Dwarven Wizard 3.5 problems from my DM

[DareTheRogue]

This is for a game I am to be rolling for next week. As of right now I have been brooding on the fact that "in game" for this homemade setting Dwarven Wizards are rare. Well I came up with the, "well I am going to make a Dwarven Wizard... in a party of Elves." But I can not seem to keep up with them cause of the fact that by setting "All races start with a level in there favored class," meaning I shall be taking 1 level of Fighter at first level no matter what. So I am a Fighter 1, Wizard 19... well I do not like this yet, lets change things.... Fighter 1, Wizard 14, Runesmith 5, well now we are a fighting wizard.... wait DM tosses me a ruling that I skipped to piss me off... I must by 20th level have gained at least 5 levels in every class I have taken. Ok now we are Fighter 5, Wizard 10, Runesmith 5, Noooooo its killing me. Let us scratch this and just take 4 classes as I find it to now be just about pissing off my DM as much as possible. I was thinking of going Fighter 5, Wizard 5, Runesmith 5, Something 5....

What should I go for that last 5 levels? So far the suggestions I have been given: Fatespinner (lost another CL), Geometer (cool), Abjurant Champion (What?)

[maestro78]

Has your DM given you a reason for these seemingly arbitrary rulings? Because if it's not a good one, I would say find another group. One that allows you to make a dwarven wizard how you see fit.

[BRC]

What I would do, is stick it to your DM. Alot of these "Rules" are completally arbitrary and stupid, not only getting in the way of optomization, but basic character building.

Esentially, unless you want to play a dwarf fighter, elf wizard, ect, the only thing to do is play a Human and pick your favored class as what you want to be. Especially because he's forcing you to take 5 levels in every class you take levels in. A Dwarven Wizard is a perfectally legitimate character that you want to play, it's neither so broken (any more than any other wizard) so as to steal the spotlight, nor is it so subpar as to drag the party down. And most of all, It's the character you want to play. The DM apparently wants you to play a different character.

[kamikasei]

It sounds like your DM is pretty explicitly trying to enforce playing to your race's type. Maybe you should just go along with that rather than complaining that his houserules are penalizing your attempt to work against him?

(I say this on the assumption that he laid out the houserules before you started on your character, rather than citing new never-mentioned rulings to scupper each build you offer him in turn. If the former, his intent was clear. If the latter, he's being an ass.)

[DareTheRogue]

Well his 5 level ruling actually goes over with me as I was in the original party it was created for... we had an entire party taking single level dips... the old grab HiPs and never take Shadowdancer again trick... and I am sorry to say at the time I was playing straight Cleric and didn't see a point to it myself cause of the Cleric Godness I was. Otherwise I have never argued with the first level in your favored class... as I have always played humans, but it keeps most everyone in line. we don't use anything but the core races either so after trying to grab a MM to get a different dwarf i lost out to the 5 levels of fighter :-(

[Tacoma]

And what happens when you're Fighter 1 / Wizard 14 / Runewhatever 4? What will happen when you gain that 19th level? Are you forced to put it on Fighter? Or can you put it on the rune class? And then what about 20th?

What in the world is this DM thinking?

Dang, at least if he wanted you to end up at 20th with a minimum of 5th level in each class he shoudl have said the following:

1: If you have a class with a level below 5, you must raise it to 5th before gaining a new class.
2: You cannot gain any new classes after 15th level.

This at least forces the player to fit the guidelines.

But he's obviously doing this to prevent single-level dipping. But by forcing you to take one level in your favored class he's demanding that everyone automatically single-dip or else play only the favored class.

Weird.

And in this system Elven Rogues are just as rare as Dwarven Wizards, which makes no sense.

EDIT: Oh, and if his intent is to reinforce racial stereotypes, such as "all Elves are magical" and "Dwarves are stout fighters" he's going about it all wrong. You change the racial abilities and favored class to do that. You add race-specific feats to do that. You don't just start piling on arbitrary rules.

