How will this party do?

[Vysirez]

One thing you might try recommending is have the 2nd wizard be an orb wizard, which is very good for control. This benefits from a high wisdom. Said Orb wizard could then pick up the cleric multiclass, and mabye grab a few cleric multiclass powers. This would add a bit more healing to the party without loosing much on the wizards part.

I think things might be difficult, but the party should do ok. 2 wizards is a lot of AE. They might have trouble with tough solo monsters, so that would be a thing to keep your eyes on.

 

[AntiPaladin]

Rangers can potentially have a very high AC though, they aren't terribly squishy like the casters. The ability to deal more damage per round can be a reasonable substitute for a lack of tanks and leaders.

I'm running KotS with my group and the paladin couldn't make it to the session, so they 3-manned it with a lv3 Wizard, lv3 Ranger (20 dex), and a lv3 Cleric.

Encounter detail spoiler:

Spoiler

They just cleared the first encounter on the second floor of the KotS, against 4 hobgoblin soldiers, 5 hobbo minions, and a spider. The wizard and cleric each spent some time at negative HP, but healing potions restored them. The wizard had a good crit with thunderwave, and the group was able to push 3 hobgoblin soldiers down the well at various points in the fight. It didn't take them long to climb back out, but I was impressed at the party's ability to deal ~300 damage before dying. Healing management and action economy were essential factors in the victory.

 

[Destil]

With some multiclass Cleric / Warlord feats you're golden, I'd guess. Assuming the war-wizard has the stats to be in the front...

 

[Ginnel]

Our current party is

Tiefling Paladin (Axe and Board w/plateheavy shield) charisma 20
Dragonborn Fighter (sword and board w/scaleheavy shield) Str 18
Half Elf Warlord (sword and board w/scalemail lightshield) Cha 18
Dwarven Cleric (Warhammer twohanded w/chainmail) Str 16 Wis 18
Tiefling Warlock (Infernal pact w/leather) Con 16 Cha 18
Dragonborn Wizard (orb wizard w/robe) Int 18

Now our DM did a point buy with 28 points instead, which has started us a bit harder than the norm playing through keep on the shadowfell.

Our party is basically a frontline from the looks of it, Everyone is hefting about in fairly nice AC, and after a round or two the warlock got the idea that he was supposed to flow around the battlefield picking off targets, My fighters marking with his breathweapon was particularly useful although I still curse the only one immeadiate action per round (hopefully there will be a paragon level feat in martial power that lets him use combat challenge more frequently)

The + to hit from the Cleric's at-wills is dead handy and the healing our group can put out is respectable to say the least, the only thing we might be worrying about is damage but we'll see how that goes.

Even with this nice set up the paladin burned through 5 healing surges and the cleric went through 1 as did the fighter (kobolds were rolling 15-20s most of the battle)
Anyway next week we use the Silver pieces we found on the Kobolds corpses to buy ourselves some drinks when we hit the town and try to figure out whats going on.

 

[Prophet2b]

Thanks for all of the replies, everyone. This has been a big help.

I'm still not sure entirely what I'm going to do. I've got three players who pretty exclusively play skilled (rogue/ranger) characters, and the fact that two of them are branching out into wizard is pretty much unheard of for us.

The other guy would play just about anything, so he generally fills in (in this case as defender) where needed.

As much as I love 4e, it does seem that tailoring encounters to non-standard parties is a bit more difficult...

 

[mtheurer]

We're running with...

Human Ranger
Human Fighter
Dwarf Cleric
Dragonborn Paladin
Half-elf Warlock
Human Rogue

and have done well. Might be adding an Eladrin Wizard or Warlock to the mix soon, too.

Mark