Doubtful. Casters are undeniably powerful, but they suffer when things get in their face.
An Eidolon is powerful enough to be a frontliner, but an Animal Companion is more of a support/distraction for your heavy hitters, it's not quite good enough to be a main line of melee defense.
On top of that, while the Eidolon is hellishly strong, the Summoner is not. And if the Summoner goes down (be it from a stray Sleep spell, getting conked over the head with a Sap really hard, or outright dropped from lethal damage) that Eidolon goes *POOF*.
There's a difference between "Casters are STRONG!" and "Casters are a whole party unto themselves!"
I'll need to work out a little party consisting of a Summoner, Wizard, Cleric and Druid just to see how it goes.
There's no reason a Cleric, Druid, and Eidolon can't be perfectly fine front line combatants.
Early on, it might be more difficult than a party with non-casters, but by mid level, yeah, the caster party is just flat out better.
If they are all built to be just casters, it is likely to go bad fairly quickly. Pure casters usually have severe problems when some one surprises/ambushes or if something manages to close through the illusions/summons/etc... and gets in their face. Also, there are a few opponents that are almost immune to magic.
However, several primary casters can funtion well enough in-the-line to give the other casters the time they need.
Clerics, druids, and bards are often built as primarily melee combatants and/or tanks. So it should not be difficult to give them enough melee capability to fufil that role in a party.
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Summoners, Druids, and Magi are obviously better in fights then pure casters. The catch is casters have to make up for the lack of AC/BAB via buff spells. And unless you plan on quickening a lot of those, there is a 1-2 round warm up period that you can serioulsy get hammered in.
CoDzilla of old had this weakness. Though minor. Mind you ONCE the casters get rolling, all bets are off. It gets worse when you have Summoner flavored casters like Sorcerers and Druids droping lots of friendly NPC critters into the fight.
5 straight mages will do just fine.
I hear that master summoners tend to do fairly well taking on the load. The usual strategy for this build would be to pump out the summon SLA's during combat, and turn the eidolon into a skill monkey. So this could take on both the roles of fighter and rogue depending on the skill of the player. Unfortunately, even the developers acknowledge the fact that all the creatures this archetype can pump out can be annoying for everyone involved to keep track of.
Clerics and oracles can be fairly good as martial characters though. I particularly liked the guide for reach clerics that is on this forum. The build allowed clerics to use their turn to cast spells, yet retained use of melee capabilities with Attacks of Opportunity from their reach weapon. That allows them to break the action economy even better than a magus a lot of the time. This kind of ability could be more important than many of the lower level spells for battlefield control in early levels.
For decades I have felt that the single most effective four person party possible would be three druids and a cleric at low levels and three druids and a wizard at high levels.
I suppose these days that could be three summoners instead of three druids, but I still like the flavor of the druids better.
Heck, I'm pretty sure four druids could handle most things.
Just to be clear though, the title of this thread is misleading. Having a party of casters does not preclude having a melee/caster mix. Druids and clerics are perfectly well suited for melee out of the box, and any caster can summon meat shields by the dozens... And of course several "melee" classes can cast spells too.
I think the better way to describe this would have been to say "martial/full caster mix".
If you build them right, it would work.
Scrollmaster Abjuration wizards can actually be good tanks by mid level if you build them correctly (at least I've heard. I've never built one, but someone at my school is a "wizard expert" and has explained this to me).
Doing this would require very specific, maximized builds, though. It wouldn't allow the player to make any old caster with his favorite feats, spells, and such, whereas any old barbarian would due as a tank.
In fact at low and high levels melee casters (summoner, druid, magus) are in a hughe advantage.
For example a 1st level eidolon is much better than a 1st level fighter.
