I basically have two contingency plans in regards to team compositions with 4 character and 6 character teams.
4 characters:
- Archer Valor Bard - Shadowheart/Cleric - Paladin - Gale/Wizard
Extremely rigid setup, covers all tactical bases while favoring magical utility at the same time. Replacing anyone leads to a major loss of utility for maybe more damage. I would not be surprised if most players had planned setups very similar to something like this as well.
6 characters: - Archer Valor Bard - Shadowheart/Cleric - Paladin - Gale/Wizard - Ranger - Wild card slot for whichever character interests me most
A balanced setup favoring ranged capabilities. The wild card would determine if the setup becomes more balanced (if I add another melee-focused character like Lae'zel), or even more skewed towards magic (like Halsin/Druid). If I wanted to, I could swap out the Ranger for even heavier magic or melee setups.
Upon further thought, with a 4 person party, I feel like having 3+ melee characters is just asking for trouble. But you can comfortably get away with doing that with a 6 person party, because you won't be losing far too much utility from doing such a thing.
It's worth noting that my current favored party setup in Pathfinder WotR consists of the following:
- Eldritch Archer (wizard/archer hybrid) - Lann/Zen Archer (monk/archer hybrid) - Arueshalae/Ranger - Ember/Stigmatized Witch (bard/wizard hybrid with a focus on buffs and debuffs) - Camellia/Shaman (druid-type class with a focus on buffs and debuffs) - Seelah/Paladin
A lot of archers and mages. Despite the setup being imbalanced in theory, the characters are built in very specific ways to cover for tactical weaknesses, such as Lann and Camellia being able to function well on the front lines, along with four of the characters being capable of casting healing magic if needed (five if the main character is built in a specific way in regards to mythic powers).
