Party of Almost Purely Tanks

[Bobitron]

I get kinda annoyed with DM's unwilling to adjust the game to suit what the players are looking for. If all the players are interested in running a combatant rather than rogues or spellcasters, the DM should adjust his game to make it work.

I'll agree with everyone else that the party will be in serious trouble if the adventures are run as written.

 

[Arnwyn]

If all the players are interested in running a combatant rather than rogues or spellcasters, the DM should adjust his game to make it work.

Agreed - by not running the AoW... or any other published adventures.

If players are not wanting to create a normal, well-rounded party, then they are clearly asking for a 'different type' of game.

 

[Raph]

Age of Worms was a lot of hard encounters, i played as dm and pc. we lost more characters in the Age of Worms than any other game.

our group of five went throw ten different pcs between them, best mix was when we had cleric, healer, fighter, sorceror and a monk/rogue, we got to about level 12 but got TPK againt a black dragon then gave up the series. is a very hard set of modules, not good for new players group like us! you realer need a healer and undead killer!

now we are to start play in the Savage Tide adeventures in Ebberon or Forgotten Realms for the fisrt time instead.

i have warforged dragon adept (but making the class not to do with dragons and remaned to be called energy adept instead) like a havok or cyclpos blaster sort of energy firer from x-men.

 

[Remathilis]

. . . why not?

(leading question)

Scouts don't get open lock as a class skill, so the scout (our party expert) didn't dump anything into it. So locked doors are usually checked for traps, then either knocked or power-attacked by the fighter. They are thinking of investing in a wand of knock right now...

 

[Matchstick]

Me and the people I play with have long since decided that were just going to play the characters we want, party "balance" be damned, and make it work however we can. One of the longest running campaigns I ever played in was me as a Bladesinger, a Wizard, a Sorcerer, a dwarven Fighter, and a Barbarian. No healing, no Rogues. We did fine with potions and a cohort Cleric someone eventually picked up.

Making a party work despite not having the "necessary" classes makes it even more fun. And forcing someone to play a class just to have certain abilities in the party really sucks.

We play what we want to play. If everyone in the group wants to play a Fighter, well then by god, we all play Fighters an make a campaign around that.

I think the party your group is making sounds really fun, and I really think all the cries of instant death for them are quite exaggerated. Accomodate them if you have to, even. Put in lots of healing potions for them to find. Have a handy local NPC Cleric to heal them when they go back to town.

I agree. The last group I played in was a Sorcerer, a Wizard, a Ranger, and FOUR Monks. Yep, you read that correctly. Four monks.

We had a blast.

I'm sure the DM had to adjust slightly to the party, but with wands we we OK for healing. What we did on the player side was just adjust our tactics to play to our strengths. We had an inordinate amount of speed, so casters never stayed up long. There was a lot of flanking, and a lot of ambushing. We used our surroundings, and the DM was flexible enough to adapt. We researched foes as much as possible. In a way it was like it would be in real life: we did everything we could to work things in our favor. It worked.

I think the issue in this case is not the party, it's AoW. But even then I think that with some creative strategies and tactics, and with some leeway on the DM side, everyone can have a great time.

 

[Chiaroscuro23]

As everyone else has said - overall, you're screwed.


You are generally correct - it's mostly because of the AoW (though properly, it's any published/"standard" adventure). The DM could go through a ton of work, however, and tailor a campaign based on 'unusual' parties, but they would have little resemblance to "standard" D&D adventures (and published adventures would be right out).

For example, a DM could create a campaign based on a party of 4 wizards, but the campaign would be entirely different than any published adventure (and the players would have to have proper expectations on what they're getting into before the campaign begins, if that's really what they want to play...).

Agreed. Additionally, AoW is reputed to be a bit of a meatgrinder, anyway. I've played two sessions of it, and we lost a PC in the first game (elven mage failed a save against a trap that did ~5d6 damage; elven mage go *splat*) In the second session there were several opponents which should have been really tough, but weren't either because we happened to be prepared,

Spoiler

Beetle Swarms. We happened to have brought Alchemist's Fire, and one player hit on using fire before they got close to melee range. Neither swarm hurt us at all.

be lucky

Spoiler

barely got out of the sleepy golem room

, or the GM was nice

Spoiler

let us fight underwater kind of freely when the elemental dragged the "bait" into the water. Our paladin had detected the undead, so we were on guard for it.

The second session could easily have killed more of us. An unprepared party without a spellcaster would flee or die. Without a cleric you'd have to rest a LOT, and undead would be much tougher.

-C.

 

[Gort]

To be honest, I wouldn't sweat it. What's going to happen is the players are going to lose someone in combat because they don't have enough healing, or to something that's difficult to hurt with physical attacks, or flies and uses a ranged attack, or simply to a trap.

Then whoever has to make a new character should either realise that the party has enough fighters and could use someone to cover the hole, or decide that since there are already a ton of fighters in the party, playing something different will make him valuable and exotic.

However, I have played in a party made mostly of fighter-types (pure fighter, arcane archer, ranger-dervish, cleric of war, werebear fighter, melee rogue) and we had a blast - most of the enemies commonly encountered in D&D are pretty susceptible to melee fighters, and the cleric's good for healing and removing conditions, and multiclassed rogues can often deal with traps just fine.

 

[Sunderstone]

Agreed - by not running the AoW... or any other published adventures.

If players are not wanting to create a normal, well-rounded party, then they are clearly asking for a 'different type' of game.

QFT.

 

[Sunderstone]

However, I have played in a party made mostly of fighter-types (pure fighter, arcane archer, ranger-dervish, cleric of war, werebear fighter, melee rogue) and we had a blast -

Thats a fairly well balanced party. You might not have a mage type but you have 2 extra meat shields.

Th op has no arcane, no trapfinding/removing/disabling and a Druid that likely will not focus on healing (though I believe he may not have much choice about healing).
The OP has also already updated us and told us he had 2 deaths alone in his first session....


Ill be starting/DM'ing my own AoW campaign this coming sunday. I always let them pick anything they want to run and if something is missing I usually toss in an NPC for myself (unless it's a Rogue because we DMs know where everything is). They came up with the following....

Human Male Sorcerer 1
Human Female Fighter 1
Elven Male Ranger 1
Elven Female Rogue 1
Human Male Cleric 1 (of Obad-Hai, npc run by myself)

Ill be running the Cleric myself as an NPC as no one picked a healer-type this time around (which is odd for my group). If someone dies and runs a cleric i'll let them decide what to do with the NPC. While I suspect they wouldnt mind having 2 Clerics, if they want the npc gone, I'll have him recalled to the Bronzewood Lodge for an urgent matter.

 

[Driddle]

If players are not wanting to create a normal, well-rounded party, then they are clearly asking for a 'different type' of game.

The "normal, well-rounded party" is a myth propagated by people who tend to invest too much in stereotypes. The idea that the so-called "standard" party structure must include a cleric, mage, fighter and thief is baloney.