Just because of two facts:
1. More attacks
2. An Eindolon can not die!!!!!!!
At mid level the fighter will deal more damage but that is when the caster part of the summoner/eidolon begins to shine. I personly had a few low level games where the melee jumps right into the middle of the combat to save the wiz guy and then this char was the only one that died this combat.... the eidoln would have "died", too. Just to have a comeback the next day ;)
Breiti
I think in more than 75% of the games I have played in at least one person has switched from one class to another in the belief that the party was either to magic oriented or to smacking things with weapons oriented. This usually occurs once characters start to die but sometimes the players just ask to roll up a new character if they think the party needs a role filled better.
Fighters and Wizards tend to be the most popular second pick (the new characters is almost always a full BAB class or full arcane caster,) probably because 3/4 BAB classes seem to be the most popular among the people I game with. It's usually a cleric or druid that gets dropped.
I don't know how much of a difference it makes but from what I have seen the party tends to feel more confident when it has a dedicated skill monkey, arcane caster, divine caster, and hitting people guy. And the characters tend to die less.
If by all caster party you mean summoner, druid, witch, wizard, cleric...yea i think they could handle most challenges rather well... maybe a archeologist bard to cover traps if needed.
My guess is that if all the casters HAD TO BE the same class, then an all summoner or all druid party is probably the best group, but most, if not all, other full casters could also work.
I do wonder exactly how I would pull off an all witch party. That is probably not only possible, but it may even be more viable than all druid or all summoner, but I just haven't given it enough thought.
I'm running a game with a cleric, witch, sorcerer and a summoner. They are 11 level and are disparate for a tank.
They can deal a lot of damage, but they all drop fast.
I put them up against the fire Druid from the NPC codex, he is 14th level. They knew he was a fire Druid so prepared resist and protective spells. They had him surrounded in conversation before melee...
The end of round two the sorcerer and summoner were dead ( so the eidolon was out). Round three finished the witch and the cleric surrendered.
A front line warrior could have taken a few more hits allowing the others more time.
This is a common occurrence. One zen archer, 9th level nearly cleaned their clock because they can't take damage.
It COULD work, but probably won't. At least at my table where enemies tend to learn the weaknesses of a Mage party fairly easily.
The discussion on a tank brings up another useful class for this: alchemist. Besides being a bizarre kind of caster of buffs and some tricks through their extracts (which they could hand off to other party members as infusions), they can be tailored to just about any melee role through their mutagens and discoveries. They can beef themselves up and smash things, deal all sorts of ranged damage with bombs or regular bows (or both with the explosive missile discovery), or turn themselves into a tank that can be extremely hard to kill.
I particularly love the spontaneous healing and healing touch discoveries. Forget about sharing the fast healing with allies, you can basically say that you have about 100 extra hp by level 20 with those two discoveries. Combined with a good CON boost and natural armor provided by mutagens, and they can be fairly resistant to a beating. There are also a lot of other discoveries that can help them resist other effects, but the healing was the most immediately eye catching for me.
The bombs can also serve an important role in controlling a battle. While they might not be as effective for blasting as wizards or sorcerers, the extra conditions that can be added make them great for debuffing a BBEG.
This exists in the vacuum of theorycraft and is a completely pointless exercise when you don't include specific encounter parameters. Here's what I will say, though:
A Druid, Cleric, Witch, Wizard party can easily do very well. The Druid and Cleric must set themselves up for at least partial melee (say, having the Druid focus on Wild Shape and/or heavy buff spell utilization), and all of the characters will likely need 14+ CON. I would expect either or both the Druid and Cleric to take Heavy Armor Proficiency, with the Druid shooting for a Dragonhide Full Plate with the Wild (+3) mod and the Cleric going for a maximum armor Full Plate.
Swapping either the Witch or Wizard for a Summoner is reasonable, but it breaks some of the late-game versatility that you'll want.
Swapping either the Wizard or the Cleric for their spontaneous equivalents is completely reasonable, as long as the player knows what they're doing.
Stat drops will not be good, save for Charisma. Point of note: full casters routinely have low skill point totals and this can impact non-combat situations significantly. At least one character will need decent CHA, probably the Cleric.
The value of perception will be higher than the average party. Ambushes can and will obliterate the party in a much more radical fashion than a standard line-up.
would a pali, bard, ranger, or magus count they all have spell casting and the summoner does not have many spells like the ones I mentioned.
