Does this sound like a balanced party, Veeky Forums?
D&D 3.5, all PC's at first level.
1. Dread Necromancer
2. Beguiler
3. Wildshape Ranger
4. Harmonious Knight Paladin (also with an ACF from Dungeonscape that swaps the mount out for a spirit or something)
5. Sneak-Attack Fighter with Zhentarum Soldier ACF, Hit-and-Run ACF, and Skilled-City-Dweller ACF
>Does this sound like a balanced party, Veeky Forums?
>D&D 3.5
No.
Make sure Beguiler maxes his Use Magc Device and you should be good to go.
It sounds pretty reasonable? The order of power is probably Beguiler > Dread Necro > Wildshape Ranger > Paladin/Fighter but specialized casters are a lot easier to manage and Zhentarim Soldier does a lot for Fighters. There's some more ACFs I'd consider giving the Fighter for free and maybe the Paladin wants to consider Sword of the Arcane Order
We're well aware of Dungeon Crasher for fighters, but that seems incompatible with the Sneak Attack fighter, isn't it?
Also, there may be a Bard joining, but the girl is a bit noncommittal.
Jesus fucking christ back in my days a 5 person party was a paladin, a fighter, a rogue, a mage and a cleric. Now it's only fucking special snowflake furry magical realm bullshit. Fucking hate where things are heading.
Well, this essentially is that.
It's just that the fighter and the paladin are fixed up to perform better (as they are otherwise really weak in 3.5). This is a necessary fix to avoid using Tome of Battle (which I personally love, but they players are a bit wary).
The Beguiler is just a Thief/Illusionist.
The Dread Necromancer is just a specialized mage with Rebuke Undead.
I wasn't thinking of Dungeon Crasher but of the Resolute and Overpowering Blow options for fighters, which are both quite useful and might benefit your guy. I also think Thug is pretty decent.
If you're getting a Bard I feel like the Paladin is in a pretty rough spot compared to the rest of the party.
Grandpa, this party composition is like 10 years old. You're more likely to encounter YOUR party composition than this one now.
>Paladin
>Same party as a dead necromancer and a Zhent
Bruh
Then why the fuck not call them a thief or a mage instead of a fucking faggoter gayalist changeling lesbian bullshit?
Because you need a way to tell apart magic class x and magic class y. You can't call all of them mages.
Which one is that and which one is this in your post? Cause all I see these days are the faget snowflake parties OP posted
The paladin player is one of those guys who always has to play as a paladin. He really isn't all that disruptive otherwise. It's not like he stomps on goblin babies or attacks other PC's. But he just always has to play as a paladin.
>If you're getting a Bard I feel like the Paladin is in a pretty rough spot compared to the rest of the party.
I tried explaining this to the paladin. I've been trying to persuade him to play a crusader, but he's stubborn. Been trying to at least use ACF's to plug the gap.
I was looking at Thug for the fighter (I've been helping the players to build their characters since I really want this to be as close to Tier 3 as possible). It trades off a feat and weapon/armor proficiencies for extra skills and skill points, but it would be incompatible with Hit-and-Run which just seems to do more in terms of damage.
Will look into Resolute and Overpowering Blow though.
Wow you're young.
My old party was a Barbarian, a Ranger, a Cleric, a Magic-user, and a Thief.
You could just give the Thug skills and skillpoints for free, it's not going to break anything.
The Paladin might want to go Cleric into Prestige Paladin? He could even go Champion Cleric into it, which isn't good but is probably better than what he's looking for. Or Ordained Champion or Bone Knight.
There's probably stuff you can do to break Harmonious Knight, but right now it feels like he'll be worse than the Ranger and Fighter at fighting, and worse than the Bard at buffing.
If you're playing 5e, the current edition, you're likely to see lots of traditional parties.
Well, I've been looking at the A game paladin guide for ideas to help him.
Maybe add the substitution level that grants extra spell slots?
If you're worried about the Paladin being underpowered, you could use the Pathfinder version of the class.
I don't really look at Pathfinder stuff much since I'm not really a fan of Paizo. I'm just not impressed with them as a company after the playtest bullshit and the edition wars.
But I'm sure the players would prefer Pathfinder stuff.
I'm not a big fan of Paizo either, but the PF version of Paladin is a genuine improvement. Smite Evil is better since it applies until the target is dead, less MAD since everything is now charisma based, etc.
Sword of the Arcane Order would be useful. It lets him fill his Paladin spell slots with Mage/Sorc spells IIRC. And there's a Mystic Ranger variant that gets up to level 6 spells, not sure if there's something similar for Paladin.
The Pathfinder Paladin is also a lot better than the 3.5e one for sure.
Thank you for your priceless input.