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Hi guys, I am just curious to what classes you guys have in your groups and what tactics do you guys use. I don't want to hear "
THIS IS THE OP COOKICUTTER GROUP BUILD ZOMGAH!" just regular groups with their tactics. I mainly like hearing of other group builds and I like to use creative combinations in rival NPC groups.
My last group was (all human) a level 5 adventuring party of a two-handed Paladin (me), Hardcore Flanking rogue, a ranged archer w/kitty, and a cleric of Desna. We had no tactics as the group was formed of relatively new players. It was they would wait to see what I charged in and attacked then necro would blind, Ranger would pew pew & have kitty go into trip, with the cleric running into melee and channeling energy when we needed healing. Nothing fancy but it worked. Our DM (best DM I've ever had) made the adventure playable to the novices.
So let's hear what you guys have :)
My favorite group I played in was a 4 person party as well: Angry Greatsword Barbarian, Gnome Illusion Wizard, Archery Ranger with Slippers of Spider Climb and Ring of Feather Fall (me), and Healing Cleric Who Died a Lot.
Our strategy: I run up a wall and onto the cieling and shoot everything in sight, Barbarian rages and charges, Illusionist does battlefield control and stays out of the way, and the Cleric fixed mistakes and usually got criticaled a bunch.
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In one game I had a Cleric of Pharasma, and the other players had a Fighter w/ awesome tripping skills, a monk, and a rogue. I would use a touch attack to stagger the opponent, the fighter would trip the opponent, and then the monk would just unleash his damage. The rogue kept getting knocked out, but otherwise not too bad.
The current campaign (I'm a player, not the GM) is a small party going thorugh Kingmaker with 3 PC's: Half-Orc Ranger, Elven Wizard and a Tiefling Rogue. We used to have a Bard as a fourth PC, but that player is taking a break. Since we ar few in number we tend to round out our adventuring band with NPC fighters and/or rangers. We're now at 5th level, and post battle healing is covered with wands but the lack of divine magic is starting to hurt.
Since both the ranger and rogue are very stealthy (maxed out Stealth plus a Cloak of Elvenkind for each character) we've had great success at scouting out our enemies and using hit and run tactics. When we've gotten pinned down in a toe to toe slugfest, it's been tough. Multiple NPC's have fallen and we've had one PC death and two very near brushes with the afterlife. There's some talk of expanding our company with cohorts via Leadership.
Favorite non-traditional party:
Female human bard, male human (jungle) barbarian, male human paladin, and female human cleric (LN).
Tactics included the bard behaving like a fighter, the barbarian behaving like a paladin, the paladin behaving like a blackguard, and the cleric behaving like a summoner. It was the most anti-typical group of players ever, and the greatest memories and quotes come from that group.
Current parties
Elven Alchemist
Two weapon fighting switch hitting Orc Ranger
Human Paladin
LN Dwarf Cleric.
Level 5. Standard tactics:
R 1 Glug Bomb and buff. The cleric casts a buff spell (either shield of faith, bless or prayer) The Pally and ranger glug their infusions, which is usually shield for the ranger (and will soon be enlarge person), and expeditious retreat for the plate wearing pally.
Pally: charge it, hack it.
Ranger: Trip and whack.
Cleric: selectively channel to heal.
The alchemist.. is kind of a funny class. At this level they don't have enough bombs to reliably bomb for every single fight (and that will get worse at 8th level with fast bombs) During a big fights, Bombs are lobbed exploding bombs to set casters on fire, Frost bombs on melee to keep them from full attacking.
During medium fights, the alchemist uses the mutagen to gain a bonus to dex, drinks an infusions of cat's grace, or if there's time uses a potion and The recycle a potion spell to get cat's grace instead. In an odd tactic for the "caster" the alchemist can actually tank for the cleric like this.
During easy fights he'll use the bow au naturale or drink a cats grace potion and recycle it.
2nd group: Kings Spymaster rogue, Princess from the first marriage oracle, And a draconic sorcerer who's great grandma was kidnaped by a dragon.
Rouge: sneak/disguise their way close to the person and stab them.
Oracle: touch attacks and/or cast blindness.
