you want to debate what a jedi would be. This is what it is in my made up party.)

Sherlock Holmes, inquisitive rogue

Triss (from The Witcher), not sure if she works better a sorcerer or wizard. Her order studied like wizard, but I don't think they really used a spellbook, and it seemed like they were just born with magic. No idea on a subclass.

The Lorax, gnome druid. Circle of shepherd, maybe?

Dandelion, also from The Witcher, horny bard, maybe eloquence.

Main characters make bad team members. Even main characters that are canonically part of teams, often have their story told from the lens of them getting special attention and ample narrative room. Sherlock Holmes is cute when he gets to monologue and delight in his own rich inner thoughts; that's a lot less cute when he's one of 4 other team members who all also want to be part of the solution, and one player is droning on and on and on about hair samples. The Hulk is a cool superhero when the story is shaped in a way that guarantees his anger will be a part of the story; that's a lot less cool when he's the one party member piping up in the social encounter to remind people that unfortunately he needs to interrupt the scene and attack the evil duke in the middle of the grand ball because 'that's what his character would do' when openly mocked and betrayed. 

Watson would be a better Inquisitive than Holmes. Pepper Potts would be a better artificer than Tony Stark. Man-at-Arms would be a better tank than He-Man. Etc. etc., the best characters are those with the disposition to celebrate and support others' strengths rather than be a force unto themselves, and to be able to set aside their own personalities and worldviews when they aren't the focus of the scene.  

Quote from Chicken_Champ >>

Main characters make bad team members. Even main characters that are canonically part of teams, often have their story told from the lens of them getting special attention and ample narrative room. Sherlock Holmes is cute when he gets to monologue and delight in his own rich inner thoughts; that's a lot less cute when he's one of 4 other team members who all also want to be part of the solution, and one player is droning on and on and on about hair samples. The Hulk is a cool superhero when the story is shaped in a way that guarantees his anger will be a part of the story; that's a lot less cool when he's the one party member piping up in the social encounter to remind people that unfortunately he needs to interrupt the scene and attack the evil duke in the middle of the grand ball because 'that's what his character would do' when openly mocked and betrayed. 

Watson would be a better Inquisitive than Holmes. Pepper Potts would be a better artificer than Tony Stark. Man-at-Arms would be a better tank than He-Man. Etc. etc., the best characters are those with the disposition to celebrate and support others' strengths rather than be a force unto themselves, and to be able to set aside their own personalities and worldviews when they aren't the focus of the scene.  

Tell that to the Avengers movies. Or the US Olympic basketball team. Even ego-driven superstars know when to shut up and let someone else take the lead. They are confident enough in their own abilities that they don't have to feel threatened by someone else's success.

But to stick with the game version. It's going to be up to the players to know when to take a back seat, and to the DM to give everyone a chance to shine.

And Bruce Banner would clearly be the one at the grand ball. Probably being all introverted near the punch bowl and hoping no one comes to talk to him.

D&D sessions do not play out like movie scenes, where one creative voice controls what characters speak, act, etc. to allow strong personalities to mix. I agree that it's up to the players to know when to take a back seat, and the DM to give everyone a chance to shine, I just think that a player who thinks of themself as Watson, a member of a team first and foremost, is more likely to remember that it's not all about them than one who thinks of themself as Sherlock, a superhero genius in their own right.

Supporting characters are the best characters, because D&D is a game about the success of the collective, not the individual :) 

I've been in D&D groups where one player thought they were the protagonist.  It wasn't fun at all.

Quote from TransmorpherDDS >>

Finally we need a dedicated spellcaster, and I'm pulling a wild card here and adding Professor Valerie Frizzle, PHD, aka The Frizz. I have no idea what her powers are, I just know she has a whole dang lot of them that she can throw around casually, plus she has a fully sentient shape-shifting, plane-shifting, everything-shifting construct she can summon and command at will.

 Frizzle isn't a human, she's a reality warping eldritch abomination in human guise.

For a wizard, Dumbledore from the Harry Potter series would be a good shout. Voldemort would make a good warlock / necromancer considering he made 'zombies' and did loads of shady stuff to make himself more powerful. 

My group did a mini campaign where we all played one of our fav literary/fantasy characters,. thats what inspired this post. He's what they ended up playing, all characters started at level 5 so multiclassing could come online:

Corvo, human, rogue, goo lock, soldier

Oliver Queen(arrowverse), human, fighter battle master, noble

Mr Wednesday, aasimar, bard, eloquence, charlatan

Ciri, half-elf, rogue swashbuckler, noble

Red Sonya, human, barbarian, zealot, outlander

Harry Dresden, Human, wizard divination, investigator

The teen titans make a fine party...
   Cyborg = warforged fighter
   Beast Boy = goblin druid
   Raven = tiefling, pick your favorite sulky magic user
   Robin = rogue
   Starfire = divine sorcerer or similar (with fire bolt or produce flame or similar)

My five party group:

1. Leader - Commander Sam Vimes. Battle Master/Inquisitive Rogue.
2. Lancer - John Constantine, Arcane Trickster/Lore Bard
3. The Smart One - Scrooge McDuck, Artificer, probably. He's shown some ingenuity with limited resources.
4. The Muscles -  Toph Beifong, Open Hand Monk/Moon Druid
5. The Nice One - Willow Rosenberg Arcana Cleric/Wizard

All Ranger Party, 

Daryl, Walking Dead -  Human Beast Master 

Dar, The Beastmaster - Human Beast Master 

Squirrel Girl, Marvel Comics - Tiefling Swarm Keeper

Poison Ivy, DC Comics - Elf Fey Wanderer

Wolverine, Marvel Comics - Dwarf Gloom Stalker