Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 ioin Oct 19, 2009 15:25:04	My party of 4 consists of a... Human Wizard - he tries to be a striker with some utility... mostly out of combat. Eladrin Swordmage - he tries to do as much damage to as may foes as possible to keep the aggression on him. Changeling Bard - he's a songblade and shield that has multiclassed into warlock, rogue, and druid. To me it seems like he's tying to go striker rather then leader but *shrug*. Human Ranger (myself) - I play an archer through and through that tries to stay out of melee combat. We are all level 6 and have always had troubles not dying. The party has changed a few times and it seems like the best we did as a group was when the current bard was a drow rogue and I was a longtooth shifter cleric. But that didn't last long because the rogue was kind of bored and a cleric just isn't me. Our tactics are for the swordmage to try and go after the largest group, bard and ranger attack the healers or biggest bad guy (if no visible healers), and the wizard tends to do whatever he feels like at that moment which is usually help the swordmage. We are at a point where we just got our arses handed to us and lost all of our magic items. The swordmage and myself as both okay at this point to change what's needed to make the group work. If you have any suggestions, please post them. Any comments are appreciated. (Thank you for reading)
#2 Krusk Oct 19, 2009 19:08:35	Grab a hearty paladin. You guys lack a real defender, and a real leader. This works as a defender, and a passable leader at the same time. At worst, your 1/2 leader can double with your bard as a 1/2 leader for a full 1 leader.  Same with your half striker, half  defender swordmage.
#3 ioin Oct 19, 2009 22:57:29	My DM told me that he would rather everyone play one character so adding another character isn't really a possibility. Thank you for the suggestion though.
#4 brassbaboon Oct 19, 2009 23:50:37	Well, the obvious easy "answer" to your question is to reform your group so that you have a defender, a leader, a controller and a striker. But that's too simplistic, and I've seen lots of mixed or partial role parties work fine. So I'm not going to assume your problems are due to role-related mechanics. It would help us to know what your to hit and damage modifiers are, what your AC and hit points are, and what you are generally fighting. It's possible that your DM is simply throwing encounters at you that are too high for your group. I may be misunderstanding your strategy, but it sounds like your group seems to split up and have different party members engaged with separate targets. That's a risky strategy because every time one of your party members falls before you take out an opponent, you end up with a serious reduction in your party's effectiveness. I may be overly simplistic when it comes to combat but in general the best tactics I've seen are those that focus damage on a minimal number of the enemy, while using techniques to tie up as many of the enemy as possible so they can't do damage to you. Done properly it becomes a war of attrition where every enemy you take down increases your tactical advantage. But, as I said, maybe your party is just getting into encounters against overly powerful enemies. Or maybe you lack appropriate magic weapons and items. Just too hard to say, really.
#5 ioin Oct 20, 2009 8:51:52	Well my personal stats are as followed... AC - 21 Weapon - +1 Greatbow (1d12+7) Health - 50 I'll have to get back to you on everyone else's info later today.
#6 tonmeist Oct 20, 2009 12:22:04	My calculations say you have a 13con, 20 dex, and Weapon Focus(Bow).  1d10+7 equaling 1d10+5(dex)(1enchant)(1feat). So that means, your ac of 21 is broken down into 10+3(halflevel)+5(dex)+3(non-enchanted hide). First off, my comments are going to assume that you haven't just recently lost all your magic items because of something in the game. If the others have the same number of magic items as you, you may have a dearth of level appropriate magic items.  You have a single level 1 magic weapon.  Since starting above 1st level gives you 3 magic items, I'm going to assume you guys started at level 1.  And if you started at level 1, there is no set of parcels for any level that includes a level 1 magic weapon so a normal +1 greatbow is already less than the DMG recommends.  If you follow Wizards outlines, the only way to get a level 1 magic item is to start at level 2,which gives you one, or to buy it from a magic item shop for 360gp.  For a 6th level party of 4 to stay competitive with monsters wizards says you should have received 15 magic items by now.  Of course some of those would probably have become obsolete by now, been sold, or have been non combat items like a bag of holding. Monsters at level 6 are balanced assuming your group has received one level 2 item, one level 3 items, two level 4 items, three level 5 items, three level 6 items, two level 7 items, two level 8 items, one level 9 item, and 6795 gold worth of coins, gems, and healing potions.  You could reasonably expect everyone to have a +2 weapon and a +2 piece of armor. I know this is metagaming a bit, but if you guys aren't getting appropriate amounts of magic items then there may be a noticeable difference in your combat ability.  If your low on magic, not min/maxing power gamers, and not all perfect tacticians, this could all add together to make your battles unneccessarily hard if the DM is not accounting for this in his combat preperation.  Especially if he throws a group at you that should be a hard fight but these factors cause it to be an extremely hard fight.
