Party with no full casters

[Galithar]

As the title says, I'm getting ready to start a new campaign and all of my players appear to be rolling up half casters (or less). Are there any specific things that could help me when dealing with NOT having full casters.

They obviously won't have high powered spells, but what if anything would you recommend for adventuring without full casters?

If it helps the party is as follows

Warforged Armorer (UA) Artificer
Goliath Artillerist Artificer
Wood Elf Gloomstalker Ranger
Loxodon Paladin (Oath undecided)
Unknown race Arcane Trickster Ranger.

The races are highly houseruled, but that's not really relevant to the discussion other than for me to point out that they are relatively optimized despite the potentially unoptimized appearing race choices.


Personally I'm looking forward to them not having a full caster as I'm hoping for some more creative solutions to problems instead of just casting a spell to jump to success, but wanted to see if there was any particular advice for making adventures for them that are more enjoyable for them (and myself)

[LordCdrMilitant]

I ran a game for a part of all fighters [none of them EK] and 1 fighter-monk. It worked fine, I didn't really do anything special for them.

I've also played in a campaign where we were 5 paladins. It also worked fine, since between us we had a lot of damage and healing.

[Wizard_Lizard]

SHould work fine. particularily if it's a low level campaign. The artificers' infusions should make up for the lack of spells coz free magic items are fun.

[Galithar]

We're starting at level 3 (hence everyone having subclass already) and going until the campaign concludes or there is a TPK. I don't have a level in mind as it is going to be pretty sandboxy

[Trask]

Lucky

I prefer it that way myself. I find it easier and more rewarding to build encounters for martial characters and half-casters than for full casters.

[Vogie]

Both of my groups are in this situation. One has only a paladin, and the other group had no healers whatsoever (AT, Sorc/Wiz, Div Wiz, Barb).

The only thing I did, other than making sure they occasionally found health potions, is adjusting to a Exhaustion-based death saving throws - instead of having 3 binary saves, you only die after 6 failed saves, based on the 6 levels of Exhaustion. When you bounce back, due to healing or medicine checks, you keep the levels of exhaustion.

[False God]

I wouldn't recommend anything. 5E is more balanced around 4-5 party members than anything else. And some of the most powerful combos in the system aren't even full casters.

You'll find you resolve a lot more situations with force or skill checks rather than charm or crowd control. But beyond that, you've clearly got ranged covered, you might lack a little burst AOE, but you'll make up for that in single-target focus fire (assuming your group coordinates well).

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Healing Word and Counterspell would be the things I think the party will miss.

You can always see how things go and award magic items to fill in. Wand of Healing Word. Sword of Counterspell that explodes if you use it too much.

[Eldariel]

Be careful with hordes. Casters are generally how you deal with large numbers of weak enemies efficiently without getting overwhelmed. 20 Goblins may not be an appropriate encounter for this party at CL5. Likewise, enemy spellcasters are more dangerous: without access to solid antimagic abilities (again starting from CL5), things like random Fireballs and Cones of Cold thrown at the party suddenly become way more dangerous. For instance, Princes of the Apocalypse is a nightmare without spellcasters (specifically Wizard(s)) in the party.

The second part is, careful with effects that have long term repercussions. Paladin goes a long way towards fixing many of these via. Lay on Hands, and both Pally and Ranger do have access to Lesser Restoration (take it) but curses stand out as something the party has no easy means of fixing before ECL9 the earliest. Same with all sorts of drain effects and such (basically anything you generally use Greater Restoration for).

[Galithar]

Be careful with hordes. Casters are generally how you deal with large numbers of weak enemies efficiently without getting overwhelmed. 20 Goblins may not be an appropriate encounter for this party at CL5. Likewise, enemy spellcasters are more dangerous: without access to solid antimagic abilities (again starting from CL5), things like random Fireballs and Cones of Cold thrown at the party suddenly become way more dangerous. For instance, Princes of the Apocalypse is a nightmare without spellcasters (specifically Wizard(s)) in the party.

The second part is, careful with effects that have long term repercussions. Paladin goes a long way towards fixing many of these via. Lay on Hands, and both Pally and Ranger do have access to Lesser Restoration (take it) but curses stand out as something the party has no easy means of fixing before ECL9 the earliest. Same with all sorts of drain effects and such (basically anything you generally use Greater Restoration for).

