The standard party bugs me for some reason.

[Breakdaddy]

Sir Osis of Liver wrote:
...There was a great article a long time ago in Dragon about the use of a variety of natural substances to make poultices etc....

Wounds and Weeds, Dragon Magazine issue #82, page 14. Good article!

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Breakdaddy wrote:
Wounds and Weeds, Dragon Magazine issue #82, page 14. Good article!

That's the one. One of many good articles.

[Sundog]

In many old games, (AD&D as well as C&C), I've often dealt with smaller groups. In such cases, they would often play specialists and hire the extra muscle they needed. Once or twice they'd play the warrior-rogue types and hire the occult specialists or get me to provide one as an NPC.

Never caused any problems, though I have a personal animus against playing GMPCs. I'm a martyr to my art!

[concobar]

The standard party make up exists because it has shown over time to work.

[JediOre]

In a game I DMed no one wanted to play a cleric. We had two fighters, a magic-user, a ranger, and a rogue.

I just switched out magical treasures listed in the module they wanted to play with healing potions.

The game is about having fun. We had fun and no one felt liked they had to be stuck with a class they did not wish to play.

[Lord Dynel]

concobar wrote:
The standard party make up exists because it has shown over time to work.

I disagree. The standard party make up exists because it fills the necessary gaps. Because they were the first four classes intrtoduced. They're iconic. They've always been considered the "core classes" 9a look at 1st and 2nd Edtions will show you that).

Any party can, over time, work just fine.

JediOre wrote:
In a game I DMed no one wanted to play a cleric. We had two fighters, a magic-user, a ranger, and a rogue.

I just switched out magical treasures listed in the module they wanted to play with healing potions.

The game is about having fun. We had fun and no one felt liked they had to be stuck with a class they did not wish to play.

Awesome!
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LD's C&C creations - the witch, a half-ogre, skill and 0-level rules

Troll Lord wrote:
Lord D: you understand where I"m coming from.

[Secret Skeleton]

When PHB II came out for 3.5, everyone wanted to play a new core class. They were all killed in the first session, save for the Dragon Shaman, who died in the first minutes of session two after failing a secondary save for poison.

They are a balanced group for a reason.

[Go0gleplex]

Last couple games we've not had a mage or a cleric. Instead we had two guys want to run shamans (based on my created class) and between the two of them they not only met the role of the cleric but of the mage as well, though less efficently than those two "core" classes.

What was an amusing moment was when this giant frog was in the process of swallowing the ranger and one of the shamans hit it with a "Frozen Pond" boon, effectively paralyzing it long enough for the rest of the party to dispatch it and free the meat shield of the group.
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The obvious will always trip you up FAR more than the obscure.

Baron Grignak Hammerhand of the Pacifica Provinces-

High Warden of the Castles & Crusades Society

[Sir Osis of Liver]

I think the standard party works well if you're running mostly modules. If you're writing your own material, you're tailoring the encounters and treasures to your group. When you're writing your own stuff, it's far easier to make any character combination work.

[Go0gleplex]

[quote="Sir Osis of Liver"]I think the standard party works well if you're running mostly modules. If you're writing your own material, you're tailoring the encounters and treasures to your group. When you're writing your own stuff, it's far easier to make any character combination work.[/quote]

Only if you're actually writing for your party. In my case, I write my adventures so that anyone could run them...or in other words...as if they were going to be a published adventure. And the adventure I cited above was The Dark Chateau.
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The obvious will always trip you up FAR more than the obscure.

Baron Grignak Hammerhand of the Pacifica Provinces-

High Warden of the Castles & Crusades Society

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Go0gleplex wrote:
Only if you're actually writing for your party. In my case, I write my adventures so that anyone could run them...or in other words...as if they were going to be a published adventure. And the adventure I cited above was The Dark Chateau.

Yeah, I can understand that. I'm not quite of the mindset of publishing my stuff. At least not my campaign setting...well, not yet anyway. I want to get some serious playing done in it first to establish the timeline etc.

