TOPIC: who plays what????

Raven wrote: That often means some give & take during Class choice, because some players will be equipped to the teeth to play a certain character class, or others might have the skill test memorized (I know one excellent cleric who memorized all the beads and hasn't failed a spell check in years) and others may be at excellent hand-eye coordination for sliding. Letting your team mates play to their strengths is a HUGE factor in beating the dungeon.

This is also true - playing what you and your party are good at. Its why I like playing Rogue so much - I am blessed with steady hand, patience and a good sense of picturing objects in 3D in my head. Masterwork Thieves Tools allow you to retry failed attempts - I have used it one time, ever. By all means, if people are better with the hand-eye coordination for sliding, let them do it.

And yeah, experienced players who want to play a class that a new player wanted to play, will often help the new player outfit a different class.

If you're new, odds are you don't really know what class will suit you best. My advise would just be to be emotionally prepared to try one similar to your first choice. Two classes will be left on the table so worst case you won't have to settle for your last choice.

For instance don't think "I want to be Cleric", think "healer" or "caster". Don't think "Ranger" think "slider". You'll minimize your chance for disappointment and its just not worth the angst. You'll often have a chance to try out lots of things in the training room. You could take a few moments on the Rogue box and find you're too shakey, or learn that the Monk's double-slide is beyond your coordination, etc without committing to a full adventure doing something you wish you didn't have to do.

Drama in the prep rooms will sour the whole experience for you, and probably others, even if you win the tussle for your first pick. Try to just roll with it.

My first time I had no idea what I was doing. I love playing Paladins in tabletop and was disappointed that someone else took it, but I was sitting there with my 10 random tokens which included two bows... I let them make me a Barbarian and it turned out fine. They outfitted me (barbs don't wear much anyway) and I was spending so much time trying to figure out what was going on my character choice was totally irrelevant anyway. And now I've played nothing but Cleric for the last three years. (No, I'm not the one Raven talks about...)

On runs where my group of friends do not occupy all slots, which is usually, I prepare for plan B and C. It really is no big deal, as a martial classes are similar, and spell casters are similar. I like Wizard (really because it is unpopular) and Monk (for the same reason).
Last year, the least popular classes by party, based on the character cards left unselected, were: Wizard, Monk and Elf Wizard. The most popular were Ranger, Fighter and Cleric.
So plan on a default, wizard is not bad, especially since they have a lot of good, useful spells, and with the addition of common wands, can be quite effective.

I'm really surprised that Wizard is so unpopular. We love having Wizards in our parties, especially saving Magic Missile for the last battle -that's a free automatic 22 damage.

Monk, though... bleh.

I'd also like to mention that I consider myself primarily Fighter, off-class Bard and last year ended up playing Elf Wizard as a pickup in a party. Playing a wizard was great fun and the memorization test very easy. I think pretty much every class has something going for it and can be fun.

Also, everyone should take a few minutes to multiclass into Bard - the bardic runes are visible and have been used to mark traps/healing locations in the past. It only takes a few minutes and, unlike any other class feature, is usable by all classes.

Toran - I know I am not the only newbie confused by the multiclassing comment, could you please elaborate?

From context I would guess that the items for the Bard skill test (runes?) are sometimes in plain view in the dungeon and that even if you don't have a Bard you can know that something in that area is important because the rune or whatever is present.

I was speaking of multiclassing in a metagame sense. The bardic runes are basically just symbols that appear in places in the dungeon - usually as a warning or clue.

In the training room, there's nothing stopping you from taking a few minutes to peruse the Bardic Runes board (there are something like 20 of them) and memorizing them. If you're confident that, for example, you know all the Wizard skill test items, then it's useful to take a couple minutes to memorize some of the bardic runes.

A good example: back in 2008(?) there was a puzzle room that had an acid trap in it. When you got too close to the acid trap, mist sprayed out and you took damage. The trap was labeled with the bardic rune for... acid.

This is notably different from the memorization/skill tests for the other caster classes. With very few exceptions, their memorization tests only ever come up in order to see if you get the bonus damage or bonus healing from casting a spell.

Weeelllll - technically you are supposed to focus on the training for your own class. Wizards srudy the planar chart, fighters get to practice sliding, etc. It's supposed to reflect the specialized training each class needs to succeed.

And yet, if it takes 2 minutes to memorize the planar chart, why not go do other things?

Also, as I mentioned, I play both Fighter and Bard, so... it's not like I forget the information I got when I studied the runes as Bard. Thus, multiclassed.

Slider practice is ALWAYS useful.

I do try to get in one or two slides in the training room, to reflect my sliding spells/scrolls.

I don't blame you. I've been encouraging our Wizard(s) to get some slider practice in since the top damage spells require it and he/they aren't used to sliding AT ALL.

Toran wrote: And yet, if it takes 2 minutes to memorize the planar chart, why not go do other things?

If casters or rogues know their class's test and don't want to "study" something they know by heart, they are welcome to practice sliding in the training room. If you want to memorize another class's skill test, that's fine too. BUT... (it's a very big but) once in the adventure only the bard may take the bard skill test, just as only the rogue may attempt the rogue's box, etc.

In addition, other players may not give hints to "help out" another class. E.g., if a newbie bard doesn't know the runes, the veteran wizard who has memorized all the skill tests may not whisper in the bard's ear to give answers.

Good points, Druegar!