High Level Games
High Level Games
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Store
    • Storytellers Vault Products
    • Fantasy One-Page Adventures
    • DMs Guild Products
  • Podcasts
  • Video
  • Trusted Resources
  • Join The Team
  • About
  • Contact
    • Star Trek Adventures
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Store
    • Storytellers Vault Products
    • Fantasy One-Page Adventures
    • DMs Guild Products
  • Podcasts
  • Video
  • Trusted Resources
  • Join The Team
  • About
  • Contact
    • Star Trek Adventures

Welcome to the High Level Games Blog, News, and other stuff to take your games to the next level!

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com

5 Ridiculous Results of Requiring Redundant Repertoires in D&D

29/6/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
Party balance. I kind of hate this term. Maybe not the term, so much as the idea it represents. Yes, having your balanced party of a healer, a damage dealer, a damage sponge, and the person who does out of combat stuff covers all your bases. But I find that configuration so incredibly boring!!

I get it, though. I really do. Having all your bases covered is the best way to ensure success. But sometimes, it’s more exciting to completely overwhelm a challenge with what you’re good at, and then wonder if you can just overcompensate for what you can’t do.

With that in mind, I decided to look at some of the fun that can be had with parties that are all the same class. I find that restrictions like that really let my creativity shine. So for your reading pleasure, I’ve put together a list of some of my favorite ideas for same class parties in Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, using only the Player’s Handbook.

1) All Fighter Party
Fighter is often thought of as the beginner class, or worse, the boring class. However, if there’s one class that could handle any feasible situation as a same class party, it would be our humble fighting man. After all, they’re the one class that gains the single most ability score increases on the way to level 20. (All classes gain five increases, with the exception of rogue and fighter who gain six and seven, respectively.) Anywhere an ability score increase can be taken, a feat can be taken instead, allowing a fighter to either round out party weaknesses, or hone their strengths further.

Even if the GM doesn’t allow taking feats in lieu of ability score increases, some of their class features make them very well suited to dealing with almost any sort of violent or dangerous theat. They have the second highest hit dice, as well as the Second Wind feature. These combined grant them considerable healing capacity for themselves, since a short rest would let them regain quite a bit of HP, and then they regain use of their second wind which gives them yet another burst of HP.

Things get really crazy when you consider that they can get up to 4 attacks per round, and they also possess the Action Surge ability, which lets them act a second time immediately after their turn. If the all fighter party absolutely needs to finish off an enemy with a quickness, they can all use their Action Surges in one combat round to double the amount of attacks they can make. This means that a party of four level 20 fighters can belt out 32 attacks in one turn!

For Added Fun: All variant humans. Because extra versatility from an extra proficiency and an extra feat is exactly what the most versatile combat class needs.

2) All Barbarian Party
The all barbarian party is similar in many ways to the all fighter party. They’re all exceptional with weapons, have a great deal of HP and also possess some short term effects that allow them to really push forward when needed. Barbarians, however, will be relying a little more heavily on their special abilities than fighters would.

Rage is what makes barbarians special, and it’s simultaneously what limits what they can do, since it improves strength based attacks. This means that to deal with far off enemies, they’ll need to either throw things, or just try to close ranks. (Luckily, they do gain some abilities to make them more mobile.)

One of the other benefits of rage is that it’ll also make them even tougher to defeat, making them resistant to most normal damage. Coupled with an AC that’s improved by dexterity AND constitution, and you’ll have a maniacal horde with high HP that can rampage their way through any threat.

For Added Fun: All dragonborn. Call them the BARFbarians, because they’ll be puking up fire, acid, lightning, and Pelor knows what else on their enemies in their fits of rage.

3) All Monk Party
Monk, in a way, is a very selfish class. Much of their abilities only benefit them, usually by granting them all manner of resistances to different effects, or a greatly increased movement speed. An individual monk is only useful in terms of their ability to move quickly on the battlefield and to tell the GM “No, that monster’s ability actually does nothing to me. :^)”

Though when we carry these abilities to the illogical conclusion of making the party nothing but Monks, it trivializes a lot of the more mundane, non-combat challenges a GM can throw at the players. Noxious gas in a disease ridden warren? Breathing it like fresh air. Charming them to cause them attack allies? One turn later, they have a clear head.

This makes monk an odd class out that doesn’t really excel at removing problems, but instead causing most problems to not matter to them, which is a strikingly appropriate theme. An entire party of monks is thus free from worldly concerns, allowing them to focus on greater causes.


For Added Fun: All elves. They’ll already be eschewing all sorts of things like eating, knowing the languages of people they talk to, and even obeying the laws of gravity; we may as well add sleeping and needing light to see to that list.

