Holy cow my party is all strikers!! Forked Thread: Holy cow my party has 3 strikers

[KarinsDad]

by the way...
A BRV fighter optimized for pure survival, seems most often sighted as unkillable ... not necessarily better as a defender...just better at being last man... and less likely to be having his friends with him at the end of the fight ...

And such is viewed incorrectly. The BRV Fighter is 95% as sticky as the non-BRV Fighter and uses less healing resources, hence, giving more healing resources to the group which in turn increases the survivability of the group, not decreasing it. This is a common misconception.

 

[Elric]

And such is viewed incorrectly. The BRV Fighter is 95% as sticky as the non-BRV Fighter and uses less healing resources, hence, giving more healing resources to the group which in turn increases the survivability of the group, not decreasing it. This is a common misconception.

Similarly, one will probably observe opponents ignoring the BRV-fighter (and taking Combat Challenge attacks from his mark) more often than most fighters. This isn't the sign of weakness that many people take it to be; it's a sign of strength.

The BRV fighter takes so little damage from many melee attacks that there's little point to attacking him. So the enemy is forced to absorb a Combat Challenge attack + the mark penalty in order to deal damage to the party.

This is similar to the common misconception that a fighter can have AC that's "too high", leading enemies to attack his allies rather than him. There's no such thing; a fighter can give up too much in getting high AC, but that's a different story. If you gave a fighter +3 AC for free, you'd find that enemies ignore him more often, but he's a clearly superior character.

 

[AllisterH]

Open to debate might be whether a raise dead ritual is allowed during the encounters.

Why wouldn't it be? Isnt that kind of part of the "benefit" to having a generalist party in that you can recover from sub-optimal situations better?

AS an aside, are we using Monster Manual 1 only, MM2 only or a mix of all monsters available from the compendium?

 

[Sadrik]

I'd actually suggest 4-person parties. 4 strikers vs. 1 of each role.

I second this.

Also magic items can be extremely variable in how well a group deals with various encounters. I would suggest giving extra '+' over any other considerations. In this way you are seeing more of the class at work than any funky yet useful ability.

Also, I think it would make the most sense in making the parties come form the first 3 core books. Not to limit anybody but to not find closet case weapons or quible over not-used-enough-yet effects and also to make sure everyone is on the same page.

My suggested parties
STR ranger
DEX Ranger
CON Warlock
Rogue

Vs.

Fighter
Wizard
Rogue
WIS Cleric

4 encounters each slanted in several directions:
Solo combat
Boss + many minions
Terrain/traps + artillery
Straight up just a good mix of monsters without minions or very few

Level 8 is a very good spring board point. If we can get the PCs written up, the encounters written up and then tested by as many groups as possible we may have something here.

 

[Pickles JG]

"I only want one Striker so how about Swordmage in the last slot?"

This is not what you stated in your original post, you only asked for a balanced party, which would include one character of each kind. The fifth character should be a striker. If he can't be a striker, I would make him a tempest fighter with a double sword and the kickas 3rd level fighter power I can't remember the name of.

I did try to say it but evidently not very clearly ... The power is Rain of Blows. I would be inclined to ban it otherwise any Melee Ranger/Brutal Rogue/Spear Warlord is likely to MC to get it. OTOH that's a lot of feats. Like Battleragers I am not sure that Tempests are a good test as they are strikers in disguise especially in the Doublesword/Rain of Brokeness configuration.

I second this.

Also magic items can be extremely variable in how well a group deals with various encounters. I would suggest giving extra '+' over any other considerations. In this way you are seeing more of the class at work than any funky yet useful ability.

Also, I think it would make the most sense in making the parties come form the first 3 core books. Not to limit anybody but to not find closet case weapons or quible over not-used-enough-yet effects and also to make sure everyone is on the same page.

My suggested parties
STR ranger
DEX Ranger
CON Warlock
Rogue

Vs.

