Introduction: Let me immediately preface by saying that this thread's intent is to explore the combat functionality of a party and designing a party for combat. This thread will not cover out of combat roles or functions. The purpose here is two fold: establish a generalized method for creating optimal parties and then harvesting the information generated from using this method. If you spend some time working through the method, please post your findings. Someone will include them in the OP.
Step 1: Satisfying Generalized Roles
A common mistake in D&D literature is to associate class names with roles, and then defining other, non-iconic classes, in terms of the iconic ones. For example, it is often said that an ideal party consists of a cleric, wizard, fighter, and rogue. These iconic class names do little to elucidate the actual purpose of the roles they fill. In fact, the classes listed actually have some overlap in their capabilities. Furthermore, if you wish to play classes besides the iconic ones, translating your character in terms of these roles can be awkward at best. I posit that there are four fundamental roles in a party, based on function:
1.: Harm Prevention
This role is all about reducing the damage delivery capability of the enemy. The ultimate goal of Harm Prevention is to ensure that the party is protected from various forms of harm (be it physical damage or other effects). Classically, a fronliner fills this role by taking the hits, while the squishy wizard is left alone long enough to deliver damage. Other methods, such as placing stone skin on a party member count as a type of Harm Prevention.
Here are some things to consider when planning out the party's Harm Prevention role:
- Action Limitation: If you can limit the number of actions your enemy has available to him, you will reduce his ability to generate offensive, damaging effects. Stuns, Paralysis, Daze, Slows, etc are all excellent ways to accomplish this goal. Eliminating the possibility of receiving a full attack is also very important, espcially at high levels. This is essentially a form of action limitation that can be as simple as staying outside the foe's reach at all times. When faced with a pounce-capable foe, hydra, or other creature capable of moving and full attacking at the same time, things become more complicated. Anti-charge and movement techniques, such as standstill mixed with hold the line, are good ways to reduce these problems. Of course this goes both ways. You would also like to reduce any reductions in your actions. High saves, counterspelling, and immunities are pretty much all that's traditonally available to you.
- Spell Damage: Be it energy damage (which is easily mitigated with certain spells) or death effects, spell damage must be taken into consideration. There are a couple ways of handling this situation traditionally: high saves, counterspelling, and immediate action interruption effects. Spells have a wide diversity of nasty effects, which is why both sides tend to try and eliminate the spell casters first.
- Battle Field Control: This is all about controlling where enemies are allowed to move and whom they can attack. Numerous ways exist to accomplish this goal, but some of the most salient are: movement reducing spells, attacks of opportunity coupled with trips and/or standstill, and mobility. Being mobile is a relative term. If you can move further than your foe can, you gain a mobility advantage. As mentioned already, this can be accomplished by slowing your foe, but it also can be done by speeding your party up. Some excellent ways of speeding the party include spells like dimension shuffle and haste. Creative use of illusions or conjurations are also methods of accomplishing battlefield control.
- Perception: You need to be able to perceive your enemy to control his damage output. Make sure that all party members are capable of detecting their targets via hear, spot, or other means.
2.: Enemy Elimination (Aka: DPR Damage Per Round)
The easiest role to define, yet most diverse in implementation, is the Enemy Elimination role. Bottom line, this role is all about laying the smack down on the opposing force. How well one fills the Enemy Elimination role is defined by how quickly one can dispatch the foe. This is, of course, situationally dependant on the foe's Harm Prevention system. For example, a fireball tossing wizard produces excellent damage delivery against a multitude of non-fire-resistant foes with low reflex saves. A leap attacking, power attacking barbarian, on the other hand, is probably better for DPR when there is a single foe with high saves. Note that killing a creature is only worth the amount damage in HP that it has. If you slayed a creature with 40 hitpoints by dealing 300 damage to it, you've really only done 40 damage. Likewise, a death-effect that slays a 40 hp creature is the same as dealing 40 hp damage in a single blow. Killing blows have a different effect (removing people from the battlefield) and fall under damage mitigation. DPR is really the process of bringing the foe to the ground, rather than the actual act of doing so.
When plotting out your DPS role, consider the following:
- Number of Targets: The number of targets affects the method of damage delivery. AoE spells are fantastic against crowds, but inefficient against single targets.
- Target Defense Capabilities: It is important to have both spell and physical damage available, in case a foe is extremely resistant to one or the other. Prepare a variety of elimination methods to handle the diversity of monsters out there.
- Play to Common Weaknesses: The lowest monster save is the will save. The lowest AC is touch. The lowest ability scores are mental. Know these weaknesses that are common to all monsters and be sure to exploit them to aid your damage output.
- Perception: You need to be able to perceive your enemy to damage him. Make sure that all party members are capable of detecting their targets via hear, spot, or other means.
3.: Recovery (aka: Healing)
Also simple to define and yet diverse in implementation. The Recovery specialist does one thing: remove the damage and effects that the Harm Prevention specialist was not able to filter out. This role is almost exclusively filled by some sort of casting class. (There are a few exceptions, of course).
When plotting your Recovery role there is more than just hitpoint damage to consider:
- Ability Reduction: Ability stats are susceptible in that it can be easy to deal a significant fraction of your total ability score in damage. Having a way to remove these damaging effects is crucial.
- Action Reduction: Say your Damage Mitigation isn't up to snuff... well, if you can't prevent it you must remove it. Dispelling is the key here. Dispell debuffs from your party members that reduce their actions. Coming up with a way to do this that DOESN'T LIMIT YOUR OWN ACTIONS in a huge way is crucial. If you can spend a swift action to cure a move or standard action, then do it. If not, then it may not be worth it.
- Death: It happens. Just be sure to have a means to removing it available.
- Status Effects: Dazzled, Fatigue, Exhaustion, Poisoned, etc. Look in the DMG under Status Effects, to see what you can remove. The more you are able to remove the better.
- In/Out of Combat Healing: You need both. You cannot replace a healer with a wand of cure light wounds, but you will still want that wand. Healers are best at one thing: IN COMBAT HEALING. They are able to deliver high amounts of healing in a short amount of time. Out of combat healing can be slow... the important thing is that it doesn't consume a lot of resources.
Consideration: The Weakest Link
One thing that needs to be considered when planning your party's tactics is whether or not the tactic is limited by "the weakest link". For example, your party may have three monks in it, but if you got a cleric in full plate it's only going to be as mobile as the cleric (if you wish to maintain a formation that is). Also, if you rely on high saves or high AC as a primary means of damage mitigation, you better make sure that ALL party members have high AC and saves.
