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I will be running RoW after my current campaign and my players are already asking what are the best classes to play. Without giving spoilers (as I want to direct my players to this thread), what have you found to be the most useful or useless classes for this campaign? I currently have four players.
Without going into spoilers at all: pick characters with a healthy amount of hit points, since stuff hits hard. A wand of CLW won't cut it, either: you'll TPK too often. Condition removal as much as hit point restoration is important.
There's a pretty broad range of creature types you'll encounter, and although cold damage is common, not everything is vulnerable to fire. There's quite some large-sized creatures, and I think it's fair to say that many encounters feature at least humanoid-shaped opponents, even if not all of them have the label.
As usual, static damage bonuses are good, making sure you have some means of bypassing DR is good, and sneak attack is iffy.
Mobility is very good - but max that acrobatics if it's important to you, since you're up against some serious DCs, I've noticed.
My prior character (poor gnome died to a bad sequence of crit-hit-crit in one round) was a mounted character, and that proved to be very useful.
Compared to some other APs, there's quite some odd monsters, so knowledge skills are very useful in identifying them. Thankfully, there's also a use for them otherwise, here and there.
Social skills are of more limited use. It's a good idea to have someone in the group capable of talking things over without casing a civil war, but it's not something the whole party needs to be good at.
Generally speaking, it's a pretty hard-hitting AP that requires proper tactics, or an abundance of brute force. I have found that it challenges you to use a pretty broad spectrum of character abilities, which is very nice. Don't dump Int (unless you like being useless in non-combat situations), take care to pump your defences, and use concentrated force to tackle problems. Above all, of course, have fun, and help the rest of the group to have fun.
My universal recommendation is probably barbarian. A human one gets 5+int/level skill ranks so they can even do things other than smash/break stuff/faces.
Hell, even if they don't have a bunch of skills, a Barbarian focused on just "Smashing stuff/faces" can be very versatile anyway. Why? A Barbarian can smash ANYTHING. Especially Orcs, Half-Orcs, and Humans/Half-Elves with Racial Heritage.
What can they smash?
-Enemies
-Enemy buffs (spell Sunder)
-Enemy attack and defense potential (regular Sunder)
-Traps (Trap Wrecker Feat)
-Magical Traps (Spell Sunder again)
You are now your party's trap guy, and main tank/damage dealer, and a potent de-buffer.
I would strongly encourage that at least someone in the group play a witch.
While none of it is critical, there are some very neat things (primarily in chapter 3) that the party can miss out on if it doesn't have a witch.
Unless I am mistaken, gunslingers will get some very nice toys late in the campaign.
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As a person who has ran it as an AP and as sanctioned content my advice is:
1. A strong healer that has versatility. My personal recommendation is an Elven Life Oracle who takes the Lorekeeper archetype to get access to divine and arcane spells.
2. Someone who does fire damage. Alchemist or an arcane spell caster.
3. Someone with strong social skills. They will need to have ways to overcome language barriers such as through comprehend language spells, the witch hex tongues, or really high linguistics or ways to learn languages in large numbers such as the aasimar racial trait true speaker.
4. Someone with strong nature, planar, religion, local, and arcane knowledge. Emphasis on arcane and local knowledge.
5. Something to soak up damage. My personal recommendation due to the things that get thrown at you is a undead or an eidelon.
6. A way to dispel magics and curses. My personal recommendation for dispel magic is the new arcanist. That way they can do some fire damage and dispel. Your divine caster, if they are also doing the healing, should be able to handle the curses you will come across.
7. Someone will need to be able to handle magical traps in the group, otherwise you will face quiet a few potential party wipes.
Also something that can provide everyone endure elements or better yet Cold Resistance is good. If you can get them to resistance to cold for at least 1 point, you can forgo most of the environmental stuff accept for blindness and precipitation. The cold damage own't be able to get through their resistance. This will save ALOT of time at the table.
If you take a quick glance through all of the books you'll probably understand pretty quickly why gunslinger is a good choice.
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@Jiyva If you do use the enviromental rules, which is featured in the books and should be ran; the gunslinger is going to have an extremely difficult time through most of the material. They will only shine til you get to the last three books. Likewise range in general is going to have difficulties in this adventure path.
I will be running RoW after my current campaign and my players are already asking what are the best classes to play. Without giving spoilers (as I want to direct my players to this thread), what have you found to be the most useful or useless classes for this campaign? I currently have four players.
We started Reign of Winter and got through the first book, but then Wrath of the Righteous came out and took immediate priority so that game was put on hold for a while... our party was made up of three Witches - all sisters - and the fourth a reach Invulnerable Barbarian that each sister claimed as a protector and husband. Each witch was built slightly different in accordance to their personality (Patrons: Time, Life and Death) and they shared a common Improved Familiar but other than that they were pretty standard. I know it was early going but we had an absolute blast with the characters as none of us had ever played a Witch before and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.
