So how bad is it when you go into mid-to-high game with no Arcane caster in the party?

[harmor]

Or another way of saying it, will your party TPK without an Arcane caster in all cases?

[Morgen]

In a tournament type module at a convention? Maybe.

In a game at home where the GM is aware of what the party can and can't do? Most likely not.

[harmor]

So far we've been ok with the Paladin going toe-to-toe with the casters. But I'm worried what'll happen when he finally fails his save.

We have also been pretty good about having items for pretty much every situation so far...but its just odd to me to be in a party where we don't have an arcane caster.

[pipedreamsam]

harmor wrote:

So far we've been ok with the Paladin going toe-to-toe with the casters. But I'm worried what'll happen when he finally fails his save.

So do you have a full fledged divine caster such a druid (even if they have an animal companion) or cleric, or is the paladin as close as you have to a primary caster.

[sunshadow21]

My experience has been that as long as there is one full caster, the party can get through things most of the time.

[SunsetPsychosis]

The thing that an arcane caster provides the most of is control. Controlling the enemies, controlling the battlefield, et, other characters/classes/builds can fill that role to a certain extent. Caster-oriented divine characters can have almost as much control as an arcane character. Druids in particular have some great, if situational, control spells. But they will never reach the same control as a wizard.

How much you require things like that depends a lot on your party composition, your combat strategy, and the kinds of enemies you generally fight.

If you have a high-DPR party that just likes to win initiative and gib everything within the first round or two, then the control is less useful.

If you use proper tactics or other methods of establishing control, be it through a divine spellcaster or certain martial builds (a polearm trip fighter comes to mind), then the lack of arcane control is less problematic.

But if your parties DPR is middling or situational and/or you have some squishy members of the party with big targets on their head and/or you lack a good healer for in or out-of-combat recovery, then you are definitely going to wish you had more arcane power.

[Frogboy]

Our first Pathfinder game (after transitioning from 3.5, of course) had me, a cleric, as the only spell caster. On top of that, I was an unorthodox cleric (negative energy channeling focused). It actually worked out great. I spam damaged everybody while the rest of the group picked them off while they were weakened.

Point is, that's kind of the fun of this game. You learn to work together as a team and overcome your deficiencies. I'm sure that even with all melee character, you could do the same. The only thing that I deem completely necessary is having at least one character that can use a wand of cure light wounds. If you can't heal up after battles, your screwed.

[Jiggy]

Just have everyone buy Elixirs of Fire Breath.

*FWOOSH*

[Dosgamer]

I can't speak to PFS play, but in my home game there is no full arcane caster (the casters in the group are a bard and a cleric). The group does just fine. They're currently level 7 about to be level 8. I've thrown a wide variety of enemies at them over the campaign so far and they have handled them all pretty well. So I would say no, it's not a guaranteed TPK (at mid levels, and I don't expect that to change at high levels).

[DreamAtelier]

This is highly dependent upon the game that is being run and your DM.

Some DMs would punish you horribly for this, by having your enemies exploit the lack of an Arcane Caster to grant you protection and/or counters to specific strategies by using those strategies (for instance, an enemy teleporting a dozen or so cavaliers and rogues into position around you just as you finish up a previous fight, because you had no one to take out the scrying window that told them them opprotune moment to do this).

Other DMs are nicer, and would smile and throw a threat at you which you can handle.

Only you can know your DM.

[thepuregamer]

I would say it depends on whether your dm's high lvl caster npcs use divination or not. If the enemy knows a bit about you, then it should be easier for them to formulate a strategy against a party that doesn't have a caster(since your relative battle plan doesn't change much).

If he doesn't use divination or cite divination much, then you can expect that you will be ok most of the time unless you meet flying casters who dispel your buffs, and play on your weaknesses.

Perhaps a party member should pick up a caster cohort who can atleast throw buffs on you guys. I have trouble believing that just items will be enough in the long run.

[Shifty]

Depends on the campaign, shouldn't USUALLY be an issue, but the GM determines that bit.

[Lathiira]

For the first half of our campaign, we had only a multiclassed ranger/wizard/bow initiate and my cleric for spellcasting. There were certain issues that came up, such as the fact that we had little battlefield control magic available. I had to spread my spellcasting thin to do the clerical healing and buffing and to take up slack from the arcane side, but I managed. We would have been in trouble against flying opponents, and we definitely had problems when big bruisers got close. But it can be done. We got through that part with no casualties; it wasn't until we got an eldritch knight that we had anyone actually die. Careful spell selection can make up for a lot, as well as good gameplay.

[Theconiel]

Jiggy wrote:

Just have everyone buy Elixirs of Fire Breath.

*FWOOSH*

My favorite magic item. I love breathing fire.

[FuzzyrabbitMD]

I'd say that a party without a full arcane caster will find themselves gimped in many situations. For example, a BBEG who casts Anti-Life Shell pretty much stops all melee attempts. You'd better hope that you have some good archery, as the BBEG caster in that shell is going to keep casting.