I'm using a modified Eberron for my campaign setting, so as long as they can make it back to civilization spellcasting is a rather readily available service that can purchase. I will keep in mind to use curses sparingly, but I also think the fact they came immediately be dealt with makes them better to use as they will actually create interesting complications instead of simply taxing slots of the casters.

[Eldariel]

I'm using a modified Eberron for my campaign setting, so as long as they can make it back to civilization spellcasting is a rather readily available service that can purchase. I will keep in mind to use curses sparingly, but I also think the fact they came immediately be dealt with makes them better to use as they will actually create interesting complications instead of simply taxing slots of the casters.

Yeah, outside help should make this matter much better. Your point also does ring true and it can certainly enhance certain aspects of the same abilities: fairy tales are oh so often about undoing a curse without any magic at all, after all. Just something to keep in mind that curses should preferably be painful and potentially debilitating but still something you can continue to play with.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

Played a game with a champion fighter and two bear barbarians. They were able to do well with no casters. It was mostly social game with little combat.

The social part was hard. The combat was extremely quick.

[ForeverFlame]

It seems fine, because your party still has some access to spellcasting, and even if they didn't, they could still find somewhere to cast spells.

[Mr. Crowbar]

I'm in a party with no spellcasters, period. It's definitely awkward, our solutions tend to be "break into things" or "break things" because no one is a CHA type either, but so far we're managing. Combat is actually fun and goes by faster since no one is stopping to look up spells.

[Man_Over_Game]

It gets a little boring without magic, as most of the battlefield/social manipulation effects come from magic. So make sure there are still plenty of options for those things.

Maybe the enemies are the ones creating battlefield effects, or maybe there are more interactive items on the field. Or maybe you make more throwable flask-like items for your players.

Most martials have their most effective form of contribution be the Attack Action, which is limited to dealing damage, and damage is the least interactive form of contribution you can do in the game.

That interactivity has to come from somewhere, and either they're making it up themselves or you're adding stuff manually. Honestly, making a table of full martials is a different kind of exhausting, since most of the weight of creativity is loaded onto the DM. A Barbarian can be creative, but even that's limited to the impact of...what, a level 3 spell? It's not like you can plan around the level 17 Fighter whipping out the equivalent of a Dimension Door or something.

So unless you want to hear the words "I Attack" for 50 sessions, you'll need to reward your players for doing things other than "I Attack", which means you're effectively creating more rules for the world/game, which means more work.

[MrStabby]

It should be fun.

The set of things that canbe interesting challenges to overcome is a lot higher, which can make for a different type of game and can make it easier to run. You can throw a lot more investigation at a party when Locate Object isn't to hand.

As a party you have the broadest possible range of caster types without having full casters or warlocks and your one non-half caster can cover a lot of the remaining with skills. Don't sweat it. Enjoy the change of pace and different dynamic.

[Mr Adventurer]

It gets a little boring without magic, as most of the battlefield/social manipulation effects come from magic. So make sure there are still plenty of options for those things.

Maybe the enemies are the ones creating battlefield effects, or maybe there are more interactive items on the field. Or maybe you make more throwable flask-like items for your players.

Most martials have their most effective form of contribution be the Attack Action, which is limited to dealing damage, and damage is the least interactive form of contribution you can do in the game.

That interactivity has to come from somewhere, and either they're making it up themselves or you're adding stuff manually. Honestly, making a table of full martials is a different kind of exhausting, since most of the weight of creativity is loaded onto the DM. A Barbarian can be creative, but even that's limited to the impact of...what, a level 3 spell? It's not like you can plan around the level 17 Fighter whipping out the equivalent of a Dimension Door or something.

So unless you want to hear the words "I Attack" for 50 sessions, you'll need to reward your players for doing things other than "I Attack", which means you're effectively creating more rules for the world/game, which means more work.

Got to challenge a lot of this - just because of how absolute you present your statements.

What about grapples? Pushes? Nets? Improvised weapons with special effects? Throwables?

Completely challenge the premise that spellcasters are inherently more creative to play, too.

What you are describing is a problem with the players, not an inherent flaw in the game when there are no spellcasters.

