While writing up yesterday’s post about my first experiences with Solasta, the D&D 5e-compatible RPG released to Steam early access a couple days ago, I found that I’d actually made the most boring adventuring party possible.
Tank, healer, nuker, melee dps — those rules are enshrined in D&D legend as the minimum basis for any successful group. All on my own, I’d duplicated the pre-rolled party that Tactical Adventures had provided. I had verified that I was the most boring player in the known gaming universe.
I had this vision… this vision of three wizards and a cleric… some crazy, wild strategy that would just break the game in so many ways… and so I restarted.
Belial, the loremaster wizard from my original group, dumped the lesser beings and tapped his sisters, Melial the nature wizard and Delial the sneaky arcane wizard, to join him in adventure. He kicked the healing-focused cleric to the curb and recruited his battle cleric cousin instead.
Their mission was a simple one: to bring the boom.
And the game was fine with it.
Due to the various backgrounds available, wizards can easily pick up some of the roles normally held by other classes. Wizards have a high dexterity, so having Melial pick up the bow and herbalism and Delial lean into sneaking and poison was easily done. The battle cleric’s spells were tweaked to make him a little more of a force on the battlefield.
His philosophy: There’s no need to heal damage you didn’t take because the enemies were already dead.
Restarting answered some questions I’d had about the tutorial experience. I thought, with three wizards, that some of them would have the same story, but no. All four tutorial stories were played, with the cleric taking on the wolf battle, and one of the wizards taking on the stealth mission (both the new wizards are equally stealthy).
The conversation at the table in the bar was identical, so there aren’t different conversation options based on the character classes and backgrounds. The surprise bandit encounter on the way to Caer Lem was identical, as was the Lair of Filth encounter below Caer Lem.
How those battles played out, though, of course was different.
The surprise bandit encounter ran into issues immediately; the bandits came too close and we earned disadvantage on most of our attacks until we were able to disengage and move away a little. The Sleep spell once again proved to be OP, but two of the bandits were seemingly immune. They did damage, and the cleric was forced to heal.
The nukes didn’t really bring the boom as I’d hoped. Burning Hands failed me, and the fire and ice bolt cantrips were more a fizzle than a bang. We did eventually find our rhythm, but the fight had gone far faster with the boring group. The rogue and paladin combo is amazingly powerful for a mortal effort.
The fight up the cliff below Caer Lem played out similarly. I got four of the goblins asleep, but them being prone, while granting advantage to melee, were a disadvantage for ranged. Similarly, the cliff itself blocked nukes meant for the snipers on top of the cliff.
Yesterday I’d found that the Sleep spell no longer affects friendly units. That is not the case with Burning Hands, which was in danger of immolating two friendly units while burninating some goblins. (They made their saves, otherwise they would be dead).
The goblins did get some good hits off against our wizards. They all had the Shield reaction spell which partially mitigated the damage, but I was still forced to take short rests after every major battle and spend precious hit dice on healing.
Lair of Filth had even more sightline issues. The suspended crates we were to drop on the goblins never seemed to be in the correct spot, and I was forced to use spell slots to take down the goblins as the damage mounted up.
We’re now at the front door of Caer Lem proper. The place is abandoned. The cleric does still have heals available, as I was careful not to use them along the way. I suspect the fort is not as empty as it first appears…
I can think of lots of ways this group is going to run into trouble. But that’s part of the fun, right?
No matter what happens, we’re gonna bring the boom.
