Parties of all Class Z: how have they worked out for you?

[Isamu Dyson]

Has anyone here ever played in a party of all Rangers, all Bards, all Druids, etc? If so, what were the benefits/downsides of the particular party composition?

[Dming For Noobs]

I remember somebody did something like this somewhere else. I believe team cleric came out on top, due to domains and the like.

[Nettlekid]

I played an all-Bard one-shot once. Perhaps it was mechanically lacking, but it was brilliantly fun.

A friend of mine really wants a Warforged Wizard campaign, because with the Repair spells you have have a healer as well as everything else a Wizard can do.

[Emperor Tippy]

I've played and/or run All Wizard, All Psion, and All Monk.

All of them worked out pretty fine. Sure the DM has to tailor things a bit differently but generally a competent party can figure out ways to solve the challenges and compensate for their weaknesses.

[Silva Stormrage]

I've played and/or run All Wizard, All Psion, and All Monk.

All of them worked out pretty fine. Sure the DM has to tailor things a bit differently but generally a competent party can figure out ways to solve the challenges and compensate for their weaknesses.

The monk one sounds interesting. Was it pure monk 20?

[Emperor Tippy]

The monk one sounds interesting. Was it pure monk 20?

Monk 10/ Factotum 8/ two levels of our choice that couldn't be Ardent. Arranged however we liked. Race had to be gray elf, Necropolitan was banned, ability scores were straight 18's.

[Heliomance]

All Bard could be quite terrifying. Five different types of Dragonsfire Inspiration stacked up? Unfriendly.

[Karoht]

Pathfinder Answers.
Team Ranger (Go Go Powah Rangahs!) was actually really cool. 1 Melee, 3 Range. One of them heavily specialized into traps and alchemy. Alchemical items were extremely commonly used, along with poisons. If the 4 guys couldn't drop something in the first two rounds, retreat to prepared positions with traps, ambush there, or return in 4 rounds and assault again. Repeat until stuff is dead. Heavy use and abuse of cover, Fog, Smoke, Sleetstorm, magical darkness, and vision through said fog/smoke/sleetstorm/darkness.
Lots of fun, hit some brick walls around level 12 though. If they ever got ambushed they were usually in serious trouble.

All Paladins. Each with different archetypes. Yes. Very fun. It really has to be a campaign built for that kind of party though. It's no fun playing a Paladin and the majority of stuff you have to fight isn't evil or undead. But when it is? And you got a group that actually plays like a team, and built their characters with the explicit intent to synergize as much as possible? Oh yeah, it's fricken sick.
Lots of fun, hit a few major speed bumps around level 15. Less trouble because of the crazy high saves, so casters were not as much of a threat, but they were a serious pain in the arse when they showed up.

All Rogues. Played as a 'Heist' campaign. Extremely challenging. Hit the brick wall around level 8, after that point it was too much for the DM to come up with appropriate challenges themed more around stealing things and sneaky combat.
Extremely fun. Hard to keep the party from just breaking off into murder-hobos ransacking towns though.

[Osiris]

Not me, but ALL CLERICS
http://agc.deskslave.org/comic_viewer.html?goNumber=247

[danzibr]

All Bard could be quite terrifying. Five different types of Dragonsfire Inspiration stacked up? Unfriendly.
My thoughts exactly. Total annihilation.

Someone in an old thread had an idea doing this with a band of pirate lords who usually did their own thing, then were utterly unstoppable when they came together.

[Karoht]

All Bards is a bit too easy to shut down though. You're only a Silence or two or a Fog spell away from having all those advantages shut down. No save, no Dispel check, just a big fat NO button.

Remember, you can cast Silence on a rock and throw it in someone's vague direction, or Mage Hand it into position. Or just cast it on a point in space that happens to have some Bards nearby. And since the Bards need to be within 30 feet of each other, there's a good chance you shut down most or all of them with one spell. To make life even worse for the Bards, remember that Silent Spell doesn't work on Bard spells, and not many of them have Somatic only for components.

Seriously, it is very easy to make life hard for a Bard.

I'm not saying that it doesn't work, but it is extremely easy for the DM to curb the majority of Bard tricks if you have a (jerk?) DM that doesn't like what you're doing.

[LordBiscuit]

I remember one time my party suggested, largely in jest, that during the next campiagn we all play halfsized Monks. Though there was no hard and fast rules on how we would go about it.

Since Psionics were definately unavalible, I planned to take the 2 levels in monk and spend the rest in warblade, doing all the spell like abilities with my fists. Though I imagine I would have really outpreformed the party since most would have taken it quite literally.

Thankfully, we never had a campiagn which we could do that. Though I would rather swordsage/Shadow Sun nowadays, just as the badass mystical rogue tank.

[Heliomance]

All Bards is a bit too easy to shut down though. You're only a Silence or two or a Fog spell away from having all those advantages shut down. No save, no Dispel check, just a big fat NO button.

Remember, you can cast Silence on a rock and throw it in someone's vague direction, or Mage Hand it into position. Or just cast it on a point in space that happens to have some Bards nearby. And since the Bards need to be within 30 feet of each other, there's a good chance you shut down most or all of them with one spell. To make life even worse for the Bards, remember that Silent Spell doesn't work on Bard spells, and not many of them have Somatic only for components.

Seriously, it is very easy to make life hard for a Bard.

I'm not saying that it doesn't work, but it is extremely easy for the DM to curb the majority of Bard tricks if you have a (jerk?) DM that doesn't like what you're doing.

Pretty sure Subsonics gets you around that. Not sure what a Fog spell would do to them particularly though.

[Karoht]

Pretty sure Subsonics gets you around that. Not sure what a Fog spell would do to them particularly though.Their performances must be seen or heard in order to convey their benefits. If one is for example, counting on overlapping Dragonfire Inspiration (along with possibly other buffs) for damage, one spell can bring you back to only having the benefit of one-namely your own. This assumes that your performance is visual and not audio, which has to be specified when you start the performance. If the performance is audio, then Silence is still just as crippling.
Then there is the fact that you can't hit your opponent if you can't see.

As for Subsonics...
"You can produce music or poetics so subtly that opponents do not notice it, yet your allies still gain all the usual benefits from your bardic music. Similarly, you can affect opponents within range with your music, but unless they can see you performing or have some other means of discovering it, they cannot determine the source of the effect."
You spend a feat to perform a normally audio performance as a visual instead, when you could just perform it visually by having a visual performance skill on your sheet (IE-Dance).
Says nothing about spells mind you, so a Silence still shuts down Bard spell casting.

@Joyful Noise
10ft emanation centered on you.
"The silence is not dispelled but simply held in abeyance; it remains in effect outside the area of the joyful noise."
Works to get you out of the Silence, but otherwise still a pain in the butt.


Again, not trying to have an argument and say 'bards suck' or anything, merely trying to warn that a DM can shut this down quite thoroughly if they feel like it.
I'm also expressly not a fan of DM's who would constantly bust out tactics like this to deal with a party, thereby removing most of the fun.

[Vhaidara]

One of them is always on Joyful Noise duty. Concentration duration 10ft radius zone of anti-silence.

[Naanomi]

I played a four man mini campaign where we all had to be Human Binders. The party functioned very well.