Fighter
Wizard
Rogue
WIS Cleric

4 encounters each slanted in several directions:
Solo combat
Boss + many minions
Terrain/traps + artillery
Straight up just a good mix of monsters without minions or very few

Level 8 is a very good spring board point. If we can get the PCs written up, the encounters written up and then tested by as many groups as possible we may have something here.

This works for me - 4 is less work for one thing.

Level 8 is a good spot for magic items as you get all +2s & can buy another +2 with your spare cash if you need to (using the standard rules)

The first 3 books does limit the all strikers to not having a sorcerer but that just needs to be built around a little. It undoubtedly keeps magic items more even too. It might mean the test is somewaht invalidated as I certainly play with all the stuff, being mostly an LFR player.


Given that limitation the parties do rather build themselves in terms of the classes. I would go with a brutal human rogue who can cover both parties though any old rogue would do.



So

Dex Ranger - bow - elf
Str Ranger - dual bastard swords - Human or Dragonborn (or elf hybrid)
Con = Infernal Warlock - no idea how to build this.
Brutal rogue rapier - Human or elf

vs

Human or Dragon born Protector Fighter - Bastard sword
Human (or eladrin or tiefling) Wizard - no idea how to do this well
Brutal rogue rapier - Human or elf
Wis Cleric - dwarf? Human? No idea about range clerics.

I am not sure about ranged clerics - I like melee or mixed ones but I have not seen many if anyone wants to volunteer to make those. IME at least 3 characters will get into melee so having only 2 that are comfortable there is a risk.

I will make up some of the others today but I am away for the weekend so feel free )) to do this too & to make up encounters.

 

[Eric Finley]

I also suggest that you run with the "least broken" set of rules interpretations you can find. See multiple analyses that Rain of Blows, for example, is actually balanced against other powers if it's just 1[W], not 1[W]+bonuses. Use one of the commonly suggested BRV fixes if you use a Battlerager (mine is in the second spoiler tag here). Either don't use Bloodclaw and Reckless weapons, or use them in the "if I had written them, here's how they'd read" format. (Bloodclaw: only applies to weapon strikes made with this weapon; you only get to make one attack roll with boosted damage per use. Reckless: only applies to its own weapon attacks, as with Bloodclaw; cannot stack, you can't use it if you're already under an AC penalty from Reckless.)

With these things taken care of, many of the "strikers are teh best" convictions go away, and we're looking more at the roles as RAI. Much more interesting comparison.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I also suggest that you run with the "least broken" set of rules interpretations you can find. See multiple analyses that Rain of Blows, for example, is actually balanced against other powers if it's just 1[W], not 1[W]+bonuses. Use one of the commonly suggested BRV fixes if you use a Battlerager (mine is in the second spoiler tag here). Either don't use Bloodclaw and Reckless weapons, or use them in the "if I had written them, here's how they'd read" format. (Bloodclaw: only applies to weapon strikes made with this weapon; you only get to make one attack roll with boosted damage per use. Reckless: only applies to its own weapon attacks, as with Bloodclaw; cannot stack, you can't use it if you're already under an AC penalty from Reckless.)

With these things taken care of, many of the "strikers are teh best" convictions go away, and we're looking more at the roles as RAI. Much more interesting comparison.

Nah, no house rules, how ever good or suggested they might be. Again, credibility of the "test" is critical. If you think a power is obviously broken, just don't use it all and maybe take a note why.

 

[Garthanos]

And such is viewed incorrectly. The BRV Fighter is 95% as sticky as the non-BRV Fighter and uses less healing resources, hence, giving more healing resources to the group which in turn increases the survivability of the group, not decreasing it. This is a common misconception.

95% as sticky... well are you sure? part of stickiness is perceptions, if the npc's see hitting him as a waste of time, and he isn't dishing out the stuff, they will avoid.

But the point about not needing the parties healing resources is a good one.

 

[Herschel]

SPEC1-2 discussion (spoilers) - Wizards Community

Ibixat makes some good observations in his post about a Striker-heavy party in a forum where they had experienced players.

 

[keterys]

His table was randomly thrown together for a mod that demands high performance, where balanced parties were complaining of being unable to compete.

I'm not really sure that it was all that useful.