Party composition thoughts.

[Rleonardh]

I'm back after 10+ years from playing and also being a dm at times. Mostly due to moving to another state and not finding players to play with.

Now got a group of 3 buddies that want to play all new to DND.

Ran a few one shots playing with both editions (3.5 and 5th) to see what they liked better.
Fyi it was them playing fighters at 5th level basically town guarding and some easy dungeon crawlers.
I know limited exposure to both editions but they picked 3.5e.

They would like me to choose 3 classes and they will choose which ones to play.

Anyhow back to question. What is the ideal party using only core players handbook only (no phb2) for them to sink there teeth into?
Say level starting at level 1 and ending campaign at 12ish, allowing them to be able to redo (modify) "mistakes" like spells feats and such.

3 man party:

My thoughts are:
Cleric
Bard
Sorcerer

I'm not going to go hardcore on them till higher levels, want them to get the feel of classes and than ramp up the difficulty on fights and the big bad.

If I do a dungeon crawler or need a thief, I will let them hire a npc played by me. Rouge 2/ranger 4/rouge 6, leveled as them, so if 5th level party will be a, Rouge 2/ranger 3.

Thoughts and suggestions.

[Melcar]

I would have taken Cleric, Rogue and some form of melee fighter type (figther, crusader, ranger) You have a skill monkey, and two dudes who can fight.

[Maat Mons]

I've had mixed experiences playing Rogues. It seems like some games don't really give them much opportunity to shine. If you're figuring traditional "Rogue stuff" will be necessary only infrequently, I'd stick to your plan of having no Rogue in the party, and making an NPC available.

I'm not sure it's a good idea to make Bard one of the classes. It's largely meant to be a support class, and there's no guarantee your players will dig that. Also, with the Cleric, Bard, Sorcerer setup you mentioned, there's only one front-line character to benefit from the Bard's buffs.

Cleric and Wizard together cover almost all the magical effects a party might need access to. Sorcerer is less bookkeeping, but you might have to modify the campaign to account for the player's spell selection, instead of being able to count on the player being able to learn whatever spells might be necessary to engage with whatever you had planned.

Druid would be a good 3rd man for a party that already has a Cleric and a Wizard. There's a fair bit of symmetry between that trio of classes, which might be helpful with new players, since you could give a single explanation for all of them.

[Rleonardh]

I did definitely consider;
Cleric
Druid or Ranger
Wizard

As the choices for them, sorcerer was indeed for easier book keeping for anyone that picked it and more spells cast per day.
Specific the: o' look I can do 2 spells per day and than just use a sling.... wizards stink boo argument at level 1.

Definitely told them any mistakes they think they made can be fixed at a new level by just saying: hay I'm changing this feat, spell choice or whatever.

That gives me a thought, let the wizard gain all spell choices when correct level.Than specifically tell them it's only for this campaign only and it won't be next time around. This way they all can see what the spells can do and let there twisted minds think of uses for spells. Plus I'm letting them completely talk to each other and help each other pick spells for the day so wizard wouldn't be a bad idea.

Making a campaign around player choice of characters is something I always did. Usually it was meetup and talk to my fellow players on what kinda campaign they wanted, characters they wanted to run and creation of said characters.

Rouge is one of the 2 dm characters I always ran if needed for that very fact that there so many immune creatures out there. If story strongly hinted that traps where in near future, I let the players run into a rouge that has... There own motivation to go where they will be going. Sometimes it was for there own purpose to use the players to get what they want, as a future plot hook or many other reasons.

Why I favor the level progression of
Rouge 2
Ranger 4
Rouge 14

Gives the best of both worlds in my opinion for a strict core book good player. Assassin if evil campaign if prestige was allowed.

I use to play in games where:
Only core was allowed
No prestige classes
All books allowed
No min max
Only flavor rpg campaign
Heavy combat and many times per day
Heavy outright banned spells like polymorph and wish types
Low magic
No magic
Op builds and Gish allowed
Really the whole gambit of possible ways dm's make there campaigns.

Always believed if a player knows a spell and breaking your game, you doing something wrong as a dm.
Polymorph breaking it, than make it a secret spell where you gotta hunt down a wizard to teach it to you... If they even will.
The I'm a sorcerer so I get it so bite me dm, nope you can write it down and do what the wizard does, go find a wizard or a quest to unlock the ability to use the spell.
Or just outright say: break my game I tpk you or even just talk to the player on the side and tell them in clutch situations they can use those spells just not evey time as it can ruin the campaign if they just steam roll everything.
Than again anti magic fields are there for a reason. Plus no reason villains need to be stupid or just plain old 2 wizards vs the parties 1 wizard encounters.

