In Pathfinder (coming from 4e, and too far away from 3.5 to recall) do we need an upfront melee?
Our new 5 person party, is throwing out class ideas and this is the list:
cleric
bard/ranger (tried to push bard/rogue but no luck)
monk
ranger/warrior
The last guy has always played casters, we are expecting to hear wizard.
How doomed are they, do I need to push for a solid melee?
We will be doing an adventure path (for the story source with my "adjustments" to suit the play style, and they have suggested Legacy of Fire.
Two rangers, a cleric and a monk? You have plenty of 'up front melee' or those who can take the role if needed. Summoning spells can give the wizard or cleric a disposable meatshield as well.
There isn't enough information in the above list to know if this group will be fine in a typical adventure path or not.
They certainly could be. Probably will be. But if your two rangers have both specialized on ranged attacks and your monk is poorly built then you might have some issues.
Based on your comment about coming from 4e and not having played even 3.5 in quite a while, I suspect part of your question is "in general, how important is an up-front melee person in Pathfinder?"
The best answer I can give to that from my own experience is "pretty important." There are some dedicated archer ranged builds that can out damage most melee builds, but if you can engage those ranged builds in melee, things can change in a hurry. So even in groups where the archer is the damage king, that's usually in part because there's someone in melee soaking up damage and clogging up the path to the archer.
Monks in particular have a reputation of being somewhat melee challenged when compared to their 3.5 counterparts. On the other hand, TWF rangers are excellent melee builds.
Chances are your party will be fine. But if neither of your multiclassed rangers have focused on melee, and you're depending on your monk and/or cleric... well, that might be a problem.
I think you need at least some one for melee even if it is just to get in the way and soak up melee attacks even if not doing much dps. If the rangers are archer build, then you really need a tank. I've heard monks can do this, but haven't seen it myself in play. I have seen clerics do a pretty good job at it.
I think you need at least some one for melee even if it is just to get in the way and soak up melee attacks even if not doing much dps. If the rangers are archer build, then you really need a tank. I've heard monks can do this, but haven't seen it myself in play. I have seen clerics do a pretty good job at it.
I agree that clerics can do a good job at tanking. In my experience thought, that's been best when the party has another healer. Our group had two clerics for a while, one was a tank, the other was a healer. Worked real well. But you invite some action economy issues when your main healer is also your main melee dude.
Some of that can be addressed with magic items though.
Ok, we have not yet built the characters so I was just looking for advice. I can make sure with two rangers at least one is more melee focused, and push the warrior/ranger to be warrior primary.
And, yes in a way it was simply to ask if they needed melee. TWF (two weapon build?)
We are using only the core book, game master and bestiary.
I passed on many of these suggestions, so hopefully things will go well. We ended up with the following, and the players will be over to finalize their characters on Wednesday.
Half-Orc Monk
Halfling Rogue
Half-Elf Cleric
Elf Bard/Ranger
Elf Ranger/Fighter
Bard/ranger seems an odd combination to me. I have a hard time seeing that work very well. I supposed if it is only a couple levels into ranger for the weapon proficiencies it would probably be ok. Otherwise it seems like it would kill the bard abilities to the point of why bother.
Although I have to say I've made some odd combinations that were still fun. So, go for it.
Looks pretty melee-competent to me. Any of these classes can handle some fighting, and will do well as long as they work together. Bard and cleric doing some buffs, the rogue looking for flanks...
Bards can be effective healers, as can rangers with appropriate magical items. If your DM is willing to confirm that happy sticks (aka wands of cure light wounds) will be available on a regular basis, a ranger or bard could even be the primary healer, and could allow the cleric to focus on tanking if ze desires.