Unconventional party layouts that work.

[Avianmosquito]

So, I've never been a fan to sticking with the standard fighter-cleric-wizard-rogue layout. It's nothing against those classes in particular, but I've always enjoyed playing around with other compositions and seeing what works. So, if anybody wants to share unconventional compositions that they've actually played and been successful with, this is the place to share what and why. I've got two to start us off.

Bard, ranger, sorcerer, rogue. (I played the rogue in this comp.)

At first, this party composition seems doomed to failure. It has no front-line fighter, and no healer. However, the bard gains the ability to heal at second level, the ranger gains the ability to heal at 4th, and both are reasonably solid in melee. As long as these two work directly together their combined melee ability is surprisingly impressive, their healing starts off seriously gimped but ends up surprisingly good at higher levels and the comp is more stable as if one healer is down we have a spare.

Bard, cleric, rogue. (I played the bard in this comp.)

This one also seems gimped, even for a three-man team. There's no front line warrior OR arcane caster in this comp, but the bard and cleric are both good in a melee, the bard is a backup healer for the sake of party stability, and the rogue took UMD so they and the bard could both act as arcane casters to a limited extent. Further, we were largely fighting undead in that campaign, so our bard and cleric's healing magic was also offensive magic when we needed it. We actually managed, with this comp, to pull off all the roles of a 4-man team in a 3-man.

Both of these comps depended HEAVILY on player cooperation, but using two players to achieve each role turns out to work great when your players are good at working together. But in the first comp I was the rogue, my then wife was our bard, our sorceress was my daughter and our ranger was good friend of ours, working together was fairly easy. And in the second comp, it was me, my wife and my daughter. I wouldn't recommend trying these comps with strangers or people you know don't get along, but it worked great with us.

[Uncle Pine]

I've been in a session where the party was made by a Fighter, a Rogue, an Oracle and a Commoner (all lv 4) in which most of everything was accomplished by the Commoner and his pet bear and there hasn't been a single Cleric PC in the whole last campaign I've DMed. Healing belts are just that good.

In general, I think that any party layout can "work" assuming there are no conflicting characters (i.e. LG Elf Paladin who hates orcs and CE Orc Barbarian who hates elves) and no character is terribly dysfunctional and/or has suicidal tendencies (for example, a Fighter with no UMD who spends most of his money on wands with no intention of handing them to someone who can use them, or a character with low mental stats who tries to attack every NPC in sight, including guards etc.). Different groups can face different challenges, or the same challenges in different ways. Some groups can easily face most challenges, others don't. While not all DMs will tailor every challenge to the party's capabilities, it's a DM's job to be sure that his or her players have a place in the world and therefore something to do.

The standard party of Fighter-Cleric-Wizard-Rogue assumes that encounters will generally be played with a character handling the monster in melee (Fighter) while a second one provides damage support while hopefully evading hits (Rogue). In the meantime, the Cleric heals the party at the best of his capabilities throwing a hit every now and then, while the Wizard buffs and rains fireball from the distance. Out-of-combat, the Rogue and the Wizard can handle things like locating the enemy, teleporting the party to its location, deal with traps, etc. The Cleric heals and scares zombies away, while the Fighter smashes doors. However, not all the encounters need to be beaten in this way.

Think of the party as the protagonists of a TV show: if all of them were stealthy Rogues, they'd need to find different ways to deal with a hulking giant monster than "one of you keeps it busy while the rest of us covers him". Traps? Hit and run strategies? Fireball wands activated through UMD? The possibilities are endless. Of course such a group would try to avoid big bad monsters like this and look for challenges closer to their areas of expertise. Maybe the four (or three, or six) Rogues will even try to avoid combat encounters altogether and fight only if they hit a dead end!