The summoner gets a lot of the best buff and battlefield control spells, and it gets a lot of them at discounted spell levels (e.g. Haste as a second-level spell) - to say nothing of its extra ability (in addition to six-level casting) to cast the highest-level version of Summon Monster that an equal-level wizard could cast, 3+CHA times per day, as a standard action instead of a 1-round action. It's definitely a proper caster.
Bard and Magus are more questionable. Paladin and Ranger definitely don't count as casties for these purposes.
Point of note: full casters routinely have low skill point totals and this can impact non-combat situations significantly.
The party makeup you listed includes a Witch and a Wizard. You've got a mountain of skill points available.
To say nothing of the fact that, as casters, you can destroy most skill checks with a low-level spell.
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EVERYONE KNOW CASTY PARTIES AM TERRIBLE PARTIES. AM ALL FOR EGGHEADS AND RELIGIOUS NUTS. WHEN HALF OF PEOPLE AM IN CORNER BEING CREEPY AND OTHER HALF AM PRAYING TO GOD, REALLY WHAT AM POINT OF PARTY IN FIRST PLACE? BRING MELEE CLASSES, AM HAVING FULL BAB TO HIT THAT. BRING ROGUE, AT LEAST PROBABLY END UP WITH GOOD STORY ABOUT BREAKING INTO MUSEUM OR SOMETHING. BRING BARD FOR GORUM SAKE, AT LEAST AM ABLE TO PROVIDE MUSIC. AM DOWN TO EARTH ENOUGH TO DRINK BEER, GET WOMEN, WAKE UP SIX DAYS LATER WITH LAMPSHADE ON HEAD IN GUTTER OF SKETCHY BAR.
FOR OPTIMAL PARTY, BARBARIAN/BARBARIAN/BARBARIAN/BARBARIAN.
FAILING THAT, BARBARIAN/BARBARIAN/BARBARIAN/BARD TO CAST CREATE MORE BOOZE, AND SING ROWDY SONGS.
Some real world example might be in order among all this theorycrafting...
In the beginning of my druid's campaigning career she was in a party that consisted of herself, a battle cleric, a sorcerer and an archer ranger.
For melee the party relied on the battle cleric and the animal companion, with the AC also usually buffed by the druid. That lasted until about level 5.
At one point the ranger died and for a couple of levels the party makeup was druid-cleric-sorcerer-rogue. That took us to the end of level 6.
Until the rogue died, when we got a new rogue. Which also died. Then we got a barbarian, this was level 7.
Melee was quite a bit different for that period. Instead of my druid's AC being part of melee, my druid typically rode the AC while the battle cleric and barbarian handled melee. My druid took on the rogue's jobs, in addition to being an archer and battlefield controller.
Then the battle cleric got tired of being a cleric and we added a new player who played a buffing cleric. Then our party makeup looked like this: druid-rogue-buffing cleric-sorcerer-barbarian.
That was a freaking awesome party. Then the player of the buffing cleric had to quit, so we are now down to druid-rogue-sorcerer-barbarian. This is a bit tougher party to play with, we have to be more careful. If the barbarian were replaced with a battle cleric, we'd be back to a fairly nicely balanced party again.
The bulk of the play time for this party was in commercially purchased modules, which the GM ran as straight as he could manage (thus the dead rogues, I suppose).
My take-away from this was that a druid and battle cleric can more than manage the task of melee combat. While the barbarian is fun and definitely does more damage than the AC did, I don't believe a martial class was needed at all.
Some time ago, to compare the contribution of a fighter against a paladin in an 4 member party the idea was to create a build and run it through a mini-adventure.
The same idea can be used here, for example somebody create an 8th level party of 4 fulls pellcasters see how they would do against the mini-adventure.
Four 8th level casters vs these encounters?
Four druids would walk through these encounters. Or swim or fly I suppose.
Four wizards would probably simply avoid most of them if they wanted to.