I mean. In a game where some people play non-spellcasters and some people play spellcasters - do you think the non-spellcasters don't contribute any creativity to the gameplay? If so, again, that's not because they can't cast spells.

[Galithar]

It gets a little boring without magic, as most of the battlefield/social manipulation effects come from magic. So make sure there are still plenty of options for those things.

Maybe the enemies are the ones creating battlefield effects, or maybe there are more interactive items on the field. Or maybe you make more throwable flask-like items for your players.

Most martials have their most effective form of contribution be the Attack Action, which is limited to dealing damage, and damage is the least interactive form of contribution you can do in the game.

That interactivity has to come from somewhere, and either they're making it up themselves or you're adding stuff manually. Honestly, making a table of full martials is a different kind of exhausting, since most of the weight of creativity is loaded onto the DM. A Barbarian can be creative, but even that's limited to the impact of...what, a level 3 spell? It's not like you can plan around the level 17 Fighter whipping out the equivalent of a Dimension Door or something.

So unless you want to hear the words "I Attack" for 50 sessions, you'll need to reward your players for doing things other than "I Attack", which means you're effectively creating more rules for the world/game, which means more work.

It's not a party of full martials as everyone seems to be rolling up a half caster. They will just have lower level spells.

It's an Eberron Campaign, so the use of magitech will definitely be a thing, especially with two Artificers. Creating and purchasing magic items will not be that difficult for them. I'll make an effort to give them items that reproduce battlefield control effects though.

[Man_Over_Game]

Got to challenge a lot of this - just because of how absolute you present your statements.

What about grapples? Pushes? Nets? Improvised weapons with special effects? Throwables?

Completely challenge the premise that spellcasters are inherently more creative to play, too.

What you are describing is a problem with the players, not an inherent flaw in the game when there are no spellcasters.

I mean. In a game where some people play non-spellcasters and some people play spellcasters - do you think the non-spellcasters don't contribute any creativity to the gameplay? If so, again, that's not because they can't cast spells.


And those things should be valuable, but it means creating situations where those things are valuable.

Grappling/Pushing doesn't mean much if the enemy already plans on being next to you or if there aren't any environmental effects. Coincidentally, the easiest encounters to create are the ones with stupid melee enemies in a scene with no environmental effects.

Improvised items with special effects? More game to be made by the DM.

Interesting throwables? More game to be made by the DM.

You didn't mention anything that doesn't require the DM to effectively create its value by himself.

Yet, if a spellcaster wanted to create a battlefield effect, he just has to look up Moonbeam, say "I cast Moonbeam", and the DM draws a circle on the board. Everyone knows what Moonbeam looks like, the DM doesn't have to come up with his own unique version of Moonbeam to match the circumstances that allow it to be cast, and he doesn't need to determine the power level vs. expense vs. circumstance of the situation since that's all inherent to the spell called "Moonbeam".

It's my belief that the more you get your players to interact with/against each other, the less work it is for the DM. The problem is the whole lack of interactivity with Damage, and how Damage is what most Martials excel in. Casters create stuff that others interact with, martials don't (at least, not nearly on the same level).

The caster spends a portion of his time reviewing his options, while the martial spends that same time waiting for the DM to tell him his.

Yes, a Martial can be interesting, but they do so at the expense of the DM.

[NoxMiasma]

An important thing to remember, if you have no full casters in the party, is that a lot of 5e's difficulty assumptions rely on access to spells. You're really going to want to pay attention to what spell levels and spells known your players have access to, because stuff like, say, the Rakshasa's limited magic immunity could get quite nasty. Also, maybe increase the amount of healing consumables available? Hit point recovery is another big part of the adventuring day and challenge rating assumptions.

[Mr Adventurer]

And those things should be valuable, but it means creating situations where those things are valuable.

Grappling/Pushing doesn't mean much if the enemy already plans on being next to you or if there aren't any environmental effects. Coincidentally, the easiest encounters to create are the ones with stupid melee enemies in a scene with no environmental effects.

Improvised items with special effects? More game to be made by the DM.

Interesting throwables? More game to be made by the DM.

You didn't mention anything that doesn't require the DM to effectively create its value by himself.

