I share DM duties with one of my players where he has his world and I have mine. My game will likely close down later this year and I'm trying to plan for the next one. The other DM and I have kicked around the idea of all of the characters being from a single class. I'd like to know what sort of themes you all might use for a campaign like this. Some of the ones we've come up with already:
All Wizards: The stereotypical magic students in the field.
All Rogues: You can go lots of directions with this but the Thieve's Guild is an obvious one.
All Clerics: We dreamed up a gaggle of priests, each from a different faith, debating about whose god was most powerful.
Note that while several players RP very well, we have at least 1-2 who are mostly there for the fighting.
What kind of ideas can the Collective come up with?
I've always wanted to run a wizard school campaign, but maybe I'd be slightly more lenient and allow just casters and/or light multiclassing.
Other than that, all monks could be fun. It's a fairly versatile class with lots of core roleplaying similarities, you could be chosen heroes from different monasteries, play out an homage to classic kung-fu movies.
Even all fighters could be fun in its own vanilla kind of way.
My DM talks about a one-shot he ran once where the party was all bards. They blew through the whole dungeon, until they needed someone to make a strength check. Then they were stopped cold.
A stereotypical all-magic group is analogous to a modern or future setting, where magic is just an alternative to technology.
If you go with an all non-magic group, you can make it extra gritty, or change the flavor of the game by introducing special magic items in the line of Magitek or Materia from the Final Fantasy series.
An all Warlock group would have a nice balance of "martial" and magical options, and would have a lot of great RP flair with their patrons. They could either all share the same patron, or each could have a different patron and the campaign would be about why those patrons are all working together. Maybe it's collaborative, or maybe it's a competition.
An all Druid (Circle of the Moon) group would be pretty interesting. They could transform into a pack of wolves, flock of birds, or whatever and fight the inevitable spread of civilization.
A team of Paladins could play out a Power Rangers fantasy.
An all Artificers team would be pretty fascinating as well. They could play as aliens invading a more privative world, bringing with them their own superior technology.
Doesn't take much to make a campaign around any class.
(all fighters... members of an army) (all rogues... thieves' guild/pirates) (all wizards... school of magic)
You can do it for any of them really. There's enough races, subclasses, feats, backgrounds, and other stuff to make a party of all one class and still have them all be different enough and interesting to roleplay.
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The ones who like to fight can enter and try their fighting skills.
The others can place bets and become patrons to the Gladiators, paying for their weapons and armor but keeping the lion's share for themselves.
Can always evolve the campaign to change over time into something else when they start to get bored of just arena fights.
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"A rightful place awaits you in the Realms Above, in the Land of the Great Light. Come in peace, and live beneath the sun again, where trees and flowers grow."
— The message of Eilistraee to all decent drow.
"Run thy sword across my chains, Silver Lady, that I may join your dance.”
The variety of subclasses makes this viable for most classes:
Wizards Bladesongs make great melee fights and can get ridiculas AC with bladesong and shield. They have a huge number of options for battlefield control, healing is the main weakness
Clerics can easily be melee or range
Druids would probably be best served with one or 2 circle of the moon to act as tanks wheile the others do the damage / control
Fighters, Eldritch knight for limited spellcasting, battlemaster for control and champion for damage
I would suspect sorcerers would have the hardest time of it unless the DM puts them in situations that are impossible to deal with without magic.
Regarding the party of low strength bards ideally the party should ensure all bases are covered with secondary stats. Make sure one of the bards has a +1 or +2 to strength. Using point but 13+1 str, 13+1 Dex, 14 Con, 8 Int, 9 Wis ,14+2 Cha would make pretty good starting stats for a half elf valor bard. (Other members of the party would get a decent wis and Int. For ability checks bards can also cast enhance abilty when required.
Anything can work, but the chances of this being as much fun as letting players pick their own classes is really, really, really, really low.
Issues you'll have:
Everyone has the same strengths. Nobody gets to have their moment of glory, where they shine and everyone can congratulate them. The moment the rogue backflips through the lazer wires... the time the barbarian holds up the portcullis to let you all escape... the bit where the sorcerer charmed your way out of that vampire dinner party - nope. Everyone in the party can do it most of the time.
Everyone has the same weaknesses. All wizard party? A Rakshasa wipes you. All fighter party? Good luck dealing with flying enemies. All Bards? Your lack of a front line is really going to hurt you.
Everyone needs the same gear, and wants the same items. That all barbarian party has nothing to do with a wand, a staff, a robe... but every one of them will equally want the best battleaxe they find.
Your puzzles can only ever be solved by a set of abilities that nearly everyone in the party has access to.
D&D tends to ask for a diverse party to be fun. My players are currently a Tempest Cleric, Swashbuckler Rogue, Profane Soul Bloodhunter and a Wild Magic Barbarian. Even with that diversity of classes, the cleric is the only one with much useful magic and that in itself really limits interactions in combats and puzzle solving. A balance between casters and non-casters is much more enjoyable imo.
