Low Budget Adventurer!

[Krazzman]

Hello again Playground,

I'm thinking about this for quite some time now and somehow it came up quite a few times in my old group. A few of you might have experienced the horror of a DM that likes to play low wealth and steal from the party.
Now, I know that some sort of loss can be a good adventurehook but having around 10k wealth added together at level 10 sometimes just doesn't feel right.
Or maybe your DM said low wealth campaign because of a big inflation or a low magic Items campaign (aka +1 Weapons are rare as heck) as just two examples?

I tried to play a few things against this in some one-shots one of my old dm's prepared for us. Sorcerer, Wizard and Druid rarely need Gold to be effective... as long as the Wizard guards his Spellbook. A Cleric too but they "have" more need for armor than those other 3. But they sort of need gold for spells too sometimes. Or sometimes you just don't want to play one of the T1/T2 classes or sometimes they are... banned.
I even tried out Monk or Soulknife for this but they sort of need more gold to get around a few things.
In our current group this doesn't come up, maybe in our Pathfinder group but there we try to get aruond this with crafting stuff.

Now how would you build a Character that can still contribute perfectly with as little money as possible, without Vow of Poverty or being a T1/T2 class that can have a tool against everything ready? Allowed Sources being limited due my availability (Core [+ Part II], Faerun, Completes, Races Of, ToB, MoI, MIC, Dungeonscape and Spell Compendium; [and maybe Unearthed Arcana]).

My initial thought was something along a Raptoran for getting Flight in an easy way going with Incarnate ( or Dip it and then going another T3/T4 Class) depending on role.

But how would you go into this "challenge"?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Incarnum classes would probably do pretty well in such an environment. Ditto ToB classes, who can probably get by OK with only basic weapons and armor-- and an unarmed Swordsage can get by without either. You might want to make them Raptoran or Dragonborn for the free flight.

[only1doug]

Warlock

'nuff said

[prufock]

Warlock and Factotum can contribute pretty well with low wealth. Binders too, I guess. Incarnate, Totemist, ToB classes, Barbarian, and Bard can all be useful with low wealth. Wilder and Psychic Warrior could do fine, maybe a Psychic Rogue. Wildshape Ranger variant would do okay, as would the Mystic Ranger variant.

I would personally go Factotum or Binder, I think.

[Telonius]

Warlock and Incarnum were my first two thoughts, followed quickly by Druid (but that's disallowed).

[wayfare]

Divine Bard is really useful in this situation. Soulknife or Kensai also become pretty decent too.

Dragon Fire Adept can survive fairly well too.

[Sgt. Cookie]

Hm, let's see. Warlock 5/Warblade 5

Warlock Invocations: Eldritch Glaive, Baleful Utterance and... Spiderwalk. EB damage of 3d6, better than pretty much any normal blade.

Warblade, we start at IL 3, so:

Warblade 1:
Maneuvers: Steel Wind, Mountain Hammer, Action Before Thought
Stance: Punishing Stance

Warblade 2:
Maneuver: Moment of Perfect Mind

Warblade 3:
Maneuver: Bonecrusher

Warblade 4:
Stance: Any

Warblade 5:
Maneuver: Ruby Nightmare blade

Stat priority:
Dex>Con>Int>Cha>Str>Wis

Feats:
L1: Mortalbane (BoVD)
L3: Weapon Finesse
L6: Aberrant Blood
L9: Inhuman Reach
Bonus: Combat Reflexes

Eldritch Glaive makes your Eldritch Blast a Melee Touch Attack, allowing you to use it in conjunction with ToB Maneuvers.

EB base damage is 3d6, Punishing Stance adds 2d6 for a total of 5d6 and Mortal Bane can, 5 times per day, add another 2d6 for a grand total of 7d6, not too shabby. But we can get more, Bonecrusher adds an extra 4d6, so 11d6 damage total 5/day, or 9d6 all day long. Without making ANY checks, as a touch attack. Useful for when you need to hit something, hard. Steel Wind lets you hit two people simultaneously, which is nice.

Since we have Ruby Nightmare Blade, we can double the damage (to 10d6 or 14d6 5/day) with a successful Concentration Check, should be more than doable at level 10, with a 16+ Concentration modifier to the check.

Because this is all EB damage or an enhancement to, it isn't subject to Damage Reduction, meaning you don't need to spend money on all those pesky different weapon types.

Baleful Utterance is Shatter At-will. You know how useful this is.

Mountain Hammer: Hardness is no match for you!

Aberrant blood and Inhuman reach: Gives you an extra 5ft reach to your Eldritch Glaive. 'Nuff said.

Do it as a Raptorn and you can fly, too.

[Amidus Drexel]

If you're willing to sacrifice a maneuver, taking Warlock 6/Warblade 4 will get you one of the lesser invocations, and you shouldn't lose any initiator levels.

[Barsoom]

Needs moar Combat Reflexes.

[Sgt. Cookie]

*rechecks ToB* Huh, you're right. Combat Reflexes is a Warblade Bonus Feat.

[Hellwyrm]

Eldritch Glaive makes your Eldritch Blast a Melee Touch Attack, allowing you to use it in conjunction with ToB Maneuvers.

Unfortunately, Eldritch Glaive requires a full round action to activate, so it cannot be used in conjunction with strikes.
Eldritch Claws, from a dragon magazine, can't remember the exact one right now, could be used.

[tiercel]

Crafting feats are awfully strong in a low-money world, in terms of making your wealth go further. If it's a lot easier to get XP than gold, then having a way of turning XP into gold is a big deal.

Of course if your DM is serious about a low-resource world, he will have limited/banned crafting feats too.

The short answer, in agreement with previous posters, is any significant full caster / near full-caster who has zero-gold access to his list of spells (or "spells", since we could be talking anything that works like spells, e.g. psionic powers, incarnum, binder abilities, warlock/dragonfire adept invocations, ToB maneuvers, etc).

If you can get your recommended RDA of boosts and abilities without having to rely on equipment -- i.e. some kind of full caster -- you'll be fine, you'll just have to rely on your class abilities a little more than someone decked out with enough magic gear to look like Times Square to anyone running detect magic.

[Mithril Leaf]

If the base tier ones are banned, you can always make faux tier ones. The Rainbow Warsnake for example. Psion is also a solid choice, especially shaper.

[Krazzman]

Quite a bunch of replies:

@Everyone:
First thanks. I appreciate your input so far. The Warlockblade Build from Sgt. Cookie was more or less the thing I searched for.
Definite Build, explained why going that way and a role other than full caster.

To specify what I am searching for: tricks and tactics you would use in a low wealth campaign without Full casters. What Items do you think still are "I totally need this".

Meldshaping, Binding, Warlock/DFA, and Maneuvers seem to be the main things to overcome this "burden" of being poor. But what specific things would you do to mitigate it?