[RPG] Will it cause problems in a campaign if everyone in the party has the same high stats and the same low stats

ability-scoresdnd-5eparty

My friends and I have made a campaign and intend to start soon but everyone has been instructed to make their characters in advance which we are sharing with each other on D&D Beyond. We are playing 5e, and used point buy to determine our ability scores.

The issue is everyone is pretty much focusing on the same stats… specifically high Charisma! This has led to each of the 4 characters created having between 8-10 Strength. Will this cause problems down the road in the campaign?

So far in this party we have the following classes: Paladin, Bard, Monk, Druid, and 2 more coming (most likely Rogue, Wizard, Barbarian, and/or other fighter-type).

I'm new to D&D, but the way I see it, if the last 2 people don't fill the roles we are missing, I feel our party will be susceptible to many basic scenarios…

For example: A situation where two strong characters need to Team-lift something, or we have to climb/jump/swim something and we have only have one strength character who can make the climb/jump/swim and then needs to pull everyone up/over but must be able to defend as well.

Best Answer

This is an opportunity, not a problem

I can understand why you are concerned. I thought much the same in my early gaming days, but with experience I came to realise that it's much less of an issue than you would think.

Roles matter more than stats

For combat balance it is more important that you have balanced combat roles than diverse ability scores. A Dexterity-based fighter is just as effective in melee as a Strength-based one. So long as you have a reasonable balance of melee and ranged, blasters and healers, you should be fine.

Out of combat

Out of combat don't think of low stats as blocks that ruin the campaign, but instead challenges to overcome. In one of my current campaigns, we rolled up a stat block as a group and all used it as a stat array. In that array, there were two 7s. Due to the classes we picked (Druid, Rogue, Cleric, Fighter, Wizard) we wound up with every player dumping Charisma. As you can imagine this regularly poses problems for us in social situations.

To compensate for our low scores, we use magic and clever planning to gain advantage when we need to talk to people. Is it inconvenient? Maybe. Does it ruin our fun? Absolutely not. In fact, it opens us up to some amazing role-playing and hilarious experiences as we try to work around our terrible stats.

Your DM

A good DM will know the limitations of their party and make allowances for it. There's no point setting a Strength DC of 25 if the highest the party can reach is 20. This doesn't mean your low Strength won't matter, but it means that they should be allowing ways for you to get around it.

Additionally they know you built a party of high charisma characters. This often implies a preference for more roleplaying in a campaign, the DM should provide the opportunities for the party to play to their strengths.

Managing your high charisma

Sometimes with lots of roleplay heavy characters it can lead to difficulty in sharing the spotlight. I've played in a party with 3 characters of 16 or higher charisma, we had to learn to share the social skills evenly. We used this to expand our characters, taking on a unique personality and persuasive style based on our backgrounds.

We would then choose who to would talk to any given NPC based on who they were. The shady rogue talked to the low-lifes and criminals, the noble bard talked to the lords and the well-traveled sorcerer did most of our merchant dealings. The important part was that we each felt useful to the party and didn't get in each others way.