Play lame, Win game.

[Reprimand]

In the fighting game community the term lame is used for optimal but incredibly non commital playstyles that put the user at almost zero risk or force opponents to put them themselves at incredible risk to combat the lame strategy. Is there a concept or character build that embodies this principle at all levels? I dont want to be op or broken just the ability to drastically limit my opponents options to force then to play "my game" or deal with a particular gimmick with no real weaknesses but not nessicarily great strengths. Or one incredibility specific weakness or counter play.

Allowed sources are core + completes (adventurer arcane divine warrior etc.) Phb2 spell compendium magic item compendium expanded psionics unearthed arcana races of X books (destiny stone wild)

[Arcanist]

You're looking for the Batman Wizard (155000www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?104002-3-5e-The-Logic-Ninja-s-Guide-to-Wizards-Being-Batman) with a bit of Trentmonk's God-Wizard (http://bg-archive.minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=394.0).

You generally are going to want to use your magic to alleviate or quickly resolve as many issues as possible. Higher levels, you're going to use Divination to prepare your spells and resources according to what you expect to happen and act accordingly.

[noob]

You're looking for the Batman Wizard (155000www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?104002-3-5e-The-Logic-Ninja-s-Guide-to-Wizards-Being-Batman) with a bit of Trentmonk's God-Wizard (http://bg-archive.minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=394.0).

You generally are going to want to use your magic to alleviate or quickly resolve as many issues as possible. Higher levels, you're going to use Divination to prepare your spells and resources according to what you expect to happen and act accordingly.

Take batman wizard or god wizard but as a cleric with initiate of mystra.(because antimagic zones and dead magic zones are very common when the gm is intentionally trying to shut down a caster)
Also do not bother self buffing your own attacks: it makes your allies angry and your actions are better spent on doing other stuff than swinging a weapon.

[MeimuHakurei]

Take batman wizard or god wizard but as a cleric with initiate of mystra.(because antimagic zones and dead magic zones are very common when the gm is intentionally trying to shut down a caster)
Also do not bother self buffing your own attacks: it makes your allies angry and your actions are better spent on doing other stuff than swinging a weapon.

You can't really avoid self-buffing as an efficient Cleric since Divine Power + Righteous Might cannot be cast on others. Group buffs work, however, since they tend to have a fixed range that is compatible with DMM Persist.

[noob]

You can't really avoid self-buffing as an efficient Cleric since Divine Power + Righteous Might cannot be cast on others. Group buffs work, however, since they tend to have a fixed range that is compatible with DMM Persist.

If you are not going to swing a weapon why bother casting divine power and righteous might?
You might instead use that spell that does 10d6 as a free action each turn if you really want to harm opponents directly.
Then during battle use wizard and/or cleric spells depending on the situation because there is ways to get tons of cool wizard spells as a cleric.(from the acf that allows you to grab wizard spell to the variant domains and so on)

[Arcanist]

Then during battle use wizard and/or cleric spells depending on the situation because there is ways to get tons of cool wizard spells as a cleric.(from the acf that allows you to grab wizard spell to the variant domains and so on)

There is a solid list (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=1329.0) of stuff you can get from Divine Magician. Unfortunately the list was never truly finished because the author simply lost interest in doing a piece by piece review of all of the decent spells for that ACF.

That said, Initiate of Mystra/Anti-magic Cleric is a fine idea too. Just make sure you go the standard Twice-Betrayer of Shar line up.


Build: The Twice-Betrayer of Shar


1 Cleric 1 Extend Spell, Reach Spell
2 Cleric 2
3 Cleric 3 Divine Metamagic (reach)
4 Human Paragon 1
5 Human Paragon 2 Ocular Spell
6 Human Paragon 3 Shadow Weave Magic
7 Shadow Adept 1 Tenacious Magic, Pernicious Magic, Insidious Magic
8 Ruathar 1
9 Ruathar 2 Initiate of Mystra
10 Ruathar 3
11 Contemplative 1
12 Divine Disciple 1 Divine Metamagic (ocular)
13 Divine Disciple 2
14 Divine Disciple 3
15 Divine Disciple 4 Persistent Spell
16 Contemplative 2
17 Contemplative 3
18 Contemplative 4 Divine Metamagic (persistent)
19 Contemplative 5
20 Contemplative 6