Yet, if a spellcaster wanted to create a battlefield effect, he just has to look up Moonbeam, say "I cast Moonbeam", and the DM draws a circle on the board. Everyone knows what Moonbeam looks like, the DM doesn't have to come up with his own unique version of Moonbeam to match the circumstances that allow it to be cast, and he doesn't need to determine the power level vs. expense vs. circumstance of the situation since that's all inherent to the spell called "Moonbeam".

It's my belief that the more you get your players to interact with/against each other, the less work it is for the DM. The problem is the whole lack of interactivity with Damage, and how Damage is what most Martials excel in. Casters create stuff that others interact with, martials don't (at least, not nearly on the same level).

The caster spends a portion of his time reviewing his options, while the martial spends that same time waiting for the DM to tell him his.

Yes, a Martial can be interesting, but they do so at the expense of the DM.

You're right, I take it back - this is less a problem with players and more a problem with an uncreative DM.

[Dark.Revenant]

Half-casters, and to some extent even third-casters, can fill in for a full caster. It might be rough if there's some expectation of being able to cast Raise Dead at character level 9-10, being able to cast Teleport or Plane Shift ever, or even having access to Revivify or spells like Conjure Elemental. Generally, it's only rough if the module/world expects you to be able to use those sorts of magical effects at certain levels; good scenario writers won't make that mistake. A full group of half-or-less casters can still fight, use AOEs, heal up, sneak and sleuth, and (with a feat) cast useful rituals.

Full martials (a spell-free team, other than racials and rituals) is much harder to deal with, for the reasons touched upon earlier in the thread. Be glad you're not dealing with that scenario.

[MrStabby]

An important thing to remember, if you have no full casters in the party, is that a lot of 5e's difficulty assumptions rely on access to spells. You're really going to want to pay attention to what spell levels and spells known your players have access to, because stuff like, say, the Rakshasa's limited magic immunity could get quite nasty. Also, maybe increase the amount of healing consumables available? Hit point recovery is another big part of the adventuring day and challenge rating assumptions.

I might be misunderstanding you, but I think this is less of an issue than usual.

So given your Rakshasa example - your cleric, or warlock as a full caster will struggle to eal with these. Even at high levels they basically only get a few spell slots to use. In the other hand a half caster can still just beat the snot out of them with a sword. Your cleric is reduced to casting buff spells - so practically one concentration spell for the fight, but your paladin just funnels the spells they would have cast into smiting the fiend.

Being able to fight effecively with weapons is a really useful backup plan for a lot of encounters.

[Man_Over_Game]

You're right, I take it back - this is less a problem with players and more a problem with an uncreative DM.

I get the pointed jab, but think about it:

For a new DM, what's harder to figure out? Speak with Plants, or a DC 20 nature check?

Hell, I could recite most of the mounted combat rules by heart, and I still would be unsure on what the hell a DC 20 Nature check would look like compared to a DC 15 or DC 25.

Or when I'm supposed to make you take your Land Vehicle check during an intense combat scene while mounted vs. when someone else who doesn't have that proficiency.

Remind me how someone with proficiency in Alchemy kit, Herbalism Kit, Poisoner's kit, Healer's kit, Medicine, Nature, and Survival can use those together? I forgot.

[da newt]

To be perfectly honest, as a DM I don't think you should adjust anything. Your job is to present interesting, varied and challenging (but fair-ish) obstacles and encounters for your party to figure out how best to deal with (be it via direct combat, social, magic or anything else).

So there are no full casters in the party - who cares? Would you change the adventure if instead the players decided they all wanted to play clerics? I vote no. Would you change your adventures if the party was a wizard, sorcerer, bard, warlock, and druid? I see no reason to. Why would you?

Every single one of your PC's will be capable of melee and spell casting. They will have some healing, some front liners, some ranged, some AoE, some CHA ... They'll be just fine.

Maybe once they advance to tier 3 there may be some issues due to no access to higher level spells?

[Galithar]

To be perfectly honest, as a DM I don't think you should adjust anything. Your job is to present interesting, varied and challenging (but fair-ish) obstacles and encounters for your party to figure out how best to deal with (be it via direct combat, social, magic or anything else).

So there are no full casters in the party - who cares? Would you change the adventure if instead the players decided they all wanted to play clerics? I vote no. Would you change your adventures if the party was a wizard, sorcerer, bard, warlock, and druid? I see no reason to. Why would you?