I did a one shot a couple of months ago where everyone was the same class. I just rolled a d12 and that’s how I picked which class it was.
It ended up being a lot of fun and it was something different. I’m not sure if I would do it for a campaign though because that would keep everyone from picking their favorite class to play.
Anything can work, but the chances of this being as much fun as letting players pick their own classes is really, really, really, really low.
Issues you'll have:
Everyone has the same strengths. Nobody gets to have their moment of glory, where they shine and everyone can congratulate them. The moment the rogue backflips through the lazer wires... the time the barbarian holds up the portcullis to let you all escape... the bit where the sorcerer charmed your way out of that vampire dinner party - nope. Everyone in the party can do it most of the time.
Every player could choose a different archetype for their class. This would provide a little customisation to make each character unique in some ways.
Just from a mechanical standpoint this is probably going to be the most fun, they can all take different subclasses and be good at different things, with slightly different spell lists that that subclass leans on heavily.
I think druid would be particularly interesting because it just makes sense thematically, a plot hook for the campaign would be so easy to come up with, and the circles play so differently that players would still feel unique. Home brew a little so it doesn't feel like everyone is good at the same stuff. -Choose your casting stat from Int/Wis/Cha and class skill prof to go with -Choose one non-druid cantrip
Depends on the class. Bards, Artificers, Warlocks or Monks, yes, the rest are all maybes at best.
Lord of the Rings was all fighters after they lost their wizard.
and you'll notice that after they lost their wizard, they never faced a single magical challenge again - the closest being the witch king, who was beaten by semantics and even he only turned back up after Gandalf came back! Everything else was sneaking, hitting, sneak-hitting, hitting then sneaking, running, walking, and maybe some more hitting with a bit of sneaking thrown in for good measure!
for the OP, I would do it but i'd need the buy-in from the players - I'd ask them to pick the one class to use and build it around that, though if they were happy to roll a d12 then I'd do that, perhaps offer them one veto by majority vote if most people don't want to play that class, and I'd make it a one-shot rather than a campaign!
Anything can work, but the chances of this being as much fun as letting players pick their own classes is really, really, really, really low.
Issues you'll have:
Everyone has the same strengths. Nobody gets to have their moment of glory, where they shine and everyone can congratulate them. The moment the rogue backflips through the lazer wires... the time the barbarian holds up the portcullis to let you all escape... the bit where the sorcerer charmed your way out of that vampire dinner party - nope. Everyone in the party can do it most of the time.
Every player could choose a different archetype for their class. This would provide a little customisation to make each character unique in some ways.
I'd assume that this is what would happen, but the level of variation between them is still very small, and in a way this is kind of trying to circumvent the campaign restriction by making them into different classes.
You can have one ranged, Dex based Fighter in a party and one Str based Fighter and they'll feel like pretty different characters, but when you get to three or four, your party is all going to start feeling pretty samey when turn 1 of the fight everyone blows action surge.
I'd love to run a game with either all Rangers or Druids. It would honestly make my job easier because for the most part they would all have the same motivations and goals.
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I share DM duties with one of my players where he has his world and I have mine. My game will likely close down later this year and I'm trying to plan for the next one. The other DM and I have kicked around the idea of all of the characters being from a single class. I'd like to know what sort of themes you all might use for a campaign like this. Some of the ones we've come up with already:
All Wizards: The stereotypical magic students in the field.
All Rogues: You can go lots of directions with this but the Thieve's Guild is an obvious one.
All Clerics: We dreamed up a gaggle of priests, each from a different faith, debating about whose god was most powerful.
Note that while several players RP very well, we have at least 1-2 who are mostly there for the fighting.
What kind of ideas can the Collective come up with?
I've always wanted to run a wizard school campaign, but maybe I'd be slightly more lenient and allow just casters and/or light multiclassing.
Other than that, all monks could be fun. It's a fairly versatile class with lots of core roleplaying similarities, you could be chosen heroes from different monasteries, play out an homage to classic kung-fu movies.
Even all fighters could be fun in its own vanilla kind of way.
Depends on the class. Bards, Artificers, Warlocks or Monks, yes, the rest are all maybes at best.
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My DM talks about a one-shot he ran once where the party was all bards. They blew through the whole dungeon, until they needed someone to make a strength check. Then they were stopped cold.
I'd run anything at least once.
A stereotypical all-magic group is analogous to a modern or future setting, where magic is just an alternative to technology.
If you go with an all non-magic group, you can make it extra gritty, or change the flavor of the game by introducing special magic items in the line of Magitek or Materia from the Final Fantasy series.
An all Warlock group would have a nice balance of "martial" and magical options, and would have a lot of great RP flair with their patrons. They could either all share the same patron, or each could have a different patron and the campaign would be about why those patrons are all working together. Maybe it's collaborative, or maybe it's a competition.
