StephenHawking
First Post
4 orb wizard/bloodmages (possibly 1 divine oracle) + 1 taclord.
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NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
Most powerful, flexible party
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...and swarms and minions will eat you for lunch.
silentounce
First Post
Not with a few choice multiclass feats.
Eladrin Party
I've actually been thinking about this question for some time.
My ideal party would consist of all Eladrin. Why you ask? Well, imagine a party that could all teleport past obstacles, require very little sleep, be extremely difficult to ambush at night, all have the stealth skill, and would be extremely mobile in combat. Granted that with a party of all Eladrin, you are lacking some of the staying power of other races. Still, if everyone could teleport, you have quite a few more options.
Class wise, I imagine such a mobile party would primarily be focused around two rogue, with the other roles supporting the strikers while they dish out the damage. But this requires some trade-offs.
• Trickster Rogue: Primary role is to set up flanking. Emphasis on mobility and stun/daze power and feats.
• Brawny Rogue: Primary role is to dish damage with backstab. Emphasis on backstabbing and damage dealing powers and feats.
• Tactical Warlord: Primary role is to maximize the number of backstabs the rogues can get in one encounter. Secondary role as a healer. Emphasis on tactical support, movement and healing powers and feats. Additionally any powers that daze/stun or immobilize enemies can grant the rogues additional opportunities for combat advantage.
• Protecting Paladin: Primary role is to defend the rogues and keep the enemies attacking him. Secondary role as a healer. Emphasis on defensive and healing powers and feats.
• War/Control Wizard: Primary role is to deal with minions and provide battlefield control. Emphasis on area of effect powers and anything that can daze/stun or immobilize enemies to grant the rogues additional opportunities for combat advantage.
So what do you guys think? The setup does lack a cleric, which is a significant issue. I try to make up for this by having a paladin and warlord, both with secondary healing abilities. Still, the party would have to be fairly quick in battle. Additionally, Eladrin tend not to make the best paladins dues to their racial bonuses.
I've actually been thinking about this question for some time.
My ideal party would consist of all Eladrin. Why you ask? Well, imagine a party that could all teleport past obstacles, require very little sleep, be extremely difficult to ambush at night, all have the stealth skill, and would be extremely mobile in combat. Granted that with a party of all Eladrin, you are lacking some of the staying power of other races. Still, if everyone could teleport, you have quite a few more options.
Class wise, I imagine such a mobile party would primarily be focused around two rogue, with the other roles supporting the strikers while they dish out the damage. But this requires some trade-offs.
• Trickster Rogue: Primary role is to set up flanking. Emphasis on mobility and stun/daze power and feats.
• Brawny Rogue: Primary role is to dish damage with backstab. Emphasis on backstabbing and damage dealing powers and feats.
• Tactical Warlord: Primary role is to maximize the number of backstabs the rogues can get in one encounter. Secondary role as a healer. Emphasis on tactical support, movement and healing powers and feats. Additionally any powers that daze/stun or immobilize enemies can grant the rogues additional opportunities for combat advantage.
• Protecting Paladin: Primary role is to defend the rogues and keep the enemies attacking him. Secondary role as a healer. Emphasis on defensive and healing powers and feats.
• War/Control Wizard: Primary role is to deal with minions and provide battlefield control. Emphasis on area of effect powers and anything that can daze/stun or immobilize enemies to grant the rogues additional opportunities for combat advantage.
So what do you guys think? The setup does lack a cleric, which is a significant issue. I try to make up for this by having a paladin and warlord, both with secondary healing abilities. Still, the party would have to be fairly quick in battle. Additionally, Eladrin tend not to make the best paladins dues to their racial bonuses.
Mathew_Freeman
Adventurer
I've actually been thinking about this question for some time.
My ideal party would consist of all Eladrin. Why you ask? Well, imagine a party that could all teleport past obstacles, require very little sleep, be extremely difficult to ambush at night, all have the stealth skill, and would be extremely mobile in combat. Granted that with a party of all Eladrin, you are lacking some of the staying power of other races. Still, if everyone could teleport, you have quite a few more options.
Class wise, I imagine such a mobile party would primarily be focused around two rogue, with the other roles supporting the strikers while they dish out the damage. But this requires some trade-offs.
• Trickster Rogue: Primary role is to set up flanking. Emphasis on mobility and stun/daze power and feats.
• Brawny Rogue: Primary role is to dish damage with backstab. Emphasis on backstabbing and damage dealing powers and feats.
