Survivability of this party? [3.5]

[gooddragon1]

With an optimized party of the following:
1 Wizard
1 Cleric
2 Druids

Would the survivability rating be reasonably good even for tough dungeons?

EDIT: Also, how would they deal with traps?

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Incredibly survivable. Perhaps one of the all around strongest parties you could play from 1-20.

also Kobold Domain gets you trap finding and adds search and disable device to your class skills its even in a preview.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060420a

Spells aren't bad either, it has contingency.

[Randomguy]

Traps can be dealt with by summoned critters, animal companions, charmed critters or the Summon Elemental reserve feat. At higher levels, it might be worth planar binding something to deal with them, or possibly getting a simulacrum. Detect Magic and arcane sight can also be used to detect the presence of magical traps.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Have an animal companion go in front to Nodwick the traps, later on someone can get the Summon Elemental reserve feat (CM) and have unlimited free minions to do that job.

That party is pretty much ideal. Maybe make the Wizard an Illumian Beguiler 1/ Wizard 4/ Ultimate Magus with Able Learner, which gets 19/20 Wizard casting along with Trapfinding and all the right class skills and an inflated caster level.

[gooddragon1]

Have an animal companion go in front to Nodwick the traps, later on someone can get the Summon Elemental reserve feat (CM) and have unlimited free minions to do that job.

That party is pretty much ideal. Maybe make the Wizard an Illumian Beguiler 1/ Wizard 4/ Ultimate Magus with Able Learner, which gets 19/20 Wizard casting along with Trapfinding and all the right class skills and an inflated caster level.

Would the cleric kobold domain or the wizard thingy be better in terms of optimizing? It seems like there's a small amount of casting loss for one and not for the other but could class features outweigh that?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Would the cleric kobold domain or the wizard thingy be better in terms of optimizing? It seems like there's a small amount of casting loss for one and not for the other but could class features outweigh that?

That Ultimate Magus build far, far outweighs the drawbacks if you do it right. I actually explained it in detail to someone a while back:
I'd recommend using Beguiler, to handle the skills the party needs. Something like Illumian (Krau/anything), Beguiler 1/ Wizard 4/ Ultimate Magus 10/ (full casting PrCs) 5, with Practiced Spellcaster: Beguiler before 6th to put 10/10 UM casting toward Wizard. Get Able Learner, Versatile Spellcaster, and plenty of metamagic. I'd go specialist Conjurer with Enchantment and Evocation prohibited, get Abrupt Jaunt in PH2 and Augment Summoning instead of Scribe Scroll via the UA variant.

Ultimate Magus in Complete Mage advances only one of your classes at its 1st, 4th, and 7th level. Specifically, it advances whichever class that has a lower caster level rather than spellcasting capability. If both classes have equal caster levels, then you get to pick which to advance. The above build can apply each of those levels' spellcasting increases to Wizard, so the only level of Wizard casting you lose is that one level of Beguiler.

The feat Practiced Spellcaster: Beguiler is crucial to that caster level trick, but it's not enough to put UM 7 toward Wizard. The Illumian race from Races of Destiny get special runewords, one of which is Krau which acts like Practiced Spellcaster but puts a +2 toward every class you have, still capped at your character level. That bumps your Wizard caster level to equal your character level, while increasing your Beguiler caster level by enough to make both equal when taking UM 7. Note that you can apply your own effects in the most beneficial order per the official FAQ, so you can apply all of the capped-at-character-level caster level bonuses first and then add on the Arcane Spell Power bonus from Ultimate Magus to increase your caster levels higher than your character level.

Illumians are Humanoid (Human), so they qualify for Human-only feats and prestige classes. The feat Able Learner in Races of Destiny makes it so you only have to spend one skill point for cross-class skill ranks, instead of the normal two skill points per rank. It must be taken at 1st level, and your max ranks in cross-class skills is still half of that of class skills. Note that if a skill was ever a class skill for you for even a single level (Beguiler 1), your max ranks in it are always that of a class skill. Able Learner basically makes it so that you get to use the Beguiler class skills for every level you take, in addition to whatever other class skills you get from other levels. Since your only really important stat is Intelligence, you should get plenty of skill points every level.

