Four elemental-focused druids
If that is not good enough:
Barbarian, barbarian, barbarian, barbarian
Like I said, you'll need a weak GM to make it work. A real GM isn't going to let that bs walk over him - not with monsters that use actual tactics.And 4 wizards, really? You'll need to be very lucky to finish even the first chapter, or you'll have to rely on a weak/forgiving GM. Even god Wizards need front liners - what are you gonna do staff strike everything to death?Simple, you bring a Paladin in crab form.
...I'm not entirely sure what you mean? A Mauler familiar with grab on its natural attacks and divine caster saves is works just as well for a frontline as a Fighter would.
The D Team thread should be an inspiration for just how caster-poor you can get and still make it through an AP.
This thread about Unsworn Shaman makes me think that this archetype not only needs a guide all its own, but also might be the Swiss Army Knife a caster-poor party needs. Other than this, Witch is pretty hard to pass up for that role as well. Going down to 6/9 casters, Hexcrafter Magus can partially stand in for the Witch while giving you pretty good frontline power, although figuring out who could stand in for an Unsworn Shaman is a bit harder to figure out (maybe Warpriest? -- again would also give you pretty good frontline power).
Paladins seem great, but when you factor in a whole range of APs, they start to have problems: Somebody already mentioned Skull & Shackles above (and to that, add Hell's Vengeance, and even Reign of Winter might pose Paladin Code problems). But in addition, when an awful lot of major enemies are not Smitable, Paladin suddenly doesn't look so super any more, even without Paladin Code problems: Think of Iron Gods, for example. Still, if you get stuck with a real D Team that only has 4/9 casters for healing and bad status removal, you might want a Paladin even in these situations.
Paladins ARE great. Sword bond makes up for any problem with Neutral foes. The paladin is the only one in the party guaranteed to have a shocking Keen sword when facing robots, or a brilliant weapon to use against some heavy in Power armor.
Now, Chaotic and Evil aligned AP's, that's a different story. They've specifically been set up to NOT play a true blue hero.
==Aelryinth
The D Team thread should be an inspiration for just how caster-poor you can get and still make it through an AP.
I don't think anyone here is arguing against that. Paizo AP's are all fairly lenient, and I'm sure good players could take a party of Rogues, Fighters, and un-archetyped Monks and crush the campaign just fine. That also misses the point of this thread, which is to suggest the combo that utterly crushes the AP in the most overwhelming way possible. Loading up with casters is definitely the most elegant way to do this (provided the party has a good way to get through the low levels), although the brute force method of just hitting it as hard as possible works too.
^Nobody has to argue against it -- it's still a worthy challenge. To rephrase it a bit -- how caster-poor can you get and still utterly crush the AP?
^Nobody has to argue against it -- it's still a worthy challenge. To rephrase it a bit -- how caster-poor can you get and still utterly crush the AP?
I'm currently in a Wrath of the Righteous game where all four of us are playing Paladins.
It's about 2/3 Curbstomp and 1/3 Benny Hill sketch. Tons of fun.
Sure it does - you need to re-read those entries. You way overestimate the benefit you'll get. You do realize Spirit Bonded familiars don't give actual class levels, right? And Mauler doesn't give anything till level three....I'm not entirely sure what you mean? A Mauler familiar with grab on its natural attacks and divine caster saves is works just as well for a frontline as a Fighter would.Like I said, you'll need a weak GM to make it work. A real GM isn't going to let that bs walk over him - not with monsters that use actual tactics.And 4 wizards, really? You'll need to be very lucky to finish even the first chapter, or you'll have to rely on a weak/forgiving GM. Even god Wizards need front liners - what are you gonna do staff strike everything to death?Simple, you bring a Paladin in crab form.
I think you don't realize the benefits. Full BAB, Good Fort and Will, Familiars get Improved Evasion for free. Level 3 turns medium. Can be the target of Enlarge Person and Bull's Strength, stacking with the +2 from Battle Form. Size increases on natural attacks plus grab. This just gets crazier as you go up in level and get even more incredible Transmutation spells for Your Full-BAB better-saves-than-a-Fighter Familiar.
One Wizard has given up his bonus feats for this guy. There are still 3 other casters and, at low levels, they can easily just be built for battle. By the point they stop being an acceptable frontliner, their familiar will be far enough along to take their place, and they turn into a regular old caster who relies on the saveless/buffing spells. I wouldn't be surprised if all four of them gave their familiar for this. A cabal of Crabadins out to save the world.
