Most powerful low level character options for 3e (NOT 3.5e) in a 1e-style game?

[Gavinfoxx]

So I've managed to convince a friend of mine that his GM is a micromanaging, oppositional, power-mad, railroading bastard that wouldn't know good storytelling or understand the concept of player and character agency if it reared up and bit him.

I have not, however, managed to convince my friend to just up and quit the game, or try for an actual sane, respectful talk with his gm (we're both of the opinion that wouldn't work). Instead, he is of a mind to 'break the railroad' and obtain vengeance on his GM for wasting two years of his weekends keeping him in the dark about how this hobby actually worked.

Now, his GM is vaguely of the 1e/Old School Gygaxian Roleplay type school, though only somewhat and he only does it with middling levels of competence. That said, the books in use are 'All 3e books'. Not 3.5e, not D20, not Pathfinder 1e, but 3e. And of course, 'all' doesn't mean the Diablo books or anything that isn't the mainstream D&D 3e game. So, my question is, if any new character comes in at 1st level (though will level fairly quickly), with rolled stats, and essentially no wealth by level or ability to buy or obtain necessary magical items (or hirelings, or animals).. what are (say) the top three most expedient, least arguable, earliest-functioning by-the-rules methods to wrench player and player-character power back from such a GM? What are some of the lowest level mechanisms to break a railroaded game off the tracks?

[TalonOfAnathrax]

This seems like a messy, spiteful thing to do, and I'm not certain it's a good idea.

Anyway, here are the things that are most immediately broken in 3.0 that I can still remember !

1 : Play a Diplomancer Bard, and abuse Glibness as early as possible. You can buy/craft potions of Glibness.
2 : Play a Druid in a party of monks. It's simple, but obvious and effective. Don't be a healbot, just go fight with your animal companion.
3 : Candles of Invocation loop (a bit obviously gamebreaking, but powerful). Just play a Cleric to try to hide your intentions from this seemingly clueless GM, save up, and buy one as early as possible.
4 : Save up all your treasure for a level, hire a single high-level spellcaser for a day (using DMG rules) and have them singlehandedly pulp the BBEG. This will obviously require GM cooperation, but whatever.
5 : Leadership, I guess.

I still miss the 3.0 boots of striding and springing (and the old Haste), but those definitely aren't gamebreaking on their own.

This is all from Core, of course. If Savage Species is allowed, for example, you can go crazier.

[Gavinfoxx]

What if it's essentially a no-treasure, no-cash, no wealth, no-purchasing game? The player didn't know that buying magic items (or hirelings, or guard animals) was a thing, and they don't have any money to anyway. The GM's been giving out essentially no treasure, and they've no means to identify the few random items they do sometimes get.

Wasn't there something funny about how animal companions worked in 3e?

[MeimuHakurei]

What if it's essentially a no-treasure, no-cash, no wealth, no-purchasing game? The player didn't know that buying magic items (or hirelings, or guard animals) was a thing, and they don't have any money to anyway. The GM's been giving out essentially no treasure, and they've no means to identify the few random items they do sometimes get.

Wasn't there something funny about how animal companions worked in 3e?

Vow of Poverty Druid is pretty powerful then. The former mostly negates the absence of treasure, the latter negates low stats.

[Gavinfoxx]

Vow of Poverty Druid is pretty powerful then. The former mostly negates the absence of treasure, the latter negates low stats.

I thought BoVD was 3e, and BoED was 3.5e?

Also, apparently (I just asked), the GM has nixed Druids since they 'don't leave their forests'? Because being proactive to fight threats to nature like the undead, or guarding other biomes never happens, ugh. And he banned Monks because 'they are too powerful'. Though the player MIGHT be able to get Druid allowed, maybe. Wasn't Druid weird in 3e somehow?

[AvatarVecna]

You can't win a d*** measuring contest when one dude's d*** is as long as he wants it to be. Out of character problems can only be solved out of character. No gaming is better than badd gaming.

[Gavinfoxx]

Ah, I found it.
The Animal Friendship spell. Druid 1, Ranger 1, Beastmaster Domain 1. I knew there was something weird with animal companions!

So if the GM doesn't allow Druid, then a Beastmaster Cleric?

[MeimuHakurei]

I thought BoVD was 3e, and BoED was 3.5e?

Also, apparently (I just asked), the GM has nixed Druids since they 'don't leave their forests'? Because being proactive to fight threats to nature like the undead, or guarding other biomes never happens, ugh. And he banned Monks because 'they are too powerful'. Though the player MIGHT be able to get Druid allowed, maybe. Wasn't Druid weird in 3e somehow?