Sorcerer: Blast the mooks 1 or twice with a fireball then pepper the big bad with scorching rays.
What are... tactics?
I suppose we have tactics in one game.
There is:
1x Bard
1x Warlock
1x Rogue/Monk
1x Rogue (that dies every other session)
1x Druid w/ Wolf
1x TH Fighter
1x Hyper-focused Conjuration Wizard/Master Specialist
(new) 2x random NPC Barbarians
Not all at the same time.
Rogue sneaks up and figures out what we are about to walk into - if possible - which then results in a surprise round of Glitterdust + Soften Earth and Stone + Sneak Attacks. Then stuff gets stabbed until debilitating spells wear off, and then get beat up until dead.
In the group i am playing in right now we have 2 gnomes, one a fighter and the other a barbarian, a dwarf cleric, and a halfling ranger w/1 lvl of rogue for that little extra sneak attack.
Gnome fighter (me): More or less the typical fighter, charge in and give the big thing a good stab in the eye. But if i see a good tactical move i will take it. Example just because i am proud of it: Last night there was a guy wearing a loose chain shirt and he hadnt spoted me yet, surprise round, so i ran up behind him, jumped over him and pulled his shirt over his head droping him out of the fight for 2 rounds so he could get up and put his shirt back on.
Gnome barbarian: Runs to the closest thing and slashes with his bastard sword or whacks them with his giant chain flail
Dwarf cleric: Healing vending machine with a few called lightning here and there.
Halfling ranger/rogue: Enjoys disappearing and playing "who wants to get shot". Usually tags anybody flanking the gnomes first then going after the casters. The exception is when there is another ranger playing "who wants to get shot", then he will harass him untill he has arrows in his eyes.
Our very last party (dnd 3.5) pre-pathfinder switch was as follows:
"Boshus" EL 16 Human Wizard/Aristocrat
"Jasus" EL 15 Human Ninja/Fighter/Adept
"Grimoldy" EL 15 Human Fighter/Kensai/Adept follower of St. Cuthbert
"Sleipnir" EL 15 Dwarven Figher/Dwarven Defender/Adept follower of Moradin
"Amabo" EL 14 Human Saint Template Monk/Adept follower of Zodal
"Hanover Fist" EL 14 Half-Elf Paladin follower of Solonar Thelandira
"Groll" EL 14 Human Bard/Dread Pirate/Expert
"Cannis" EL 13 Hound Archon Monk/Kensai follower of St. Cuthbert
I'll post the new party later.
Current Party
Male Half-Elf Fighter11/Barbarian1
Front line two-handed smasher. Uses an oversized greatsword. Primary offensive weapon of the party. Oldest character in the party, and only one still alive from the campaign's beginning.
Male Human Fighter12
Sword and board defensive tank. This character is by far the toughest of the party, with an AC eight points higher than the nearest person and significant DR. He's also a pretty decent offensive threat, though less so than the two handed fighter.
Female Human Rogue1/Wizard10/Sorcerer1
Primary caster in the party, and the second oldest character in it. At one time she and the half-elf fighter were the only PCs, which is the main reason for the rogue level. Casts as an 11th level wizard for a number of reasons, and has access to 6th level spells.
Female Human Bard6/Rogue6
Newest PC. Not terribly useful at present, because of poor tactical choices. Buffer and flanker.
Male Human Cleric6/Rogue6
Buffer/flanker. Not a terribly effective caster or healer because he lacks access to heal.
It is worth noting that the cleric/rogue and bard/rogue add their rogue levels to their casting classes to determine caster level, and 1/2 their rogue levels to determine spell access (so they cast as 9th level bards and clerics). They do the same with casting classes and sneak attack.
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All of these compositions are pretty great. Some of the tactics seem to be the norm, but does anyone have group compositions that are heavily dependent on each other? Or really peculiar tactics?
for example we had a mind bender, a divinationist (3.5), a monk and a cleric of the soveriegn host (Eberron Campaign). Against humanoids we would CC the heck out of them. Through hold person, stunning, and mind controlling the enemy party had to waste half it's time figuring out who on their own team was still on their side. We'd get it down 1-2 enemies free willed and take them out with the monk and cleric. Oh and of course the MindBender would be using the opponents to kill each other.
