Newbie cleric/bard/paladin op

[PetterTomBos]

I'm DMing for a group of beginners that are playing cleric/bard/paladin.

Guys: if any of you are reading this *ugly glare* don't, okay?

They are all fairly new to the game, any obvious optimizing-pitfalls I should have in mind? Most books are free, but they are not using them, as they haven't read much :)

[Keld Denar]

I'm assuming you have 3 players, one each as a cleric, bard, and paladin, respectively?

First things first, RP-wise, make sure you don't have any big clashes with the paladin and the other 2 idiologically. No cleric of the death god chillin with Mr Righteous Lawful Goodness. While a little friction can be fun, you want a party, not a PvP arena. "Wil Wheaton says: Don't be a douchebag" should be a pretty good guideline for this.

Now, mechanics-wise, what are you comfortable with. The 2 most easy to break are the cleric and the bard, in order of ease. The strongest thing the cleric could pull out would be Divine Metamagic (CDivine) combined with Persistant Spell (CArcane). This allows him to take some of the tasty rnds/lvl cleric spells like Divine Favor, Divine Might, and Righeous Might, and make them last ALL day. This basically turns him from a cleric into a cleric + paladin, which might cause some sadness on behalf of the paladin who is playing a slightly mechanically weaker character. If you are ok with him using DMM, try to encourage him to use party buffs like Righteous Wrath of the Faithful (CDiv/SpC) or Recitation (CDiv/SpC). Recitation in particular is fun if you make sure all 3 characters worship the same god for the little extra boost.

From the bard, Inspire Courage can be scary. Taken to its rediculous upper end, it could result in like, 12-15d6 sonic damage stacked on every hit. Even at low levels, if can make the party a little more powerful than you anticipate. Watch for things like Inspirational Boost (SpC) or Songs of the Heart (ECS) or a Badge of Valor (MIC) or Words of Creation (BoED), all things that boost IC. A couple of them are ok, especially if they don't come all at once, but its not hard to get to a +4 or +5 bard song by level 3, which may be unbalancing.

The other thing, from a DM PoV, to watch out for with the bard is Glibness. The bonus from Glibness is SO large, that the PC could literally bluff the pants right off someone. Even with the ability to make checks in the 50s, you should establish a certain baseline of what can and can't be done with a bluff, or you'll end up with a PC who could rule a country by level 7 simply by bluffing the king right out of his crown. Not saying you shouldn't allow this to happen if the PCs so wish to persue it, but it should take a little more than "Hi, my name is King Joe the Bard, and you seem to be wearing my crown. I must have dropped it, could I have it back?" accompanied by a 50 bluff check. Some things are simply a little too outrageous, as the Giant noted on this forum (WRT Diplomacy, but the concept is the same).

The paladin suffers a bit mechanically from being a weaker class than the other 2. You can help him make up some of this with a little help. [Devotion] and [Divine] feats from Complete Warrior, Complete Divine, and Complete Champion go a long ways toward enabling the paladin, as do things like Battle Blessing (CChamp) and Awesome Smite (CChamp again). If you think the player might be overshadowed, consider multiclassing with Crusader (Tome of Battle) or just completely replacing Paladin with Crusader, or use one of the lovely homebrew Paladin fixes here on the forum like Fax Celestis' or One Winged Angel's over on the WotC forums. If you need a bit of help on this from us, just ask. I can whip up a paladin in my sleep that can compete decently with a mid-optimized cleric and bard.

[Sacrieur]

Don't lose caster levels. It is bad. Very very bad.

[PetterTomBos]

I'm assuming you have 3 players, one each as a cleric, bard, and paladin, respectively?

Yes, that's correct :) I should have specified it!

Party is quite allright RPwise. The LG pal and CG clr have their clashes, but that's all friendly (CG young char trying to do something funny, just for the sake of pissing of the dwarf pally, that basically holds him by the ear ;) )

I'm comfortable with most, but not with op stronger than I can do myself. That means about medium :). I've done DMM persist myself, however the clr have not gotten any metamagic feats yet (lvl. 3) so even if he invests heavily in it it will take a lot of time.. (I do know the errata ;) ). Bard stuff - noted!

I'm actually using the giants diplomacy system :). Bard player being my GF, a hard system on dip is useful for avoiding the typical "DMs GF" image.

I'm definately not using ToB, at least not until I've had free time to read up on it myself. Good idea on asking the playground for op-tips. The pally is actually the strongest atm, with atk bonus and dmg waay above the party :)

[Veyr]

I recommend prioritizing that reading of Tome of Battle, it's really one of the two best-written books for 3.5 that WotC ever published. (the other's Expanded Psionics Handbook, but that won't help very much with these characters since Psionics doesn't really have any counterparts to them, at least on a fluff level)

[Cartigan]

I think people confused the OP saying "The players are beginners" with "The DM is a beginner." Newbie players aren't going to be wringing the most ridiculously absurd optimization min-maxing out of those classes. Not even a fraction of what people have been and will start going on about in this thread.

Bards are Bards and Clerics are Clerics. The only real thing to work with without everyone losing their minds is the Paladin.

[Lateral]

Eh, Clerics can be done badly. Emphasize to your player that healing is less efficient for him than buffing and he should be fine.

[PetterTomBos]

I think people confused the OP saying "The players are beginners" with "The DM is a beginner." Newbie players aren't going to be wringing the most ridiculously absurd optimization min-maxing out of those classes. Not even a fraction of what people have been and will start going on about in this thread.

Sort of true. I'm quite experienced, not in psionics/ToB, but I know my way around a lot of the other material.

To illustrate how the players optimize: all of the spread their skills around (some more than others), and the ACmonster is coming from a scale armor..

[Leon]

Let them make their PCs and see how they like them - they are new and should be allowed to try things out at the base level.

If it turns out they made a horrible mistake and it doesn't work be lenient and let them tweak the problem.