Building Two Characters with Synergy

[airwalkrr]

I am really new to the 4e system. I understand a lot of the basics, but my wife and I are looking to start playing with the RPGA, at least to meet new gamers if nothing else. Since we will always be playing together, we want to build a pair of characters that have some synergy. I am looking for recommendations on builds that work well together. To me it doesn't look like there is a huge difference between casters and non-casters in this edition of the game, but I still like things like wizards and sorcerers as a concept, plus I want to be able to do rituals. My wife likes controlling things and enjoys things like charm spells and such.

 

[Incenjucar]

I am really new to the 4e system. I understand a lot of the basics, but my wife and I are looking to start playing with the RPGA, at least to meet new gamers if nothing else. Since we will always be playing together, we want to build a pair of characters that have some synergy. I am looking for recommendations on builds that work well together. To me it doesn't look like there is a huge difference between casters and non-casters in this edition of the game, but I still like things like wizards and sorcerers as a concept, plus I want to be able to do rituals. My wife likes controlling things and enjoys things like charm spells and such.

Perhaps a leader/striker combo? Bard/Sorcerer or bard/warlock? Another possibility is using the psionic classes, which are just another breed of magic-user with a heavy charm/control aspect and tend to be friendly with one another.

Anyone can do rituals with a feat.

 

[Quickleaf]

We had a husband & wife duo who played a Druid and Wizard to devastating effect. The Druid was a control build focusing on entangling magic and never bothered with beast shape; she had some feat which allowed her to exploit slowed and prone conditions. The Wizard was an orb of imposition build which acted as air support to the Druid, unleashing area spells with lots of ongoing damage and effects. They would incapacitate at least half the enemies on the battlefield on the first round. But there was a he'll of a lot to keep track of on the battlemap, so do your fellow gamers a favor and bring your own zone markers (we used colored wireframe templates with flags).

 

[Abstruse]

Leader/striker is good, especially if the leader focuses on buffs/debuffs. It also means the striker doesn't need to worry if his/her build is a glass cannon or not. Two strikers can do amazing things with combat advantage if at least one is focused on mobility to get in those positions. Same with striker/defender. Defender/leader can lock down the front lines, and controller/leader or controller/controller can lock down the entire board.

It doesn't really matter which two classes you choose though because pretty much any two classes built with synergy in mind can run a table. It gives you a big advantage because 4e is a team-based game and building together means you work better as a team. I'm really surprised that more people don't build as teams rather than working on the best single build.

 

[renau1g]

Well, the good news is that RPGA modules are 99.9% of the time a cakewalk. I actually stopped playing because it was too easy. A reasonably optimized PC can trash them without even trying. Now I know they're built for newcomers to the edition so I understand. They seem perfect for you airwalker.

My suggestion?

Take a read through of the various handbooks on the optimization board. They'll give you a rundown of the classes, roles, and what they're good at (i.e. rangers are amongst the best a pure damage dealing.) Whoops! Browser Settings Incompatible

For ease a Bow-Ranger is likely one of the easiest in the game. Your wife seems to like controlling things, Invokers and Wizards are very good at that but they are a bit more difficult to play (I've found controllers the hardest role to play in 4e, especially for newcomers). There are some excellent enchantment powers for a wizard though, ex. at level 1 - "Charm of Misplaced Wrath (HoFL) Will, Charm, Enchantment: this is a great power, even if it is single target. The target is dazed, slided and has to use a basic attack on a target of your choice (and this can trigger your defender's mark and, expecially, opportunity attacks). The target has to make an attack EVEN if you miss, without the sliding and the dazing" <- from Wizard Handbook.

A fighter and melee ranger work together very well also...

 

[mneme]

I get what you mean by arcane; arcane=arcane, ritual caster=ritual caster.

But I'm not sure what your wife means by "controlling". Does she mean the mechanical "preventing the bad guys from doing what they want to do?" (what is meant by a "controller" in 4e) Or does she mean "taking over the monster's minds and making them do what I want them to do"?

