Author Topic: The Most Adaptable Party  (Read 5944 times)

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Havok4

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The Most Adaptable Party
« on: December 15, 2009, 01:53:33 AM »
One thing about many adventuring parties is that everyone in it is usually stuck in certain defined roles for the entire existence of the characters. This also means that if a party is lacking someone who specializes or is at least competent in a certain area the party will be severely crippled in that area and then often it would be one person doing all the work. So an interesting exercise I thought we could attempt would be to try and create a party where anyone can become competent in many different areas (given some preparation time).High level prepared casters can often solve any problem with the right spells but the challenge here is to not make the character reliant on spell casting to be versatile. The parties should be about 3-4 characters and should be able to fulfill a variety of roles both in and out of combat effectively. Try to list the functions each character can effectively fill and try to find situations where these characters would be unable to function and how this could be fixed.

Example
Factotum/ Chameleon  (skill use,trapfinding, melee combat, ranged combat, healing, battlefield control, buffing, debuffing, blasting, scouting, stealth, social, and item creation)
Binder  (as above but without trapfinding)
Warblade/ Warshaper/ Shapeshifter/Master of Many Forms (really good combat versitility, scouting, long distance travel, disguise based social, most of the mundane applications of monsters, warblade combat abilities)

DavidWL

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Re: The Most Adaptable Party
« Reply #1 on: December 15, 2009, 06:04:29 AM »
Sharn: Sharn +5/Aberration 4/Mystic Theurge 10/XXX 1
- initiate of mystra, spell like casting, sharn awesomness

Chameleon Caster:  Generic Fighter 2/Generic Divine Caster 3/Chameleon 10/Generic Expert 2/Generic Arcane Caster 1/Generic Divine Caster 4-5
- initiate of mystra, uses extra spell / sanctum spell/ planar touchstone to gain 9th level spell slots

Bard 3/Incarnate 2/Soulcaster 4/Ur-Priest 1/Sublime Chord 1/Fochlucan Lyrist 9

Note, however, that you are not really asking for a party, but rather, a collection of multi-threats.  Each of the above is both divine and arcane caster, along with either combat or skillmonkey.

For a less caster-centric version, see the ranger build in my sig.

Best,
David
Some Cool Quotes:  [spoiler]
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Non-PC activities like out of combat healing should be left to wands and NPCs. It's not fun to play a walking wand of CLW. Likewise, being a combat wall is not a viable PC role. A Wall of Force could do that.

-Sort of, but you left out the important note that a Wall of Force does it better.

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Negative Zero

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Re: The Most Adaptable Party
« Reply #2 on: December 15, 2009, 06:09:17 AM »
I'm not all that familiar with Incarnum, but the Incarnum-using classes can change out their soulmelds daily, and change their essentia distributions as a swift action. Is there enough variety in the Soulmelds for that to be versatile, or are they still generally stuck with what they do?

Also, with transparency, can't you Chain Psychic Reformation? That's a good start to switching the party focus real quick-like.

JaronK

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Re: The Most Adaptable Party
« Reply #3 on: December 15, 2009, 06:41:10 AM »
Would it be cheating to use an Artificer?  They can make items to do anything after all.

JaronK

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Re: The Most Adaptable Party
« Reply #4 on: December 15, 2009, 07:37:07 AM »
Where are the stats for sharns ?
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snakeman830

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Re: The Most Adaptable Party
« Reply #5 on: December 15, 2009, 12:46:40 PM »
I would think Incarnate or Totemist would be in such a team, as would Druid (because they have spells to cover numerous occasions + Wild Shape and cnimal companion to cover even more).  Factotum and Binder are kind of the "Duh" bits, and someone in the group would have to do Chameleon.
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archangel.arcanis

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Re: The Most Adaptable Party
« Reply #6 on: December 15, 2009, 12:57:27 PM »
Would Thrallherd be cheating too since he will have 2 competent thralls and a ton of minions believers. 3 Thrallherds turns into a party of 9 with an entourage to rival that of a rapper.
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RobbyPants

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Re: The Most Adaptable Party
« Reply #7 on: December 15, 2009, 01:52:50 PM »
I've always been fond of:

Druid
Cleric or Archivist
Beguiler
Conjurer


None of these gets pinned down into any one role.  All are full casters.  The group can adapt pretty well in any given combat, and remarkably well given a day's notice.
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Vinom

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Re: The Most Adaptable Party
« Reply #8 on: December 15, 2009, 03:50:44 PM »
Bard
Sorcerer
Paladin
Fighter
A player once asked me if there was any way to make a Tarrasque more evil... 3 sessions later he was stoned with D20s as the PC led an exidus out of the path of a Dire Tarrasque of Legendary Wonder.

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Operation Shoestring

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Re: The Most Adaptable Party
« Reply #9 on: December 15, 2009, 08:21:19 PM »
Druid, Druid, Druid, Artificer.    ;)

ninjarabbit

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Re: The Most Adaptable Party
« Reply #10 on: December 15, 2009, 08:49:51 PM »
4 barbarians

The solution to every problem is to smash

DavidWL

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Re: The Most Adaptable Party
« Reply #11 on: December 15, 2009, 08:57:21 PM »
High level prepared casters can often solve any problem with the right spells but the challenge here is to not make the character reliant on spell casting to be versatile.

