Hi all,
I am running my
first Eberron campaign. The player group consists of my wife, two of our daughters, and a married couple who are friends of ours.
In our most recent adventure, my wife's PC (a dragonmarked gnome eloquence bard) was disintegrated by a laser beam while the party was in the Mournland. With no body, there's no real chance of revival at this point in the game, and she told me that she didn't really enjoy playing a charismatic character anyway, so she needs to make a new PC.
The problem is she's having trouble choosing what to play next.
Some background notes: I've been running campaigns for my wife and the other couple since 5e first came out in 2014. Our children have joined in at various points. My wife enjoys playing, but she finds the mechanical aspects of the game too complex and suffers from decision paralysis when it comes to making a PC. (I know how she feels; I get that too.) Previously she has played two wizards (an elf and a dwarf), a gnome life cleric, and a human fighter/rogue (scout). I think she enjoyed the latter the most, although she also really enjoyed her 'grumpy, stompy' dwarf wizard in our
Tyranny of Dragons campaign.
The
all-gnome party currently consists of an
armorer artificer, a permanently enlarged
wild magic barbarian, a
swarmkeeper rogue, and a
vengeance paladin. The barbarian fills the role of the party tank, with the artificer backing her up with his thunder gauntlets and gadgets, while the ranger and paladin tend to focus on ranged attacks.*
Between the artificer, the paladin, and the ranger, the party has plenty of healing and also a decent spread of combat and utility spells.
The artificer is also proficient with thieves' tools and will soon have Expertise in all tools, so there's no real need for a lockpicking rogue.
This is a heist/infiltration-heavy campaign (I've built it around the Golden Vault adventures), and both the paladin and the artificer have mithril armor so they don't have disadvantage on Stealth. The ranger also has
pass without trace.
As you can see, the only real gaps in the party are a charismatic face -- the artificer's player tends to take on the role of the talkative party leader, even when his PC is meant to be socially awkward and has a Charisma of 8 -- and a dedicated full-strength spellcaster.
My wife insists she has no real preference but has also expressed concern that she doesn't want to choose something that will be redundant in terms of what the rest of the party can already do (see above).
I have suggested to my wife that if she'd like to stick with a bard, she could try the College of Valor or College of Swords instead if she'd like to focus more on fighting than talking.
She doesn't seem that interested in playing another wizard or cleric or trying a sorcerer or warlock. I've avoided mentioning the druid since it's the most mechanically complicated class in the game.
She does seem somewhat interested in a rogue, but she can't decide what kind. She kind of liked the Mastermind's bonus action Help feature. But again, a rogue may not be what the party needs.
Bearing all that in mind:
how can I help my wife decide what to play next?
*The paladin is an odd one because her player prefers to avoid melee and therefore rarely smites (IKR?!) or uses her Vow of Enmity. She even took the Blessed Warrior fighting style so she could get sacred flame
. She's also taken the wand of entangle
left behind by the dead bard so she can have another ranged option.