[Mordante]

I would say that it really don't matter what classes people choose to play. it's the GM job to make it work for the classes people would like to play. For people with limited experience I would advice not to play Druid, Sorc or Wiz. In my experience these classes take a lot of book keeping.

Keep it simple so that the players can focus on the game and not on the character sheet. Spending 10 minutes each combat round looking for the correct spell and checking the details can take the fun out of gaming.

[pabelfly]

I would say that it really don't matter what classes people choose to play. it's the GM job to make it work for the classes people would like to play. For people with limited experience I would advice not to play Druid, Sorc or Wiz. In my experience these classes take a lot of book keeping.

Keep it simple so that the players can focus on the game and not on the character sheet. Spending 10 minutes each combat round looking for the correct spell and checking the details can take the fun out of gaming.

I agree with this. Start a short game with some simple martial characters - say, a two-handed weapon Barbarian, a two-weapon fighting Ranger, and a ranged Fighter - with easy to understand abilities and minimal temporary modifers, so players can get the hang of rules like movement, attacking, flanking, and so forth. After a few sessions, players that want something more can retire the characters and switch to something with more complex mechanics, while players that enjoy the simplicity can stick with their regular martial characters.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Honestly, if the players are new, then shy away from prepared casters. There's just too much bookkeeping for them and too much power for you to prepare good adventures accordingly and for the rest of the party if they figure out how to use it effectively. If you want a caster, I believe a spontaneous one, or something with at-wills will be better.

I think a good combination would be Warlock/Favored Soul/"Fighter". Warlock has surprisingly good utility and will enjoy playing around with at-will invocations and act as the ranged damage dealer. Favored Soul makes for the mandatory healer and can go fight on the frontlines on occasion. The "Fighter" can be anything from a paladin to a psychic warrior. Just have somebody that can and will go in melee so that every fight isn't the party kiting their opponent by fleeing and casting a spell once in a while. My personal fave are Warblade, who is able to do things even if the player isn't that experimented, and barbarian, which is the archetypal "me hit you" character. Simple, and entertaining. Paladin may also be good (haha) if you believe the party needs somebody to supervise them.

[Telonius]

All right, so three pretty inexperienced players, PHB only, with a Cleric, a Bard, and a Sorcerer.

Bard and Sorcerer are two of the easiest classes to completely screw up in core. Sorcerer and Bard are (mostly) stuck with the spells they pick. (They do have swap-out mechanics, but it's really annoying to wait for the level-ups if you realize you made a terrible pick). Bard especially has to make really good decisions about which spell he wants to take. And with only three people in the party, Bardic Music is going to be less effective as a force multiplier. While Cleric can be really powerful in Core, they take some system mastery to figure out, and need some time in-game to buff up. If the player is thinking of the Cleric as the walking box of bandages, they're not going to be quite as strong in melee as people on the boards usually expect.

For a party like this, as a DM I would be designing a lot of social and puzzle encounters; things that can be solved by magic or social interaction. Combat would be there, but this is not a party that is well-suited to a hack-and-slash dungeon crawl. I would double-check with the players to make sure that's the sort of campaign they want.

If I were going to suggest classes for a new group like that, I'd go with Fighter, Rogue, Sorcerer, and Wand of Cure Light Wounds. (For this campaign, houserule that they can use it without having it on their class list). I know, I just said Sorcerer is easy to screw up - but it also only has a few main decision points. If you can work with the player to give advice on what spells to take, it should work out fine. It's much more of a "point and shoot" class than Wizard is, and involves a lot less bookkeeping. Fighter and Rogue will give the party a reason to consider combat position (fun trying to get to flank), and Fighter can train them on all of the combat options.

[Biggus]

I'd suggest Barbarian, Sorcerer, Cleric. Barbarian is the easiest class to play, Sorcerer is the easiest caster, and Cleric is the class which can undo things that go wrong like harmful conditions most effectively. If you're going to allow the Sorcerer to swap out spells once they've got the hang of things there shouldn't be a problem. Makes for a fairly balanced party and with the addition of a hired Rogue should be able to do pretty much everything they need to.