An all Druid (Circle of the Moon) group would be pretty interesting. They could transform into a pack of wolves, flock of birds, or whatever and fight the inevitable spread of civilization.
A team of Paladins could play out a Power Rangers fantasy.
An all Artificers team would be pretty fascinating as well. They could play as aliens invading a more privative world, bringing with them their own superior technology.
Doesn't take much to make a campaign around any class.
(all fighters... members of an army)
(all rogues... thieves' guild/pirates)
(all wizards... school of magic)
You can do it for any of them really. There's enough races, subclasses, feats, backgrounds, and other stuff to make a party of all one class and still have them all be different enough and interesting to roleplay.
My suggestion would be a Gladiator Arena.
The ones who like to fight can enter and try their fighting skills.
The others can place bets and become patrons to the Gladiators, paying for their weapons and armor but keeping the lion's share for themselves.
Can always evolve the campaign to change over time into something else when they start to get bored of just arena fights.
People have mentioned an all-bard party, but not once has someone said they're a band. So I'm gonna say it.
I would LOVE to run a session of all bards, who all play in the same traveling band together.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
The variety of subclasses makes this viable for most classes:
Wizards Bladesongs make great melee fights and can get ridiculas AC with bladesong and shield. They have a huge number of options for battlefield control, healing is the main weakness
Clerics can easily be melee or range
Druids would probably be best served with one or 2 circle of the moon to act as tanks wheile the others do the damage / control
Fighters, Eldritch knight for limited spellcasting, battlemaster for control and champion for damage
I would suspect sorcerers would have the hardest time of it unless the DM puts them in situations that are impossible to deal with without magic.
Regarding the party of low strength bards ideally the party should ensure all bases are covered with secondary stats. Make sure one of the bards has a +1 or +2 to strength. Using point but 13+1 str, 13+1 Dex, 14 Con, 8 Int, 9 Wis ,14+2 Cha would make pretty good starting stats for a half elf valor bard. (Other members of the party would get a decent wis and Int. For ability checks bards can also cast enhance abilty when required.
Anything can work, but the chances of this being as much fun as letting players pick their own classes is really, really, really, really low.
Issues you'll have:
D&D tends to ask for a diverse party to be fun. My players are currently a Tempest Cleric, Swashbuckler Rogue, Profane Soul Bloodhunter and a Wild Magic Barbarian. Even with that diversity of classes, the cleric is the only one with much useful magic and that in itself really limits interactions in combats and puzzle solving. A balance between casters and non-casters is much more enjoyable imo.
Do a big heist. That would be really fun, especially if all of the rogues are different subclasses.
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I did a one shot a couple of months ago where everyone was the same class. I just rolled a d12 and that’s how I picked which class it was.
It ended up being a lot of fun and it was something different. I’m not sure if I would do it for a campaign though because that would keep everyone from picking their favorite class to play.
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Every player could choose a different archetype for their class. This would provide a little customisation to make each character unique in some ways.
Sure. But like every RPG of a certain type, if you overload all one class it’s going to break the game.
...but no reason that can’t be hilarious.
-
edit: with multiclassing it might become *less* game breaking.
I'd love to try doing an all-Monk one that is like a Kung-fu movie.
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Druid or cleric.
Just from a mechanical standpoint this is probably going to be the most fun, they can all take different subclasses and be good at different things, with slightly different spell lists that that subclass leans on heavily.
I think druid would be particularly interesting because it just makes sense thematically, a plot hook for the campaign would be so easy to come up with, and the circles play so differently that players would still feel unique.
Home brew a little so it doesn't feel like everyone is good at the same stuff.
-Choose your casting stat from Int/Wis/Cha and class skill prof to go with
-Choose one non-druid cantrip
Lord of the Rings was all fighters after they lost their wizard.
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and you'll notice that after they lost their wizard, they never faced a single magical challenge again - the closest being the witch king, who was beaten by semantics and even he only turned back up after Gandalf came back! Everything else was sneaking, hitting, sneak-hitting, hitting then sneaking, running, walking, and maybe some more hitting with a bit of sneaking thrown in for good measure!
for the OP, I would do it but i'd need the buy-in from the players - I'd ask them to pick the one class to use and build it around that, though if they were happy to roll a d12 then I'd do that, perhaps offer them one veto by majority vote if most people don't want to play that class, and I'd make it a one-shot rather than a campaign!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
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I'd assume that this is what would happen, but the level of variation between them is still very small, and in a way this is kind of trying to circumvent the campaign restriction by making them into different classes.
You can have one ranged, Dex based Fighter in a party and one Str based Fighter and they'll feel like pretty different characters, but when you get to three or four, your party is all going to start feeling pretty samey when turn 1 of the fight everyone blows action surge.
I'd love to run a game with either all Rangers or Druids. It would honestly make my job easier because for the most part they would all have the same motivations and goals.