Sack the fighter-rogue-wizard-cleric combo! What are the craziest you've seen or played in?
The classic configuration is, of course, in The Hobbit.
13 Dwarves. All fighters. One wizard - although quite epic - who apparently has evocation as a barred school. And one commoner hobbit. And they still manage to pull it off.
One of the most fun campaigns I played in was in 2 edition. We were all thieves with different kits who started our own guild.
Let's see....
1.) Pirate campaign. Shadowcaster as First Mate, Warlock as Ship's Gunner, Dread Necromancer as Ship's Doctor, Totemist as Ship's Cook. Throw in one insane Gnome Warmage. Shake lightly.
2.) Right when the APG Beta came out, one GM decided to run a game where no one could use standard classes. So enter one Half-Orc Alchemist, one Half-Elf Witch, one Dwarf Inquisitor, and one Tengu something-or-other (I wanna say Cavalier? He didn't have a mount though so that feels wrong, but he couldn't cast).
3.) Just about to begin a new game, and the party lineup is looking to be Rake Rogue, Vivisectionist Alchemist, Crossblooded Sorcerer Wordcaster (Stormborn/Skyborne), and some kind of Cavalier. Not a divine caster in sight.
As a social experiment, I also asked this same question in Facebook. The only answer so far is: "What is this crazy talk of yours?"
Sigh. The boring life of non-gamers...
I played in an all fighter group before. (based on a fighting academy)
I also played in an all commoner/apprentice group before. A new take on zero level start.
When I was still running 3.5, I had the players roll up aberrations for a bit of planeswalking fun. There were: beholder mage with an engorged marilith's eye grafted in where the antimagic one was removed, neogi ranger using a modified human slave as an animal companion, alhoon (illithid lich) druid specializing in plant life, and a custom far-spawn/n'gathau mash-up sorcerer who took leadership almost out of the gate--spent time surrounding itself with escapees from a celestial asylum. Good times.
With my current group, melee characters occasionally show up, but it's mostly casters, rogues, alchemists, and gunslingers. Here's the line-up the party used on their final (at least for this year) shot at Rappan Athuk: tiefling conjurer, tiefling rogue, human alchemist, and gnome witch.
Arcane Trickster (wiz rogue)
Oracle1/Cleric X (for waves of bleeding negative energy.)
Oread Ranger
Dwarf fighter
Not super unusual, but that's what I'm working with now.
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Sack the fighter-rogue-wizard-cleric combo! What are the craziest you've seen or played in?
The classic configuration is, of course, in The Hobbit.
13 Dwarves. All fighters. One wizard - although quite epic - who apparently has evocation as a barred school. And one commoner hobbit. And they still manage to pull it off.
Well, judging by the fact that the dwarves can't win ANY fight in the whole damn book they seem more like warriors to me, or even commoners with a few levels in warrior or fighter.
Also, they hired Bilbo explicitly as the rogue (or the master thief), so even if you assume him to be a commoner at the beginning - when the second half of the book comes around, he DOES do a lot of thieving, so he took some levels.
To be fair, the dwarves have a murderous GM. When they actually get fights they can win, they always hold their own. But seriously, three trolls?
And this was before it was taken for granted that dwarves were just as strong as humans twice their size, too.
Fighter, cleric, wizard, rogue. Make them all human. Or, for diversity, elven wizard, halfling rogue, dwarven fighter, human cleric.
13 Dwarves. All fighters. One wizard - although quite epic - who apparently has evocation as a barred school. And one commoner hobbit. And they still manage to pull it off.Well, judging by the fact that the dwarves can't win ANY fight in the whole damn book they seem more like warriors to me, or even commoners with a few levels in warrior or fighter.
Actually, there's a strong case to be made about all of them not carrying any weapons whatsoever before they get inside Erebor, (except for Glamdring, Orcrist and Sting that they find in the Trolls' cave, and the bows that they get from Beorn).
Also, Gandalf having Evocation as barred school? I'd say Evocation is his ONLY school. [edit] with a few Transmutation spells a la pyrotechnics and fire seeds.
ALL the clerics.
(In society, we had at least 3 different people make a witch... out of about 15ish. Never heard about the others, but I still play and love my witch :D )
Sane Magus, Insane Sorcerer, Blaster Bard, and Cleric. Maybe a fighter, there was lots of magic to go around (and deaths.)
I've run in a game with 2 rangers and 1 bard for a long time (before wizard, thief and cleric joined the group)
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Just about every RL game I've played in has been strange. For example:
"Spells? What are those?" - Human paladin/artificer, human barbarian, and human savant (from Dragon Magazine)
"Everybody draw aggro" - Human barbarian, human paladin/hellknight, dragon-blooded half-elf wizard/eldritch knight, tiefling alchemist
And, of course, my f~+!ed-up Age of Worms group - CN half-elf ranger 6/bard 6, LN human sorcerer 12, CG half-elf wizard 12, NE elf ranger 1/rogue 11, plus a LE CR 40 great wyrm black dragon godling and his cohort, a LE 20th-level lich oracle. Can you tell which characters are the DMPCs? I can't.