Therefore I think that most unconventional party layouts will work, although many times you'll have to ask yourselves how you're going to make them work. Sometimes it'll be necessary to tone down your opponents (don't go hunting dragons with a full Commoner party unless they're a stray Wyrmlings or low levelled Dragonwrought kobolds), but cooperation will always be key. Don't expect to take 4 random classes and win every battle if half your team is working for the enemy. However, with proper narration the same full Commoner party can experience an incredible adventure hunting in the woods... and do in a week something that a party of 4 Druids could've done in an afternoon. But that's not important, because hopefully you still had fun!

TL;DR Every party layout can work if everyone in the party is cooperating with each other and the DM. However, different party layouts will provide inherently different experiences.

[GilesTheCleric]

I think any party composition is fine in this game. It sometimes changes how you play, but I think the skill of the players plays a larger role in that.

Current games:
Factotum, Rogue, Rogue

Cleric, Monk, Warblade, Swordsage

Older games:
Wizard, Cleric, Crusader, Warblade

Cleric, Swordsage, Warblade, Artificer

Wizard, PF Wizard, Cleric, Druid, PF Alchemist, PF Summoner

[exelsisxax]

In PF:

cleric, magus, archer magus, cavalier.

The cleric gave up trying to cast buffs a while ago. Combat just ends in too few rounds.

[noce]

Warblade, Fighter, gimp Sorcerer and Rogue.

Most stuff has been achieved by warblade and fighter in low levels, with rogue currently on par with them, his build is a late bloomer.
Sorcerer is a blaster, so in a full round he does half the damage another player does, we carry him around just for the occasional teleport, really.

Healing is covered by lesser vigor wands (rogue).

Lately, the party changed to Warblade, Fighter, gimp Psion and Rogue.
This psion build is so horrible we miss the sorcerer.

[Aetis]

Warlock, warlock, warlock, and warlock.

Everyone can see in magical darkness and spider climb.

One guy is the designated smoke grenade man. He keeps like 10 gold pieces each with darkness cast on it in his pocket at all times.

Party generally breaks into a building through a window while making SWAT team sounds and throwing in darkness coins, and then they run up the ceiling and gun down the blind opposition with eldritch blasts, before making away with the loot.

[finaldooms]

Dread necro, cleric with turn , and a samurai worked out surprisingly well...any traps? Just send undead untill it eventually stops ..or clogs up the hallway

[Hunter Noventa]

Warlock, warlock, warlock, and warlock.

Everyone can see in magical darkness and spider climb.

One guy is the designated smoke grenade man. He keeps like 10 gold pieces each with darkness cast on it in his pocket at all times.

Party generally breaks into a building through a window while making SWAT team sounds and throwing in darkness coins, and then they run up the ceiling and gun down the blind opposition with eldritch blasts, before making away with the loot.

That sounds pretty hilarious.

[Aetis]

That sounds pretty hilarious.

I don't do it justice with my meager words. It was glorious and one of the best series of sessions I've played in.

[Uncle Pine]

Warlock, warlock, warlock, and warlock.

Everyone can see in magical darkness and spider climb.

One guy is the designated smoke grenade man. He keeps like 10 gold pieces each with darkness cast on it in his pocket at all times.

Party generally breaks into a building through a window while making SWAT team sounds and throwing in darkness coins, and then they run up the ceiling and gun down the blind opposition with eldritch blasts, before making away with the loot.
This is the most amazing mental image I've had recently and a great example of how much the gameplay can switch based on party composition.

[Fouredged Sword]

I run a hilarious game through PbP on occasion that has a party comp of wizard wizard wizard wizard and fully expects them to overcome a level 1 dungeon completely by RAW with no accounting for the fact that the party is all wizards.

It'a s blast every time I run it.

[lylsyly]

I run a hilarious game through PbP on occasion that has a party comp of wizard wizard wizard wizard and fully expects them to overcome a level 1 dungeon completely by RAW with no accounting for the fact that the party is all wizards.

It'a s blast every time I run it.

It does sound like fun, I would like to try it if I ever find the time.