4) All Warlock Party
Warlock is, hands down, one of the most bizarre classes in D&D 5e. I’d dare to say that they’re best described as how they contrast against fighters. While a fighter has all manner of flexibility in regards to combat abilities and numerous feats, the warlock has access to all sorts of loosely related magical abilities, many of which are not combative in nature.

With that said, for both story and ability cohesion, the best way to make the strengths of the warlock apparent is for all of them to have the same patron. (Incidentally, patron choice also has the least impact on what abilities a warlock has!) Once this is done, however, the plot hooks write themselves, and their sinister nature shines in all it’s terrifying glory.

For example, a party of all Great Old One patron warlocks could easily spy on and conspire against the inhabitants of a city using their Create Thrall ability, or a group of Fiend warlocks could demonstrate their might to a remote village with Hurl Through Hell. From there, the insidious conspiracies can only grow.

For Added Fun: All tieflings. When polite society rejected them, they found solace in religion. Not Helm, nor Lathander. No no no. They started following Nyarlathotep, to return the favor of the world giving them nothing but suffering.

5) All Rogue Party
Rogue is, without a doubt, my favorite class in D&D. In 5th edition, they’re capable of all kinds of shenanigans. This propensity for silliness only becomes more apparent when you have a party of nothing but rogues.

For starters, a rogue gains 5 proficiencies from their class, along with an additional 4 from their background, and anywhere from 1-3 from their race. If one source grants a proficiency a character already has, the player may then pick any other proficiency instead. This gives rogues a tremendous amount of flexibility in picking skills. Which is to say nothing about how a level 6 rogue will have four skills with double their proficiency bonus. (Further meaning that a party of four rogues will have 16 such skills!)

They’re nothing to sneeze at in combat, either. Assume a four rogue party is armed with both ranged and melee weapons. If they split up into groups of two, with proper positioning, all four rogues can have sneak attack against every target. (Proper positioning meaning one duo approaches a target, allowing the other duo to make ranged attacks against it with sneak attack.)

Which is to say nothing of some of the other abilities rogues have, many of which either improve their action economy in combat, or further improve their skill rolls. This isn’t to say rogue is without drawbacks, though. They’re one of the more fragile classes, and once one of them is dispatched, the rest will likely fall just as quickly.

For Added Fun: All Half-elves. Because two more skills they can freely place proficiency in is precisely what the most skilled class needs.

There we have it: some of the bizarre outcomes of compounding the strengths of a particular class onto itself more times than might be necessary. While party balance is a nice, safe bet to take, I’d encourage you to play on the wild side from time to time by getting together with your other players and agreeing on a same class party. It’s one thing to read and imagine what such a party would be like, but it’s another thing entirely to see it in action.

Just be sure to find some way to compensate for what your party will be missing if you do!



Aaron der Schaedel is often more consumed with the idea of whether something could be done, than whether it should be done. This more often than not gets him into trouble, but he always has a hilarious story to tell afterwards. For example, he’s going to include an unrelated link here to meet his external link quota, and go completely meta in explaining his intentions. You can tell him if you thought this was a good idea or not on Twitter: @Zamubei

Picture Reference: http://looneydm.blogspot.com/2012/06/all-wizard-party.html


Savage Worlds: Fast, Furious, and Fun! - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    All blog materials created and developed by the staff here at High Level Games 

    ​

    Picture
    Click here to support our community for as a little as $1.00 for exclusive content, free downloadable stuff, and even discounts on role-playing game items.

    Archives

    February 2021
    November 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016

