Assessing a party's strengths and weaknesses.

[Catullus64]

Call this a prediction exercise. My players have pretty much finalized their 5th-level characters for a new game (or rather, the continuation of an old game after a nasty TPK). I'm interested to get people's predictions for what this party will excel at, where they will struggle, and what their most effective strategies will be, and then to compare predictions with reality.

For what it's worth, this is an all-human game, using the following modified human profile:

+2 to one ability score of choice, and +1 to another.
Feat (If it grants an ability score increase, it cannot be to the +2 stat)
Eirish (Common Language)
One skill proficiency
One tool or language proficiency

Characters

Trygve Herjolfsson
Rogue (Thief)
Norse
STR 8 DEX 20 CON 12 INT 12 WIS 9 CHA 14
Feats: Piercer
Skills: Acrobatics, Deception, Investigation, Perception, Sleight of Hand, Stealth, Survival
Expertise in Perception, Sleight of Hand

Cyrus Benedictus
Cleric (Light Domain)
Romano-British
STR 16 DEX 14 CON 16 INT 14 WIS 18 CHA 8
Feats: Chef, Shield Master
Skills: History, Insight, Medicine, Performance, Religion
Cantrips: Light, Toll the Dead, Guidance, Word of Radiance, Sacred Flame

Aisling Under-Hill
Ranger (Fey Wanderer)
Eirish
STR 12 DEX 16 CON 12 INT 10 WIS 16 CHA 12
Feats: Shadow Touched
Skills: Animal Handling, Deception, Arcana, Insight, Persuasion, Survival
Fighting Style: Dueling
Alternate Class Features: Favored Foe, Primal Awareness
Favored Terrain: Swamp
Spells: Charm Person (Subclass), Hunter's Mark, Zephyr Strike, Disguise Self (Feat), Misty Step (Subclass), Pass without Trace, Enhance Ability, Invisibility (Subclass).

[Skrum]

I think they're going to be leaning on that cleric hard, and their effectiveness is going to be strongly tied to how many spells and abilities the cleric has left. Rangers and rogues are both capable strikers, but don't do a ton besides that. The cleric is going to be filling the frontline, healing, and battlefield control positions as the situation calls for it. That's a lot. I think they are going to suffer against powerful melee opponents that can wallop the cleric and either take them out of the combat quickly or draw a ton of the cleric's resources.

They could really use another frontline. Take some of the heat off the cleric.

[Bobthewizard]

I think they'll be fine. The ranger and rogue can get in melee if they need to. I'd recommend the ranger take goodberry for some out of combat healing and to pop the cleric back up if needed.

They are missing crowd control, but the need for that is easy to avoid as the DM. Just don't throw as many swarms at them.

[Catullus64]

I think they'll be fine. The ranger and rogue can get in melee if they need to. I'd recommend the ranger take goodberry for some out of combat healing and to pop the cleric back up if needed.

They are missing crowd control, but the need for that is easy to avoid as the DM. Just don't throw as many swarms at them.

Sorry, I might have misread you. You meant "throw lots of swarms at them", right? :smallbiggrin:

[Gtdead]

Some weak points:

Concentration saves: No Res:CON/Warcaster/Lucky and the Ranger has 12 CON. I doubt that Ranger will be able to hold PWT between fights and it doesn't help at all that he is a melee specialist.
Sustained ranged DPR and distance control: Really bad. Blasting can compensate for a while but if you add a few spread out longbow wielding enemies your party will struggle. Rogue will have to lean hard on steady aim and that playstyle has a serious problem, namely mobility, while the enemies can pop in and out of cover.
No CC/terrain manipulation: This ties to the previous problem. Not being able to control distance means that they will always be engaged one way or another, and the only available option is SG, which the Light cleric isn't very incentivized to use but he will have to. Spike Growth is also an option although I don't see it in Ranger's spell list. These are soft control though.
Defenses: While they have enough healing with goodberry and cleric, the only other spell that increases survivability seems to be Aid. No shield spell/resistances/temp hp. This party will be constantly engaged with the enemies without any form of hard CC. It will take a lot of damage. Flare can only do so much. At least they will be good against DEX save blasters, which is good because they lack counterspell (any anticaster ability really)

I can't say that I'd be comfortable in this party. Their strongest tactic is surprise with PWT and they lack heavy hitters. Unless they use spells like Fireball, I doubt that they will be able to kill enemies in the first round even by utilizing stealth. I also don't see any synergy at all. Go easy on them and work your way up to harder encounters.

[Eldariel]

Let's see, the party is kind of unfocused though it could be worse.

We have:
- One character capable of picking up downed allies (careful if the Cleric goes down).
- Two frontline characters (assuming the Ranger is generally frontline).
- One stealth characters, one with neutralish Stealth, and one character with heavy stealth handicap* without PwT (but the party at least has PwT).
- Two decent ranged characters, one with little ranged prowess
- All decent damage dealers but zero heavy hitters (i.e. nobody with Sharpshooter/GWM, nobody with heavily augmented attacks, nobody with bonus action attacks, etc.).

