Help! PC party makeup creates DM quandary!

[zyzzyr]

Hi all,

I've been recently DMing a game that started off with 4 players: a wizard, a druid, a barbarian, and two fighters. This is a fairly easy party to throw into the middle of a typical combat and know they'll come out ok (making sure they have lots of portable healing instead of a cleric).

Since then two other people have joined, one person changed their character, and two people left.

The current makeup of the party is: druid, rogue, sorcerer, sorcerer. They are accompanied by an NPC cleric.

Since it's in the middle of a campaign which was already heavily combat-focused, I am a little lost on what to do. Clearly they can no longer handle straight-up toe to toe combat without some major NPCs coming along, and I'm not going to introduce any more. Should the group rely on the druid summoning enough animals to help out that they don't need a toe-to-toe fighter? (That is, has anyone tried this and would it work?)

What kind of adventures should I bring up?

Another major sticking point seems to be that the druid is very outdoor-focused, while the rogue is very much urban- or dungeon-focused. How do I resolve these?

Any help would be appreciated on how to DM for a group like this!

zyzzyr

 

[Gnimish88]

Hi all,

I've been recently DMing a game that started off with 4 players: a wizard, a druid, a barbarian, and two fighters. This is a fairly easy party to throw into the middle of a typical combat and know they'll come out ok (making sure they have lots of portable healing instead of a cleric).

Since then two other people have joined, one person changed their character, and two people left.

The current makeup of the party is: druid, rogue, sorcerer, sorcerer. They are accompanied by an NPC cleric.

Since it's in the middle of a campaign which was already heavily combat-focused, I am a little lost on what to do. Clearly they can no longer handle straight-up toe to toe combat without some major NPCs coming along, and I'm not going to introduce any more. Should the group rely on the druid summoning enough animals to help out that they don't need a toe-to-toe fighter? (That is, has anyone tried this and would it work?)

What kind of adventures should I bring up?

Another major sticking point seems to be that the druid is very outdoor-focused, while the rogue is very much urban- or dungeon-focused. How do I resolve these?

Any help would be appreciated on how to DM for a group like this!

zyzzyr

Frankly, I wouldn't change what kind of game you run. Let them take the party and see if they can develop tactics that will make it work. If they do, then they party will work, if they don't, then some casualties are likely to think that a tank fighter might be a good thing to make. I see these sort of things as self-balancing. On the otherhand, if the party dynamic is broken, it won't be, but then even a lineup that matches the game type isn't likely to work.

As far as using summoning to balance out a lack of fighters, I have used it quite effectively in PC D&D, IWD2 especially where I had a party of a cleric, rogue, druid, sorcerer and wizard; but have never seen it tried to the same scale on the table top.

 

[Crothian]

Don't alter the adventures significantly. You've already estaplished the campaign, don't change that. However, allow them time to figure out how they can best handle situations. I'd give them a few easier encounters to see how they handle it.

 

[Kings_Quest]

I agree, I would not change the campaign drastically. The players who have been in it for awhile are familiar with the way things go. Developing new tactics is part of the fun for the characters, in my experiance. And if some die, maybe they will learn a lesson and think about what the make up of the party is before they go make thier characters.

 

[Nightfall]

I agree with Crothy, let them find their way with this group. There are ways for three party spellcasters to get the job done, especially if you have a druid to keep the bigger ones a little busy from the sorcerers.

 

[Nifft]

Yup yup, this is an opportunity for player creativity, not a crisis requiring DM intervention.

-- N, big fan of "specialized", non-iconic parties

 

[zyzzyr]

Hi all,

Thanks for the quick response!

I've got to admit, I was not expecting answers like that. Perhaps it is because I left out an important piece of information. They are all newbies, every last one of them. No one in the group has gamed for more than 6 or 7 sessions, and they are still very much inexperienced. The newer two have only gamed for 3 sessions each.

This is why I am concerned that they might not adapt as quickly as I had hoped. I was thinking of sending them on a less combat-intensive adventure to get their bearings (now that the fighters have gone), but I can't think of a good adventure that will use the skills of both the druid and the rogue at the same time. The sorcerers, well, they can contribute no matter where they are. Any ideas?

Also, I am *very* reluctant to let them learn a lesson through character death. Character death is a traumatic experience, for one, and second, is very difficult to come back from. With experienced players it's no biggie, since you just roll up a new character, but these folk are tied to their characters very deeply. (Besides which, they *did* think of the makeup, and chose rogue and sorcerer to give the dungeoneering aspect and more firepower -- then the two fighters quit. It's hardly reasonable to "punish" them with character death for that).

I'm glad to know that the summoning might offset this, though. The druid is a 3.5 druid, and so can spontaneously cast -- I'll make sure to indicate this option to her (and perhaps point out when it might be appropriate to cast).

zyzzyr

 

[Nifft]

How they use their powers is really their problem. There are few situations where each and every Iconic character can contribute... the point should be that the party can overcome challenges, not that every PC can contribute equally to every individual problem.

An outdoor adventure with traps (snares) is easily plausible, especially if they're sneaking up on the tent of the captain of an enemy army for a pre-emptive decapitation strike. Let the Rogue use his Tumble skill for all sorts of outdoor acrobatic stuff, too -- leaping from branches, swinging from vines or ropes, etc.

Druids work well underground, and they even work well in cities! Don't think that the Druid is only good outdoors. The 3.5e Druid is a great class with excellent flexibility.

-- N

 

[Blood Jester]

Coach them 'out of game'.


Maybe one sorcerer should pick up a wall spell (of Ice?), and the other a summoning spell? Don't try too hard too quickly to have your bad guys ready and able to bypass the wall.

Let them swap out a known spell every four levels if they need one thing now, and something else as they progress.

As far as the urban/outdoor dichotomy, keep mixing it up and hope the jump on the role-playing opportunities. Just don't make it seem like 'punishment' for whichever character is 'out-of-their-element' in a given setting.



edit: Or if both sorcerers pick up summoning spells, they and the druid can bring up their own army when things get too tight.

 

[cptg1481]

Cohorts

Introduce Cohorts. If they don't want to take the feat give' em a nominal title for some quest and a cohort in the form of some nobles son who is duty bound by his father to protect the sorcerer who broke the evil enchatment on his war captain.

Great role playing opportunities abound since he's like dumb as sin but strong as an ox.

You could do it at various times and ways, a remote barbarian villiage chieftan compels a warrior to go with a character after he saves his daughter from vampires. Say a villiage elder tasks one of their rangers to portect one of the characters after they save the villiage as repayment in lieu of gold since they lack the latter.

Before long frontline fighiting is done by thier cohorts while the thinkning, planning and reconaisance is done by the players. Good show all around. Gets all the architypes in the group in one way or another and presto no plots and hooks are out of bounds.

Hope this helps.