I'm working on an adventure where the characters will need to focus on things other than their main strengths and need some theories on how it will turn out.
How will the cleric be without heal and buff? Will he just be a glorified multi-level-marketer?
Fighter without his armor and weapons.
Rogue without 3 choice skills (which ones?)
Wizard without spells but possibly a couple magical items only.
It will be a "captured" type adventure. Any thoughts on what the characters will need to focus on? How about the other classes?
jh
Just make certain that they fight my brethren. 'Cause otherwise, they're doomed.
In my campaign at least, clerics tend to blow all their skill points on Diplomacy and Sense Motive. Having the cleric have to minister to the flock without casting spells/healing could be a cool thing for them to do.
Wizards- examining stuff, decoding/decrypting, that kind of thing. Play to their Intelligence. Make them do 'the da Vinci Code thing', feel like all those skill ranks they put in obscure Knowledge skills (architecture and engineering, anyone?) were actually useful.
Fighters... maybe some heavy lifting (although the books are a bit skinny on making Str checks for lifting/carrying, I think something might have had a mechanic where you make a Con check to increase your Str score for 1 minute, but only for purposes of encumbrance/lift weights.
Rogues. Give them a chance to do diplomatic-trickery-style stuff, interact with people, walk with kings and not lose their common touch (but maybe snaffle some prize jewels), that sorta stuff. I'd suggest reading some of Gygax's Gord the Rogue books, I still like them.
Clerics, IME, make good 2ndary fighters since they tend to have a high strength. Other then then, you'll have to look at look at the specific character.
Fighter without armor and weapons is a really bad monk.
Seen and even played fighters without or with minimal armor, they tend to be more swashbuckling or gladiator types concentrating on trip, disarm and similar specialist attack types where the point is not to make damage but end battles quickly.
Wizard without spells is pretty close to an commoner/expert with high skill in Use Magic Device. Problematic (unless the adventure will feature loads of checks focusing on intelligence.
Rogue has variety, they can concentrate on being charismatic talkers, stealthy sneak attackers, trapspringers etc...so taking away one option is not disastrous. Unless the adventure is full of traps and there are no trapspringers, but that would be just nasty.
Clerics without buffs and heals is still not utterly bad in combat...with possibility to branch out in diplomacy, summoning, knowledge etc. Workable, unless the adventure is geared against it.
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During my run of the Shackled City AP (which I played under the 3.0 rules), one of my players had a cleric with a very militaristic bent, and he specialized mostly in aggressive combat spells and those Divine feats from "Defenders of the Faith" - which I can't find redone in the 3.5 splatbooks - such as Divine Might, Divine Resistance, Divine Vengeance and Divine Cleansing.
While he did not entirely abandon the buff/heal spells, his focus was really on combat, and he developed a very effective (and colourful, given the rivality that sprung up with the barbarian as the most damage-dealing member of the party) character.
This is what you do, take the War domain (Geting proficiency and focus with a weapon) and the Fate Domain (Geting uncany dodge) then just go fighter. this build geves more feats in the end plus a slightly increased will save... at the expence of attack bonus.
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Contributor
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This seems like a very strange set up. Why are these things missing? What's stopping the cleric from praying for these spells? Can he use any spells? Why can't the rogue use those 3 skills?
Denying the party equipment can be used (and occasionally used well) as a plot device, but I don't understand the seemingly random barring of some class abilities.
Basically, the cleric gets to be the offensive caster, the fighter becomes a distraction, the rogue gets to be the offensive melee combatent and the wizard is a commoner. Fun times for all, I'm sure.
Someone else feeling a little shackled by classes?
I have seen people declaring you can make any concept with the core classes. Well, yes you can, but they will be horribly gimped.
Divine feats from "Defenders of the Faith" - which I can't find redone in the 3.5 splatbooks - such as Divine Might, Divine Resistance, Divine Vengeance and Divine Cleansing.
Those are found in Complete Warrior. Additional Divine feats can be found in Complete Divine and PHB II. Complete Champion might have some as well, but I don't have the book to say definitely.
Someone else feeling a little shackled by classes?
I have seen people declaring you can make any concept with the core classes. Well, yes you can, but they will be horribly gimped.
That depends on the material you allow. Some concepts are difficult to implement using just the PHB and DMG. If you allow the UA options in the SRD, many things are easier. Adding just the feats in the first four Complete books and PHB II allows even better realizations of a lot of concepts. The alternate class abilities in PHB II can help, as well.
Also "horribly gimped" is rather subjective.
Granted, using a classless system alows more freedom to customize a character around a concept, but D&D is a class-based system.
Granted, using a classless system alows more freedom to customize a character around a concept, but D&D is a class-based system.
And therefore, in my subjective opinion, horribly gimped.