Party building exercise?

[Tinalles]

My group has recently lost two players (moved due to job), and gained two new ones. Both the new ones are also new to role playing.

Two of the more experienced players have expressed concern that the party is not working as a cohesive unit, and have asked for some kind of team building exercise. We're playing RotRL, about to start book 3.

I'm not sure what to do. Suggestions?

[Crank]

Can you be more specific as to why they're not working as a cohesive unit? Are their battle tactics lacking, or are they having difficulty meshing with the gaming group? Is the problem in-game or out-of-character?

[Tinalles]

The problem is in-game, and a mixture of PC personality, tactics, and mechanics.

In character, none of the PCs trust one another. I'm not sure WHY they don't trust one another. The players get along fine socially in real life. The PCs have saved one another multiple times in combat. But they tend not to divulge story information to one another, whether that's backstory or campaign info.

Tactically, they're ill coordinated. They don't know one another's abilities, and tend not to communicate about tactics. Essentially, each PC is acting as a lone warrior, rather than cooperating.

Mechanically, the group as a whole is pretty lackluster. We're still using 3.5 rules. They recently fought Xanesha. I know Xanesha has a reputation for being a meat-grinder, especially the original 3.5 version, and so I nerfed her a LOT. Took away 8 AC. Decided all her attacks would be for non-lethal damage at the standard -4 penalty. Had her do willfully stupid things like letting people flank her for round after round. After all that, it still required direct divine intervention by Sarenrae to avoid a TPK.

Party Composition:

And the party consists of:

- Azaelyn, Rogue 4/Wizard 3. Shooting for AT. Lots better at traps and locks than anything else, but those come up a lot less than combat, and she's lousy at fighting. Uses hand crossbows. Rarely hits. Low hit points -- easy to take out in one round if a melee type monster can get at her. Only has a handful of level 1 and 2 spells per day. This player is the most experienced and rules-savvy of the lot. RP is not bad, but not inspired.

- Micah, Ranger 5/Fighter 2. Dual wields (scimitar/dagger); shooting for the 3.5 class Dervish Dancer. Micah really wants his owl animal companion to be an awesome combat buddy, and it's just not happening. Can dish out respectable damage, but suffers from low CON and low AC, and goes down fairly easily. Player is extremely good at character development and role-play, but has difficulty keeping track of the rules. Second most experienced player.

- Jubrayl, cleric 7. Blessed with good stats thanks to great rolls during character generation. Specced mostly for healing. Uneven rules knowledge. He's fine with most combat stuff, but was recently surprised when I informed him that he can prep ANY of the cleric spells of a level he can cast. Apparently he thought for the last 7 levels that he was limited to spells from his domains. And I never noticed. *headdesk* This is the third most experienced player. Rarely engages in RP, in the sense of in-character speech or action.

- Merisiel, ranger 7. Archer. Mechanically sound, but suffers from a lack of player. That is, the player only joined 5 sessions ago, and out of those 5 has only attended 2. Player has no experience with role playing games beyond those 2 sessions.

- Unnamed, druid 4/rogue 3. This is a newly recruited player who has never played tabletop before, and insists on playing a druid/rogue "because that's what I always wind up playing in WoW". Uses daggers and whips; no ranged weapon; 30 hit points at level 7; small viper companion with 13 hp. I have a 1-on-1 tutorial session scheduled for tomorrow to work on this player in which I am hoping beyond hope to persuade her to try something less mechanically complex for her very first PC, because holy cow, that PC has a ton of moving parts which will be very hard for a newbie to manage.

[Daenar]

Yeesh. I love flavor but this is BAD. Look you need to clue them that the fights aren't going to get any easier, the system rewards specialization, willy nilly multi classing HURTS and at least 75 percent of feat choices should be made carefully and with effectiveness in mind...Rotrl isn't so hard that characters need to min max but this party is woefully underpowered.

[Lamontius]

trustfall

[Corvino]

It might be worthwhile running a one-off scenario and getting them to play characters you choose to improve their tactical insight. The best way for melee to understand battlefield control is tho get them to play a dedicated caster and vice versa.

Come up with a few straightforward single-classed characters and point their feats and spells in a single direction. If your melee keep charging before Web/Glitterdust/Black Tentacles have been cast then get them to play a caster for a bit. If your mages just spam fireballs then get them playing a fighter and surround them with mooks, they'll beg for some crowd control. Having a character with a well-defined combat role as an example in their current class could also be of benefit.

I always find the best way to improve my play in a specific class is to read the guides for other classes. You could suggest some reading to your group - imply that you're about to throw a tough challenge at them and that some out-of-character prep will help. I think this link is very good at defining roles and explaining encounter-winning behaviour:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i5hWkHXHOetRlpLOmxbpoEWod77psN0JcwFvxCl NrGc/edit?pli=1

[Scott Wilhelm]

Your party's AC looks squishy. They really need lots of opportunities to form coherent attack plans with detailed intelligence of the monsters before attacking.

