Synergistic team compositions and game balance

[samuraijaques]

Yo! I'm playing in a dungeon of the mad mage campaign right now and we recently lost a player and gained a new one so the players that stayed behind were allowed to change some aspects of their characters to help fill in the gaps created and it has ended up making our party extremely powerful and synergistic.

Dungeon of the mad mage is a very long campaign and we've had a couple characters come and go as we've delved deeper. Our DM is pretty lenient and is more focused on us having a good time than anything else so when one of us isn't liking something about our character generally speaking we can change it or just reroll a new character. We started off with a dwarf samurai, a college of swords/swashbuckler, a life cleric and myself as an EB optimized shadow sorcerer/hexblade. It was a pretty balanced team that had most of its bases covered pretty effectively. The bard dropped and we got a shadow monk/battlemaster (the demon web spider build from LudicSavant's build list. Definitely recommend!). Then I got bored of casting eldritch blast every round and, after a lot of talking logistics, switched to a shepherd druid because I've always wanted to play a summoner and it's frowned upon at most tables (notably, we've found that if you're using a VTT having 16 summons under your control is actually really simple and easy to manage so if anyone is thinking about playing one and does so online I say go for it, it's been a blast). So that left us with an awkward lack of a party face that we had to fill in. The samurai got bored of hitting things with a greatsword every turn (also samurai are not that great at higher levels. I think we were about level 8 or 9 at this point) and switched to a very cool build of rune knight/divination wizard (giant's might plus enlarge is awesome area denial and having portent as well as cloud rune, storm rune, and runic shield lets him have an absolute ton of control over enemy rolls and is easily the most effective tank I have ever seen played in 5e).

We ended up going through like 6 whole floors with this party of rune knight/divination wizard, shadow monk/battlemaster, shepherd druid, life cleric and it was going pretty well. The rune knight had lots of great ways to set up the monk for guaranteed stuns. Between me with conjured animals and the huge sized rune knight we were able to reliably keep enemies away from our squishy targets. We had damage, we had CC, and we had heals and it was pretty good. The 3 of us minus the life cleric talked plans at the table and tried to find ways to get through combat together and use our abilities synergistically to greatest effect. The life cleric was kind of an old school gamer and seemed to be under the impression that that was either metagaming or that we were trying to play his character for him when we tried to talk strategy or suggest spells that would be helpful in a given situation. I'm not sure which specifically but either way he wasn't really interested in working together and just cast a cantrip every round unless someone needed healing. Not trying to bash on the guy or anything, he was a great RPer and fun to play with, just pointing out the difference in playstyles.

So just last week the life cleric dropped and we had space for a new character who wanted to go bard. I'm thinking "perfect, now we have a face again". She goes eloquence bard and takes 2 levels of warlock for character reasons and gets a few decent combat options and the goodies you get from hexblade. I take a level of life cleric to fill in for our lost healer. This is where it gets kinda silly and the whole reason I thought to post this. Sorry for the long winded explanation, feel free to skip it.


TL:DR

So our current party is...
- A rune knight/divination wizard functioning as our tank by forcing rerolls, physically occupying a large amount of space and being hard to kill or move, and dishing out some good damage in the process. Out of combat they have all kinds of utility with expertise in like 9 different tool checks, advantage on arcana, expertise in athletics with potential for advantage as well
- A shepherd druid with a level of life cleric functioning as a damage dealer/CC with conjured animals, dishing out a bunch of temp hp with the totem, enough in combat heals to keep everyone standing and a ton of out of combat heals to keep everyone topped up. They have a passive 24 perception due to stats and a sentinel shield so we pretty much just know where traps and secret doors are, great scouting with the wild companion feature and great out of combat mobility with summoned giant owls/horses/etc
- A shadow monk/battlemaster that can pick one target, get past almost anything to get to them and just absolutely shut them down with stuns, trips, and generally high damage. They have a dummy high stealth check and can give themselves and the whole party pass without trace and the teleportation gets us past barriers and over gaps easy.
- And the eloquence bard/warlock focused on CC that has a myriad of ways to control the battlefield by shutting down groups of enemies, forcing enemies to fight each other or just ending combat entirely with calm emotions and a minimum 23 persuasion check. They have jack of all trades boosted counterspell and dispel magic, they're an absolutely peerless party face with plenty of charms and mind control to get us basically whatever we want out of almost anyone and allowing us to navigate social interactions without being worried about failing. They have crusader's mantle to make the druid's 16 raptors/wolves/giant snakes/etc into absolute monsters and the combination of unsettling words and mind sliver to make damn sure that whatever we need to fail a save does so.