Consideration: Redundancy and Specialization
There are two schools of thought on character design with respect to the fundamental roles. The first is that each character needs to have as many capabilities as possible, so that in the event that one character fails (dies), that someone can pick up the slack. The other school of thought is that each character should exclusively optimize for a single role, and in so doing the amalgamed result will have greater effect. The debate between these two schools of thought can be summarized, in two principles of economics: risk and comparative advantage. In the former school, the stress is placed on risk reduction. The later school seeks to optimize the total averaged effect that the party is capable of producing. For those of you who haven't taken a basic economics course (and I don't claim to be an expert here), here's a basic definition of both terms:
Comparative Advantage:
The essential question in a comparative advantage study is finding out who consumes the least amount of resources to perform a given task. Generally, more effect is produced if individuals specialize in their comparative advantage. I believe it is common knowledge that a build specialized for damage will out damage a build that claims to be a "triple threat." The question is, does the party deal more damage overall if we use a limited number of damage specialists or if all members output a small amount of damage? How does a specialist party fair compared to a non-specialist party in terms of risk?
Risk:
Simply put, its the probability of a negative effect occuring. In D&D we're interested in two negative effects: TPK and PK. PKs consume a lot of resources to fix. TPKs mean the game is over. Both are bad. Example questions include: "What happens if the Damage Removal specialist is removed?" "What if the Damage Delivery specialist is removed?" The non-specialist school would say that risk is reduced via redundancy in roles. This is a common solution to many risk problems, namely national security. In fact, it's really the only way to reduce risk. If one fundamental component is removed, the party may fail. Now, that is not to say that all four of the fundamental roles are equally weighted when it comes to determining the risk of PK or TPK. The party will wipe if they cannot deal damage, the party will wipe if they cannot mitigate the damage before they kill the foes, the party will wipe if they cannot remove the damage before it kills them. Utility plays, at best, a circumstancial role in determining the probability of a PK or TPK.
Definition: Optimal Party Output
In a given encounter there are two concerns: does the party defeat the enemy and how many resources were consumed in generating a victory? Optimizing party behavior involves the MINIMIZATION of consumed resources to achieve victory and the MAXIMIZING of the probability of success. Some resources to consider: Spell slots, time, hit points, limited special abilities, item charges. Basically anything that cannot be used an unlimited number of times per encounter, counts as a resource expenditure.
Expanded Discussion: Harm Prevention
Harm Prevention is, to me, the most interesting and complex of all the three roles. As I see it there are three basic methods of protecting the party:
1. Damage Migration: If you look at the amount of damage a party takes as some sort of quantity that needs to be distributed among the members of the party, you'll see that being able to move the damage to the members who are able to take it becomes very desirable. Though phrased abstractly, is the most familiar example of damage mitigation. People refer to it as "tanking" or having a "meat shield." The key is being able to channel the damage that monsters deal the right place -- the wrong place typically being your squishy casters. Tanking is actually not as easy as it seems on paper, if your DM plays his monsters shrewdly. Just because you're up in a monster's face and dealing damage, doesn't necessarily mean that the monster's most optimal choice is to fight you, especially if the squishy caster you're protecting is dealing A LOT more damage than you are. Just think about it from the monster's perspective. You see 1 melee dude who looks hard to hit, 1 squishy caster dealing a lot of damage that looks easy to hit. If your objective, as a monster, is to kill as many people as possible, your obvious target is the squishy caster, not the fighter. There are a couple of ways that you can change the monster's perspective.
1. Make the monster's trip between you and the squishy long and painful: Best way to do this is to use attacks of opportunity and physically obstructing the straight-line path to the squishy. Also, preventing movement by slowing or stopping the monster is important. This is why trip-fighters are so great. Not only do they damage the foe, but they stop his approach to the squishy. Key abilities and tricks include:
- Standstill (feat): convert an AoO into a movement stopping attack. (XPH).
- Hold the Line (Feat): AoO generated for any charging foe entering your threatened space. Mix with standstill to prevent enemies from charging right past you to the squishy. (CWar)
- Thicket of Blades (class ability): AoO for any movement through your threatened space. Combine with standstill to keep them in your space. (Tome of Battle)
- Bulwark of Defense (class ability): Your threatened area is considered difficult terrain, halving movement and generating AoOs. (PHB 2).
- Hamstring (feat): Reduce sneak attack by 2d6 to halve movement of foe. (CWar)
2. Deal more damage or more potent secondary effects than the squishy, making your more of a threat. No real mystery here. There are many threads dedicated to increasing melee damage.
Mobility is another crucial factor in Damage Migration. You need to be able to move quickly across the battlefield to ensure that you're in front and blocking the path to the squishies.
2. Damage Reduction: This is the domain of spell casters. You can apply damage reduction via spells like stoneskin, energy resistance, etc. Nothing really exciting or profound here, except in noting that putting these effects on the entire party is often a costly endeavor.
3. Damage Prevention: Nothing makes damage go away like never having to take it in the first place. The easiest way to accomplish this is to somehow grant your party prohibitively high armor class. Another way is to somehow apply a multitude of miss-chances. There a many spells which can perform this task. But again, unless you have a multi-person buff, these spells often consume a lot of resources and are best spent on characters who cannot take a whole lot of damage.
It should be noted that there is more than simply physical damage involved. Various forms of damage include:
- Physical (hitpoint) damage
- Ability damage
- Death effects
- Spell damage (coming in many flavors, most saliently and famously the energy damage types)
- Secondary (non-damaging debuffs)
Ideally a party would have a way mitigate all of these types of damage. If you can't find a way to mitigate, you must find a way to recover... but that's a different role.
Step 1 Summary:
So what have I said? All I've done is motivated a few questions that one should have in mind when they begin to formulate a party. That's about all one can really do without getting into the specific details. What I will explore in subsequent steps, is answering these questions in different (common) contexts. The basic idea is to start with a theory, then apply the theory to real life and see where it gets you. The important questions generated in the previous subsections are:
Are all the bases covered? Do I have a person filling every single one of the three fundamental roles: Harm Prevention, Enemy Elimination, and Recovery?
What happens if one person is unable to act in a given situation? How does that affect the party's ability to perform the three fundamental roles?
