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Sahadeva
2011-06-28, 01:48 AM
Has anyone done anything interesting with "theme" parties? I mean, instead of the usual mix of fighter/cleric/thief/mage, all of the characters share a theme.

For example, they might be all the same class, all have the same theme in class, or have some feat/attribute that is the same. I'm thinking, for example, of a party of church members - all clerics, or a couple of clerics and their paladin protector, or an all monk party. Or perhaps a party of knights on some quest. Or even a party of pacifists - they can disable enemies, but they're not allowed to kill them (perhaps with the exception of undead).

Share your experiences! Sadly, though this is something that quite interests me, I've never actually been in a game that involved something like this.

EDIT: Obviously I'm thinking of party builds that are going to hurt the party's power level to some degree. A party of all elves in D&D 3 onwards, for example, isn't really going to affect things...unless they're in a land that kills elves on sight.

HappyBlanket
2011-06-28, 02:57 AM
I recall a few people who speculated on the feasibility of an All-Bard party, with all 5 bards having a different variation of Dragonfire Inspiration.

...One round spent on Tiamat's Concerto, and the next five beating the enemies to death with +5d6 damage to melee attacks at first level. Get some Words of Creation in there, and maybe a vanilla Inspire Courage, and you get the world's most colorful musical slaughter ever conceived.

Yora
2011-06-28, 03:58 AM
I believe that every single party should be a theme party. Back in the day, we had a ranger/druid/sorcerer party and a demonic cultist party.

Boci
2011-06-28, 04:06 AM
I always wanted to do a circus themed party: knife thrower, strongman, acrobat and beast tamer.

Sillycomic
2011-06-28, 04:12 AM
I once played in a group of all gnomes protecting our country from foreign and domestic terrorists.

We called ourselves Gnomeland Security.

Gnorman
2011-06-28, 04:17 AM
I believe that every single party should be a theme party. Back in the day, we had a ranger/druid/sorcerer party and a demonic cultist party.

What's the theme on that one?

Yora
2011-06-28, 04:22 AM
Forest guerilla. The sorcerers were all multiclass and more like witches than urban arcanists.

Totally Guy
2011-06-28, 05:35 AM
We recently finished a game where everyone was playing an orc.

The reason for this is that the game was about an orc military campaign.

Eldariel
2011-06-28, 06:22 AM
Currently, a "stalker"-theme; every character is adept in assassination, stealth, subterfuge and all the good stuff. No heavy armor or low Dex allowed. Have done the divine and arcane parties before; Wizard Academy group and Church Clergy respectively. Druid Circle could be an interesting one to do at some point also. Though in the latter cases, obviously, you're raising not dropping the party power level.

Swooper
2011-06-28, 06:27 AM
Many of the games I've played in have had some kind of theme. Let's see...

We recently finished a game where everyone was playing an orc.

The reason for this is that the game was about an orc military campaign.
I'll be playing in an orc/half-orc only game that is supposed to start soon. Also, everyone is gestalted with barbarian on one side. :smallbiggrin:

I've played in another gestalt game where everyone had bard on one side, so we were a sort of traveling band (only two flavours of DFI though). Sadly, it never took off, we finished the first adventure and never continued.

The longest D&D 3.5 game I've played in had us all start as nobles of some kind. Three players, at 27th level one of us (me) was a monarch, one was a president and the third was engaged to a crown princess and in charge of the military of a large empire. Kind of fun.

I also remember an AD&D 2nd edition game where everyone played a forest-dwelling race. We had several elves, a halfling, a forest gnome and a homebrewed anthropomorphic squirrel, if I recall correctly.

dsmiles
2011-06-28, 06:34 AM
We recently finished a game where everyone was playing an orc.

The reason for this is that the game was about an orc military campaign.
I take it you've read Stan Nichols?

On topic:
We had a Christmas Party once, we all played Santa's Elves (actually gnomes) and went through an adventure that one of the guys had written that drew from all the American Christmas Specials (Frosty the Snowman, The Year Without Santa, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, etc.) It was a blast.

Talyn
2011-06-28, 06:48 AM
Theme parties are great!

There is Church Strike Force: Paladins, Clerics, Monks and Avengers (4e)/Favored Souls (3.x), that one is always a classic.

Sharing a common background lets you build themes more easily - the Thieves' Guild Enforcers can be any class, but the theme lends itself to a very different style than Big City University Vigilante group, which is in turn different from Heroic Guerilla Fighters - even if the class mix is identical.

Yukitsu
2011-06-28, 11:07 AM
I once played in a party of 3 focused specialist necromancers. It was pretty neat.

Shadowknight12
2011-06-28, 11:09 AM
EDIT: Obviously I'm thinking of party builds that are going to hurt the party's power level to some degree. A party of all elves in D&D 3 onwards, for example, isn't really going to affect things...unless they're in a land that kills elves on sight.

I once ran an all-monster party. With a half-elf as the most "normal" character. But this was Sharn, so... eh. It worked out really amusingly in the end.

PairO'Dice Lost
2011-06-28, 01:41 PM
I recall a few people who speculated on the feasibility of an All-Bard party, with all 5 bards having a different variation of Dragonfire Inspiration.

...One round spent on Tiamat's Concerto, and the next five beating the enemies to death with +5d6 damage to melee attacks at first level. Get some Words of Creation in there, and maybe a vanilla Inspire Courage, and you get the world's most colorful musical slaughter ever conceived.

I ran a party of 5 bards composed of demons of various sorts (using the custom half-fiend template from the WotC site that lets you choose your heritage and the Savage Species ritual to give them each the tanar'ri subtype) that was fluffed as a heavy metal band. The finale to their "concerts," when outnumbered by mooks, was usually a dance of ruin from each of them--10d20 damage to every non-demon in the area (i.e. everyone who isn't them) is nothing to sneeze at.


I once played in a group of all gnomes protecting our country from foreign and domestic terrorists.

We called ourselves Gnomeland Security.

Great minds think alike: One of my players actually works in DHS and plays a Trust agent in my Eberron game; he's a conjurer with a teleportation theme and always introduces himself as an agent of the 'Port (as in teleport) Authority in the Department of Gnomeland Security. :smallbiggrin:

zyborg
2011-06-28, 01:55 PM
I'm in an all-cleric party. We were sent as representatives of various churches to investigate some supernatural happenings at a graveyard.

Velaryon
2011-06-28, 01:57 PM
I've been in two campaigns where the characters all had names organized around a theme. First was a Forgotten Realms game populated by Spock the elven ranger, Picard the human sorcerer, Worf the half-orc barbarian, and James T. Kirk the human rogue (me). That game didn't last very long though.

Second, and more amusing, was the time we ran Expedition to Castle Ravenloft with characters named after rock stars. There was Axl Rose the VoP monk, Dee Snider the scout (no he didn't dress in drag), Robert Plant the druid (ba-dum-tish!) and Nathan Explosion the sorcerer.

Other than that, the closest I have come to true theme parties is in Star Wars, where we have run an all-Jedi party (until one player, on his third character, decided he would rather roll up a Mandalorian than another Jedi), and a Republic military game.

JonestheSpy
2011-06-28, 02:02 PM
Great minds think alike: One of my players actually works in DHS and plays a Trust agent in my Eberron game; he's a conjurer with a teleportation theme and always introduces himself as an agent of the 'Port (as in teleport) Authority in the Department of Gnomeland Security. :smallbiggrin:

Ha, I've got something similar in the game I'm running. The party's theme is just Weird, and two characters are animated suits of clothing - they're agents of The Bureau.