* I'm assuming the Cleric is going heavy armor though with those stats they could be a medium armor Cleric; but even then, they're likely to have the stealth penalty.


Overall, the Ranger could really use Goodberry or similar to at least have the option of picking the Cleric up if they somehow get downed and to contribute to survivability. The party has some decent casting but has surprisingly low damage for a party with two characters whose primary combat contribution is damage dealing (Ranger essentially has level 1 offense without offense-related ASI as either feat or +Dex, and Rogue isn't all that amazing at damage dealing at this point anymore).

The party seems like it has trouble with enemies against whom CC is great; the Cleric is the likely the only one with CC and Cleric CC is a bit limited compared to Wizard/Druid/Bard/Sorcerer on these levels. Cleric resources are also likely heavily taxed by trying to keep the party alive. This means the daily endurance of the party isn't all that high. They also don't really have a team strategy so to speak; Ranger and Cleric frontline while the Rogue sneaks and shoots support fire I suppose. They can sneak with PwT but only 2/day and both Ranger and Cleric have low enough Stealth modifiers that even PwT is far from guaranteed stealth check.

The face skills seem passably covered between the Ranger and the Rogue and Guidance/Enhance Ability, though it's a bit inconvenient to have them split across two characters; you need both Ranger and Rogue present when both, convincing and lying is needed. They seem quite wilderness-capable though lacking Goodberry kinda does hurt on that front as well.

Overall, I'd say the party is about a low-mid tier all-rounder of 3-character parties with few key vulnerabilities (the Cleric being the biggest one; otherwise the party is sorta fine) and no outstanding strength in any area. It isn't all that strong for its level on any front so the fights they can take are probably a bit lower than expected but they have fine tools to win extended fights (they don't have much nova capability though so fights that need to end soon aren't their forté; even Cleric with their level 3 spells generally has much more sustained than immediate effect, though the light domain does add some strong damage nuke options).

[Witty Username]

Expect them to get the drop on monsters. Single monsters are probably going to be easier than the norm.
Groups of monsters may be difficult, that light cleric will probably have the only crowd clearing options. And combat may drag on longer than normal.

[Dork_Forge]

I think the biggest weakness will be fragility, the Ranger isn't going to be face tanking much with a 12 Con, the Cleric should do okay, but being the only source of healing in the party is a misstep from a party point of view in my opinion. The Rogue should be carrying Healer's Kits and the Ranger should have Cure Wounds at bare minimum, as it stands making sure they can at least grab a stash (say 4/5) healing potions early on should go a long way.

Control-wise they don't need to be short on it or reliant on the Cleric, but it largely depends on the Ranger grabbing stuff like Ensuring Strike, Spike Growth and what not.

[Eldariel]

I think the biggest weakness will be fragility, the Ranger isn't going to be face tanking much with a 12 Con, the Cleric should do okay, but being the only source of healing in the party is a misstep from a party point of view in my opinion. The Rogue should be carrying Healer's Kits and the Ranger should have Cure Wounds at bare minimum, as it stands making sure they can at least grab a stash (say 4/5) healing potions early on should go a long way.

Control-wise they don't need to be short on it or reliant on the Cleric, but it largely depends on the Ranger grabbing stuff like Ensuring Strike, Spike Growth and what not.

Ranger-spells are already selected in the OP:

Spells: Charm Person (Subclass), Hunter's Mark, Zephyr Strike, Disguise Self (Feat), Misty Step (Subclass), Pass without Trace, Enhance Ability, Invisibility (Subclass).

Many of the party's lackings stem from here.

[Naanomi]

None of them have any appreciable social capabilities

[Ugmaro]

I agree with most commenters - they'll struggle mostly against swarms or combat encounters where they need nova or CC. This MIGHT be different depending on how available items are, how lax you are with the rules in regards to which items the rogue can use as a bonus action and how creative the player is when using these items. Some well placed caltrops or ball bearings could help a fair amount though if you want them to have any real chance against such encounters you'd kinda have to allow the rogue to use certain magic items as a bonus action as well, which is neither RAW nor RAI.

If the cleric ever goes down their entire party goes down like a set of dominos, which is why the cleric shouldn't be the tank, though I don't see them having a choice. AFAIK Light domain clerics don't get proficiency in heavy armor, meaning his AC will be subpar. This will most likely be the party breaking point, though this also means they will probably excel at stealth as a party.

[Dork_Forge]

Ranger-spells are already selected in the OP:


Many of the party's lackings stem from here.

I'm aware, I had to recheck that spell list a couple times whilst considering this, but the characters aren't locked in 100% by my understanding (if the OP wants to relay any of this) and if they make it to level 6 they can change up their list to patch the holes.


