Wow, reading this thread has made me feel a little better about my own parties lack of tactics and group cohesiveness.
Well, we're not
too bad I guess, we do usually remember to flank and attack from higher ground. But other than that we tend to lack the ability to work together especially well.
Fighter (6): Weapon-master hopeful with a scimitar. Now that she has Whirlwind Attack, she wades in to where ever she can attack the most foes. Usually manages to walk back out at the end of the fight because of the
Haste bonus to AC that I give her.
Fighter (4): Straight forward character with a bastard sword & shield. Uses a composite longbow at range and then charges in on his warhorse, or on foot.
Cleric (4): Usually doesn't do any real buffing (which he really should) other than a
Bull's Strength on himself or one of the fighters. Other than that, he just wades in and bashes things with his heavy mace until someone needs healing.
Cleric (3)/Rogue (1)/Fighter(1): Again we have a cleric whose only buff spell consists of
Bull's Strength, and usually only casts it on himself. He a will attack from range with his mighty composite shortbow for the first couple of rounds, then runs up and uses his Quicker than the Eye feat to bluff opponents and sneak attack them. Frankly, I don't know why he didn't just get tumble and sneak attack by flanking things. But then again this guy does plenty of things that I'll never understand.
Wizard(Necromancer) (6)[me]: I lead off combat generally by casting fly on myself, followed by
Spectral Hand and
Haste on the Fighter (6). Then I'll let loose with various offensive spells and an occasianal defensive spell if someone (usually me) needs it.
Overall, I think that dcollins' theory applies to us really well, we have no clear party leader (although we do have a rotational system for a 'tie-breaker' postion when deciding courses of action), and most of the players act independently as everyone tries to be a star. In all fairness the fighter (4) mostly plays as a support character, but as a fighter he can't contribute much more than flanking positions. As for myself, I originally planned to play the support role almost exclusively, but for the first few levels I was the only dependable player, which caused me to have to focus more on my offensive abilities, plus the fact that as a Necromancer, half of all my spells gained from leveling up are Necromancy, which is a school that has little in the way of buff/utility spells. Also, since I'm the only survivng original character with the most NPC contacts/allies and ties to the campaign world, and the fact that my character has a very powerful sense of personal destiny, I tend to focus alot on ensuring my own survival (a difficult task with an AC of 14.
).