And we're just walking through encounters right now. I have never seen a party this powerful, balanced or synergistic and I have played a LOT of dnd. We have an answer for anything and everything and a dozen ways to use our characters with or without working together to trivialize any obstacle.


So, long winded explanation over, my questions are these...

Does anyone have a more optimized party than this? Do you think this kind of approach to character building with a synergistic party composition as a goal is power gaming/meta gaming? And would you, as a DM, be on board with this or would you find it frustrating?


Looking forward to the responses,

Cheers.

[meandean]

Nah, it's fine. First of all, it'd be entirely logical for someone to notice that their group – on which they're literally depending to survive – lacks certain skills, and to decide to develop those skills. I do get why people would be skeptical when this results in, e.g., a previously non-religious character going and becoming a cleric. The question of whether/how you justify multiclassing in-story deserves, and has, its own threads. But the general principle that characters would act towards this goal makes total sense.

Also, I think there's... a tautology or something, not sure how to phrase it. If the game were different and you needed a well-rounded party to succeed, then you would have to optimize your party composition, because you'd have no choice but to do so. 5E isn't like that... but to me, that ends up in the same place. Party composition isn't a meaningful part of the game; therefore, who cares how you do it? You could totally play 5E with a party of five Bards and have no problem at all. You might not be able to run five Fighters without the DM having to do some work, but it's still very manageable. It doesn't matter what you do, so why does it matter if you do it "well"?

[LordShade]

It seems this topic is discussed extensively on Chinese D&D forums. I found this thread very interesting:

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?615397-Translation-from-Chinese-D-amp-D-Forum-Ranking-of-Classes-Based-on-Combat-Effectiveness

[MrStabby]

Do you think this kind of approach to character building with a synergistic party composition as a goal is power gaming/meta gaming? And would you, as a DM, be on board with this or would you find it frustrating?


Looking forward to the responses,

Cheers.

I think there is a cut-off where it transitions from being a natural in-character response to campaign circumstances to being a bit of a character-inconsistent power grab.

Pickin a fighting style that matches a party need, picking a spell that covers a gap or grabbing a feat to boost a particular ability all seem fine to me.

On the other hand making a warlock pact or worshiping a different deity to get some domain spells seems a bit of a stretch. Not saying it can't work - sometimes something happens in-game to inspire it, but without appropriate prompts from events it can be weird.

[Eldariel]

Well, your party is strong. I wouldn't say it's necessarily as strong as it could be; your characters are multiclassed, which is generally a decrease in power (though Life Cleric is a notable exception in that high level Druid spells aren't usually better than just upcast Conjure Animals/Conjure Woodland Beings, especially not under 9th level with Shapechange). But the party contains Shepherd Druid, which is an absurd class, and Eloquence Bard, which is incredibly potent as well, and a Wizard (if a multiclassed one), which is obviously stupid strong as a baseline and Diviner is one of the stronger options (though I don't know how they are rerolling stuff; you have to use Portent before the roll happens so you don't get to replace anything unless they have like Lucky or something). And even the Shadow Monk/Battlemaster is fine far as martials go. I don't know if synergy specifically is the reason the party is so strong; while the classes complement each other relatively well, I mostly see 4 powerful classes that do different things. When thinking of a synergy party, I think e.g. party abusing Darkness/Fog Cloud + Devil's Sight/Blindsight, party abusing various knockback and area control abilities to ensure enemies can't get to you, save-or-suck + save reducer party (though between Diviner and Eloquence this actually ranks quite high up here), minionmancy + mass buffs party (think Necromancers, Shepherds, etc. perhaps with a Crusader's Mantle and some way to generate advantage thrown in), or such.

