Party surviving without an arcane caster?

[Leopold]

yup we did this for many many months and didn't have a rogue either!

Human Fighter
drow archer
kobold monk
dwarf cleric

we slaughter stuff left and right, it was glorious.

Then we went to oathbound and it all changed, many PC's later we have:

Earth Elemental Fighter
jelly fish archer
ohcre jelly sorcerer
imp cleric

yeah we are freaks, damn good freaks!

 

[Xavim]

I ran a campaign where everone were fighters. It was fun. Worked out pretty well.

 

[nimisgod]

The Lack of an Arcane spellcaster means that you can chalkenge them simply by throwing superior numbers at them. IME, without a fireball (or other area effect spell) to weaken or wip out large groups of enemies, these present a hard fought difficulty to the group.

Also, wizards/sorcerers can provide additional (or wizard only) buffing that would otherwise run the cleric out of spell slots. My sorcs in 3.0 were buffing the party members with bull's strength and greater magic weapon.

 

[Magic Slim]

Then we went to oathbound and it all changed, many PC's later we have:

jelly fish archer

Seriously, how does that work???

In my evil campaign, the party is small, and they are worse off:

Human Rogue
Elven Rogue-Assassin
Elven (IIRC) Evoker

No healing, no meatshields. Of course, so far it's been more of a city campaign, but they do get to adventure in dungeons sometimes. They are EXTREMELY careful, on the brink of paranoïa even...

Slim

 

[Terry Edwards]

I ran an Egyptian campaign over a year ago with six party members:
2 monks
1 fighter
1 ranger
1 duid
1 cleric
1 rogue
All were of the basic races in the PH. The glaring problem that repeatedly surfaces was their lack of potent ranged attacks. This became fatal when the group was confronted with a quartet of manticores in a gorge after missing the hook to obtain griffon mounts. The party was mowed down by spikes while their only retaliation was a few paltry arrows. The party you speak of however could prove more versatile especially if the yak fold character gets a hold of a magical staff...

Posted by Zappo

Hmm... I was wondering... what about creatures that "cast spells as a Xth level sorcerer"... what if they take levels in sorcerer, would you combine the caster levels for purposes of number of spells known, number of spells per day, and spell power?

Answer. Any monster that casts spells as an Xth level sorcerer is treated as having X levels in the sorcerer class so any actual levels in sorcerer that that creature takes stack with the pseudo sorcerer levels.

 

[heimdall]

Even at low levels, I'm seeing an issue with the group needing long range fire support against multiple baddies. They have a sorcerer, but since the group is 3rd level his spells are limited. So I'd agree with those that say an encounter with large numbers or an encounter which requires the group to have excellent long-range support is going to be more lethal than normal.

 

[ArcOfCorinth]

I've DMed campaigns without an arcane spellcaster and it worked just fine.

Also, my newest campaign is the first to ever boast a cleric!

 

[frankthedm]

You just have to be careful what you throw at them. A high level Evoker, for example, could wipe them out while buffing his nails.

Thats the risk they took when they grabbed those ECL characters. They have to learn the hard way. OTOH a high level evoker should nuke most parties anyhow.

REGENERATE 3!? Is That your girlfriend or something?

 

[Desdichado]

Party surviving what, exactly? The "optimal" D&D adventure party is geared towards dungeoneering. Is that the kind of campaign you'll have?

As far as I'm concerned, a party can survive without any role. It's the DMs job to make sure they can. Players should play what they want to, not what they have to to fill some quota. If the DM simply can't adjust to this, and is constantly threatening TPKs because he can't handle a party without a wizard, for instance, then in my opinion, that's not a good DM.

We almost never have clerics, for instance. We deal with it just fine.

 

[Bibliophile]

Thanks for all the feedback so far!

I guess I shouldn't be too worried about them, though it will take a bit more effort on my part to make sure the encounters are balanced. However, it shouldn't be too bad as the campaign is going to be about 50/50 political intrigue/combat (even though it may not look it based on their races/classes, they're all very avid roleplayers and their characters should fit in very well with the campaign).

Oh, and frankthedm: nah, not my girlfriend, the race is actually balanced at the ecl we gave it based (in part) on a bunch of roleplaying restrictions (the guy playing the character is probably the best roleplayer i know, and there won't be any problems).