A rogue, cleric, sorcerer, magus, and monk? If I have this make up of 5 players will I have to adjust the AP much? Can the party get away with a monk as the party's main show of force?
The front line seems a little bit "glass cannon" but at the same time, depends on a lot on the builds.
A Zen Archer is extremely effective for dealing damage as is a well built Magus. I'm sure there are lots of highly effective monk builds out there too other than just Zen Archer (which I'm more familiar with).
What kind of builds are the cleric and sorcerer planning? A lot of summoned critters can supplant the front lines for HP sponges. If cleric is good at buffing, that increases the durability of your fighter types.
In other words, a few more details would help. But, I would think a group of 5 fairly well balanced PC's with a broad array of skills, etc should do just fine.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, it really does depend on their specific builds, and your point buy. If you're going with a 15 point buy MAD classes like magus or especially monk are going to have a tough time. If you use a 20 or 25 point buy it'll come down more to their builds.
Survivability looks like your biggest obstacle... Some summoning will help with that, and as long as the cleric uses positive energy you'll have heals available for emergencies, or between fights. If the rogue and monk make good use stealth you should be able to get the drop on some opponents which will shorten combats. Basically they'll just need to think strategically and play a little more wisely than a tougher party.
Some ideas for archetypes or types of builds that might be helpful:
- rogue- rogues get a lot of hate... Sadly it's because they really do struggle to be effective in combat... You might want to ask if he'd be willing to switch to a slayer or vivisectionist alchemist... If not, all he can really do is build to take advantage of sneak attack as well as he can- he'll rely on other melees helping out by positioning themselves to make flanking easier, and on the casters for enough buffs to be able to hit.
- cleric- should definitely be a positive energy user to aid in survivability. The evangelist archetype would be really nice to buff all your 3/4 BAB combatants. A reach build would also help quite a bit as it would allow him to help deal some damage (with AoOs) while still having his turn for buffs and whatnot.
- sorcerer- not the best summoners generally, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to learn some in order to have them eat attacks and help with flanking. Enchantments like charm person could be really helpful too if used cleverly (and with high enough DCs)... If you find the right humanoids to cast it on you may be able to bring some 'friends' into dangerous situations...
- magus- most magi deal good damage... He'll just have to give enough thought to defenses... Spells like blur will help. Magi also tend to burn through resources pretty fast... hexcrafter can be really helpful for this as the hexes are a nearly unlimited resource (and can even grant access to some back up healing).
- monk- this one will be tricky too... Zen archer really would be the best option, except that removing him from melee will make getting sneak attacks harder for the rogue (and damage won't get spread around quite as much, so channel won't be quite as effective). He could sort of 'tank' for the party if he went flowing monk and focused on AC, but his damage would be so low it would be hard to keep things' attention... If he wants to deal damage, he should emphasize strength over Dex and take the dragon style feats- it will hurt his AC but it's the best way for him to get his damage up (and with a fragile party it'll be important to ends fight quickly any ways).
Said good stuff...
Exactly - a well build party that plays off of various synergies with each other will do just fine. A poorly coordinated party will likely die and/or be terribly ineffective.
Another informative data point: what is the experience level of the players? The less experience they have, the more I would be concerned. I'd be especially concerned about Books 3 and 4 which are rife with potent melee combatants. If you don't have a meat shield with a high AC and high HP up front to take at least some of those attacks, the group will be living on the razor's edge - margin for error very small. The glass cannon reference above is particularly apt.
I could see an experienced group adjusting tactics and coordination patterns to make it work but they'd have to be planful, rely a lot on scouting, sneaking and divination etc. to let them engage enemies on the pc's terms. Ambushes, wandering encounters, etc. could pose real danger.
C'mon, guys, it should be no problem!
This AP was designed for 4 x 15-point-buy characters. Here the OP is presenting a 5 character party, and although he doesn't specifically say it, I bet he doesn't use a 15 point buy.
Even though none of those characters is a class typically thought of as a "meat shield", several of them can be great combattants in their own right. The rogue, cleric, magus and monk may not be full-BAB frontliners, but they can be at least as tough as a 15-point-buy vanilla fighter.
IMHO it's loads of fun when players go for the eclectic. Pathfinder promotes this, with their oodles of classes, templates and alternate abilities.
It should also be pointed out that the cleric could be a tank... They can cast in heavy armor and potentially have a lot of hp... With just 16 con (easily achievable for a dwarf), toughness, and favored class going to hp you'd get 10 hp per level after 1st (if you use pfs progression). With that much hp and some full plate he'd be able to eat quite a few attacks.
The magus can do pretty well too... If you're making at least some use of stealth/spells for scouting, he can cast blur and mirror image before combat and have pretty good defenses in melee that way.
There are other, nastier tricks they could use too... If everyone choose a type of tiefling for their character and invested the feats for see in darkness your sorcerer could open every combat with deeper darkness and they'll pretty much always be fighting blind opponents (while the PCs can see fine).