Party Composition - what's your recipe?

[Gaiden]

I was thinking about the various groups out there and how some of more synergy than others. The thought came up after a discussion with my brother when I was trying to explain how to most effectively use his monk/psion in our group (he is knew to the game). I was explaining that the stunning fist is great to use if the rogue is around, that his superior mobility (including spider climb from psion) should be his greatest asset and he should use it to his advantage to move within a battle, etc. The key point to that discussion was that the group was not 5 individuals each with separate powers but a group whose combined power exceed the sum of each of its parts.

Another thread had to do with a rogue character construction who would eventually go archer (some PrC) and how the whole party had to start out as rogues.

Between those two things I got to thinking of how to make a cool and effective party.

One that came to my head was a group who all had levels in Devoted Defender (or at least several of them did). This way they could all defend each other - picture First Knight with the Knights of the Round table in the end battle where they are all helping eachother.

Another thought was a group of rogues. Picture an Arcane Trickster, Swashbuckler, Archer, and Divine Seeker or some similar combo

You could have a group of guild wizards (either GWoW or MotAO)

Focusing less on the cool and more on the useful you could have combos that compliment eachother very well. For example a cleric and wizard could buff up the fighter and rogue with ability buffs, shield other, protections, etc. and then each go invisible with the cleric and wizard casting silenced spells.

There are so many possiblities. Tell me whatever you have found particularly useful and fun.

 

[Hygric]

Going back to my 2e days, I once played a wizard of the shadow school of wizardry. Another player played his brother who was an invoker. We worked quite well together, his area effect devestations and my spells foccused on dealing with an individual powerful threat. An enervation from me at the big bad guy followed by a fireball from him resulted in a lot of chared thugs and a badly battered bad guy.

 

[dkilgo]

I would like to see a party of five charcters. With:

1 straight up barbarian
1 fighter / rogue
1 rogue / psion
1 Sorcerer / wizard
1 fighter / cleric

Besides the striaght barbarian they all have benefits that mesh really well together.

 

[Corlon]

my characters form effective parties out of any character classes, if they're a bit random.

Right now it's, knuk (7ft. tall four armed cat with horns) ranger, wood elven fighter, human cleric of oghma, and slutty halfling bard.

 

[Trainz]

You know, a party without a cleric his most of the time half as good as a party with a cleric... sucks to say so, but once you have a cleric, the rest is less important.

Once you have the cleric, you know that 2/3 of the bases have been covered...

Say it ain't so ?

 

[dkilgo]

I must agree that having a cleric is sometimes just like not having one. Either way you might be better off without them, but they are essential to staying alive...

 

[Hygric]

In a game I am playing in at the moment, we have a dwarven diviner 3, human rogue 2 / fighter 1 and a human ranger 3. Do we miss having a cleric? YES! Can we live without one? For now, yes.

The only reason we miss a cleric at the moment is healing. My dwarf is going loremaster eventually, so I am going to be maxing out use magic device when I can get it and buying healing wands / scrolls etc. Until then, we just rest a bit longer than most other partys I guess. I suppose that I should start learning the heal skill to provide long term care as well, that would help.

 

[officeronin]

For a party of four, the basics should be covered: One rogue, one fighter, one cleric, and one wizard. I haven't found anything that works much better. PrCs as appropriate, but the spellcasters should never sacrifice a spellcasting level, nor the rogue a level of sneak attack, nor the fighter a BAB.

For a party of five, same as above, but add a bard, a fighter-type (a ranger if outdoors), or a rogue.

For a party of three, I'd go with an arcanist, a fighter with a reach weapon, combat reflexes, and knockback (or whatever that feat is called) and a rogue with one level of ranger. The fighter holds the line, the rogue tumbles to flanks and sneak attacks, and the arcanist throws spells and heals. The arcanist can throw spectral hand, and use it to heal the rogue even when the rogue is surrounded by the bad guys!

OfficeRonin

 

[BlackRazor]

Themed or Unthemed

The first question is: will the campaign have a specific theme or is just "generic fun”?

If the campaign is themed we usually sit down with the GM and talk about character until some ideas form in everyone’s minds. Since we are sitting together with the DM he can make comment and suggest adjustment for the party in order to have something that fit whit his theme and still allow us to have fun.

Here is the group for a ravenloft type campaign, themed for little combat, deep rolplaying, mystery, city and ambiance.

- Abjurer
- Rogue (Social based)
- Rogue (infiltration and sneaking based)
- Druid

The strongest member (the sneaking rogue) has a 12 in strength. At combat, we abysmally suck but boy are we great for finding information and dealing with npc. It fit perfectly with the world the DM (a simply genial fellow BTW) created and we have lots of fun with it.


If the campaign is generic fun its another thing. The first rule is: You need a cleric. Plain simple. After that, cover the remaining base class, Warrior type, thief type, mage type and stop the guy playing the magic user from giving up abjuration in order to specialize (someday you will REALLY need dispel magic) Once these four are settled, go for flavour or support, i.e. Monk, ranger, bard, pison, etc.

Here is the PC for a generic group I play in:

-Fighter (Mounted combat)
-Fighter (two weapon fighting AKA "Enrico The human Chainsaw")
-Fighter (two handed weapon)
-Psionic Warrior (pole arm)
-Fighter (Archer)
-Cleric of Oar
-Cleric of Lolth
-Mage
-Rogue

Very combat heavy group. Use violence to solve most problems.

- Sad,sad,sad.

 

[Pielorinho]

One nice bit of synergy:

Druids have animal companions that excel on offense but kinda suck on defense: their AC rarely rises above 15. If you could get the AC up, you'd have a nasty fighter.

So get the party wizard to cast mage armor and cat's grace on your animal companion. Lots o' nastiness: currently, my tiger companion is our frontline fighter, and has done such things as take out an ogre mage singlepawedly.

Daniel