How many resources are consumed by each individual in performing a given role? Would it be better to specialize in a given role or not, in the context of risk and comparative advantage?
Step 2: List Some Tricks
There are a couple ways of designing builds. In this process I encourage people to rifle through their books and brains, thinking up a few tricks that might satisfy the three roles above. If you develop some method which you think merit attention feel free to post them in the trick section. The next step will be to trying to cram all of these tricks into a party.
Step 3: Build the Party
Is it going to be a four man , two man, or six man party? What level will they start at? What books are available to the party. All the standard questions that go into individual character optimization apply here. Essentially you'll be developing a number of builds simultaneously. It's going to be a lot of work. The advantage to this simultaneous development, in the context of the tricks created in step 2, is that you are considering the dynamic of party interaction from the start, rather than trying to clumsily piece together a group of optimized individuals.
Step 4: Test the Builds
Not exactly playtesting, but you can at least see how they might fair against a number of tactics and senarios. Think of the ways your party is capable of handling a given challenge. If you believe your method of handling a challenge merits attention, feel free to post as a trick in the trick section. Consider the information given below:
In the SBLOCK is a fabulous table created by Dielzen which gives the average and maximum value of a number of combat variables for each CR of all the monsters in the SRD. Your casters will be interested in the save information, and the frontliners interested in the average/max AC values they can expect to face. Depending on the degree to which you're optimizing average values will probably be best -- if you're going for the UnCon prize, pay attention to the max values.
You can find a formatted version of the table here (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=11336.msg388252#msg388252), thanks to Garryl.
hp init AC touch ff_ac bab fort ref will
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 1/10 (2 detail records)
Avg 1.00 1.50 15.50 15.50 14.00 0.00 2.00 3.50 2.00
Max 1 2 16 16 14 0 2 4 2
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 1/8 (2 detail records)
Avg 1.00 2.00 14.00 14.00 12.00 0.00 2.00 3.00 0.50
Max 1 2 14 14 12 0 2 4 1
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 1/6 (4 detail records)
Avg 4.50 1.75 13.75 13.25 12.00 0.25 2.50 4.00 1.00
Max 11 2 14 14 12 1 4 4 2
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 1/4 (8 detail records)
Avg 3.88 1.75 14.50 13.25 12.75 0.25 2.50 2.88 0.38
Max 11 3 17 15 14 1 4 5 2
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 1/3 (7 detail records)
Avg 4.43 2.57 15.71 13.14 13.71 0.14 2.29 3.14 1.14
Max 6 5 17 15 16 1 4 5 3
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 1/2 (29 detail records)
Avg 6.59 1.41 14.69 11.86 13.38 0.76 2.62 2.00 0.03
Max 16 4 18 16 18 2 5 6 3
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 1 (46 detail records)
Avg 12.24 1.54 15.28 11.78 13.80 1.28 3.00 2.85 0.98
Max 31 7 23 20 18 3 6 6 5
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 2 (51 detail records)
Avg 20.55 2.39 15.76 11.84 13.94 2.33 4.35 4.35 2.69
Max 42 8 23 15 22 5 8 10 6
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 3 (72 detail records)
Avg 27.26 2.68 16.14 11.51 14.64 3.30 4.58 4.18 3.31
Max 55 9 23 18 23 6 9 9 7
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 4 (40 detail records)
Avg 48.23 2.23 16.00 10.45 15.05 5.20 6.45 5.10 4.60
Max 94 6 20 18 20 9 11 9 9
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 5 (51 detail records)
Avg 56.33 3.16 17.16 10.55 15.73 6.08 7.47 5.82 4.82
Max 95 11 25 16 25 11 12 13 10
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 6 (26 detail records)
Avg 69.12 3.27 18.88 11.00 17.27 7.60 8.08 6.85 6.08
Max 133 13 29 29 24 12 14 12 12
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 7 (45 detail records)
Avg 86.98 2.91 18.07 10.38 16.44 8.38 8.67 6.98 6.56
Max 152 13 25 17 24 13 15 19 12
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 8 (31 detail records)
Avg 96.48 3.19 20.00 10.58 18.32 9.43 9.19 7.65 7.45
Max 180 10 27 20 26 15 16 14 11
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 9 (31 detail records)
Avg 130.65 3.61 21.74 10.45 19.68 11.97 12.13 9.81 8.58
Max 230 14 29 18 28 18 19 22 13
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 10 (19 detail records)
Avg 136.53 2.79 22.58 9.26 21.42 13.21 11.63 8.58 9.11
Max 305 8 33 13 33 24 22 19 14
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 11 (24 detail records)
Avg 163.83 3.96 23.71 10.92 21.38 14.25 13.75 10.63 10.3
Max 228 15 29 25 27 24 20 25 14
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 12 (12 detail records)
Avg 196.33 1.58 21.75 7.17 21.42 17.00 15.42 9.33 9.08
Max 300 5 28 13 28 30 25 12 15
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 13 (12 detail records)
Avg 167.00 2.92 27.33 10.25 26.00 14.42 14.17 9.83 12.4
Max 230 5 32 14 31 20 18 14 16
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 14 (12 detail records)
Avg 180.33 4.50 27.00 11.00 25.17 16.17 15.92 11.83 14.0
Max 287 8 35 14 35 23 19 13 18
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 15 (8 detail records)
Avg 224.63 3.50 29.75 8.13 29.50 18.88 15.75 10.63 15.8
Max 312 5 34 11 33 24 19 14 20
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 16 (11 detail records)
Avg 239.09 4.27 31.91 10.00 30.73 21.18 17.09 13.27 16.6
Max 378 8 42 16 42 31 23 16 23
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 17 (7 detail records)
Avg 244.86 3.29 28.00 9.57 26.86 20.14 19.57 11.29 16.2
Max 337 7 34 13 34 27 25 15 19
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 18 (8 detail records)
Avg 302.25 6.00 32.75 8.50 31.25 24.25 19.50 15.63 19.0
Max 375 20 37 14 37 30 23 24 23
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 19 (10 detail records)
Avg 355.80 4.80 36.00 9.20 35.20 27.60 22.10 16.30 19.7