One of the best gaming times I have ever had was back in August; Starting class/level was Bard 3, Paladin 3, Ranger 3; Strictly core and the mini campaign was designed with the classes/levels in mind. We all had a blast, and that is what the game is all about, yes?

[Hamste]

4 times unchained barbarian in pathfinder is pretty funny. Amplified rage and a curageous weapon results in great increases to hit and damage. Then they solve every encounter with bashing until the encounter is a fine paste.

[Buufreak]

My last party (I was DM), had cleric, evoker, illusionist, crusader, commoner, and eventually a ranger. The game plan was debuff until the enemy lost the will to continue.

[Troacctid]

Warlock, warlock, warlock, and warlock.

Everyone can see in magical darkness and spider climb.

One guy is the designated smoke grenade man. He keeps like 10 gold pieces each with darkness cast on it in his pocket at all times.

Party generally breaks into a building through a window while making SWAT team sounds and throwing in darkness coins, and then they run up the ceiling and gun down the blind opposition with eldritch blasts, before making away with the loot.
It would probably be a lot better if Darkness actually blinded people instead of just lowering visibility to the equivalent of candlelight.

[Flickerdart]

So, I've never been a fan to sticking with the standard fighter-cleric-wizard-rogue layout. It's nothing against those classes in particular, but I've always enjoyed playing around with other compositions and seeing what works.

The traditional composition is terrible for everything except the classic dungeon delve scenario with a vaguely antagonistic DM, and even then it's not so hot. If the DM is interested in playing with the party rather than against them, a roster with overlapping strengths works much better. If everyone is good at stealth, the DM can drop stealth related encounters without being afraid that someone will be left out. But try that on the "standard" roster and watch the fighter and the cleric twiddle their thumbs while the rogue and wizard go do everything. Same thing for social characters, or spellcasters, or survivalists, or what have you.

[Inevitability]

A bunch of hairy spiders cooperating would be interesting.

[Fouredged Sword]

The traditional composition is terrible for everything except the classic dungeon delve scenario with a vaguely antagonistic DM, and even then it's not so hot. If the DM is interested in playing with the party rather than against them, a roster with overlapping strengths works much better. If everyone is good at stealth, the DM can drop stealth related encounters without being afraid that someone will be left out. But try that on the "standard" roster and watch the fighter and the cleric twiddle their thumbs while the rogue and wizard go do everything. Same thing for social characters, or spellcasters, or survivalists, or what have you.

I personally love to have a focused party and then NOT match encounters to their strengths. There was a moment in the all wizard party when everyone looked around the table and asked "OK, is there anyone who DIDN'T dump charisma?"

Funniest thing the whole session, and the adventure involved 200lb wheels of cheese and using ice assassin clockwork horrors as janitors.

[Troacctid]

There are actually a lot of classes that can make a great, balanced party if you just slap four of them together and maybe give them different builds or prestige classes.

Examples:
4x Bard
4x Binder
4x Cleric
4x Druid
4x Incarnate
4x Monk
4x Psion
4x Rogue
4x Sorcerer
4x Warlock
4x Wizard

[Flickerdart]

I personally love to have a focused party and then NOT match encounters to their strengths.
Every once in a while, this works great, since it maintains the "everyone is equally in the spotlight" principle. But a whole campaign of nothing but such encounters gets old pretty quick.


There was a moment in the all wizard party when everyone looked around the table and asked "OK, is there anyone who DIDN'T dump charisma?"
This planar-bound succubus probably didn't.

[flappeercraft]

On the campaign I'm running there is a Wizard Incantatrix, Full Sorcerer, Full Cleric and Fighter/Barbarian/Warblade so no Rogue to disable traps but the Barbarian usually just goes in headfirst amd hopes for the best which is apparently the next best thing.

[Inevitability]

There are actually a lot of classes that can make a great, balanced party if you just slap four of them together and maybe give them different builds or prestige classes.

