Slight Quandry

[Mrc.]

Ok, so now that I'm off to university, my dad has asked me to join his group. Currently they're playing 4E, but when they finish the campaign/when online support runs out, they'll be doing one 5E and one 3.5 campaign. I've not played 3.5 in about 7 years, and I can't remember a huge amount, but the issue I have here is with my dad.

I know that he dislikes a lot of the openly broken tricks, and even things that shut down encounters are looked on disapprovingly, primarily because he thinks none of us are having fun. I haven't played with his group before, but from what he tells me (I help out with ideas and story, although he's very good at these already), there's one notable Powergamer and the rest fall into basic optimisation levels (they don't take obviously pointless feats, but nothing like on here). They're all decent guys, and there won't be a problem gelling.

The problem is, what to play? I don't claim to be anything close to a master of optimisation, but I can probably optimise any class better than the group. The group invests a lot of time and effort into story apparently, so it isn't just about numbers, but if I were to play a support class such as a bard, I'd likely be an integral member of the group. Unfortunately, we now return to the issue I mentioned previously. A lot of Bard tricks are quite powerful, and if I'm in a party with a lot of weaker guys, I doubt I'll be allowed to pull them. This is further complicated by not knowing exactly what books my dad has, although I do seem to remember something about Frostfell or something. Bards get great stuff out of core, but I worry that my dad will nerf it too hard and I'll become a wonky wheel.

I understand his point, and I think we all know the frustration of someone optimising a character to a much higher level than the rest of the party, making them redundant, but I think he associates optimisation with optimisation at the expense of everything else.

So what do I do? The campaign isn't likely to start for a while, and I have a good bit of time to prepare, but knowing the group they'll end up playing something silly like 5 fighters and a sorcerer, which is why I thought of going for a support class. I can build a character to fill any hole (hehehe) so I may well end up having to pull powerful tricks to cover obvious weaknesses. Which puts me at loggerheads with my dad.

Any and all advice is appreciated, and I realise I haven't given you much to go on here but it's still early days.

[Diovid]

You could try to optimize a tier 4 or below support class instead of bard, in other words Healer or Marshal. It's unlikely either of those will be nerfed and they can provide you with an optimization challenge which is a plus.

[Mrc.]

You could try to optimize a tier 4 or below support class instead of bard, in other words Healer or Marshal. It's unlikely either of those will be nerfed and they can provide you with an optimization challenge which is a plus.

One of the problems is that I don't know what books are available. I know there's core and all the MM's, but I don't think either of those were in core. Still, it's a possibility so thanks!

For Healer, it's just a case of put a good number of points into primary casting stat and go from there, right? I don't recall ever having seen it, but like I said it's been about 7 years. Marshal works really well at low levels from what I can gather, it just drops off when the numerical bonuses it grants aren't worth it.

[Fax Celestis]

You could do straight Crusader, play a tanky sort of support type.

I find feat rogues (variant class in UA that trades sneak attack for fighter feats) to make pretty capable supporting combatants: they have a lower HD and BAB, sure, but they get skill ranks to support their feat usage.

Dragon Shamans are widely regarded as pretty mediocre, but you could try one of those.

You could play something with some RHD: I like lizardfolk myself, and they make interesting totemists and binders, both of which should be pretty fair as long as you stay away from broken tricks and pounce.

Spellthieves make great support characters in a party wth a lot of casters: they can steal spells from opponents as a sort of debuff, or act as a force multiplier by providing buffs to their allies.

Psychic warriors are a prime source of cheese (cf: King of Smack), but if you play nice they can be pretty cool. I like archer psywars, using prevenom and strength of my enemy as debuff tactics to make the party more capable.

[Gildedragon]

Factotums are great support characters. As long as you don't cunning surge all the time you're golden. I'd personally use the surge to set actions up
Feats: nymphs kiss, bind vestige, FoI couple times...
Throw in a 1-2 dip in swordsage for mobility maneuvers and savage skald to get bardic music and you got an ever handy fella

[Mrc.]

Thanks for the replies guys, I'm sorry I can't give you more to go on. I had debated going for straight wizard so I could match my level to that of the rest of the party, but rather worryingly I found out that the optimiser wants to go with wizard. He's a great guy, and he doesn't optimise to solve everything at everyone else's expense, but he does turn it up to 11 at times. He only joined the group with 4E, so I don't think he has a real appreciation of just how large the optimisation ceiling for wizards is. Still, I doubt he'll pull anything beyond lots of battlefield control, as apparently that is his schtick in the 4E campaign.

I think I'll wait until I know more about both what everyone else is going with and what books are available. I'm pretty certain psionics are off the table, as is ToB. Not because they are broken or anything, but because I don't think anyone actually has them sadly.

Of course, if the party ends up as 6 wizards or 6 paladins or something else that could be fun but will likely prove very glass cannon-ish, I might decline, but they're all quality guys and most of them have been playing for longer than I've been alive, so I think they have seniority at the very least.