Every single one of your PC's will be capable of melee and spell casting. They will have some healing, some front liners, some ranged, some AoE, some CHA ... They'll be just fine.

Maybe once they advance to tier 3 there may be some issues due to no access to higher level spells?

Yes I absolutely would change the adventure for any of those cases. The job of the DM is to present an entertaining scenario for the players to interact with. If I initially had the idea to run a super intense plane shifting campaign and find that none of the PCs are casters I absolutely need to adjust. Either they need access to something that would replicate those high level spells, or I need to give them things to interact with that don't require those.

The concept that DMs need to sit back and prepare a world with no regards to their players seems foolish to me. You need to make sure that there is something valid and interesting for the players to interact with. This doesn't mean you have to study and target their weaknesses (though it is perfectly fine for an NPC to do this as long as you keep track of their knowledge separate from your essential omniscience). It does mean that you need to adjust for them. It the idea of combating swarms of low level undead is trivialized by the presence of a party of 5 Clerics you're no longer presenting a fun and engaging encounter. You're just rolling lots of Wis saves against being destroyed. Not entertaining. That same encounter could be cool with a fighter, a rogue, a Paladin, and a Bard though. Adjusting to your party, especially when you run HomeBrew worlds, is not a bad thing.

[Vogie]

I see both sides of the issue - on one hand, certain party compositions will trivialize certain encounters.

You throw a bunch of mobs at a party with access to Hypnotic Pattern? Now they can focus fire on the half that succeeded saves.
Throw a few giant creatures against a PAM Barbarian and a rogue? All sneak attacks all the time.
Creatures with legendary resistance against Monks? Roll to boop.
Run monsters RAW against veteran players? "Don't use Acid damage, guys"

But, sometimes that's actually a good thing. Throwing things at players they can easily dispatch is sometimes very cathartic. I set up such a scenario in a recent encounter where there were zombies underground, underfoot, when the group included a Grave Cleric. Could he have sensed them with his level 1 ability and/or used Turn/Destroy Undead and wipe out all of them? Yes. Did he? Of course! It was quite cinematic.

I like setting up my players to win... and also use up their resources before the "actual" encounters.

[MrStabby]

I see both sides of the issue - on one hand, certain party compositions will trivialize certain encounters.

You throw a bunch of mobs at a party with access to Hypnotic Pattern? Now they can focus fire on the half that succeeded saves.
Throw a few giant creatures against a PAM Barbarian and a rogue? All sneak attacks all the time.
Creatures with legendary resistance against Monks? Roll to boop.
Run monsters RAW against veteran players? "Don't use Acid damage, guys"

But, sometimes that's actually a good thing. Throwing things at players they can easily dispatch is sometimes very cathartic. I set up such a scenario in a recent encounter where there were zombies underground, underfoot, when the group included a Grave Cleric. Could he have sensed them with his level 1 ability and/or used Turn/Destroy Undead and wipe out all of them? Yes. Did he? Of course! It was quite cinematic.

I like setting up my players to win... and also use up their resources before the "actual" encounters.

Personally I prefer to run it the other way - take an existing tough encounter and then throw in something really nasty to tip the balance that someone in the party just hapend to have the perfect counter to. Fighting a couple of stone golems then a dozen shadows emerge from the dark to ambush the party mid-fight against a party with a cleric with destroy undead, for example. A cavalcade of goblins in fireball formation when the party is hard-pressed against trolls and so on.

[togapika]

Unknown race Arcane Trickster Ranger.

Arcane Trickster....Ranger???

[Galithar]

Arcane Trickster....Ranger???

Lol just a typo. I meant rogue.

[Dork_Forge]

Honestly I see no problems here, smallest hit die is d8, you've got plenty of spell access and what spells don't cover, class abiltiies will. Healing can easily be handled by the Paladin and Artificers (especially if the Artillerist uses the Protector mode), likewise you have options for AoE (turret and AT), the only thing the party wouldn't be able to handle is an obstacle that requires a spell to get past that they don't have. Since that situation is entirely within your ability to avoid (and I think should be pretty easy), I wouldn't worry too much at all, if anything the lack of rez magic might make it more meaningful.