PHB only PCs?

[jbear]

A year long campaign without a leader and totally new players to Dnd... a little hard to imagine. I'd guess they'll be dead pretty soon...

As far as needing to min/max characters or have a host of options... as I play my first sessions of DnD with other players new to 4e, I begin to think it is not necessary at all.

Last night we got caught up into a fight with 7 goblins. We are level 1 and it was a lvl 2 encounter designed for 4 (apparantly from what the DM said) but our paladin couldn't make it and the 5th player didn't show. I like to highly tune my characters, but I think of the three last night, i'm the only one. Reasons to think this:

The cleric had an ac of 12. That's right, he was wearing leather armour and has no bonus from either INT or DEX. I suggested when we hit the shops he put some money aside for a shiny new suit of chainmail... but we'll see.

Another suspiscion I have: neither he nor the wizard have used an encounter attack power in two fights. I am beginning to suspect they don't even have encounter powers yet at all. I did ask, but got no answer.

The Cleric, being human should have 3 at wills, but I've only seen two. I also suspect he only has two. I'm pretty sure he has limited his build to PHB options, so I guess the third option is a STR based power, and hence not really worth using with a STR of 12.

Th wizard is also human. His At-will choices are far from 'optimised': magic missile, chill strike and thunder wave (which is by far the best of the three). I'm pretty sure one of his feat choices was extended spell book which is definitely not a min/maxer choice of 1st level feats.

And yet we're all still alive. We emerged heavily beaten but victorious. Everyone was useful to the group in their own way and we all had a good time.

So, seriously... relax. Your players will be just fine with just the PHB... until they die cos they have no leader. If they show interest in delving deeper into the sea of options, then let them. But it's like when you're potty training a kid: Until they show that first sign of interest then what's the point?

Ok, it's not exxxactly like potty training a kid, but you know what I mean.

 

[Herschel]

I remember my first 4E character (with new to 4E players). I had a Windsoul Genasi melee Ranger. I had the miniature, I had the flavor, I had....a really bad idea on building.

1. Strength was my primary. Hey, I can start with a 20 in strength. AWESOME!

2. I like swords but am tired of long swords. Hey, the High Crit power sounds cool on the scimitar and I'm not close to being mistaken for a drow.

3. I have so many more HP now, who needs Con or a background?

4. AC? We have a fighter, why would I need AC? Plus, I have all these hit points!

In practice it went like this: Enter combat, miss twice, get dropped like a sack of spuds. Get healed, rinse and repeat.

Needless to say, that got old fast. Time to re-build.

 

[mneme]

Actually, dropping money isn't a substitute for dropping party-appropriate items unless the party has an artificer -- normally, a party of 5 will have (from level 5 on, anyway) at least 4 at-level items, 3 level+1 items, 2 level+2 items, and 1 level+3 item at any given time (eg, at least one above-level items per character)--plus whatever they've earned at the current level. But without an Artificer, you can't make above-level items.

 

[Black Knight Irios]

Actually, dropping money isn't a substitute for dropping party-appropriate items unless the party has an artificer -- normally, a party of 5 will have (from level 5 on, anyway) at least 4 at-level items, 3 level+1 items, 2 level+2 items, and 1 level+3 item at any given time (eg, at least one above-level items per character)--plus whatever they've earned at the current level. But without an Artificer, you can't make above-level items.

True but still better than handing out garbage of lvl+3 which needs to be sold for 1/5th of its value. If I had the choice I'd go with lower level but useful.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Dang, of our five players, there is a warlock (star) and a paladin (cha-based). In what ways are they weak, and what's the simplest way to balance them? (ie. minimal purchase of rulebooks, etc).

Oddly enough, we just did our first shakedown of 4Ed the evening of the 29th using PHB1 only characters, and our party had a Dwarf Paladin and Dwarf Starlock (me)...so when I started reading this thread, I thought you were our DM! Then I noticed you stated you were all D&D virgins...and that AIN'T us- we're a bunch of grognards.

Besides the Dwarf Paladin and Dwarf Starlock, we had an Elven 2WF Ranger, a Half-Elf Rogue, and Human Wizard.

