One-Class Parties in D&D?

RPGPundit · January 21, 2016, 04:58:37 AM

Has anyone done this? Run a group that was all Fighters, or all Clerics, or all Magic-Users, or all Thieves?

How did it turn out?

David Johansen · January 21, 2016, 05:04:15 AM

So no multi-classing?

Anyhow, I've seen all thieves in Thieves Guild which is one of those games that's about 5% off from D&D.

I've also seen all magic-users in Principalities of Galantri.

It takes some potions of healing and npc clerics. NPC fighters come up a fair bit too.

Having something like the non-weapon proficiency system helps to round out the group but I'm not sure if that's cheating or not.

Omega · January 21, 2016, 05:57:21 AM

Certainly! Can be fun.

Most common I saw were all fighter groups. These tend to do really well as long as they know hen to retreat and recover.

Other was an all magic user group I was in. That was fun as we were about guaranteed to be exterminated by the first kobold we met. ahem. One one bemusing one-shot adventure did was an all cleric group. Pretty much fantasy Ghostbusters. Not very serious group so it worked.

These popped up at conventions fairly regularly too when I was. One saw but did not get to attend was an AD&D forest themed session for an all Ranger party. Couple of all Thief ones too I believe.

ligedog · January 21, 2016, 05:39:59 PM

I played in an all fighter subclasses group in a Astonishing Sword and Sorcerers of Hyperborea (AS&SH) campaign. It was pretty fun - it kind of felt like we were in a barbarian movie. Since the AS&SH subclasses have a fair spread of abilities it probably wasn't as limiting as using say a single B/X class but it was still a challenge to not have a regular cleric or thief in the party. We did hire a string of clerics who ended up meeting some terrible ends

5 Stone Games · January 21, 2016, 06:40:32 PM

All "Rogue" parties work quite well as a crime crew. Its the premise of my current Pathfinder game though I have let people multi-class.

We had an all "warrior" party with one mage and a ranger back in the 2e D&D days that worked well as a merc band too.

Spinachcat · January 21, 2016, 06:51:54 PM

I wrote 2 AD&D tourneys back in the 80s that were focused on a single class. One was an Thieves Guild adventure and the other was Temple adventure.

However, there were a couple multi-class PCs in the miix (C/T, M/T, C/M, etc). I have not tried a D&D game with purely only one class.

But "one class" parties are pretty common in Warhammer. Since professions in WFRP 1e are random, it was usual to be without a cleric or a mage or even an actual thief. Heck, my last group we rolled a random crew of useless dark age hipsters! A bawd, a failed apprentice, a college drop out "scholar", his herbalist stoner buddy and even the dwarf was something useless.

Akrasia · January 21, 2016, 07:40:59 PM

Quote from: Spinachcat;874699Heck, my last group we rolled a random crew of useless dark age hipsters! A bawd, a failed apprentice, a college drop out "scholar", his herbalist stoner buddy and even the dwarf was something useless.

This should be a novel or television series...

Akrasia · January 21, 2016, 07:45:05 PM

All thieves...

Quote from: David Johansen;874655Anyhow, I've seen all thieves in Thieves Guild which is one of those games that's about 5% off from D&D.

Ah yes, good old Thieves' Guild. I played a fair bit of that in High-School. It was viable to have an 'all thief' party largely because the adventures published for it by Gamelords were oriented around thieving activities (burglary, tomb robbery, spying, etc.). It was definitely a real change from the standard AD&D and MERP adventures that we otherwise were playing.

The "Duke's Ball" adventure especially was great.

Omega · January 21, 2016, 10:38:28 PM

Had a player who recounted being in an AD&D all Thief group. Apparently they made for a really effective dungeoncrawling party as they could sneak in, evade traps and loot the place and then get out sometimes without ever being seen.

Majus · January 22, 2016, 01:38:02 AM

Actually, yes. I've been in (or run) two fighter groups (one where we played as soldiers in a military company and the other as nomadic raiders); one all thief group (fantasy Ocean's eleven); an all wizard group (a long time ago, when we'd heard of Ars Magicka but couldn't afford to buy a copy ourselves); and one group completely made up of clerics. The all cleric party was a campaign where the group represented the chosen ones of the respective temples of their city: because they all had different powers and specialisations it played a lot more like a typical group.

AsenRG · January 22, 2016, 06:38:25 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit;874654Has anyone done this? Run a group that was all Fighters, or all Clerics, or all Magic-Users, or all Thieves?

How did it turn out?

All the PCs in my latest Scarlet Heroes group had levels of Rogue. It turned out just fine, currently they're well-known as pirate hunters:).

Granted, it was a small group, but still, I think that's actually the superiour approach;).

Ravenswing · January 22, 2016, 02:03:50 PM

Quote from: Akrasia;874708Ah yes, good old Thieves' Guild. I played a fair bit of that in High-School. It was viable to have an 'all thief' party largely because the adventures published for it by Gamelords were oriented around thieving activities (burglary, tomb robbery, spying, etc.). It was definitely a real change from the standard AD&D and MERP adventures that we otherwise were playing.

The "Duke's Ball" adventure especially was great.

One of the best.

But as a former Gamelords' writer, I'd like to raise a common misunderstanding: that Thieves' Guild adventures were for "thieves." Not exactly; they were intended for characters involved in criminal activities. I've been asked a fair bit if it was OK to use fighters or wizards in them, and my notion is that often times, that's a good idea.

finarvyn · January 22, 2016, 04:47:17 PM

Whenever I have a "one class" campaign concept I typically set things up so that all characters have to multi-class, with the main class the dominant one of the setting. It gives a bit more variety (all thieves can seem similar if that's all they can do) and allows the party to have some of everything.

Christopher Brady · January 22, 2016, 05:11:31 PM

I once saw a team of 5 Druids, not multiclassing, just pure Druids. And they wrecked everything.

Crimhthan · January 22, 2016, 09:53:57 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit;874654Has anyone done this? Run a group that was all Fighters, or all Clerics, or all Magic-Users, or all Thieves?

How did it turn out?

I have found the most successful to be an all Cleric party. They fight almost as well as the Fighters and they can heal. While they lack the fire power of Magic-Users, a party of 10-12 Clerics is nothing to sneeze at.