Taneel BrightBlade
First Post
At first level a fighter ranger or paladin is only slightly better at fighting, combined the will easily crush five kobalds.
Are you a DM for a party without fighers?
- Thread starter TheGemini
- Start date
Herpes Cineplex
First Post
We have a pickup hack-and-slash game we occasionally go back to: this is, of course, almost entirely centered around combat and other obstacles. Everyone in our gaming group has a character, but generally we only play this when some people are out of town and we can't play one of our regular games or when there's nothing prepared for the regular games.
So at least 60% of that game has been played without an actual, honest-to-god fighter-type. Wizards, yes; we're well-stocked with wizards. And the most-played character is a rogue with a level in fighter and a level in ranger (3.0 game, so obviously he's cherry-picking ranger for Ambidexterity and Two-Weapon Fighting
). But only one fighter, and her hit point rolls have been so depressingly average that she tends to be too fragile for stuff equivalent to our party level. Oh, and we usually don't have a cleric or a druid, either.
Figuring out ways to actually succeed in melee combat takes up a lot of our time in that game. We do a lot of hit-and-run and ambush-and-retreat, and we invest heavily in healing potions. It's been working because we don't really take the game too seriously, and because we generally don't go up against things at a CR that's theoretically appropriate for our level; a lower-CR encounter is often more accurately matched for us, considering that we're lacking both the raw melee strength and the clerical healing potential that the CR system assumes a party must have.
So I've got a few suggestions: first, don't even mess around with enemies the party can't handle. Try encounters whose CR is below the party's level; yes, they earn less XP for them, but it won't kill them. Ramp up the CR on future encounters if it looks like they're more effective than their lack of a fighter would otherwise suggest. Do adventures where the classes you do have in the party really shine, and avoid stuff that sounds like it's more melee-focused. There are many kinds of games where the guy playing a fighter would feel totally useless, because it's all about skills or spells or non-fighting interaction; these are the kinds of games you'll want to run for this party.
Second, make sure the party is aware of the problem and let them find in-character ways to address it. If they want to pony up the cash for a hireling fighter when they're expecting a big combat, be prepared for that. If you're worried about the "GM's PC" phenomenon, make one of the players (or all of them, or a different one each time) take the responsibility for steering the hired NPC fighter around. If they're looking for stealthy ways to bypass fights entirely, be open to that possibility (and remember that a successfully bypassed encounter is the same as one in which the party killed all its foes, except that the party gets less loot out of it).
You might also want to consider being looser with magic items and money than you would with a more traditional party, to make them more powerful than they technically should be at that level. This one is dangerous and tricky, though; if you misjudge and hand out too much good treasure, there's really no way you can undo it easily, especially at low- to mid-levels. I'd say this was a last resort at best, and probably in most campaigns you wouldn't even want to try using it as a last resort. It's an option, though.
--
if there's even a chance that new players may join the game later, don't give out more items
ryan
So at least 60% of that game has been played without an actual, honest-to-god fighter-type. Wizards, yes; we're well-stocked with wizards. And the most-played character is a rogue with a level in fighter and a level in ranger (3.0 game, so obviously he's cherry-picking ranger for Ambidexterity and Two-Weapon Fighting
). But only one fighter, and her hit point rolls have been so depressingly average that she tends to be too fragile for stuff equivalent to our party level. Oh, and we usually don't have a cleric or a druid, either.Figuring out ways to actually succeed in melee combat takes up a lot of our time in that game. We do a lot of hit-and-run and ambush-and-retreat, and we invest heavily in healing potions. It's been working because we don't really take the game too seriously, and because we generally don't go up against things at a CR that's theoretically appropriate for our level; a lower-CR encounter is often more accurately matched for us, considering that we're lacking both the raw melee strength and the clerical healing potential that the CR system assumes a party must have.
So I've got a few suggestions: first, don't even mess around with enemies the party can't handle. Try encounters whose CR is below the party's level; yes, they earn less XP for them, but it won't kill them. Ramp up the CR on future encounters if it looks like they're more effective than their lack of a fighter would otherwise suggest. Do adventures where the classes you do have in the party really shine, and avoid stuff that sounds like it's more melee-focused. There are many kinds of games where the guy playing a fighter would feel totally useless, because it's all about skills or spells or non-fighting interaction; these are the kinds of games you'll want to run for this party.
Second, make sure the party is aware of the problem and let them find in-character ways to address it. If they want to pony up the cash for a hireling fighter when they're expecting a big combat, be prepared for that. If you're worried about the "GM's PC" phenomenon, make one of the players (or all of them, or a different one each time) take the responsibility for steering the hired NPC fighter around. If they're looking for stealthy ways to bypass fights entirely, be open to that possibility (and remember that a successfully bypassed encounter is the same as one in which the party killed all its foes, except that the party gets less loot out of it).
You might also want to consider being looser with magic items and money than you would with a more traditional party, to make them more powerful than they technically should be at that level. This one is dangerous and tricky, though; if you misjudge and hand out too much good treasure, there's really no way you can undo it easily, especially at low- to mid-levels. I'd say this was a last resort at best, and probably in most campaigns you wouldn't even want to try using it as a last resort. It's an option, though.
--
if there's even a chance that new players may join the game later, don't give out more items
ryan
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