Since this was a test run, we were free to change things on the fly, including entire PCs, so some guys brought 2.

The Ranger was consistently good. The rest of the party had difficulties getting started, more an artifact of low die rolls- you tend to miss if you can't roll higher than a "5".

The Rogue had some issues getting started because he simply couldn't get combat advantage on anyone. Once he did, however...OUCH. He had Eyebite as his Dilettante ability, but it never seemed to work for him.

The Paladin did alright, but due to the aforementioned low rolls, he initially did more damage because his marked foes were attacking other party members than he did with his weapons. He also got immobilized 3 times in 2 encounters, and the DM's hot hand meant he kept getting tagged for damage. That player switched to a Dwarf Fighter for the remainder of the evening and was much happier.

Critters kept saving against nearly everything the Wizard threw except, curiously, his Frost Ray. As a result, he did OK damage and kept slowing our foes, keeping us in the fight.

My Starlock gave a middling performance, partly due to low rolls (to hit AND damage), partly due to my not tracking my Fate of the Void bonuses accurately. Generally speaking, I had decent chances of affecting the fight at every turn; I just got betrayed by Dame Fortune.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

We have a pretty weird party. Since we were all new to the game I made things simple for them and just asked them to pick a race/class they liked and pick one of the build templates that the PHB suggests. We ended up with:

• Orc Great Weapon Fighter (he really wanted to be an Orc, so I allowed that)
• Tiefling Warlock (star pact)
• Dragonborn Paladin (he had a WoW background and believed Pallies were capable healers)
• Human Archer Ranger
• Eladrin War Wizard

It's only after we started playing that I realised everyone (except for the ranger) is kind of an off-spec. The defenders want to be striker/leader, the striker (warlock) wants to be a controller, the controller wants to be a striker... and we have no proper leader.

But I'm not sure whether switching class to warlord would sit well with us now, we've created really elaborate and intertwining backstories for everyone. I'm not sure from the looks of things the Fighter alone is enough as a defender on his own as well.

Maybe multiclass is the way to go (with warlord being the primary). I'll talk with him about it. Thanks!

Well, the 'idealized' party is 2 strikers, a defender, a leader, and a controller. Yours is obviously short a leader as you know, but at least the paladin has some access to healing, so its not a huge problem. The orc could switch to a warlord build (he can still be a pretty good front line combatant) or one or two people could multi-class into an appropriate leader class. The fighter could MC warlord and pick up a couple warlord powers. The paladin could MC into cleric and pick up some too, then you'd be well covered even if nobody wants to rebuild. Fighters can also do a bit of leaderesque stuff in terms of powers that move the enemy around. Paladins have a pretty good side of leaderly abilities too. Worst case lacking a leader can make tough encounters more hazardous but at low levels its not usually a really big deal.

Humans aren't the BEST rangers, but they are perfectly adequate and human racial feats are pretty nice. He'll do fine. An elf is of course the supreme perfect choice pretty much, but the difference won't be huge.

Dragonborn really is the ideal paladin race, you can't get better than that.

Eladrin are likewise the ultimate war wizards, you can't go wrong there.

If I were making a Tiefling starlock I would likely just ditch CON and go with CHA only. You can houserule the second at-will if you want (or allow the player a choice, etc). The character should work OK, though Tieflings are pretty much made for the Infernal build.

There are some general build traps to avoid. Don't build wizards to do damage, they are terrible at it and will just be frustrating to play. One nice burst at-will that does decent damage is enough, like Scorching Burst. Thunderwave is everyone's favorite second choice, but you can get away with Cloud of Daggers for instance, which is some decent at-will control. Watch the temptation to take cute seeming daily powers too. Honestly Flaming Sphere is so superior to all other level 1 PHB1 dailies that it should ALWAYS be taken (at least the player can swap it out with whatever is in their spell book if they get bored of it, but they probably won't, its an awesome spell).

 

[Saeviomagy]

Our party consisted of:

Warlock (fey), rogue(artful), paladin(even str/cha), fighter (one hander) and warlord (the charisma one) and wizard (orb)

We've been sticking with the PHB almost entirely, we've hit 9th level and we've been phb only for a long time.

