Full warriors party! Will they last?


Rise of the Runelords


Hi guys, i'm about to start the RoTRL AP in weeks but i think my party will have huge problems through it, their composition is as follow:

Human Barbarian
Dwarven Barbarian
Suli Monk
Aasimar Paladin
Half-orc Two-Handed Fighter
"Something" Ranger

I still didn't read all the AP so i don't know if they'll encounter a lot of problems but, still, the party doesn't look balanced at all to me and they have nearly 1 year of experience in Pathfinder except one of them who would play for the first time.

What do you advice me to suggest to my players? Thanks in advance for the help!


Well, if you make sure that there are plenty of cure wands then their lifespan should significantly increase. Also make sure that they have a good ranged game.


Well, they aren't going to be able to use the cure wand until level 4, because until then the paladin has no caster level, so his lay on hands is going to be the only healing.

It's going to be rough. Early on they will probably be fine. But in later books they are really going to want/need some casting.


... This is the AP which is practically a gift to Wizards, what with all those spellbooks to find, copy, then sell off for a chunk of cash. Furthermore, it has a lot of wizards with nasty surprises up their sleeves. If I had to choose one AP to play in as a Wizard, it would be this one. (Wrath of the Righteous doesn't count, as Mythic rules get too crazy.)

In my opinion: a RotR party needs a full (9-level) arcane spellcaster, and will face substantial problems without a full divine spellcaster. Maybe one could get away with just 6-level spellcasters (Magus, maybe Skald or Bard for arcane; Warpriest or Hunter for divine). Those might be acceptable substitutes for hack-crazy players. :)

As always, YMMV.

Liberty's Edge

Mark_Twain007 wrote:

Well, they aren't going to be able to use the cure wand until level 4, because until then the paladin has no caster level, so his lay on hands is going to be the only healing.

It's going to be rough. Early on they will probably be fine. But in later books they are really going to want/need some casting.

As long as neither of them is an archetype that gives up casting, both the ranger and the paladin can use cure wands from level 1. The rules for wand use are different from scrolls - as long as you are a member of the relevant class, even if you have no caster level, you can activate a wand.


Thanks for your help guys, maybe i could suggest to the ranger to be a hunter instead (i also saw the archetype "Primal Companion Hunter", seems pretty good) and to the others if they want to do an Arcanist or some other spellcaster?


Mark_Twain007 wrote:

Well, they aren't going to be able to use the cure wand until level 4, because until then the paladin has no caster level, so his lay on hands is going to be the only healing.

It's going to be rough. Early on they will probably be fine. But in later books they are really going to want/need some casting.

Not true.

Quote:

Spell Trigger: Spell trigger activation is similar to spell completion, but it's even simpler. No gestures or spell finishing is needed, just a special knowledge of spellcasting that an appropriate character would know, and a single word that must be spoken. Spell trigger items can be used by anyone whose class can cast the corresponding spell. This is the case even for a character who can't actually cast spells, such as a 3rd-level paladin. The user must still determine what spell is stored in the item before she can activate it. Activating a spell trigger item is a standard action and does not provoke attacks of opportunity.


However and actual full caster or at least a 6th level caster will make things a lot more manageable.


Pathfinder Maps Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

My advice: don't be afraid of character death. And ask your players to prepare a second character right from the start.
I started my RotRL campaign last October, and required my players to prepare 2 character sheets, and asked them to make one of them at least a partial caster class. We've come very very close to several player deaths, but they managed to scrape by each time, in part thanks to extra healing potions they bought in Sandpoint or were given as rewards at various points.

My group is a barbarian, a fighter, a paladin and an alchemist. So it's close to yours. Alchemists have some cool stuff, but not the key arcane or divine powers that I think this AP is going to need by books 2 or 3. Even facing the haunts without divine chanelling will be tough!

So I plan ahead for character death. If it turns out their party composition is unbalanced, they'll just have to bring in some new characters with the powers they find they're lacking.


I'm really thinking the big bad at the end is going to have a field day, if they get that far.