    Categories

    All
    13th Age
    2d20
    2nd Edition
    3.5 Edition
    3Deep
    4th Edition
    5th Edition
    7th Sea
    Acquisitions Inc
    Actual Play
    AD&D
    AdventureLookUp.com
    Adventurers!
    Aether Sea
    A+ Fantasy
    After Collapse
    Alignment
    Amazing Tales
    Amazon
    Anima: Beyond Fantasy
    Anime
    Apocalypse World
    Atomic Robo
    Australian
    Award Winning
    Basic Fantasy
    Belly Of The Beast
    Big Eyes Small Mouth
    Black Lives Matter
    Black Void
    Blades In The Dark
    Blood Pangea
    Board Games
    Book Of Exalted Darkness
    BrigadeCon
    Burning Wheel RPG
    Call Of Cthulhu
    Capers RPG
    Casual Roleplaying
    Changeling: The Dreaming
    Chaosium
    Character Arcs
    Character Creation
    Chris Spivey
    Cinematic RP
    Classics
    Comic-books
    Conventions
    Corvus Belli: Infinity
    Crawl
    Creators
    Critical Role
    Cthulhutech
    D100 Dungeon
    D20
    D&D
    D&D Beyond
    Deadlands
    Defenders Of Tokyo
    Degenesis
    Detako Saga
    Discord
    DMsGuild.com
    Dnd
    Dndbeyond
    Doctor-who
    Double-cross
    Dread
    Dresden-files
    DriveThruRPG.com
    Dr. Who
    Dungeon Crawl Classics
    Dungeons
    Dungeons And Dragons
    Dungeon Slayers
    Dungeon World
    Dystopia Rising
    Encounters
    Era: The Consortium
    Era: The Empowered
    Esper Genesis
    Evil Hat
    Exalted
    Faith RPG
    Fandom
    Fantasy-age
    Fantasy-flight
    Fantasy Grounds
    FATE
    Fate Accelerated Edition
    Fate Core
    Fate Rpg
    Fate-rpg
    Final Fantasy
    Forgotten Realms
    Fragged Empire
    Free League Publishing
    Furries
    Game Design
    Game Lore
    Gencon
    Ghosts Of NPCs Past
    GMTips
    Golden-sky-stories
    GoodmanGames.com
    Grognards
    GUMSHOE
    GURPS
    GURPS Lite
    Halloween
    Harlem Unbound
    Harry-potter
    Hero Builder
    Heroes Against Darkness
    Heroes-unlimited
    HERO System
    High Level Games
    Historical Fantasy
    HLG Con 2018
    HLG Reviews
    Homebrew
    Humble Bundle
    Indie
    Interface Zero 2.0
    Interview
    Invisible Suns
    Japanese RPGs
    JRR Tolkien
    Kickstarter
    KoboldPress.com
    KULT
    L5R
    Lankhmar
    LARP
    Lasers And Feelings
    Legendlore
    Legend Of The Five Rings
    LexOccultum
    LOTR
    Low Magic
    Mage
    Mage: The Awakening
    Magic And Steel
    MAID
    Mayhem
    Mazes And Minotaurs
    Meikyuu Kingdom
    Mekton Zero
    Mental Health
    Middle Earth
    Mighty Narwhal
    Mini Six
    Modern Adventures RPG
    Modiphius
    Monarchies Of Mau
    Monsterhearts
    Monte Cook Games
    Morra
    Mummy: The Curse
    Mutants And Masterminds
    Mythender
    Narrative Games
    Nechronica
    Night's Black Agents
    Novel
    NPC
    Numenara
    Odyssey Of The Dragonlords
    One Shot
    Online Gaming
    Orun
    OSCRIC
    Osr
    OVA
    Palladium
    Pathfinder
    Pathfinder 2.0
    PbtA
    PDQ
    Pire: The Masquerade 5th Edition
    Play By Post
    Player Tips
    Podcast
    Powered By Apocalypse
    Power Outage RPG
    Preview
    Promethean: The Created
    Pugmire
    Pulp
    Puzzles
    Questlings
    Ravenloft
    Ravnica
    Red Markets: A Game Of Economic Horror
    Research
    Review
    Review Article
    Rifts
    Risus
    Role Play
    Roll20
    Romance Of The Perilous Land
    Ryuutama
    Satanic Panic
    Savage Rifts
    Savage Tokusatsu
    Savage Worlds
    Seeds Of Wars
    Setting
    Settings
    Settlement Building
    Shadowrun
    SIGMATA
    Snowhaven
    Social Combat
    Social Systems
    Solo Play
    Standard Roleplay System
    Star Trek Adventures
    Star Wars
    Storytellers Vault
    Suited RPG
    Summerland
    Supplements
    System Design
    Table Top
    Tabletop Simulator
    Tales From The Loop
    Tales Of Equestria
    Talislanta
    Tariffs
    Teenagers From Outerspace
    Ten Candles
    Tenra Bansho Zero
    The Dark Eye
    The End Of The World RPG
    The Great Long Dark
    The One Ring
    The Very Important Task
    Titan Effect
    To The Temple Of Doom
    Trial Of Cthulhu
    Trinity Continuum
    TSR Marvel Super Heroes
    Ttrpg
    Twitch
    USTR
    Va
    Valiant Rpg
    Vampire: The Masquerade
    Video Games
    Villian
    Volo
    Vs Ghosts
    Warhammer
    Warhammer 40K
    Werewolf: The Apocalypse
    Westbound RPG
    Wild West
    World Building
    World Of Darkness
    Writing Tips
    Year Zero
    Zweihander

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly