How would you handle it if all of your players wanted to play the same class? What kind of stuff would you throw at them? What kind of stuff would you leave out?
I think it would be cool to explore all the aspects of a class that are typically left out of adventures because only one or two party members can participate. For example, an all rogue party could focus on infiltrating and robbing, stuff that clerics, paladins, druids, and fighters usually have to drop out of.
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Stealth parties would be fun. Sneak past the mobs and kill the BBEG before anyone knew what hit em.
You'll need a feral druid, a healing druid, three rogues. ;-)
It depends entirely on the class. I would take an adventure in compeltely different directions if I had an entire party of rogues vs an entire party of paladins.
We did Grimtooth's Dungeon of Doom as an all rogue,well one rogue/cleric multiclass in 2ed it was fun, but it was a strict one off no plot elements whereas i think playing a thieves guild could be fun.
Stealth parties would be fun. Sneak past the mobs and kill the BBEG before anyone knew what hit em.You'll need a feral druid, a healing druid, three rogues. ;-)
Psssh Why rogues when I could have inquisitors bards and rangers instead.
Stealth parties would be fun. Sneak past the mobs and kill the BBEG before anyone knew what hit em.
You'll need a feral druid, a healing druid, three rogues. ;-)
LOL, we used to do stealth groups in WoW. Good times.
You'll need a feral druid, a healing druid, three rogues. ;-)
I see what you did there.
Ideal single party classes:
Summoner - Double duty and they can be quite flexible.
Druid - Yeah, they're quite good.
Bard - Take Leadership with all of them. : P
I've done this in D&D/PF and other games, and had a great time. Here are a few themes I've seen parties built around:
- All characters are the same class.
- All characters share at least 1/2 class levels the same.
I was in a Thieves Guild game once in 2nd edition where we were all multi-class thieves, and an other in 3.5 where we all had to have at least every other level as Rogue. - All characters are the same race.
An all-elf campaign that featured Ranger, Druid, Barbarian, and Bard. - All characters are small.
We all made small characters once, specializing in dungeon delving. At lower levels we cleaned out the monster-infested sewers below our town, and at higher levels cleared out other underground facilities. - All characters are followers of the same deity.
I haven't tried this one in Pathfinder yet, but I think it would be really fun to try a party of Cleric, Paladin, Inquisitor, and perhaps an Oracle or appropriately-themed Sorcerer or Witch.
All of these campaigns were more fun than average. The themes really help guide a group into making characters that can roleplay similar goals in a sandbox environment, making adventures seem less contrived.
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4 summomers would do better in any situation than any "balanced" party. Team Druid wouldn't be far behind.
But many classes (bards/clerics/rangers/pallies) can do it fine with all the archetypes available.
Team Holy Tactician; at 3 each teammate has 4 teamwork feats, since they all share their respective feats. Would make for a power setup.
Any team would work though; even team rogue if the challenge level was set right.
Recently I've been considering an all alchemist campaign, with everyone focusing on different discoveries, archetypes, and especially mutagens.
Honestly, a party where everyone is the same class can be incredibly fun. However, as the DM, you need to be selective about what you throw at them. You'll need to know their characters as well as they do in order to shore up any weal spots and ensure that they don't go up against a creature they just can't beat or an obstacle they just can't handle.
Ideas:
thieves guild and all the politics that go into it.
Cavalier or paladin group: all on a quest.
Inquisitor group: Hunting down a specific demon or devil.
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All characters are followers of the same deity.[/list]
I haven't tried this one in Pathfinder yet, but I think it would be really fun to try a party of Cleric, Paladin, Inquisitor, and perhaps an Oracle or appropriately-themed Sorcerer or Witch.
Not sure how but we are basically running this now. It just seems to make sense. We all have our god and her tenets at the fore-front of our actions and we are just a great big ball of holy-whoop @$$.
I am constantly tempted to scream out "I kick @$$ for the lord..."
Team Rogue would do surprisingly well. Having multiple rogues would lift the weight of being The skill guy and allow int dumping, reducing MAD, and having an all stealth party would improve the utility of stealth pretty dramatically. I think they'd do better than clerics or paladins actually.
I was following you up to there.
Then I was on the ground laughing.
Nothing prevents them from having good skill points. Just about everything prevents rogues from being full spellcasters in decent armor, or being extremely effective magically augmented fighters.
Plus, crafting +5 skill items is very cheap.
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Had a game once where the players rolled the stats and took what they could get. 3.5 rules mind you. They all ended up playing Paladins. Every last one of them. Now they all level dipped into other professions and we allowed them to do so and to continue to be Paladins and that the entire party had to use Paladin as their preferred class. It ended up being a blast. Best party unity ever.
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There were a few modules built around that concept, back in the day, such as College of Wizardry. (I'm pretty sure there were options for Clerics and Rogues, as well.) There were even suggestions (in the Complete Necromancer's Handbook or Secret College of Necromancy or Hollowfaust: City of Necromancers) for playing an all-necromancer party!
Thanks to Use Magic Device, it's easier these days ('these days' being post 3rd edition) to replace the healer with a wand than it was back then, but, still, the best all-X groups I've seen have been healers anyway, whether it be all-cleric, all-druid or all-paladin. An all-ranger group could be fun, as well.
An all-alchemist, all-inquisitor, all-oracle or all-witch group could be intriguing (sadly the witches wouldn't be able to take advantage of the scary potential of the Coven hex, unless the GM is generous enough to allow one of them to be a Hag!).
An all-sorcerer or all-summoner group could UMD the healing, as necessary as well, 'though.
