D&D 5E The Mono Class Party

[Zardnaar]

Just after 5E landed our group thought up a silly idea for a all cleric party. If done well that oculd actually work. Today we thought up something silly just because and here is what we came up with.

Thief (with healer feat). Uses quick hands for bonus action healing.
Assassin w/green flame blade. Mr I want to deal lots damage, takes the alert feat.
Mastermind, the support rogue advantage enabler. Uses green flame blade
Mr Tank. Fighter1/Rogue XYZ. Strength based brutal rogue using a rapier, shield master feat and expertise in athletics.
Arcane Trickster. Just because.

THe basic idea would be to overwhelm foes with sneak attacks (and pray). Probably a silly idea but there you go. ANy other daft ideas that might actually work? An all Paladin party I think could work as well.

 

[Demetrios1453]

All Cleric party you mentioned would definitely work - War (for fighter/tank), Trickery (for stealthy stuff, especially if you take the Urchin background and get proficiency in thieves' tools), Life (although a dedicated healer in a party of clerics...), and then any choice of Tempest/Light/Arcane to get some arcane attacks, and you'd be pretty set.

Bonus: With all that healing, this party could go forever between rests. And undead wouldn't stand a chance.
Drawback: The theological arguments would be endless...

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

I say go for it.

What's the worst that could happen? Erm. Well, you know what, don't answer that.

I have a vision of an all cleric IRL party in my head...they'd never agree on anything. The plot hook NPC would watch in horror as the Shady Dragon Inn was destroyed before he even got the chance to offer them a job.

 

[ccooke]

During the playtest, I often went with themed one- and two-off games. Mostly, that was "Make a character that is obviously a member of a thieves guild". The number of ways you can do that at level 1 in 5e is very nice. Twice, the party ended up entirely made of rogues with options much like the above

I've also played and had a load of fun with the tanky rogue concept with shield master and expertise in athletics. If you can wangle 18 STR via whatever means, you don't even need the level of fighter (Although the time I played that we were statting level 5 characters and were allowed one uncommon item. I chose gloves of ogre power on my mountain dwarf rogue/assassin. +2 dex, +4 str, decent CON, medium armour... it works exceptionally well. Athletics checks at +10 are nasty). With Shield master, you can also knock down and grapple in the same round, which is really powerful.

 

[Herobizkit]

A shame there are only two 'official' Bard Archetypes. The Blade and the Jester/Jongleur (haha I remember their 2e kit equivalents) are neat ideas and, all together, would make a great Travelling Band.

Maybe in a coach. Solving mysteries. Talking dog optional.

 

[Ancalagon]

A looser example of this would be "all make characters who can do X reasonably well", whatever the X may be. It can create a fairly strong theme while being less restrictive.

In my 3.0 days, we had a party with a ranger/rogue, a fighter/rogue, a high dex elven wizard, a high dex fighter (archer), a bard .... and my dex 8 combat-oriented cleric in plate mail, clanking along, ruining everything. Of course when the fight started he was murderous but sneaking by wasn't an option. This wasn't done on purpose but it became amusing - and a bit dismaying - as the campaign went on.

So can a Mono-class party work? It can, esp how diverse some of the archetypes are, and even better with a bit of multi-classing. In 5e the backgrounds can also help a ton. For example, in a "wilderness" party (filled with druids, rangers and barbarians), perhaps the cleric has the "outlander" background giving him access to at least basic competence in the outdoors. (man I *love* the backgrounds. One of the best features of 5e imo)

 

[mellored]

Druid, bards, clerics, rangers, wiizards, sorcerers, and fighter's can all work.

Barbarians and monks are going to struggle.

 

[Horwath]

5 rogue assassins, ranged, wood elf could help with stealth and longbow.
stealth and try to alpha-strike the biggest badass in group.


5 moon druids, it's a dancing bear party


5 wizard necromancers, legion of the dead.


5 fighters,battlemasters, PAM, sentinel, tunnel-fighter style. this is SPARTAAA!


5 bards, Backstreet boys.

 

[Zardnaar]

A shame there are only two 'official' Bard Archetypes. The Blade and the Jester/Jongleur (haha I remember their 2e kit equivalents) are neat ideas and, all together, would make a great Travelling Band.

Maybe in a coach. Solving mysteries. Talking dog optional.

We figured 2 valor bards, 2 lore bards 1 using great weapon, 1 shield master, a blaster bard and a healer bard.

THe all Druid thing we figured two moon druids and 2 elemental druids from EN5ider.

Monks. Sun Soul, 1 shadow dancer, 1 way of the fist, 1 long death.

 

[Ath-kethin]

Why wouldn't absolutely any combination of any classes work? I mean, you are playing with a human DM that can think and adapt, right? Not a computer that can only follow its programs?