So many low Will saves, and so many fun spells to use against 66% of the party that are vulnerable - though with the right builds, you can mitigate that somewhat (Barbarians can really boost their Will and damage vs spellcasters with the right Rage powers).

Because there are 6 PC's, it might actually be a rather interesting experiment. But they should expect casualties on a more frequent basis, in my opinion.

Liberty's Edge

Hunters are very solid classes, and would likely work out well for a ranger concept unless they really didn't want an animal companion (and if then, they could go feral hunter anyway).


Wow... I don't know whether you're the player or the GM, but starting in Book 4 that group is going to suffer. And suffer. And suffer.

As mentioned upthread, this AP is built to make wizards squee. Most of the BBEGs in later books are high-level casters, meaning they have battlefield control spells, flight, force walls, and everything else that makes fighters cry.

"I am a 5th-level wizard. I cast Fly and Wind Wall, then start raining fireballs on your party. What do you do?"

Hmm...


I'm going to agree with NH on that. An all-warrior party will probably do OK through books 1-3, but they're going to have a lot of trouble starting in Book 4.

The other thing you'll have trouble with is none of your PCs have Trapfinding. This means that they will pretty much always trigger every magical trap they encounter in the AP.

Finally, there is LOTS of wizard-specific loot they'll recover-- and some of it is REALLY cool. With no wizard in the party, they'll be forced to just sell it.

One final bit of advice: Always read the whole AP through before you start running it. You don't necessarily have to read it super-close (especially the last chapters), but you really should have a good grasp of the outline and how things will go if the bad guy's plans come to fruition. This is why I never start a new AP until the 6th book has been released (and is in my hands).


Pathfinder is kind of analogous to a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. There are "roles" that are filled by fighters, arcane casters, divine casters, and skill-monkeys. Bad guys typically fit those roles as can PCs.

The problem is that different roles are "better" at countering one another, to a certain degree. Yes, a fighter type can go toe-to-toe with a fighter type all day long and be reasonably comfortable. But what happens to that fighter when he faces a sorcerer with fly, invisibility, and fireball? Even with a readied bow, the fighter is going to get cooked.

If that fighter had a friend, say someone with see invisibility or glitterdust or dispel magic, he'd probably do okay.

Roles complement one another. They cover for the weaknesses of their companions. When you make an all-caster or all-martial party, there's a decent chance that you're looking at a TPK at some point just because there will be a challenge they have zero resources to address.

So long as your players know that, good luck. There are plenty of enemy casters in this AP who will be perfectly happy to own the party.


Party make-up questions are hard to answer because the only answer is: it depends. How are the specific pc's built? How do the players intend to and actually do play them? What is the play style and tactical inclination of the GM? Without detailed information along those lines, the best you can do is the answer Anguish provides above.

The AP is written for 4 pc's at a 15 point buy. Six pc's of any class grouping are going to paste a significant number of unadjusted encounters and then wham! An encounter that exposes a weakness in the group will seriously threaten a TPK.

I would agree with NobodysHome and Haladir that an all-warrior party will face serious challenges in Book 4 (and beyond) since potent spell casters arrive in those books. But I would add Book 3 to the list, it too has spell-casters that can wreck havoc with warrior types.


Latrecis wrote:
I would agree with NobodysHome...

And thus ended the world...


I'll try to pass to my players all of these advices that your giving to me, if they still don't want to make another character they'll know that huge problems are ahead.

Anyway these players had a 15 points buy and i'll probably make the same changes to the AP as Joey Virtue did.

After all your responses i think that they can be balanced with just 2 char changes: a SongHealer Bard with a dip in Rogue, in order to provide a healing to the group and be able to find traps, and an Arcanist or Mage, also a Sorcerer wuold be good but, as i understood, there're a lot of spellbooks that will be of no use for the latter.


NobodysHome wrote:

"I am a 5th-level wizard. I cast Fly and Wind Wall, then start raining fireballs on your party. What do you do?"

Hmm...