Uh, if you read SPirit Binder, if the Loved One died before the campaign started, it means you automatically took a level in their class at level 1.
I.e. your mage is a Paladin, also. Unless your paladin love died DURING the campaign, of course. Then you're scott free.
So, you gave up a caster level for that Crabadin of yours. it's a nice familiar, but, you know, it's not a paladin, its just got good saves and BAB.
==Aelryinth
Uh, if you read SPirit Binder, if the Loved One died before the campaign started, it means you automatically took a level in their class at level 1.
I.e. your mage is a Paladin, also. Unless your paladin love died DURING the campaign, of course. Then you're scott free.
So, you gave up a caster level for that Crabadin of yours. it's a nice familiar, but, you know, it's not a paladin, its just got good saves and BAB.
==Aelryinth
Incorrect.
A soulbound familiar has the base attack bonus and base saving throws of the loved one's favored class (using the spirit binder's level as its level).
It has the BAB and saving throws of the loved one, but it scales on the Spirit Binder's level. The Spirit Binder is not required to take any levels of anything.
Uh, if you read SPirit Binder, if the Loved One died before the campaign started, it means you automatically took a level in their class at level 1.
I.e. your mage is a Paladin, also. Unless your paladin love died DURING the campaign, of course. Then you're scott free.
So, you gave up a caster level for that Crabadin of yours. it's a nice familiar, but, you know, it's not a paladin, its just got good saves and BAB.
==Aelryinth
Incorrect.
A soulbound familiar has the base attack bonus and base saving throws of the loved one's favored class (using the spirit binder's level as its level).It has the BAB and saving throws of the loved one, but it scales on the Spirit Binder's level. The Spirit Binder is not required to take any levels of anything.
mmm, on a reread, I was looking at this sentence.
If the loved one died before the beginning of the campaign, the spirit binder selects the familiar's favored class at 1st level and it cannot be changed.
Which I read as the Spirit Binder had to take the familiar's class at level 1 (Character level), when it is actually saying 'Class level 1'. It looked like a pre-req.
Naturally, if the loved one died after the campaign began, you'd use their favored class from their stat block instead. Since you couldn't choose it, no pre-req.
It is instead saying that you pick the familiar's class at level 1 and it can't be changed, not that you have to pick the familiar's class and take your first level in it, as well.
Bad phrasing, I guess. From a flavor standpoint, it would be great, though...you don't get to pick the class unless you have a level in the class, yourself!
==Aelryinth
^Nobody has to argue against it -- it's still a worthy challenge. To rephrase it a bit -- how caster-poor can you get and still utterly crush the AP?
I'm currently in a Wrath of the Righteous game where all four of us are playing Paladins.
It's about 2/3 Curbstomp and 1/3 Benny Hill sketch. Tons of fun.
This is a good start . . . But Wrath of the Righteous has an environment in whih Paladins really shine more than in a lot of other APs? Can you make a combination of 4 Paladins that can do all of the APs (or at least all except Skull & Shackles and Hell's Vengeance)?
Any AP that has evil foes will be curbstomped by 4 paladins without a problem.
If the enemies are regularly neutral, a Bane and Sword Bond cover that situation easily. If robots/constructs are a problem, for instance, just get a Construct Bane weapon, sword bond in electricity and Keen, and go to town on them.
So far, there haven't been any AP's where the boss creatures aren't Evil, so Smiting generally isn't a problem. Between their ability to heal and excellent, if minor, recovery abilities and immunities, Paladins can, with very little customization, go through any AP that doesn't explicitly require a lot of flying or teleporting...and there's magic items for that.
I mean, sure, it may be stylistically weird to play Curse of the Crimson Throne with all Paladins, but you can DO it.
I wonder why you never hear of all Ranger parties? Heh. Probably because the saves, immunities and recovery isn't on the same level as Paladins.
==Aelryinth
I'm sure you could get through any AP with a party of just Paladins and Barbarians. Spell Sunder is better than spending one of your few spell slots on Dispel Magic.
Inquisitor, bloodrager, wizard, cleric, and maybe a bard for fun and traps.
Just had another thought, unrelated to what I posted above: Now that Unchained Rogue has been out for a while and the Weapon Master's Handbook is out (with Armor Master's Handbook on the way), does the ultra-traditional composition Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, Wizard deserve a second look? (Add Bard if using party size 5.) (Bonus points for minimizing non-Core content other than that from the above-mentioned supplements.)