However, while the party is only "strong" as opposed to "as strong as possible", it's plenty strong to waltz through any published module. Every single character in your party is probably quite a bit stronger than the expected baseline, and the party has no obvious holes or deficiencies. Shepherd Druid for example can be almost as strong as a full party; 1 level 6 Shepherd vs. 4 level 6 Barbarians could be an interesting fight dependent on a lot of considerations including starting range, Initiative, individual builds, etc. but it definitely isn't as lopsided as you'd expect for a 4v1 (and it gets worse higher up; Barbarians scale little while Shepherd gets to double their summons on level 9 for example). All of this obviously comes back to module design: published modules aren't very good at challenging high power characters. Their balance is generally such that 4 Barbarians could walk through them without much trouble (outside few random places that are randomly superlethal, especially on low levels).


FWIW I usually build my own character with the idea of synergising with the rest of the party if the game allows that, or at least cognizant of what the others are playing. Same goes for parties I'm DMing for. My longest running group (I'm the DM) currently has Mountain Dwarf Abjurer Tank, Lore Bard Support, Gloomstalker Ranger Archer & Battlemaster 5/War Cleric to round it out. Now the party obviously has a fairly bulky frontline with the Abjurer and the Battlemaster and Lore Bard's Inspiring Leader, Lore Bard took Conjure Animals to further augment it, the party has lots of grapple + spike growth options (Ranger can Spike Growth and it's easy to get Enlarge + Enhance Ability for example on characters), there are lots of AOE options, plenty of casting prowess, superb sneaking (Pass without Trace + Expertised Stealth and high Dex on two characters + familiar), etc. It's just overall incredibly solid at basically anything. There are sufficient synergies to make the whole somewhat stronger than the sum of its parts but again the party is strong mostly because all of those characters are strong on their own and because of what everyone adds to the party, rather than actual synergies per ce.

[KorvinStarmast]

So our current party is...
- A rune knight/divination wizard functioning as our tank by forcing rerolls, physically occupying a large amount of space and being hard to kill or move, and dishing out some good damage in the process. Out of combat they have all kinds of utility with expertise in like 9 different tool checks, advantage on arcana, expertise in athletics with potential for advantage as well

- A shepherd druid with a level of life cleric functioning as a damage dealer/CC with conjured animals, dishing out a bunch of temp hp with the totem, enough in combat heals to keep everyone standing and a ton of out of combat heals to keep everyone topped up. They have a passive 24 perception due to stats and a sentinel shield so we pretty much just know where traps and secret doors are, great scouting with the wild companion feature and great out of combat mobility with summoned giant owls/horses/etc

- A shadow monk/battlemaster that can pick one target, get past almost anything to get to them and just absolutely shut them down with stuns, trips, and generally high damage. They have a dummy high stealth check and can give themselves and the whole party pass without trace and the teleportation gets us past barriers and over gaps easy.

- And the eloquence bard/warlock focused on CC that has a myriad of ways to control the battlefield by shutting down groups of enemies, forcing enemies to fight each other or just ending combat entirely with calm emotions and a minimum 23 persuasion check. They have jack of all trades boosted counterspell and dispel magic, they're an absolutely peerless party face with plenty of charms and mind control to get us basically whatever we want out of almost anyone and allowing us to navigate social interactions without being worried about failing. They have crusader's mantle to make the druid's 16 raptors/wolves/giant snakes/etc into absolute monsters and the combination of unsettling words and mind sliver to make damn sure that whatever we need to fail a save does so.
I have never seen a party this powerful, balanced or synergistic

Does anyone have a more optimized party than this? Do you think this kind of approach to character building with a synergistic party composition as a goal is power gaming/meta gaming?
Nice team building. It's power gaming. Is it meta gaming? No idea. Depends on how you all narratively went through the process of multi classing. Is there a more optimized party than this?
Optimized for what, dungeon crawling?