Aren't those all 3rd level spells? A 5th level Wizard is hardly going to be 'raining' fireballs down on them (unless he was a wand of Fireball of course) he's still going to be a damn nuisance mind you.


fatbaldbloke wrote:
NobodysHome wrote:

"I am a 5th-level wizard. I cast Fly and Wind Wall, then start raining fireballs on your party. What do you do?"

Hmm...

Aren't those all 3rd level spells? A 5th level Wizard is hardly going to be 'raining' fireballs down on them (unless he was a wand of Fireball of course) he's still going to be a damn nuisance mind you.

The adventure path doesn't stop at 5th-level foes. More BAB/rage/weapon training/horse isn't going to help much as the caster levels ratchet ever-upwards.


Keeping in mind OP stated 15 point buys - that isn't going to leave a lot of room for good Wisdom (read: Will save) bonuses if their goons want to hit hard - points are going into other stats.

In a party of 6 goons, only two of which are likely to have decent Will saves (Paladin and Monk) - that could equate to a lot of fun when mid-level Domination spells pop up. Heck, even early game Charm Person spells could wreck some havoc. By end game, and the 7th-9th level spells arrive to target them, man, it's going to get ugly.

They may have to end up fighting themselves AND the bad guys as a result.

Silver Crusade

Low will saves and missing out on the 'fun' of the setting are more issues here then concerns over flying wizards.

Most of the wizards get engaged in what are essentially small monster closets, or are big flying dudes.

Ironically, having a meaty party will let them rip through the early parts of the AP, before they start encountering more difficulties towards the back end.

Runelords is a (very gleefully) schizophrenic AP in that its almost all Giants, all the time, except to switch it up occasionally with wizards.

Liberty's Edge

I kinda want to take a party of paladin, bloodrager, slayer and fighter through an AP now, just to see how they do. It's like having the standard class balance, right?


Anguish wrote:
fatbaldbloke wrote:
NobodysHome wrote:

"I am a 5th-level wizard. I cast Fly and Wind Wall, then start raining fireballs on your party. What do you do?"

Hmm...

Aren't those all 3rd level spells? A 5th level Wizard is hardly going to be 'raining' fireballs down on them (unless he was a wand of Fireball of course) he's still going to be a damn nuisance mind you.
The adventure path doesn't stop at 5th-level foes. More BAB/rage/weapon training/horse isn't going to help much as the caster levels ratchet ever-upwards.

Don't worry I was aware the AP doesn't stop at 5th level wizards. Just pointing out a 5th level wizard probably isn't going to 'rain' fireballs down on anyone. Course he could rain plenty other stuff down on a party of melee warriors and they wouldn't be able to do much about it.


fatbaldbloke wrote:
Anguish wrote:
fatbaldbloke wrote:
NobodysHome wrote:

"I am a 5th-level wizard. I cast Fly and Wind Wall, then start raining fireballs on your party. What do you do?"

Hmm...

Aren't those all 3rd level spells? A 5th level Wizard is hardly going to be 'raining' fireballs down on them (unless he was a wand of Fireball of course) he's still going to be a damn nuisance mind you.
The adventure path doesn't stop at 5th-level foes. More BAB/rage/weapon training/horse isn't going to help much as the caster levels ratchet ever-upwards.
Don't worry I was aware the AP doesn't stop at 5th level wizards. Just pointing out a 5th level wizard probably isn't going to 'rain' fireballs down on anyone. Course he could rain plenty other stuff down on a party of melee warriors and they wouldn't be able to do much about it.

Well, to each his own.

In the APs I've run, wizards are pretty much, "A free day! Time to craft a scroll" guys. At 187.5 gold pieces a pop, I'd expect at least half a dozen prepared scrolls, plus one in mind. If 7 fireballs at 5th level isn't a "rain" to a bunch of 5th-level fighters, then their saves and hit points are way better than expected...


I have a 64 point buy equivalent fighter in my Iron Gods campaign that'd be up for that challenge:-)

Tho I'm not sure what she'd do without Robots to crit:-p


NobodysHome wrote:
fatbaldbloke wrote:
Anguish wrote:
fatbaldbloke wrote:
NobodysHome wrote:

"I am a 5th-level wizard. I cast Fly and Wind Wall, then start raining fireballs on your party. What do you do?"