So lets hear some off the wall tactics and super group dependent tactics.
This is a 4E group.
Our group consists of:
A Warlord - Warlords pretty much make other characters awesome, that is their schtick. Ours is somewhat frustrated because there really is no other player that can truly benefit from most of his powers.
A Monk - pretty much a teleportation build the character is unbeleavably mobile, capable of getting to and from nearly anywhere. Often used to strike at dangerous and hard to reach enemies, especially enemy artillery, such as archers or enemy mages.
A Paladin - the parties defender. Armour class through the roof and extremely tough. They only problem is the Paladin is not sticky enough and enemies often choose to provoke opportunity attacks to by pass the Paladin and hit the soft characters.
A Mage - this is the real damage dealer in the party. I'll go into detail when we get to unusual tactic.
My Cleric [Relgar] - I love this character so much. A follower of the Raven Queen (fate and death) I have a slew of abilities that make playing this character awesome. Two of my favorites are an ability to twist fate so that I'm unharmed by magic (once per combat). In 4E using a power generally gives the player the 'story stick' for a few seconds while the player explains what just happened.
So in a recent combat the party was blasted by a mage bringing down fire and brimstone that brought up most of the party short. My cleric tweaks the weave so that the magic did not work on him - I explained this by saying 'As Relgar strides forward the flames simply part before him like the Red Sea', Relgar says "Your magic tricks don't work on me mage".
Same combat and I've been knocked to negative hps. However I have a ton of stuff dealing with death (death cleric after all) and, mechanically speaking there is a straight up 50-50 chance that Relgar simply stands back up every round. So the mage takes me down and I get back up, he takes me down again and I get up again. Relgar says "Your mistake, mage, is thinking I can die". DM played along too with the enemy mage increasingly freaking out "die, damn you, die. Why won't you die?"
Our unusual tactic is our mage pretty much creates these mobile zones of flame or cold or what have you and everything that starts their turn in these big 5 by 5 zones takes about 40 points of damage. So combats, for us, are pretty much waiting games. If we can last long enough the bad guys will eventually just fry from the automatic damage. So we are always just trying to stay alive long enough for the enemy to just die from these zones while trying to make sure nothing kills our mage.
In some sense the monks job is to kill enemy archers that target the mage. My job is to heal the mage and the paladins job is to stand between the mage and any big nasty that would try and rip him apart.
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My group's Curse of the Crimson Throne party, in all its, um, glory:
Serenity Giovano- Human Cleric of Pharasma, and wielder of a repeating heavy crossbow. Looks and dresses exactly like Princess Serenity from Sailor Moon, to the point where our characters actually refer to her as "Serena."
Felin- Catfolk Rogue, dualwielder extraordinaire. Inventor of our group's catchphrase, "Secret Police!! Down on the ground!!" where he self-appointed ourselves Korvosa's plainclothes guards following Cressida Croft's support. Felin's famous for sneaking up on Vermanda with a Helmet of Opposite Alignment while she was asleep and putting it on her head until it worked (after twenty tries). He and Trinia are expecting a child.
Vaeryl Tarsus- Elf Diviner, and probably one of the most cheerful, nice evil guys in Golarion. He has, so far: mentally dominated a Truthspeaker into lying for us to advance the plot, causing us to skip an entire encounter; turned someone into a walking bomb with necromantic cysts; used said Truthspeaker as a suicide bomber thanks to necromantic cysts; and summoned erinys demons to help us with the Trial of Standing Stones. He and Vermanda are expecting a child.
Shadfrar- Human Barbarian. Quite even-tempered for a barbarian. He speaks about as much as Souji Seta does in Persona 4.
(Me) Kyle Surlent- Human Crusader of Cayden Cailean, famous for his sword which required two feats to take- Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Mercurial Greatswords, and Monkey Grip. Has managed to impregnate a random Eel's End prostitute (which he doesn't know about) and Amiri (which he DOES know about, and yes, that Amiri.) Was not sure about which made him the most unhappy: Finding out he's Vencarlo Orisini's son for the second time (he didn't pay attention the first), finding out he's going to be a father, or finding out that Vaeryl's evil.
