Ok, so I've been playing a wizard based mostly on battlefield control with some debilitating and evocation spells in our Kingmaker game. We have an enchanter based sorcerer that later intends to focus on summoning, a melee/archer ranger, an archer based fighter and a combat focused rogue.
Recently, a new person has been added to our game and he has picked to play a wizard. He's pretty new to the game, and I'm unsure if he has a particular focus for his character. Normally, I'd be fine with having 2 wizards and a sorcerer but our rogue player (our main tank actually) is not feeling the game and may stop playing soon.
While I love playing my character and don't really want to re-roll, I honestly feel a bit like my role as party wizard has been encroached upon even though I'm sure that wasn't the new player's intention. Add to that to the fact that our party may be losing their main form of front line melee and I half feel like it'd be best for my party if I re-rolled a melee build. Probably Synth Summoner since I've wanted to try them for a while.
What do you guys think? Would it be best to reroll? Or can we survive with only 1 melee capable character and sooner or later some summoning spells?
Thanks in advance.
Did you ask the new person why they are choosing wizard when you already have a wizard and are pretty overbalanced towards spellcasters and archers already?
It sounds like the real issue for your group isn't that you are gaining a new wizard, but that you are likely to lose your only melee option. You should probably have a group discussion about that.
I did not ask him why he chose the wizard no. I figured the DM was ok with it even though he knew we had plenty of magic and that since he is almost brand new to the game, I didn't want to stop his enjoyment of the game.
I agree we should have a group discussion, but I don't want the new guy to feel like he screwed up just by picking a wizard class or put anyone through a guilt trip. Really, the ranger MIGHT be able to pick up the melee as from what I understand he's already chosen two weapon fighting and is going skirmisher, so he will probably pick up an animal companion to help in melee as well.
Perhaps I'm over reacting. Maybe we'll do alright even if the rogue player decides to jump ship.
I am against making someone fill a role - bringing your idea for a character to life is an important part of the game's fun. However, I would feel a responsibility as a newcomer to play nice and complement the party. I've been with my group 10 years and when a new campaign sis about to begin I still alternate between choosing a class before and after I know what the others are playing. Two of the same class just seems boring. Of course, LOTR had an elf fighter and a dwarf...
Honestly, I wouldn't stress it too much. Casters are powerful, and since you are wizards, there is always room to learn some more spells and change the direction of your casting. It's the beauty of arcane casters; they are just so flexible!
Even if you can't get him to work with you, why not consider the summoner class? You can use the eidolon as a skill monkey by funneling all evolutions into skilled and all feats into skill focus, then use your massive pool of Summon Monster SLA to fill in for the combat parts when needed. If the rogue leaves, you can always change the Eidolon into a front line fighter!
Either way, there's nothing to really stress about. If your rogue player leaves, then it's up to your DM to rate the parties capability and challenge it appropriately. If problems arise, there's nothing some friendly communication can't solve!
FYI, your party is going to get SLAUGHTERED without a cleric (or some reliable form of healing) in that campaign.
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FYI, your party is going to get SLAUGHTERED without a cleric (or some reliable form of healing) in that campaign.
And yet according to the OP, they've actually been doing OK so far. It's almost as if outkilling the enemy might be a superior approach to outhealing them.
Blasphemy. You can't play D&D without a cleric. Or a rogue.
FYI, your party is going to get SLAUGHTERED without a cleric (or some reliable form of healing) in that campaign.
What? Kingmaker is a cakewalk for no healing parties. 1 encounter days (heck some 1 encounter weeks/months) easy dungeons, unspectacular enemies (often with horrid saves), emphasis on overland combat, ect all make for the perfect campaign to go without divine support. The most notorious enemies have glaring weaknesses to a spell casting party too.
Also, this isn't 2nd ed. Almost any class can either use CLW (and thus the wand) or fake it (UMD). In combat healing most of the time is not required unless things go into the crapper (which meant the party probably screwed up if the encounter is within CR guidelines).
in that case i'm curious how far into Kingmaker you've played, and how easy the GMs have been in your Kingmaker games.
/shrug
every game plays out differently, if the GM gives you the advantage of automatic surprise rounds and/or doesn't roll high on the random encounter charts (or chooses not to), it's obviously going to be easier. Some GMs avoid player death to a "t", in which case you could build characters with NPC classes on a 10 point buy and be fine. Having played up to the beginning of the 6th installment, I really can't see how the party described in the OP (given a normal GM who doesn't pull too many punches) would clear through everything up to the end of Varnhold Vanishing without a few dead PCs.
in that case i'm curious how far into Kingmaker you've played, and how easy the GMs have been in your Kingmaker games.
/shrug
Right on schedule the old "if you don't need dedicated healing, your GMs are pantywaist pushovers!"
