Hey Paizonians, I was wondering: Have any of you DM or been in a game where the players were all one class? How did that work out for you?
I ran an adventure once for a bunch of rogues. Of course, it was a homebrew, and I set it up for a bunch of rogues: locks, puzzles, traps, etc., and very little combat. It would be much harder with a published module that assumes a balanced party.
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In the 3.5 Private Sanctuary podcast, they do some episodes called "Class Feature" which is an overview of the class, and usually includes an "all [class] party" where they discuss how each class might (or might not) suit each of the four standard party roles. Those might give you some insight into how such a party might play.
Edit: of course, they discuss the 3.5 versions of the classes, so YMMV there.
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Not yet. But each day I put a little more thought into a campaign where all of my players will have at least one level in bard, each starting the game halfway through level one traveling together as a musical act. From that point on they are free to choose to play what, or however they want to but so far all my player seem really excited to do it.
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32
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Ah yes, this is an idea we've played with a few times. My players like the unique challenges the handicap brings since it requires some ingenuity to overcome certain obstacles. And I enjoy the novelty of designing interesting challenges. We've done:
I've run an all-halfling adventure. In fact, I should've had it published by now, especially since I've already paid for the art. Stop putting things off, me. In 1E days, I ran an all-gnome adventure through a modified Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. Once up a time, I wrote up a rough draft for an all-wizard adventure, but never ran it, and I've long since lost the documents. Bummer.
Mark L. Chance | Spes Magna Games
Not in D&D but in Star Wars. I put together a long-running game with just two players running Jedi characters (Legacy era). It went very well, and I think you could transfer this same thing to D&D easily...you just have to tailor things to those characters and make sure that there are ways around the things they can't do.
Jedi, these ones anyway, weren't going to be making knowledge, mechanics, or pilot checks, do I gave them a droid that could follow them around and help out when needed. There's, of course, a precedent for this in the Star Wars mythos so it was fine.
In D&D you might just leave out the things the character type can't handle - a group of fighters doesn't come across some sort of door they can't get through without disable device. I think you can plan for this sort of thing without having to have everyone suspend disbelief too much (well, any more than they ordinarily have to just to play the game in the first place.)
M
I've been in an all-wizard campaign. Combat was really risky and Mage Armor was a quite essential spell, but overall it was fun.
All of the PCs started as aristocrats in my Crimson Throne campaign. They multiclassed away from that once they leveled, but it was interesting while it lasted. :)
In the 3.5 Private Sanctuary podcast, they do some episodes called "Class Feature" which is an overview of the class, and usually includes an "all [class] party" where they discuss how each class might (or might not) suit each of the four standard party roles. Those might give you some insight into how such a party might play.
Edit: of course, they discuss the 3.5 versions of the classes, so YMMV there.
The easiest to do is probably cleric
I have been trying to get my group to run legacy of fire with a group of nothing but Dwarven bards. I think it would be the bomb but only two other even would think about it with out giving me a dirty look.
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Now my question is: Is there anyone willing to run an "all one type/class" play-by-post?
Sadly, the all Arcane game I ran lost it's player's... :(
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I have been trying to get my group to run legacy of fire with a group of nothing but Dwarven bards. I think it would be the bomb but only two other even would think about it with out giving me a dirty look.
I'll play one! Now we just need 3 more dwarven band memebers...
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I have been trying to get my group to run legacy of fire with a group of nothing but Dwarven bards. I think it would be the bomb but only two other even would think about it with out giving me a dirty look.
This just got a lot more viable with the new bard archetypes where there are alternates to bardic song.
In the 3.5 Private Sanctuary podcast, they do some episodes called "Class Feature" which is an overview of the class, and usually includes an "all [class] party" where they discuss how each class might (or might not) suit each of the four standard party roles. Those might give you some insight into how such a party might play.
Edit: of course, they discuss the 3.5 versions of the classes, so YMMV there.
Thanks. The podcasts were still informative and interesting.
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I have been trying to get my group to run legacy of fire with a group of nothing but Dwarven bards. I think it would be the bomb but only two other even would think about it with out giving me a dirty look.This just got a lot more viable with the new bard archetypes where there are alternates to bardic song.
Huh?
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Huh?I have been trying to get my group to run legacy of fire with a group of nothing but Dwarven bards. I think it would be the bomb but only two other even would think about it with out giving me a dirty look.This just got a lot more viable with the new bard archetypes where there are alternates to bardic song.
In the APG all the classes are getting new archetype options, ie. a debuffing bard, a more savage bard, etc
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Huh?I have been trying to get my group to run legacy of fire with a group of nothing but Dwarven bards. I think it would be the bomb but only two other even would think about it with out giving me a dirty look.This just got a lot more viable with the new bard archetypes where there are alternates to bardic song.
