Reading the title, I immediately thought about 4 Summoners. I hardly see a better party considering that they cover absolutely every bases and have a lot of room for what is not naturally covered by their class (for example, it's very easy for an Eidolon to raise intelligence if needed).
The only issue of this party would be AoE damage before level 10. There will be a critical moment between level 5 and 9 where AoEs can be dangerous and they still don't have Protective Bond.
I must admit, before playing the Summoner I was quite sure the class would please me. But playing it I just got crazy about it. The class is extremely solid. For a player who values versatility over specialization like I do, it's the absolute beast. And when you have to choose a 4-man party with the same class, I don't hesitate.
Now, PF2 is made in such a way that you can choose nearly any class and end up with an ok party. Dedications can help you compensate for what the party lacks.
4 Monks all with Monastic Archer Stance, Ki Strike, Stunning Fist, Deflect Arrows, Return Fire. Melee or ranged is all covered. The rate of fire would be immense. Take a range of skills including medicine.
Honestly I could make a party of 4 of any character class work. The difficulty would be the 6HP classes as they would need animal companions of one form or another to be some sort of a front line.
I agree the best single class party options probably are Summoners and Alchemists.
Summoner because the class tradition flexibility and martial power allows them to be whatever they want.
Alchemists because they are extremely versatile and can work to solve any situation alone or helping each other (sharing formulas, being very diverse skill monkey, abusing from quick alchemy, using elixirs for good self-healing, exploiting opponents weakness...).
IMO if we put party aside Alchemist is probably the best class for solo adventures.
4 druids would be good.
4 clerics.
4 summoners.
4 rangers could probably do it with mostly ranged and animal companions. Tough for those first few levels.
Maybe 4 champions with their Lay on Hands and reactions.
4 fighters could do it if they could make it past getting slaughtered in the early levels with no healing.
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Blessed one archetype and battle medicine should be more than enough healing for the early levels no?
I would agree that Summoners would probably be best.
My honorable mentions:
Druids
Oracles of varying types (Battle, Life, and a couple of others to round things out).
Thaumaturges
Inventors
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if they could make it past getting slaughtered in the early levels with no healing.
Any character can start with one of the Field Medic/ Once Bitten/ Tech Reliant backgrounds and have Battle Medicine from the very start of the game.
Any character can take Blessed One and have focus healing by level 2. Or maybe just Medic.
Healing really isn't a significant factor as any class can get it.
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Oh my god a full party of Investigators would be so incredibly annoying. They all walk into a room: "That'soddthat'soddthat'soddthat'sodd"
Every turn in combat is just copy+paste four Zach Galifianakis Math meme gifs.
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Oh my god a full party of Investigators would be so incredibly annoying. They all walk into a room: "That'soddthat'soddthat'soddthat'sodd"
Heh. That's funny.
It is also optional, and redundant. I would expect that a party of 4 Investigators would only have one of them take the feat. If more than one have it, the GM still only needs to give out one clue for the lot of them.
What level are we starting at? What level are we ending at? And is there a particular AP in mind?
What level are we starting at? What level are we ending at? And is there a particular AP in mind?
It's just a "dubious exercise". Don't need to be so serious.
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I think... it's not just about being flexible. Flexibility is good, but you're going to have problems with that one anyway. Part of it is about grabbing synergies. What class can best help itself?
- I think that a pack of 4 paladins would be hilarious. No matter who you take a swing at, you're getting punished. Probably not top of the list, but you have plenty of survivability and heals aren't a problem. Only real issue is ranged damage.
- Rogues? Rogues are all about piling debilitations on the foe and then punishing them for their weakness. That's a gift that just keeps on giving. Might be an issue if you go up against something immune to precision damage, though.
Mono-class parties are interesting because there's lot of tactical incentive overlap. For example, ranged damage is even better if your whole party has good ranged damage. One character who has to charge into the fray and get focus fired sort of ruins that.
By contrast, the full melee party has a full squad to deal maximum damage, take hits for each other, chain reactions, etc. (They will need to pack felling strike, sudden Leap, or some other combination of ways to deal with fliers, of course.)
A party of prepared casters will all benefit from a measured pace with careful scouting and frequent rests.