[DareTheRogue]

It is why we actually see Half Elves....

[BRC]

Elven non-arcane casters will have it the hardest, because if you want to wear armor your first 5 levels are essentially a total waste.

[DareTheRogue]

Well it is kinda at the point, IF, we make it past lvl16 I will stop gaining spellcasting ability. Ill go 1fighter and 15Caster and then take the last 4 levels of fighter probably...

[Telonius]

Man, sucks to be anybody who takes a 3-level PrC for that guy.

[kamikasei]

EDIT: Oh, and if his intent is to reinforce racial stereotypes, such as "all Elves are magical" and "Dwarves are stout fighters" he's going about it all wrong. You change the racial abilities and favored class to do that. You add race-specific feats to do that. You don't just start piling on arbitrary rules.

Or: you talk to your players about the kind of game you want to run so that they can tell you whether they want to play in it and then build their characters for it, instead of coming up with ideas and then lopping off bits and corners to make their square pegs fit in your round holes. There's no need to houserule what can and should be handled on a case-by-case basis once per campaign.

[Keld Denar]

If it wasn't for the 5 level thing, you could easily do something like Dwarf Fighter1 (use the racial sub), Wizard5/Runesmith5/AbChamp5/EK for the rest. That would net you a fine little dwarven gish, using a Waraxe in both hands, casting buff spells and going to town with 17/20 BAB and 18th level wizard casting. Drop a Wraithstrike and full PA to the wall. Keep yourself well defended with Full Plate Mail, Greater Mirror Image, all 4 Heart of X spell from Complete Mage, Swift Cast Shield (+9 AC) and some other goodies. Baddies will be hard pressed to hurt you, and you'll be all up in their face eating their cherios.

Abjurant Champion is a 5 level PrC in Complete Mage, full BAB, full casting. Its just about the sexest gish PrC ever made. It also has some neato class features that are nothing short of amazing. Take a looksie.

[BRC]

Basically, the DM has two rules here. On their own, they arn't too bad. The 5-level rule is there to prevent cheesy dipping, and isn't bad. The Favored Class rule is kind of stupid, but it dosn't make the game unplayable. However, when you combine these rules, you get an messed up system that puts meaningless limitations on the types of characters people play. I would say Drop the favored Class first level rule, or at least make the Anti-dip rule not apply to it.

[DareTheRogue]

I think I am going to run with a Fighter 5,Wizard 5,Runesmith 5,Abjurant Champion 5.... Not dual wielding... but I will probably go with a Dwarven Battleaxe and Large Steel Shield and a Greataxe.

With like a 17 BAB at the end I might have to say that I am happy with it... though I lost 5 levels of CL... I think I can get over it. The entire point of it is that I enjoy the campaigns and I enjoy the players... the DM is good, just trying to save himself from completely overpowered optimization... though I tossed my buddy into a DMM Persist Cleric this time...

[Innis Cabal]

Pick a class that dosn't have a Favored Class.

[BRC]

Pick a class that dosn't have a Favored Class.

...Sigged (maybe, probably not)

[DareTheRogue]

Lulz... in the fact that I WANT TO PLAY A DWARF!!! and Dwarf is defiantly a class...

[Stupendous_Man]

Are there variant dwarves that have other favored classes?

[DareTheRogue]

Question change... is there anyway to take Runesmith as a Level 5 dwarven Wizard? I need one thing right now, to have Heavy Armor Prof before I take the PrC....

[kamikasei]

Eh? If you're required to take your first level in Fighter, you've got your heavy armor proficiency already.

[DareTheRogue]

But if I didn't take my first level in Fighter... I may get away with that... but still have the 5 level rule

[BRC]

Lulz... in the fact that I WANT TO PLAY A DWARF!!! and Dwarf is defiantly a class...

in 3.5, Dwarf is a race, Fighter (or wizard) is a class.