• Tactical Warlord: Primary role is to maximize the number of backstabs the rogues can get in one encounter. Secondary role as a healer. Emphasis on tactical support, movement and healing powers and feats. Additionally any powers that daze/stun or immobilize enemies can grant the rogues additional opportunities for combat advantage.
• Protecting Paladin: Primary role is to defend the rogues and keep the enemies attacking him. Secondary role as a healer. Emphasis on defensive and healing powers and feats.
• War/Control Wizard: Primary role is to deal with minions and provide battlefield control. Emphasis on area of effect powers and anything that can daze/stun or immobilize enemies to grant the rogues additional opportunities for combat advantage.
So what do you guys think? The setup does lack a cleric, which is a significant issue. I try to make up for this by having a paladin and warlord, both with secondary healing abilities. Still, the party would have to be fairly quick in battle. Additionally, Eladrin tend not to make the best paladins dues to their racial bonuses.
Well, now I want to go to Gencon and run an open challenge asking groups to bring 5 PC's, Core only, and run them up against monsters of appropriate level and see how well they do.
This is a fascinating thread, and it's already brought up a couple of things I hadn't thought of.
two
First Post
Damage per round
The reason I think Warlords are so great is simple. They are based, pretty much, on the 3.5 bard concept, which in turn helped parties to a) hit more often, and b) hit harder. The thing is, they often had rather sneaky efficacy. It's hard to notice in the middle of that combat that the barbarian's strike only hit because the bard was granted a +2 or +3 bonus... people remember the barbarian, not the enabler.
So, this might be a topic for another thread, but...
Could anyone out there that is playing a TacLord or InspLord keep careful track of how much damage they deal per round?
"damage per round" means ALL damage that occurs because of the Warlord's various effects, whether it is a bonus to hit, damage, free attack, etc.
For example, if in Round 1 a Taclord does 8 damage directly (by hitting a bad guy), and gives an ally 3 damage bonus (due to some ability) and grants an ally a free attack (due to some buff or whatever) which does 10 points of damage, the Taclord did 8+3+11 points of damage that round = 22. i.e. it is all because of the Taclord. If the Taclord enables or increases damage that would not otherwise take place... that's on the Taclord's damage sheet.
So - could somebody who plays a lot and plays a Warlord keep track of how the Warlord is doing in this regard?
My suspicion is that the results will be hugely eye-popping.
The reason I think Warlords are so great is simple. They are based, pretty much, on the 3.5 bard concept, which in turn helped parties to a) hit more often, and b) hit harder. The thing is, they often had rather sneaky efficacy. It's hard to notice in the middle of that combat that the barbarian's strike only hit because the bard was granted a +2 or +3 bonus... people remember the barbarian, not the enabler.
So, this might be a topic for another thread, but...
Could anyone out there that is playing a TacLord or InspLord keep careful track of how much damage they deal per round?
"damage per round" means ALL damage that occurs because of the Warlord's various effects, whether it is a bonus to hit, damage, free attack, etc.
For example, if in Round 1 a Taclord does 8 damage directly (by hitting a bad guy), and gives an ally 3 damage bonus (due to some ability) and grants an ally a free attack (due to some buff or whatever) which does 10 points of damage, the Taclord did 8+3+11 points of damage that round = 22. i.e. it is all because of the Taclord. If the Taclord enables or increases damage that would not otherwise take place... that's on the Taclord's damage sheet.
So - could somebody who plays a lot and plays a Warlord keep track of how the Warlord is doing in this regard?
My suspicion is that the results will be hugely eye-popping.
To get consistant results you'd need to use the same group of people, otherwise the variation in playing ability is a factor.
You should make a series of increaingly harder challenges and see how far each group of characters can get through without resting. Let the players see it beforehand so that they know what's coming.
Protagonist
Explorer
And default to average values for all dice rolls, which then would mean that you need to examine the influence of tactical decisions and positioning / terrain...
Nail
First Post
Agreed.
Playing ability - that is "tactical" vision of how a particular PC works best - is one of the many factors that makethis sort of Arena test mostly worthless. There's just gonna be too much variability in how 5 players use their PCs.
Another big factor will be how well they use teamwork. For my money, I'd take a Ftr + Rog with good teamwork over any other 2 person combo. "Sticky" plus "Striker" equals Dead Bad Guys.
The final confounding factor would be the terrain and the monsters chosen. As many people love to point out, minions are nasty unless you've got someone with AoE attacks.
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