all caster party.

[Alexander123]

What is your experience with an all caster party? I like such parties. I think that when you have a mix of casters and non-casters, the tendency is for the casters to overshadow the non-casters. In this way no one overshadows anybody else and everyone contributes about the same amount whereas in a mix of casters and non-casters, non-casters tend to contribute less to the party.

I have heard people forming such parties of a druid, cleric, wizard and beguiler although my own preference is to go druid, cleric, wizard and artificer.

Thoughts?

 

[Armando]

I've had little success with caster parties. There always comes a point where you face a monster with ridiculous SR and you wish your party had someone who could smash its face in.

I think that when you have a mix of casters and non-casters, the tendency is for the casters to overshadow the non-casters. In this way no one overshadows anybody else and everyone contributes about the same amount whereas in a mix of casters and non-casters, non-casters tend to contribute less to the party.

This I heartily disagree with. I have seen people build fighters, rogues, and rangers who can do outrageous things. Casters tend to get the spotlight because their abilities are more flashy, for lack of a better word. It is just as impressive, though, when a fighter kills a chimera, moves on to cleave two minotaurs, and severely damage the evil cleric that summoned them.

But, hey, more power to you if you can make it work. I've just found a balanced party is much more effective than one that emphasizes magic more than physical combat (or vice versa for that matter).

 

[Dandu]

I've had little success with caster parties. There always comes a point where you face a monster with ridiculous SR and you wish your party had someone who could smash its face in.

Conjuration.

Or buff up and beat it up, if you're a cleric.

SR isn't the defense it claims to be.

Take for example Golems. Ever consider what happens when you cast Grease on the floor a golem's standing on?

This I heartily disagree with. I have seen people build fighters, rogues, and rangers who can do outrageous things. Casters tend to get the spotlight because their abilities are more flashy, for lack of a better word. It is just as impressive, though, when a fighter kills a chimera, moves on to cleave two minotaurs, and severely damage the evil cleric that summoned them.

You'd have to be very high level to do that, as you need Great Cleave as well as the ability to deal enough damage to one shot minotaurs.

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My Red Hand of Doom campaign last semester involved what was almost an all caster party. Paladin, Beguiler, Cloistered Cleric, Shapeshift Druid, and James Mallory, Arcanist. Running out of spells was not a problem, as we had x2 the spell slots of the standard party. Skills were well covered by two 6+Int mod classes. Fighting was taken care of by the Paladin, Cleric and Druid, while the Beguiler and my sorcerer were often able to cripple the (sometimes very large and numerous) opponents that came up.

Funny story: we went off the campaign track for a bit and happened upon a goblin encampment. Long story short, we got into a battle and ended up killing nearly a hundred enemies (AoE blasting and control spells helped). Mostly zombies and orcs, but there was also a hill giant in the mix somewhere which exploded when the paladin used Spirited Charge on it.

 

[GreyLord]

High level to one shot minotaurs?

If I munchkin a character, I can one shot an average minotaur by the time I hit 5th level if I'm lucky on my rolls, and that's not even going to pure optimization route. Average is about 8th level where I could probably do it with all classes and average munchkin/powergaming the system.

I'm not quite certain I'd call 5th-8th level High Level...I guess it depends on the game you are playing. Certainly by the time a Fighter is 10th level they could probably one shot a minotaur and go on to cleave another apart.

I'm certain someone who REALLY is into powergaming/munchkiny/character optimization could probably do such at a lower level than that.

I personally think Clerics are rather easy to counter...at least if they aren't multiclassed into 10 different classes from 10 different books making me have a headache trying to find out how each synergizes with each other. Then I just send a massive shattering event from deities to destroy the character and ban the player from my games for trying to make me do 10 hours of research when I only have 3 hours to plan the game for everyone else. But then...if they have that many classes...they aren't really a pure Cleric anymore anyways.

 

[Dandu]

I'm not quite certain I'd call 5th-8th level High Level...I guess it depends on the game you are playing. Certainly by the time a Fighter is 10th level they could probably one shot a minotaur and go on to cleave another apart.

I forgot that minotaurs had low HP and that threw off my calcualtions. My mistake.

I personally think Clerics are rather easy to counter...at least if they aren't multiclassed into 10 different classes

Really? My experience is that pure clerics tends to be more trouble than ones which have lost tons of caster levels since the former gets Divine Power quicker.

 

[Empirate]

Average is about 8th level where I could probably do it with all classes and average munchkin/powergaming the system.

...

I'm certain someone who REALLY is into powergaming/munchkiny/character optimization could probably do such at a lower level than that.

I personally think Clerics are rather easy to counter...at least if they aren't multiclassed into 10 different classes from 10 different books making me have a headache trying to find out how each synergizes with each other. Then I just send a massive shattering event from deities to destroy the character and ban the player from my games for trying to make me do 10 hours of research when I only have 3 hours to plan the game for everyone else. But then...if they have that many classes...they aren't really a pure Cleric anymore anyways.

1. Please refrain from confusing munchkins (really obnoxious people, cheaters, whiners, a-holes, people you don't want to have anything to do with: this is an insulting term) with powergamers (people who put power first and foremost, but not necessarily bad roleplayers) and optimizers (people who like to get the most out of a character concept, but not necessarily powergamers). This kind of confusion can get you a lot of irritable replies, quick.

2. A straight Cleric is probably among the most versatile characters you can encounter. Full spellcasting off a huge list that is completely available at all times, plus full melee power makes these guys awesome. Turn Undead (to fuel divine and devotion feats, especially DMM) and Domains make them even awesomer.

3. There aren't many great Cleric prestige classes, and you can easily make do without them. Some of them are good, but most powerful Cleric builds don't incorporate too many PrCs. It's the (non-ToB) non-casters who really must multiclass in order to perform at least adequately.

4. "I wasn't willing to take the time to understand your character concept and couldn't be bothered to ask you what it can do. So now your god is dead, your character is dead, and you're expected to come up with something I can wrap my head around in 5 minutes next time." Rather heavy-handed approach, don't you think?

 

[Dandu]

Calling powergamers munchkins is like calling Republicans fascists, or Democrats communists.

 

[Armando]

Really? My experience is that pure clerics tends to be more trouble than ones which have lost tons of caster levels since the former gets Divine Power quicker.

I generally play a cleric and that's absolutely correct. Once clerics hit level 7 or so they become very annoying enemies and very useful allies. Multiclassing a cleric is only really useful if you gain in your divine spell casting in addition to all the PrC stuff, like Thaumaturgist.