compressing 4 man party into 3 characters

[brezniew]

We started The Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde which is 1-7 lvl campaign with 4 man group - fighter, sorcerer, cleric and rogue using 28 pt. buy (sor and clr totally new to d&d) and after first session cleric decided that he doesn't like it.
If anyone could help us figure out how to remake 2 characters (so newbie sorcerer can stay sorcerer and have fun with it) so we still have some muscle, healing and scouting/dealing-with-traps that would be greatly appreciated. We most likely will start from the scratch after this campaign so max level of characters will be at best 8 (we are planning to divide 4man xp and loot between 3 ppl to make it bit easier).

[A.A.King]

Clerics can make excellent muscles, so I suggest the figher becomes a cleric instead.

[eggynack]

A druid can pretty reasonably fill all the roles. The animal companion can be muscle, the druid's fancy wand of lesser vigor can be the HP healing (and his status effect healing isn't bad), and they can pump spot and listen high enough to be an effective scout. A druid can also reasonably fill most other roles, if you like.

[Croix]

We started The Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde which is 1-7 lvl campaign with 4 man group - fighter, sorcerer, cleric and rogue (sor and clr totally new to d&d) and after first session cleric decided that he doesn't like it.
If anyone could help us figure out how to remake 2 characters (so newbie sorcerer can stay sorcerer and have fun with it) so we still have some muscle, healing and scouting that would be greatly appreciated.

You could try Gestalt (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm) options if no one wants to give up their classes main features. Though everyone should be given the option then and challenges adjusted accordingly.

Alternately the Sorcerer could Gish (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=8786) and be decent at melee and spells.

Rogue might want to take a lot of ranks in UMD though if he decides to Gish so your party has some healing (nothing like having to sleep in the middle of a dungeon cause someone can't take another hit after a single encounter).

You could allow your Fighter to rebuild his character to be a melee focused Cleric (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1238.0).

Depends on how you want to do it really.

[Feint's End]

I think it would be good to know which sources you can use first. After we know that we might give you some more concrete suggestions.

Now some honest words. The basic group constellation as imagined by wotc is bulls***. You need neither of those roles ... well at least not the way they though.
In a group with tactical understanding of their characters a lot of combinations are playable (and I mean very good playable) without 1 or 2 of those "basic" roles.

Let me ellaborate a little: You could have a Druid and a Psion who can cover all those roles alone or have no need for some of them (meatshield comes to mind even though the druid is a superior meatshield anyways).
There are classes which can cover two or three roles good enough and I don't talk about just tier 1 now.
The standard roles as imagined are: meatshield, scout, arcane caster, divine caster
In reality you don't need all of them but rather what you need them for:
>meatshield: melee to draw attention (this part isn't possible or necessary but you can of course build for it) and more importantly dealing damage (which gets either multiplied by your casters or against targets which are crowd controlled). The thing is that meatshield is just a half-role and not a full-role as wotc imagined. There are dozens of classes which can pull the necessary stuff off while being full divine casters, scouts, etc at the same time.
>scout: Same as meatshield but for skills. Again a role you don't need. There are combinations who can pull this off and it doesn't need it's own 1-20 progression. There is a reason why most rogue handbooks focus on dealing damage ... because being skillmonkey isn't something that takes a lot of ressources.
>arcane: good cc, blasting (though generally considered subpar but quite nice to have against groups of enemies), buffing your melee (haste, enlarge person), but basically they can do everything
>divine: somewhat better in support than arcane but lacks in blasting, also better in healing (duh)

Now as for your group it is pretty simple or pretty hard depending on how attached your two experienced players are to their characters. I'd recommend something like this:
Sorceror -> Sorceror
Rogue -> Swordsage (just make sure he realizes how to go dexterity)
Fighter -> Something divine ... probably Cleric

You got everything covered pretty much. You might want to consider Cloistered Cleric though for the higher skillpoints and all knowledge skills.

Also another suggestion. It surely depends on the game but pb 28 is really really bad. I can understand why a lot of people think lower pb means lower power but it absolutely doesn't mean. In fact there are several things wrong about it:
-Lower pb screws mundanes and MAD classes. Caster don't really care about having just one high stat and one decent stat. In fact most can savely dump 2-3
-Lower pb means players like me who like to have 12-14 cha because it fits our character are screwed. What I mean is that if you have more points you have some points to tinker around and make your character the way you want him/her to be. A muscular wizard? Sure! The charismatic fighter? Bring it on!
All those things go away the lower your pointbuy gos because you just can't afford the points to spend on things which look awesome but don't have any impact (or just very very little) mechanically.

[Croix]

Caster don't really care about having just one high stat and one decent stat. In fact most can savely dump 2-3

I'd still dump the same 3 stats. The 3 stats I made good would just get better. Roll 4d6, re-roll 1s, drop the lowest die, and re-roll totals less than 8 if you think a higher point buy is fair.

[Coidzor]

Well, Druids bring along a free fighter from 1st level which is freely disposable as long as you get the downtime to summon a new one.

