Sad times, gang. If a couple of fantasy-tabletop-gaming-web-comic-main-characters can’t get along, what hope do the rest of us have?

We’re into Part 3 of our ongoing crossover between The Handbook of Heroes and Rusty and Co., and the mashup continues to yield some unfortunate character pairings. While Fighter’s tiny, primitive brain might make him a personality profile match for a giant cockroach, there are some things that just shouldn’t be in the same room together. In other words, there’s just a skosh of friction between everyone’s favorite monosyllabic bastard sword and the world’s cutest rust monster. Literally no one could have seen this coming. Literally.

The drawbacks of putting Rusty in the same party as a sentient sword might seem obvious, but it’s amazing to me how often folks make the same mistake in their own games. I’m not talking about the conceptual tension of paladin / necromancer groups. I’m talking the straight-up mechanical headache of tossing anti-synergistic abilities into the same adventuring party.

You want examples? How about an AoE wizard in a party full of melee characters? How about 3.X rogues without flanking partners? Dhampirs hanging out with channel-focused clerics. Invisible glass cannons who cannot be found and healed once they get KO’d. The word of the day is “nonbo” folks, which takes us straight into our discussion.

What are some anti-synergistic interactions you’ve seen between party members? What abilities, classes, or spells just don’t seem to work so well together? Sound off in the comments with your tales anti-synergy on the battlefield!

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