Need advice on de-optimizing to fit the party/campaign

[Tene]

So we had the first night of a new campaign tonight (char level 4). All the characters were pre approved by the dm, and I had checked with all the other players about how much character optimizing they were planning on doing. Everyone said they were going to optimize their characters, but weren't planning on min-maxxing them. Unfortunately, this turns out to have been a rather severe miscommunication, and it seems all the players have different ideas of what constitutes optimization.

The cloistered cleric/church inquisitor

Knowledge devotion with 1 to 5 ranks in various knowledges (no dungeoneering)
Zen archery
Spell list is 90% self ranged buffs
20ish hp


The sorcerer

20ish hp
Only cast magic missile and battering ram
Feats: sudden silent, sudden maximize


The problem: Barbarian Totemist

44hp before raging (60 after)
Has pounce, power attack, reckless rage, and girallon arms (3 extra claw attacks)


My character was more optimized than the barbarian (which i considered to be moderately optimized) and was to join the campaign next week (a totemist, crusader with a few more natural weapons) and there was a skillmonkey with 22hp and no combat feats.

Short version: We hit the final boss of the evening (I'm spectating), and the barbarian rages charges and gets a lucky crit. Deals 70+ damage to a 120 hp boss.

So after the session was over, the barb/totemist and I now have to reroll to be consistent with the other players power level. (I have no problem with this, I just have no idea how to do this, as numbers were tossed around as around 20 damage per combat round, not getting more than +7/8 to hit etc)

1. The barb/totemist would like to keep the same feel/style (he wants to try a totem rager) but how do we make it fit the party without completely gimping it. As a side note, even his hp total is an issue atm.

2. The same goes for my character, I'm guessing ToB is completely out in terms of power, but I would like to play something similar in style.

The major concern is that these two characters have to fit the current power level, but also match up to the cleric/sorcerer if/when they get decent spells (or choose them)

Any advice would be appreciated.

[Gildedragon]

Well the spellcasters are still at a low level; they won't get to their full power until later. It's part of the classes that you have less HP at the start and measly powers, but it's in a few levels' time that you can better gauge them.

Relax, play along for now as is; if the DM accepted them trust your DM for now. See if you feel overpowered once you've gone in, then talk with the other players if you're too mighty and fix like that.

[darklink_shadow]

I'm making some assumptions here, but you're playing 3.5 with access to any source books?

Play a druid who shape shifts and prestige's into Master of Many Forms. I played this (with the help of a friend who basically held my hand while we built him) and at lower levels I was pretty nifty, but dealing completely sane damage, and then later on in levels when our party wizard was off slaying gods, I was doing respectable damage and crowd control, plus acting as the party scout (I would shape shift into a wisp, which is invisible and look at things.)

At one point in time, after we got very high leveled, I turned into a colossal ooze, and destroyed an entire underwater city!

For the barbarian, well, he won't scale well. And I have no real ideas for him. I don't like the raging barbarian at all, either, so I haven't done any looking into that sort of stuff.

But for you, while I was finding words and stuff for my post I found the old forum we referenced a lot to build my master of many forms druid guy!

http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19528526/updated_Master_of_Many_Forms_Bible__official_wild_ shape_rules

EDIT:
Also, since you choose what to shape shift into, you can self-moderate your power level. You COULD turn into the fleshraking demon dino of doom, or just a regular dino if you wanted. And with more research, you can find forms that do crazy good things! And the roleplaying is great.

I once shapeshifted into a chain devil, convinced a party of other chain devils that I was lost, and my unit had been wiped out (hell was sieging heaven...) and convinced them to let me join them because I was a great juggler. I then used my perform Juggle skill and fascinated them all, allowing my team to sneak up and blow them into bits during the sneak attack round they got.

[Tene]

Well the spellcasters are still at a low level; they won't get to their full power until later. It's part of the classes that you have less HP at the start and measly powers, but it's in a few levels' time that you can better gauge them.

Relax, play along for now as is; if the DM accepted them trust your DM for now. See if you feel overpowered once you've gone in, then talk with the other players if you're too mighty and fix like that.

Hence the problem, I do trust the dm, and agree with him that's it's no fun for anyone if the party is split into two power tiers.

However, I have absolutely no idea how to go about building melee's that don't eclipse low level damage focused casters etc, but don't collapse later.

For example if you want a dragon tail at level 9, you have to take it at level 1. And from then on you have two attacks, same with innate slams, bites, etc.
Same goes for shocktrooper/leap attack if you want those then you have to use your early feats to qualify.

Simply put it's no fun to be the guy who cast mmissile for 2d4+2 when someone else is attacking for 30 or 40, but how do you avoid being the second guy and still wind up with a viable character?

[darklink_shadow]

Mm, I just tried to make a fun melee character who would be pretty good at every level, with the added bonus of being a monk, so he can't lose his gear because he doesn't bother with that...


It has a little bit of alignment bull****ting but..

Monk 2
Cleric 1 (go Dwarf domain plsu whatever you want, just to get the free feat, this build is feat intensive)
Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian (Gives you pounce! Just roleplay a shift from lawful to chaotic in your back story since you are starting at this level)
Follow up with 3 levels of Fist of the Forest
Sword Sage 1, for needed manuevers for:
Shadow Sun Ninja (take 10 levels of this!)

Pretty solid guy, and he seems barbarous enough to me.

And he is decent at all levels, and scales well into later game.

Also, you have to carefully plan skill points, but I manage with an int of 8 and being human to get every skill I needed just in time for each prestige.

Also, I am going to bed! Good luck!

[Darrin]

Simply put it's no fun to be the guy who cast mmissile for 2d4+2 when someone else is attacking for 30 or 40, but how do you avoid being the second guy and still wind up with a viable character?

Factotum or Bard. The Factotum can help out anywhere, and can quickly re-adapt to fit any situation. Tailor your SLAs with buffs, and focus on helping the Sorcerer. The Bard is also "make other people look better" kind of class. Bards can do all the buffing, skillmonkey, and party face stuff, and then later when the rest of the players get better at optimization, you can "discover" Dragonfire Inspiration and crack the planet in half.

However, it looks like the crux of the problem is the sorcerer's player. Some people just don't "get" optimization, and sometimes a player will eventually "get" it but decide that they absolutely do not want any part of it. But we'll give the sorcerer the benefit of the doubt. You can try between-session coaching, make sure he has access to the best sourcebooks, and try to show by example, but this is very difficult to do without just screaming at the top of your lungs "Let me rewrite your character sheet for crissakes!" Your best bet is to talk to the DM and ask him if he can offer some of the "optimizers in training" access to the PHBII retraining rules so they can retool their characters as they get better at it.