BECMI optimization

[Klorox]

Two part question:

1) In a 4 person party, is there anything better than the four human classes?

2) Is there anything more powerful than an elf?

[Khedrac]

Two part question:

1) In a 4 person party, is there anything better than the four human classes?That all depends on what you mean by "better".
First off, remember that the adventures were usualy written for 5 to 8 characters (i.e. 6 to 8 is how the adventure is balanced), so a 'full' party is probably more important than a 'balanced' party.
Secondly, if your DM is good, they can accomodate parties without one of the classic roles fully covered (e.g. no thief).

It also depends on the levels, at low levels an elf covers both the fighter and magic user 'roles', and dwarves (and halflings) fill in for fighters.
Once you hit name level though the demi-human level caps kick in and they stop being as useful, unless...
The Attack Ranks from the Companion set keep demhumans as good as (or better than) fighters.
Elf wizards (from Gaz 5) give elves the ability to cover higher level arcane casting, though not as well as wizards (or differently to).
Hin Masters (from Gaz 8) cover most cleric functions (no turn undead) and fairly quickly catch most of the way up to human clerics.
Dwarf clerics are an option from Gaz 6, but they are not as "good" as human clerics.


2) Is there anything more powerful than an elf?
Depends on the level - level 1 no, level 36? - probably any human.
Also remember to look at the xp required for each level, the elf will still be first level while the cleric and thief have hit 3rd. If creating a party at higher than 1st level a fairly good option is to give a starting xp total not a starting level.

Edit: "Power" also depends more on how inventively one plays a character rather than what class one plays. Equipment can matter too.

[LibraryOgre]

Also remember to look at the xp required for each level, the elf will still be first level while the cleric and thief have hit 3rd. If creating a party at higher than 1st level a fairly good option is to give a starting xp total not a starting level.


This is a very important point on any game that tries to use the XP table as a balancing device.

If you say "Everyone is 10th level", well, that initially screws a thief, who isn't balanced against 10th level wizard, even in theory... he's supposed to be able to contribute in a party where everyone has Y XP, but if he has substantially less XP, because he's the same level as everyone else, you're putting him at a disadvantage.