I would strongly advise against having a brand-new player play a Wizard, my partner tried that for her first character and had to abandon them at about level 8 or 9 as the bookkeeping got too much, and she's far from stupid.

[Rleonardh]

I agree with this. Start a short game with some simple martial characters - say, a two-handed weapon Barbarian, a two-weapon fighting Ranger, and a ranged Fighter - with easy to understand abilities and minimal temporary modifers, so players can get the hang of rules like movement, attacking, flanking, and so forth. After a few sessions, players that want something more can retire the characters and switch to something with more complex mechanics, while players that enjoy the simplicity can stick with their regular martial characters.


They all started 5e and 3.5e as fighters
Each campaign went from 1st to 5th level.

However they simplified it alot for me this morning, they want a undead campaign.
One wants to use his fighter (mixed ranged with sword and board)
The other 2 pushed for a paladin and cleric.

So that allows me to run a rouge and a arcane player if needed to show them the abilities of wizard or sorcerer that's plays with them. Depending on what they need because there employer knows people so a rouge and wizard are on standby if needed at all times.

Also allows me to use arcane against them and allows a whole range of adventure ideas to happen.

To note, I'm not a strict alignment dm. So chances are there won't be a fallen paladin... Unless I make one of the big bads one.

I understand that clerics need time to buff and usually I will allow players who are on there toes to cast 1-2 spells before a encounter. O look 90 feet ahead you see 10 skeletons looking at you... They are running towards you, what you guys doing now?

[Biggus]

So that allows me to run a rouge and a arcane player if needed to show them the abilities of wizard or sorcerer that's plays with them. Depending on what they need because there employer knows people so a rouge and wizard are on standby if needed at all times.


I hope this doesn't come across as rude, but the name of the thief-type class is spelled rogue not rouge. I wasn't going to mention it but then I saw you'd edited a post to correct a spelling mistake so I guess you care about this kind of thing.

[gijoemike]

Encourage your players to go with a class that has SOME options available. In a theme campaign like they have requested have the fighter go Ranger with Favored Enemy Undead, Cleric or pally for turning and healing, and barbarian for knowing when to rage and is better at smashing face than fighter.

[Elder_Basilisk]

One thing that should be considered for a small party is you want a party that is not fragile and where none of the characters depend on enabling someone else to win. With a small party, a single disabling effect takes out at least 1/3 of the party with a failed save and 2/3 is going to be down sooner or later. If the last guy is built so that he can support other characters and help and can't fight himself then it's potential tpk territory.

That doesn't mean bard is a bad idea. But it does mean that bard, cleric, or anything else should be able to fight themselves if they need to.

[Elder_Basilisk]

Last thing: three member of fewer parties put a big premium on flexibility which rewards switch hitter characters. A party of four or five has a front line to hide behind and maybe a third or fourth character who can step up in melee in a pinch. A 3 person party has at most two characters for front line and that can and will be evaded by enemies. Be prepared to be in melee.

Conversely, some enemies are really good at ranged combat and avoiding melee. In a classic four person party, you can lean on "the wizard is good at ranged stuff, I'm tenth level and have a composite long ow that's been stuck on my character sheet since second level, we'll be ok." But in a three person party that may not have a ranged focused character, you probably want your characters to have a little more effort spent on the ability to be competitive at ranged combat. The smaller the party, the more important it is for you to be able to choose the right fighting style for the encounter and actually be good at it.

[Rleonardh]

So they want a undead campaign.
Remember new to DND they are, they all ran fighters to get feet wet so they kinda understand basic play.
Plus I'm not going for tpk and I will fudge rolls to keep the them alive.... Barely lol.

One 5th level fighter mixed range and 2 weapon fighter type
Another is a paladin level 5
The last is a cleric level 5

So that definitely covers front liners and divine...

I'm thinking taking red hand of doom and making the goblins raids undead instead or half and half.

Now I have ran this before as a dm and also as a player. So I know to tweak it to make it a fun but on edge of seat game for them.

[Quertus]

Evil Cleric, steal all the undead? Oh, wait - Paladin. Bummer.

2 weapon Fighter? Is that as terrible as it sounds to me? Like "Flurry of misses", but "I actually had to pay hard-earned gold to enchant my weapons to be this bad" bad?

[Rleonardh]

Evil Cleric, steal all the undead? Oh, wait - Paladin. Bummer.

