D&D General Single class party?

[rgoodbb]

A pilgrimage of Clerics all unworldly, and unprepared could be hilarious to roleplay.

But yes Rogues and Bards are definitely cool

 

[Ace]

I love this kind of party.

I ran two "all rogues." Epic 6 Pathfinder and 2E AD&D games though mutliclassing was allowed even for 2e humans and played in an all fighters (with 1 MU actually) game which was very Black Company and fun though far too short.

 

[ART!]

This is actually on my short-list of shorter-run games I want to DM for my group. I think all the players will be amenable: they seem to like trying new things - as long as it's D&D!

 

[TwoSix]

All fighters with a little higher-than-normal magic item distribution would be for kind of an old-school vibe.

 

[Ace]

Yeah, I can't really think of any that I would want to play either.
They all sound pretty cool in theory. Druid is my least played class, and yet a party playing as a circle of Druids sounds awesome.

The hardest part with single class campaigns is getting everyone to agree on the character class in the first place.

Try Rogues. Player's naturally get into the idea of planning heists, robbery and other such nefarious activity alarmingly easily. My 2E game like this has at its peak 12 players for a few sessions which was far too many. A normal sized group or a smaller one works better and is amazing/

Also a larger group of "all Fighters" makes for a military squad nicely and captures a great reality of real war, often as not you are fighting to keep your mates alive more than any big picture stuff. When I played this in 2e technically we had a Ranger (no spells) an MU (the only caster) and 6 Human Fighters run by an actual vet. Nowhere near enough sessions for my taste but very cool

if you want to go Barry Trotter or the like, a group of Mages just graduated from school (1st thru 5th everyone the same level) and without work or patrons as they were last in the class could be pretty fun.

A caution though. As always get buy in. We tried "Wooden Ships and Iron Men." where everyone played Midshipmen in the Royal Navy and while I did my best with my limited knowledge , no one had any knowledge or buy in other than me and so the game failed hard. If you want to go --a-sailing try pirates or a gang of vikings or maybe a free trader type ship where the players have a lot of agency . Players IME don't much enjoy hierarchy and chain of command in their games

 

[billd91]

The closest I ever had was in 1ed. It was a party with all mages of multiclassed wizard and only one dwarven fighter... That group was a terror to behold as every single fight it was: Fire ball, lightning bolts, Ice Storm, Cone of cold, Magic missile and the Dwarven fighter waiting to see if something had survived... That dwarven fighter had boots of striding and springing and would often be running in the dungeon to bring enemies to the other players. Once the alert was given... well you know the drill.

We had a 1e campaign go in the other direction - everyone was playing a fighter or ranger, either single classed or with a bit of multiclassing to wizard, cleric, or thief. We were mercenaries, so it was irregular military-heavy in its approach. And it worked just fine.

While I'd agree with other people that 5e makes single-party classes more flexible than in previous editions, I'd have had no problem running a single-class party in any edition of D&D I DMed, and that includes 3e. D&D works, and has always worked, just fine using a subset of its features. If you want to run a fighter campaign, it's entirely possible. Pick the options that work best with that focus. If you want to run a wizard campaign, it's entirely possible. Pick the options that work best with that, alternative focus. What you probably shouldn't do is design a general campaign, expecting all 4 focuses of the different iconic classes, and then accept PCs all from one class. The decision to go all wizard, all fighter, all bard, etc should be deliberate and the DM should tailor it to focus on what those characters would find interesting.

 

[Istbor]

I would probably play any single class party if presented with that.

We did have a joke about an all bard party that some of us started talking about actually doing.

 

[Ace]

I would probably play any single class party if presented with that.

We did have a joke about an all bard party that some of us started talking about actually doing.

In 5E all Bard party needn't be a band or troupe of entertainers either. They could be explorers, archeologists and all sorts of things. Such a party could handle almost any problem though skill overlap might be an issue.

 

[Quartz]

I think a party of Fighters and Paladins (and possibly Rangers) would have a very Hollywood vibe if the magic were downplayed.

 

[ART!]

An all-wizards group could have this one master they all learned from at some point, but who has now gone missing...