None of them have any appreciable social capabilities

The Cleric has Guidance (if applicable), but the Ranger is easily the face of the party:

+1 Cha

Wis to Cha checks (+3)

Deception and Persuasion prof

Charm Person

Enhance Ability

Disguise Self

So they're looking at a very healthy modifier that they can easily scale, with the potential for advantage, beneficial appearances, and perhaps that extra 1d4.

If needed the Rogue would be pretty passable at Deception with a +2 and prof.

[Catullus64]

I brought up some of these as possible issues to the party before Session 1 (not in the context of "here's what internet strangers think") and they made a few tweaks. Namely the Cleric swapping Shield Master out for Heavily Armored, and the Ranger swapping Hunter's Mark out for Cure Wounds.

An error in my original post represented the Ranger as having the Dueling fighting style, when it is in fact Archery.

I also didn't mention tool proficiencies in all this, but one of them does have training with an Herbalism kit, so they should be able to produce healing potions on the cheap.

The Thief player has pointed out, in regards to the lack of crowd control, that he can provide some light area denial with Fast Hands + hunting traps, caltrops, ball bearings and the like. Nothing on the level of a dedicated caster, but still something.

But they've acknowledged and accepted their general squishiness, and resolved to adjust their strategy and tactics accordingly. They made sure to get hold of a tough (for an NPC) hireling before leaving town!

[da newt]

Is the thief primarily a ranged attacker or melee? If they decided to they could be a pretty effective sniping/kiting team - no need to mix it up in melee when your party is two archers and a blaster ... but then heavy armor doesn't help. I'd think medium armor master would be more beneficial than heavily armored.

I'd never take cure wounds over goodberry. For the cost of one of yesterday's spell slots every member of your team can carry a few.

But then again, sneaking around is really hard when you need a torch to see anything (no dark vision). Your all human party will struggle at night / underground / inside. Nothing worse than walking around lit up like a Xmas tree.

A 3 person team like this will be interesting as it will force your Players to think and work well together.

[Catullus64]

Is the thief primarily a ranged attacker or melee? If they decided to they could be a pretty effective sniping/kiting team - no need to mix it up in melee when your party is two archers and a blaster ... but then heavy armor doesn't help. I'd think medium armor master would be more beneficial than heavily armored.

That's the nice thing about Rogues; unless you take a feat that specifically incentivizes you towards shooting or close combat, you're pretty ok at both by default, and can switch between them nicely as the situation demands.



I'd never take cure wounds over goodberry. For the cost of one of yesterday's spell slots every member of your team can carry a few.


Part of the problem with Goodberry (this is the player's thought as well, I just happen to agree) is the way in which it drastically alters wilderness exploration and trivializes food resources.



But then again, sneaking around is really hard when you need a torch to see anything (no dark vision). Your all human party will struggle at night / underground / inside. Nothing worse than walking around lit up like a Xmas tree.


Now this part is deliberate, and one of the draws (not the main one, but still a draw) of an all-human game. I've always been bothered by how Darkvision and its wide proliferation (over half of published races, by my last count) affects exploration, stealth, lighting, and darkness. In a normal game, a party is less benefitted by having members with Darkvision than they are penalized for having members without it. The risk management and decision-making of trading between stealth and visibility, and the sharper restriction of vision range in dungeon environments, are all really fun consequences of a darkvision-free game.

[KorvinStarmast]

But they've acknowledged and accepted their general squishiness, and resolved to adjust their strategy and tactics accordingly. They made sure to get hold of a tough (for an NPC) hireling before leaving town! Or a sidekick?
Ranger gets fog cloud. It's a first level spell that does some great stuff, I don't leave home without it when I play ranger. Dropping Hunter's Mark will may harm DPR but that's one of those things about limited spell slots on a half caster.

[Sception]

Nothing to add on the strengths and weaknesses of the party as is, but dang if that isn't a party I would love to join as my personal favorite subclass in the came conquest paladin. Because they would absolutely benefit the heck out of a competent melee tank with a minor in party support & healing and a side of aoe debuff & control.

[Gtdead]

Goodberry is way beyond overpowered if food ration scarcity and survival are a thing. It actually completely broke Solasta:Crown of the Magister for me which is the only instance where I got to use it for this purpose since I started playing the edition. However the easy fix is to alter the spell so it doesn't provide nourishment, since both of you agree. It's a way more efficient spell than cure wounds. The cleric also had the right idea with Chef feat.
I think that Heavily Armored for Cleric is the wrong choice. It's just 1 AC (the STR is irrelevant even on more martially oriented clerics). I think shield master was better, although personally I'd get Res:CON and never look back.
The rogue's idea about control is nice but in my experience, these items don't work exactly as advertised. I once tried to set a building with cultists on fire (spreading oil everywhere and then waiting in ambush to light it up with firebolt) but the cultists just sidestepped everything and it was business as usual with just a few hazards on the floor. It was the last time where I tried to use such items for combat. You may handle them differently though so YMMV.