A group of skill monkeys may be able to talk/sneak past some encounters, and will have a better time of it if no one in the party dumped Deception/Stealth.
A party full of rangers will be exceptionally good at taking advantage of snares and wildness terrain.
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My first thought was Fighter. You could build a sword and shield fighter to be a tank, a two-weapon fighter to deal lots of damage, a bow fighter to be ranged damage and then a 4th fighter can be whatever you need! A grappler for control maybe. One if not all pick up medicine and some battle medicine, maybe someone goes blessed one and you've got yourself a pretty tough self sufficient party who can take all comers I think.
4 Monks all with Monastic Archer Stance, Ki Strike, Stunning Fist, Deflect Arrows, Return Fire. Melee or ranged is all covered. The rate of fire would be immense. Take a range of skills including medicine.
And they could kite many enemies. Add Ki Blasts to clear a crowd that ambushes them, 4 of those should ruin most minion gangs. Later they can climb on walls or air to keep even more enemies from closing.
And even a non-archer (or archer in a windy, non-projectile environment) can Stride/Flurry/Stride, which should keep anybody from getting seriously mauled, and likely able to withdraw if necessary. Plus those saves make them awfully resilient, even above having one of the better ACs by default.
Skills are likely their weakest feature, yet with teamwork they could cover what's necessary to progress. That leaves I guess oozes? Make sure to get Ghost Touch Handwraps? And get some Cantrips via Ancestry for Regeneration (or Elemental Fist, though that's costly IMO).
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Weird. Cleric used to dominate this sort of hypothetical set up and yet here we are with no one (else) even mentioning them. Seriously, the four Paladins are getting more discussion and they are not even a full class. I get a little disagreeable over certain particulars, but credit must be given to Paizo for seriously shaking things up.
The all Investigator party sounds fun. They could do an occult adventure in Arkham country, they could do a police procedural like L&O:SVU (nevermind, 2e took a step back from the edge) CSI, they could even do a comedic crackdown on piracy such as The Pirates of Penzance. I might need to go pitch a Film Noir adventure path to my group.
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I must admit the 4 Monk party is also a good idea. Unlike the Summoner party who adapts to whatever situation, the Monks turn whatever situation into their own playground. I quite like it.
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It's just a "dubious exercise". Don't need to be so serious.What level are we starting at? What level are we ending at? And is there a particular AP in mind?
I wasn't asking those questions to get serious, but just to help me because every campaign changes what character I would want to bring, even just as an individual player. A level 1 to level 20 campaign, for me, better include more than just an endless mega dungeon of encounters strung together or it will get really boring in play. A sprawling hex crawl adventure with lots of big maps and often single encounters or small groups of 3 or 4 encounters will be different too than playing as part of an attacking or defending force in a combined political intrigue/war campaign. Even with published material, an age of ashes vs an Strength of Thousands vs something like a converted Carrion Crown campaign is going to change a lot, and I think it is a huge strength of the system that a different class would probably do better in each of these campaigns.
I thin the most difficult part of really projecting this thought experiment over a 20th level campaign is that the players are going to have to want to play these characters through an entire 20th level campaign, presumably replacing any lost characters with characters in the same class. That alone makes classes like the Magus, Bard or Psychic wash out for me because things would get very repetitive.
If the challenge was set to a specific AP, like Strength of Thousands, it is easier for me to wrap my head around the project. Like, knowing that everyone is going to be MCing into either Druid or Wizard, I think Monk could be a really fun base class with good defenses and HP for a bunch of caster archetypes. For Carrion Crown, Clerics would be hard to surpass as the best class. For Age of Ashes, it is pretty open ended, but has to be versatile because each book is a different kind of classic campaign. Investigator or Rogue could work, Fighter might really be a challenge over the whole book because you really want casters to solve and expedite a lot of the travel and environmental challenges in those books. If any campaign could make bard work, it would probably be extinction curse, but bards just don't overlap that well without stepping on each other's toes. It is just a lot more fun as a thought experiment to contextualize the campaign.