The last couple of levels have introduced some PHB2 feats (one person took expertise, two took distant advantage) and a single Arcane power utility (for the wizard, wizards escape).

I've not seen any problems at all. The rogue and warlock deal heavy damage, the paladin occupies one foe and hands out buffs and healing, the fighter rounds up most of the rest of the enemy, the warlord heals and buffs and lays a moderate amount of smack and the wizard is laying down the smack as long as he's got 2 targets to hit, and shoving, sliding, dazing or immobilizing or whatever the whole rest of the time.

 

[draquila]

If I were making a Tiefling starlock I would likely just ditch CON and go with CHA only. You can houserule the second at-will if you want (or allow the player a choice, etc). The character should work OK, though Tieflings are pretty much made for the Infernal build.

There are some general build traps to avoid. Don't build wizards to do damage, they are terrible at it and will just be frustrating to play...

From what I read infernal warlocks should be CON based? And Tieflings get +2 CHA. And that's why for the starlock I gave her 14/16/18 con/int/cha (post racial)... and it really feels like it gimps her pact at-will, I'm really reluctant to houserule but she is my girlfriend...

As for wizards who do damage... what if the player wants to do damage? (Without extending beyond PHB1 to sorceror) That's what the PHB promises with the "War Wizard" build, and the player chose that based on this.

 

[Black Knight Irios]

Our party consisted of:

Warlock (fey), rogue(artful), paladin(even str/cha), fighter (one hander) and warlord (the charisma one) and wizard (orb)

We've been sticking with the PHB almost entirely, we've hit 9th level and we've been phb only for a long time.

The last couple of levels have introduced some PHB2 feats (one person took expertise, two took distant advantage) and a single Arcane power utility (for the wizard, wizards escape).

I've not seen any problems at all. The rogue and warlock deal heavy damage, the paladin occupies one foe and hands out buffs and healing, the fighter rounds up most of the rest of the enemy, the warlord heals and buffs and lays a moderate amount of smack and the wizard is laying down the smack as long as he's got 2 targets to hit, and shoving, sliding, dazing or immobilizing or whatever the whole rest of the time.

I'd really like to see that warlock build so that I can see that heavy damage - maybe our understanding of heavy damage differs greatly.

From what I read infernal warlocks should be CON based? And Tieflings get +2 CHA. And that's why for the starlock I gave her 14/16/18 con/int/cha (post racial)... and it really feels like it gimps her pact at-will, I'm really reluctant to houserule but she is my girlfriend...

As for wizards who do damage... what if the player wants to do damage? (Without extending beyond PHB1 to sorceror) That's what the PHB promises with the "War Wizard" build, and the player chose that based on this.

Play a Revenant (Tiefling) (dragon 3xx) they get a CON bonus and can take the tiefling racial feats. Anyway as a Tiefling Infernal Pact Warlock you need Hellfire Blood which gives you the +1 to attack bonus you miss due to no CON bonus.

Genasi Blaster Wizards can deal quite some nice damage but that is far from PHB1 only. His best bet would be the frost cheese to buff his damage - downside it got already nerfed for AEs.

Some builds advertised in PHB1 don't really work as they should with PHB1 only.

 

[cdrcjsn]

From what I read infernal warlocks should be CON based? And Tieflings get +2 CHA. And that's why for the starlock I gave her 14/16/18 con/int/cha (post racial)... and it really feels like it gimps her pact at-will, I'm really reluctant to houserule but she is my girlfriend...

Maybe you can convince her to go Fey lock instead which is a Charisma focus, or Starlock and concentrate on the Cha powers?

As for wizards who do damage... what if the player wants to do damage? (Without extending beyond PHB1 to sorceror) That's what the PHB promises with the "War Wizard" build, and the player chose that based on this.

Wizards can do fairly good damage.
Pick up Hunter's Quarry and you can do striker damage for 2 rounds.
Weapon Focus(staff) lets you add +1 damage to all your spells (it sounds strange, but it works and is backed up by FAQ).
The Wizard daily powers also pack a punch that will do gobs of damage (Flaming Sphere, Stinking Cloud, etc).