Four clerics would probably have to slug it out a bit, but I don't see them having any real difficulty.
Four witches..... hmm.... I'd like to see that.
Until you go into an anti-magic field/room and get tpked and everyone starts crying about how the GM set them up...
Until you go into an anti-magic field/room and get tpked and everyone starts crying about how the GM set them up...
... the same anti-magic field that neutralizes the fighter's +5 armor of etherealness and his +5 bane, furious sword and his muleback cords and his +4 ring of protection and his...
So yeah, basically a bunch of naked people with pointy sticks in an anti-magic field.
Sucks for everyone.
Good reason to look out for such things.
Until you go into an anti-magic field/room and get tpked and everyone starts crying about how the GM set them up...... the same anti-magic field that neutralizes the fighter's +5 armor of etherealness and his +5 bane, furious sword and his muleback cords and his +4 ring of protection and his...
So yeah, basically a bunch of naked people with pointy sticks in an anti-magic field.
Sucks for everyone.
Good reason to look out for such things.
does anti-magic neutralize Cold Iron and Adamantine swords, the barbarian's rage,the fighter's extra +/+ from weapon training, ranger's favored enemy etc?
The bottom line is that in most campaigns I've ran you will encounter several anti-magic situations. If your whole party is built on using magic you will lose YMMV.
Until you go into an anti-magic field/room and get tpked and everyone starts crying about how the GM set them up...... the same anti-magic field that neutralizes the fighter's +5 armor of etherealness and his +5 bane, furious sword and his muleback cords and his +4 ring of protection and his...
So yeah, basically a bunch of naked people with pointy sticks in an anti-magic field.
Sucks for everyone.
Good reason to look out for such things.
does anti-magic neutralize Cold Iron and Adamantine swords, the barbarian's rage,the fighter's extra +/+ from weapon training, ranger's favored enemy etc?
The bottom line is that in most campaigns I've ran you will encounter several anti-magic situations. If your whole party is built on using magic you will lose YMMV.
I'd be more than willing to put it to the test with a party of casters.
I've seen battle clerics who can hold their own against most pure martial characters. Druids are famous for their martial abilities.
Antimagic fields might be a challenge for wizards and witches, but I would be willing to tackle them with a party of wizards too.
Is it better to be more well-rounded in a 4-5 people party where you have something like:
a melee combatant, an archer, a divine caster, an arcane caster, and maybe a bard for the buffs.Or
Would an all-caster party be better, where you're comprised of something like a cleric, a druid, a wizard, maybe a summoner or a witch, and whatever other fifth member? The casters like druid and/or summoner could have animal companions as the damage dealers, and they could also summon if needed.
Is one type of party makeup generally better, or are they about the same? Curious to hear everyone's thoughts on this.
Think in terms of what they do:
You need utility spells.
You need healing and buffing.
You need skills.
You need a damage dealer, preferably one up close and one at distance.
You need somebody who can soak/avoid a lot of damage up-front.
One of the combat classes can fill two of these roles all on their own, and that's actually very useful. That doesn't mean you can't do it with casters, but really the combat class is the easiest solution.
Think in terms of what they do:
You need utility spells.
You need healing and buffing.
You need skills.
You need a damage dealer, preferably one up close and one at distance.
You need somebody who can soak/avoid a lot of damage up-front.One of the combat classes can fill two of these roles all on their own, and that's actually very useful. That doesn't mean you can't do it with casters, but really the combat class is the easiest solution.
Except that one caster can fill any and all of those roles.
And skills is a totally unnecessary role if you have enough magic. In the end, skills only serve to save spell slots, as there is nothing having ranks in a skill can do that a spell can't do better.
I think some folk here are thinking about a party of casters as four pointy-hatted folks walking along.
If I'm a wizard in a party of other wizards, I'm going to have plenty of help available. I'm going to either have constructs or simulacra or both, and will be summoning other creatures to boot. I'm certainly not going to go into melee just because we didn't bring a fighter. That's what my summoned or created creatures do for me.
