So only the first player to respond actually met my deadline last week. Still don't have specifics for most of them, but the party is shaping up, at present, to be a cleric, a sorcerer, a rogue and a wizard, with one player giving me no feedback at all and I'm beginning to suspect is going to end up dropping out. So no tank to speak of (though the cleric might be able to fake it, depending on how he puts his character together) and two very squishy characters. Might be a very short adventure.

Squishy. "Ogg has minstrel stuck between his toes. Ogg hates that."

Squishy. "Ogg has minstrel stuck between his toes. Ogg hates that."

Ogg should learn to live a little.

A wizard or a sorcerer could be a Spellblade but that would require some customization for 5e.

The Bladesinger "school" from The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide comes the closest to that concept, but they're still very vulnerable when they don't have Bladesong active. Neither of these people really want to go that route. Not only are they not communicating with me, they're not communicating with each other, either.

We'll see what happens. I'm starting them at third, so they're over-leveled for the start of the campaign. Hopefully they'll have figured out how to work around their weaknesses by the time the threat level starts increasing. (There's also a potential turncoat NPC they have a chance to recruit right around the time things start getting serious who could fill the tank role. Provided they don't just stab him in the face when they meet him.)

Or they'll become monster chow, which can be entertaining in its own right.

If I were DMing for those guys right about now I'd be thinking about fun ways to kill them.

Laga is me. Masses of kobolds are fun.

We're playing a published adventure and I try not to change too much other than to patch over plot holes or possibly tweak things to work with character backstories. So no kobold hordes.

One of my friends says she might play if they're still lacking a meat shield after the character submission deadline, just so I don't end up killing them all horribly.

Cool!

When I'm a player I try to wait until everyone else had decided what they're playing so that I can make a character who will fit in well with the rest. I play a lot of clerics.

Sometimes I offer to round out the party, other times I have a character concept I really want to play. I generally end up gravitating to paladins and rogues, depending on what meshes better with the party.