It's like predictable or something.
Blasphemy. You can't play D&D without a cleric. Or a rogue.
Heh done it before without a cleric, and our rogue was switching every level between rogue and bard.
There can never be enough well played wizards in a party(unless they start ridiculously copying each other). Need melee support have him play a conjuror. Wizards are very versatile and can be played a lot of different ways so I wouldn't worry about it.
Right on schedule the old "if you don't need dedicated healing, your GMs are pantywaist pushovers!"It's like predictable or something.
1) There's a difference between dedicated healing and having SOME capacity for healing. The party described in the OP has the ranger that can cast cure spells (lulz), and the rogue that can use CLW and CMW wands with UMD before the price gets outrageous (again, lulz). A witch gets access to cure light at 1, cure moderate at 5, cure serious at 7, along with the healing hex (can't remember the exact name of it). Parties don't need a ton of viable healing, just a small supply of reliable healing that will do more than 1d8 + 1 off a CLW wand when it counts (read: the rogue wastes an action to bring the archer up from 12 hitpoints to 15 hitpoints, and watches Archer-man die the next round anyway after he gets hit twice).
2) Have you PLAYED Kingmaker? How far have you gotten? Are you aware how debilitating some of the NPC abilities are, particularly the last fight in the 3rd installment? What about the tomb system in the 4th installment?
3) I concede that the more utility magic you have, the less healing a party needs. That said, the party described in the OP doesn't appear to have much utility. Sorcerers only get about 4 known spells per level, so good luck getting the "you normally won't need it, but when you need it you REALLY need it" spells from him. The battlefield control / evocation is fine, but battlefield control is only good until the NPCs make a few saves at the wrong time, overcome your Web spells with Fly, or have enough HP or evasion to soak a fireball or two. Yeah, scrolls are useful, but using the CL on a scroll is alot worse than using the full CL of a dedicated PC caster.
So no, I'm not at all saying you need dedicated healing. I'm saying any reasonable GM (who isn't wearing kid gloves) should be able to steamroll the party described in the OP at least twice by the midpoint of the 3rd installment, and I'm surprised they haven't lost any PCs yet.
I'm saying any reasonable GM (who isn't wearing kid gloves) should be able to steamroll the party described in the OP at least twice by the midpoint of the 3rd...
Right on schedule the old "if you don't need dedicated healing, your GMs are pantywaist pushovers!"It's like predictable or something.
So unless a GM is trying to actively tpk every session he's playing wrong? Or that non-optimized parties are playing wrong?
The most important rule: Don't be a jerk.
Everyone has their own interpretation of an AP; I think a party comprised of more arcane casters than melee characters is interesting in its own right.
OP, if you fear your tank might leave and the new guy might fit that role better since you've got casters, then say it. Be adult about it, discuss it in terms of party survival. I'm sure the new guy is just excited to play and wants to learn the group dynamic. Really, since your wizard is a veteran of the campaign, it makes less sense for him/her to fade into the mist. You've invested more into yours than the new guy. That's a pretty simple and straightforward way to approach it. There's nothing less productive than wishing something was said; approach it now- maybe the new player will be a breath of fresh air and re-invigorate the rogue player. A second melee type might make the rogue feel like s/he's not tied to that role.
I'm with CB, 'filling roles' can be less fun when it's mandatory, but sometimes it's fun to play that necessary role, especially if you're new to a group and can be immediately useful. (speaking from experience)
What level is your party?
Thanks for all the input thus far everyone.
To try to answer some questions:
A few party members have come close to death once or twice, but survived. The only reason one didn't die was because of emergency help from the ranger.
We are all level 3 currently, a little more than halfway to level 4.
I may very well pick up a wand of infernal healing if I can find one.
Perhaps for now, I'll write up a summoner (probably synth) for a back up character and if I do die, then cool, we have a melee player on the field, if not, cool I keep my wizard.
So you have a battlefield control, save or suck, with a bit of damage wizard. Your buddy is a charm and summons sorcerer.
Why not encourage the third guy to just play a wizard with a specialization that covers what you guys don't? A focus on group buffing spells, for example, looks like it isn't covered above; and could be quite powerful given that you have three characters (ranger, rogue, fighter) who can all benefit heavily from combat buffs, and a fourth (the sorc) likely to be summoning critters that also would benefit.
Or a necromancer who focuses on debilitating enemies so that the first wizard's save or suck, or the sorc's enchantments are more likely to land.
These two just off the top of my head.
There's a lot of room within wizardry for complementary specializations.
1} So unless a GM is trying to actively tpk every session he's playing wrong? Or that non-optimized parties are playing wrong?
2} The most important rule: Don't be a jerk.