The APG has bard archetypes that don't have the traditional bardic song abilities, such as the Court Bard and more.
APG PreviewEdit: ninja'd
I've been running an "all paladin's" game and I've modded the base paladin a bit to give some additional flavors and varieties.
You can look here for details about how it works and what tweaks I've made.
In any case, though, I'm finding them to be very, VERY effective as a group.
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I think if a whole party was comprised of certain classes, the campaign would shift into very interesting directions. An all fighter or warrior party might not traverse planes, but could play out like the Knights of the Round Table (minus Merlin) or The Odyssey, where this small army can tackle any physical threat but magic and mind-affecting abilities are considered the real danger. An all rogue party could be an Ocean’s 11 heist romp or play out like Burn Notice where they plan as much as they can and improvise the rest. The wizard academy Lyingbastard mentioned is another classic concept that isn’t often played out.
My group once had an all dwarven party; two fighters and two rogues. They paired off one fighter and one rogue per foe and hammered on them 'til they were mush and then moved on to the next guy. We were a fairly effective elite combat unit.
I've run an all-halfling adventure. In fact, I should've had it published by now, especially since I've already paid for the art. Stop putting things off, me. In 1E days, I ran an all-gnome adventure through a modified Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. Once up a time, I wrote up a rough draft for an all-wizard adventure, but never ran it, and I've long since lost the documents. Bummer.
Mark L. Chance | Spes Magna Games
This I would love to see, as I am running an occaisional game with all halfings, which is a naval based campaign.
I ran a 3.5 campaign where everyone was a psion. a very..different game to be sure. 3 teleporters (Nomads?) and a biokeneticist (Egoist?)
I had to play very lightly, as I didn't want to kill any of them witha bit of combat. Suprisingly, when you have the skin of an eggshell, you tend to put a little more thought into the melee aspects of your characters.
Recently I ran an all Barbarian game. It is still in progress.
Batts
I wouldn't go as far as an all one-class campaign it is a bit too restricting especially for large groups, many less creative players lose a bit of individuality that comes with abilities that set them apart.
A warrior campaign would be interesting, just put down the requirement at least half (rounded up) of the player levels have to be in a full BAB class, this is an interesting option and works very well for a low magic campaign. I found this restriction was actually much enjoyed by players.
- For casters add up half of your non-caster classes to CL and add CL of casters together to get a single CL for a character to make it more appropriate for challenges faced.
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Recently I ran an all Barbarian game. It is still in progress.
Best Dungeon Delve I played at Origins a few years back had three people playing the sample Barbarian Q'Lys, and someone playing the Cleric. The Cleric player never got to cast a heal, as the other three ran ahead and rage/cleaved their way through everything at lightspeed. I'm sure if we'd had less than three mandated encounters, we would have had to use our Rage more conservatively, but it was wicked fun under the constraints of the delve.
For a longer term all-Babarians game, I'd want a custom Rage power that includes temporary fast healing, or a surge of temporary hit points like a cheap version of false life or something, to help handle the lack of healer, but otherwise, it could be pretty fun.
[Alternately one of the many other variant healing schemes, like using Wound/Vitality points, and a useful version of the Heal skill, could help here, for a campaign that assumes that magical healing is going to be scarce, NPC / longer-term / out of combat only or even a thing of myth and legend.]
The closest I've come so far is my current Second Darkness Campaign. The PCs are primarily a mercenary group consisting of a fighter, paladin, ranger, and rogue.
I noted a few things;
They roll through most encounters. I keep an initiative/combat sheet that I mark down round by round actions. I've noted that most fights are lucky to last a full two rounds. They are more like a round and a half. Only in a few instances where a BBEG has been able to rally a defense (3-4 encounters combined into one big fight)do I see long fights (6 to 10 rounds).
So far they don't need the healing/ arcane support that I thought they would. Healing really hasn't been an issue because of the short combats. In fact, roleplaying with NPCs has become better because the group relies on a few NPCs for such things.
So far it has been very fun.
Only real 'all the same' campaign I've ever been in was a 'Monstrous' campaign in which the players were all Hobgoblins in a homebrew that pitted the noble 'monster' races against the religiously domineering and 'racial purity-obsessed' Human Empire (there were a few surviving outposts of the 'Old Faith' Humanity, but it was mostly up to the Hobs, the Dwarves and the Gnomes to set things right). Elves had long since bent over and presented in the face of outright obliteration from Humanity, becoming slaves and traitors, the Orcs had been pushed back to the other side of the globe (A long running campaign sub-arc was to reunite with the Orcs and provide them with support and logistics to prevent them from being wiped out) and the Dragons were running scared because the Humans had managed to gather all twelve Dragon Orbs (5 Metallic, 5 Chromatic, 1 Infernal, 1 Celestial) and could effectively enslave any Dragon their Clerics managed to hit with a very specific and long-casting-time spell tied to said orbs.