Max 445 12 38 16 38 33 25 20 21
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 20 (9 detail records)
Avg 409.33 6.00 36.44 9.11 34.44 29.56 24.22 18.67 21.2
Max 858 12 40 17 39 48 38 29 23
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 21 (13 detail records)
Avg 393.00 4.31 38.69 8.77 37.31 27.69 23.31 16.15 20.5
Max 522 7 51 17 44 36 28 22 25
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 22 (9 detail records)
Avg 452.33 7.44 40.22 11.56 36.33 29.56 23.00 19.67 23.7
Max 536 22 47 24 47 37 28 25 27
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 23 (11 detail records)
Avg 480.09 8.27 39.91 12.45 35.27 31.00 26.00 21.82 24.6
Max 893 18 46 28 42 38 41 35 28
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 24 (8 detail records)
Avg 622.25 9.25 42.38 12.88 37.75 37.50 29.50 24.25 27.3
Max 900 27 44 40 44 48 39 38 38
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 25 (11 detail records)
Avg 600.27 8.55 44.18 18.36 39.82 34.09 27.55 24.00 28.7
Max 1105 26 52 50 50 40 45 36 41
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 26 (7 detail records)
Avg 420.29 10.43 44.29 27.14 39.57 27.00 21.14 20.14 26.2
Max 680 17 50 48 43 40 32 29 32
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 27 (4 detail records)
Avg 625.25 10.00 46.75 19.25 40.25 43.50 31.75 27.75 32.7
Max 817 20 52 32 45 75 40 37 41
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 28 (4 detail records)
Avg 894.25 16.25 53.50 26.50 43.25 42.50 37.00 37.00 31.5
Max 1102 25 57 47 57 60 45 44 35
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 29 (2 detail records)
Avg 472.00 12.00 50.50 30.00 42.50 21.50 25.00 25.50 24.5
Max 814 17 51 38 48 33 40 39 32
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 30 (4 detail records)
Avg 1064.25 2.00 40.75 13.50 40.25 48.25 36.00 26.25 38.7
Max 1785 6 58 26 58 70 47 37 50
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 31 (2 detail records)
Avg 788.50 3.50 58.00 16.00 56.50 42.50 34.00 24.50 33.5
Max 877 4 64 20 64 45 37 25 38
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 32 (1 detail record)
Avg 433.00 18.00 40.00 20.00 30.00 42.00 19.00 29.00 29.0
Max 433 18 40 20 30 42 19 29 29
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 33 (2 detail records)
Avg 605.50 -2.00 60.00 0.00 60.00 72.00 32.00 30.00 33.0
Max 608 -2 60 0 60 72 32 30 33
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 34 (2 detail records)
Avg 1100.00 9.50 54.00 16.00 50.50 52.50 42.00 32.50 39.5
Max 1362 15 61 19 61 62 48 42 43
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 35 (5 detail records)
Avg 1011.80 12.60 62.00 13.80 53.20 48.40 41.60 34.20 31.0
Max 1075 24 67 18 67 50 46 52 43
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 36 (1 detail record)
Avg 1676.00 11.00 58.00 3.00 57.00 72.00 55.00 47.00 39.0
Max 1676 11 58 3 57 72 55 47 39
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 37 (1 detail record)
Avg 1292.00 4.00 74.00 20.00 74.00 55.00 46.00 29.00 47.0
Max 1292 4 74 20 74 55 46 29 47
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 39 (3 detail records)
Avg 1430.00 7.00 66.67 18.00 62.33 68.00 55.67 37.67 45.0
Max 1728 13 81 22 81 96 75 55 52
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 41 (1 detail record)
Avg 1856.00 14.00 58.00 16.00 44.00 96.00 76.00 56.00 42.0
Max 1856 14 58 16 44 96 76 56 42
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 42 (1 detail record)
Avg 1984.00 12.00 60.00 14.00 48.00 96.00 77.00 54.00 42.0
Max 1984 12 60 14 48 96 77 54 42
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 43 (2 detail records)
Avg 1516.00 4.00 79.50 21.50 79.50 59.00 50.00 31.00 50.5
Max 1787 4 88 24 88 65 55 34 56
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 48 (1 detail record)
Avg 1479.00 4.00 78.00 21.00 78.00 58.00 50.00 31.00 50.0
Max 1479 4 78 21 78 58 50 31 50
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 50 (2 detail records)
Avg 2472.50 7.00 83.50 19.00 78.50 83.00 72.00 44.50 51.5
Max 2880 10 95 26 95 96 84 52 61
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 52 (1 detail record)
Avg 1732.00 4.00 85.00 23.00 85.00 63.00 54.00 33.00 54.0
Max 1732 4 85 23 85 63 54 33 54
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 57 (2 detail records)
Avg 1517.00 7.00 81.00 26.50 81.00 60.00 49.00 33.00 43.0
Max 2006 10 92 28 92 68 59 36 59
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 59 (1 detail record)
Avg 2362.00 4.00 102.00 28.00 102.00 75.00 64.00 39.00 65.0
Max 2362 4 102 28 102 75 64 39 65
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 61 (1 detail record)
Avg 2299.00 4.00 99.00 27.00 99.00 73.00 63.00 38.00 63.0
Max 2299 4 99 27 99 73 63 38 63
Summary for 'challenge_rating' = 66 (1 detail record)
Avg 2613.00 4.00 106.00 29.00 106.00 78.00 68.00 41.00 68.0
Max 2613 4 106 29 106 78 68 41 68
Types of Monsters and their Associated Challenges
Rather than rattle off the types in the MM, I'm going to break the monsters into general categories. Think about how your party might be able to handle these problems:
- Physical Bosses: Classic; you have to fight Thog the Orc Warlord, Slayer of a Thousand Cute Kittens. He's got a lot of armor, a lot of hit points, puts out insane amount physical damage per round, has bad body odor and the disturbing habit of eating kittens alive. The question is: can your party take him down before he power attacks your squishy elven wizard into the dirt?
- Physical Armies: Before fighting Thog the Orc Warlord, you had to hack through his horde of meaty minions. His minions are few levels lower than you are, but they have maximal AC and HP for their CR range (see table above). There are also a lot of them.
- Magical Bosses: Equally classic. You are tasked with taking down a grand sorcererous lich. His primary form of damage is via spells and he has more than a few tricks up his sleeves. Will your party be able to handle intense magical damage, will they be able to hit him if he's flying around cackling maniaclly? What about the dreaded death-ray laser beams that he can shoot out of his eyes? Do you got that covered? Basically can the party handle a few powerful magical effects?