I am sure we have some threads covering that, if you'd like to search the forums. To me, party optimization is a useful mini game if all of the players are into it, and the DM is on board with it.

It's a way to have fun.

[firelistener]

It's a great party, and if the players want to do that, it's all fine and dandy. It's100% power gaming in 5e, as the PHB and DMG make it very clear multiple times that the game is supposed to be played and run in such a way that players should be allowed to build whatever they want without worrying that their character is viable or not, but that doesn't necessarily mean power gaming is bad. Some people just love the optimization aspect, and that's okay.

Where I would have beef, as player or DM, is if anyone is feeling pressured to play something other than what they really wanted to play for the sake of making a stronger character or team. It's the DM's responsibility to scale challenges to the party's abilities, so players shouldn't be concerned about it, in my opinion.

[KorvinStarmast]

It's the DM's responsibility to scale challenges to the party's abilities I don't think that's strictly true, and there's a wide range of 'scaling' that is applicable. That objection noted, I do agree that the DM scaling the challenges with the party in mind is a very useful approach.

It's one of the dials that the DM can turn.

[MaxWilson]

It's the DM's responsibility to scale challenges to the party's abilities, so players shouldn't be concerned about it, in my opinion.

I would say it's the DM's responsibility to build a wide variety of challenges, so that difficulty CAN scale up, and to present them to the players in such a way that players can always test themselves to destruction if they want to, eventually.

But in practice it's up to the players to scale down the challenges they are pursuing to the point where they can be overcome, and then either seek greater challenges or prudently not.

[PhantomSoul]

I would say it's the DM's responsibility to build a wide variety of challenges, so that difficulty CAN scale up, and to present them to the players in such a way that players can always test themselves to destruction if they want to, eventually.

But in practice it's up to the players to scale down the challenges they are pursuing to the point where they can be overcome, and then either seek greater challenges or prudently not.

I really like this way of putting it (especially given the DM has limits to feasibly scaling in the sense that there could be a wide range of PC power levels, yielding weaker/vulnerable-er PCs and PCs whose absence makes things wildly swing-ier).

[samuraijaques]

I think there is a cut-off where it transitions from being a natural in-character response to campaign circumstances to being a bit of a character-inconsistent power grab.

Pickin a fighting style that matches a party need, picking a spell that covers a gap or grabbing a feat to boost a particular ability all seem fine to me.

On the other hand making a warlock pact or worshiping a different deity to get some domain spells seems a bit of a stretch. Not saying it can't work - sometimes something happens in-game to inspire it, but without appropriate prompts from events it can be weird.

Notably all our characters have a strong emphasis on flavor and RP and generally speaking we don't specifically interact with the in built flavor associated with the base classes unless we want to. Warlocks don't need to have a patron be a large part of their character in order for the class to be balanced in the same way that clerics don't need to have ever prayed to a god. For us the flavor is there if we want it but by no means necessary. For instance, my character is a druid but I'm not particularly connected to the land and my magical ability came from years of study exactly like a wizard would. When our cleric left, changing my cleric subclass was easily justified as refocusing my current area of study. Our wizard/rune knight used to be a samurai (the class) but was not even remotely a samurai (the warriors) and he was gifted runic magic by Moradin for being a good dwarf. Our monk is fighter/monk but neither of those things are part of her identity. She is a demon web spider of the demon web spider clan and she's no more likely to refer to herself as a fighter than she is a wizard.

So to an extent I guess it could be difficult or jarring to change the way your character plays but I don't think it's difficult to come up with a cool reason why any or all of your character's attributes have changed that fits into a story and I don't think the fluff from the books should get in the way of you playing a class however you want to.