Examples:
4x Bard
4x Binder
4x Cleric
4x Druid
4x Incarnate
4x Monk
4x Psion
4x Rogue
4x Sorcerer
4x Warlock
4x Wizard

One of these is not like the others...

[Uncle Pine]

There are actually a lot of classes that can make a great, balanced party if you just slap four of them together and maybe give them different builds or prestige classes.

Examples:
4x Bard
4x Binder
4x Cleric
4x Druid
4x Incarnate
4x Monk
4x Psion
4x Rogue
4x Sorcerer
4x Warlock
4x Wizard
*sensible chuckle*

[Flickerdart]

Quad-Monk is actually more practical than you'd expect - instead of having to buy partially charged wands, they can all pitch in and buy regular wands.

[Quertus]

Well, I'd say the majority of my gaming experience looks something like this: muggle, muggle, muggle, muggle, muggle, muggle, wizard (me).

Ouside that, one of the most effective parties I was ever in looked something like... Barbarian, bard, druid, monk/rogue (me). IIRC, slaughtered a T-rex around level 5 or so. The barbarian tripped it, I dealt some 50 damage / round with lightning fist + expert tactician + sneak attack, then my mount and the rest of the party dealt more. Then it tried to get up, got put in its place, and we turned it to paste dino burgers.

Another party layout that worked went something like... dark whisper gnome rogue #1, dark whisper gnome rogue #2, ninja, rogue / cleric, paragon half-celestial, BDF.

[Rhyltran]

In the campaign I'm the DM in we have Scout, Druid, Barbarian, and Bard. In the campaign I'm currently in we have Mystic Fire Knight Paladin (Me), Wizard, Sword of the Arcane Order Wild Shape Ranger, and a spell thief. In the last campaign I was in we had Harmonious Knight Paladin, Rogue, Warlock, and Barbarian. Later the rogue died and re-rolled Spirit Shaman. Actually we were on the way to stop by at his cousin and he had an entire write up about his cousin as well as his cousin's stats etc. So when he died on the way there he went "Eh, I'll just play his cousin." it was a devastating IC moment though.

Those compositions worked.

[LordOfCain]

One of these is not like the others...

Maybe if they changed how they got spells/powers: Ur-Priest, Enlightened Fist, tashalatora, etc.

[Matrota]

I had a party for a while of an elven spellsword, a tauric rogue, and a water genasi witch/druid. The genasi managed our healing and occasional buffs, the spellsword was the frontline and main form of dps, and the rogue was great utility and occasional backup dps.

[Avianmosquito]

The traditional composition is terrible for everything except the classic dungeon delve scenario with a vaguely antagonistic DM, and even then it's not so hot. If the DM is interested in playing with the party rather than against them, a roster with overlapping strengths works much better. If everyone is good at stealth, the DM can drop stealth related encounters without being afraid that someone will be left out. But try that on the "standard" roster and watch the fighter and the cleric twiddle their thumbs while the rogue and wizard go do everything. Same thing for social characters, or spellcasters, or survivalists, or what have you.

That's actually part of what made a bard/ranger/sorceress/rogue comp so useful. Sure, they could fight really well if it came down to it, but they could also ALL sneak (the sorceress was the worst at it, of course) and this campaign was one of illegal clandestine ****ery, so everyone being able to sneak fairly early on was a HUGE benefit.

[Alent]

A campaign I enjoyed tremendously was our all sneak, thieves campaign. The only requirement was you had to be a skillmonkey with x number of sneak attack die, multiclassing was open otherwise.

We ended up with: A Spellthief/Bard/Unseen Seer (me), A straight Rogue, a really weird rogue/ranger sniper build, a rogue/Thug fighter, and a really weird rogue/cleric/divine trickster build I wish I'd gotten a look at the character sheet for. The way everyone's skills balanced out, we were pretty complimentary, and no noble's mansion was safe. :smallamused: We ended up running jobs for the local Beholder crime syndicate, stole entire parts of Mechanus for the gnomish engineering guild, etc.

