My party is only at lvl 6 at the moment and comprises of the three default classes but I've been wondering what lies in store further on in the game. I've had a couple of modules that were tough and it got me thinking about whether I'd crack the adventure with different gear or perhaps even different party comp. For example if I was to go with two Magic Users plus one Fighter. Is there scope for rolling up another character to then have a pool of different characters for trying out different mixes? Related to that, if I am stuck somewhere, should I be grinding lower level dungeons for gear or is there not much to be gained that way? If I should grind lower lvl dungeons, do different modules drop different gear or is it all random? Cheers
Your first party will always have it tougher than any party coming after as you'll know the adventures and have better gear. I've always rerun previous adventures with my first party if they still qualified for XP. When I got stuck for a little while I started leveling another party for fun, but it wasn't necessary to complete the campaign. Later on, once you complete the campaign, you'll want to eventually have 3 of each class and/or race for the special quests that open up. Modules drop gear based off of their level +/-. From what I've read it appears the levels divisible by 3 have the best chance to drop legendary items so people tend to do those. I like doing the Kobold missions as they seem to drop treasure more often. (I may be way off on that.) Edit: My first party was Human Warrior, Dwarf Priest, Elf Mage.
Doing lower level dungeons for gear remains viable all the way to the max level, since you'll never have enough power tokens to equip a set of lvl 18 equipment. My level 17 dwarf priest uses Malign Mace, a lvl 4 rare, for example.
I currently have 4 Malign Maces and I use all of them in my all dwarf priest party. It's an amazing item for no power token cost.
My second play through is an all dwarf warrior/wizard/wizard party (at lvl 14) that I'm finding has an easier time with the adventures than my first human warrior/wizard/priest party that I completed the campaign with. But like someone else said, it's probably due to knowing the strategies already and having better gear from the first play through.
Priest/Priest/Priest can get really stupid after first playthrough. You can pretty much just brute force your way through any adventure.
I can imagine what a beast that sort of group is once you have enough Mass Frenzies and lifetap attacks, but it's a lot easier to gear up a traditional one of each class -parties first. It could just be my imagination, but it often feels to me that priests benefit from rarer gear a lot more than wizards and a bit more than warriors. Hmm ... I should actually try playing some adventures with three priests, see how it goes.
Yeah, rares are huge. I have a mass frenzy on everyone, and I have 3 of the rare "3 altruism" trait items. In addtion plenty of card draw and lifesuck. With dwarven battle cry I'm able to totally load up while I wait for the enemy to go then slaughter almost everything.
If levelling a new party - it can be done super quickly compared to the previous one. You've got some stack of items to choose from of course, but also you can get much more exp by skipping adventures (i.e. if you do adventures with 2 levels above your character level, you will gain 20 exp = 1 level each time).