Well, your party is strong. I wouldn't say it's necessarily as strong as it could be; your characters are multiclassed, which is generally a decrease in power (though Life Cleric is a notable exception in that high level Druid spells aren't usually better than just upcast Conjure Animals/Conjure Woodland Beings, especially not under 9th level with Shapechange). But the party contains Shepherd Druid, which is an absurd class, and Eloquence Bard, which is incredibly potent as well, and a Wizard (if a multiclassed one), which is obviously stupid strong as a baseline and Diviner is one of the stronger options (though I don't know how they are rerolling stuff; you have to use Portent before the roll happens so you don't get to replace anything unless they have like Lucky or something). And even the Shadow Monk/Battlemaster is fine far as martials go. I don't know if synergy specifically is the reason the party is so strong; while the classes complement each other relatively well, I mostly see 4 powerful classes that do different things. When thinking of a synergy party, I think e.g. party abusing Darkness/Fog Cloud + Devil's Sight/Blindsight, party abusing various knockback and area control abilities to ensure enemies can't get to you, save-or-suck + save reducer party (though between Diviner and Eloquence this actually ranks quite high up here), minionmancy + mass buffs party (think Necromancers, Shepherds, etc. perhaps with a Crusader's Mantle and some way to generate advantage thrown in), or such.

However, while the party is only "strong" as opposed to "as strong as possible", it's plenty strong to waltz through any published module. Every single character in your party is probably quite a bit stronger than the expected baseline, and the party has no obvious holes or deficiencies. Shepherd Druid for example can be almost as strong as a full party; 1 level 6 Shepherd vs. 4 level 6 Barbarians could be an interesting fight dependent on a lot of considerations including starting range, Initiative, individual builds, etc. but it definitely isn't as lopsided as you'd expect for a 4v1 (and it gets worse higher up; Barbarians scale little while Shepherd gets to double their summons on level 9 for example). All of this obviously comes back to module design: published modules aren't very good at challenging high power characters. Their balance is generally such that 4 Barbarians could walk through them without much trouble (outside few random places that are randomly superlethal, especially on low levels).


FWIW I usually build my own character with the idea of synergising with the rest of the party if the game allows that, or at least cognizant of what the others are playing. Same goes for parties I'm DMing for. My longest running group (I'm the DM) currently has Mountain Dwarf Abjurer Tank, Lore Bard Support, Gloomstalker Ranger Archer & Battlemaster 5/War Cleric to round it out. Now the party obviously has a fairly bulky frontline with the Abjurer and the Battlemaster and Lore Bard's Inspiring Leader, Lore Bard took Conjure Animals to further augment it, the party has lots of grapple + spike growth options (Ranger can Spike Growth and it's easy to get Enlarge + Enhance Ability for example on characters), there are lots of AOE options, plenty of casting prowess, superb sneaking (Pass without Trace + Expertised Stealth and high Dex on two characters + familiar), etc. It's just overall incredibly solid at basically anything. There are sufficient synergies to make the whole somewhat stronger than the sum of its parts but again the party is strong mostly because all of those characters are strong on their own and because of what everyone adds to the party, rather than actual synergies per ce.
In general isn't it pretty commonly accepted that, aside from getting earlier access to high level magic like wish or true polymorph or whatever, multiclassed characters are the strongest at whatever they do? To be clear I mean good multiclasses. Generally speaking there's more bad combinations than there are good ones but the "best" character builds in the game are almost exclusively multiclasses. Highest dps is a multiclass, best skill checks is a multiclass; best grapple, best non magical cc, best mobility are all multiclasses. The only argument for single classes being more powerful is that they tend to get their signature features sooner .So sure, at low levels certain multiclasses don't really compete but they pretty quickly outstrip the competition unless you're talking like wizard or sorcerer.

The shepherd druid is indeed an insane class and I wouldn't play one in any campaign but it's dungeon of the mad mage and it's designed to kill you so I figured fair's fair. Plus I double checked with the DM ahead of time and we figured out a plan to make it quick and easy in combat so my turns don't take half an hour.

The diviner is only a few levels of wizard for utility, portent and shield. He gets to make people re roll with the 10 levels of rune knight he has.