#7 Krusk Oct 20, 2009 12:46:21	I totally thought you were asking for someone who was going to join the group, or reroll. Sorry for non-useful advice. In this case, I suggest a lot of the party try to multi into a leader. Most of them grant a 1/day healing ability as a minor action, which should help keep you guys alive.
#8 sanityfaerie Oct 20, 2009 14:00:29	- If you're low on party healing, grabbing healing MCs will help.  Artificer is nice because it comes free with its own surge. Shaman is nice because (now with primal power) two feats will give you 1/encounter surge-use healing and a handy little spirit buddy. - You are indeed drastically low on magical items this does, in fact, make things a lot more difficult for you. - focus fire is your friend.  control is good and area effect is good but if you haven't mastered having everybody whale on the same guy at once (as much as possible) then you need to do that first. - It might help to know what your big problems are.  Are you swamped by minions?  crushed by solos?  outmaneuvered by elites?  Is it that your party doesn't kill fast enough or are certain members far to fragile?  Specific problems suggest specific solutions, and that might help you out some.
#9 lordicefalcon Oct 20, 2009 22:03:24	At sixth level, PC's should have 3-4 magic items some above their level, some below. As there is an expected magic item power curve if you will, lacking essential magical defenses will cripple a fairly stout defender. Strikers like the ranger have an intense need of magical armament and accompanying feats. one suggestion would be to look into enhanced ammo, such as firestorm arrows. they are "relatively cheap" for that extra kick, especially against vulnerable foes like trolls. I would reccomend bringing it up pre/post game with all the players and the DM and see if a few magic items could be awarded to help out the campaign. Unless of course your DM is running a very magic light campaign. Just bring up these suggestions to your DM.
#10 tonmeist Oct 20, 2009 22:33:57	Even if it is a magic light campaign, something needs to be done to rebalance the math.
#11 Rowan_Whispercloak Oct 21, 2009 5:05:31	I'd have to agree with the idea of focus firing and maybe multiclassing  to help with the limited healing. We are experiencing similiar problems in a game I play in. We have a warlord that is our only leader with a sometime large group while the we do have a paladin (is wisdom is low and tactics shaky at best) the rest of the party are very casual gamers as oppose to the warlord, the swordmage and myself so the free for all tactics that often show up are costing us extra surges, dailies and other resources.
#12 brassbaboon Oct 21, 2009 15:22:10	It isn't critical that you have all the magic items the DM Guide says you "should have" had by now. But what is critical is that you have an appropriate set of equipment that at least allows you to be competitive. You might want to go to your DM and discuss your existing magic items and compare that to the DM Guide. Maybe he can whip up a side quest for you to go gain some new and better magic items. In general if you have a couple of magic items at your level or within a level or two of your level, you should be able to hang in there. So if you had a level 6 and level 7 item, they could be a +2 suit of hide armor and a +2 greatbow. Those two alone would go a long way to making your ranger more survivable. It sounds like you may be under-equipped. It's worth talking to your DM about.
#13 lordicefalcon Oct 21, 2009 15:57:32	Even if it is a magic light campaign, something needs to be done to rebalance the math. I agree, mostly. I played in a campaign that took us into a dead magic region of the world, meaning no magic items, and no magic spells. for the first two sessions, it was brutal, almost losing 3 players. After a short period and a post game dinner with the players, we came up with some great team ideas. Unique situations can really force group cohesion, and when the magic returned we were better players for the experience. one thing to note is that in the dead magic zone we gained more xp based on the fact we had to work harder to win. Though I do beleive this campaign needs more magic items to be awarded, or the monsters need to scaled back slightly, players using their abilities to the fullest is also very important.
#14 ioin Oct 22, 2009 12:14:29	I've spoken with my DM and he believes hes found a solution that'll make everything smoother. Thank you to everyone who posted in response to my questions.