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As you know, it's common for RPGs to have the player form a party of adventurers, or for the game to form one for the player.

There is, however, one particular party that I happen to really like to play, and that I like to play in any game that allows it. Here are the characters in the party:
[end of list]

So, what are your thoughts on this party? Is it well-balanced, or could it benefit from replacing a character with a different one? (I don't want to add any new party members.)

Also, know any games that allow this party? I know that (classic) Bard's Tale 3 allows it, and I've managed to obtain that party in Bard's Tale 2. Also, I know you can get this party in Final Fantasy 6, though unfortunately it's not possible to explore the world with this party. Know of any other games that allow my favorite party to be used?
Post edited October 25, 2021 by dtgreene
Beg pardon, but it appears your list got eaten by formatting errors.
low rated
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Darvond: Beg pardon, but it appears your list got eaten by formatting errors.
Fixed the right bracket, so it should be formatted entirely.

In case you still can't see the list, here are a couple screenshots, from the Bard's Tale games, showing this party in action.
Attachments:
bt2_empty.png (158 Kb)
I honestly thought this was an out-of-character troll with a list so short. But whatever, here's my incomplete party.

Feral child thief -a human with halfling stats because she's barely more than a toddler. The party enters a dungeon and finds that every treasure is already looted. A perfect search roll indicates something is watching them, capture it to reveal what seems to be a little girl with the mind of an angry stray cat and she has the entire dungeon's treasure. Most adventurers would be hard-pressed for baby-sitting, but a thieving savant might change their mind. With time-skips, she can advance to assassin, vampire hunter, vampire, and finally vampire queen.

Redeemed paladin -he's spent decades conquering and castle-sieging, but a moment of hesitation opens his eyes to the innocence of his next would-be victim and he switches sides to undo the damage he helped perpetuate.

Karen the sorceress -The people who created Avatar and The Dragon Prince excel at many aspects of story-telling, but what stands out for me is the evil teenage magic-user gf. I named her Karen for this list because she wants nothing less than for everyone to do as she commands without question, but she responds to rebellion with less screeching and calling for managers and more scary magic and emotional manipulation.

Rockstar bard -No shortage of gamers I'm sure have thought of this one, but how many of them were pirate fairies? He uses magic to fly his ship, which is centered in a size-dilation bubble like Capone from One Piece; this means it doubles as a Bag-of-Holding. Warning: fairy bards may offer their spelunking skills.
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dtgreene: [...]
There is, however, one particular party that I happen to really like to play, and that I like to play in any game that allows it. Here are the characters in the party:
[end of list]
[...]
hey, that's my favorite party to. What would be the odds of that happening!
My idea party of adventures:

1. One really brave knight, who is so brave that he does everything bravely

2. One unnamed servant

3. Four minstrels that follow along singing the brave knight's theme song about how he's not in the least bit scared to be mashed to a pulp or have his eyes gouged out and his elbows broken, to have his kneecaps split, and his body burned away, and his limbs all hacked and mangled.
made a very good one for Solasta , i bet it made the game way more enjoyable
Anything with a "Dredd-like" character! XD

I'm playing Pathfinder Kingmaker pen and paper, and having a stalwart defender of order (in this case, a Lawful Neutral Hellknight) constantly bickering with everybody but becoming indispensable due to the sheer awesomeness of the feats he pulls of is so fun.
Part of that is the discrepancy between his stone faced lack of humor against the other messy PCs.

Anyway, in videogames I always like specialists that complement their skills, usually a defender, a buffer-healer, a debuffer magic destroyer and a trickster.
I'll be honest, I'm typically more of a fan of RPGs where you play as a single character, maybe with the option to recruit a companion. However, as far as party-based RPGs go, my favorite setup usually involves two melee tanks (with one having higher DPS than the other), a paladin-like character (for healing), a mage with solid DPS and then a unique class such as a bard-styled class.
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Enebias: Anything with a "Dredd-like" character! XD

I'm playing Pathfinder Kingmaker pen and paper, and having a stalwart defender of order (in this case, a Lawful Neutral Hellknight) constantly bickering with everybody but becoming indispensable due to the sheer awesomeness of the feats he pulls of is so fun.
Part of that is the discrepancy between his stone faced lack of humor against the other messy PCs.

Anyway, in videogames I always like specialists that complement their skills, usually a defender, a buffer-healer, a debuffer magic destroyer and a trickster.
It occurred to me that you could run a tabletop RPG with an empty party. You'd have one player (you) be the GM, and no players, and you'd just role-play situations with yourself. There are a few (serious) reasons to do this:
* To flesh out some things about the setting and characters.
* To test the game mechanics; this is especially true if you're considering adopting a houserule that could affect game balance.

