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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6178303" data-attributes="member: 6696971">First, clearly you have excellent players with respect to building coherent, thematically rich characters.  Great set of characters there.  I'll just say a few things and pose a few questions.1 - With respect to groupo makeup, @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?336-D-karr" target="_blank">D'karr</a> provided a lot of commentary that is in line with my thoughts.  You have a very stout, very control-heavy group; all of those characters have survivability of their own, the Fighter and Warpriest both have a lot of great control and the Monk is basically a melee controller/striker hybrid.  One thing you can do to up the damage of the group on your own is frequent Fighter Mark/Aura violation.  You don't want to do it futilely, you want to provide them with a fully legitimate challenge, but when you have an opportunity to truly lay the smack down on the Monk (or even the Cleric), go for it and violate that mark.  A Fighter can easily produce Striker level damage with frequent Mark/aura violation and obviously that will improve group DPR dramatically (just don't do it when the OA has the potentially to kill the bad guy). 2 - This group is a tailor made to fight hordes of minions.  You can have visceral, exciting combat for just these 3 characters if you create minion heavy encounters with a good Leader (or 2) to buff them and force/multiply their offense/defense/mobility.  It will challenge the players, let them play to their strength (multi-attacks, control, stoutness), and it won't highlight their weak point (lack of striker damage to take hefty chunks off of HP-heavy monsters).3 - I also agree with D'karr about creating a companion character versus playing a full time character.  The low mental overhead and ease of building a legitimate striker with a companion character is very appealing.  You don't need to have it for every fight.  It can just be background color or manifest solely in those fights that aren't minion heavy and/or the n + 2 and above/BBEG fights with HP-heavy brutes, elites, solos (that you can budget for 4 PC and get more bang for your buck with that budget).  I like both your idea (with the aspect of Asmodeus manifesting in their time of need as a promise of power to the monk) and @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?54600-Pseudopsyche" target="_blank">Pseudopsyche</a>      idea with the religious relic (horn, etc) that summons a Valkyrie in their time of need.  Either (or both, no reason that you can't use them interchangeably as you deem it thematically fitting) can easily be created as a Companion Character Striker (or if you're hell bent on it, you can make a full character).  If you want to do the Companion Character for them, I could write up both of them with no trouble.  If you want to write up the full character, I would (as was put forth) recommend the Slayer for the Valkyrie (maybe refluffed Eladrin as race) and either Elementalist Sorcerer or Warlock for the aspect of Asmodeus.4 - Regarding non-combat conflict resolution:a - Warpriest taking Ritual Caster?  b - Monk or Fighter taking Ritual Caster or Martial Practices?  There are great ones for both and some really good Martial Practices to help round out Archetypes (regardless of class, you can make an incredible Ranger with Martial Practices, Nature, Perception, and/or Stealth)c - What are the respective Skills (or more specifically, who is covering Thievery, Nature, History, Streetwise)?  d - Anyone planning on dedicating feats or Utilities to Skill Powers for Skill Challenges (that would be a good idea if you're planning on running a lot of them).  There are tons of great Skill Powers and Utility Powers to further Skill Challenge resolution.</blockquote>

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