RPG Maker Forums

Just curious what people think about party setups in RPGs, particularly with the focus on combat, and what their preferences are. By party I'm speaking about a group consisting of three or more characters. What is the reason behind your preference? Do you think there are potential (design) weaknesses to the setup you picked as your favourite? And if so, what are they?

Since the poll options are super vague, here's some more detail:

Creating your own party setup by choosing who to bring with you.

Gives you freedom in who and/or what your party members are going to be, what their roles in combat should be, and what direction their statlines and/or skillsets should take.

Example: Choose a set of characters at the start of a game. Being able to choose what class each character should play. Full freedom over selecting what skills each character should bring.

A party consisting of well-rounded characters, none having defined roles.

All of the characters are very well balanced, with no particular strengths or weaknesses, all have very varied skillsets to be able to deal with any situation. These characters can take care of themselves, not being too reliant on their teammates.

Example: Characters that have the abilities to absorb good amounts of damage, can heal themselves, support their party, cure conditions, deal high amounts of damage, etc within a single encounter without the need of switching around gear or changing their class.

A party consisting of characters with possible roles, but aren't bound to only 1 task.

Characters have statlines and/or skillsets that pushes them towards a certain role in combat, but have enough variety in their abilities that they can take on a secondary role if the situation calls for it, or if the player prefers another style of gameplay with such a character, without being penalised for doing so.

Example: A tank character that can take on the secondary role of support if the party is in need of extra healing. An assassin character that is great at dealing high amounts of spike damage, but can also play the role of a disrupter by inflicting negative status conditions and disabling enemies.

A party consisting of characters with defined roles and fully specialised in what they do.

Characters that are forced into playing a certain role with no option to do anything else. They're extremely good at what they do, but are useless in situations where enemies might counter a certain role.

Example: The cleric can cast heals and cure conditions to support the party, but her damage output is negligible. The assassin character excels at dealing damage, but has no way of defending himself or to deal with enemies strong against physical attacks. The tank character that is great at taking hits for his party, but has low damage and is useless against enemies using a lot of multi-target skills.