If the campaign was, "You have to make a party where you will face 20 total levels of complete uncertainty in party goals, or campaign arcs, or encounter variety" that really feels like it will either be a trap, where it really will be a campaign with a specific theme, but you just have to randomly guess and hope you don't pick wrong, or it will be so chaotic and fractured that it would be hard to imagine any class being playable for 20 levels of "Who, What, Why? No one knows!"
I think any 4 person comp can probably work with the right builds, the toughest one would probably be 4 wizards with little to no melee roles, but even then I do wonder if like a Universalist Hand of the Human (for Armor prof twice) or Ancient Elf (for champion or Fighter) or something could work.
It would require a group working together on builds to patch all holes in most cases.
The best one though? Druid seems pretty likely to me. If only for the fact that they have literally every role in-house and could theoretically field 4 animal companions at level 1.
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I can see a lot of possibilities with an all-Alchemist party, especially if you went with all four Research Fields. The Mutagenist could provide everyone's Mutagens, freeing the Bomber and the Toxicologist to go all out on Bombs and Poisons. 15 Bombs a day (all Specialty items, of course) could go a long way at 1st level. Have the Bomber & Tox in the rear with the Chirurgeon and Mutagenist up front... yeah, I definitely see potential there.
I agree that four druids is probably the most obvious choice for a single class party. Four summoners are also a good choice with each summoner choosing a different eidolon type/spell list.
I'm not sold on four alchemists for a full 20 levels; alchemists tend to lose steam (IMO) after the first 10 levels.
Four barbarians could be tricky, but as long as there is sufficient out-of-combat healing they could be pretty strong (pun intended).
Four bards could probably also do quite well in PF2; occult isn't as versatile as primal, but it still has a good range of options (and bards are very good at making the rest of the group better).
Four champions would probably be very resilient and effective against the opposite alignment axis (evil or good), while still being decent against neutral foes.
Four clerics will probably not be as effective as in PF1, but they are likely to be extremely resilient with all of them having Divine Font.
Four fighters will probably be very effective in combat, especially if they use teamwork, but might struggle a bit against certain challenges.
Four gunslingers might be the most difficult to pull off, unless the campaign is in Arcadia (beast gunner and spellshot archetypes).
Four inventors could be hilarious (for SCIENCE!), as well as reasonably effective with each character selecting a different innovation (doubling up on one type, possibly one melee weapon and one ranged weapon).
Four investigators could work, but may get annoying for the GM.
Four magi (each with a different hybrid study) could be interesting; they might be a bit short on easy healing, but that could be worked around with archetypes.
Four monks would probably be at least as effective as four fighters, if not more so.
Four oracles could work, but will probably need some care so that their curses don't cripple the entire group at the same time.
Four psychics might even be better than four bards in several ways, especially if half go with Int and half go with Cha as their casting stat; Bon Mot from one Cha caster + use Intimdation to demoralize from another + a bunch of spells requiring Will saves.
Four rangers could probably work, although they might get annoyed with having to switch their prey so often.
Four rogues would probably do quite well, both in combat (with teamwork to set up Sneak Attacks) and out (skill challenges... pfft).
Four sorcerers might need to be careful, but would probably work with each character selecting a different bloodline/spell list.
Four swashbucklers would probably be a challenge, although it might be doable if they focus on tripping and other techniques to hinder opponents.
Four thaumaturges would probably work, with different implement choices (although most will probably want a weapon implement as their first or second selection).
Four witches would probably work, with each character selecting a different patron/spell list; they will probably need to be even more careful than sorcerers as prepared casters and having fewer spell slots.
Four wizards could have difficulties, without at least one character multiclassing to broaden access to another spell list; similar to sorcerers, they will need to be careful (probably more so as prepared casters).
In the end it is really up to the GM.
Most published modules don't have only one way to win. There is normally not any one skill or spell you have to have to win. This is specifically so if you don't have a good Thievery skill or any one character to play.
The principle in general is reasonable. But there is no guarantee your GM is following it.
(I do find it a bit annoying at times certain modules where you have to go through a complex skill challenge to pick a lock, or you can just roll athletics and force the door at the same DC.)
The modules often extend this to tactical scenarios too. Where all the action occurs in confined spaces. Which means all melee parties can do quite well. I often open it up a bit more when I GM to allow for broader tactical play.
I'm starting to think 4 summoners might not be that great.
