I am about to run a campaign with a Fighter, a Magus, and a Monk/Cleric. They are all starting at LVL 2 so they will be a little more resiliant and so the Monk can get his Cleric level for a very cool character concept he created.
What do I need to watch out for? What are the main challenges for a party with no pure casters? I assume it's easy to just be careful what monster/NPC types I send their way, but I'd love some advice from those who have some experience in building encounters for this type of party.
Is the fighter an archer?
Is the fighter an archer?
No, pretty straight melee. The Magus is going to play that role when needed I think. We're allowing him to use Spellstrike with the bow (can't use Spellcombat when using bow though).
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Swarms will be a nightmare for a group with no access to burning hands, or, at the minimum, a decent supply of alchemists fire. I suggest using them sparingly, and you might want to not use them at all in areas or situations where the party can't feasibly flee or avoid contact with them, such as confined areas, areas of difficult terrain, etc.
With no wizard, rogue, or bard to gather intelligence/use divination, you're going to have to constantly spoon-feed them information. But given the classes, I'll bet even odds most or all of them dumped Charisma and no one has good Diplomacy, so you can't just have people helpfully tell them everything they need to know all the time, if you want to preserve any semblance of verisimilitude. So you'll need to plant obvious clues everywhere, and make sure they just happen to find them all.
Similarly, you'll need to cover all their other glaring lacks for them, too -- hand out a lot of potions of healing and then flying, then belts of flying, etc. And cure wounds wands.
Even then, battlefield control (once tanglefoot bag DCs are too low for them to be any good) will be impossible for them unless the fighter can pull off a 3.5e-like chain-tripper build, so I'd push him in that direction -- hard.
Even with all that, you may need to use adventures that are a couple levels too low for the party. And plan on ending the campaign at or before 10th level or so, before their lack of full casters becomes too glaring.
The best advice I can give the party is to tell the cleric/monk to give up on the monk and go full cleric instead. Or fire him and hire a full-time cleric.
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I am running a kingmaker campaign right now with atengu fighter, a tiefling magus, and an aasiimar paladin. The players are having a blast. Just play like normal and let them figure out what they need. Balance the fights to them but don't worry to much about it. They will figure out what they need as the game progresses.
I am running a kingmaker campaign right now with atengu fighter, a tiefling magus, and an aasiimar paladin. The players are having a blast. Just play like normal and let them figure out what they need. Balance the fights to them but don't worry to much about it. They will figure out what they need as the game progresses.
This is good to hear.
They are a good group and we focus on fun more than rules or seriousness. They wanted to play these kinds of characters and I really like the backgrounds they have come up with. It will be a challenge at times I'm sure, to present balanced encounters but we'll deal.
I do appreciate all the advice everyone has to offer.
Is the fighter an archer?No, pretty straight melee. The Magus is going to play that role when needed I think. We're allowing him to use Spellstrike with the bow (can't use Spellcombat when using bow though).
Look up the myrmidiarch archetype for the magus, it allows that.
I would say that you they have a harder time with ranged and battlefield control spells. I suggest the magus get infernal healing as well if the party doesn't have any good members.
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LOL. 4 rogues (one with Minor Magic, Detect Magic) We just ran into an Allip at 3rd level... We had picked up the Grasp of Droskar, but had done a Read magic on it and decided to stash it in a bag (it is cursed). So when we opened the door and saw the Allip we rolled a dungeoneering knowledge: We only found out it was undead and incorporeal... Um... we are 3rd level and have NO magical weapons. Quickly we undug the Grasp, slapped it on our "fighter" rogue, and commenced to have the Halfling rogue taunt and dodge (full defense). Two rogues got hit (the mage rogue and the halfling), the combat lasted 9 turns... Averaged about 4 hp a whack with the only magic item we had that could even hurt it (half damage from a 22 STR (with the Grasp on) "fighter" Rogue doing a 1d3 melee attack each turn).
Was a fun fight. Probably the longest fight against a single creature I have ever experienced in D&D. Its interesting that only TWO of the THREE ways in to where the Allip is allow for finding a magic item. Had we gone through the Shock Lizards and trapped room we would have all been knocked out and left at the GM's (muahahahaha) mercy.
I am about to run a campaign with a Fighter, a Magus, and a Monk/Cleric. They are all starting at LVL 2 so they will be a little more resiliant and so the Monk can get his Cleric level for a very cool character concept he created.
What do I need to watch out for? What are the main challenges for a party with no pure casters? I assume it's easy to just be careful what monster/NPC types I send their way, but I'd love some advice from those who have some experience in building encounters for this type of party.
Hmm. I would be tempted to let them gestalt.
However, with traits and decent intelligence your monk/cleric could probably just about function as party skills-monkey, your fighter is a solid damage dealer and the magus can deal with swarms with the right spell selection.
My main concern is that there are just three of them.