In a videogame, if I'm not playing an empty party, I find that I like having:
* At least one generalist, which typically means a character who can fight reasonably well and who can also heal.
* At least two healers (including said generalist).
* I happen to really like classes that can cast multiple types of magic (think Bishop from Wizardry, except that the Wizardry Bishop gets spells too slowly even for such a character (except in Wizardry 8), or Red Mage/Sage from classic Final Fantasy (RM works well as a generalist, provided they're actually decent in the particular FF game)).
* I try not to repeat the same setup on multiple party members. (My next planned Wizardry 8 party, which I may or may not get around to playing, has 3 Bishops, but one starts out as a Fairy Mage (for earlier expert skills), and one is a Dwarf for better fighting ability (at the cost of worse spellcasting).) (Or, in SaGa 2, I might use multiple robots, but I differentiate them by giving them different equipment, which gives them completely different stats.)

Of course, I still prefer a party containing 0 characters to all this messing around with actually creating a non-empty adventuring party, but most party-based RPGs don't seem to allow this.

Edit: Forgot one other thing: I like having multiple healers in the party, to the point where I'll focus on healing even if it's not the optimal strategy in the particular game. If at all possible, I like to have at least 2 characters with full revive spells (in case one of them dies) (so in a game like some Final Fantasy 4 versions, I'll put both Porom and Rosa in the party at the same time).
Post edited October 25, 2021 by dtgreene
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Darvond: Beg pardon, but it appears your list got eaten by formatting errors.
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dtgreene: Fixed the right bracket, so it should be formatted entirely.

In case you still can't see the list, here are a couple screenshots, from the Bard's Tale games, showing this party in action.
As you could have noticed, the list 1 .... 5 is black in your first picture and empty in the second. So when you post screenshots and ask about a party list that's similar to what you are looking for, post pictures of the actual freaking party composition or publish a written list!
The point was it was an empty party. No members.
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Mori_Yuki: As you could have noticed, the list 1 .... 5 is black in your first picture and empty in the second. So when you post screenshots and ask about a party list that's similar to what you are looking for, post pictures of the actual freaking party composition or publish a written list!
Post edited October 25, 2021 by paladin181
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dtgreene: Fixed the right bracket, so it should be formatted entirely.

In case you still can't see the list, here are a couple screenshots, from the Bard's Tale games, showing this party in action.
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Mori_Yuki: As you could have noticed, the list 1 .... 5 is black in your first picture and empty in the second. So when you post screenshots and ask about a party list that's similar to what you are looking for, post pictures of the actual freaking party composition or publish a written list!
I did: There was nobody in the party in both screenshots.

(Of course, there's the question: An enemy is attacking, but who is the character being attacked?)
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Mori_Yuki: As you could have noticed, the list 1 .... 5 is black in your first picture and empty in the second. So when you post screenshots and ask about a party list that's similar to what you are looking for, post pictures of the actual freaking party composition or publish a written list!
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dtgreene: I did: There was nobody in the party in both screenshots.

(Of course, there's the question: An enemy is attacking, but who is the character being attacked?)
Difficult to tell from text in this screenshot. If I had to guess, this isn't a party member being attacked, there are none, so it must be a summon. If this is the case, the party must have been killed, or they have been dropped. Not sure whether it is possible to keep playing with summoned monsters but no additional party members. Assuming that this is indeed the explanation for it, I can't answer your other question. I don't know of any other game in which this is possible. Maybe you could try Wizards&Warriors or other games with summons?
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dtgreene: I did: There was nobody in the party in both screenshots.

(Of course, there's the question: An enemy is attacking, but who is the character being attacked?)
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Mori_Yuki: Difficult to tell from text in this screenshot. If I had to guess, this isn't a party member being attacked, there are none, so it must be a summon. If this is the case, the party must have been killed, or they have been dropped. Not sure whether it is possible to keep playing with summoned monsters but no additional party members. Assuming that this is indeed the explanation for it, I can't answer your other question. I don't know of any other game in which this is possible. Maybe you could try Wizards&Warriors or other games with summons?
In Bard's Tale 1-3, if there is a summon in the party, the summon will appear on the list of party members, just like a regular party member. Hence, there are no summons (or recruited monsters) in the party at the time the screenshots were taken.

As for the other questions:
* You can drop monster party members, but not standard party members, from the party. Standard party members can only be removed from the party at the Adventurer's guild (or, in BT3, the Refugee Camp, which serves the same role). Note that the game will not allow you to leave the Adventurer's Guild if you don't have at least one living party member.
* In classic BT2 and BT3 (but not the remaster), you can keep playing with just monsters in the party, and I remember having fun with that (and was disappointed that the remaster doesn't allow that).
* If your entire party is wiped out, the game takes you to the "Sorry, bud!" screen, and then puts you back into the Adventurer's Guild. In BT2, this also happens if you drop the last survivor from your party; note that, significantly, in BT3 this does not happen, allowing you to adventure without a party, at least until you can't run (or choose not to run) from a battle or step on a damage square.
* If you look at the upper right corner, where the battle messages are, you can see the name of the character being attacked, and it's definitely glitchy, as you can see. I think the game gets confused, and ends up reading from where one of the party member's names *should* be, and ends up reading garbage, and displaying it.