As long as your DM is willing to work on patching the questions left unanswered by the Wild Cohort (https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a) feat (can/how do you get a replacement when one dies or you want to upgrade to a higher level animal?), that'll similarly allow everyone to have their own pet fighter. Summoning can also help cover that role as well as that of trap-springer/trapmonkey, especially with the Summon Elemental reserve feat from Complete Mage. Necromancy can help cover that role as well, or even a single Azun-Gund(Nightcaller's Whistle) and access to decent corpses to make zombies out of can cover for a good while (up to 6 zombies of up to 10 HD can definitely help act as blockers/a meat wall[or was it 10 HD base creatures for 20 HD zombies? I can't remember, check Libris Mortis/The Sunless Citadel for more/better details]), though it's much better if you either specialize in focusing on it or take advantage of Dark Chaos Shuffle or Psychic Reformation(speaking of psionics, if you can swing Hyperconscious or what have you, Psianimate Dead is pretty sweet) to temporarily focus on it for minion creation and then go back to one's normal specialization (also good for crafting time).

So beatstick and scout/trapmonkey are the easiest to do away with, especially when you've got always on detect magic for the actually threatening magical traps at higher levels. You can also, to a more limited extent, do away with the social role with spells, though that's less than recommended.

edit: As for healbot/heal*****/healing (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=2710), well, in-combat you don't want to be doing it except as a last resort anyway, and out of combat there's wands for boring old HP damage. And a Druid or Cleric can handle both healing and beatstick duties. Druids especially can cover both to some extent just through their summoning(yay for unicorns).

edit 2: This might be of some interest as well, though less directly (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=314701).

[Gandariel]

TL:DR => Factotum, Druid and Cleric. Pick any of these and you'll be ok

[Feint's End]

I'd still dump the same 3 stats. The 3 stats I made good would just get better.

You see and this is where you and me are different.
If I had the points I'd spend them to make a charismatic wizard for example. Sure my con will probably be somewhat lower than the con of the uncharismatic, wis dumped and weak groupmember, but overall the difference won't be as critical as it would be with a lower pointbuy.

I just wanted to say that higher pb generally increases the power of weaker classes and allows for more customization.

[Callin]

Crusader would not be a bad option here

[OldTrees1]

3 Characters: Sword, Skills, Magic

[Thurbane]

Beguiler can safely cover skills and can really add some spell firepower. Despite popular belief, he has plenty of spells that are useful against mindless opponents, and can always sling some more via UMD (runestaff etc.).

[BrokenChord]

Please, people, I implore you, stop responding to questions like this with optimization advice. The world doesn't revolve around being stronger mechanically. Let's stay within the bounds of the question, and stop destroying my soul.

Good classes for the other two people involved, as long as they're willing to switch? I'll second the Fighter becoming a Melee Cleric, as you only need one or two spells to be... Well, not as good as the Fighter, but pretty good all-around as a front-liner, and certainly better than your squishies trying to survive alone. Healing will probably have to be reserved for outside of combat, though.

Another thing you could do is check out the Divine Bard variant from Unearthed Arcana, which has some melee capability, some healing capability, and limited outside areas of spellcasting while being a good support piece. Interestingly, then, you might actually switch the Rogue into a Cloistered Cleric with some skillzy domain (I'm insane). You might need to look up a guide, but if you just want a Rogue for the skillmonkey factor, Cloistered Clerics can actually do it decently.

The only problem with these options is it can tend to leave the whole party squishier, but them's the breaks of trying to work around a smaller group of characters.

[Coidzor]

Please, people, I implore you, stop responding to questions like this with optimization advice. The world doesn't revolve around being stronger mechanically. Let's stay within the bounds of the question, and stop destroying my soul.

He's asking how to cover those roles with 3 characters. We've supplied answers as how one can cover those roles with 3 characters. Or less. Specing your party for such things is, in and of itself, optimization of a sort.

Nor should pointing out that the Druid comes with a free pet Fighter and can readily cover both tearing faces off and casting spells really destroy your soul, given that it's a fairly simple and obvious observation. :smallconfused:

[eggynack]

Please, people, I implore you, stop responding to questions like this with optimization advice. The world doesn't revolve around being stronger mechanically. Let's stay within the bounds of the question, and stop destroying my soul.
That's kinda a ridiculous thing to say. For any question of the kind, "How can I do this?" the answer is pretty much necessarily going to be optimization advice. That's just how things operate. If you want a character to be good at a thing, or even several things, you optimize for it. Seriously, everything you said after this? Pretty much just a pile of optimization advice. Optimization isn't a bad thing. It's just a tool that you use to let you do the things you want to do. If your soul is destroyed by optimization advice, then I've gotta say that this may not be the right place for you, as that's a solid majority of what happens hereabouts.

[Kennisiou]

Wizard, Artificer, Cleric. Cleric frontlines, holds clw wand for healing, does some minor debuffing/battlefield control/minionmancy. Artificer goes supporty/blasty while also breaking WBL and skillmonkeying for the few instances where skills are more useful than spells, or spells without skill support are not sufficient. Wizard uses spells to accomplish out of combat tasks, provides battlefield control, and debuffs.

