I'm looking for ideas for an interesting build for SCAP. Our party of 6 characters will be played by 4 players, with two players taking two PCs each, and the other two taking one each (and covering for each other during absences).
1: Halfling Rogue (throwing specialist on the way to Whisperknife)
2: Dual-whip Bard (perhaps using Perform: Rodeo? :-) or maybe Perform: SomethingVocal)
3: Cleric Tank (or possibly Paladin, but the player's not very experienced)
4: Probably an Arcane blaster
5 (me): Wood Elf Archerbuild (Ranger? Scout? Fighter? OOTBI?)
6 (also me): no idea (maybe something with TWF, or another tank)
Since the AP has the word "City" in its name, perhaps an Urban Ranger?
Our level 1 characters are limited to PHB races and classes, but feats and spells can come from CAdv, CDiv, CWar, CArc, RoS, RoW, Frostburn, and Stormwrack. I believe that PrC's (and possibly multi-class base classes) can come from all those other sources as well.
I'm not looking to "break" the game, but rather to think ahead rather than taking class levels and feats randomly.
Are you a player or a DM or both?
The answer will determine how the rest of us advise you. I wouldn't want to give away the plot if you were a player.
Delvesdeep
Are you a player or a DM or both?
Excellent question. I am a player in this campaign.
The Urban Druid from Dungeon #317 would fit especially well, particularly one that has an animated cauldron for an "animal companion".
Expect a lot of dungeon crawl, a good amount of social challenges, and a little bit of wilderness adventure. The social skills are crucial for acquiring information from NPCs, citizens, and organization; also for overcoming social challenges and investigative mysteries. The knowledge skills that can be useless in other games are valuable here. K:Local, K:Nobility, K:History, etc. Without these your party will be mushrooms: kept in the dark and fed bullpoo. Regular druids and rangers are out of place. Urban druids and urban rangers (found in Unearthed Arcana) belong here.
The player of the bard is going to rock & roll.
A good balance of classes is always important IMHO but I know that some groups have gone through the entire AP without a thief but with plenty of trap finding devices/potions.
You need a two or three fighter types and definately a wizard to thrown in those vital big damaging spells particularly later in the Path.
A ranger whose enemy is either goblins and evil outsiders would be a great character to have around.
A big thing would be to ask your DM to ensure that while making your characters that he/she ties their background into the city of Cauldron itself. The Dm would also be wise to use the Character Trait section at the back of the hardcover to assist linking your characters to the Path also.
Any more advice than this I fear I will reveal too much.
Probably the biggest advice I can give you is to ask the Dm to tell you a bit about the SCAP background, Cauldron and the general feel of the campaign so you can use this basic information to not only choose your classes but, more importantly, develop your characters personalities and backgrounds to fit with the over game.
Good Luck, it a sensational series of adventures and now do yourself a favour a stop reading the other threads on this boards lest you ruin all the big surprizes of the AP.
Have fun
Delvesdeep
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My advice:
The party needs to cover all four basic class concepts in the game (i.e. Thief/mage/priest/brawler). I had in both my groups 5 PC's - one skipped on the Thief part at first, but that had something to do with racial levels.
Determine, if your character comes from the city of Cauldron or if he/she comes from somewhere else. If you were raised in the city, the more you know about the background of the city the better. Pester your DM about the available character traits, about the Churches, about the different races in the city, what is the economic background of Cauldron. Who are the different powerful families in Cauldron? Which family covers which kind of business in town? How well known is the activity of any thieves' guilds? Are there information brokers in town? Why is there a need for a new adventuring group in the city? What kind of festivities are held in the city and why? Which kinds of shops are there in the city... smithy, general store, adventuring gear, antiques, magic shoppe? Who is running the caravans running to and from Cauldron? Where are they going to and where do they stop on their way? Who is protecting them? Are there other villages near Cauldron? Are there any fantastic vistas nearby, that you have heard about, or that are part of the history of the town?
The better you (and the DM) know the city, the more alive the campaign will become.
Point your DM to this board, these guys here are incredibly helpful and try to answer any question your DM might have.
On a six player group, I would prefer to have the party distributed like this:
2 Fighter types
1 Sneaky character for trapfinding and reconnoitering
2 Characters with healing capabilities
1 Arcane spellcaster
From the tentative list you’ve provided, you have the rogue, a cleric, an arcane blaster and an archer. You mention the possibility of having a second fighting type, and finally, a bard (which can do a lot of different things and is bound to have a lot of roleplaying fun in the campaign).
There are plenty of traps in this series, so the rogue will have his or her hands full. If played correctly, expect the Halfling to gain levels like crazy, at least in the beginning.
The party composition more or less looks fine to me. However, and this is an area where a lot of groups can be found lacking, I think having one dedicated healer to service himself and five other guys is simply too little. Sure, parties can purchase scrolls, wands and potions to offset this, but then they would be spending valuable resources they wouldn’t if they had another capable healer amongst their ranks.
The second healer could be an alternative to the cleric, like the favored soul, spirit shaman, divine mind, etc. Better yet, try out a druid. Those can be a load of fun. A paladin has a good BAB and limited healing capabilities, so that could work. You could face certain moral dilemmas in the campaign, so a paladin might be troublesome in certain spots, but I can’t get any more specific than that.
For your second character you can go crazy and try something like the Duskblade. At least I’ve been itching to play one when I get the chance.
There is an appendix in the Shackled City Hardcover that provides plenty of advice on what classes fit the campaign better. Have your DM let you read it or read it to you, if you have the hardcover version of the adventures.
It’s entirely possible that some of the characters die during the campaign (I don’t think that’s any kind of spoiler). If that happens, those will be good opportunities to assess what the party has been lacking or not doing very effectively and a chance to address that.
The most important rule is this: whatever class each of you finally chooses, make sure you enjoy this AP and have lots of fun!
5 (me): Wood Elf Archerbuild (Ranger? Scout? Fighter? OOTBI?)
6 (also me): no idea (maybe something with TWF, or another tank)Since the AP has the word "City" in its name, perhaps an Urban Ranger?
Well, I think I could help better if I knew what the first concept was for sure.
I wouldn't think playing two different kinds of rangers would be that much fun.
However, the skillset and abilities of the Urban Ranger are very complementary to the AP, especially the investigative stuff. (I have two playing in my gestalt campaign).
If you keep your woodelf archer as a pure archer (like Ftr into OOTI) then the Urban ranger would be a great addition.
If your woodelf is going to have other skillsets (like that of a Ranger), then you might want something different with your alternate character. Then you could make a melee TWF guy, with perhaps FTR base to get to PrC Dervish which will give you more melee staying power with the d10 hit die along the ride.
Sorry, gotta cut this short and run, good luck and have fun!
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In my opinion, having a focused warrior (fighter, barbarian or even paladin or ranger with the right favoured enemies) is a must. Preferably someone who does pretty well in melee combat. But between the tank cleric / paladin and the archer you might have this covered fairly well.
For arcane casters, I think a sorcerer may work better for this campaign than a wizard, there are some potentially interesting background tie-ins, and in the later parts of the campaign the wizard may struggle to find time to learn spells, create scrolls and magic items etc.
It would probably be a big advantage (and make for some good roleplaying opportunities) if the cleric / paladin followed one of the major religions practised in Cauldron.