Clever editing Ironskull, pick and choose to read what you want and repost it as though I think every encounter should be a TPK. You missed your calling to the field of biased political journalism.
1 - I didn't say actively try to TPK every session. The first 3 installments of kingmaker take you from level 1 - about level 9 or 10. The OP said the party level is 3 or 4 right now, so my guess is they're either close to finishing the first installment or have just started the 2nd installment. Over the course of the first 3 installments, there are 2 encounters that are extremely, extremely difficult, and almost EVERY party loses a PC or two along the way. Luckily, Kingmaker gives several avenues to resurrect characters, and easily introduce a new character without it seeming cheesy.
2 - This is a matter of philosophy. Is it worse to play in a game where you know the GM is okay with PC deaths when they happen, or to play in a game where you KNOW your character can never die so there is no sense of risk or danger? (And as a result of the latter, you must also realize that nothing you do in combat matters because your character won't die anyway).
I think the bigger "jerk" between a Fair GM who lets characters die (while not going out of his way to kill them) vs. a Kid Gloves GM who never lets any characters ever die has to be the Kid Gloves GM. If the consequences of choice are removed from the process, then choice itself is deprived of meaning. This is not just true in combat, but also in roleplay.
Scenario: Evil King XYZ tells the Neutral Good players to kidnap his arch rival. The players have several ways to respond to this. The choice matters to the players under Fair GM, because they could easily get betrayed, imprisoned or killed if they don't think their way out of the dilemma. Conversely, it doesn't matter what the players under Kid Gloves GM do at all, because they will live: all attempts to kill them will fail, they may get robbed or imprisoned or they may not "beat the quest", but at the end of the day they will be alive which gives them the time and potential to recover from any mishaps they go through.
I ran Red Hand of Doom twice for two different groups. You give no basis of comparison for party composition, how many players were in the group, how "easy" your GM was, house rules, how "by-the-book" you were with the published material, etc. I also suspect your GM was giving you more leeway than you realize if there wasn't at least one PC death during the High Wyrmlord/AoT/Erinyes fight at the end.
Otherwise I generally agree, a smart group of 4 players should be able to get up to the last encounter in RHoD without any PC deaths ("smart" assumes they know when to realize it's time to retreat and re-strategize). Kingmaker is a completely different ball game. In RHoD, there are clues scattered throughout the game as to what to expect next, in general the party has the option to retreat from combat early and regroup, and at the end of each Wyrmlord the party learns something about the next Wyrmlord it's going to fight, and gets some pretty sweet treasure.
Kingmaker really doesn't do any of that (at least not how my GM ran it). Treasure is okay-ish, but it's designed to get treasure out of the "kingdom" mechanic more than through adventuring. There are earlier encounters that are far more devastating than anything that happened even 80% of the way into RHoD. Ever read the "Kingmaker Obituaries" thread?? These two campaigns really are apples and oranges.
"I assure you that there is no reason to assume a game wherein combat heals don't happen is a game in which 'kid-gloves' are on."
Again, this wasn't my argument. I've really only made about 3 points regarding "OP party vs. The AP", "TPKs", and "in-combat healing". They are, so you can all understand, as follows:
1 - IF you need to heal in combat, cure light wounds wands do not cut it. In Kingmaker, there ARE combats that, from my experience, require in-combat-healing and/or spells like Remove Bad Condition X. You SHOULD have a method of healing more than 1d8+1 damage per round, but there is not a need for dozens of "good healing" uses per day. A few cure serious wounds castings should be sufficient. I generally hold to this philosophy as a player as well: I'd rather heal or get healed in combat for 4d8 + 15 damage once or twice a day then get healed ad nauseam in combat for 1d8+1 (which barely makes a difference, and really just wastes an action). Out of combat healing via CLW wands are fantastic. I never said it isn't. I am only saying that I think, tactically, it is better to not heal at all in-combat than it is to heal a negligible amount, but it is even better to have the capability within the party to significantly heal 2-4 times a day should a situation become dire. Rings of Spellstoring are a fantastic mid-level way to accomplish this (especially in Kingmaker given the roles that time & economy play).
2 - The party described in the OP sounds like it can get steamrolled early in the Kingmaker AP. I've been playing Kingmaker with a reasonable DM for the past 19 months. We have experienced multiple character deaths with a fairly powerful, well balanced party in that time (thank god for Cauldron of Resurrection). Most of these deaths occurred in the 2nd and 3rd installments of the AP, which is very low on the Arcane Caster Power Curve. I could see the party described in the original post going through the same thing my group did, especially since the OP party seems to have a limited to non-existent capacity of removing negative conditions and/or healing. If you can remove negative conditions, you won't need to heal nearly as much. Parties that can't remove negative conditions in Kingmaker will probably require a ton of healing in a few specific encounters... failing this, PCs will likely die. I am not being biased. I have played the campaign. I have talked with other players in other groups who have played the campaign. I am not saying the DM should try to kill the party, merely that the DM should run the AP as written. If the DM plays the AP as written and does not "pull his punches", my guess is one or two PCs will die in the OP's party by the end of the third installment of the AP.