I've played a summoner. There is no way to avoid damage. You have eight points of attack with variable defenses and saves. You have to roll AoE saves twice. It can create a lot of issues. With the limited spell slots, not sure they could keep up with the healing in truly difficult encounters. Once a summoner goes down, it's not easy to get back in the fight.
I'm still leaning towards the best 4 person party probably being 4 druids or 4 clerics due to the healing and variability in capabilities. Druids could toss on some animal companions, do wild shape, medicine is easier with wisdom as main casting stat. Toss on a rogue archetype to one of them. Perception would be high with wisdom. They start off using medium armor with shields and shield blocks.
Clerics could pick ideal deity blends and divine font with clerics either doing lots of healing or AOE negative damage would make a pretty brutal group.
I'm leaning towards 4 druids or 4 clerics as being the most likely to survive 1 to 20 in a standard AP adventure without the DM specifically altering encounters to ensure survival.
As a somewhat dubious exercise I was thinking about if you had to have everyone in your party as the same class which class would work best.
If class archetypes are allowed we can 'cheat our way' out of this and end up having healers, blasters, martials, etc though they'd be as secondary roles.
If that was NOT allowed, then... if even non-class archetypes are still allowed my answer is a pack of fighters.
1 of them gets herbalist archetype or medic archetype.
One of them gets blessed one.
One gets something to boost up being a melee defender. Maybe the Bastion dedication.
The last fighter goes all archery.
For their combat abilities the first two fighters each carry a bow and either a maul, greataxe, or short sword and battleaxe.
- These two hope to avoid melee. But if they get in melee they either want the shove of the maul, the sweep of the axe, or the lessened multi-attack penalties of the shortsword (combined with battleaxe's sweep).
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I've played a summoner. There is no way to avoid damage. You have eight points of attack with variable defenses and saves. You have to roll AoE saves twice. It can create a lot of issues. With the limited spell slots, not sure they could keep up with the healing in truly difficult encounters. Once a summoner goes down, it's not easy to get back in the fight.
The 8 points of attack are only an issue before level 10, and AoEs are not that common at low level (even if there's a tough spot between 5 and 9).
4 clerics
Clerics strongly lack offensive abilities. Harm is nice but eats through your spell slots like crazy and don't work much against high Fortitude opponents (for example, level 5 Clerics will need 13 Harm to put down a high Fortitude high hit points level 5 enemy, which is nearly all their Font). And Warpriests are not really powerful melee combatants. Clerics should have hard time dishing out half the damage of a normal party and as such will need crazy healing output just to get through every fight. After 2 fights, they'll be good for a long rest. I put Cleric at the bottom of the classes for this challenge.
4 clericsClerics strongly lack offensive abilities.
Not True. They have plenty of offensive abilities. Just not many that are super strong but they are OK. With their healing bonuses that is enough.
Harm is nice but eats through your spell slots like crazy and don't work much against high Fortitude opponents (for example, level 5 Clerics will need 13 Harm to put down a high Fortitude high hit points level 5 enemy, which is nearly all their Font). And Warpriests are not really powerful melee combatants.
My numbers for all high on for level 5 creature from the gamemastery guide are 97HP, 22AC, Saving Throws +15.
A level 5 cleric is only trained so, spell DC is 10+5+2+4 =>21 DC so they save on a 6 but still critfail on a 1. With harming hands that is 3d10 => 9.075 damage per harm. So 10 saves. I'm not sure how you got your numbers.You also neglect to mention that they can do all this damage in one round.
Sure that is inefficient and a poor tactical choice in this case but it is there. True Strike Channel Smite would be a much more efficient way of doing damage.
There are plenty of damage spells if they want them via domain spells Fire Ray, Winter Bolt. That really helps in damage ability.
But you can build them for sustained damage Every caster now can pick up a Jolt Coil to go with their measly weapon attack.
Then there are things like Divine Weapon, Emblazon Energy, Align Armament, Emblazon Weapon. Now these all have issues but they are offensive options
I can only conclude you are choosing not to look. Just because a cleric can be a heal bot, doesn't mean you have to be a heal bot.