In the first case, I think your best pairing is Cunning Bard/Fighter (with the Agile Opprotunist feat). A well-built fighter is a melee controller with better defenses and near-striker level damage, so your wife could draw in the bad guys and make sure whatever they do, that she's ready for them. Meanwhile, the most crucial role in groups is a leader; with one, you have a lot of resilence for making mistakes, and with two they tend to act as backups for one another, but a party full of strikers and controllers tends to be very much a glass cannon, with fast deadly combats, but unable to recover from a bad run of luck. So as a bard, you've got some great enabling powers and abilities, and can easily dip other arcane types at need. Meanwhile, in combination--a cunning bard slides his allies whenever they are missed, whereas a character with the Agile Opportunist feat can make a melee basic attack whenever they are slid (as an immediate reaction). So if the bad guys run away, your wife gets to inflict punitive damage and maybe stop them in their tracks; if they stick around and miss her (as they will often do), she gets slid to a more advantagious position and gets to hit back. Win/win -- and a trick that you can't often do in RPGA, as most characters have to play well with any group rather than being designed as a team.

And, of course, playing a bard, you're at least slightly fragile -- so having a fighter to stand in the way can't hurt. And you can use Misdirected Mark to let her mark extra enemies, &c.

Now, if you mean "taking over enemies and making them do what I want to do," that pretty much means a psion, a warlock, or a wizard (or maybe, if she's willing to wait, an avenger, who gets a very nice dominating paragon class). But there aren't that many awesome synergies between most of these and most arcane classes--I'm guessing you don't want a Swordmage (arcane, but not a ritual caster until you spend a feat to do so), so that leaves you with a controller/controller synergy; spec one controller for movement controlling, and another for blasting (genasi or teifling blaster), and you can make monsters' lives miserable, as one of you locks the baddies into a box and the other one sets fire to the box. But while this is awesome when it works (and it works a lot), you'll both be playing pretty fragile builds (easy enough to up defenses, but hp/surges will still be very low), and you won't play well with others as well as defender/controller or defender/leader combos do.

 

[airwalkrr]

Great feedback everyone, thanks!

My wife has actually said she might like to try a rogue this time. So I am thinking of playing a controller to help her gain combat advantage more often. I am partial to wizards, just because they have always been my favorite D&D class in any edition, so I will probably try to make that work. And suggestions for powers we should pick to use that sort of tactic?

 

[Dice4Hire]

Great feedback everyone, thanks!

My wife has actually said she might like to try a rogue this time. So I am thinking of playing a controller to help her gain combat advantage more often. I am partial to wizards, just because they have always been my favorite D&D class in any edition, so I will probably try to make that work. And suggestions for powers we should pick to use that sort of tactic?

Simply, anything that knocks prone, dazes, stuns and such is good as that is auto CA. The easiest way to get CA is to flank, but that is not likely with a wizard and I am unsure about summons.

I think they would be a good team though, with very different skill sets, and ways of dealing iwth problems.

 

[GameDoc]

If your local RPGA events are large enough that attendees often have to break up and play at separate tables with different DMs, I would advise you to choose different roles.

One of the ways I have seen event organizers split people up is by making sure, to the extent possible, that each group has a balance of characters in each role. So if you're both playing controllers, for example, it increases the likelihood you might be asked to play at different tables. More so if you are the same class.

If your events are small and everyone plays in the same group or if your organizer is sure not to try and separate you, it may not be an issue.

 

[Nullzone]

Controller and Rogue could work, but I don't personally think you'll "feel" the synergy as much as just two parts of the overall party that just happen to benefit eachother once in a while...

Another one you may want to consider is the Warlord/Barbarian combo. Warlord gives free attacks and charges to Barbarian, who uses his powerful hits to tear through monsters. The combination is brutal and it is sometimes shocking how well it works.

It makes DMs grumble a lot, and the teamwork that is applied between the two is very obvious. I've had it done at my tables before and it's just sick how fast they can turn seemingly powerful monsters into goo.