well first off this really should be in the rooting roms and hacks section of the forums. to answer your question in general no you dont need adb or fastboot unless you run into issues.
look Here for everything you need to know about rooting and roming.
Edit: the best advice i can give is read everything you can about the subject and then read more, and then just when u think you've read enough read some more. once your rooted there are plenty of ways to mess up your phone (almost all recoverable) and the more you know the better.