Obviously, the PCs are collectively going to be a "party." This is in no small part because we are unimaginative. But also because that is simply what a band of adventurers in a fantasy world with swords is called.
Step 2: Write up a Six Person Party
- Adlin the Human Wizard
- Dahilah the Hob Hero
- Osa the Gnome Artificer
- Tadoc the Dwarf Paladin
- Weebo the Halfling Rogue
- Yathrinsti the Drow Necromancer.
Dahilah is a Hero. She fights "because she is the dopest" and has heavy armor and a big mace. That suggests an easy contribution to combat, but her contribution the rest of the time has to be pretty much forced in. Fantasy players are all too willing to accept such a character being a mook-in-a-can. So we're giving her diplomatic, leadership, and perceptive bonuses as well as default "soldiering" and "Carrying heavy objects.
Osa is an Artificer. She makes wind up spiders, hand grenades, medicine and possibly lightning guns. Artificers have usually been at one end or the other of the power pendulum in previous fantasy works - either requiring so much time and special equipment to do anything that they are basically not a PC, or being so ridiculously open in what they can make that the game breaks in half. The key I think is to leave her with a relatively short list of things she can make reliably and to have her bust those gadgets out as reliably a a wizard preparing his spells.
Tadoc is a Paladin. He chops things up with an ax and bathes his allies in a radiant glow that heals and protects them.
Weebo is a Rogue. He sneaks, he fast-talks, he shivs people in the kidneys. He can pick a lock or a pocket. Rogues have a long and hallowed tradition of being viable and balanced in a lot of fantasy settings.
Yathrinsti is a Necromancer, like in Diablo II. She can stab fools with a poison dagger I suppose, but her primary claim to fame is having a pack of grunts with their bones showing.
Here are major overlaps:
- Tadoc and Dahilah both have heavy armor, a melee weapon, and the ability to inspire their team mates.
- Weebo and Osa can both pick locks.
- Osa and Yathrinsti both have "pets" - Osa her robot spiders, and Yathrinisti her squad of skeleton commandos.
- Dahilah and Weebo are both specifically good at "talking."
- Adlin is a Wizard, and special care needs to be taken to prevent him from stepping on each other player's toes by saying "I have a spell for that."
- Tadoc and Osa both do healing - Osa makes medicine and Tadoc has healing auras.
- Every character does damage to enemies in combat to kill them.
- Aldin is the only character who has an ice beam.
- Dahilah has some sort of unique tactician/leadership buff.
- Osa has a frickin crawling bomb.
- Tadoc has a protection ward.
- Weebo is teh stealthiest.
- Yathrinisti has completely expendable minions.
Step 3: Write up a Three Person Party
OK, as usual, we're going to try to make this deliberately hard on ourselves.So group I is:
- Adlin
- Weebo
- Dahilah
- Tadoc
- Osa
- Yathrinsti
Secondarily, we note that the first party is much more slanted towards "fast" combats, while the second party is more geared towards "slow" combats. The second party moves more pieces on the table, has warding fields and combat healing/repair and and so on and so forth. The first party has some damage boosting, some stealth assassination and magical fucking ice beams. This means that ultimately the game is going to have to accept characters who are geared towards fast kills and characters geared towards throwing mooks into meat grinders either all together or together in a mixed party. That's non-trivial, since a character who is "slow and steady" is just going to appear to contribute less than a hard and fragile character unless the glass cannon gets taken down on a regular basis.
Step 4: Outline an Adventure
Step 5: Write out a campaign
Step 6: Choose a Base System
Step 7: Do the Math