All For One

In a previous article I’ve touched on using a theme in your game when creating your party. The article went on to talk about two broader themes, the classical elements and Arabian nights. Today I’d like to talk about one of the other ideas I touched on but didn’t expand upon. It doesn’t happen often although I’ve done it myself one or two times, the “all one class” party.

As much as I do love the idea of the all one class party, it does pose its own difficulties. The first thing you need to overcome is the similarity of powers granted to each of the base classes. Some classes—like rogues with their rogue talents, wizards with their school specialties, and sorcerers with their bloodlines—allow for differentiation in the characters you can build at their base. Even those difference don’t always allow for a good enough spread of skills to make a group viable.

Depending on how strict you want to go with the all one class party, you could allow for some small amount of multiclassing. The combinations are pretty endless if you go this route. For many players this may seem like a substantial loss of power. Pathfinder in particular has made sticking out the full twenty levels of a base class very appealing. If you’re like me, however, a good character can outweigh the lure of power, as long as you don’t go too far and completely gimp your party.

Old school D&D introduced kits, and this helped make your character a special member of its class. 3.x D&D took this idea a bit further and brought in prestige classes, letting players branch off into specific directions for their characters. Now Pathfinder has taken the idea and added archetypes to the mix, allowing you to stay the full twenty levels in one class; although they do retain prestige classes allowing for more variations. All of these options allow you to customize your characters even further while still staying true to the same class rule.

Now that we’ve laid out how we might go about creating an all one class party I think I want to talk about of my all-time favorite ideas for a single class group: the all paladin party. For some reason the idea of holy warriors of different gods getting together interests me greatly, each going about their holy duty in their individual way. But how can you keep all the characters unique and with their own niche in the party? For this example I will stick to some of the more popular deities for Pathfinder, for those not well-versed in all their deities and those who don’t use the system.

Eris Handler

Voice of Shelyn Goddess of art, beauty, love, and music

 

Eris is a lover and a fighter. Blessed with both the gift for song and a silver tongue Eris wasn’t always a choir boy. His childhood was a life of grifting one the streets of Magnimar, one of the many street urchins in the city of monuments. After one petty theft too many he finally found he couldn’t talk his way out of being sentenced the hells. Luckily for him, his mark didn’t want to see a child good to jail.

Eris was taken in by a holy warrior for the church of Shelyn. After years by the side of his mentor, he was finally accepted into the ranks of the church and trained to become a paladin like the old man. Now he travels around Varisia bring the word of Shelyn to those who need beauty in their lives.

I’m picturing Eris as a Paladin/Bard a nice little synergy with the charisma stat for both class’ abilities. His early life abilities may make him seem unpaladinly at times. Who ever heard of a paladin that could pick a lock or palm a key?

Noran Wex

Wing of Apsu god of good dragons, leadership, and peace

 

The tales in Noran’s family always spoke of his great-great grandmother having a dalliance with a man who turned out to be a golden dragon. Although none of his forebearers ever manifested any dragon-like features or powers, the stories still drove young Noran. When he was of age he pledged himself to the church of Apsu so he could lead others into the battle against evil and bring peace to the land. Maybe it was Apsu himself or maybe it was his great-great grandmother’s dalliance but Noran eventually did manifest the abilities of a gold dragon.

For this I’m seeing Noran as a Paladin/Sorcerer (Dragon Bloodline) using his smite with his dragon-like powers. Again charisma fuels both class’ powers so we’ve got some synergy. If you want to take the theme further you could even go dragon discipline as you weren’t going to be getting to 9th level sorcerer spells anyway. Probably the most stereotypically paladin in personality of the bunch, looking to do good at every turn and admonishing those who don’t

Jalreeha Vishaharanti

Fist of Irori god of history, knowledge, self-perfection

 

Many of the men in Jalreeha’s family felt the call to Irori and went into the monasteries to perfect their body using martial arts. But it was Jalreeha, the eldest daughter, who felt the true calling of the ascended god; and not just  for the perfection of her body but also for the perfection of her spirit. Her father, however, was furious as he promised his daughter to the son of a noble family. The increase in the family’s stature was more important to him than his daughter. With sadness Jalreeha left home for faraway lands where she could expand her knowledge of things, adding a well-tuned mined to her already holy spirit and trained body. 

I see Jalreeha as a paladin of Irori (called the enlightened paladin on the d20pfsrd) which will replace some paladin abilities with some monk abilities. As much as I’d like to go full on multiclass monk/paladin I can’t deny needing to have at least six out of eight stats at decent levels to function well is just too much. I also picture her as the least worldly of the group learning about her new surroundings as they travel.

Branack Thunderstone

Itinerant of Lorris charity, the disadvantaged, and volunteering

 

Branack was an odd dwarf; he heard the calling of a deity not of the dwarven pantheon early on. The Empyreal Lord Lorris spoke to the young dwarf about charity and aid. These lessons also made him quite a bit more outgoing than most dwarves are used to. Rather than being taught the ways of paladinhood in a church, Branack learned by doing. He left his mountain home and wandered the world seeking to aid those in need. He left with but two things: a suit of armor and an odd weapon his father always kept stowed away, a pistol.

Branack will be a paladin and a gunslinger with the mysterious stranger archetype. Mysterious stranger will make gunslinger abilities work on charisma instead of wisdom. Yes, dwarves take a negative to charisma, but who cares? As for the type of character, imagine one of the samurai from The Seven Samurai. Or maybe more accurately one of the gunslingers from its American remake, The Magnificent Seven.

Have you ever played a party with all one class? If so which class? If you were going to play in a party with all one classes which would be your favorite? For our all paladin party what kind of character would you make?

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