Favorite Party Themes

I seem to be on a kick of these threads lately...

But, I've made a new party them and have been having a lot of fun with it the last few days and was curious of other experiences.

After making a party based on an old adventuring group of my old characters and having kicked a lot of ass with one in particular (LG human fighter that dual wielded bastard swords), I decided to do a NG party with characters similar that will eventually make use of a couple of very special bastard swords down the line.

Currently have:

CG fighter that dual wields bastard swords again, this time she's female with a bit more CON and DEX this time around.

LG Cleric that is always Enlarged and dual wields Great Hammers. With all of her buffs on her, she's pretty beastly. With the law and good domains, it should be easy to note how she will enchant her weapons down the line.

A NG Ranger with a composite longbow.

A TN Wizard for support and item creation.

Just finished the moat house and we're off to Nulb to deal with Gremag and everything else. Think this may rank up there with LN Bounty Hunter themed party in fun so far (Dwarf Cleric and TN Rogue, they doled out justice wether the people wanted it or not).

Anyone else have favorite party setups?

 

Well, I am having a blast with my run through of a party I call "The Others" (No, not ghosts).

In my party there is no Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, or Rogue. Per Se.

I started with a Paladin, Barbarian, Monk, Sorcerer, and Ranger. I have picked up a Druid (Meleny) and just recently a Bard (Zaxis), but no straight classes at all.

I did "rescue" Serena and Raina together (I think they are straight Rogues), outfitted them with fair gear, but then released them immedidately in the safety of Homlett. It was interesting that when I released Serena she took Raina along with her without me having to talk to her. I wonder if it would have been the same way had I talked to Raina first... but I digress.

My daughter made an "all girls" group once including a Big Redheaded Half-Orc Barbarian named Titania, but she lost interest after about level 4, but I thought that would be fun to play one day. You wouldn't be able to pick up Meleny or Fruella, though, which are both excellent female NPCs.

 

I just finished a playthrough with a "Six Fighters" themed party - although one was a paladin and one a ranger. Necessarily there was almost no crafting (I eventually took wondrous item with the paladin), and they certainly would not have been able to take down the 4 Iuz avatars without the attacking dead body bug, but the rest of the game was a blast. Each of them was completely themed on a single weapon - the paladin a longsword, the ranger dual wielding light maces, and the other four on the greathammer, greatsword, ranseur and longbow. It was often hard work fighting with no magic, and their diplomacy was also pretty awful, as well as the limitations of fighter based UMD - however the challenges were interesting and every combat carried heavy risks, witnessed by one of them dying no less than 7 times, in most cases to massive criticals. I thought I would never have enough cure potions to get through, but actually this was not the case. I recommend it.

 

In 7.1, I had a playthrough with "the zoo", where the only human member was a human bard/druid (Like the famous ratcatcher of Hamelen) with a collection of Animal npc's: a Weasel, a rat, a cat, an owl & a hawk. In the end, they all looked like animals (though the owl was mostly a tiny polar bear). My human also ran around all the time in his wildshape. Cat Barbarian 1/ rogue x dishes out a whole lot of damage :grin:

In the last version, the Animal npc's became too overpowered, once they die & you riveve them via Jaroo, suddenly they get enough xp to become a 19 lvl monstrosity. :tired:

 

If we're talking about favorite party setups, well mines has always been
LG Human Fighter4/Paladin16
LN Human Rogue5/Monk15
LG Human Sorcerer18/Paladin2
NG Human Fighter4/Bard16
LG Dwarf Fighter4/Cleric16 with Law and Good domains
NG Elf Wizard 20 specialized in Conjuration, barred from Evocation and Necromancy

But if we're talking about thematic parties... well I suppose my above would have the whole righteous might theme... ehhhh

Well I did run a party based on the group I played with... except there's no prestige classes... so I had to improvise.... since the party had a Mystic Theurge.

CN Half-Orc Barbarian20
CN Human Cleric10/Wizard10 no specialized school, with Magic and Knowledge domains
TN Elf Bard20
LN Human Wizard20 specialized in Enchantment, barred from Necromancy and Illusion
LN Human Monk20

... It was difficult to run though since the divine caster was pretty subpar for the majority of the game... well Mystic Theurges IMO are pretty subpar in general but anyway!

 

Doesn't the mystic theurge get some insane saving throws though, especially for will?

 

Yeah their savings throws are pretty amazing (dat will save) but it doesn't make up for the fact you're both a weak arcane caster and a weak divine caster IMO.

 

This sounds really cool- except the level 19 bug thing. I would have loved to try it.

OH! I DO believe I have my next "theme"! An all Druid party. Then I could use Shapechange and companions (used their normal way and replaced the normal way if they die) to make a Zoo. It will probably be OP, though...

 

NG Party I've run. Rogue/Ranger(party face)CG, Cleric (sun/good)NG, Druid NG, Wizard N, Rogue/Fighter/Wizard(archer), NPC Wizard, NPC Druid, NPC Druid. A force of nature with lightning and brimstone (flamestrike) for all. The Ro/Ra also has great cleave and works like a food processor. The cleric/druids pitch hit between melee(longspear*) and spell casting.* save Mel she cant carry the weight so she get's a sling.

 

I recently went the all Druid route myself and failed miserably, I think I just don't know how to take full advantage of Druids.

And yes, it was bloody, messy and not a very pleasant sight ... what was left of my party.

 

Interesting, Sir Chet. I have found, in PnP anyway, that Druids tend to be the most powerful single class, and VERY versatile. Tanks (summoned meat shields), DPS (Summoned elementals), healing and Ranged magical attacks (Call Lightning, etc.).

A group of these? Unlimited healing, damage and awesomeness....

 

There seems to be a great deal of difference in what we can do as a player in TOEE, when compared to a PnP session with a DM.

My favorite move is usually agreeing to pay for the pizza.

 

I'm now on my last play thru of the alignments (NE party) and I rarely stray from the alignment chosen- it's all or nothing as far as that goes. In the future I'll try to mix it up more and even try out a Weapon Focus for my spell casters instead of focusing strictly on magical feats at character creation. I've tried a no rogue/no cleric party in vanilla TOEE, using a bard and druid instead- it made Emridy Meadows tougher but the bard spells more than made up for the lack of some of my favorite rogue feat selections (mainly Crippling Strike). I'm thinking of this at character creation for when v8.0 drops:

Human Ranger w/Weapon Focus Longsword and Quickdraw (choosing Two Weapon Fighting at 2nd level)

Elven Druid w/Longspear Weapon Focus (normally this would be a human druid with Spell Focus Conjuration and Augment Summoning but like I said- I'm trying something different)

Human Bard with Spell Focus Enchantment and Point Blank Shot

Dwarf Barbarian 2/Fighter x with Power Attack

Human wizard with Spell Focus Evocation and Weapon Focus Crossbow

Elven Sorcerer w/Spell Focus Evocation

 

Bad news for your druid and wizard Gehennis:

According to RAW the feat weapon focus has BAB +1 amongst its prerequisites

I believe this is implemented in ToEE

The war domain is a special case

 

I see- but if I can't get this under Weapon Focus I could choose the Martial Weapon feat and select longspear and crossbow respectively but since they can already use these weapons they won't get the +1 to hit with them- maybe Point Blank Shot for the wizard but the druid would be a different case- hmmm...