- Magical Minions: A bit more rare... a bunch of low level casters. What happens if there's 5-6 of these guys sitting on a magical rug 100 feet overhead, pummelling you with magic missiles? The saves may be low, but there's a lot of them. Or if the DM is really cunning, he'll use no-save effects.... again in mass quantity.
- Cloaked Bosses: These guys employ hit and run tactics, mixed with stealth. Will you have a good chance at breaking the stealth? What if the guy can move through walls, through the ground, or hide in plain sight? Do you have a way to detect and lock down these ellusive bastards and kill them before they ambush your party again?
- Kobold Ambush!: Well, maybe not kobolds, but ambush... The senario is a bunch of lower level minions with high mobility and stealth capabilities. These encounters will typically occur in difficult terrain.
- Special Defenses & Offenses: What happens if your enemy is immune to: Mind Affecting; Energy Type X; Stunning, Paralysis, Sleep, or Daze; Movement impediments (like many incorporeals); Ability Damage; Negative Levels; Specific Spell Immunities: (such as the tarrasque, will-o-the-wisp, or golems)
- What if they have: Regeneration; Fast Healing; Damage Reduction;
- What if they can: Deal negative levels; Deal ability damage; Stop magical effects (like the epic collosus); Employ supernatural attacks (which are immune to dispelling and counterspelling)
Step 5: Revise & Finish
Hopefully your party was sufficiently capable to handle the situations, tactics, and values listed above. If so, fantastic. Feel free to post the party information. I just ask that you use a specific format to make things easier for others to read and compare. I will not be pasting user contributions into the OP. Instead I will maintain a linked list to specific posts, organized by case parameters. The linked list will be contained in a post with an open account (that is I will divulge the user name and password for the account) so that it may be edited by anyone.
Note: example comments are in italics. Fill in these fields with your own text.
Case: Text describing the specific case goes here. Feel free to use cases already posted. There may be more than one answer to a given case. Try to keep the cases general enough that they can be easily modified to the exact specifications of a given viewer.
Party Make Up:
Build Stub for party member 1
Build Stub for party member 2
Build Stub ...
Build Stub for party member n
Build Stub Example: Race Class X/Class Y/Class Z/Class X + n/Class Y + n/Class Z +n
Build Specifics
1. List details for party member 1 here. Include information on feats and class abilities as they pertain to the role they fill. Explain which of the four fundamental roles the build fills.
2. List details for party member 2 here. Include information on feats and class abilities as they pertain to the role they fill. Explain which of the four fundamental roles the build fills.
...
n. List details for party member n here. Include information on feats and class abilities as they pertain to the role they fill. Explain which of the four fundamental roles the build fills.
Party Tricks & Tactics
This is the most important section. Here you detail how the party works together as a team to produce more than just the results of a group of individuals.
Analysis (optional)
Discuss anything you believe is salient in the way your party handles the rubric of challenges listed in the OP
Builds
Tleilaxu_Ghola's Tactical Supremists:
Tleilaxu_Ghola
05-15-07, 12:45 AM
Case: 4 party members, starting level 10. Alternative Magic heavily encouraged.
Party Name: Tactical Supremists
Party Make Up:
Human Kineticist 6/Anarchic Initiate 4
Human Crusader 10
Human Paladin2/Crusader 8
Human Rogue 3/Swordsage 7
Build Specifics
1.
Feats:
1. Overchannel, (Psi-crystal Affinity), (Burrowing Power)
3. Empower Power
5. Psionic Meditation
6. Metapower (empower)
9. EK (Schism)
This guy fills the DPR role. With Dual Empowered Chaotic Surged Energy Channels (using solicit psicrystal) this guy is a veritable avatar of pain. He can put out up to 36d6+36 damage per round to a single target (18d6 to a secondary) or 18d6 to 2 targets and 9d6 to 2 secondary targets. Add chaotic surge on top of that for the possibility to either maximize or empower those dice.
2.
Feats:
1. Combat Reflexes, EWP Spiked Chain
3. Standstill
6. Extra Granted Maneuver
9. Hold the Line
Role: Two roles in one: Damage Mitigation and Damage Removal. The build is geared for tanking, but has moderate healing capabilities. At the current level he'll be able to heal 3d6+10 damage with a melee attack to anyone within a certain radius. Damage mitigation is performed by controlling the battle field via AoOs.
3: Identical to #2
4.
Feats:
1. Adaptive Style, (Combat Reflexes)
3. Vexing Flanker
6. Shadow Blade
9. TWF
Role: Utility and DPR. This guy can have the essential rogue skills (8+int per level for 3 levels, and 6+int for the remainder). He's geared for flanking, which means he just tumbles into place and then lays down his TWF +4d6 sneak attacks at dandy +4 bonus. He also gets dex to damage.
Party Tricks & Tactics
Basically this group gets into formation and then plows through the enemy lines. Marching essential order is:
C-P-C
Or some varient thereof. The psion sits in the intersection of the radius of the two spiked chains wielded by the two crusaders. This ensures that anyone trying to charge him will be hit by a couple AoOs and a standstill before they can even think about hitting him. Thicket of blades is the main method of generating AoOs (that and holding the line). Rogue/Swordsage can be anywhere in the vicinity. With a high dexterity and wisdom score, he's going to have a pretty decent AC. He waits until one of the tanks engages and then tumbles in for the flanking. The psion will usually put up a telekentic buffer (slowing all movement to 50% in a 15' radius), then follows up the next round with an energy current + solicit psi-crystal. If necessary, he'll start up a 2nd energy current in the third round. At this point the enemies will probably want to kill the psion who is dishing out INSANE damage. That's when the tanks start turtling up around the psion, warding off any melee chargers. The psion is able to protect himself from magical assault (and the whole party) via intellect fortress (which cuts incoming damage effects in half) or via damp power (which minimizes all incoming damage effects). Both are immediate cast powers. If faced with ranged threat, the psion can punch out some serious DPR with energy missile at medium range (up to 5 targets, and about 18d6+18 dmg to each for the low cost of 12 pp).