Somewhere a DM is shaking his head in shame.
8th level group with 25 Point buy but low magic item count (appropiate for about Level 5-6 party):
Male Gnome Alchemist (me)with godly AC, Perception and Ini.
- I usually go first and fill the opponents spaces with Stink Bombs or (in case immune opponents) with fire. Afterwards I pick off anyone in the background (usually casters/bossmobs) with Stink/Smokebombs and/or fire/acid. I rely on my very high AC to get around without much damage and this gives the meleers/summoned grapplers the time to peel opponents from me.
Male Elfen Wizard (Conjurer) with good Ini
- casts haste first always and then starts to summon grapplers, if someone really gets to him he casts Mirror Images and Displacement.
Female Human Druid (close combat bear variant) with large great cat
- wades into battle and does a hell lot of damage between her and her cat, only weakness is an abysmal AC
Female Human Paladine (sword & board)
- wades into battle, does ok damage and protects the druid
Male Human Cleric of Caiden whatnot
- buffs once then wades into battle to make full use of selective channeling if needed and his ok melee abilities
see if i can remember this.
Opee, Halfling Druid, fly-by healer buffer. (me)
Nihlus, Human Sorcerer, enchantment and illusion all the way.
Quarion, Elf Wizard, should have been an evoker but didn't feel like specializing.
Mr Staunton, Human Fighter, wanted to be a red coat but wasn't allowed a gun so he settled with a crossbow.
Key, Human Bard/Rogue, spokesperson and fixer.
the funnyist thing about this party way the fact thet our initial reaction to any danger was run away.
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Current Party In Kingmaker
Human Paladin of Erastil LVL 3. Long Range, using Longbow (his deities favored weapon)
Dwarf Cleric of Gorum LVL 3. Greatsword, another favored weapon.
Human Barbarian LVL 3. Uses a Large Bastard Sword 2 handed. Tends to wade into battle and swing.
Half-Elf Druid LVL 3. Uses a sickle we found, but is a spellcaster mostly.
Human Abjurer LVL 3. Buff, buff and more buff.
We let the Dwarf and Barbar do their thing, while the druid and Paladin fill them with arrows and spells. Our wizard tends to run around and buff before the battle to make us harder to hit.
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Seems like Rogue is the class we are most frequently without.
That could be because I typically play one when I get the opportunity (I almost always am DM), and our only other Rogue-happy guy no longer plays with us.
For the most part, with 6 players and DM, we commonly end up with:
Ranged Specialist. I've seen Ranger, Fighter, Sorcerer, Alchemist, and Rogue versions. Stays in the background and rains down the d8's of doom.
Melee Bruiser. Usually one or two of our players, this has gone from Sorc/Barbarian/Dragon Disciple, straight Fighter, Barbarian, Druid/Beastmaster, and even as exotic as Wizard/Geometer/Geomancer (crazy # of attacks, with damage boosts to each one, usually with other tricks)
Melee Tank. Druid and Fighter seem to fit the bill quite nicely here, although a masochistic Paladin works equally well.
Utility Caster. Typically a Conjurer, Psion, Witch, Travel Cleric, or other dedicated Haste/Teleport/Wall/Cloud caster. Clogs up the table and gets us the heck out of dodge. A favorite for myself and at least 2 other players (
Healbot. Typically not a dedicated healer, but almost always someone will play the Oracle, Cleric, Witch, or similar. Someone needs to be able to Remove XYZ, Restoration, and Reincarnate us, after all. Perk: whomever plays the healer usually gets first dibs on cool loot.
Face. Not always a dedicated talky type character, but when we do focus on that, Bards, Rogues, and Paladins rock face. All through Council of Thieves, the party's Bard complained, whined, and moaned about getting hurt, dirty, and chased by the law. He still was there with those Hastes, Bardic Music, and other buffs. He just hid behind his tower shield in fights.
So, for example, playing through Legacy of Fire, we had 4 players + DM. For characters, we had: Healer Cleric, Face/Tank/Melee Paladin, Utility/Healer Witch, and Ranged/Utility Alchemist.