2 weapon Fighter? Is that as terrible as it sounds to me? Like "Flurry of misses", but "I actually had to pay hard-earned gold to enchant my weapons to be this bad" bad?

It's the characters they want to play, so that's what we going to do, I'm going to tweak it so they can all have fun, dumb down the enemies and do what I can to make it a great experience for them.

[Maat Mons]

At one point you said the Fighter was going sword and board, and at another point you said he was going Two-Weapon Fighting. Do you mean he's going sword and board, and using Two-Weapon Fighting to make extra off-hand attacks with a shield bash?

He's going to need Improved Shield Bash and Two-Weapon Fighting. And Two-Weapon Fighting requires Dex 15. He'll probably be aiming to take Improved Two-Weapon Fighting next level, which requires Dex 17. Gloves of Dexterity are a thing, but still, you might want to use a generous stat generation method.

There are 4 ways to go on sword and shield:
Light Shield and Short Sword: Both are Finessable, which is helpful if you can't swing a good Strength score on top of the Dex you need for Two-Weapon Fighting. Slightly lower damage and AC.
Heavy Shield and Longsword: Both can be used with Power Attack. Slightly higher damage and AC. Take a -4 penalty for Two-Weapon Fighting instead of a -2 penalty.
Heavy Shield and Short Sword: Better AC, intermediate damage. Not really set up for Weapon Finesse or Power Attack.
Light Shield and Longsword: Better AC, intermediate damage. Not really set up for Weapon Finesse or Power Attack.

If he's putting a bunch of resources into archery, I guess pumping Dexterity and using Weapon Finesse for melee makes sense. Damage isn't going to be great though. As much as I hate the Ranger class, if he's set on Two-Weapon Fighting / Archery, and the campaign is going to be heavily skewed to a single type of enemy, Ranger might actually be the better choice here.



I suggest the Paladin do a two-handed fighting build. Partly because it's a good option, and partly because it's different from what the Fighter wants to do. I guess there's also tripping, but between needing Wis for spells, Cha for Divine Grace, and Str and Con for melee in general, adding a need for Int to get Combat Expertise and Dex for Combat Reflexes would be a real strain. Or there's Mounted Combat too, but I've never cared much for it.

[pabelfly]

Evil Cleric, steal all the undead? Oh, wait - Paladin. Bummer.

2 weapon Fighter? Is that as terrible as it sounds to me? Like "Flurry of misses", but "I actually had to pay hard-earned gold to enchant my weapons to be this bad" bad?

TWF isn't too bad for a fighter, as long as you add one level of Barbarian for Pounce to get your multiple attacks off. You've got the spare fighter feats to make it work.

[zlefin]

Hmmm, after a short bit of thinking my inclination would be to have Druid, Cleric, and Ranger. You have a solid core, plenty of good fighting capability, plenty of spells, and they can easily change up spells. Ranger can handle the skill rolls needed well enough for the most part.

[Rleonardh]

[QUOTE=Maat Mons;25436277]At one point you said the Fighter was going sword and board, and at another point you said he was going Two-Weapon Fighting. Do you mean he's going sword and board, and using Two-Weapon Fighting to make extra off-hand attacks with a shield bash?

Talking to him and discussing that 3 Frontline people may run into obstacles and a ranged fighter to a degree open alot of flexibility.

Allowed him to modify his feats for free.

The paladin is going great sword.

Cleric will run scimitar and heavy shield
Yes he took the proficiency for it. Back up is the standard morning star.

Stat gen is 15/14/13/12/10/8
Than roll 3d6 as additional points and add points where you want up to 18 before race mods.

I got two npcs that they can hire or lend a hand if they do choice.
Fighter 1/wizard 4
Rouge 2/ranger 3

As the campaign ends about 12th level
Fighter 1/wizard 5/ Eldritch Knight 6
Rouge 2/ranger 4/rouge 6

This just core for now till after campaign.

[Rleonardh]

Ok yesterday was the group first day on game and I did something I never did before.

I started all them, due to there backstories as a level 1 npc class. I'm calling it level 0 and it don't count as a ecl at all. So they will level to 1 next time we play.

Fighter got warrior, town guard
Cleric got expert, I highly recommend umd to him, blacksmith
Paladin got aristocrat, family was once a force but got greedy and he trying to change the family name for the better.

