Power Builder Overshadowing other members of party

[ThatHobbitGuy]

We are all relatively new to dnd, and we are playing a 3.5 campaign, but someone in our group has been playing a lot longer than any of us and is playing a really powerful barbarian. We are all level 1s and in our party, we have a paladin of chaos/the sun, a minotaur barbarian, a charismatic rogue and me, a grey elf wizard. The problem is not him, he is being really good not using all of his power and playing his character well, but a little help optimising my wizard would be appreciated to make sure he is not just doing everything for the party, and advice for helping the others would be helpful, but I do not know there builds in much detail.
I am a grey elf wizard, with the feats celestial familiar (Lantern Archon), nymphs kiss, Precocious Apprentice and Collegiate wizard.

Thanks in advance!

[Lorddenorstrus]

You're all level one? Well guess what. Minotaur is an LA+2 race that's supposed to have 6 racial hit dice. I assume he forgot the RHD. But that Barbarian is NOT level one like you guys are.

[Efrate]

How is a minotaur barbarian in a party with level 1s? A first level minotaurs character between hd and la is equal to a 9th level character, so it's no surprise if you feel outshone. Unless he is playing a Krynn minotaur.

Assuming you are playing with a Krynn minotaur, he should be better early with you being better late. Martial characters are pretty good at low levels before caster power comes online, and assuming you get 3 flaws by your feat list that is a lot of mileage for a martial.

[Maat Mons]

Dragonlance Campaign Setting has a version of Minotaur with +0 LA and no racial hit dice. It's basically Orc, but with the Wis penalty switched to Dex.

Edit: Some people like to call it the Krynn Minotaur, to differentiate it from the one in the Monster Manual. I personally prefer to call it the Krynnotaur.

Edit 2: Ninja-ed!

[CharonsHelper]

Unless he is playing a Krynn minotaur.

Frankly - even Krynn minotaurs are rather OP. They get +4 STR, and their -2 DEX is more than negated by their +2 natural armor. The gore attack is just gravy. Their only actual drawback is the -2 WIS, which is hardly game-breaking, as you can save stat points on STR to negate it and still have a higher STR than other characters.

They're really on the cusp of being +1 LA, and they're definitely more powerful than some of the lower tier +1 LA races.

[Silvercrys]

Sounds like you have flaws and took some of the best feats in the game and have a +Int race.

It's kind of just the way things go around here, at levels 1-5 the martials (particularly Barbarian) are going to carry fights unless you have save or sucks like Sleep to use. If you don't have one yet, I'd grab a light crossbow so you have something to do when you don't want to use a spell.

Around level 13 you get phenomenal cosmic power while they just get to hit things more times with bigger numbers.

What spells do you know? I think that's the only thing you could improve so far.

[daremetoidareyo]

What spells do you have that make the barbarian paladin and thief even better at their shticks?

You don't need all of the glory, you can make them juggernauts of destruction and use that as social leverage against your mutual enemies.

What is your familiar?

[Silvercrys]

What is your familiar?Think it's a Lantern Archon from Celestial Familiar.

Though I think that's technically an illegal choice for level 1, the Book of Exalted Deeds says you need to be 7th level to select one (though the feat may have been printed elsewhere).

[daremetoidareyo]

Jowgen has a lantern archon abuse thread somewhere on here.

[heavyfuel]

Some people have mentioned this but they haven't given the calculations.

Basically, every character in the game has an Effective Character Level (ECL for short), which is the sum of three things:

1- Your class levels;
2- Your Racial Hit Dice;
3- Your Level Adjustment.

In the case of your wizard, you have 1 class level (wizard), and no racial hit dice or level adjustment (grey elf), so your ECL is 1.

In the case of the barbarian, he has 1 class level (barbarian), 6 racial hit dice and 2 level adjustment (minotaur), so his ECL is 9.

You can find stats for the Minotaur both in the table as well as in the description of "Minotaurs as characters"


Racial Hit Dice: A minotaur begins with six levels of monstrous humanoid, which provide 6d8 Hit Dice, a base attack bonus of +6, and base saving throw bonuses of Fort +2, Ref +5, and Will +5.

[...]

Level adjustment +2.

He is literally playing a character with the the equivalent strength of a 9th level character, not a 1st level one.

[ThatHobbitGuy]

Ok, the barbarian thing makes much more sense now. Thank you all.

[Silvercrys]

Ok, the barbarian thing makes much more sense now. Thank you all.Well, he might not actually be a level 9 character. Ask which Minotaur he's using, and if it isn't the one from Dragonlance/Krynn, it's probably much stronger than he's supposed to be.

[Mato]

This is one of those threads where you'd better read the post and not the title.

The problem is not him, he is being really good not using all of his power and playing his character well
The complaints are not centered on the possibly ECL1 barbarian (Kyrnn's minotaur race has no RHD or LA). Rather the OP feels like he is under-performing.

So what's he running?

I am a grey elf wizard, with the feats celestial familiar (Lantern Archon), nymphs kiss, Precocious Apprentice and Collegiate wizard.That's four feats at the first level using gray elf, and you cannot select a lantern archon as a familiar until level 7. So to repeat things, do not get hung up on the optimizer's choice of race is probably better than your own. The OP has more feats than he should have and is selecting options that far exceeds his level. This may be intentional to make up for player-skill related discrepancies, or unintentional and makes the wizard stronger than it should be.



Instead, I suggest looking at this part.

a little help optimising my wizard would be appreciated to make sure he is not just doing everything for the party, and advice for helping the others would be helpful,He's new to D&D. While experienced players know enough to expect a mundane class to typically out pace a spellcaster in terms of repeatable combat damage at low levels, the OP does not.

@OP, I'd suggest god-style (https://www.enworld.org/threads/treantmonks-guide-to-wizards-being-a-god-in-d-d-3-5-treantmonklvl20-cantripn-tsuyoshi-dan2.471542/). An optimized wizard doesn't focus on dealing damage in combat like a redundant party member, but solving problems outside them.