The Cleric was all but useless in a straight up fight, as she worshiped Irori and refused to wear armor or wield weapons.
The Paladin (a Gnome to begin, eventually reincarnated as an Orc) played the "Mr. Rogers/Dudley Do-Right" role to a T, making friends with pretty much anyone he could.
The Alchemist served as our "ace in the hole," capable of dealing bunches and bunches of AoE damage, while still having just the right potion for the right job.
The Witch served as enemy de-buffer and knowledge bank, assisting with some ranged damage and party buffs, as well as partial healing responsibilities.
We made it all the way to the 2nd to last book before being joined by a Gnome Oracle, who took over the Buff/Combat Healer role. That allowed the Witch to go more offensive and concentrate her spells on more AoE and SoD type stuff.
Other than that, we generally play whatever crazy PC's we come up with, and take up the "corner cases" of each other's roles when needed.
We currently have (all 3.5):
Tiefling Ninja - Flanker, uses Ninja-To or Unarmed
and his cohort, a Kobold Ninja - Ranged and Flanker, uses Shuriken or Merciful Nunchaku
Tenebri Mage - Mass Damage dealer, blind elf with a great love of fire spells
Silver Dragon - Melee and occasional Ranged attacks, uses a Zweihander or Long Composite Bow
Human Faceman/Chameleon - Healer, Face, Melee Tank - Massive CHA, uses a Keen rapier and criticals about every other attack, not a lot of HP (though not bad) for tanking, but incredible AC
Just finished book 3 of Curse of the Crimson Throne, we've got:
(all lvl 9)
Psirath Num: Human Fighter focused on tripping/disarming and whacking things with a Guisarme, lots of mobility, and probable successor to Blackjack
Malassi Sayar: Aasimar Cleric of Irori, refuses to carry weapons and generally just works at keeping everyone else in good shape, recently started going overboard with the Slay Living spell whenever possible
Brassclot: Half-orc Draconic Sorcerer, Fire Fire FIRE... likes to burn things, and pulls out a Heavy Flail when he feels like it, uses Elemental Spell feat if faced with fire resistant things
Typical fight: Half-orc has good initiative and usually goes first, burns things, Fighter trips/disarms whatever the biggest threat is, and uses/abuses Combat Patrol and excessive AoO's to keep everyone in line, while the Cleric cleans up and/or heals/restores
Weakness: Had a hard time with things that have high SR, with only 3 characters 2 of them primary casters...
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Games I'm running
Curse of the Crimson Throne:
Human Fighter(bastard sword) w/ Half-Orc Paladin(longsword) cohort
Elven Cleric of Sarenae(elven curved blade)
Half-Elf Rogue(Rapier and short sword)
Gnome Sorcerer(fire-bloodline)
Human Alchemist(focuses on bombs)
Human Druid/Barbarian(earthbreaker) with Cinderlands cougar animal companion
They really don't have much in the way of set tactics as they improvise and adapt most of the time. They always focus on teamwork though.
Curse of the Crimson Throne minigames:
Human Fighter(spiked chain,spiked armor)
Halfling Bard
Human Monk
Human Monk
Teamwork heavy, but very by-the-seat-of-their-pants. Actually having a plan might have hurt them more often than not now that I look back on it.
Atah-Ouahe fill-ins:
Tengu Inquisitor
Human Wizard
Gnoll Ranger(spell-less variant from Kobold Quarterly)
Human Cleric of Zon-Kuthon
Same as the Crimson Throne core game, albiet more coldly efficient. Halfling Rogue coming onboard soon.
Games I'm playing in:
Kingmaker:
Human Sorcerer(draconic bloodline, spear wielder)/Dragon Disciple
Human Ranger(dual axes focus) w/ Thylacine animal companion
Elven Fighter(archery focus)
Human Witch
Tiefling Paladin of Iomedae(longsword, demon bloodline)
Gnome Druid w/ panther companion
Human Fighter(dual Aldori swords)
Spoiler for anyone following the campaign journal:
Voidrunner:
Human Bard
Gnome Rogue
Human Monk
With a Heavens Oracle and a Ranger coming onboard, IIRC. Still putting our ship's crew together. And our ship, after what happened to the old one....