Race: Human
Salient Special Abilities: Five Domains (Magic, Knowledge, Illusion, Rune and Spell), Divine Health, Divine Body, Sacred Defense +2, Caster Level Check to use magic in antimagic/dead-magic zones
Spellcasting: Level 9 Divine Spells, CL 19
Key Items: Nightsticks, Ankh of Ascension, Nightsticks, Strand of Prayer Beads, Nightsticks, Pale Green Ioun Stone, Orange Ioun Stone, Nightsticks, more Nightsticks.
Flavor: Having forsaken the clergy of Shar and stolen the secrets the Dark Goddess' eyes, the Twice-Betrayer is now utterly devoted to the pure manifestation of eternal magic, Mystra. This unorthodox upstart dares to siphon the Shadow Weave's power and peerlessly spreads enduring magics of unprecedented variety with his dark gaze. True Neutral and lovin' it.

The Trick:
Peristent Spell can only be used on spells of "fixed or personal range," which excludes an awful lot of extremely handy buffing spells, particularly "touch" spells. However, if you apply the Reach Spell metamagic feat, a touch spell become a ray spell with a range of 30 ft. This is a "fixed range" in that it fits only into the PHB range category of "range expressed in feet." Is it now persistable? Sure thing.

But what about those other spells with non-touch, non-personal, non-fixed ranges you might want persistified? Enter "Ocular Spell" from Lords of Madness. It can grant a fixed range of 60 ft to "ray spells and spells with a target other than personal." Now, you and all of your friends can have Persistent buffs chosen from just about every spell on the books. I'll just let your imaginations run wild with the defensive and offensive ramifications of this build.

The Short and Fast of It: The Twice-Betrayer can persistify nearly any spell.


Classes:

Human Paragon: Unearthed Arcana
Shadow Adept: Player's Guide to Faerun
Ruathar: Races of the Wild
Divine Disciple: Player's Guide to Faerun
Contemplative: Complete Divine


Feats:

Divine Metamagic: Complete Divine
Ocular Spell: Lords of Madness
Reach Spell: Complete Divine
Persistent Spell: Complete Arcane
Initiate of Mystra: Player's Guide to Faerun
Extend Spell: Players Handbook
Shadow Weave Magic: Player's Guide to Faerun
Tenacious Magic: Player's Guide to Faerun
Pernicious Magic: Player's Guide to Faerun
Insidious Magic: Player's Guide to Faerun


Spells:

Ilyykur's Mantle: Unapproachable East
Beastland Ferocity: Planar Handbook
Delay Death: Miniatures Handbook
Sheltered Vitality: Libris Mortis




Items:


Ankh of Ascension: Races of Faerun
Nightstick: Libris Mortis
Contingent Spells: Complete Arcane
Custom items created using DMG guidelines, nitty-gritty mathematics are generally irrelevant unless anyone

particularly wants to see the pricing totals.


Helpful List of Immunities:
Immunity (Source)

Death from Damage (Delay Death/Beastland Ferocity)
Disease (Bone Knight 8, Stone Body)
Critical Hits (Bone Knight 10, Stone Body)
Sneak Attack (Bone Knight 10, Stone Body)
Nonlethal Damage (Bone Knight 4, Favor of Ilmater)
Stunning (Bone Knight 4, Stone Body)
Energy Drain/Level Loss (Bone Knight 8, Death Ward)
Ability Damage/Drain (Bone Knight 8, Sheltered Vitality, Stone Body)
Poison (Bone Knight 8, Stone Body)
Suffocation/Drowning (Stone Body)
Antimagic/Dead Magic (Initiate of Mystra)
Pain Effects (Favor of Ilmater)
Dazing (Favor of Ilmater)
Staggering (Favor of Ilmater)
Nauseation (Favor of Ilmater)
Fatigue (Bone Knight 8, Sheltered Vitality, Favor of Ilmater)
Exhaustion (Bone Knight 8, Sheltered Vitality, Favor of Ilmater)
Charms/Compulsions (Favor of Ilmater)
Death Effects (Bone Knight 8, Death Ward)
Grappling (Freedom of Movement)
Sleep Effects (Bone Knight 8)
Fear Effects (Greater Heroism)
Nonmagical Attacks (Eladrin Form)
Death from Massive Damage (Bone Knight 8)


The build uses some older language for some spells like "Favor of Ilmater" was renamed in a later book to "Favor of the Martyr", but overall it is solid build and might be something you're looking for. It might not fly given that your list of books didn't include the campaign setting books, which is why I didn't mention Initiate of Mystra in the first place.