As for the overall synergy of the party they actually do literally everything you listed. I neglected to mention the fact that the rune knight and the monk have blindsight as their fighting style and the bard has devil's sight so that's on me. The shepherd druid can summon all kinds of stuff with blindsight so in most situations we can all benefit from the shadow monk casting darkness. The party has a ridiculous amount of cc and area denial which I did list that makes it nigh impossible to challenge our back line's concentration. The druid has rolled for concentration on average like once per 3 encounters. The bard and the monk both have encounter ending save or suck effects and between unsettling words, mind sliver, storm rune and portent we can basically guarantee whatever we need to fail a save does so, often times multiple turns in succession as long as it doesn't have legendary resistance and even then we can make them spend those pretty quickly. The bard also took crusader's mantle as one of her magical secrets so we have that combined with conjure animals and up to 10 attacks from the fighter and the monk.

I was under the impression that dungeon of the mad mage was considered difficult. We've run dozens of encounters that could have TPKed us in a round or less honestly. I don't think a party of barbarians would have made it through the death slaads much less the statues of the mad mage in the hogwarts floor that can cast 8th level spells. A single failed save from a ghost or an Incubus would just end that party.


It's a great party, and if the players want to do that, it's all fine and dandy. It's100% power gaming in 5e, as the PHB and DMG make it very clear multiple times that the game is supposed to be played and run in such a way that players should be allowed to build whatever they want without worrying that their character is viable or not, but that doesn't necessarily mean power gaming is bad. Some people just love the optimization aspect, and that's okay.

Where I would have beef, as player or DM, is if anyone is feeling pressured to play something other than what they really wanted to play for the sake of making a stronger character or team. It's the DM's responsibility to scale challenges to the party's abilities, so players shouldn't be concerned about it, in my opinion.
Yeah I definitely get that. When I DM the only thing I really care about as far as power level goes is if everyone in the party can contribute meaningfully and everyone has a chance to shine. It's easy enough to just use max HP for an enemy or add more combatants.

Thanks for all the replies guys.

[Eldariel]

In general isn't it pretty commonly accepted that, aside from getting earlier access to high level magic like wish or true polymorph or whatever, multiclassed characters are the strongest at whatever they do? To be clear I mean good multiclasses. Generally speaking there's more bad combinations than there are good ones but the "best" character builds in the game are almost exclusively multiclasses. Highest dps is a multiclass, best skill checks is a multiclass; best grapple, best non magical cc, best mobility are all multiclasses. The only argument for single classes being more powerful is that they tend to get their signature features sooner .So sure, at low levels certain multiclasses don't really compete but they pretty quickly outstrip the competition unless you're talking like wizard or sorcerer.

Well, yes and no. Yes...multiclassing can get you the best single number as a single character. The best single target resource nova DPR without minions is multiclass. The highest individual skill check is multiclass. However, the best character isn't the one with the best number, it's the one best able to solve encounters in general and to that end, having a lot of strong options is generally superior to having one superhigh number. The best DPS? It's only one tool; optimally you want ways to solve encounters where DPR isn't needed - i.e. shutting the enemy down ignoring its HP pool (because HP pool is the single most bloated number in the game). Still, for actual DPR it's hard to top a straight Necromancer; even Magic Stone is accessible through a feat. More saliently, when we're talking about the strongest characters, we're comparing the strongest single class characters to the strongest multiclass characters.

Single-classed characters fall to power levels pretty simply. In the bottom you have stuff like Barbarian, Monk, Rogue, Ranger, Fighter. Then Paladin, Artificer. And then Warlock, Sorcerer, Cleric, Druid, Bard, Wizard in some order depending on tier (with Wizard usually on the top). Low-powered classes generally benefit of multiclassing, since their class doesn't give them much of note generally past tier 2, or tier 3 latest. High-powered characters however generally stand to lose more than gain by multiclassing; there are very few things worth giving up e.g. Wall of Force, Contingency, Simulacrum, or such for.