The feat Versatile Spellcaster in Races of the Dragon allows you to spend two spell slots of the same level to cast any spell you know of one level higher. That means you can spend two 1st level Beguiler spell slots to cast any 2nd level Wizard spell you've learned and put in your spellbook. That build can eventually cast 4th level Beguiler spells, which means you could spontaneously cast any Wizard spell you know of up to 5th level. Versatile, indeed! Also keep in mind that it will give you early access to the next higher level of the Beguiler spell list, so you'll have access to that entire list of up to 5th level as well. You should never find yourself in a situation that you don't have a spell to handle.

Note that with this build you'll need Practiced Spellcaster: Beguiler no later than 3rd level, and you'll need a metamagic feat before taking Ultimate Magus, so to squeeze in Able Learner and get Versatile Spellcaster before 6th you'll need to use flaws (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/characterFlaws.htm).

You should specialize in Conjuration with the Wizard levels, your prohibited schools won't affect your Beguiler spellcasting in any way. Enchantment and Evocation are the easiest prohibited schools, Beguiler gets most of the best enchantments already and Evocation is easy to replace. Conjuration has the best direct damage spells and the best crowd controls, along with tons of utility effects. There are alternate class features for specialist Wizards in PH2 that replace your familiar, the Conjuration ability is the best one since it can completely avoid attacks, bypass locked doors, and whatever else you can think of. There are also alternate class features in UA that replace Scribe Scroll listed here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/specialistWizardVariants.htm), the one for Conjuration gives you Augment Summoning for free. There's also this variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#wizard) also from UA, which allows you to take Improved Initiative instead of Scribe Scroll, which would probably be the best choice for this character.

The last five levels of the build can be pretty much anything that advances your Wizard spellcasting for all five levels. You could put one level of Mindbender in there, since you can cast Charm Person via Beguiler despite Enchantment being prohibited to Wizard, and even pick up the feat Mindsight in Lords of Madness (p126). You could grab the fifth level of Wizard for another bonus feat, or even get one of the alternate class features from the Wizard section in Complete Champion such as a domain power or Spontaneous Divination. I'd probably finish it off with Paragnostic Apostle, also in Complete Champion, since it's so easy to qualify for and it gives so many useful abilities.

I hope this helped, it really is a complicated build but it's also extremely fun to play. Google-up some Batman wizard guides if you need tips on what spells to pick and when to cast what.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

and any number of Cleric builds are as strong as any UM build. UM with Practiced spellcaster in it's spontaneous casting side can be really strong though. You'd need a real cleric build with Divine Metamagic to compete with it.

It really comes down to who wants to be the trap finder and whether the Cleric is cool with having the Kobold Domain which requires worshiping Kurtulmak if you don't use clerics of ideals or custom gods. He is a really strong diety choice though with Luck and Trickery (also Evil and Law, but who wants those?).

[Story]

You can get any domain power you want without worshiping the god with the Planar Touchstone feat at level 6.

[Gwendol]

Incredibly tough party. Basically the top of the crop if built for it.

[Kelb_Panthera]

A group like that doesn't really need to worry about dungeons. By mid-level they'll be able to collapse the dungeons then use divinations to find and fish out anything worth having from the rubble.

Seriously, half of the big 6 are represented here. There's -nothing- they can't overcome if they're well optimized.

[docnessuno]

That Ultimate Magus build far, far outweighs the drawbacks if you do it right.

I also like Wizard 1 / Beguiller 1 / Human paragon 3 (boosting wizard spellcasting) as an UM entry.

[TopCheese]

A group like that doesn't really need to worry about dungeons. By mid-level they'll be able to collapse the dungeons then use divinations to find and fish out anything worth having from the rubble.

Seriously, half of the big 6 are represented here. There's -nothing- they can't overcome if they're well optimized.

My first gaming group did this... We went overboard but my cleric and the wizard blew about 4 spells each... Ah do I miss my first cleric, and the look on the DM's face.

He asked why and I said "screw going into the scary dark place" ... I wasn't really aware of my PC's capabilities but this started it.. And to think they had to persuade the new guy to be the "heal monkey".

[Namfuak]

If you were only interested in finding the traps rather than disabling them, "Find Traps" is a 2nd level cleric spell that gives you trapfinding. You will probably need to put some CC ranks into search to make it work, but it can free up that role in the party.