[Coidzor]

Wizard, Artificer, Cleric. Cleric frontlines, holds clw wand for healing, does some minor debuffing/battlefield control/minionmancy. Artificer goes supporty/blasty while also breaking WBL and skillmonkeying for the few instances where skills are more useful than spells, or spells without skill support are not sufficient. Wizard uses spells to accomplish out of combat tasks, provides battlefield control, and debuffs.

Call the party God, the Devil, and Bob. Let them argue over who has to be Bob. :smalltongue:

Edit: Oh. This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=325933) might be of interest (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=4488.0) for the person currently playing the sorcerer if they find its spells known too restrictive later on or were interested in trying out a wizard but were daunted by the spellbook routine.

[Fouredged Sword]

Would go with the following group setup.

Gold Dwarf

Cleric 20 - DMM persistomancer who focuses on Cha > Con > Str > Wis 12 > Dex > Int

Wis 12 will get you Wis 14 by 7th level (with a +2 item), and thus you will be able to cast all your spells in the levels you gain them. You are focusing on status restoration and buffs, so you don't care about saves.

This is the healer / meat shield. Big, tough, and can restore just about any status condition you run across. Invest in social skills, because you have no other need for skills.

Grey Elf

Spellthief 1 / Wizard 4 / Unseen Seer X

Int of 18 (+2 racial) > Dex > Everything else

With a starting int of 20, take fairy mysteries initiate for Int to HP. This turns into a tough little skill monkey who can sneak, disarm traps, and scout like nobody else. Hunter's Eye turns any low level ray spell into a high damage sneak attack with an energy descriptor and a touch AC target (meaning AC 10 because they also loose their dex).

[Petrocorus]

Hoard Life ( RotD) (4) and Undying Vigor of the Dragonlords (Dragon Magic) (5) are two sorcerer specific spell that are Conjuration (Healing) spell.
Add the Touch of Healing reserve feat and your Sorcerer has now an unlimited Lay on Hand abilities and can heal everybody out of fight.

Retool the Fighter as a Crusader or a Paladin 2/ Favoured Soul can make him a pretty good meatshield who can heal. Once again, Touch of healing for unlimited heal and saving spell slot is a good investment for the Favoured Soul.

Buying Healing Belt (MIC, i think) and wand of Mass Lesser Vigor can actually do the job without investing anything else than GP. At higher level, buying 2 eternal wand or 4 schemas of the same spell will probably save money.

Retooling the Fighter as a Martial Adept from ToB is certainly a good thing anyway. He will be better at what he does and be more versatile, specially if is a Swordsage, but even Crusader and Warblade have more skill points than the fighter. Which allows them to actually invest in Diplomacy and Intimidate.

The rogue can become a Factotum, or a Psychic Rogue or a Beguiler. Using Bard or going Bardadin is also an option. Obviously, Artificer can be skill-monkey too, and can create items for negating any lack of the party.




Gold Dwarf

Cleric 20 - DMM persistomancer who focuses on Cha > Con > Str > Wis 12 > Dex > Int

Wis 12 will get you Wis 14 by 7th level (with a +2 item), and thus you will be able to cast all your spells in the levels you gain them. You are focusing on status restoration and buffs, so you don't care about saves.


In this case, a dip into Prestige Paladin for weapons proficiencies and Divine Grace can be pretty.


Note that you don't care for DC, you still care for bonus spell per day.

[OldTrees1]

Seriously the Sword, Skill, Spell party is a good way to have a 3 man team

Sorcerer
Feats: Arcane Disciple(Renewal), Touch of Healing

Normal skill-based character

Normal Melee character


Alternatively replace the skill monkey with a Cloistered Cleric of Trickery and Kobold domains. You get 6+Int skills, the "full" Rogue skill list and Trapfinding as well as spells to heal.

[Petrocorus]

To quote someone else's post of a few years ago, you can also do:

Artificer going a mix of blastificer and meleeficer with a self-made super magical armour, powered by Dragon Shards.
Crusader focusing on White Raven and a huge Cha.
Ghaele savage progression with emphasis on Air and Weather spell.

And of course, they look like this:

http://imageshack.com/a/img571/1854/ewus.jpg

[Segev]

If they're not up for switching characters, I'd get the rogue a Wand of Cure Light Wounds and encourage him to UMD it, and then have the Fighter multiclass to Cleric at level 2 (maybe go Prestige Paladin later on).

If they are up for switching, the fighter replacing his character with a druid should do the trick for reasons already stated. (Giving the rogue a wand of CLW and the druid a wand of Lesser Vigor can't hurt, either.)

[Bloodgruve]

I'd allow them to Gestalt with some rules. Gestalt for the most part gives more options but it doesn't give more actions. I would suggest requiring no higher than a tier 3 class couple with a tier 1 class per character though. Fighter/Cleric, Sorcerer/Ranger, Thief/Archivist or something. May wanna stay away from Factotum though, they can get messy after 8th level with extra actions.

GL
Blood~

[Coidzor]

And if you don't want to gestalt (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm), but do want a party which is made out of 3 different character classes... The Generic Classes (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/genericClasses.htm) condense the system down into 3 different classes, Expert, Warrior, and Spellcaster. And Generic Spellcaster is an upgrade on Sorcerer, as I recall.