An all-bard group would have to deal with the downside of bardic performance not stacking. It's one of their shinier toys, and having only one of your party members able to use his classes signature ability could feel kinda limiting. (In 3.5, with Song of the Heart (Eberron Campaign Setting), a Badge of Valor (Magic Item Compendium) and Inspiration Boost (Spell Compendium), and another bard focused on Dragonfire Inspiration (Dragon Magic?), this idea might kick butt!)
The synergy of an all-cavalier group (which could bring back memories of playing Pendragon!) with their teamwork feats could be pretty awesome.
At Gen Con, my roommate and I played a ton of the Dungeon Delves (he wanted the bag, so we had to rack up lots of tokens!), and one of them had three of the five players choose to play the pregen Barbarian. That was a kickass party. We all moved at 40', and the Cleric moved at 20', so we left her in the dust and just raged through everything. It was a slaughterfest. We would have hit a wall, eventually, but for a game meant to be over in 15 minutes? Oh yeah. All-barbarian party for the win!
I don't think I'd be comfortable with an all-fighter party without some sort of house-ruled healing options, like the 3.0 alchemical healing salves, or a better version of the Heal skill, or Monte Cook's 'take a breath' rules, or a Wound/Vitality system.
Similarly, if there were a 'fast healing while raging' option for Barbarians, or a Rogue skill talent that improves the Heal skill, or a lower level version of Wholeness of Body for Monks, an all-barbarian, all-rogue or all-monk party could be even more viable.
An all-monk party, in particular, would be very thematic. Each could focus on different styles, and replicate some movie traditions.
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Unless you take the teamwork feat, stealth gets worse as you add more peeps. Essentially the problem with stealth as a group is it is generally your worst roll against their best. So even a group of 5 regular 0-level yokals will often spot 5 5th level sneaky thieves, because one of them roll high and you'll roll low. I don't think the new rules even cover this issue.
5 thieves otherwise still have lower damage output then team ranger, who can also sneak and have better saves to boot. But this isn't the "hate on theives" thread :).
Unless you take the teamwork feat, stealth gets worse as you add more peeps. Essentially the problem with stealth as a group is it is generally your worst roll against their best. So even a group of 5 regular 0-level yokals will often spot 5 5th level sneaky thieves, because one of them roll high and you'll roll low. I don't think the new rules even cover this issue.
5 thieves otherwise still have lower damage output then team ranger, who can also sneak and have better saves to boot. But this isn't the "hate on theives" thread :).
Wait, wouldn't the baddies only spot the low-roller? The rest of the party would still be hidden, if I understand this right.
A party with nothing but 2 skill point/level classes that traditionally dump int is going to have problems outside of combat.
AM LAUGHING. IF AM MANY CLERICS, SOME AM NOT DUMP INT. SPELLS AM BETTER THAN SKILLS. PARTY AM LOTS OF HEALING, WE AM NOT NEEDING HIT POINT.
PERCEPTION, SENSE MOTIVE AM WISDOM-BASED. ME AM HEAR SNEAKY ROGUES, ME AM SEE THROUGH LIES, ME AM POUND SQUISHY ROGUE FLAT. ROGUE BODY AM NOW ROUGE BODY. ME AM LOOT BODY, THROW AHEAD TO DISABLE DEVICE.
Cleric's would do well.
Summoner's would crush it. Utterly crush it.
If you sit down and build a party that actually diversifies in terms of expertise, skill selection, spell selection, archetypes, and eidolons you end up with a group that would be absolutely ridiculous. Add in that all of these characters can switch out the evolutions of their eidolons at every level and you have an amorphous threat that can replenish it's numbers rapidly and flexibly.
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Wait, wouldn't the baddies only spot the low-roller? The rest of the party would still be hidden, if I understand this right.
That might even be the tactic.
"Okay, from experience, we *know* that one of us is going to step on a squeaky duck toy and alert the guards, no matter how well-trained or careful we are, due to the capricious nature of the gods. Whoever runs to kill that unlucky soul will end up running right into the rest of us, allowing us to attack of opportunity sneak attack them into chutney."
"What they call a 'failed stealth roll,' we call 'bait, for the ambush!'"
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One Race
There is a Harry Turtledove Short Story titled 'When the Last Elf is Dead' where a Tolkienesque BBEG will have sealed his victory when the last person of elven blood is dead. Elves have apparently been hunted to extinction (recently).
I was thinking of running a game where everyone is half elven.
All caviler (knights) or a Robin Hood Game would also be fun (or both) would be 'interesting'.
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I'd love to see an all-cavalier party. Once they get to the point where they can share teamwork feats, it'd be a scary thing to see.
Or an all-barbarian party. Do NOT make them angry. ;)
Though honestly, I'd have a lot more faith in a party like this if it were a class with Cure spells on its spell list. Preferably able to take a few hits in melee as well. Rangers, Paladins, and Clerics seem like the safest bet.
Cleric's would do well.
Summoner's would crush it. Utterly crush it.
If you sit down and build a party that actually diversifies in terms of expertise, skill selection, spell selection, archetypes, and eidolons you end up with a group that would be absolutely ridiculous. Add in that all of these characters can switch out the evolutions of their eidolons at every level and you have an amorphous threat that can replenish it's numbers rapidly and flexibly.
I agree summoners can play almost any role required to win.
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A party of "summoning" Clerics, who all takes up Scared Summoning, would be kinda scary...
With the right stats, Deities, Domains and spells, they can cover any role and take on enemy parties 2-3 times their number.
At lv 10, party of 6 would have like 6 x 1d4 Lantern Archons out in the first round of combat... and good luck trying to bring their summons down, when they can ALL burst healing via channel positive energy.