hmmm you guys are certainly giving me alot of food for thought, for that i sincerely thank you.

The one player in particular that im having issues with is the kind who loves to find the best way to numerically wreck havoc (he does not quite reach the level of munchkin but has gotten close). normally if it was a group of players like this i wouldn't have too many problems. Thing is that he is the only one out of a total of 6 players to do this. So its him, and then 5 other people actually trying to play the game with flavor and very little optimization (for awhile this group had a healbot cleric for instance). Apart from him the biggest damage dealers are a duskblade and a bowman fighter.

Its starting to sound like i just need to not worry about books or specific things and more worry about the players :/ i guess i was looking a quick fix to a deeper issue.

Be proud playgrounders! you have saved a DM from a possible serious mistake thanks again and any other advice will still be greatly appreciated and looked up on