[Mystral]

You don't have to take the first level in a class to get its proficiencys. Just take any level in a class and you'll get every proficiency it gives.

Also, did you really not try to talk to your game master about this issue? It seems that you are trying desperately to worm your way around those rules, rather then changing them.

[kamikasei]

If you can get out of having to take that fighter level, why not just go straight wizard after that? Building a gish with at least five levels in all your classes sounds like a nightmare.

[KillianHawkeye]

If you just wanted to show your DM that his house rules are stupid, you could play a Fighter 5/Wizard 5/Monk 5/Paladin 5 and be completely useless.

[AslanCross]

Yeah, I'd ask the DM to relax his rules on this. Favored class is just a suggestion. Besides, even in the PHB the characters aren't necessarily stuck to the favored class "archetypes." (Well, okay, only Soveliss isn't using his race's favored class and he still goes with the archetype of woodsy elves.)

[metagaia]

I guess you could play an elven wizard that likes to polymorph into a dwarf

If there is no chance of the DM waiving either of these rules, then why do you want to build a dwarven fighter wizard so badly? Is it to Roleplay as a character concept you really like, or is now just to fustrate the DM by showing how useless his rule is? Especially with the runesmith, this character isn't really a wizard anyway now, so it seems a pointless battle to fight.

[Tacoma]

This means every Halfling commoner is a rogue. Right?

And every Elven commoner has a spellbook tucked away with a couple first-level spells sitting in it?

Like, even the real hillbilly elves who live in the desert and have to weave their spellbooks out of desert hay.

Or: you talk to your players about the kind of game you want to run so that they can tell you whether they want to play in it and then build their characters for it, instead of coming up with ideas and then lopping off bits and corners to make their square pegs fit in your round holes. There's no need to houserule what can and should be handled on a case-by-case basis once per campaign.

What you are describing as a bad act on the part of the DM is exactly what is built into the game already. The game favors people who want to play Dwarven Fighters and disfavors those who want to play Dwarven Cleric / Rogues. But I assume you're not arguing that the 3E races and classes are inherently square pegs for round holes. Just my idea.

[Stupendous_Man]

So what does your DM think about humans?

[kamikasei]

What you are describing as a bad act on the part of the DM is exactly what is built into the game already. The game favors people who want to play Dwarven Fighters and disfavors those who want to play Dwarven Cleric / Rogues. But I assume you're not arguing that the 3E races and classes are inherently square pegs for round holes. Just my idea.

Firstly, yes, I do think the whole notion of favoured classes should be scrapped as a pointless restriction. Multiclassing should be more free and less tied to race.

Secondly, let me outline what I think is bad about the DM's actions here, or rather, about what I'm assuming are the sum and intent of his actions. He wants a game of a particular type - where the characters in play conform to the stereotypes for their race. This does not require any rules to achieve. You use houserules to change things about how the game works, things that come up repeatedly and actually need rules to handle. If you want magic to function differently, or skills to work differently, or whatever - you need rules to describe how these things have changed.

If you want your players to follow certain guidelines when creating their characters, you don't need to make rules about how they can build them. You just need to talk to them. You need to be able to say no, and to say maybe. Creating rules to limit people's options just means the ones who really want a particular concept will build toward it blindfolded and with one hand tied behind their back, and the result will be legal by the rules you've set, ugly and nonfunctional, and still not fit in in the way you wanted it to. So you've aggravated the player and gained a sub-par character, and your original goal of setting integrity or whatever has not been achieved. What was the point?

If DTR's DM doesn't want Dwarven Wizards, he should say: "no Dwarven Wizards". Or: "dwarves don't go in for arcane casting. Divine casters or melee types only, please." (Always better to be flexible - there are enough classes out there that it's easier to sketch out the restrictions to start with and then okay or deny things on a case-by-case basis when the players suggest them than to try to preemptively rule in or out every combination in the game.) "Dwarven Wizards, yeah sure, but you will always be worse than any elven or human wizard, so screw you" is pointless.