Analysis:
This party is what I would call a balance between specialization and redundancy. There are two identical builds in the party, covering what I believe to be the most critical roles: damage mitigation and damage removal. These guys should be decked out in heavy armor and their feats/class abilities make melee damage a laughable matter. Their primary concern is non-magical ranged damage. The only way the party can deal with his is via the psion's magical ranged damage attacks. Both crusaders are required to fill the healing role effectively. If both guys are busting off healing strikes every round, the party's in pretty good shape. At 11th level they'll be able to do area effect healing with a strike. The trick to getting as many heals per encounter as possible is to ready all your healing maneuvers (2 at this level). At 11th level half their deck will be healing maneuvers. So these guys will be rolling off heals at least once, if not twice per round. Note, that they're still dealing damage while healing! AoOs are another source of damage for these bad-boys. I strongly recommend giving them the best possible weapons.
This psion is the most critical player in the party. He is the primary source of damage and pretty much the sole source of ranged attacks. He's also the weakest member of the party in terms of HP and armor. For this reason he needs to be flanked by his tank comrades at all times. The psion is not hopeless by himself, and has a fairly decent method of damage mitigation in the form of the famous share pain + vigor trick. He also has a number of escape mechanisms and spell damage mitigation tricks available to him, as mentioned earlier.
The rogue is kind of an odd-ball here. He requires mobility, while the rest of the party is content in turtling up and moving slow. He has the ability to find and disable traps, as well as deal decent melee damage. I'd say this is the weakest, most non-essential member of the party.
Note on party wealth: It's common to divide party wealth equally. But consider this: the psion only needs +intellect and +constitution gear. He should receive less loot than the tanks who need a lot of money to properly gear their weapons and such.
Tsuyoshikentsu's Core Party:
tsuyoshikentsu
05-15-07, 01:35 AM
Yea, that would be totally awesome. Anyone really bored this summer?
Ask Surreal.
On topic:
Case: Core 3, Four-Person Party
Party Make Up:
Gnome Druid 20
Dwarf Cleric 20
Grey Elf Rogue 1/Wizard 19
Dwarf Barbarian 20
Build Specifics
1. Gnome Druid 20 -- Augment Summoning and Natural Spell; metamagics after that. You're off-DPR, off-Damage Removal, off-Utility. Prepare all cure spells, except for the odd flamestrike or goodberry. (9th levels don't count.) Your job is to stay wild shaped -- preferably as a flying creature -- cast summons, and mix it up with your animal companion. You may want to throw some battlefield control in there, too -- it depends on how quickly you go through your Cleric's spells.
2. Dwarf Cleric 20 -- Healing and Travel domains. You're Damage Removal. Yeah, yeah, divine power, blah blah blah. NO ONE is better at healing than you, and you've got the FoM to get out of that grapple and get to them. Just because you're a good fighter doesn't mean you're not a better band-aid. Besides -- cures are spontaneous. No one will care if you prepare divine power in that slot.
3. Grey Elf Rogue 1/Wizard 19 -- UTILITY up the wazoo. Keep your Rogue skills up through your stupid amount of bonus skill points; the main reason you took that level is trapfinding. Between battlefield control and polymorphing into a scout form, you'll sneak better than a Rogue and not come out that far behind a Sorcerer in casting.
4. Dwarf Barbarian 20 -- Damage Mitigation, DPR. Yeah, yeah, the Druid can shapeshift, the Cleric can DP, the Wizard has spells. You're not quite as squishy in an antimagic field, plus you can do this all day every day. With two healers and the Druid's companion and summons to help you out, you'll be fine out there.
Dwarf is pretty much the optimal race here when you can hire a herald; the Wizard obviously wants grey elf, though. I just realized that Gnome is better for Druid past level 5; when wild shaping, your penalty goes away totally.
Party Tricks & Tactics
The Druid spends most of their time in birdie form to summon things, while their animal companion off-tanks. The Wizard's in the back, battlefield controlling it up, while the Barbarian keeps things from running over to hit the casters. The Cleric is dispensing band-aids as needed. Ideally, the Druid should fly just above the Cleric so as to be unreachable by Medium reach from the ground, but close enough to heal the Cleric if need be.
Off the battlefield, the Wizard finds traps and disarms them. (If not, one of the three casters blows them up, or sets them off with a summon.)
Analysis
The Druid is straight-up expendable; at higher levels, the Barbarian is too. The problems start when you lose any two members; the Cleric and the Wizard are too squishy by themselves to defend against anything that could take out tow party members.
The Thing in the Night's Forgotten Realms Party:
The Thing in the Night
05-15-07, 03:30 PM
Case:10th level, forgotten realms, limited splat (completes, phb2)
Party Make Up:
1.Damage Migation: Human Druid 10
2.Damage Removal: Human Cleric 10 of Red Knight
3.Skills: Human Rogue7/Fighter1/Sorcerer1/Marshal1
4.DPR: Human Barbarian1/Fighter4/Frenzied Berzerker4/Exotic Weapon Master1
Build Specifics:
1. Feats
Spell Focus:Conjuration
Augment Summoning
Greenbound Summoning
Natural Spell
Empower Spell
Damage migation is attained by a combination of Druid battlefield control spells (entangle, spike stones, all of thorns, etc), and by the summoning of creatures. The summons migate damage in several ways: they present additional targets to soak up damage (and are also resilient, with DR, fast healing, and immunity to mind affecting), and by limiting the movement of enemies and presenting opportunities for AoO's. Note that a wildshaping druid is also a decent source of DPR, as are the summoned creatures themselves. The druid also serves as a source of damage removal, with the Vigor line of spells for OoC healing.
2.Feats
Weapon Focus:Longsword (war)
Extend Spell (planning)
Sacred Healing
Extra Turning
Peristant Spell
Divine Metamagic: Persistant Spell
Extra Turning
This standard metabuffing cleric serves both as damage per round and damage removal. With nightsticks, it should be able to persist a few core buffs and use remaining turning attempts for Sacred Healing.
3.Feats
Dodge
Mobility
Combat Expertise
Improved Trip
Elusive Target
EWP:Spiked Chain (fighter)
Motivate Strength (marshal aura)
This character fulfills both the Skills role, and provides DPR. Sorcerer spells known are True Strike and Enlarge person. The second provides extensive reach, used to set up flanking situations with any of the Druid's summons. The marshal aura improves trip attacks of the rogue, as well as any trip attacks provided by the summons (another source of Damage Migation).
4.Feats
EWP:Bastard Sword
Weapon Focus: Bastard Sword
Intimidating Rage
Destructive Rage
Power Attack
Cleave
Improved Sunder
Shock Trooper
Uncanny Blow(exotic weapon master)
Standard melee DPR.
