All Wizard Party? How does it survive early levels?

[NEXxREX]

one of them could specialize in being a necromancer minionmaster to make shields out of the remains of what you all kill. you protect others, and they do what they do.

 

[Empath Negative]

Remember the heavy crossbow. It can easily murder a level 1 minion type creature. Theres also alxhemy and things of that nature.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

How might level 1 Wizards prepare to survive 1 or 2 serious-but-level-appropriate hits in the process of fighting or retreating?

Quoting myself:

One gnome in particular emphasized alchemical grenade attacks followed by short-sword attacks before using spells, and Adragon Van Basten, the "Mage-Brute" was a standard sorcerer (with the Draconic Breath feat) who wore scale mail, used a maul and almost never cast a spell in combat (for a variety of reasons).

That gnome was a 2Ed Illusionist/Th, and his use of firebombs, glue-bombs, acid-grenades and caltrops made him a fearsome low-level foe.

Adragon had Draconic breath to get around the ASF of wearing armor- not an option for Wizards, just included as an example of thinking outside the box.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Excellent ideas guys, thanks. I don't currently intend to try this, just wanted to see what Wizards could do. I would want to make a Wizard character that had some survivability, but figured this question would push it. Awesome.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

As hinted at by others upthread, if you use specialist Wizards with some of the variant rules, some of those guys might have some nearly at-will abilities that will greatly improve survivability.

Hell- its not optimization in general- but taking the Toad familiar and the Toughness feat could make one of them the virtual "bruiser" in the party, at least in terms of HP.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

We had a party once, Final Fantasy I-themed. Ended up being two black mages, a red mage, a white mage, and a fighter. Yeah... Low levels were tough. We survived, and later thrived, because of battlefield control. When everyone has powerful ranged options, locking up foes with nasty area effects is extremely potent, and having multiple casters means you can very quickly escalate and multiply the effects. Remember, difficult terrain's penalties to movement multiply using real world math, not that x2 and x2 combined = x3 crap. Of course, you need some blasting abilities in the party to actually kill things off. But a party that can throw grease, web, and entangle and still have one or two others to start shooting, all in one round w/o quicken or familiars with scrolls/wands (but they can certainly help!) ... pretty good stuff.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Race could matter, too.

An Elf in this case could supplement his spells with arrows from his longbow. A halfling who used achemical grenades would get a bonus to his attack rolls. Dwarven weapons, human extra feats, etc.

 

[Empirate]

First level is special in any campaign, because everybody in the party is easily one-shot'ed, not only the Wizard/Sorcerer. At that level, even the discrepancy in attack bonuses isn't consistent enough to make a difference in the face of the mighty d20 with its huge variance. Every party composition must come to grips with the fact that, very likely indeed, one of them will bite the dust at 1st level, before ever reaching the relative safety of 2nd or even 3rd level (where suddenly almost nobody is easily one-shot'ed).

Therefore, I'm of the opinion that at 1st level, most party compositions will work equally badly. 2nd level and higher, a broader spread in ability will be useful (such as 2 frontliners, a utility guy (caster or skillmonkey), a BC guy/buffer, and one of them should be able to heal somewhat).

I believe that from 4th level onwards a pure arcane caster party can be very feasible, maybe even optimal, as long as some form of healing is available (such as one of them being a Bard, or taking Arcane Disciple: Healing, and packs a Wand of CLW). Before that, the casters lack, not power, but durability - both in HP and spells/day.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Specialization & Focused Specialist help with the spells/day thing.

 

[Empirate]

Specialization & Focused Specialist help with the spells/day thing.

Specialisation, yes. Focused, may help with spells/day, but seriously cramps your style where versatility is concerned IMO. I'd be having a hard time banning a third school. After banning one mostly unneeded school and one that'd be nice to have, but not critical, banning a third really causes major headaches for me.