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If you and your friends were planning to start a new group of PFS characters to play together and by some miracle you could persuade them all on what to play, what classes / builds would you put in your dream team of 4 - 6 characters?
Alternatively, thinking about your current favourite character - who are they and what would you most like see sitting down to the table with them if you could pick all the other slots?
I ask this because I've seen a fair amount of posts on what's considered sub-optimal or impractical for society play (or just boring to be at the table with) and was curious what players actually were keen to see instead.
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*Paladin of Iomedae
*Paladin of Erastil
*Paladin of Shelyn
*Paladin of Sarenrae
*Paladin of Kurgess
*Paladin of Chaldira Zuzaristan
VC: We need you to sneak into this Aspis base disguised as Aspis agents and rob them of the MacGuffin, then assassinate their leader.
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I play mostly PFS so I like characters that can contribute to combat with some out of combat versatility. Here is a general 6 party group.
- Arcane caster - Haste, control, problem solving.
- Melee Investigator - Always good to have round because skills with descend damage and great accuracy.
- Melee Skald - Spell Kenning, ghost touch or align weapon for everyone through Flexible Fury, back up haste, good hope etc.
- Divine Caster - I like a shaman they don't have to be precious with there spell slots because of hexes and can adapt to any party. But most are good. Dual cursed oracle is pretty good at any table.
- A good melee character. Slayer, Rangers, Bloodrager, Warpriest as they can do non-combat stuff without sacrificing to much melee ability.
- Basically everything is covered at this point. Add a druid, hunter, ranger damage dealer, second arcane caster, a melee controller (reach eldritch guardian maybe).
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VC: We need you to sneak into this Aspis base disguised as Aspis agents and rob them of the MacGuffin, then assassinate their leader.*Paladin of Iomedae
*Paladin of Erastil
*Paladin of Shelyn
*Paladin of Sarenrae
*Paladin of Kurgess
*Paladin of Chaldira Zuzaristan
I imagine that one goes like this:
We don the disguises. We sneak in. At some point, the disguise fails, and we subdue the enemies who practically throw themselves at us.
We find the target that VC Heidmarch (because let's be fair, if it's scummy, it's VC Heidmarch) wants eliminated. We offer him redemption. He lies and accepts. We see that he is lying, play along until he attacks us, and send him to Pharasma like the scum he was all along.
1 XP, 2 PP, Full Gold. (But the real reward is in the play, of course.)
Got another?
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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If I could get everyone on the same page it'd be tempting to make a theme party. I wonder what kind of shenanigans we could get up to if everyone took Bonded Mind for example?
But more broadly speaking, I'd go for an "all food groups" party;
- Toolbag cleric that has spells to fix everything, from conditions to enemies with weird defenses that can be overcome.
- Environmental wizard, capable of battlefield shaping, countering enemy magic and moving everyone into position
- Melee brute/controller, probably Large+ most of the time. Anything that comes within 30ft dies.
- Ranged DPS, staying away doesn't help either.
- Everyone is seriously skilled. Most skills are covered by at least two people. Especially social skills are nice if you have both a straight-laced and a scummy person, so that you can present NPCs with someone who looks like "their kind of people".
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- Someone who has 30k loose money at level 8 because "I can't think of anything to buy"
- A roguish kind of archer with a massive toolbag of items and weapons and Str 8
- A character specializing in one thing only so they either skip half of any given combat or dominate it entirely
- A goofy buff lesbian in really swanky armor who somehow ends up being the butt monkey of the party
- A fun but effective, not excessively complicated character with a really good backstory no one will ever get to hear
- A Dex-based character with spellcasting abilities who ends up turning out kind of useless by level 7, usually by level 5
You did say "if you and your friends"...
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Like most of us I suspect, I have been in some very effective and some near ineffective parties. My wish-list for an effective party:
Melee tank: typically a bloodrager or barbarian, I prefer bloodrager for arcane abilities.
Condition removal: typically a cleric but other divine casters can get the job done.
Battlefield control: typically a wizard or other arcane full-caster.
Investigator (empiricist): got the skills and knowledges covered, and contributes well in combat.
Bard: a good bard is a magnificent force amplifier and helps with skills/knowledges.
Ranged DPS: loads of ways to cover this, like alchemist, archer or blaster.
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I'd say that ideally, a 6 person party should have:
At least 2 front liners to take the hits
At least 2 heavy damage dealers
At least half who aren't heavy damage dealers should still be doing some damage, even if they're not DPS specialists
Someone with some healing ability beyond a wand of CLW
Backup healer (anyone who can use a wand of CLW)
Controller
Buffer
Party face
Knowledge skill monkey
Physical skill monkey (trapfinder, scout, etc)
Obviously, that's more than 6 roles, but most PCs can fill more than one of these roles. And missing a role or two usually isn't that bad.
For instance, just the other day, I was in a 5 player group with no real healer. Two people who could use wands of CLW and a couple of scrolls of Cure Moderate got us through a relatively combat heavy subtier 4-5 scenario with no deaths. In that same group, two of us had no direct damage capability, so the other three were doing all the damage. It was tough, but we got it done.
A Luck Domain Cleric with a high initiative score
Melee with multiple attacks a round
Ranged with multiple attacks a round
Arcane caster with a nice set of knowledge skills
A skill monkey
A face character
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Full Caster POWER!
Summoning Wizard
Control Wizard
Battle Cleric
Utility Cleric (minor healing, condition removal, buffs, control)
(add up to two more clerics or wizards if you want need more PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER!)
One wizard to diplomacize, one to bluff via clever wordplay. No lie goes un-sensed and nothing un-spotted with the clerics' high Wis and an investment in sense motive and perception on each. Knowledges are covered by two wizards. Spells and summons can cover any corner case situations like tracking or scouting. For combat, battle cleric and summons soak up and dish out the damage. Controller locks down problem enemies and divides enemy groups. Utility cleric buffs the meat shields and keeps people in the fight by curing hit points and conditions. They must all be extremely snotty to any NPC who cannot cast spells.