I will be running RoW after my current campaign and my players are already asking what are the best classes to play. Without giving spoilers (as I want to direct my players to this thread), what have you found to be the most useful or useless classes for this campaign? I currently have four players.We started Reign of Winter and got through the first book, but then Wrath of the Righteous came out and took immediate priority so that game was put on hold for a while... our party was made up of three Witches - all sisters - and the fourth a reach Invulnerable Barbarian that each sister claimed as a protector and husband. Each witch was built slightly different in accordance to their personality (Patrons: Time, Life and Death) and they shared a common Improved Familiar but other than that they were pretty standard. I know it was early going but we had an absolute blast with the characters as none of us had ever played a Witch before and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.
Yeah, sorry about that babe - I know you were looking forward to playing for a change. ;-P
Yeah, sorry about that babe - I know you were looking forward to playing for a change. ;-PI will be running RoW after my current campaign and my players are already asking what are the best classes to play. Without giving spoilers (as I want to direct my players to this thread), what have you found to be the most useful or useless classes for this campaign? I currently have four players.We started Reign of Winter and got through the first book, but then Wrath of the Righteous came out and took immediate priority so that game was put on hold for a while... our party was made up of three Witches - all sisters - and the fourth a reach Invulnerable Barbarian that each sister claimed as a protector and husband. Each witch was built slightly different in accordance to their personality (Patrons: Time, Life and Death) and they shared a common Improved Familiar but other than that they were pretty standard. I know it was early going but we had an absolute blast with the characters as none of us had ever played a Witch before and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.
Whatevs.
*makes 'L' sign*
You just didn't want me shackin' up with some hunky Barbarian...
Yeah, sorry about that babe - I know you were looking forward to playing for a change. ;-PI will be running RoW after my current campaign and my players are already asking what are the best classes to play. Without giving spoilers (as I want to direct my players to this thread), what have you found to be the most useful or useless classes for this campaign? I currently have four players.We started Reign of Winter and got through the first book, but then Wrath of the Righteous came out and took immediate priority so that game was put on hold for a while... our party was made up of three Witches - all sisters - and the fourth a reach Invulnerable Barbarian that each sister claimed as a protector and husband. Each witch was built slightly different in accordance to their personality (Patrons: Time, Life and Death) and they shared a common Improved Familiar but other than that they were pretty standard. I know it was early going but we had an absolute blast with the characters as none of us had ever played a Witch before and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.Whatevs.
*makes 'L' sign*
You just didn't want me shackin' up with some hunky Barbarian...
Hey - what does a Barbarian have that my Summoner doesn't?
Hey - what does a Barbarian have that my Summoner doesn't?Yeah, sorry about that babe - I know you were looking forward to playing for a change. ;-PI will be running RoW after my current campaign and my players are already asking what are the best classes to play. Without giving spoilers (as I want to direct my players to this thread), what have you found to be the most useful or useless classes for this campaign? I currently have four players.We started Reign of Winter and got through the first book, but then Wrath of the Righteous came out and took immediate priority so that game was put on hold for a while... our party was made up of three Witches - all sisters - and the fourth a reach Invulnerable Barbarian that each sister claimed as a protector and husband. Each witch was built slightly different in accordance to their personality (Patrons: Time, Life and Death) and they shared a common Improved Familiar but other than that they were pretty standard. I know it was early going but we had an absolute blast with the characters as none of us had ever played a Witch before and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.Whatevs.
*makes 'L' sign*
You just didn't want me shackin' up with some hunky Barbarian...
The Fortitude bonus to marry three women, for one thing...
The Fortitude bonus to marry three women, for one thing...Hey - what does a Barbarian have that my Summoner doesn't?Yeah, sorry about that babe - I know you were looking forward to playing for a change. ;-PI will be running RoW after my current campaign and my players are already asking what are the best classes to play. Without giving spoilers (as I want to direct my players to this thread), what have you found to be the most useful or useless classes for this campaign? I currently have four players.We started Reign of Winter and got through the first book, but then Wrath of the Righteous came out and took immediate priority so that game was put on hold for a while... our party was made up of three Witches - all sisters - and the fourth a reach Invulnerable Barbarian that each sister claimed as a protector and husband. Each witch was built slightly different in accordance to their personality (Patrons: Time, Life and Death) and they shared a common Improved Familiar but other than that they were pretty standard. I know it was early going but we had an absolute blast with the characters as none of us had ever played a Witch before and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.Whatevs.
*makes 'L' sign*
You just didn't want me shackin' up with some hunky Barbarian...
Ha-Ha
That's not a having a high Constitution... that's just having a low Wisdom.
;-P
It's not so much strong classes as strong choices. From the title alone you should know that cold resistance is a must. I've got mine from being a suli.
Thank you all for your input! Some of them have already read the player's guide, but are looking for "real campaign" advice.