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I've played a summoner. There is no way to avoid damage. You have eight points of attack with variable defenses and saves. You have to roll AoE saves twice. It can create a lot of issues. With the limited spell slots, not sure they could keep up with the healing in truly difficult encounters. Once a summoner goes down, it's not easy to get back in the fight.The 8 points of attack are only an issue before level 10, and AoEs are not that common at low level (even if there's a tough spot between 5 and 9).
4 clericsClerics strongly lack offensive abilities. Harm is nice but eats through your spell slots like crazy and don't work much against high Fortitude opponents (for example, level 5 Clerics will need 13 Harm to put down a high Fortitude high hit points level 5 enemy, which is nearly all their Font). And Warpriests are not really powerful melee combatants. Clerics should have hard time dishing out half the damage of a normal party and as such will need crazy healing output just to get through every fight. After 2 fights, they'll be good for a long rest. I put Cleric at the bottom of the classes for this challenge.
A cleric has magic weapon. They can obtain two-handed weapons depending on deity. Warpriests can wear decent armor and use shields.
I played a war priest of Gorum. He was good at hammering. I built up his strength and made him less of an offensive caster and more of a self-buffing warrior type.
You can build priests in a variety of ways with a variety of weapons and armor. A group of priests have a lot of variability with a lot of healing and buffing.
The 8 points of attack does matter, big time. It's not just AoEs, it's also monsters choosing to ignore the eidolon and rip the summoner apart. You can't use your eidolon to avoid damage like a druid or other class can use their animal companion. If your eidolon is in battle, you're taking the damage. There's no getting around it and you don't have that much healing with so few slots.
True Strike Channel Smite would be a much more efficient way of doing damage.
My damage numbers come in at a bit over 32 average per cleric per turn for this combo in this example.So more damage and more sustainable. A cleric could easily do 4 of these per day at this level before falling back to cantrip plus weapon attack for sustained damage.
I'm not sure how you got your numbers.
I forgot Harming Hands. It's still 10 spells, something that you can't maintain.
If you go the True Striked Channel Smite route with a Greatsword, you still need 3 Channel Smites per enemy. Considering a Moderate encounter, you need 6 Channel Smites, 12 spells. If it's Severe, you need 9 Channel Smites. I'm not sure it's really better than the 10 Harms. And that's without counting healing as I don't think Warpriest is that good a tank.And when you speak of Electric Arc, it's ok at low level, but having to use cantrips as your main attack at high level is quite lackluster.
I definitely don't consider Clerics to be heal bots (at least, they don't have to be). But it doesn't make the class good at dealing damage. The divine spell list is not much about damage, being 3 slots prepared caster they have a very small spell list. Cantrips are functional at low level but not much at high level. Clerics don't have good damaging Focus Spells like Druids or Psychics have.
Maybe I was on the hyperbole when speaking of half the damage a party does, but Clerics will still struggle to deal damage without burning daily resources at a crazy rate. I don't expect a party of Clerics to survive through a 4-encounter adventuring day.
I played a war priest of Gorum. He was good at hammering. I built up his strength and made him less of an offensive caster and more of a self-buffing warrior type.
What Warpriests have over other 8 hp casters? Expert proficiency 4 levels earlier and 4 levels of martial weapon proficiency.
A group of Bards will hammer far more than your Warpriests, by combining Inspire Courage, Inspire Defense and Dirge of Doom. Definitely a far more solid party in my opinion if you want to go the 4 casters route.it's also monsters choosing to ignore the eidolon and rip the summoner apart.
You are speaking of Animal Companions, who can't hold a front line because of their lack of reactions, Athletics and damage output. Going through the frontline to attack the back line is clearly what you do to kill Druids. Eidolons will punish enemies that want to do that, if they even can considering how good controllers Eidolons can become.
If your eidolon is in battle, you're taking the damage.
If your AC is in battle, they are taking damage. They can't tank like an Eidolon and will soon need healing. Unless you let them die but then it's 7 days of downtime to get them back. I take the Eidolon over the AC every day.
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Eidolon's don't do good damage, especially with reaction attacks. Their low damage dice and lack of critical specialization abilities make it so they can't hold people in place either.
It doesn't matter because every time they hit your eidolon, they are hitting the summoner. Every aura they have to save for. Every multiple attack that hits multiple creatures hits them all. It could get real painful for the summoners. Very low number of spell slots and maximum of Master casting as well.