Anti-magic fields might be a problem for me, but my golem is going to walk right into it.
A party of four wizards is probably going to end up being a small army of constructs, golems, simulacra and summoned creatures with four pointy-hatted types well surrounded in their midst.
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End up? Maybe. But they have to make it through all of those levels (level 7 at the earliest I believe) and amass enough cash and spare time to actually make one of the things, and he's also blown 3 Feats just trying to get someone on the front lines.
I still don't understand why summons are touted as an instant solution, when they only last a few rounds and take a full round to summon (and I dunno about your GMs, but I usually have nearby enemies attack the guy waving his arms around and spouting "nonsense words").
The first 10 levels or so are going to be rough for an all caster party, and that's like 2/3 of any given campaign.
End up? Maybe. But they have to make it through all of those levels (level 7 at the earliest I believe) and amass enough cash and spare time to actually make one of the things, and he's also blown 3 Feats just trying to get someone on the front lines.
I still don't understand why summons are touted as an instant solution, when they only last a few rounds and take a full round to summon (and I dunno about your GMs, but I usually have nearby enemies attack the guy waving his arms around and spouting "nonsense words").
The first 10 levels or so are going to be rough for an all caster party, and that's like 2/3 of any given campaign.
I have to agree with this point. That's why it's hard for me to take these boards seriously sometimes. In theory, an all caster party will be good after lvl 10-11 etc, but what happens for those first 10 levels.
Summoning monsters to check all traps, avoiding melee, being unable to hit, etc.
Properly built, with 3 rounds to prepare, and all the cheese you can pack into a build...yeah an all caster party would be cool. But in most games on "hard mode", that's not going to fly.
9 times out of 10, you will eventually need the high BAB, AC, and Ranged weapons, etc. before Wizard\Cleric reaches "God" mode...which is another fallacy bandied about on these boards quite a bit
Think in terms of what they do:
You need utility spells.
You need healing and buffing.
You need skills.
You need a damage dealer, preferably one up close and one at distance.
You need somebody who can soak/avoid a lot of damage up-front.One of the combat classes can fill two of these roles all on their own, and that's actually very useful. That doesn't mean you can't do it with casters, but really the combat class is the easiest solution.
Except that one caster can fill any and all of those roles.
And skills is a totally unnecessary role if you have enough magic. In the end, skills only serve to save spell slots, as there is nothing having ranks in a skill can do that a spell can't do better.
Up to a point, I agree. However a spell caster filling one of these rolls has to have all their resources devoted to said roll to be fully effective. To be sure a spell-caster can prepare a damaging spell, a healing spell, spells to deal with contingencies that normally require skills, spells that let him soak or avoid damage. What happens then? What happens when he needs two damaging spells? or too many of any option.
Skills monkeys can do their thing all day. Combat classes can keep hitting as long as they have hit points. Hence they are the most effective ways of doing what they do. That doesn't mean a caster can't do them, just that they can do them better, because the caster doing them isn't doing anything else, including the things that only casters can do.
Of course you can use some kinds of casters for these roles too - a magus is a nifty damage dealer, a bard is a great skills-monkey, but that's because they are not dedicated casters.
Rynjin, it is easy to build summoning characters who summon as a standard action and who gain bonus hit points and +4 to str/con on their summoned animals. A simple rod of metamagic: extend doubles their duration. So my amped up pouncing lion is going to hit YOUR guy waving his arms around and spouting nonsense words on MY round as a standard action.
I said long ago up this thread that at low levels a party of four wizards is going to have more trouble than a party of druids or clerics. But that party isn't likely to run into anti-magic fields either, and the sorts of enemies they are likely to encounter are going to find a fusillade of magic missiles to be a fairly formidable attack.
So I don't doubt that a party of four wizards will eventually reach level 7 or 9, and by then they're going to be building constructs, hiring henchmen and attracting cohorts. Not to mention necromancers raising armies of undead and such.
So, yes, that four wizard "party" is going to end up being a literal army coming down on your head.