[dutch206]

As a DM/CK, I tend to heavily penalize groups that do stupid things. (Like wandering off into the wilderness without a properly trained healer, for instance.)

That being said, I like it when someone comes up with a novel solution to a situation their class was never meant to handle. My favorite example was when a halfling thief managed to kill a beholder by rolling under it, where the eyes couldn't reach him. He started stabbing it repeatedly and got covered in beholder guts.
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Please. I have dice that are older than you are.

[Secret Skeleton]

dutch206 wrote:
As a DM/CK, I tend to heavily penalize groups that do stupid things. (Like wandering off into the wilderness without a properly trained healer, for instance.)

That being said, I like it when someone comes up with a novel solution to a situation their class was never meant to handle. My favorite example was when a halfling thief managed to kill a beholder by rolling under it, where the eyes couldn't reach him. He started stabbing it repeatedly and got covered in beholder guts.

Actions like that are how I define critical hits. You get shenanigans.

[Lord Dynel]

Core, non-core...I don't think it makes a difference. The example in SS's post (if I read it right) where all the new classes is counterbalanced by Go0gle's example of his shamans. I don't think it makes a difference if a core class is used or not. I don't even think published adventures make a difference, not a whole lot. Everything is goverend by the CK. It's my job to make sure the players have fun. I'm not saying they'll get by every challenge with ease - it should be more difficult without the support of other classes (rogue, wizard, cleric, etc.). But it should not be impossible, and I (as CK) should never suggest what a player plays. That's totally up to them. If the party consists of four fighters, then the party should be able to survive, reasonably well. Not necessarily the most optimum party, but I wouldn't hit the "TPK button" and say, "well, you guys aren't balanced, what do you expect? This adventure just kicked your ass!"
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LD's C&C creations - the witch, a half-ogre, skill and 0-level rules

Troll Lord wrote:
Lord D: you understand where I"m coming from.

[Go0gleplex]

There's some truth in that. While there is no healing unless the CK "artificially" introduces it into the adventure, the fighters have the option of holing up to heal or not...and with four fighters they do have a marginally better chance to kick butt in combat, should the CK be feeling kind and the dice not crap out.
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The obvious will always trip you up FAR more than the obscure.

Baron Grignak Hammerhand of the Pacifica Provinces-

High Warden of the Castles & Crusades Society

[serleran]

Any party can get its ass handed to them if the players are stupid or roll horribly, regardless of what they've got in the mix. Also, some adventures are just lethal... traps with ungodly high difficulties or effects, even with saves/discovery (yeah, I'm thinking of you Mr. Sphere of Annihilation inside a sphere of magically induced darkness...) so, its not really a matter of what is in the party, but how they use what they've got. In AD&D, and so forth, "resource management" is a critical factor... the reason why a "core" group of characters is handy is simple -- diversity of resources. If you've got no healing (no cleric), then your options are lowered, if you're going straight by the book, and you better hope no undead come creeping out of the cold wind. Likewise, if you're a party of book-leeches, hopefully there's not a lot of combat ensuing or you're not likely to last too long. This is one of the reasons why, again in AD&D, hiring people who do the things you can't/don't (ie, henchmen) is such an important element... it gives you back that resource diversity.

Oh, and while I'm at it... there is one other reason why the "core" are so core. Until 3rd edition, there was a thing called "attribute requirements." if you weren't lucky enough to roll a 13+ in 3 scores, you did not get to play something other than a core class. That basically mandated a tight group of "usual suspects." Throwing that out opens the floodgates, and actually empowers players a great deal, letting them have access to many abilities they probably would not have had otherwise.
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If it matters, leave a message at the beep.
Serl's Corner

[Sir Osis of Liver]

I also like the ability of the Illusionist to do some "healing" just in case there's no cleric. I know we've had this debate before, but I still like the ability. There are always options.