As such, for overall party contribution, we have something like:
1. High tier single-classed characters (though they are usually the most dependent on player skill to shine specifically, because one of their big strengths is versatility, which takes a bit more mastery to make use of than just "Cast shield if damaged, use your highest damage ability on cooldown")
2. High-powered multiclass options (the usual Cha-multiclasses & such)
3. Mid-tier single-classed characters
4. Mid-powered multiclass options (strong martial multiclasses involving stuff like Fighters, Rogues, Rangers, Barbarians, etc.)
5. Low-tier single-classed characters
6. Weak multiclass options (most of them)

So if I were to build the optimal party for solving any encounters, I'd probably not multiclass. I'd probably have the usual Bard/Wizard/Druid/Cleric party, with something like Swords Bard/Chronurgist Wizard/Shepherd Druid/Peace Cleric, or perhaps Lore Bard/Bladesinger Wizard (it's always a tough call, which subclasses to give up but Lore Bard getting those good Wizard spells really helps the party in having a second Wizard-lite with Counterspell and such in Tier 2, and I generally do want that one Archer in the party to deal with antimagic fields and superfast kiting enemies and such). Either way, I want that one martial archer in the party (either Bladesinger or Swords Bard) but that's enough DPR-wise; you only need that for truly aberrant encounters anyways (extremely powerful long-range enemies, dead magic zones, Rakshasas, etc.), while your Cleric/Druid frontline can trounce almost anything else.

Now, that party doesn't have the highest at-will DPR before level 17 by any account. It'd be easy to build a party with more. But it's hard to imagine an encounter where the party would have serious problems and another generally good party wouldn't. It has a lot of everything between all those characters, including 4 characters with solid minionmancy options (Lore Bard can pick up Animate Dead or Conjure Animals on level 6), basically all the good magical effects in the game, great class abilities, etc.


The shepherd druid is indeed an insane class and I wouldn't play one in any campaign but it's dungeon of the mad mage and it's designed to kill you so I figured fair's fair. Plus I double checked with the DM ahead of time and we figured out a plan to make it quick and easy in combat so my turns don't take half an hour.

The diviner is only a few levels of wizard for utility, portent and shield. He gets to make people re roll with the 10 levels of rune knight he has.

Ah, I see.


As for the overall synergy of the party they actually do literally everything you listed. I neglected to mention the fact that the rune knight and the monk have blindsight as their fighting style and the bard has devil's sight so that's on me. The shepherd druid can summon all kinds of stuff with blindsight so in most situations we can all benefit from the shadow monk casting darkness. The party has a ridiculous amount of cc and area denial which I did list that makes it nigh impossible to challenge our back line's concentration. The druid has rolled for concentration on average like once per 3 encounters. The bard and the monk both have encounter ending save or suck effects and between unsettling words, mind sliver, storm rune and portent we can basically guarantee whatever we need to fail a save does so, often times multiple turns in succession as long as it doesn't have legendary resistance and even then we can make them spend those pretty quickly. The bard also took crusader's mantle as one of her magical secrets so we have that combined with conjure animals and up to 10 attacks from the fighter and the monk.

I was under the impression that dungeon of the mad mage was considered difficult. We've run dozens of encounters that could have TPKed us in a round or less honestly. I don't think a party of barbarians would have made it through the death slaads much less the statues of the mad mage in the hogwarts floor that can cast 8th level spells. A single failed save from a ghost or an Incubus would just end that party.

That's fair enough. In that case, yeah, it's gonna work incredibly well. And yes, DoMM is somewhat dangerous to the point that 4 Barbarians might get slaughtered; the usual problem spots are doubly dangerous to mundanes. So fair enough, there are parties that probably couldn't deal with this module (Int-saves aren't their strong suite). Still, for a strong party, it's not very difficult all told; you can simply power through it as you've probably noticed. Most enemies are poorly suited to deal with Darkness/Pyrotechnics tactics for instance, and flooding encounters with minions just makes the danger to the party quite minimal.