The fighter and cleric, real brothers, are brothers in a small village by a mine that's been closed over 20 years. The paladin got into town a few days ago just passing by to get to waterdeep.

The story basically unfolds: they are in town doing there own thing and all of a sudden they here screams as goblins and skeletons start coming out of the closed mine. First in small numbers than just a stream of them.

They try to fight but they lose,by design, and as they about to get overran there is a fireball that explodes the entrance to the mines closing it off and a group of 20 men and women rush into the fray.

The town that the brothers knew is basically whipped out, the group of soldiers was lead by a paladin and a few clerics of palor rest soldiers sent by waterdeep to investigate a vision a cleric had of undead coming from caves and mines. They were a small group out of 300 that were sent, as the vision didn't say where to look just in a radius to look.

They decide to follow the group back to waterdeep and learned of the vision and decided they would become something more to protect and hopefully stop any future horror from happing to other people.

Even though I know it takes x time for each class to be taught how to do there craft it's only taking them 3 years to gain there level in real player class.
Age us fighter 21 cleric 20 paladin 24.

They will meet up as a group that is being sent by the church to follow up on a unlikely rumor about a person that control undead at will. The church really doesn't think it's really anything but they gotta send someone to go look and the others they can send have more important things to do.

The players already figured out the church of palor never would be like that and something is amiss inside waterdeeps palor church.

[Endarire]

I recommend the full casters as well, but some people want to use all classes. Remember, 3.5 has a major selling point of multiclassing freely like Rogue1/WizX.

[Rleonardh]

Definitely agree but this is there first real campaign I'm running for them.
There other oneshot was all fighters level 3 to 5 before it ended. So they still new to game.

Figure giving the fighter a bardish npc class can help him dip into magic later as we all know a pure fighter unless op with leap attack shock trooper and co., Is rather weak class. plus he is most scared of magic to start.
Paladin player just likes the idea of the holy warrior thing.
Cleric player wanted to go head deep into magic and in truth cleric is easy entrance into that area.

I think I may add a npc like Gilmore from critical role lol.
Something like
Rogue 1/Wizard 5/Unseen Seer 4/Arcane Trickster 2
As the campaign ends about level 12ish.

Campaign going to be parts of red hand of doom and homemade stuff mixed together.

[Seward]

Just a comment with Red Hand of Doom.

With no archer and no arcane they will struggle. The bad guys have a fair amount of missile capability and the freaking dragons are nearly impossible for ground-pounders to cope with. By level 7 the cleric will at least have air walk which helps some, but it is hard to stay in range long enough to kill a dragon, even a little one without some way of either slowing it down (which is mostly arcane battlefield control spells) or just killing it outright at range (which is mostly dedicated archers or arcane ranged damage spells). Consider a rod of viscid globs and not having any dragons sized larger than "large", and maybe fudging the odd reflex save if the party is really struggling. (the rod tosses a tanglefoot bag 100 feet or so, a few times a day. A nice fairly inexpensive item anybody with a decent dex or bab could use...that TWF ranger could really use it to slow down enemies enough for him to get close and blenderize them)

Also the module has a fair number of fights with a lot of enemies, and losing 1/4 of your action economy by having a 3 person party is going to be a problem. A group of experienced players with a lot of system mastery would maybe manage it. A newbie party is going to need you adjusting the encounters quite a bit or having you run them a level or two higher than what's expected in RHOD (that might be the better solution - they get to feel like badasses carving through lots of weaker enemies rather than watering down the encounter size to fit them hitting it at expected levels with a short, unbalanced party).

Granted with a paladin and a cleric, if you swap out some more difficult opponents for the party mix with undead, especially melee undead, a lot of this might work out well. I'm not saying you can't make it work but you will have to use your judgement to make RHOD fun and not an exercise in frustration.

[Elder_Basilisk]

Red Hand of Doom has a number of NPCs who very naturally could ameliorate the party composition problems. In particular, old Jorr and Trellara Nightshade could easily spend a lot of time with the party or even join entirely. (With or without the leadership feat). I think most groups hire Jorr in the first section and Trellara appears designed to join after the second chapter.

And they are both ranged combatants by default.

[Rleonardh]

Yah been fudging and on fly changing combat to help them, they finally grasp they need ranged rather physical or magical.

They going to find a human in a cage after a fight soon hopefully they rescue her lol.

Rogue 1/Wizard 5/ Unseen Seer 1