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Just had another thought, unrelated to what I posted above: Now that Unchained Rogue has been out for a while and the Weapon Master's Handbook is out (with Armor Master's Handbook on the way), does the ultra-traditional composition Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, Wizard deserve a second look? (Add Bard if using party size 5.)
As the best class combination? No, absolutely not. But at least they're a little better than they have been for a long time.
The Core Four's mundanes have improved a lot, but it's still not as good as having four casters of different stripes.
Paladin, Ranger, Cleric, Wizard.
I've always wanted to do a "brethren" party of "religious" classes:
paladin, inquisitor, monk, cleric.
Paladin, Ranger, Cleric, Wizard.
I've always wanted to do a "brethren" party of "religious" classes:
paladin, inquisitor, monk, cleric.
Make the Monk a Sensei and that is a very competent adventuring party.
Just had another thought, unrelated to what I posted above: Now that Unchained Rogue has been out for a while and the Weapon Master's Handbook is out (with Armor Master's Handbook on the way), does the ultra-traditional composition Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, Wizard deserve a second look? (Add Bard if using party size 5.) (Bonus points for minimizing non-Core content other than that from the above-mentioned supplements.)
No.
The fighter's job is done just as well by other classes, who can also do other things the fighter cannot. He's totally replaceable by better classes.
The Rogue is even worse off, since he's just a skill guy with mediocre fighting ability. he can be replaced by skill guys who can fight AND use magic very easily. He's even easier to boot.
Cleric and mage still guard their niches well.
==Aelryinth
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A very specific build of Rogue (Ratfolk Thug with a sap) has a niche at least: single-target debuffing. Nothing else in the game can put that much of a "f%*~ you" onto the Big Bad with such ease and virtually no risk of failure at the level that build comes online.
Is it enough to consider the Rogue over other debuffing classes, who are generally very good at doing their thing in AOE as well as single-target? No. Does it get less impressive in the later levels when stuff like Maze comes online? Yes. But hell, it is SOMETHING, which is more than we could have said a year ago.
I usually don't believe in dumpster diving as a concept. The DM says "All Paizo", I use all Paizo, that's fair game. Say what you want.
But whenever I see working Rogue builds, I can't help but scream dumpster diving.
I need the ability to sneak attack in darkness from here and count as flanking from this and be this race and have this weapon and have this trait and the surprise round has to happen and I have to be this far from them and I need to take action 1, 2 and 3 in this order to get off a sneak attack. If you need all of that to effectively sneak attack people, shouldn't that be part of the Rogue Class? So it actually works?
I just don't like feats and traits being the fixes for classes, because then no one takes any option besides the fix. Make the class function, then give it feats to expand or improve those functions. Not from trash to acceptable, but from acceptable to desirable.
I want to envy a Rogue. Give them something another class would want, just once.
Dom,
When tossing around ideas for a Rogue re-write, one thing I gave them was LOTS of skill ability.
Base 8 skill points.
Every time they got a Sneak Attack die, they got a +1 Competence bonus to all skills they had full Ranks in, got to pick another skill, and gained another skill point/level.
They started with 5 skills...five mandatory, and five they could pick.
So, at level 20, they could have 18 Skills with max ranks, with +10 Competence on each skill, BEFORE Intelligence.
Taking feats with Skill boosts via Talents automatically made that Skill a class skill.
They were the uncontested master of skills! :) And better yet, they were GOOD at them!
Of course, I took the Bard and Ranger down to 4...
==Aelryinth
I usually don't believe in dumpster diving as a concept. The DM says "All Paizo", I use all Paizo, that's fair game. Say what you want.
But whenever I see working Rogue builds, I can't help but scream dumpster diving.
I need the ability to sneak attack in darkness from here and count as flanking from this and be this race and have this weapon and have this trait and the surprise round has to happen and I have to be this far from them and I need to take action 1, 2 and 3 in this order to get off a sneak attack. If you need all of that to effectively sneak attack people, shouldn't that be part of the Rogue Class? So it actually works?
I just don't like feats and traits being the fixes for classes, because then no one takes any option besides the fix. Make the class function, then give it feats to expand or improve those functions. Not from trash to acceptable, but from acceptable to desirable.
I want to envy a Rogue. Give them something another class would want, just once.
