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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mfloyd3" data-source="post: 5652371" data-attributes="member: 23867">Since we're on the subject of tactics, I'm not sure we've actually discussed at player level how to integrate the group into a team.  I'm going to write a bit about how it might actually work, including suggesting some things about other peoples' characters.  If I say something that seems inappropriate, or if you simply don't want to play your character as I'm suggesting, by all means tell me where to go.  But we need at least to have this discussion so please take this as a starting point.Garnet is an obvious melee build, but designed around taking punishment rather than dishing it out.  PM made a good point that having her front and giving Ausk a reach weapon (whether he's giant-sized or not) would be very effective.  But if sunshadow does not want to play Ausk with a reach weapon, that should be his choice (though Garnet would cheerfully part with the spear, which is group property).Pari and Tagaiwi are a well-designed team (Tagawai was eating the enemies alive this encounter) who as Mowgli pointed out could use their teamwork feats in close quarters better.  Pari also seems able to pinch-hit, attacking either at range or in close quarters.On the casters, Heinrich's bread-and-butter attack is Flame Jet, which means he needs to be within 20' of the enemy (preferably closer to one so he can angle and get two).  Likewise, even though Maia's shooting stars attack is long-ranged, her Color Spray spell is close-ranged and if she's going to use her crossbow she probably wants to be at close range to take advantage of Point Blank Shot.So, if I were going to sound all war-gamey here, I'd say one useful approach would be to have 2 melee stacks and a caster stack.  The likely choices for the melee stacks would be Pari/Tagawai and Garnet/Ausk.  At any given time, we would want to use one of the melee stacks to screen the casters, and the other to be doing whatever seems most productive, either hitting enemy heavies or trying to get to their casters.  The casters, for their part, need to be close to the action to make best use of their abilities as noted above.  So we need to make better use of terrain and choke points to make it easy for the screening stack to cover them.  In situations where we can't do that, the next best thing is to make sure someone in the screening stack has a reach weapon and can make the enemy pay with AoOs to get to the casters.  A reach weapon also means the wielder can hit someone beating on the casters without having to move back, meaning they can hold a position between the enemy and the casters.Final point:  I really think Maia should hold the Cure stick in future fights.  Pari's fighter levels mean it's better if he's hitting/tripping/shooting rather than curing.  And while Maia is pretty effective with the crossbow and Divine Favor, I think it might be more effective if she used her spell slots for things the rest of the party can't do.  She did some good damage with her crossbow, but if she had used the same spell slot for Color Spray and managed to hit 2 goblins, she would have done quite a bit of damage mitigation for the team over the course of the fight.  And she'd have had the spare actions for Curing or for firing unenhanced crossbow bolts.This is not intended as a criticism of anyone -- If anyone messed up, it was me for having Garnet give instructions at the beginning of the fight that scattered everyone around the room instead of trying to organize things more systematically.  And I'd really like to hear other people's thoughts.  I certainly don't want to force anything down anyone's throat.</blockquote>

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