Hmm...

Aren't those all 3rd level spells? A 5th level Wizard is hardly going to be 'raining' fireballs down on them (unless he was a wand of Fireball of course) he's still going to be a damn nuisance mind you.
The adventure path doesn't stop at 5th-level foes. More BAB/rage/weapon training/horse isn't going to help much as the caster levels ratchet ever-upwards.
Don't worry I was aware the AP doesn't stop at 5th level wizards. Just pointing out a 5th level wizard probably isn't going to 'rain' fireballs down on anyone. Course he could rain plenty other stuff down on a party of melee warriors and they wouldn't be able to do much about it.

Well, to each his own.

In the APs I've run, wizards are pretty much, "A free day! Time to craft a scroll" guys. At 187.5 gold pieces a pop, I'd expect at least half a dozen prepared scrolls, plus one in mind. If 7 fireballs at 5th level isn't a "rain" to a bunch of 5th-level fighters, then their saves and hit points are way better than expected...

I did mention in the earlier post that yeah it'd be a 'rain' if he had a wand or something (or a whole weeks worth of scrolls).


I ran a similar group through Second Darkness. I was hesitant at first as well, but they ended up steam rolling through most encounters.

On one hand, I was surprised how quickly they chewed through encounters, but that AP also seemed to have quite a few week fights (if I recall correctly)

Armageddon Echo spoiler:

We even had the flying invisible wizard move from theory to actual game play. However as someone pointed out earlier the APs don't always optimize enemy tactics or lairs.

The wizard at the end received reports of an enemy force fighting their way to his position. He gathered his allies including the dragon for a great show down, I even cheated an enlarged some rooms to give more maneuverability. The dragon and minions went down fast. A few people dropped, but eventually, the wizard just ran out of spells after eluding the remaining PCs.

But unless you are going to add scrolls and wands to the AP enemies as written just to screw over the PCs, the AP enemies won't likely be spamming them with fireballs.

It has been a long time since I ran RotRL, but I'd suggest reviewing everything just to make sure there isn't some point where they can only move forward with a caster. For example, I can't recall if you need a caster to get into a certain forgotten laboratory.

In addition, the AP does a pretty good job of letting the PCs know that they may be facing wizards. They should have plenty of time to gear themselves accordingly.

Shadow Lodge

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder PF Special Edition Subscriber

If you alter the treasure to include more healing items they'll be fine. In fact they will tear through many encounters in no time, leaving you to wonder if you'll cope if your one of these GMs who needs every encounter to be a threat.

They will need some magic item assistance though as you get to higher levels, once the flying, invisible etc start. But some sound tactics should still prevail. In fact without magic some of the easy to bypass areas could become real encounters


Ugh. Now I've wasted most of the evening skimming through the last three books. I'd love to run this again with a group like this.

I still think they'll do fine, but there are some sweet challenges ahead.


You have six players. That in and of itself makes it easier for the group.

The Paladin can provide healing. The Ranger, come 4th level, will also be able to do some minor healing. And Wands of healing will help out.

In short, your group should do okay. There may be some tough spots, but they'll prevail more often than not, especially with two Barbarians.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Ironically, the most dangerous foe the PCs may end up meeting is any baddie that has dominate person. The moment they can turn the barbarians against the party is going to be a bad day. Confusion could also cripple this group. On the high end, maze means the bad guy can take on one of them at a time, and he's buffed to the gills by the time they find their way out.


The Barbarian could very easily take Suspicious and related Barbarian abilities to not only become less vulnerable to Dominate and Charms, but also to do extra damage to spellcasting critters. To be honest, as a GM running an intelligent spellcaster, I'd more likely target a heavily-armored Fighter with Charm or Dominate than a Barbarian - not only because it's less likely they have anti-caster abilities, but because it's difficult to hit them, so removing them from the combat and turning them against their own allies makes it also more difficult for their former allies to stop them.

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