I entirely agree. Scurrying Swarmer is really good and fixes a lot of the problems Rogues have in combat situations... but the fact that you need to be an ARG race with several splatbooks worth of resources to have a functional rogue doesn't even come close to making the class itself functional.
My favorite solution is to expand the Rogue's debuffing potential and narrative power so that "I don't really want to play a wizard, think I'll do a Rogue instead" is an entirely valid statement to make. We're already moving in the right direction for Rogues being debuffers, but it would take a pretty significant rework to give Rogues the kind of narrative power a Wizard has*. We can start with Rogues having the capability to always Know a Guy.
*By this I mean the kind of narrative power you get from a Wizard before he starts spiraling out of control by gating in solars and other such nonsense. Any reasonable solution will require toning down the Wizard's capabilities.
Unrelated to either of the ideas I posted above, but having a theme of its own, here's an idea I had for an all-Halfling or at least all-(Small+Dwarf) party for Giantslayer, but I think that it could be adapted to a wide variety of APs, although obviously the part-Paladin would have a problem in any Paladin-unfriendly AP like Skull & Shackles or Hell's Vengeance (which is also likely to be rather Halfling-unfriendly). Of course, since the (Mouser Tower Shieldadin) Paladin is the problem here, one could just change this to (Mouser) Tower Shield Fighter into Stalwart Defender, and this party is 1 over the original post's specification of 4 characters anyway, so outright removal is another option, at the cost of a lot of defensive power (although this is defensive power that gets less good if your opponents do a lot of AoE attacks or if you are in an environment where falling into deep water is a common risk).
Party summary in order of presentation in the post linked above:
1. Mouser Tower Shieldadin (candidate for removal to get down to party size 4)
2. Bard (or maybe Skald) -- if removing party member #1 above, Skald is recommended to get better armor and weapon proficiencies
3. Underfoot Adept Monk with optional 1 level dip in Mouser Swashbuckler.
4. Ninja (or Filcher Rogue) taking a 5 level detour into Halfling Opportunist
5. Witch specializing in debuffing, including Jinx and eventually Area Jinx
The thread that the above-linked post is in is also relevant to this thread, since it is a thread about Well-Rounded Parties, including such ideas as a party of 4 Bloatmages.
How about 4 people who all play Pun Pun?
How about 4 people who all play Pun Pun?
Invalid. Unless your group uses both 3.5 material AND Forgotten Realms material, Pun Pun can't really exist in Pathfinder.
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Four Wizards = sub-optimal, especially at low levels. Might not even finish chapter 1.
One of the ways I've seen a four Wizard party work was back in 3.X, using Unearthed Arcana options for Necromancer specialists to have a permanent undead minion (p. 63) and Enchanter specialists to have a permanent Cohort/Thrall (p. 60-61) or any Wizard to swap his familiar for a half-strength Animal Companion (p. 58-59).
Options that worked similarly, allowing an Illusionist to have a shadow creature companion, or a transmuter to have an animated object/construct, could also mitigate the squishiness of the base Wizard.
As for ROFLstompage, we annihilated a few Dungeon Delves back at GenCon (during the 3.5 era) by sending in a group of three Barbarians (the pregen's name was Q'lys, as I recall). Rage-and-run. We had a Cleric, but she was wearing medium armor and was always lagging a room behind, and never got to heal anyone. I imagine if the game was intended to last more than 15 minutes, it would have been different...
Skills are the one thing the rogue doesn't need. Niche protection means forcing someone in the group where everyone hates rogues to play a rogue. Rogues don't have the bare minimum combat ability to not be a drag on the party. More skills are as useless as a fighter fix that gives them more damage on a full attack. Fix the actual problem.
Skills include all knowledge and profession skills. The Rogue becomes the go-to guy for ALL the skills.
Instead of the bard.
The key is, the rogue will be GOOD at the skills.
Now, the fact skills are underpowered vs magic is another argument...
As for niche protection - Why can I take trapfinding with a feat, but not bardsong, or a level of arcane casting? Learn how to rage? Gain a favored enemy?
Every class has niche protection, except the Rogue. It it all got given away.
The Unchained Rogue is MUCH better in combat then the classic rogue.
As for combat with my rewrite:
I swapped SA for Cunning.
The Rogue gets +1 precision damage per point of Cunning when using finessable weapons. IF he satisfied the conditions for a Sneak attack, he got the dice instead. And auto weapon finesse, of course. Stacked with Str and avoided the Dex to damage thing everyone wants. (I hate +Stat to ANYTHING abilities. Easiest way to break an ability.)