The Synergy was pretty interesting, since I was party face, operated our front organization, and provided buffs and divinations. I had the passive magic vision feat, so I could warn everyone about scrying sensors and traps, the melee trio were really good at splitting damage as they minced things, the divine trickster part of that in particular didn't heal at all, everything went into selfish utility like Divine Power. The sniper and I tended to pop up as fire support, then duck/invis and shift off somewhere else to get another sneak attack shot.

It ended up being a very fun team, the requirement of getting in and out unseen amplified the strategy and tactics angle to where "just kill it all" wasn't good enough.

[Troacctid]

One of these is not like the others...

*sensible chuckle*

Quad-Monk is actually more practical than you'd expect - instead of having to buy partially charged wands, they can all pitch in and buy regular wands.

Maybe if they changed how they got spells/powers: Ur-Priest, Enlightened Fist, tashalatora, etc.
Obviously that's one of the ones that needs prestige classes. But a party consisting of (for example) Masters of the North, South, East, and West Winds would totally be viable (and very thematic). Some other routes you might take include Assassin, Dragon Descendant, Master of Many Forms, Fist of Zuoken, Life Eater, Elocater, Jaunter, and Cancer Mage.

[Aetis]

It would probably be a lot better if Darkness actually blinded people instead of just lowering visibility to the equivalent of candlelight.

I forgot to mention that we treat mundane light sources (other than the sun) as zero level spell equivalent, and as such, darkness spell negated them.

[BaronDoctor]

Probably my longest-running game was Bard/Sublime Chord with a Warmage/Rainbow Servant cohort (me), Swash/Fighter/Dervish/Tempest (my brother). There were more players at lower levels, but by about 8th or 10th, it was just us. We could solve just about any problem except traps. Which we solved by eyeballing where good places to put traps would be and employing the radical strategy of not using that door. Disintegrate, adamantine weapon "door breach", summons, persuading (or even suggesting) that a mook open the door for us and let us in, the boss placed a food order 25 minutes ago and you know how the boss gets when they're hungry, do you wanna be the one responsible for that?

There was the one time earlier on when the only way in was through an absolute murder-hole, and we said "y'know what? No. We'll go somewhere else where we can excel and not get murdered. It's a big world."

[Amphetryon]

Dread Necromancer (minion focused)
Dread Necromancer (debuff/fear focused)
Beguiler (party face)
Warmage (blow stuff up)

[WhamBamSam]

I'm actually fond of games where everyone's brought something weird to the table. With multiple players with an eye for unusual combos, you get added layers of synergy, assuming you've got at least a few team players on board. As an example, I was in a game that unfortunately fell through a while back wherein everyone was playing an Iron Chef build. We had a run down mansion that we were using as a base and I had a character (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=16886681&postcount=199) who had a hand for trapmaking. Another player was Totemist based and could produce poisons during downtime, and as I recall, a third happened to have poison immunity. Altogether, this would add up to a spooky manse full of poisoned traps, which would've been fun.

[Efrate]

Current games:

Barbarian, Malcavoker, Favored Soul, Swashbuckler
Scout, Healer, Barb, Barbarian
Binder/cleric, Rogue, Marshall, Warblade, Swordsage
Dragonfire adept/binder, Dungeoncrasher fighter, Warblade, Rogue/cleric

Soon: Druid, Incarnate, Barbarian, ??? x 2

[Starbuck_II]

While not real D&D, in the computer game, Temple of Elemental Evil, I played 4 bard party.
The Spice Boys!
One covered healing (even if others also had CLW known, they didn't take the higher level ones), One was the tank (lower mentals needed), One the caster (higher DCs for his spells), and one was the archer.
I think the Healer and Caster covered crafting as well.

