GMs: balanced party of focussed characters vs party of rounded characters?

Quartz · May 18, 2007

For the GMs. Please tell me of your experiences GMing a balanced party of focussed characters - e.g. the archetypal Ftr 10, Rog 10, Cl 10, and Wiz 10 - compared with a party of more rounded characters, e.g. Bar 2 / Mk 2 / Ftr 6, Ftr 4 / Rog 6, Cl 6 / Pal 4, and Mk 2 / Ftr 2 / Wiz 6. Do you prefer one or the other? It seems to me that the former party is easier to plan for at least initially, the latter party is the more resilient, more able to cope with the loss of a character.

Equally, ISTM it's harder to encourage the spellcasting types to diversify, and it's moderately difficult to get the combat types to drop BAB, especially if the game is going to get Epic.

Stalker0 · May 18, 2007

In general the stronger party is the group of focused characters. Further, its easier to spotlight them in my opinion. If only one person is good at sneaking, then you can throw something in to make him look cool. If only one person can blow stuff up with fireballs, sending in a mob lets them look good. With a bunch of characters that can all do the same thing, that's a bit harder.

Nifft · May 18, 2007

Depends how much you like passing the spotlight vs. playing with the theme.

A party where everyone can sneak is able to do things differently than a party where only one guy can sneak.

Cheers, -- N

Arkham · May 18, 2007

For the second party, while it is easier to deal with having a character go down, it is only because either way they will suck. ( speaking as a min/maxer... )

As a GM, I want to be able to throw things at or above the limit at my PCs and watch them be creative in pulling out a win. But castrating the characters by having access to only 3rd level spells when 5th level spells are expected makes it drastically more difficult to challenge them without wiping them out.

Quartz · May 18, 2007

With more rounded characters, what I find is that you have more lower-level opponents instead of one high-level opponent. Ogres instead of giants, for example.

Arkham said:
But castrating the characters by having access to only 3rd level spells

Why is it castrating them? Sure the module may be designed for characters with X level spells, so you run a different module and put in more opponents they can deal with. If the module requires Teleport, then you defer running it until the PCs can cast Teleport. If the BBEG is single-classed, maybe I'll cange him to be multiclassed - Ftr 2 / Sor 10 instead of Sor 12, for instance, and he's in mithril full plate casting Stilled spells and he's spent his fighter feats on Point Blank Shot etc. PCs still have to be creative, in fact more so.

BlackMoria · May 19, 2007

Depends on the campaign.

I have run both types of parties in my long years of DMing and rounded characters can falter when the needs for focused specialists is required. Kinda the 'jack of all trades and master of none' syndrome.

Just finished the Age of Worms AP recently and a rounded party would have been toast based on how I ran it. That AP demands a focused party.

On the other hand, I have run Redhand of Doom with a 'rounded' party and they did well.

Imruphel · May 19, 2007

Losing caster levels/access to higher level spells/powers can be a problem with rounded characters.

While it seems to work well for non-primary spellcasters it can sometimes be a problem when the main arcane spellcaster and main divine spellcaster have taken multiple classes.