A quickly scaling and reasonable damage boost.
==Aelryinth
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Evangelist Cleric of Erastil, animal (feather) domain with wolf companion, focus on buffs.
Ranger with archery style and a wolf animal companion.
Summoner, quadruped multi-bite pounce eidolon, control and buff spells.
Wizard(?) - honestly this slot is open, but adding a wizard can't be a bad choice.
No VMCs in here yet? If you had a party of 4 people with VMC Oracle (Flame) with the Gaze of Flames as their first Revelation, or something equivalent (but this one seems to be the best), then whatever their primary classes were, they could really hose an enemy by filling battlefields with mist, fog, smoke, or even fire (although this Revelation doesn't give Fire Resistance -- you need a different one for that, and you only get a second Revelation MUCH later, but you can use spells for that instead, whereas even most enemies with fire-resistance or immunity won't have a way to see beyond 5 feet).
Buying (or better yet crafting another advantage of my proposed party), Goz Masks solves this problem without investing any levels. Combine with the Eversmoking Bottle and Necklaces of Adaption to be a terrifying force.
Flame Dancer Bard is good to know about -- actually seems like a pretty good archetype overall, although watch out for intelligent enemies focusing down or Silencing the Bard (who they can find by sound) first to level the playing field. The real problem there is too many !$$@^%@ Bard (and some other class) archetypes to keep track of them all -- for Pathfinder 2.0 (or more likely a stealth upgrade like Pathfinder Unchained), I wish they would compress archetypes into a-la-carte abilities selectable as Talents.
VMC Oracle (Flame) does have the advantage of being harder to take down, but the disadvantages of some levels being just bad (Orison is sometimes useful but mainly weak; Curse Focus seems like a tax to fix something that shouldn't have started out nerfed so hard in the first place).
Goz Masks and Necklaces of Adaptation (the latter being good if you REALLY stink up the place) are probably the best of both worlds, but may be hard to come by if your Campaign doesn't have a Lord Waldemart outlet handy.
Can we cheat and have of the 4 take Leadership with a bunch of crafter cohorts? Like bard, cleric, druid, and wizard? All with Scribe Scroll, Craft Wondrous Item, Craft Arms and Armor, Craft Rod, Craft Staff, Craft Ring, and Craft Wand?
^Sure, why not, if you can have a party of 4 Master Summoners, 4 Angel Summoners Herald Caller Clerics, or 4 Witches, that shouldn't be any more overpowered. Actually should be really good if the Cleric is an Ecclesitheurge who worships a deity that has a good selection of Domains/Subdomains.
Not convinced that the Daze durations of the Rulership Negative Channel and Dazing Fireball would stack, although this does increase the probability that somebody will fail a Save in 1 round. Unless that Cleric of Ra is considerably over the level of the Summoners, the Summoner party has a decent chance that somebody will save against both, and even those that fail against the Rulership Daze but not the Fireball Daze are just out for 1 round. That Cleric of Ra had better have a decent set of minions, or the Summoners and summoned creatures (or even not summoned creatures) will beat up the Cleric thereafter. Summoners aren't especially martial, but they are 3/4 BAB, d8 with proficiency with all Simple weapons, with possible additional proficiencies from racial traits and maybe even feats. They are very SAD (and this doesn't mean unhappy) in their basic function, so they can afford to make themselves somewhat MAD to become more capable combatants in their own right, even with low point buy, for the cost of some moderate feat investment (Combat Reflexes, Dirty Fighting instead of the now-obsolete Combat Expertise, and Improved Trip, and then later on Greater Trip; somebody could go for archery instead). They have some pretty good battlefield control spells(*) before taking into account the spell-like abilities of anything they could summon. So they aren't one-trick ponies, even with the Master Summoner archetype. Also, with up to 4 Skilldolons sneaking around, they are more likely to get the drop on the Cleric than vice versa, giving them a chance to summon stuff in places where the Cleric can't get them all with 1 Fireball without self-nuking (and nuking minions, even if the Cleric can eat the damage). Yes, the Cleric's party could win if of equal CR to the 4 Summoners, but it's not a shoo-in, and I'd put the odds in favor of the 4 Summoners (unless the Cleric is actually part of a PC-style party that is itself built to be more powerful than expected for its normally computed CR).
(*)And I specifically looked up the Unchained Summoner spell list.