I need major optimization help

[Daetur]

Ok, I'm going into a highly optimized campaign with a dm who seems to take pleasure in creating challenges that are way beyond what we are able to handle, but my party and I have a hope of at the very least reaching the end of one of his campaigns if not winning it.

My party consists of an optimized arcane caster who is very good at what he does, a charismatic rogue who's the party's face, a mindblade who doesn't know what optimization is (he joined after a different party member quit playing out of annoyance with this specific dm who had a habit of always killing him first (although he always acted in ways that deemed it necessary)), and I'm going to be a cleric/tank.

Here's what we have to work with

24 point buy system starting with base 10 stats
the ability to use any two 3.5 books plus the d20srd
a free pass on any race with a total adjustment of 5 or lower (although if used from any extraneous book it counts against the number of allowed books)
40,000 gold
starting at 8th level
and finally a tip that this campaign will be heavily filled with undead

I need help picking out my second book, my first is complete divine for prestige classes and a few feats.

I really need help, please and thank you.

 

[Dandu]

Suggestions: Radient Servant of Pelor, Divine Metamagic, Persist Spell.

 

[Daetur]

Yes, I already know those tricks and a couple of others that I have used before, and I'm sad to say that those don't work. He creates enemies with arbitrarily high stats (not pun-pun high, but high enough, like 40-50 being their lowest stat), and to top it off offers them up impossible abilities and immunities like one who could as a free/swift action each round move up too approximately 110 ft (greatest distance we got to see him move) and attack everyone within reach with approximately a +40 something on the roll (one of our guys had optimized ac figuring it'd help and still got hit on a 8). He put us up against a monster that pretty much ate any type of magic and became stronger for doing so with 10s of thousands of hitpoints.

Anyways I need major optimization, and not just commonplace tricks like dmm with persistant spell, no offense intended, I've just used pretty much all the common tricks before and they don't work.

 

[Empirate]

Anyways I need major optimization...

Wrong. What you need is a DM who plays by the same rules as his players. How about limiting him to SRD plus two books? That limit seems kind of... arbitrary. Which is exactly the word I'd use to describe your DM's actions. Really, you can't optimize vs. a challenge of "whatever happens to cross the DM's mind during breakfast that day".

Actually, I'd try and 'win' your campaign by having a heartfelt talk with your DM about how you want the game to be played. As in, everybody having fun and feeling treated fairly and stuff like that.

You can tell him something from me: only idiots who get neither how D&D works as a game, nor what the DM's job actually is, use tricks like he does.

 

[Dandu]

Find a new DM.

 

[Daetur]

Yeah, I have to agree, but among the people that I know who play he has two qualities that I have found hard to come by, the first actually wanting to dm, let alone being willing to, and the second being that he understands how the game works at the very least even if he throws insane stuff at us. If I could find a group with a dm that understands what the hell he's doing I'd join, but sadly I can't seem to. (I've joined other groups and most of their dms were twits who don't understand how to even calculate cr correctly to not get us all killed, or bored out of our minds.)

If anyone has any advice on where to find a decent group, I'd love to hear about it.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

If you can stand the inherent annoyances and impediments of playing over the internet, the gamers seeking gamers forum usually has some openings for online games regardless of where you live. I've played with people from all sorts of different time zones.

 

[Nimloth]

Mission Impossible

So what you are asking is, "How do I optimize to beat a DM who will create enemies with arbitrarily high stats, impossible abilities and immunities"?


You can't.


Whatever you come up with, he can (and probably will) nerf. If you are dismissive of Radient Servant of Pelor, Divine Metamagic, Persist Spell, which is pretty much the Gold Standard of anti-undead clerical cheese, there isn't much else you can do. It sounds like a child's game of "I hit you with my attack", "No, my invisible force field stopped it", "My attack goes through your force field", "No it doesn't", "Yes it does", ...... There is no way to "win" against him unless he want's you to.

So don't play his game. Don't take it seriously. Just make a character and photocopy it 50 times. Don't even give him a name, just call him Cleric. When the 1st 1 dies, pull out the next copy, write Cleric2 and continue playing. Dorkness Rising, funny movie.
If that doesn't float your boat, just make a character for the fun of it. Just don't expect them to survive. Some random thoughts;
- only play cliches
- randomly assign stats/race/class/etc...
- ask the DM to make your character

Yeah, I have to agree, but among the people that I know who play he has two qualities that I have found hard to come by, the first actually wanting to dm, let alone being willing to, and the second being that he understands how the game works at the very least even if he throws insane stuff at us. If I could find a group with a dm that understands what the hell he's doing I'd join, but sadly I can't seem to. (I've joined other groups and most of their dms were twits who don't understand how to even calculate cr correctly to not get us all killed, or bored out of our minds.)

If anyone has any advice on where to find a decent group, I'd love to hear about it.

Frankly, how you described him, THIS DM doesn't know what he's doing.

 

[milo]

Yeah, I have to agree, but among the people that I know who play he has two qualities that I have found hard to come by, the first actually wanting to dm, let alone being willing to, and the second being that he understands how the game works at the very least even if he throws insane stuff at us.

I have to say that he probably only meets one of your criteria there. He either doesn't want to DM and is hoping someone else will step up to DM. Or he doesn't know what he is doing. Either one would explain to me why you are fighting what seem to be epic creatures that he makes up.

 

[milo]

Someone else mentioned this already, but let him make your character for you. Maybe all he knows is overpowered stuff that he makes up and you might get a low stat in the 40's like the creatures he throws at you.