I've got three games, one I play in, one I GM over MapTool and one I GM in person. The last one is a gestalt.
First
Bard - our king and charm guy, makes us all awesome and them suck.
Wizard - battlefield control (me)
Cavalier - kickass charging guy, in most of the fights outside (Kingmaker) he one-shots things.
Barbarian - the kill-stealer, with those nasty chakram he keeps critting with
Cleric - healbot
Second (New players, so they haven't had much chance to really settle into roles)
Bard, Cavalier, Oracle, Sorcerer
Third
Paladin/Fighter - hits things, with a longsword
Paladin/Monk - hits things, with his fists
Druid/Oracle - hits things, with a scythe
Monk/Rogue - hits things, with his fists
I have noticed the potential for some problems on that third group...
We're currently running through a kingmaker campaign, and our party is... eccentric. We've just hit level 5.
Paladin
He's a paladin of Iomodae who loves brothels and booze, and tips well. He's taken the Hospitaler variant due to our cleric (also Iomodae) being killed off in battle, in order to make sure none of his friends ever again get killed. He's our best melee damage dealer, and got us through ms-broketacular-dance-party by knocking her to single digits in one shot. He is our church leader.
He also has been dropped so much due to critical hits that he's taken death to dinner and a movie after all the flirting.
Rogue
I am not sure if it is a he or a she. It is short and presumably either halfling or gnome. It never speaks. It is our scout. It is also our archer. It loves its crossbow. It will communicate only with a safety whistle, and only if there is immediate danger. In battle, it hangs back and hides in clutter, then squeezes off shots where it can get sneak attack damage. It is the royal assassin.
Druid
The new character that came in to play after our cleric died, our druid is a half-orc who throws fire at anything that gives him problems. He is also angry, and is best known for how he joined the party. He is on parole for having burnt down a tavern that refused him service, and has been sent to help with the building efforts. In battle, he mostly entangles enemies or throws fire.
Sorcerer
Our sorcerer is some kind of scaly lizard thing from a sourcebook I'm not familiar with. He spits something icky and is roughly on par with a human, I guess? Anyways, his story is that he was cursed by the gods to be a lizard thing (Darn gods, they're such jerks). In battle, he mostly buffs and uses things like Invisibility to ensure we have the upper hand. He also used to occasionally cast color spray. He's our ruler.
Wizard
We also have a wizard who is a universalist with a snake-headed staff as his bonded item. He only seems to have a couple spells. Magic Missile, Color Spray, Scorching Ray, Invisibility, Fireball, and Fly. I haven't seen him cast anything else. He is the Grand Diplomat, and his name is Jafar.
Fighter (Me)
A fighter who specializes in 'not dying.' He has the Mobile Fighter variant. He uses Catch Off Guard for improvised weapons and holds the distinction of being the only character I have ever seen beat a man to death with a flask of alchemist's fire while grappling. He loves to disarm people and hit them with a stick, and his primary combat role is to sashay around the battlefield with acrobatics and set up flanking opportunities for the Paladin. He's our Warden.
Current party make up:
Half Orc Barbarian (Small Brain Big Biceps)
Human Rogue/Ranger (Stealthly)
Elven Conjuration Specialist
Elven Evocation Specialist
Human Cleric
As you can guess the Barbarian Smashes.
The Ranger/Rogue scouts, back stabs, and does a lot of hit and run.
The Casters work together more of than not. We've been playing together for years and the back story is that we are brothers. We have spells that we memorize for the purpose of combining.
(ie create pit and summon swarm; Invisibility and true strike. ect.)
The cleric (who rolled amazingly) picks up the slack anywhere he finds it. Buffs, Healing, and decent damage. He is normally the guy who kills everything after the rest of the party softened it up.
Only real issue we are running into is a sick and sadistic GM who is not big on letting the party rest the full 9 hours. Pretty much neutering the casters, but for story sake it makes a good deal of sense.