I'm pretty sure the player won't be able to get ahead no matter what, but I'm fine with continuing the discussion of low-power, low-level options for its own sake (since many high-op and TO options take mid- to high levels to reach):

That said, Sorcerers are also pretty good about being not gear dependent. Polymorph is a bit more clunky than Wild Shape for a beatstick (higher level, Sorc having a bad chassis, no Natural Spell) but it can still provide versatile passive defenses. Still, martials are pretty much out of the picture without decent item drops as they won't have the means of damaging most enemies.

[Gavinfoxx]

What are the most powerful low level options for Sorcerers? Something from Savage Species, and some obscure feat or other? Any crazy powerful Sorc spells at level 1 or 2?

[Palanan]

As others have said, don’t do this. It will only make a bad situation that much worse.

If your friend is really that miserable, he needs to leave the game, period. It can feel like a harsh step to take, but that will make a clean break with the situation, rather than prolonging the unpleasantness for who knows how long with a juvenile attempt at payback.

[Gavinfoxx]

So apparently his GM is an elder relative...
*sighs*

I managed to talk him down from wanting to break the game over his knee, to instead just want to 'turn up the fun'.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Well, I mean, if he can scrape together a small amount of money (via feats, maybe?), how about boosting Animal Empathy out the wazoo and getting a titanic warbeast pet? They're 25 HD Gargantuan critters that are super-cheap.

And wasn't UA 3.0? So, gestalt and Item Familiar? How about Leadership abuse?

But as others have said, not a good idea.

[Sinner's Garden]

I'll be honest, these guys are giving you bad advice; you absolutely can "beat" the DM, because he's not an omnipotent god, he's a loser nerd sitting at a table with you. The hard part is figuring out where his lines are so you know where to push him so that he feels defeated, but if he's a relative, then you probably have what you need to sit down with your friend and hash out a gameplan.

[AvatarVecna]

I'll be honest, these guys are giving you bad advice; you absolutely can "beat" the DM, because he's not an omnipotent god, he's a loser nerd sitting at a table with you. The hard part is figuring out where his lines are so you know where to push him so that he feels defeated, but if he's a relative, then you probably have what you need to sit down with your friend and hash out a gameplan.

Nobody is saying the DM is an omnipotent god in our universe. You can always shoot your DM in the head and spray his brains all over the wall and go "yeah who's the smart guy now huh?!", but pointing that out is kinda missing the point we're making. The problem with dealing with a DM like this is that, fundamentally, "playing D&D" means everybody at the table except the DM follows the rules of the game as laid out by the DM. If the DM is being a **** about what rules he's gonna make you guys follow, you can't beat that dickery by following the rules so hard that you break the game, because then the DM can just make a rule that says "that broken thing you thought works actually doesn't work lol git gud scrub". The OP's friend is operating on the assumption agreeing to play D&D by the DM's rules means the DM is beholden to follow their own rules as well. This is false. The DM isn't required to be fair. The DM isn't required to be consistent. The DM can literally say "anything you think is fun is banned", all while "playing by the rules" of D&D. Abiding by the ruleset on this side of the screen can only break the game if the DM allows it to.

That's why the idea of "play a VoP druid and wreck everything" got shot down with "no 3.5, and also you can't play druids". Yes, if you and the DM played by the rules, Druids are available and can wreck face a bit better than other characters. But the DM doesn't have to allow druids. The DM can allow druids, say that wild shape requires you to have seen the animal you wanna turn into since you got the Wild Shape class feature, and then give you magic-immune perma-blindness at lvl 4. The DM can allow druids by pure RAW, and then have a master thief super-glue a metal shield to the druid. Guess who just lost 90% of their class features for the day for carrying a metal shield, and for every day afterwards where they still have the shield, completely in keeping with RAW? The DM doesn't even have to screw around with cheap moves like that, though. They could just ramp up the power of any encounters you fight until you can't actually face them. Maybe every time you try to bring some pre-epic nonsense into the game, an epic inevitable with 50 class levels worth of casting shows up, destroys your character in every way it's possible to be destroyed, and then leaves. And this happens every time you make some BS nonsense to try and "break the game" in order to "have fun".

Or fun alternative: the DM doesn't do anything to your characters if you try and pull shenanigans - as in, he refuses to DM unless you agree to make characters that aren't trying to ruin the game. Ruining the game is the DM's job, and he doesn't appreciate your character moving in on his terf. What is your broken character going to do then?

Most DMs don't pull this nonsense. That's why they're not garbage by default. But that's a courtesy. You can't build a character so broken that it reaches out of the game and bitch-slaps your DM into not being an *******. Your character can't become so good at diplomancy that the DM has an attack of conscience. Your character is incapable of affecting your DM, but your DM is always capable of doing anything they want to do to your character. Your character can deal with railroading Aristocrat 1s, but not railroading Wizard 100s, and the DM can make either the questgiver, or anything in between.