Party Tricks and Tactics:
As stated above, the Druid lays down battlefield control with snares, summons, or both. The Rogue then enlarges, moves to a suitable position, and begins flanking, tripping if desired. If controling spells are used, the Berzerker remains near the rogue (the most vulnerable member), and uses throwing weapons, ready to rage if anything breaks free of the snares. If summons are used to control, the berzerker picks a target and charges.
Analysis:
Many party members are capable of fulfilling multiple roles, easing the strain if one is incapacitated. This pary is weak with regards to range, posessing nothing extrordinary other than raged weapons and spells.
amalcon's Core Party:
amalcon
05-15-07, 09:04 PM
Case: 4 party members, level 10. Core (PHB+DMG) only.
Party Make Up:
1. Halfling Rogue 4/Ranger 6
2. Human Barbarian 1/Diviner 5/Eldritch Knight 4
3. Human Cleric 10
4. Human Bard 10
Build Specifics
1. Rogue 1/Ranger 1-2/Rogue 2/Ranger 3-4/Rogue 3/Ranger 5-6/Rogue 4
Feats:
Iron Will
Weapon Finesse
Mounted Combat
Improved Initiative
Key Class Features:
Trapfinding
Two Weapon combat style
Sneak Attack
Favored Enemy: Constructs (+4), Undead (+2)
Key skills: Search, Disable Device, Hide, Move Silently, Use Magic Device, Ride, Survival
This guy fills two main roles. First, he's a damage monkey. A two weapon fighting, sneak attacking damage monkey, with favored enemies that still let you fight two types of normally immune enemies. Constructs were selected for the +4 basically because they're most common aside from undead, which can be turned. Elementals will still be a problem; plants and oozes are pretty rare.
Why Mounted Combat? Basically, it is part of damage prevention. This guy should be able to move out of combat quickly if necessary (letting the other fighters take the heat for a while). A halfling on a riding dog companion, who's shared longstrider with said companion, should be able to outrun most things where necessary,
2. Barbarian 1/Diviner 5/Eldritch Knight 4
Feats:
Power Attack
Cleave
Combat Reflexes
Combat Expertise
Improved Trip
Key class features:
Fast Movement
Banned School: Enchantment
This guy is huge in the utility department with his divination spells, and is also a halfway decent tank. His real key benefit, however, is clearly battlefield control. Improved Trip + Spiked Chain = good; spells = better. He is also capable of dealing some good damage with power attack + 2-handed weapon. Nominally, he's pretty frail; be sure to devote significant spells to not dying. Vampiric Touch is great for this; one little necromancy spell does damage, damage prevention, and healing all at once.
3. Cleric 10
Feats:
Scribe Scroll
Craft Magical Arms and Armor
Craft Wondrous Item
Craft Wand
Power Attack
Key class features:
Domains: Travel, Magic
Turn Undead
This is the Cleric. Of course you need a Cleric in core. There's no other efficient way to get healing. He's also got a bunch of item creation feats. Notice how every character has the ability to cast arcane spells (UMD, Magic domain, or being a wizard)? And how every character but the Wizard can cast divine spells? Yeah. This should keep everyone stocked for emergencies. Really, items that anyone can use mean the best redundancy you could ask for.
This Cleric doesn't actually do that much *in* combat. He can be really powerful for a short time, like any Cleric can, and Power Attack exists to allow this strategy. In typical combats, however, the Cleric should focus on buffs, battlefield control, and healing. He's more of an item-based support character.
4. Bard 10
Feats:
Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot
Rapid Shot
Far Shot
Manyshot
Key class features:
Bardic Music
Bardic spellcasting
Key skills: Social skills, Use Magic Device
A lot of people will question this one, but few people can boost the efficiency of the whole party quite like a Bard. There are lots of amazing Bard spells that just don't see play in a more standard party: Sculpt Sound, Glibness, among others.
I've always been partial to archer-bards myself.
Party Tricks & Tactics
This party has a few modes of combat. For easy combats, they can just go in swinging -- everyone has a reasonable spell-light combat style. The interesting ones follow:
- Vs. a single tough enemy -- Heavy damage time! Everyone uses their primary offensive combat style (Rogue: Fight; Cleric/Wizard: Begin with offensive spells, then fight; Bard: Buff, including song, then shoot)
- Vs. a relatively homogeneous group -- Battlefield control; isolate, then kill. Cleric and Wizard uses debuff and battlefield control spells until the enemy has lost sufficient capacity; Bard buffs, then shoots. Rogue stays near the others, flanks with companion if necessary, and just tries to hold the gap until the spells have turned the battle.
- Vs. a group with wildly varying power levels -- Mixture. Cleric does nova and flanks for Rogue to take out the greatest threat, Wizard uses debuff and battlefield control spells, Bard buffs.
A very nice thing about this group is that none of them will be competing over the same weapons. The Cleric and Wizard both use two-handers, but the Wizard specifically uses a spiked chain. The Rogue is not only small, but uses finesse weapons. The Bard uses a bow.
Analysis:
This party is actually very robust in terms of party member loss. The worst to lose is probably the Cleric, as healing will be very expensive until he can be raised. One significant benefit is that every character except the Rogue has an indirect combat style, which means that if they're in trouble, they can just read a scroll of invisibility and fall back on the style that keeps them hidden.
The trick to preventing a TPK is to keep in mind that everyone is very mobile. The Rogue is mounted, and everyone else has travelling spells (with the Bard worst off, probably stuck balancing Expeditious Retreat and Shadow Conjuration: Phantom Steed). Do not hesitate to run away if a fight is going south.
TalinXT Single Classed, Extended Core Party:
TalinXT
05-17-07, 09:46 PM
Case: Single Class (almost) Party with access to Core + Completes + PHB2+ Spell Compendium
Party Make Up: The Guild lvl17
1. Human Enchanter 3/Master Specialist10/Mindbender1/Enchanter3
2. Elven Abjurer3/Master Specialist10/Iinitiate of the Seven Fold Veil 4
3. Gnome Illusionist 3/Master Specialist 10/Illusionist4
4. Dwarf Conjurer 3/Master Specialist 10/Conjurer4
Build Specifics:
1. Human Enchanter 3/Master Specialist10/Mindbender1/Enchanter3
Forbidden Schools:Evocation, Divination
1. Spell Focus (Enchantment)
H. Arcane Disciple (Healing)
3. Arcane Disciple (Renewal)
6. Extend Spell
9. Craft Wand
12. Spontaneous Healer
15. Empower Spell
16B. Metamagic Spell Trigger
Harm Prevention: How does one prevent harm? by not getting themselves harmed by enemies. And how does one prevent that to the absolute? By having no enemies. Enchanters can accomplish this by forcing enemies into states and actiosn that prevent and hinder them from harmign others. Let us not also forget that the Enchantment also has a umber of buffs that and battlefield control spells that can prevent damage from coming from an opponent.