I'd put money on the clerics over the summoners.
I'd put money on the clerics over the summoners.
I take your bet everyday. But I don't think we'll ever be able to get to the end of it.
If you go the True Striked Channel Smite route with a Greatsword, you still need 3 Channel Smites per enemy. Considering a Moderate encounter, you need 6 Channel Smites, 12 spells. If it's Severe, you need 9 Channel Smites. I'm not sure it's really better than the 10 Harms. And that's without counting healing as I don't think Warpriest is that good a tank.
That is just sloppy tactics. You use the big strikes early. Half your enemies are down. You have renewable targeted healing resources. Take your time with the last few. Your enemies damage output is now half. You aren't going to be surprised now you are cleaning up. Do you really spend non renewable resources when the combat is basically over?
So 6 smites per encounter. You should get to 3 encounters easy with 4 clerics. These clerics still haven't used a couple of level 2 and level 3 spell slots yet. They will be fine for the 4th encounter.And when you speak of Electric Arc, it's ok at low level, but having to use cantrips as your main attack at high level is quite lackluster.
It is definitely not your main attack. It is just an Ok default when you have decided to conserve resources. Every character needs a default resource free basic round.
That is just sloppy tactics.
I agree. Absolute lack of focus fire is extreme.
So 6 smites per encounter. You should get to 3 encounters easy with 4 clerics.
4 Clerics, certainly 2 Warpriests and 2 Cloistered Clerics. Warpriests have hard time having high Charisma, so 6 Smites is both all their level 1 spells and all their Font (or close to all their Font). It seems hard to go through 3 encounters when 1 encounter sucks such an important part of your daily resources.
I'd put money on the clerics over the summoners.I take your bet everyday. But I don't think we'll ever be able to get to the end of it.
One could build one party and the other the other party, and then you pick four encounters from different APs at different levels and let the same objective GM run the four encounters for the two different parties. The GM can also determine conditions like everyone at half hp and out of focus points but 10 minutes time before combat, or everyone knew a particular skill challenge was coming up the next day so they have time to pick the right spells. Running 8 encounters is still an investment but might be doable.
One could build one party and the other the other party, and then you pick four encounters from different APs at different levels and let the same objective GM run the four encounters for the two different parties. The GM can also determine conditions like everyone at half hp and out of focus points but 10 minutes time before combat, or everyone knew a particular skill challenge was coming up the next day so they have time to pick the right spells. Running 8 encounters is still an investment but might be doable.I'd put money on the clerics over the summoners.I take your bet everyday. But I don't think we'll ever be able to get to the end of it.
We don't even need an objective GM, we can run the enemies ourselves when the other party is fighting them.
That's still a lot of time. But it may be funny.
What are the 4 summoners doing in this encounter? Casting electric Arc? At level 5 summoners get 2 third level spells and 2 second level spells each. At least half if not more of their casting is probably going to healing.
The clerics are at 2 3rd levels, 3 2nd levels, 3 first levels and between 3 to 5 additional font spells.
Now 5th level is probably a best case comparison point for the summoner because ability boosts are affecting both characters and the eidolon is getting a martial ability boost to proficiency. At higher levels, the humber of spells clerics get is really going to tip everything in their favor.
Also, clerics have a pretty easy time getting spells from other lists. 4 clerics of Gorum and Sarenrae are going to be packing very powerful offensive focus spells, true strikes and fire balls. They will also be using fear and bless liberally with level 1 slots still on the table.
Now I still don’t think I would choose all clerics or all summoners in most campaigns, but if it is an undead heavy or fiend heavy campaign, clerics would be a very good choice.
I think summoner could be fun and have some weird group “solo” exploration/drone stat tactics of having 3 Eidolons go ahead into a room, then all get KO’d, then have the 4th summoner 3 action heal them all back up. But the lack of spell slots and true martial staying power will eventually be a problem.
Even in Age of Ashes, a pretty broad AP, there are enough undead and fiends and small battle areas that I think 4 summoners and eidolons are getting in each others way more than they are helping and clerics will have enough fiends and undead to fight to shine pretty well.