DM advise for an all-striker party?

[Nifft]

The role-player seems pretty flexible/indifferent with regard to the class that he's playing, so long as he can play through the character backstory he's cooked up; I'll try to convince him to play a wizard instead (for the controller role).

Know what would be awesome? Three Strikers and one Eladrin Warlord (with Stealth as his extra skill).

They could still be an elite special ops strike team (as suggested earlier), but they'd have some decent healing.

Cheers, -- N

 

[firesnakearies]

An all-striker team can do fine. They just have to play like strikers, and use appropriate tactics. They can't run in all crazy into a mob of monsters and expect to duke it out. They have to use stealth a lot, run around and kite, trick, lure, elude. They have to be guerilla fighters. Get the monsters to chase you, lead them into traps or dangerous terrain, lead them into ambushes. Whittle down tough groups of monsters with a war of attrition. Kill one and then bolt, vanish into the shadows, get the monsters to split up or to wander into favorable spots for you to jump them.

The idea that any "roles" are actually needed in D&D is a myth. The idea that any particular type of character is needed to make a group viable or survivable is a myth. Intelligent tactics, creative thinking, and capitalizing on whatever strengths your party actually has while doing everything possible to mitigate your weaknesses will go a LONG way.

Go easy on them for awhile, sure. Teach them, guide them, let them learn how to play their classes well. Then just run the game as normal, and watch your players take every challenge apart and revel in the thrill of a victory "against all odds".

Or, if they really just aren't too bright or insist on charging in like berserkers, or don't learn . . . let them play their characters right into the grave. See what they make next time.

But I have confidence that a reasonably clever group can make even a full party of strikers work just fine.

 

[Grabuto138]

Characters are as follows:

Half-elf Rogue (brutal scoundrel) - multiclassed with Warlord and took Wolf-Pack Tactics for the free at-will.

Half-elf Rogue (trickster) - player has almost no desire to optimize powers and is interested almost entirely in role-playing. (eg, insists on starting the game with no armor or gear, armed with a single dagger - which I thought was pretty cool)

Half-elf Ranger (melee) - probably would have picked a rogue if the others hadn't already. enjoys sneaking around being ninja-like.

Tielfling Rogue (trickster) - picked tactical powers and boosted Bluff; the party con-artist.

I think you are in a great situation. The PH1 is striker heavy and controller light so it is not unlikely that a DM would face a group of players wanting to play a party heavy in rogues, rangers and warlocks but with no synergy. I would contact the ranger privately and see if he wants to play a rogue after all. Or a warlord, as a previous poster mentioned, would be perfect. A warlock is also good in a stealthy game. The most important thing is to encourage a campaign hook that revels in, rather than fights against, the all-striker composition.

Then play a stealth/RP heavy game with more encounters per day than normal but fewer opponents per fight. Blend the encounters together as you see fight if a fight seems to easy or hard. Play fast and loose with milestones and let the party hide out and catch their breath (use healing surges) when it serves the game. Think nothing of saying "you hide out in the storeroom for a few minutes and hear some guards rush by. Use as many healing surges as you want." Focus on movement, cat and mouse encounters, infiltrations. Avoid BBEG in a big room full of minions with the treasure behind him.

If it serves the group you can do some easy houserules. For example, you could let a rogue multiclass into Warlord but grant him two Inspiring Words per encounter (per the Warlord class) rather than once per day. (In your own little universe things are only unbalanced if they step on the other player's or your fun.) Maybe convice the rolelayer person in your group it would be fun to call out injured players and urge them to "rub some dirt on it and get onboard for the big win." At leat that is often how my warlord inspires his allies.

In general I am hostile to promiscous house rules but you could, in this campaign only, make a Second Wind a minor action (a much bigger deal than it seems. I only mention since you said you don't play that often.) and then hope that nobody wants to play a dwarf.

You could keep the spirit of the "milestone" and throw out the details. If your game is fluid, stealthy and RP heavy you could arbitrarily decide to renew action points, encounter powers and daily powers based on the achievment of plot points.

Going back to 1e I would only field a party that didn't have a Fighter-type, Thief*, Cleric, Magic-user (Fighter-type, expert*, cleric/druid, wizard/sorceror; Defender, striker, leader, controller) if everyone in the group agreed to play an atypical campaign. If they are then go with it.

*thiefs and experts are, of course, optional once the spellcaster knows knock, spiderclimb etc.

Edit:
Final thought. I am sorry if this is on the wrong forum.
Really, rogues are rangers; rangers are rogues. Rangers have moved away from their wood crafty pseudo-fighter past. Were you to swap "Dungeon or Nature" skills for Streetwise they are right there.

In a stealthy party no one wants to be the dude who blows the stealth check or be the only person who has no idea what is going on. What if you were to say, for this campaign only, a warlord has stealth and perception as class skills. And that they could use Dex for any power that required Str so long as they were using a light blade. And that they could only use light armor. And that if any of your players found a way to game your houserules you would call shennanigans and say "no" outright. It would be a pretty cool SOCOM party.