I dipped the archer in rogue for traps, but otherwise pure bard.
I won pretty easily, but not as easily as 4 wizards (dip in cleric for crafting CLW wands).

[bean illus]

There are actually a lot of classes that can make a great, balanced party if you just slap four of them together and maybe give them different builds or prestige classes.

Examples:
4x Bard
<snip

I'm tellin' ya', if you haven't played a 4x Bard game you're missin' out. lol. Of course it's always the DM, but just think about it.

Four singing, drinking, gambling, womanizing, scheming bards trying to solve a mystery and save the kingdom/get rich.

[Flickerdart]

I'm tellin' ya', if you haven't played a 4x Bard game you're missin' out. lol. Of course it's always the DM, but just think about it.

Four singing, drinking, gambling, womanizing, scheming bards trying to solve a mystery and save the kingdom/get rich.

Quad-bards is where the game shines - everyone can have a different specialization but overlapping core competencies. There's no situation where one player hogs the spotlight completely, or one player gets completely left out. There's a reason Bard is the archetypal T3 class.

[KillingAScarab]

I was in a 2nd edition AD&D party of three fighters. It wasn't until 3rd edition came out and we converted that we the players started finding the flaws in that, but that was largely due to things like the difference in character levels, racial level limits and converting exceptional strength scores making us aware of how uneven our characters were statistically. We were mostly there to have fun, not craft the perfect characters which counter every likely scenario.

[SilverLeaf167]

Alchemist, Bard, Druid, Paladin, Wizard. No primary healer (and practically no items so far) but everyone except the Wizard has some secondary healing capacity. Which is good, because we're not screwed when any one person (or even most of the party) falls unconscious. And that happens a lot, since we're level 2 and keep getting in over our heads. :smalltongue:

The Paladin would appreciate a second melee character though.

[Alent]

Another fun one that I just thought of, my group's final pathfinder campaign.

1) My Kobold Trapsetter/Arcane Trickster.
2) The Dragonslayer, a single class Ranger with all the archetypes setup so he could maximize DPR vs dragons.
3) The Gunslinger. He had to dip something for feats and make a Faustian pact (that we never learned the details of) to stay relevant, but he managed.
4) An Inquisitor who only showed up every few dozen sessions, constantly off on crusade to other lands.

We were tasked with defending a village from all kinds of woes. Since the Inquisitor's player usually no-showed, we ended up using our nonstandard trio to execute guerrilla warfare tactics via minionmancy. We could use my Message Cantrip to coordinate our efforts, my Kobold and the Ranger had Handle Animal, and the Gunslinger was going the mundane arms and armor crafting route for some reason... so the Ranger was heading out, capturing things and the two of us were rearing them, we bought some Riding Dire bats to greatly amplify our effective scouting range, the list goes on. When we had actual enemies to fight the Ranger and Gunslinger would snipe our enemies as our animal army and Kobold Traps put the enemy to route.

There was very little we couldn't keep away from the town by campaign's end, we'd even turned the nearby swamp full of undead into a strategic resource with the use of Housecats to guide the undead to our enemies. It did take a while to convince the villagers that we were not necromancers and that we were not actually controlling the undead, especially without a party face.

[Inevitability]

Alchemist, Bard, Druid, Paladin, Wizard. No primary healer (and practically no items so far) but everyone except the Wizard has some secondary healing capacity. Which is good, because we're not screwed when any one person (or even most of the party) falls unconscious. And that happens a lot, since we're level 2 and keep getting in over our heads. :smalltongue:

The Paladin would appreciate a second melee character though.

There's a druid and a wizard in the party. I feel like getting some summons up there with him wouldn't be too hard.

That, or just wait two more levels for Wild Shape.

[SilverLeaf167]

There's a druid and a wizard in the party. I feel like getting some summons up there with him wouldn't be too hard.

That, or just wait two more levels for Wild Shape.