You could, very legitimately, almost say that by definition a non-caster can't be competent in comparison to a caster.

What we then do is look at caster alternatives
  • Artificer (crafter)
  • Binder (binds for summons)
  • arcane casting Wildshape (dragonshape) ranger
  • etc.


Best,
David
Some Cool Quotes:  [spoiler]
Quote from: unknown
Non-PC activities like out of combat healing should be left to wands and NPCs. It's not fun to play a walking wand of CLW. Likewise, being a combat wall is not a viable PC role. A Wall of Force could do that.

-Sort of, but you left out the important note that a Wall of Force does it better.

Quote from: Runestar / skydragonknight
The most powerful character is the one that you actually get to play.

Quote from: Operation Shoestring
I often have to remind people not to underrate divination.  The ability to effectively metagame without actually metagaming beats the ability to set things on fire more times than not.
[/spoiler]
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Aliment

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Re: The Most Adaptable Party
« Reply #12 on: December 15, 2009, 10:11:48 PM »
4 barbarians

The solution to every problem is to smash
And there all Orcs.

Seriously I think for Trap finding: Beguiler/Factotum
For Tanking: Conjueror/Druid
For Buffs and Healing: Cleric/Druid
For Damage: Barbarian/Warblade/Duskblade

The "face" is most likely going to the Beguiler or Factotum. So my Ideal party:
Changeling Rogue 1/Beguiler/ShadowCraft Mage (getting in by changing into Gnome, and using feat)
Conjueror/Malconvoker
Druid 20 'nuff said
??? Not much charger expierience
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Havok4

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Re: The Most Adaptable Party
« Reply #13 on: December 15, 2009, 10:20:00 PM »
High level prepared casters can often solve any problem with the right spells but the challenge here is to not make the character reliant on spell casting to be versatile.

You could, very legitimately, almost say that by definition a non-caster can't be competent in comparison to a caster.

What we then do is look at caster alternatives
  • Artificer (crafter)
  • Binder (binds for summons)
  • arcane casting Wildshape (dragonshape) ranger
  • etc.


Best,
David
You have a legitimate point there and in many ways what you say is correct. I requested that primarily to avoid this kind of setup.
Druid, Druid, Druid, Artificer.    ;)

Which is a perfectly good party which is capable of dealing with any problem that it encounters but it is something that everyone here already knows.

ninjarabbit

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Re: The Most Adaptable Party
« Reply #14 on: December 15, 2009, 10:44:47 PM »
My serious party is:

kobold cloistered cleric with kobold and trickery domains
gnome druid
grey elf spellthief1/beguiler1/focusedconjurer1/ultimatemagus10/x5
elf cloistered cleric/contemplative archer with elf, trickery, spell, and time domains

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Re: The Most Adaptable Party
« Reply #15 on: December 15, 2009, 10:48:23 PM »
Where are the stats for sharns ?

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My pick for most adaptable?
Factotum
Warlock
DFA
Spellthief.
Give one of them a mark of healing so the spellthief can do that job, the factotum+spellthief gets unlimited castings of any sorc/wiz spell up to seventh level, and if you get lesser restoration form the dragonmark you don't need to rest ever.
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Re: The Most Adaptable Party
« Reply #16 on: December 15, 2009, 11:06:03 PM »
Cleric
Cleric
Cleric
Cleric

because the right spell is one god away.
A player once asked me if there was any way to make a Tarrasque more evil... 3 sessions later he was stoned with D20s as the PC led an exidus out of the path of a Dire Tarrasque of Legendary Wonder.

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bearsarebrown

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Re: The Most Adaptable Party
« Reply #17 on: December 15, 2009, 11:08:31 PM »
My pick for most adaptable?
Factotum
Warlock
DFA
Spellthief.

Factotum and Spellthief combined is genius.

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Re: The Most Adaptable Party
« Reply #18 on: December 16, 2009, 12:33:30 AM »
Factotum
DFA
Totemist
Binder

Replace DFA with Archivist for more power; replace Factotum with Artificer if there's plenty of downtime anticipated (and for more power).
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Re: The Most Adaptable Party
« Reply #19 on: December 16, 2009, 12:44:37 AM »
Cleric
Cleric
Cleric
Cleric

because the right spell is one god away.

It's only because I've recently been reading through Elder Evils, but lately I like to make sure everyone isn't just one thing (In the case of Elder Evils, I like to make sure not everyone is a divine caster).

Also, while it may seem perfect, a party of all the same casting class isn't flexible. It doesn't matter that you can change your mechanics every day if people can make you ALL null and void with one or two easy tricks. Casters suffer from being incredibly reliant on magic, and while there are lots of ways around the ways around casters, if someone shuts your whole party down for just one round you're going to lose someone. This is especially true when you consider that casters are high-powered and draw high-powered opponents.
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