3.5 Advice desired on keeping party alive.

[Grimm2769]

So here's the thing. I would like the giants to toss me some advice on balancing tiers and high level game play. As a note I am trying to avoid heavily optimizing my class. Details will help. New campaign starting. level 16 (I'm 15 I'll explain) set to go on into the epic area. Myself and DM are rather experienced in play and DM work. 3 man part with my artificer, A druid most likely, and 3rd is as of yet undecided but has always favored rogue. DM may also choose to throw in a NPC as a fourth. Now the other two players are relatively inexperienced with D&D having only played maybe 4 or 6 campaigns total. what I would sincerely appreciate is advice on a broad scale.

Campaign is set in a homebrew world with a demi-plane serving as a battleground between two large multi-planar factions warring for supremacy. We will likely serve as a commando team trying to sway the balance. however we may also find ourselves in the middle of a LOT of mooks. either undead or standard humanoid-ish. there may be some downtime between missions or extra-planar missions.
Pretty much anything is in for books and even home brewing and only stuffs labeled as blatant optimization or cheese is punished. DM will likely see and comment in this thread. as for my lvl it is cause it gives me 15K xp to craft with. with the info out this is what I would like.
Tips on my build. I'm trying to build enough so that I can help keep the two newer players from getting accidentally wiped. so any advice on spells for items and generally coverage I should know about would be awesome. First time playing a high level artificer, in seriousness. second is some tips on helping my friend run his druid beyond "take wildshape casting and win". Also not so experienced on Rogues but she will likely play a mix of disguise and bluff rogue with not as much combat capability. usually essentially a bit of a skill monkey.
I am a warforged who is currently considering a small mix of Homunculi and some blastificing with combo'ed etch schema and the artisan feats. afraid I may be stretching a bit thin and may decide to focus on one instead. side notes. class is adjusted so that I get a additional craft reserve that is unlimited. total is 15 * artificer level ; ie 225. I have standard lvl 16 WBL.
As a note I greatly enjoy DM's gaming style but he is a touch ruthless with these 2 factions. they are old creations and are made of semi elite groups. generally if a individual is above level 5 or has int better than 8 they don't make mistakes. not all knowing but rarely unprepared and few "missed weaknesses" The higher ups learned from history and don't get comfortable in their power because they get killed for doing so. thus my desire for flexibilty and a certain degree of power. Also this war is the direct results of actions by one of our prior parties in a BESM game so that's how we already have experience with these groups. Undead and fiends mainly on one side with mainly "standard" races and elementals on other side. our side is as of yet unchosen. party may go either way on the alignment chart.
Ask if you need more info. Hope that wasn't too long winded or unspecific.


TL;DR want advice on how to not accidentally the whole party and so I came to ask for the wisdom of the playground.

[Phelix-Mu]

My favorite tactic is to design some aspect of my character intentionally lower optimization, and then challenge myself by making that character into the strongest character that build can manage. As you've already picked artificer, I'm not sure this approach would work, but perhaps you can figure on some device that works similarly.

For instance, perhaps your character really likes familiars. Devote a few feats to having a cool familiar. This is not a particularly optimized direction to go in, but by accepting some low-optimization into your character design, you lower the overall impact your character is going to have on gameplay.

A great deal of the impact that casters/infusers have on the game depends on how they use their spells and such. By simply not using them optimally, or mostly using them to buff other characters, then you won't hog the spotlight. Buffing is some of the best stuff that an artificer can do, so focus items crafted on support items, like wands with buffs for allies, items to improve the artificer's UMD rolls (so you can UMD the good buffs), and maybe even make some items for the other party members once the campaign starts going.

I would suggest for your friend's druid that the animal companion can be a very effective class feature. Companion Spellbond from PHB2 is a good feat for making share spells a more useful class feature. The venomfire spell from Serpent Kingdoms is very good (maybe too good), and can give any animal companion a very competitive damage output.

[Grimm2769]

I plan on focusing on buffing them as my primary roll. not only are my infusions great for this but i can and will have wands and scrolls and schema to allow me to buff, heal, and do utility other than combat. looking at point blank shot and precise shot combo'ed with wand mastery and cull wand essence to allow me to help in combat with pewpew. Mainly for combat though I will be focused and buffing and using my homunculi to fight. trying to figure out ways to decrease their chances of spontaneously combusting around casters but that's proving hard.
Oh and we do have some access to traits and flaws.
As for druid buddy i think he wants to play a kind of quasi-russian "I will kill you with my bear hands and summons bears and probably has a bag of bear tricks kind of druid.
Oh and also plan on making things for party once in game. party crafter wooo