Maybe your new druid can find animals with high ACs to summon to offset the squishiness of your party. Maybe giant crabs or turtles or something.

You have a wizard, a cleric, and a druid: the party should have a ready supply of divination spells they can use to gain good intelligence.

The party is highly mobile. The wizard/rogue can lay lots of traps all over the countryside, and then the party can execute fake reatreats leading the enemy into prearranged traps.

If you give the party a lot of opportunities to lay careful plans, and if they taste success, they might get the idea.

[Daenar]

Lamontius wrote:

trustfall

Really? What does that even ... oh. Trust building exercise? Don't think that's as much of a problem as inexperienced players making weaker than normal flavor choices.

[bfobar]

Have them play we be goblins together? If they realize that some 15 point buy low level goblins are more effective than their characters, then maybe they'll rethink things?

Multiclassing is usually bad and these characters don't sound optimized in build or equipment. You may need to send them on some side quests that are lower in recommended level than the group is to get them some experience on how to play their characters. Also let them know that pathfinder isn't WoW and thinking it is will get your dude killed. You may well end up killing the rogue druid anyway. I recommend barbarians for first time characters. Getting them used to adjusting their stats for rage is good practice for a class that actually requires a lot of book keeping, like every caster. Also, rolling lots of big dice and adding lots of big numbers to it seems to be satisfying to newbs.

[Fruian Thistlefoot]

The group is doomed. Going to be honest RotRL is combat heavy. Those few who are severely weak are going to be wiped out a lot and Resurrection costs will eat this group. Time for a Total party Change. They are going to need a balanced party for this campaign. I recommend 1 FULL arcane caster and a FULL divine Caster. They will make the campaign easier. Make sure the players know they will need to be efficient in combat. After book 3 you will see a huge decrease in traps and it will be mostly combat. I don't think there is a fix for the party other then a complete rework so they will survive.

Rise of the runelords is a Brutal combat campaign. It is a great campaign but if the character isn't about survival then they tend to die...and often.

A good party make up for RotRLs would be:
Archer paladin, Switch Hitter ranger with Giant as a FE, Cleric/oracle, and a wizard/witch.

Tho your kinda stuck playing a advanced AP like RotRL. I rank it as one of the Hardest campaigns. Kinda mean to throw them into one of the tougher APs. But hey you get to have fun killing them.

[bfobar]

Or with that makeup you could switch over to a goofball wilderness intrigue campaign. I'm playing my group through the Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale right now. Your party would probably fare well there.

[Tinalles]

I'll put this in big letters, because a few people missed it, I think.

[bigger][bigger]We're using the 3.5 rules, and the 3.5 RotRL.[/bigger][/bigger]

The prevalence of multi-classing is in large part due to the rule set.

Although I personally would prefer using PF rules, there are a couple of players who are married to 3.5, and it was a choice of using 3.5 or finding an entirely new group. I live in a fairly small town (approx 50K people, and that's the largest city in a 75-mile radius). There are not THAT many players available. Plus they're my friends. So 3.5 it is.

Fruian Thistlefoot wrote:

Kinda mean to throw them into one of the tougher APs

Since we're on 3.5, the choices of AP were limited to those printed pre-PF. I listed them, and they wanted this one because it was the first published.

To work on the mechanics, I'm going to

1) Offer a rebuild to Micah. See if we can rebuild him as a melee type, a complete respec.

2) Arrange for Azaelyn to find a good cache of consumables, and possibly some magic items to stretch out her magical abilities (Pearls of Power, spell storing items, etc).

3) See if I can get Merisiel's player to actually show up.

4) I'm going to try to get Jubrayl's player to read a 3.5 cleric optimization handbook and see if there are any quick fixes. His stats are good, he just needs some more in-depth knowledge on how to USE it.

5) I'm going to try even harder to dissuade the new player from doing a Druid/Rogue as her first PC. Oh god, I have visions of an entire binder full of character sheets and a player so overwhelmed with options that she can't pick anything.

6) Lastly, I think I may have been shortchanging them on treasure. I'm going to arrange a big payday soon so they can get some better gear.

In terms of in-character trust building, I don't really have any good ideas. Trustfall is as good as anything, I guess.

[Fruian Thistlefoot]

Gonna be honest if your married to 3.5 avoid all Pathfinder stuff even if it says it is 3.5 able. The old 3.5 version of Rise of the Runelords is unbalanced and a lot was fixed in the anniversary edition they came out with. This includes a few boss fights. I know the final boss in book 2 at the top of the tower was way too strong in the original 3.5 version.

your number 6 changes once you get through book 3 and 4. They will come across a lot more treasure and wealth. Unless they spend it all on Resurrection costs and status fix costs. You also run the risk of unbalancing the game in another direction.