3 - PC deaths are okay. GM's should not have the goal of killing player characters. GM's should be okay with player characters dying when the circumstances, in-game choices, player tactics, and player shortcomings culminate in a dead character. Sometimes these choices, tactics and shortcomings are a result of party composition (read: not having healing in the party, not having the ability to overcome water obstacles, not having any melee characters, not having the ability to fly, not having any method of ranged offense, etc). TPK-seeking GM's are not very much fun, since those games tend to feel like an "us vs. him" scenario instead of a fun rpg with your friends. GMs that never let characters die are also no fun, because it mitigates player choice and makes it seem that nothing the PCs do matters since the ultimate in-game consequence, death, will never occur.
You should be fine. Use summons as your tanks and battlefield control to keep the enemies from reaching you while you pick them off from range with your spells.
All wizard party works quite well as long as you have someone to apply CLW wand charges or that Infernal Healing wand.
EDIT: And while I have no experience w/ Kingmaker, from all I've heard about it, it sounds like the most caster-friendly adventure path ever written...
@laarddrym
You are wrong on the drawing money from the kingdom, it was never intented to be allowed but at the end a formula was devised for the sake of "realism" (the why isn't there a mechanic for me to tell me how much money i can take from my city) BUT if you allow taking money from your kingdom then your game WILL break.
By the way which instances on the first three books of KM are you refering as very difficult spots (other than some of entries on some of the random encounter tables)? I, who have played nearly all of KM (we stopped a while after the start of book 6), can think of only one. Please use spoiler tags so that we don't spoiler the OP.
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By the time I got to this point in the thread, I'd forgotten what the thread was supposed to be about. So I'll assume I'm not the only person who needs the reminder...
Ok, so I've been playing a wizard based mostly on battlefield control with some debilitating and evocation spells in our Kingmaker game. We have an enchanter based sorcerer that later intends to focus on summoning, a melee/archer ranger, an archer based fighter and a combat focused rogue.
Recently, a new person has been added to our game and he has picked to play a wizard. He's pretty new to the game, and I'm unsure if he has a particular focus for his character. Normally, I'd be fine with having 2 wizards and a sorcerer but our rogue player (our main tank actually) is not feeling the game and may stop playing soon.
While I love playing my character and don't really want to re-roll, I honestly feel a bit like my role as party wizard has been encroached upon even though I'm sure that wasn't the new player's intention. Add to that to the fact that our party may be losing their main form of front line melee and I half feel like it'd be best for my party if I re-rolled a melee build. Probably Synth Summoner since I've wanted to try them for a while.
What do you guys think? Would it be best to reroll? Or can we survive with only 1 melee capable character and sooner or later some summoning spells?
Thanks in advance.
First: This new person who's been added to the game, are they new to Pathfinder? Because you have an excellent chance to mentor them on how to play a wizard. "Us wizards should stick together. I'll show you the tactics behind spell selection, and what spells have unusual uses."
Second: If the sorcerer intends to focus on summoning, then you really won't need an extra front line combatant. The party will be able to summon one up any time they need it, and the ranger can act go front line at need.
Third: Imagine that you, the other wizard, and the sorcerer each picked one or two blast spells each. Now imagine that you're about to open the next door in a dungeon, and you KNOW there are bad guys in there. One person opens the door, and all three casters lob a fireball (or cone of cold, or any damaging area effect spell) in the room. The non-casters immediately follow this up by full attacking with arrows. The battle's already at the mopping up stage, and it's round 1.
Now granted, there are going to be enemies where that tactic won't work, but that's when you revert to what you're actually good at. It's pretty powerful as an 'every once in a while' thing.
Yeah, someone else electing to play a wizard might cause one of you to outshine the other. That's definitely a concern. The answer is communication and coordination. Instead of thinking "we have too many people who do the same thing" think "we have several people who can do the same thing... how can we use this?"
This would be a GREAT opportunity to pick up some of those teamwork feats that never get used because they need multiple casters.
i would sugest to invest a bit more in conjuration spels like summon monster this more than enough melee :-)
wizards can pritty much fill anny role but can do controll best! so 5 wizards in a party might be bad but having 1 melee and 5 wizards could verry well be efective!
cast sumon monder3
cast sumon monster3
cast sumon monster3
melee charachter puts up a shieldwall.
monsters apear!
win for the party!