A rogue, a ranger, and a fighter. Level one, but they're interested in eventually going Arcane Trickster, Gloom Stalker, Champion.
I'm looking for ideas about how to tailor my game for this mix of classes.
One thought I had is that, this being a relatively low-magic party, I can really hold fast to the Adventuring Day mechanic and try to make sure they have some long, grueling days. I don't have to overly worry that they're going to dump all their resources early and that I'll then need to adjust the plans.
I had a similar party my first time DMing. The quest giver gave each party member a flask that could be refilled from any water source and could heal 10hp per day. That held them over until they were high enough level to have some healing.
Beyond that, it sounds like these guys want to get stabby so give them plenty of combat
Yeah, this seems like a very healing-light party, so you may want to correct for that early on. Suggestions include using monsters that can be dispatched quickly so that combat doesn't grind on for too long or maybe less numbers of encounters and more tailored cinematic "set-piece" fights with opportunities for short rests and the spending on hit dice between them. Also, I'm playing in a game now where the party did something to receive a "blessing" or sorts from a sea god that allows each player to drink a bottle of sea water and have it act as a potion once per day. Maybe consider something like that as a reward for their first adventure. Give them a way to turn a mundane material into a healing power. That way they can get the healing they need, and it won't heck up your player economy since the material is just common items with no real value.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
5e has so much non-magical healing baked right in that in my opinion nothing needs to be done in that regard. I once gave them a homebrew item called the Oculus Corumba that allowed the attuned individual to read/cast magic spell scrolls when I had a party of all fighters once... that was fun.
You've got a Ranger in the party, so you should be fine. If the party regularly has trouble staying conscious during 1st level the Ranger will probably grab Cure Wounds. Plus with an Arcane Trickster eventually they're going to have solid utility casting on their side, even if there's no big blasty attacks like you'd get from a wizard. If any of them are proficient in alchemist's supplies maybe encourage them to brew a few potions, but as long as the party has the opportunity for short rests during the day they should be able to handle most challenges.
Full Casters offer great utility and can handle mobs pretty easily with AoE spells....you won't have much of that so I'd keep the number of enemies per encounter pretty low, otherwise fights will drag out significantly. I ran into this recently with the group I'm DM'ing for...they are 1 martial, 3 half casters, and a full caster but oddly enough have like 1 AoE spell between them (one of the half casters has Thunderwave)...I ran an encounter of 1 heavy + 10 cannon fodder creatures and even though they weren't really in danger of dying at all, the combat still drug out several rounds longer than I thought it would since they had to pick the creatures off basically one by one.
House ruling that drinking a potion is a bonus action is a useful idea here, they can stock up on health potions and then knock one back without losing an action (of course they may find potions few and far between lol)
I'd say it doesn't need much tailoring unless you want a healer so you can throw high-damage monsters at your PC's, in my experience, healers aren't nearly as necessary as most folks think, I'd say, unless these players will face a lot of high-damage monsters at low levels, they'll do just with the occasional short rest or potion of healing, and at high levels when it usually becomes a problem, they'll have enough magic items that it won't matter.
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Mystic v3 should be official, nuff said.
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A rogue, a ranger, and a fighter. Level one, but they're interested in eventually going Arcane Trickster, Gloom Stalker, Champion.
I'm looking for ideas about how to tailor my game for this mix of classes.
One thought I had is that, this being a relatively low-magic party, I can really hold fast to the Adventuring Day mechanic and try to make sure they have some long, grueling days. I don't have to overly worry that they're going to dump all their resources early and that I'll then need to adjust the plans.
Would love any other bits of advice.
I had a similar party my first time DMing. The quest giver gave each party member a flask that could be refilled from any water source and could heal 10hp per day. That held them over until they were high enough level to have some healing.
Beyond that, it sounds like these guys want to get stabby so give them plenty of combat
Yeah, this seems like a very healing-light party, so you may want to correct for that early on. Suggestions include using monsters that can be dispatched quickly so that combat doesn't grind on for too long or maybe less numbers of encounters and more tailored cinematic "set-piece" fights with opportunities for short rests and the spending on hit dice between them. Also, I'm playing in a game now where the party did something to receive a "blessing" or sorts from a sea god that allows each player to drink a bottle of sea water and have it act as a potion once per day. Maybe consider something like that as a reward for their first adventure. Give them a way to turn a mundane material into a healing power. That way they can get the healing they need, and it won't heck up your player economy since the material is just common items with no real value.
5e has so much non-magical healing baked right in that in my opinion nothing needs to be done in that regard.
I once gave them a homebrew item called the Oculus Corumba that allowed the attuned individual to read/cast magic spell scrolls when I had a party of all fighters once... that was fun.
...cryptographic randomness!
I agree with Urandom, healing is easy in 5e. Maybe swap out some gp in the loot for potions of healing.
No Gaming is Better than Bad Gaming.
You've got a Ranger in the party, so you should be fine. If the party regularly has trouble staying conscious during 1st level the Ranger will probably grab Cure Wounds. Plus with an Arcane Trickster eventually they're going to have solid utility casting on their side, even if there's no big blasty attacks like you'd get from a wizard. If any of them are proficient in alchemist's supplies maybe encourage them to brew a few potions, but as long as the party has the opportunity for short rests during the day they should be able to handle most challenges.
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Full Casters offer great utility and can handle mobs pretty easily with AoE spells....you won't have much of that so I'd keep the number of enemies per encounter pretty low, otherwise fights will drag out significantly. I ran into this recently with the group I'm DM'ing for...they are 1 martial, 3 half casters, and a full caster but oddly enough have like 1 AoE spell between them (one of the half casters has Thunderwave)...I ran an encounter of 1 heavy + 10 cannon fodder creatures and even though they weren't really in danger of dying at all, the combat still drug out several rounds longer than I thought it would since they had to pick the creatures off basically one by one.
House ruling that drinking a potion is a bonus action is a useful idea here, they can stock up on health potions and then knock one back without losing an action (of course they may find potions few and far between lol)
I'd say it doesn't need much tailoring unless you want a healer so you can throw high-damage monsters at your PC's, in my experience, healers aren't nearly as necessary as most folks think, I'd say, unless these players will face a lot of high-damage monsters at low levels, they'll do just with the occasional short rest or potion of healing, and at high levels when it usually becomes a problem, they'll have enough magic items that it won't matter.
Mystic v3 should be official, nuff said.