Thinking about doing another run with a single class party. My first thought is druid, because between the subclasses you can get a good mix of healing, AoE, and tanking. What other classes might work? Is there enough gear to go around for this to work?
I feel like I don't know how to play a bard well in combat. In my original playthrough, all he did in combat was use arrows to knock people off things.
I did college of swords with dual hand crossbows and short swords. I also took 3 levels of rogue to get the second bonus action (for 4 attacks per round). Spell slots mostly went to utility stuff.
Valor is your tank. Strap on a shield and take some defensive spells.
Lore is your main caster. Mostly debuffs but you can pick up some variety with magical secrets.
For a full bard party, I'd probably take 2 lore bards for the spell variety and either take a dip into warlock or sorcerer or pick up Spell Sniper with at least one of them for access to better cantrips.
Doubling up on swords is also a good option since your bardic inspiration recharges on short rest (starting at level 5) and you'll have 6 short rests per day thanks to Song of Rest.
I think the game is forgiving enough that you don't have to limit yourself in your choice. There are enough healing potions that you don't necessarily need a dedicated healer.
Fair point. I ended my second run through with sorcerer, ranger, wild shape druid, and fighter. I love the smashing power of the 2h fighter. I just don't know how they'd handle fights meant for AoEs.
Clerics are the original All-Class Party. You can build a cleric to do damn near literally any role using different subclasses and spells. Heavy armor tank, heals, sneaky sneaky lockpicks, nearly naked full caster, you name it, there's a cleric of it. Get four of them in a room, call 'em the A-Men and get ready to break any semblance of balance over your knee. The Absolute is having a panic attack right now and doesn't even know why.
I'd go druids. With spor Druid, you get tons of temp hit points and can tank a bit. Shape shifting allows you all kinds of utility in and outside combat. And when you die in animal form, you just go back to where you were before you shifted. Hand full of healing spells. Lots of summoning spells. My one druid gets like 7 summons before most fights start and a few during the fight.
Make your own druid circle! Haslin and Jaheria are a good start! Besides, druids can kinda do it all anyways! One of each subclass and if you wanted to be a bit cheeky I would say a nature cleric or ancients paladin would be an honorary druid. 😝
A Monk seems capable of soloing the game. Especially with clever use of throwables and improvised weaponry, positioning and shoves. They get 2 attacks right off the bat, don't need equipment at all, and are strong as fuck.
Of course, you can also just multiclass into every single class at once (even an achievement for doing this without using Withers) and practically do everything, too.
You have alot of the same answers but here is a wildcard. Sorccerer. Spells can complimemt each other very well, for example create water+ice or shock magic.
The biggest problem is, that getting the same equiqement x 4 is pretty hard. But doable in lategame.
Boring answer possibly, but Fighter. Can have each different one lean into defensive, dual-wield, ranged, two handed weapons however you want. Can have one or two be an eldritch knight for magic too.
A lot of enemies in the game have resistance to the blunt, piercing, and slashing so the ability to do some kind of other damage type is important. Some kind of magic would definitely be welcome in a fighter comp.