This isn't the craziest group that's been posted by a longshot, but my PbP group is a pretty eclectic group of gestalt characters if only for their eccentricities:
- Bard/Monk/Sorceress Half-Elf
- Enchantress/Summoner tiefling
- Inquisitor/Fighter Dwarf
- Rogue/Cleric Elf
- Rogue/Fighter Half-Elf
Seriously tempted to rewrite this group's exploits as a manga comic. :)
My weirdest party was back in college, playing 1st Ed AD&D with the UnearthedArcana rules. The party was:
Radgar, the human bard [home rules: used the bard class from the 1st Ed PHB, without having to multiclass in fighter and thief first]
Sykedellos the gnome illusionist. [yeah--bad name]
Haladir the elven archer (ok-- fighter) [yes, that was my character]
Miriam the female centaur druid [she had been human, but died at 5th level. We brought her back to the druids, who cast reincarnate, and she came back as a centaur.
"Shifty" Steve, human thief.
The party didn't have a strong melee fighter, nor an excellent healer, nor a blaster-type magic-user. We either dispatched our foes at range or managed to negotiate our way out of trouble.
The group I'm currently GMing for consists of:
Gunslinger (musket)
Ranger (skrimisher)
Barbarian (beast-totem)
Rogue
Summoner (synthesist; was going to be a fighter, but changed his mind last minute)
Until the fighter changed to a summoner the party was going to be completely without spellcasting ability.
Sack the fighter-rogue-wizard-cleric combo! What are the craziest you've seen or played in?
The classic configuration is, of course, in The Hobbit.
13 Dwarves. All fighters. One wizard - although quite epic - who apparently has evocation as a barred school. And one commoner hobbit. And they still manage to pull it off.
Well, judging by the fact that the dwarves can't win ANY fight in the whole damn book they seem more like warriors to me, or even commoners with a few levels in warrior or fighter.
Also, they hired Bilbo explicitly as the rogue (or the master thief), so even if you assume him to be a commoner at the beginning - when the second half of the book comes around, he DOES do a lot of thieving, so he took some levels.
Agreed with the dwarves. Bilbo was a bard, check his life career in general AND the Three Trolls chapter in particular for evidence. Supper at Thranduil's and of course, Riddles in the dark, also give a hint.
How about the Three Musketeers?
"Guys, I said it was going to be a game with a lot of political intrigue, and you ALL want to play Fighters?"
There's an archetype for that :P (Also, Roy Greenhilt would like a word with whomever said that.)
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For the Runecarved Key event at GenCon this year, our party was as follows:
Druid
Sorcerer
Bard
Bard
Bard
Bard
The bard-centric group was surprisingly effective during the middle section of the adventure, which was about convincing people not to participate in an auction in a variety of ways, but as soon as the combat-oriented climax began we hit a brick wall. No deaths, though, so it was a moral victory.
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Agreed with the dwarves. Bilbo was a bard, check his life career in general AND the Three Trolls chapter in particular for evidence. Supper at Thranduil's and of course, Riddles in the dark, also give a hint.
So he was a bard who was hired to be a thief (and, maybe, eventually multiclassed) by a wizard who rarely casted and behaved more like a bard (because he was incredibly charismatic and just KNEW stuff) to help some dwarfs steal something back from a dragon who...well alright, the dragon might have been a dragon. Even if he was one with a really bad Sense Motive-skill.
Man, Tolkien REALLY liked to swap roles around, hu?
Agreed with the dwarves. Bilbo was a bard, check his life career in general AND the Three Trolls chapter in particular for evidence. Supper at Thranduil's and of course, Riddles in the dark, also give a hint.
So he was a bard who was hired to be a thief (and, maybe, eventually multiclassed) by a wizard who rarely casted and behaved more like a bard (because he was incredibly charismatic and just KNEW stuff) to help some dwarfs steal something back from a dragon who...well alright, the dragon might have been a dragon. Even if he was one with a really bad Sense Motive-skill.
Man, Tolkien REALLY liked to swap roles around, hu?
... and there's a good case to be made about Aragorn having more levels as paladin than ranger!
Smaug had good Sense Motive. He was just very easily flattered. Note that once he wised up, he worked things out pretty quick.
The craziest party I ever ran a game for was a minotaur, a wemic and a gnome. I think the minotaur was a fighter or barbarian. Ditto for the wemic I think. The gnome was some sort of cleric/thief/illusionist or something. This was the late 90s with AD&D 2E and using the brown player books. Ran them through the 1E module I2 Tomb of the Lizard King.