with your rogue, cleric and paladin, you have enough magic to deal with what might come your way remember, clerics and paladins have spells too, you even mentioned that the rogue is an arcane trickster, that has magic but your party is very good, if you play your cards right you'll be alright
so long as the dragonborn isn't so fat that it breaks the scale...i'd say yes.
you have a healer and someone that can use spellscrolls (not ideal, but you'll get by if you take the time to pool money and stock up on a few more useful scrolls). you're good...imo.
By and large, spell damage isn't particularly different from martial weapon damage, so it isn't that you don't have enough "magic." And the Trickster and Cleric are likely to pick up a control spell or two along the way, as will the Battlemaster in its own way. Good mix of defense (Paladin, Barbarian, Battlemaster) with healing (Paladin, Cleric) and striking (Paladin, Rogue, Battlemaster) and skill (Rogue).
The issue is more that your Battlemaster, Paladin, and Barbarian are unlikely to be doing AOE crowd control damage with their attacks. If your DM doesn't throw encounters at you clogged full of trash mobs, that may never be an issue, but in the event it does pop up... your Arcane Trickster may want to take a couple Evocation spells like Fireball, Lightning Bolt, or Sickening Radiance at the levels that allow that, or your cleric might want to prepare something like Spirit Guardians or Dawn.
5e is not like previous editions where all the "roles" had to be filled for a party to work properly. Parties do not need a real healer anymore, in particular, and you already have one. And in 5e, non-arcane damage dealers are actually often better, arcane casters are often more control/utility.
Now it all depends on what you will face in the campaign. If it is combat intense, and if the DM throws hordes of enemies at you, Chicken_Champ's suggestions are probably the right ones. If it's more roleplaying/social, you are probably very well off. As for exploration, the arcane trickster will do the job.
100% Agree. There is no need to stick to the traditional fighter / healer / thief / spellcaster in 5e. A good DM will make the game appropriate for whatever team you have. I just want to add that the light cleric can do AoE just fine. It gets burning hands, fireball, and wall of fire as domain spells.
Only hole I can see is arcane casting and magical travel. Instead of arcane trickster rogue, you could have that character change to a bard with the urban bounty hunter background that way you still have lockpicks as well as full arcane casting and travel abilities. You have more than enough melee damage so the rogue may not be needed as much.
Bow-using Battlemasters are awesome! And Clerics can be ranged damage with their cantrips for sure! Possibly the Arcane Trickster too, so yeah, they've (potentially) got some range.
yeah, the range problem is just as easily fixed as the "no primary spell caster" problem initially brought up the party has a lot of options to suit what they need or want
This is a group that is fantastic in front-line melee, and you have solid healing and utility with a rogue. I could see certain encounters being more challenging for this type of party, but not anything that tactics or planning couldn't compensate for.
you dont need an arcane caster to be successful. You'll be fine.
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I am not even sure you need ot differentate between arcane and divine magic they are often different ways of doing a somilar thing, pigeon mentioned magical travel at level 11 the cleric will be able ot cast word of recall to get back to a safe base much like teleportation circle.
I would say ideally you want 2 or 3 ranged attackers but as others have said we don't know whether the paladin, cleric, rogue or fighter are set up for range oer melee.
My view is clerics that don't get heavy armor are best fighting at range, I have a level 11 light cleric and I don't think she has ever used a sword. At low levels Radiance of the dawn is one of if not the best AoE attack in the game light clerics also get fireball and wall of fire.
In my opinion, a balanced party is one in which each PC uses their abilities to benefit the group as a whole rather than everyone trying to be the one in the limelight. It has nothing to do with character creation choices, and everything to do with group dynamic and party cohesion. D&D is a cooperative game, and cooperation is what makes any given party effective - in other words, teamwork makes the dream work.
So I have a party consisting of the following characters
Variant Human Arcane Trickster Rogue
Half-Orc Bear Totem Barbarian
Variant Human Light Cleric
Dragonborn Vengeance Paladin
Variant Human Battlemaster Fighter
Is this party balanced? Its lacking an arcane caster and I'm worried about that. Can we make do with what we have?
with your rogue, cleric and paladin, you have enough magic to deal with what might come your way
remember, clerics and paladins have spells too, you even mentioned that the rogue is an arcane trickster, that has magic
but your party is very good, if you play your cards right you'll be alright
so long as the dragonborn isn't so fat that it breaks the scale...i'd say yes.
you have a healer and someone that can use spellscrolls (not ideal, but you'll get by if you take the time to pool money and stock up on a few more useful scrolls). you're good...imo.
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By and large, spell damage isn't particularly different from martial weapon damage, so it isn't that you don't have enough "magic." And the Trickster and Cleric are likely to pick up a control spell or two along the way, as will the Battlemaster in its own way. Good mix of defense (Paladin, Barbarian, Battlemaster) with healing (Paladin, Cleric) and striking (Paladin, Rogue, Battlemaster) and skill (Rogue).
The issue is more that your Battlemaster, Paladin, and Barbarian are unlikely to be doing AOE crowd control damage with their attacks. If your DM doesn't throw encounters at you clogged full of trash mobs, that may never be an issue, but in the event it does pop up... your Arcane Trickster may want to take a couple Evocation spells like Fireball, Lightning Bolt, or Sickening Radiance at the levels that allow that, or your cleric might want to prepare something like Spirit Guardians or Dawn.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
100% Agree. There is no need to stick to the traditional fighter / healer / thief / spellcaster in 5e. A good DM will make the game appropriate for whatever team you have. I just want to add that the light cleric can do AoE just fine. It gets burning hands, fireball, and wall of fire as domain spells.
Only hole I can see is arcane casting and magical travel. Instead of arcane trickster rogue, you could have that character change to a bard with the urban bounty hunter background that way you still have lockpicks as well as full arcane casting and travel abilities. You have more than enough melee damage so the rogue may not be needed as much.
The only possible problem I can see is Range. If no one can do significant range attacks, that might be unbalancing.
doesn't cleric and paladin get decent range spells?
plus, the fighter could opt for range
Bow-using Battlemasters are awesome! And Clerics can be ranged damage with their cantrips for sure! Possibly the Arcane Trickster too, so yeah, they've (potentially) got some range.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
yeah, the range problem is just as easily fixed as the "no primary spell caster" problem initially brought up
the party has a lot of options to suit what they need or want
This is a group that is fantastic in front-line melee, and you have solid healing and utility with a rogue. I could see certain encounters being more challenging for this type of party, but not anything that tactics or planning couldn't compensate for.
you dont need an arcane caster to be successful. You'll be fine.
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I am not even sure you need ot differentate between arcane and divine magic they are often different ways of doing a somilar thing, pigeon mentioned magical travel at level 11 the cleric will be able ot cast word of recall to get back to a safe base much like teleportation circle.
I would say ideally you want 2 or 3 ranged attackers but as others have said we don't know whether the paladin, cleric, rogue or fighter are set up for range oer melee.
My view is clerics that don't get heavy armor are best fighting at range, I have a level 11 light cleric and I don't think she has ever used a sword. At low levels Radiance of the dawn is one of if not the best AoE attack in the game light clerics also get fireball and wall of fire.
I would honestly ramp up the difficulty a little bit since the characters cover a wide area of expertise.
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Define "balanced."
In my opinion, a balanced party is one in which each PC uses their abilities to benefit the group as a whole rather than everyone trying to be the one in the limelight. It has nothing to do with character creation choices, and everything to do with group dynamic and party cohesion. D&D is a cooperative game, and cooperation is what makes any given party effective - in other words, teamwork makes the dream work.
It's 5e. Technically any party can work. It's what I love about this edition.