We're hopefully going to start the SCAP later tonight, and there are 3 of us. I've been playing for 2 years, the other is brand new, and the last player has little experience and what he does know isn't much because I think that DM's that give their players Infinite bags of holding full of gold that refills and major artifact weapons at FIRST LEVEL need to be shot. In the head.
So, to make up for the lack of players, we're going gestalt. I'm sure everyone knows what that is, especially here. Well, I don't know what the other halves of their characters are going to be.
So far we have a halfing rogue and a gnome bard. I have yet to even decide what the first half or race of mine is going to be. I'm pretty sure I'll be the healing battery, which I enjoy, and it's easy cause I've done it before. But we also need a meat shield, somebody to fill the roll of melee or damn near close.
Now, I'm not asking for metagame info or anything, I'm just calling out to those who have been in/run this campaign before and asking what was useful? Thanks in advance.
We're hopefully going to start the SCAP later tonight, and there are 3 of us. I've been playing for 2 years, the other is brand new, and the last player has little experience and what he does know isn't much because I think that DM's that give their players ~ deleted out of horror~ need to be shot. In the head.
So, to make up for the lack of players, we're going gestalt. I'm sure everyone knows what that is, especially here. Well, I don't know what the other halves of their characters are going to be.
When you refer to 'three of us', are you including the DM, or that there are 3 players, including yourself?
It would make complete sense that at least one of your 3 gestalt characters should include a fighter class - it just makes good sense from the pragmatic viewpoint of a non-meat-shield-who-wishes-to-avoid-melee-EVERY-COMBAT. Personally, I would suggest that either the Bard or Rogue go Gestalt Fighter, assuming that the third player will go Gestalt Cleric/Wizard and be the "spell support" person.
Then again, if the DM is willing to run an NPC character, then going Gestalt would not actually be necessary, as you would have four characters (which is what the adventures are written for); also, if he were willing to dial down the encounters a bit, having three characters would be possible, especially if you multi-class as you raise levels.
God, I hope that your DM is NOT the one you mentioned before.
Good luck,
M (DM'ed SCAP over the last 3 yrs)
Hey, Tak, I thought this thread might be of interest for you, in case you haven't already seen it.
What can't you do without in the SCAP?
I don't think it has any serious spoilers and it gives a good idea of the kinds of skills a party will need to succeed. If your group is lacking in any of the skills suggested, then you can consider choosing a class to fill the gap. Good luck and have fun!
Regards,
Koramado
Yes, to clear things up we have 3 players and one DM. I know for a fact she is not that kind because I taught her better than that and would disown her if she did epic level at first level kinda things. Thanks for the link, if I didn't know better I'd go paladin, but I kinda have to wait on the others, cause they're busy at Oceans of fun. suckers.
Contrary to what it states in the magazines, James Jacobs says that the SCAP is designed for 6 players and not four, so gestalting should be fine (and probably necessary).
Personally I wouldn't go wizard/cleric because you might need two characters using spells in certain situations, and the wizard negates some of the advantages a cleric has. Fighter/cleric is always good.
I am currently running SCAP for three players, all gestalt characters. We have a fighter/rogue, a monk/wizard, and a cleric/psion. We are nearing the end of the first chapter, and so far, all three of them have found plenty of opportunities for both of their classes to shine. I would suggest trying to cover as many bases as possible with your class choices.
Good luck and have fun!
--Fang
Not for SCAP, but in a gaming session where we have three players and decided to go Gestalt, we chose:
Half Orc Fighter/Cleric
Human Spirit Shaman/Wizard
and
Human Rogue/Warlock
They seem to cover all their bases well.
In SCAP, I would maybe have switched things around a little, and suggested a Rogue/Fighter (and suggested focusing on Improved Feint, Bluff skills, and thereby doling out your sneak attack a lot), and split the spellcasting among the other two characters.
If you have the PHB2 available, you might want to consider the Dragon Shaman. One of the auras you can choose is a healing aura which basically gives your party fast healing 1 (within a certain radius of the dragon shaman), but only up to half their hit points. This auto-stabilizes anyone who falls into negative hit points (unless we missed something when we read this), so can be very useful to a small party.
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I am just starting up a SCAP campaign. I have 4 players, and I'm strongly considering allowing them to remake themselves as gestalt characters when they advance to second level. I have a couple reasons for this (major) alteration. One is, that apart from the cleric having the Diplomacy skill, the party's social abilities are nil ((1 dwarven fighter, 1 1/2 orc barbarian, 1 human cleric, and 1 kobold -black- dragon shaman.)) I don't like to demand core races for my players, but in this case I strongly encouraged it and suggested that their characters would have a particularly difficult time in this adventure path if they chose races that might not blend into a human-dominated city.
The party is headed deeper into Jzadirune, and although the dragon shaman's player is wise enough to often use the perception aura, it doesn't boost anyone's Spot skill enough to crow about. Changing the game to gestalt would save me more headaches than cause, at this point. Also, three of my players are familiar with the strengths and drawbacks of gestalt characters and I'm comfortable with them.
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Well, time for an update. The party is greatly changed and headed into the Malachite Fortress, recently getting to level 2.
The party cleric is now a fighter/cleric, and deals significant damage with a warhammer. The player who once had a barbarian is now running a rogue/monk and is fairly good at dungeoneering. The player who ran a kobold is now running an aasimar paladin/favored soul. And the dwarf fighter chose to become a barbarian/fighter. While short on arcane magic, their healing spells have helped greatly to avoid TPK. The rogue/monk is eager (over-eager) to engage in combat. Once he decided that the hobgoblins in Malachite Fortress were 'weak', he leaped at the chance to do battle with six of them, a room ahead of the group. Two rounds later, he was critically hit by a pit spike to -8HP, with 5 laughing hobgoblins with javelins standing over the pit. All in all it was a very fun and exciting rescue.
As a gestalt campaign, I think this adventure path works wonderfully, as it was designed for 6 players instead of 4. With that taken into account, I still have to adjust for the low total hit points of the group and the fewer targets the enemies can divide their attacks among.
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I'm also running SCAP with 4 gestalt characters (fighter/warlock, fighter/ranger, cleric/rogue, wizard/duskblade). To help compensate for the low number of players, I also did a 32 point buy for stats and fixed hit points. The party is still challenged by the dungeon but doesn't have too much trouble kicking the skulks' butts.
Are you reducing the challenge ratings by one for the purpose of figuring out xp? I've found that if you don't, with a smaller party, they will start to level up too fast for the campaign. Even doing this, I have 3 players almost at level 4, and they haven't hit the Malachite Fortress yet.
Are you reducing the challenge ratings by one for the purpose of figuring out xp? I've found that if you don't, with a smaller party, they will start to level up too fast for the campaign. Even doing this, I have 3 players almost at level 4, and they haven't hit the Malachite Fortress yet.
I've got four players running gestalt characters, and I decided to award xp as if there were six characters to try to keep them in line with what levels are recommended for each adventure. (The players knew from the get go that I was going to do it that way, and they were okay with it). It's working out well so far--they only have half a dozen rooms left in Jzadirune, and they hit third level at the end of our last session. I plan to keep an eye on how they're handling things, and tweak on the fly if I have to. So far, so good, though.
--Fang