Hey there ladies and gentlemen, my group is rebooting and going to start Rise of the Runelords soon, and so far a good chunk have made their PCs already, so I'm looking for a build to round out the party.
Elf Magus
Suli Monk- Unarmed
Cleric
Another Monk
Now, I don't know any specifics of the builds, they aren't optimized. I'm trying to think of where we need a bit better rounding out.
Does a party need a ranger and rogue? Will the Magus and Cleric have enough spell casting for viability?
I've been building fairly optimized martials for fun, but with the current build, I don't think another front liner is what we need, but we don't quite have a wrecking ball PC if you know what I mean.
Maybe Sorcerer (Arcane utility), or Switch hitter Ranger for ranged attacks and melee, or a ranged paladin, or a Greatsword wielding Rogue, or a Barbarian or a Bard? There's too many options! What do you think?
First off, the party is looking melee-heavy so throwing another melee-oriented martial type into the mix will probably lead to fierce competition for position in battle.
I think the Sorcerer, Ranger and especially the Bard are all good ideas:
Sorcerer: Arcane utility is always a welcome service in a party that lacks it. I'd look to wizard for added flexibility in casting but that's a personal preference. The wizard will also have access to a lot of knowledge
Ranger: I could even go archer ranger. Again you've got three front line types to keep enemies busy and you'd have to shoot around them. The outdoorsy skills and knowledge nature would be helpful.
Bard: Great buffer for a party of melee types, works well as an archer. Provides a bit of arcane utility and lots of access to knowledge that the party otherwise wouldn't have.
Without giving away too many spoilers, Wizards particularly enjoy this campaign, at least if you play it through.
Yup :)
I'd say wizard or bard are good bets, but do a sorcerer if you prefer them over prepared arcane casting.
One thing that I will add, though, is that you probably want to maintain the same degree of optimization as the rest of the party. Some people feel like they need to optimize in order to 'carry the party,' but this urge should be resisted.
Making yourself dramatically more powerful than the rest of the party will mean you'll breeze through encounters of appropriate challenge, leading to encounter challenge getting ramped up to pose a threat to the optimized character, leading to combats the unoptimized members of the party can no longer contribute to.
Without giving away too many spoilers, Wizards particularly enjoy this campaign, at least if you play it through.Yup :)
I'd say wizard or bard are good bets, but do a sorcerer if you prefer them over prepared arcane casting.
One thing that I will add, though, is that you probably want to maintain the same degree of optimization as the rest of the party. Some people feel like they need to optimize in order to 'carry the party,' but this urge should be resisted.
Making yourself dramatically more powerful than the rest of the party will mean you'll breeze through encounters of appropriate challenge, leading to encounter challenge getting ramped up to pose a threat to the optimized character, leading to combats the unoptimized members of the party can no longer contribute to.
Our experience is that the archer ranger especially can wreak havoc if well-constructed and his favored enemies are in play. A well constructed bard or wizard can always dial it back if need be.
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My current RotRL campaign has:
human Paladin- tank build
human Fighter- two handed fighter build
half elf Arcane Archer
half elf Mystic Theurge
halfling Shadowdancer
Two of the characters have cohorts, bringing another healer and another archer. Overall, I find the group is light on magic. A straight Wizard would be excellent, or at least a Sorcerer.
It looks to me that your group will suffer in the same way, since you have only a Magus as a caster. While the Magus will have plenty of combat spells, the broad utility that a Wizard has will be missed. You could make up the difference with another limited caster - a Bard, for instance. Or a Sorcerer who carries plenty of scrolls and wands could probably do the trick.
As a side note, I'd advise you to impress upon everyone the usefulness of ranged combat. Everyone should (unless the unarmed Monk is prohibited) have a missile weapon handy, especially if you have no dedicated archer.
Thanks for the input guys, I himmed and hawed over it for a while but settled on trying out a wizard. I'm not a fan of the limited spells per day and spell casting though so tommorrow I'm going to roll up a sorc and see if it tickles my fancy, if they're both still a bit lacking, I'm going to roll up a paladin and if that fails to wow me, I'll make an archer fighter or a control bard. Sounds like I have my work cut out for me!