Enemy Elimination: If you have enemies, make them friends. The simplest adn most devastating way to defeat an opponent is to make him an enemy of you enemies. This character has high enough spell dc's to make ti stick and stick for a logn time. I like that thog devours kittens, thog works for us now we'll let him deal with the lich after we brign his laughing ass back to the ground. Enchanters are full of Save-or-dies making them jsut as effective at this role as any heavy damage dealer.
Recovery: The nice thing about enchanters is that once they cast one ro two offensive spells they can mostly sit back and let there allies finish off whoever is not converted/disabled. Of course theres also the problem of midn afefcting spells not touching many opponents, this is where your other role comes into play. Normally one is limited by spell slots and available preparations. However, this wizard has a few tricks that can extend the lifespan of their spellcasting considerably. In combat, they are jsut as good as any cleric in healing and can take it a step further by empwoering any cure wands in their possession to make them even more effective without blowing spell slots.
2. Elven Abjurer3/Master Specialist10/Iinitiate of the Seven Fold Veil 4
Forbidden Schools Enchantment, Necromancy
1.Spell Focus (Abjuration)
3.Skill Focus (Spell Craft)
6. Imp. Counterspell
9.Elven Spell Lore (any decent spell for a uncommon energy type)
12.Extraordinary Spell Aim
15. Magic Disruption
Harm Prevention:IF an opponent cannot cast spells, reach you without debilitatign effects, cannot maintain spells, hit you or allies with spells then they cannot harm you. This abjurer in particular can throw up various walls, wards and other hindering effects that prevent foes from getting past you . On top fo this you can buff allies and increase their defenses impressively.
Enemy Elimination: This is perhaps the weaekst point of this character as theres little you can do your allies can't d better in this role. Still, if one is eliminated you can fill the role ina pinch as you can use any scrolls, wands, they have crafted as well. Plus with the Spellbook sharing trick you can easily cast most anythign they can.
Recovery: the abjuraiton school has a number of excellent recovery spells with which a character can use to prevent disasters from occuring, including Dispel Magic, Remove Curse, Break Enchantment and others since you will be casting many of these at higher caster levels then msot you can recover msot thigns with surprising ease.
3. Gnome Illusionist 3/Master Specialist 10/Illusionist4
Forbidden: Enchantment, Divination
1.Spell Focus (Illusion)
3. Extend Spell
6. Metamagic Spell Trigger
9. Quicken Spell
12. Dazzling Illusion
15. Arcane Disciple (Healing)
15b. Persistent Spell
Harm Prevention:Where the Abjurer can put up walsl adn get rid of nasty spell effects, and the enchanter can turnsfriends into enemies you can stop enemies dead in their tracks and make them swing ro run away from your illusions.
Enemy Elimination: There's little in the way of elimination for this character as much of what you'll eb able to do ca't outright kill an opponent or hidner him in some permanent fashion. Rather, you're forced to outwit opponents and force them into situation that benefit your other allies capabilities. However, with Spellbook sharing you can easily take some spells to go toward this role and finish thigns up in a pinch.
Recovery: Like the enchanter this gnome has access to the healing sells they can cast, plus, with metamagic spell trigger and quicken spell you can run around and toss heals about with impunity as you continue tossing illusion spells at your foes.
4. Dwarf Conjurer 3/Master Specialist 10/Conjurer4
1. Spell Focus Conjuration
3. Augment Summoning
6. Quicken spell
9. Metamagic Spell Trigger
12. Energy Substituion (Sonic)
15. Spell-Linked Familiar
15b. Craft Wand
Harm Prevention: If theyre hitting soemthign other then the aprty theyre not hitting you, be it a wall of little criters or a wall of solid rock.
Enemy Elimination: Conjuration spells are a fantastic way to eliminate enemies, they almost universally ignore spell resistance and many have no saves. This particular conjurer can toss several damaging spells a round between quickened spells, master specialist and his familiar as your allies and summoned minions funnel your foes into nice little fences where you can blast them into oblivion
Recovery: This particular wizard is also perhaps the strongest recovery specialist. How? Easy, Gate or Bind soemthing that can get what you need
Tricks
Spell Book sharing: Every level a wizard can scribe two spells into their spellbook. Now, take that and multiply it by 4. Thats right, barring forbidden schools a wizard in this party will get access to 8 spells a level through the simple act of sharing spells with hsi comrades meaning that despite speicializations there will always be SOMEONE who can cast what the party needs.
Battlefield Control: The laws of physics are the parties to bend upon their whim, the problem with one evil wizard is hes jsut ONE wizard he can only do so much in a round. In this group there are so many spells that can be brought to bear controlling enemy movement is as easy as herding peasants and just about as fun. Shaping the terrain the way you want and forcing the enemy to think the way you want is the wet dream of every military commander of every nation on this earth. These wizards excel at it and then some.
Sheer Versatility: The questio for thie party is not what it can do but what it can't do. Can this aprty tank? Yes. Can this party heal? Yes. can this party wipe the floor with enemies? Most definitely. Intelligently played only a group of similiar full casters stands a chance.
Overlapping Specialists: each one of these wizards are specialists in their given field but they are not the only ones that can cast the spells they can throw about nor are they the only oens that will. you can remove the Abjuration specialist but you wont remove abjuration spells. Likewise simply because you're immune to mind affecting spells does nto save you from the enchanter and high spell resistance does nothign against their conjuration spells.
Transmutation/Conjuraiton for everyone!:We can all cast polymorph, we can all cast Mass Fly, Haste, Gate, Plane Shift, Teleport, Dimension Door, etc. etc. The msot pweorful schools are ours.
Analysis:
So, would anyone ply this party? Probably not. But, they do fill their respective roles very well and theres enough overlap that they can switch things up if necessary. This is something I can do with Artificers, Druids, Clerics, every class that is considered overpowered can be taken and done the same way.