Summons aren't very practical at 2nd level, having a 1 round/level duration (after first taking a whole round to cast). Definitely an option later on, of course.

[Inevitability]

Summons aren't very practical at 2nd level, having a 1 round/level duration (after first taking a whole round to cast). Definitely an option later on, of course.

True, I forgot about that.

[digiman619]

I'm tellin' ya', if you haven't played a 4x Bard game you're missin' out. lol. Of course it's always the DM, but just think about it.

Four singing, drinking, gambling, womanizing, scheming bards trying to solve a mystery and save the kingdom/get rich.


Quad-bards is where the game shines - everyone can have a different specialization but overlapping core competencies. There's no situation where one player hogs the spotlight completely, or one player gets completely left out. There's a reason Bard is the archetypal T3 class.

Plus you can literally be a band of adventurers!

[GilesTheCleric]

Plus you can literally be a band of adventurers!

Try not to toot the horn of your cleverness there. That's not going to drum up any support around here. Just don't harp on it, okay?

[Inevitability]

Well, it's not too uncommon for bards to be playing second fiddle in a party. An all-bard party would probably cause them to sing a different tune.

[digiman619]

Harpsichord!

Wait, I think I messed that joke up...

[Mai]

Monk
Druid
Wiz/does

Monks can have high AC, days into many heavy armies, assuming they have good wisdom and dexterity. Not to mention that flurry of blows and absurd speed boosts to keep foes eyes on them. And if it doesn't, don't worry, The monk can just run nearly any combat distance in one movement, and remind them. The monk-tank is real. O.O

Yeah a druid doesn't heal as well as a cleric, by that I mean they don't get the bonuses and life domains, and boosts to heal spells, but they get most of the spells. And can then summon tigers and bears and lightning storms when everyone's fine... Not a bad trade off.

Wiz/sorc just seems like a traditional dps mage that fits.

And to round it out... A bard or rogue?

[Alent]

Harpsichord!

Wait, I think I messed that joke up...

*hums A-team theme refrain*


Faceman: (in german) "But it's okay, I can still play the Piano!"

German guys: "hahahahaha"

Murdoch: "Do you have any idea what you're saying?"

Faceman: "No idea, but they love it."

[Tiri]

This isn't too far out of the convention, but my current party consists of a:

Fighter
Ranger
Bard
Cleric
and a Sorcerer.

So we're really only missing the Rogue character. I suppose Sorcerer is a bit of a deviation from Wizard, too.

The Bard could theoretically have fulfilled much of the missing Rogue's role, but she's woefully unoptimised in practice, although she gets critical hits at all the most fortunate times that make up for uselessness at others.

Our Fighter and the Cleric's summons handle the melee combat, while the Ranger does the ranged stuff. Cleric heals too, but she often uses too many slots on summoning.

The Sorcerer was useless in combat until recently, when he killed a dragon in an aerial battle that no one else participated in, but he mostly handles the social aspect of things.

[Hunter Noventa]

Come to think of it, my current party for weekly games is a bit off from the norm.

We have the following:
A Path-of-War Warlord
A Shaman with a Unicorn companion
A strange Wizard/Cavalier combo, i think.
A Rogue with the alchemist bomb archetype, whichever that is.
A Warpriest of Abadar who uses a katana and Contracts as his primary weapons
A Warlock (homebrew update of the 3.5 class to PF)

So while we do have all the bases covered, we do it in some odd ways. Of course, it's not like we're having a standard dungeon-dive adventure either, since we're an elite military unit.

[Tohsaka Rin]

Four White Mages can work.

Especially if you class change to White Wizards.

[KillingAScarab]

Four White Mages can work.

Especially if you class change to White Wizards.Proving any class can work if you over-level to a great enough degree before entering Marsh Cave.

[Tohsaka Rin]

That logic falls through when you see people accomplish a one-character run.

Anything is workable, if you're hardcore enough.

