Building Parties

[fable]

Consider: you need a melee type, maybe two.

A thief type.

A cleric. A wizard, or sorc.

That's four or five PCs. Either way, what else would you add for the remainder of your party?

[Xyx]

All are debatable. You can do without Clerics if resting is as easy and healing potions are as common as in NWN. You can do without Rogues if you use Monks or Clerics to detect traps and simply bash all locks.

That said, it's nice to have at least one Cleric, mage and Rogue about.

[fable]

Originally posted by Xyx
All are debatable. You can do without Clerics if resting is as easy and healing potions are as common as in NWN. You can do without Rogues if you use Monks or Clerics to detect traps and simply bash all locks.

That said, it's nice to have at least one Cleric, mage and Rogue about.

Nice is good, in this respect, even for evil parties. I mean, you could ostensibly do away with a rogue, and have a mage whose familiar disables traps. But a rogue makes a useful scout, and I'd rather devote my mage's capabilities on offensive and disabling spells.

So whom would you add? And given a choice of a sorc or a wizard in 3E, which do you prefer?

[Mirk]

well, with 3E rules, your options are MUCH better, due to the unrestricted multiclassing. essentially, in your party layout (to which i basically agree), the 6th char can be anything you want, and a combination of most things. and (hopefully) you can change him according to the development of the game.

start as a fighter (never hurts, HP's and proficiencies)...
lvl 2 - nothing special... take a bard level, help your allies with a song...
lvl 5 - oops! not enough healers! take a couple of levels in druid...

after that... well, you get the picture. all the pros/cons of multiclassing are to be taken into consideration. that said, i'm defenatly going to make this kind of 6th player!

[Xyx]

Multiclassing spellcasters in 3E = bad. Taking "a couple of levels of Druid" when you're level 8 doesn't cut it; you'll be casting Cure Light Wounds on people missing 40 Hit Points. Hardly worth the effort.

Spellcasters and Monks need to focus since their good stuff comes at the higher levels. Swap back and forth all you like between Ranger/Fighter/Paladin/Barbarian; they get most (if not all) of their good stuff at the lower levels.

There are a few exceptions; a single level of Sorcerer gives a couple of Mage Armors per day and a familiar with some semi-decent uses. A single level of Cleric allows you cheap access to a couple of Domain powers.

[hwttdz]

The way I see it is that you only need so much of a thief. After that extra skills become useless. So you can combine a thief and another character probally a fighter or ranger in my opinion. I don't know if that will give a respectable amount of cleric spells so I'd also do another fighter/cleric or paladin/cleric if they are for some reason better. That should give enough healing abilities and a respectable fighter. I wouldn't trust these 2 as my bashing/ranged power so I'd round it out with another pure fighter or barbarian. Mage spells are great for buffs and stuff and like someone mentioned it's harder to do a dual class so I either wouldn't or would take a race that had wizard or sorcerer as favored class, like one of the elves.

That makes four and I feel I have three respectable fighters, healing, theiving, and arcane spells. That gives 2 slots leeway either to leave blank for better XP for the character's I've taken or to fill in with anything that's lacking.

[Xyx]

A party I think I would like to try:

• Sorcerer
• Cleric
• Druid
• Rogue
• Monk
• Fighter/Ranger/Barbarian/Paladin mish-mash

[jaxaxe]

xyx, where did you get your avatar from, i really like it.

[/-\lastor]

My parties usually have a sorceror (IMO the best spellcaster), wizard (for the scrolls), 1/2 fighter types, a rogue and a character class I happen to like at that moment (most of the time monk or cleric).

[Bad Karma]

The kind of party I usually prefer is:

2 frontline fighter-types (Ranger/Paladin/Barbarian also)
1 archer fighter-type
2 magi
1 thief (but only for like two or three, maybe 5 at most levels, then over to a cleric)

It usually works pretty well.

[Robin_Hood]

Well, you could add, say, a bard and druid...druids are probably quite nice, with the transformations and all...

My party:

fighter
barbarian
paladin
mage
cleric
rogue

So it's pretty basic...

[Impaler987]

My party of 6:

1. Human pure Paladin (party leader)
2. Elven (drow perhaps, hehe) Ranger/Rogue - the levels will have to go up evenly to avoid exp. penalties
3. Half-elven Ranger with only 3 Rogue levels (enough for 2d6 Sneak Attack bonus)
4. Dwarven pure Fighter
5. Pure Wizard (race undecided)
6. Pure Cleric (race undecided)

[DaringCommander11]

I would probably have this

Paladin (party leader) Human
Rouge/Fighter (thief and backup fighter) Halfling
Druid (Healer buffer) Elven
Cleric/Fighter (Healer Spellcaster and backup fighter) Dwarven
Mage (Buffer and Anti-Magic) Gnomish
Sorcerer (Attack Caster) Human

[dios]

Ahh..i'm too much in the 2E rules but what the heck:

Sorcerer, no multiclassing here!

Cleric, maybe som figther levels at the beginning...

Thief...(same as above, maybe with ranger too)

Fighter/Barbarian/Paladin *2

Plus...someone special...

[Volcane666]

I've decided to play an evil party (this will be the first time in ANY game) on my first run through, it will be a "mercenary party from the Underdark that has recruited a couple of other extra worthy evil members" consisting of :

Drow Sorceress (and leader of the group)

Drow Fighter (possibly with some necromancer levels if I have enough combat specialists)

Half Orc Male Barbarian

Tiefling Male Rogue (with a level of ranger taken for dual wielding daggers)

Duegar Male Fighter

Drow Female Cleric

All EEEEEEEEEEVIL of course, and will roleplay as much as possible.

My second run through I will play a good heroic party (as usual) but with the exception of the Aasimar Paladin I don't know what my party will consist of yet!