That's why we say "out of character problems can only be solved out of character". Because you're playing Chess, and he's playing Calvinball. Trying to win by "playing by the rules so hard he can't cheat" doesn't work. The only way to make the game more fair for the characters, is for you as a player to deal with the ******* referee.

[Sinner's Garden]

I never said anything about specific character advice for a reason, so half your rant is irrelevant from the get-go. The longer you push him, the more rules he has to ad-hoc, and the more rules he makes up, the more you can catch him contradicting himself, and if he has any sense of shame at all, that's means he has to escalate to keep from admitting defeat, until he eventually kicks you from the game. And yes, he can stop DMing for you; that's your win condition. Once he starts kicking people out, the game has ended.

Ah, actually, maybe I chose my words poorly in my first post. Rather than a god, what the DM isn't is a computer. Rather than gaming the books, you would be gaming him.

[AvatarVecna]

I never said anything about specific character advice for a reason, so half your rant is irrelevant from the get-go. The longer you push him, the more rules he has to ad-hoc, and the more rules he makes up, the more you can catch him contradicting himself, and if he has any sense of shame at all, that's means he has to escalate to keep from admitting defeat, until he eventually kicks you from the game. And yes, he can stop DMing for you; that's your win condition. Once he starts kicking people out, the game has ended.

Ah, actually, maybe I chose my words poorly in my first post. Rather than a god, what the DM isn't is a computer. Rather than gaming the books, you would be gaming him.

I don't get the impression from the opening post that this DM has any shame. But also, if your win condition is "he's not your DM anymore", I have a super-secret 4/20-blaze-it pro strat: leave.

EDIT: Every moment spent still there is sending the message that the game is worth playing despite, or maybe even because of, his "old school approach to DMing". Staying and trying to piss him off is just you making a pissing contest that's literally incapable of actually accomplishing anything.

[animewatcha]

When you get up in levels, did 3.0 haste age the target a year? So casting it repeatedly on the right folks..

[Sinner's Garden]

OP's friend doesn't want to just walk away, so telling him to tell his friend to do that is bad advice, because he already tried that. And no, the objective isn't not to be playing with him, the objective is to get him to kick you out. Hugely different. If you walk away, people will see that you're either unable or unwilling to keep playing. If the GM banishes people because he's throwing a fit, well, that game never lasts much longer.

[AvatarVecna]

OP's friend doesn't want to just walk away, so telling him to tell his friend to do that is bad advice, because he already tried that. And no, the objective isn't not to be playing with him, the objective is to get him to kick you out. Hugely different. If you walk away, people will see that you're either unable or unwilling to keep playing. If the GM banishes people because he's throwing a fit, well, that game never lasts much longer.

The friend hasn't "already tried that", and literally the first part of the same sentence you said admits that he doesn't want to. The whole point of us advising them to just walk away is because it's the right approach to this, even though that's not what the friend wants to hear. Boo hoo, it's not your preferred solution, big deal.

The DM isn't required to contradict himself to keep you from breaking the game. That's what stealth-nerfs are for. The first time you abuse a thing he previously allowed, it can be immediately followed by "haha that's cool, and totally legal as far as I'm concerned, but the universe doesn't like being cheated and every time you do that from now on an angel will show up and murder you". It's not banned by the DM, just the universe, you see! Totally legit, no contradictions.

Your previous post shows the blatant disconnect going on in your brain: if this DM was capable of feeling shame for being a hypocrite, this wouldn't be a problem in the first place, because the OP's friend would've already tried talking the DM into not being a ****. The OP makes it pretty clear that the DM is already being the worst kinda DM, all the players can see it, so the OP's friend leaving isn't gonna make those other players think "well clearly it's because the player was the unreasonable one".

Getting kicked makes it feel like a victory because you weren't the one to "cave" by your definition. But griefing for the lulz is just as much an admission of defeat.

[Sinner's Garden]

No, the OP has already tried talking to his friend. And no, griefing a bad game does not make you the loser.

[AvatarVecna]

No, the OP has already tried talking to his friend. And no, griefing a bad game does not make you the loser.

It very much does. You're the loser getting butthurt because you can't handle "AuThEnTiC" D&D so you're throwing a tantrum and making the game worse for everybody around you. Sure, that's not what you're doing from your perspective, but it's how it looks to the DM. Even if the other players agree that the DM started it, you're not improving their gaming experience, or their opinion of you, by being a huge baby about the whole ordeal.

EDIT: In any case, the argument is kinda irrelevant. The OP's already posted that they've talked their friend out of their "make the game less fun for everybody" solution, and into "try and make the game more fun for everbody" solution. I'm sorry this doesn't satisfy your justice boner.