The party I currently DM for:
Female azurandi monk/paladin: (homebrew race similar to a sea elf), My wife's character. Unlike other monks she views diplomacy as the way to nirvana (a racial trait of the azurandi) and consequently has the highest charisma in the group and serves as party spokesperson. Started out as LN, but moved toward LG as time went on and started picking up paladin levels. In combat she likes to move around a bit and uses magical fire bracers, but has also started using a sword of late and can dish out a decent amount of damage. She also has bat-out-of-hell saving throws thanks to the base monk saves now mixed with the paladin's ability to add her charisma bonus to her saves.
Female lucavi cleric: (homebrew race similar to half dragons), my wife's sister's character. She is a cleric of a flight and tolerance dragon goddess, but the tolerance is based on her race's humongous ego (they believe they are the chosen race) so she has a high ego and it is very easy to rile her (a DM's dream). In combat she primarily summons creatures for battlefield control, buffs others, and heals when absolutely necessary, very rarely dealing any offensive damage herself. Recently she took a couple of racial paragon levels that allowed her vestigial wings to fully develop to be able to fly (at the cost of a caster level), which has caused me to have to think harder about how to keep that from being unbalancing in her favor.
Male goblin fighter/rogue: the essence of the id-centric chaotic neutral type at the beginning of the game he is a little more controlled now (but still has CN moments). Personality-wise he is a bit like a child who occasionally has startling insights, though he also believes in the "buffing imp" and refuses to believe that the cleric is the source of buffs. He is the traditional tank type that has a high AC, but he can also dish out a lot of damage with his "shiny" magic sword. He also rolls a lot of criticals (in front of everyone) which is annoying. ;) Absolutely refuses to use his bow anymore.
Female elf evoker: Joined the party after about three years of gaming by the first three players, but fit in well. She is an elf that likes "gathering experiences", and wants to try everything at least once, even if it is something the rest of the party would cringe at. She is nicknamed "Squishy" as soon after she joined she irritated a friendly dragon the party was speaking with so the dragon flicked her into a tree, nearly killing her. :D In battle she tends to go for the kaboom spells, completely eschewing buffs, etc. Unfortunately the player is about to leave the group so I have to decide whether to make her a DMPC or have her fall in battle somewhere.
Female halfling rogue: Just joined the party two sessions ago, and the player herself is brand new to gaming. Not much personality to the character yet since she is so new. Plays a highly mobile tumbler who tries to get in place for sneak attacks.
As a whole the party is pretty good at working together to combat their enemies. They tend to take a lot of damage (since I pit them against difficult encounters) but can dish it out well too. Probably their biggest achilles' heel are creatures with damage reduction or fire resistance (or both)
For a very long time the party was completely inept at dealing with anything that could fly or attack from range as the the monk doesn't have any ranged weapons, the goblin hates his bow, and the cleric only had summon spells that could affect others at range, but recently they've become much better at dealing with ranged enemies thanks to the cleric gaining the ability to fly, the wizard joining up, and now the rogue who is decent with a bow.
I'm running the Age of Worms and the party just finished Chapter 6. They are all level 12. They consist of (a few players haven't leveled up yet since we aren't doing anything until January):
Dwarf Druid12 with tiger animal companion
Dwarf Barbarian2/Rogue10
Drow Ranger5/Sorcerer4/Shadow Scout3
Half-Orc Inquisitor12
Halfing Evoker12 (Started off as elf but has since been reincarnated)
Human Shielded Fighter12
Their tactics vary from battle to battle but they seem to follow a common theme:
1) Halfling player argues with himself over which tactics the party should use. This can last 10 minutes if someone doesn't throw their chips at him. When the party has decided not to use his tactics we move on to #2
2) Tiger enters combat against the biggest opponent and grapples. This is good for a round or so until the victim is dead.
3) The fighter gets up in the enemy's face and keeps them occupied.
4) The ranger opens fire with his bow
5) The inquisitor and rogue try to flank whomever is left.
6) The wizard ends up casting a spell that was ineffective. He seems to pick the worst spell at the worst time. He rarely looks up the spell before he casts and hopes that he made a good choice. Baleful polymorph on the dragon was not a good use of a spell. DC was 19 and the dragon ad a +18 to his save. He doesn't like to use the information I give him about the enemy.
They do have some good tactics when they are up against the biggest and baddest of each module. These are just the tactics they use to get through the combats quickly.