God we had some fun in that campaign. Being Hobs, we disliked magic, so our only caster was a war-based Cleric of the resident Goblin Gods in that campain (No such thing as an 'Evil' or 'Good' God, they just were, it was up to mortals to decide the creed of their faith, Gods could just refuse to provide power if they disagreed with the course of action!), a pair of Fighters (both spiked chain maniacs, it got brutal for things trapped between them!), my Rogue (played it up as a scout) and a Ranger who focused upon ranged weaponry and had a Hawk as an animal companion.
I've had several One Type Games. In one game the PCs were all Dwarves / Fighters and they were cut off from a War Band in Orc / Gobo Territory and had to hack their way to freedom through some old 'Haunted' tunnels and cave systems.
The other was a Wizard game where they were a faction of a Wizard Council vying for the favor of the Orders Officers. I was pretty amazed at what you can improvise with some clever uses of spells. My group did some really whacky and fun things.
The hardest part that I as the DM had to remember was that the groups were with out X capabilities and plan the campaign accordingly. They were fun games and the players seemed to have a great time. The Dwarf Campaign went to level 17 before we broke up and the Wizard Gambit Campaign went to 15 before that group split. God, the military sure ruined some great games. Although, ensured a regular influx of new blood and ideas for us too!
Hope some of this helps.
Have Fun out there!!
~ W ~
I ran a 3.5 campaign where everyone was a psion. a very..different game to be sure. 3 teleporters (Nomads?) and a biokeneticist (Egoist?)
I had to play very lightly, as I didn't want to kill any of them witha bit of combat. Suprisingly, when you have the skin of an eggshell, you tend to put a little more thought into the melee aspects of your characters.
That reminds me...I played in an (almost) all-psionic game, too. I think it was something like 3 psions, a psychic warrior/cleric and a wizard (how'd that guy get in there?). It was a bit quirky; many creatures went down in a hail of Ego Whips. :-)
... many creatures went down in a hail of Ego Whips. :-)
Hell's Humiliatrixs salute you ... I would personally start running for cover.
I haven't, myself, but I have a friend who ran an all-rogue campaign and said it was very successful. It was an urban adventure with a lot of sneaky stuff but there was a lot of combat and magic and other things as well. The nice thing was that it showed how differently people could take a versatile class like a rogue and make it work--one character could be primarily social, one character could be the sleight of hand/disable device/stealth thief, one character could be a finesse meleeist, etc. That was a 3.5 campaign, would probably work even better in Pathfinder with Rogue Talents and everything.
I should note that he allowed multiclassing, so it wasn't all pure single class rogues--but I think most of them were primary rogues with a few level dips to diversify the party a little.
I was invited to play in an all-arcanist game but that never took off, unfortunately.
I think generally, all-*foo* parties can be fun and interesting, but the GM has to be willing to tailor the adventure for the party's strengths and weaknesses--standard-written adventures will assume the Classic Four combination in some respect. But then, I think that's always true to an extent anyway.
I have been a player in an all halfling party that only lasted a few sessions,and an all kobold party, which went on for several month and remains a highlight of my 3.5 time :) I may as well have declared my current campaign an all 1/2 Sea Elf party, as 3/5 PCs are now 1/2 sea elves (ship based campaign, only race with a swim speed, etc). I have not run any single CLASS games, I think it'd be fun though.
I once tried to run a seven samurai game with 7 players each from different clan. It ran 2 sessions before the ROLL players killed it for the ROLE players. 7 players is too many sometimes.
I once tried to run a seven samurai game with 7 players each from different clan. It ran 2 sessions before the ROLL players killed it for the ROLE players. 7 players is too many sometimes.
Sigh, I miss that character. Sadly, I don't even recall his name. But he did have a kick ass horse, and was very superstitious.
I don't like any more than 6 players myself. Gets too unwieldy otherwise.
A campaign of say 5 different clerics of 5 different deities would be interesting. A battle Cleric, a healing Cleric, a summoning Cleric etc...
Might be fun
Oh, I've done that. Team Cleric (3.5) was terrifying. Super versatile, and able to get the job done.
How about trying to run the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil with a party of all-paladins?
Six players, all committed to doing it and then three weeks before launch, one went wizard, one went cleric, one went fighter, one went rogue and one went sorcerer, leaving just one paladin...
Oh well, it would have been awesome! A campaign so epically evil (especially if you draw in the Book of Vile Darkness for the BBEG's)
Next time :-)