[Reprimand]

I think i have grossly misexplained the concept of "playing the lame game" the lame game is not in itself powerful by any means but its power is from forcing an opponent into an extremely specific scenario from which I can excell. The lame game is not power it is a gimmick. Such as frustrsting a opponent by shooting fireballs from the otherside of the screen in street fighter. While having no incentive to approach and put yourself at risk. Batman god wizard and ddm clerics arent lame theyre just top tier.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Part of the appeal of roleplaying games is that the opponent can't just spam a lame tactic and have you do nothing about it. You can think of novel counters, because your "moveset" isn't as limited. That's why others are listing top-tier options; they're "lame" because they're easy, and you need them because they can actually prevent clever workarounds. Also, being a team game, "forcing the enemy to fight on your terms" using a lame strategy requires buy-in from the group. It's also worth noting that lame strategies don't always work at the high levels, specifically because they're not necessarily all that powerful. It takes a really good Guile player who knows how to use those sonic booms to actually keep someone at bay.

The closest you're going to get to a lame relatively low-power strategy is kiting. Feats like Mounted Archery and Far Shot aren't universally great, but if you're on the fantasy equivalent of the Steppe, you can auto-win against some opponents (which makes sense, since it was effective in the real-world Steppe as well). Step 1: Spot your enemy before they can sneak up on you. Step 2: Stay outside of your enemy's effective range and shoot him. Step 3: If your enemy runs, pursue and keep firing outside of the enemy's effective range; if they pursue you, retreat with your mount and keep firing at a minor penalty.

Your mount is vulnerable to enemies who do have decent effective ranges (like giants with nearby rocks), and if your allies don't buy in then you've become a half-useless hireling who pot shots people from afar while the Real Heroes get beat up and do most of the work. That said, on the Steppe-equivalent, a lone mounted Human Fighter 2 could probably take a group of Ogres by himself using this strategy.

[Castilonium]

I think i have grossly misexplained the concept of "playing the lame game" the lame game is not in itself powerful by any means but its power is from forcing an opponent into an extremely specific scenario from which I can excell. The lame game is not power it is a gimmick. Such as frustrsting a opponent by shooting fireballs from the otherside of the screen in street fighter. While having no incentive to approach and put yourself at risk. Batman god wizard and ddm clerics arent lame theyre just top tier.

I don't think comparing a 1v1 PVP game (fighting games) and a co-op PVE game (tabletop roleplaying games) really works when trying to translate "playing lame" over to the latter. It's apples to oranges. But the gimmicks you're looking for are probably martial one-trick-pony builds. Some examples in Pathfinder:

• A build that can grapple, pin, and tie up an enemy all in one round. All an opponent can do is have an incredibly high CMD or having Freedom of Movement ahead of time.
• A build that easily applies status effects that make the target unable to act, like frighten/panic with Cornugon Smash (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/cornugon-smash-combat/) + Soulless Gaze (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/damnation-feats/soulless-gaze-damnation). All an opponent can do is be immune to certain conditions ahead of time.
• A build with high stealth and a feat (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/path-of-war/feats/lurker-in-darkness-general/) that allows you to not be automatically detected by special senses like Blindsense. All an opponent can do is use readied actions to try and hit you when you un-stealth to attack.

[Rawrawrawr]

A reach + tripper build sounds like it might be up your alley. You sit back and force your enemies to approach you, but also stop them before they can actually reach you.

The gist of the build is that you have reach, so you can attack enemies from further away than they can attack you. If they move closer to you, they provoke an attack of opportunity, which you can use to trip them so they can't actually get close enough to attack you. If they stand up, they provoke another attack of opportunity, which you can use to trip them again. You can see search "Horizon Tripper" or "Chain Tripper" for some fairly basic builds and more details on how they work in play.