[Flickerdart]

Summons aren't very practical at 2nd level, having a 1 round/level duration (after first taking a whole round to cast). Definitely an option later on, of course.

If you optimize for it, they can be OK - it's not too hard to boost your CL by a few points.

[Krazzman]

One of these is not like the others...


*sensible chuckle*


Quad-Monk is actually more practical than you'd expect - instead of having to buy partially charged wands, they can all pitch in and buy regular wands.


Maybe if they changed how they got spells/powers: Ur-Priest, Enlightened Fist, tashalatora, etc.


Obviously that's one of the ones that needs prestige classes. But a party consisting of (for example) Masters of the North, South, East, and West Winds would totally be viable (and very thematic). Some other routes you might take include Assassin, Dragon Descendant, Master of Many Forms, Fist of Zuoken, Life Eater, Elocater, Jaunter, and Cancer Mage.

Not even necessary, if you are allowed to dip.

My wife once ran a few sessions of this where we started as level 7 Characters that must have at least half of our levels as monk. It was a mainly core game with maybe 3 splatbooks available at the time. (Although my wife has no recollection of this even taking place... scares me quite a bit).

Anyway we had a Monk/Drunken Brawler -> Monk/Sorcerer (Brawler died), Monk/Rogue and Monk (me, planning on taking level 11 as barbarian). I abused the Flying Side kick soooo much in that campaign it was just so much fun basically stomping a demon in his face, then tumbling to his back and setting up a flank for our Monk/Rogue whilst the other guy either swung his adamantine keg or later uses energy lazers!

On another note:
3 times rogue can be similar fun.
Or in this case:
Rogue/Fighter, Rogue/Cleric and Rogue. The guy that was supposed to play the Rogue/Wizard was sadly not able to make it...
Anyway the game ended with my Rogue/fighter being Albinicided, his hair(all of it) turned neon green and his left arm turned into a tentacle claw thing that could cast magic missiles (CL 3) at will... in the first session we hid under a bridge and started melting our silver coins to ram into a vampire heart whilst trying to stay in cover to not be killed by his minions... that was fun.

[CockroachTeaParty]

It seems like most of my longer running games boil down to a core of three players, so I've seen some interesting 3 man combinations that were quite effective.

I finished a Rise of the Runelords game last year, and the final party consisted of a paladin, a wizard, and a sorcerer. The paladin tanked and could self-heal well enough to keep himself alive, and his saves were so good that he didn't have to be baby-sat. The wizard saved most of his spells for utility and problem solving, while the sorcerer was ranged artillery. Eventually they tacked on a spiritualist cohort through Leadership, but she mostly did healing that the paladin himself couldn't handle.

I also got through Savage Tide, and the the group wound up being a wizard/malconvoker, a straight cleric, and a swordsage. Very effective. The malconvoker's summon spam was very good in the mid game, but eventually started becoming less effective than simply buffing the sword sage and sending him in to kill things. Time Stands Still and Girrilon Windmill Fleshrip kills things. It kills them dead.

I also personally played in a Kingmaker game. We never finished it, but our team of an archer fighter, a bomb-focused alchemist, and myself as a summoning-focused sorcerer was quite effective. We were very ranged-combat oriented, and could kill most threats before they could close ranks; if it came to melee, I summoned disposable meat sacks to buy us some breathing room and we would continue the ranged nuking.

[King539]

This is in 5e but right now I'm playing with 2 wizards, 2 clerics and me, a paladin/sorcerer.

[Quertus]

Alchemist, Bard, Druid, Paladin, Wizard. No primary healer (and practically no items so far) but everyone except the Wizard has some secondary healing capacity. Which is good, because we're not screwed when any one person (or even most of the party) falls unconscious. And that happens a lot, since we're level 2 and keep getting in over our heads. :smalltongue:

The Paladin would appreciate a second melee character though.

The druid's animal companion not cutting it?