A-symetrical parties

[Zappo]

What were the creatures may I ask?

The CR 15 one was a unique melee-heavy fiend, capable of dealing heavy damage, with DR, SR, elemental resistances and lots of AC. It could also fly, and it had a few spell-like abilities. Its crucial weakness was an inability to see invisible; I was playing an astral deva and I could cast invisibility sphere. We all became invisible except for our main fighter (a fighter/cleric who spent most of his starting money on an evil-outsider-bane weapon). While staying invisible, we buffed him through the roof, and I mean it. Enough AC and HP to survive a full attack from the monster, enough pluses to hit it, an aligned weapon to bypass DR, and we healed him fully every round. We casted (cast?) every single melee buff spell under 4th level in the PHB. Eventually, the monster realized he was losing, against all odds, and tried to fly away; we all made AoOs and dealt some more damage. On the following round, the ultrabuffed character charged (we made him fly too) and killed it.

I think the CR was a bit high (it didn't hit that much and nothing at 15 should be helpless against invisibility), and we were lucky, but I'm positive it would have wiped out any other 7th-level party. The main artillery spellcaster of a typical party wouldn't get past the SR and elemental resistances, and the main fighter would die quickly because the single cleric wouldn't be able to heal and buff him fast enough. Our crusade party certainly can't deal more damage than that fiend even with full buffs, but it can absorb it.

The 9th level sorceress, OTOH, was using dimension door and invisibility to great effect while her mooks slowed us down. IIRC, at the moment our only way to beat invisibility was invisibility purge, but she was too far. She dispelled most of our protections and started tossing area effect blast spells; with little ways to deal ranged damage, we realized that we could kill her but only after some losses, and decided to postpone the battle to another day. Area dispels are killer against that party; it lives on buffs.

I'd like to play a non-spellcasters party one day, but it'll certainly take a specially designed campaign.

 

[Kalendraf]

The party I'm DM'ing right now has 7 characters whose level range spans from 8th to 13th. I should point out that the 8th level character is an NPC tagging along while the bulk of the party is 10th and 11th. The lone 13th level character is an afflicted wererat. If/when he gets cured, he'll drop back to the rest of the party.

Thus far, I've not noticed any terribly difficult things about challenging the party. The 8th level character contributes when involved and isn't some type of achilles heel for the group that they're always having to go save from danger. At the same time, the 13th level character isn't showing up the rest of the crew either.

 

[1upus]

From a player point of view, unbalanced parties with regards to levelling is a royal pain in the butt.

Having recently joined a group, when they were still playing DnD, I drew the short end of the straw. The DM had a basic rule that new characters start at the level of the lowest current party member. Hence, when I joined the group, I was at the start of level 5, when the lowest member was about 100XP off level 6. Most of the characters were sitting on levels 7 to 8.

THe game we played, by virtue of most of the players, tended to be fairly combat heavy, and this was where the levelling imbalance really showed up. Being of a lower level, I had less HPs and poorer hit chances. Resulting in a decreased ability to hit and deal damage as well as a poorer ability to take damage.

Net result, my character tended to be seriously wounded more often and killed more often. actually ended up going backwards in XP due to the house rules with regards to character death.

it wasn't until a massive gripe to the GM allowed for catch up in XPs to balance things out that my characters actually managed to survive.

this problem isn't really inherent to just DnD though. happens with other games as well. just seems a bit more relevant in dnd where most of the combat effects are level dependent.

lupus

 

[LostSoul]

I think that balance only matters within the party.

If you have a character who is much better at everything than another character, your balance is thrown out of whack. An example might be a min/maxxed cleric versus a fighter with poorly chosen feats and low ability scores. The cleric might be able to out-fight the fighter.

When it comes to the strength of the party as a whole, "balance" doesn't matter one bit. (Or it does, it's just so obvious that nobody mentions it.) Just as you don't throw Adult Red Dragons against a first level party, you don't put the party up against challenges they can't handle. It means that the EL/CR tables might not work properly for your group; but whatever.