The core components are Guisarme or Spiked Chain, and the Combat Reflexes and Improved Trip feats. Generally, you'll want a way to become large, too. You can also add in things like Stand Still (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicFeats.htm#standStill) or Knock-down (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm#knockDown) feats pretty easily, and the Wolf Totem Barbarian (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#wolfTotemClassFeatures ) can be used to get Improved Trip without the Intelligence requirement.

As far as classes go, since you really only need two feats, you can be more-or-less anything. Tome of Battle helps with all things melee, Psychic Warrior provides native access to the Expansion power, Fighter helps get the feats you need quickly, Wolf Totem Barbarian lets you dump Int, etc.

[noob]

A reach + tripper build sounds like it might be up your alley. You sit back and force your enemies to approach you, but also stop them before they can actually reach you.

The gist of the build is that you have reach, so you can attack enemies from further away than they can attack you. If they move closer to you, they provoke an attack of opportunity, which you can use to trip them so they can't actually get close enough to attack you. If they stand up, they provoke another attack of opportunity, which you can use to trip them again. You can see search "Horizon Tripper" or "Chain Tripper" for some fairly basic builds and more details on how they work in play.

The core components are Guisarme or Spiked Chain, and the Combat Reflexes and Improved Trip feats. Generally, you'll want a way to become large, too. You can also add in things like Stand Still (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicFeats.htm#standStill) or Knock-down (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm#knockDown) feats pretty easily, and the Wolf Totem Barbarian (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#wolfTotemClassFeatures ) can be used to get Improved Trip without the Intelligence requirement.

As far as classes go, since you really only need two feats, you can be more-or-less anything. Tome of Battle helps with all things melee, Psychic Warrior provides native access to the Expansion power, Fighter helps get the feats you need quickly, Wolf Totem Barbarian lets you dump Int, etc.
It is not lame as the poster defined: absolutely everything but melee combat counters that.
damage archers counters, wizard killed you in a dream fifty year ago or if somehow you met the wizard you still die swarmed by ice assassins or you die because the wizard made his allies unbeatable or you die to battlefield control, the cleric can just explode you either with free action blasting hitting you for 430d6 or just by shooting at you with a bow or by being so impossible to hit that you can not even dream of hitting the cleric then closing in and meleeing or just by doing anything a wizard could.
Let us not start on the druid with an animal companion that have more reach than you and have all the op options of clerics and wizards too(if you try to get them).
Heck even a commoner can beat a tripper because the commoner can dedicate its wealth to scrolls,partially charged staves and to an item boosting its use magic device checks.
So we discover that if you plan to do a tripper stock up on scrolls and do like the commoner.
Heck I am even sure that a tob based character that combines shadow hand and then the classical "all the full round attacks ever"(time stand still and the like) can beat a tripper.

[tiercel]

Computer game strategies can be hacked because computers can’t not follow the rules of the game, even if they lead to idiotic/lame consequences.

DMs generally can’t be hacked because tabletop games aren’t rigidly RAW games. If there would be an idiotic/lame consequence, the DM can and generally should just say “no, that doesn’t happen” to infinite loops etc. and rules what happens instead.

The difference lies in playstyle and what different groups consider “lame”; some groups might not tolerate Divine Metamagic: Persist shenanigans while others might consider all metamagic cost-reduction as not only acceptable but standard.

The other thing is that pretty much anything “lame” has an actual counter in D&D since encounters can happen so many ways. Minimally, counters include “this is really boring to do every time,” “I can’t do anything if I can’t do my One Trick Pony routine,” or “BBEGs can do this too / did it first.”

[noob]

Of course there is an exception if your tripper reached a reach of "even with a telescope I can not see as far as I can do opportunity attacks" And that you removed the cap in opportunity attacks(there is an epic feat for that) and that you properly kill the stuff you hit (and have ways against stuff like total cover and miss chances and immortality) and that any movement triggers your opportunity attacks(you need thicket of blades and some way to always do opportunity attacks on teleporting people) in which case the main counter is just more casting or go into TO(so it nearly fits the definition of lame made by the creator of the thread).