Race: Dwarf
Classes: Fighter 1/Binder1/Wizard 3/Runesmith 1/ Anima mage 6
It was supposed to permanency the Draconic Polymorph spell, and bind Haures, for the mind blank, and Eligor for the Spirited charge and ride-by attack. As feats, the only notables except for the obvious required ones for the classes, I would have Arcane Disciple for War.
Overall, he would play polymorphed into a cave troll, with a huge bonus to str because of the +8 from draconic poly +8 righteous might +4 unamed bonus from Eligor + x from Enhancement items. Anyway, you get the ideea. 11 spellcasting levels of wizard, ability to cast in full plate, immunity to mind affecting spells, etc.
Now, the problem is that my dungeon master got quite angry all of a sudden and in a burst of rage banned everything, except for: PHB, PHB 2, DMG, Complete Warrior, Arcane, Divine, Adventurer.
After I've put this much thought into a character like the one above, I feel quite angry. So, CO, is there a way to reach the level of power of that character with only those books? Are there any builds good for a 12 to 15-16 level campaign? The Initiate of the sevenfold veil and the Ultimate Magus are already played by other players.
Knowing the DM, it will be a high power campaign. So 32 point buy, but the books are restricted to the ones I listed
One way to reach the spell power potential of the previous build was through Ur-Priest. If I remember correctly there was a way to get into it with warlock+monk at first levels, then ur, then continuing through the Sacred Fist. Not huge, especially since in my opinion sorc/wiz list is a bit better than cleric, but could work.
Better yet, Ur-priest peaks at about the levels listed in the OP.
Anyway, ur-priest is a powerful option if you don't intend to exceed level 16 and you start out at 12.
Warlock 2/Monk 3/Ur-Priest 1/Sacred Fist 6 gives you potentially 6th level spells at level 12, and 9th level spells by level 16. Warlock 2 will give you access to all the nessecary skills for ur-priest, in addition to having useful invocations(Beguiling Influence/Baleful Utterance/Spiderwalk/See the Unseen are all good choices, given you don't have access to other books). It will also give you monk goodies, with 9th level unarmed along with wis to ac and such. Don't have to go that route, however. Warlock 2/Monk 3/Ur-Priest 7 will net you 9th level spells by level 14, a good 3 levels before wizards do.
Human Warlock 2/Monk 3/Ur-Priest 7
Human: Spell Focus(Evil)
1: Iron Will
3: Extend Spell
6: Persistent Spell
9: DMM Persist
12: Free
You're capable of DMM persisting your 7th level spells at level 12. Very powerful. The weaker list is made up by the fact you get your spells faster starting at level 12.
)I'll try to combine it with some nice custom made magic items from DMG tabels and see where I get.
One thing I'm still wondering. It may only be me, but at this levels, I tried to exclude non-spellcasting builds in favor of gish-like builds. Looking arround the boards I've spotted some interesting melee related ones, like one involving Robilar's Gambit and a pure fighter.
In a party that involves one Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil, one Dread Necro/Ultimate Magus [yeah, the DM allowed it for this guy], one Full Cleric, and probably and illusionist or something, anyway, another arcane caster; my thought was that no non caster would go well, but I may be wrong. . . Could a non caster meet the level of difficulty of some encounters and escape/live by making use of items instead of let's say... his own spell repertoire?
Given that you start at level 12, you already have all the spells needed to succeed at a variety of combat situations. While a chain-gun tripping fighter could definitely add something to the group, the ur-priest has his own wonderful things to bring to the party, especially since he's going to quickly power ahead to the high spell levels.
That being said, presumably your IotSV and your illusionist will be focusing on battlefiend control. Your other cleric should definitely be smashing things around. I'm not overly familiar with what a DN/UM can really do(Honestly seems like it will just fail compared to your IoTSV), so you need to fill in the last slot with some sort of tank/damage. The issue with a robilar's gambit fighter is that the focus isn't on damage - its again on battle field control, via tripping and Aoo's. He makes it so that the enemies are locked down in their position. But your wizards should both be doing that, so the fighter isn't going to add much.
A cleric(or ur-priest) instead focuses on tanking through outputting significant amounts of damage, and being able to take the retalitory damage from the enemies.
Could a non caster meet the level of difficulty of some encounters and escape/live by making use of items instead of let's say... his own spell repertoire?
need more books to make it as a non-caster!
Thank you for your help and time Jenos, your replies were really useful. Thanks to FeloniousEla, Reis and Emy too
.Any other ideeas for such a "restricted" campaign approach? I know many DMs use the same limitations, and this tread may prove useful in the long run to others searching for it.
Ur-Priest based combinations seem the most obvious way to go, but there may be others. Spell castings seems like a must though.....
Theres a reason druid 20 remains a viable build no matter the splatbooks allowed.
Spellcasting is the name of the game. No DMM? Clerics are still great, but you may decide to go with an arcane caster. Wizard 20 is an extremely powerful build from levels 10-20. The only reason you never see such a build is that a Wizard 3/Master Specialist 4/IoTSV 7/Paragnostic Apostle 3/Archmage 3 is an absurdly powerful build. Go with whatever spellcaster you feel in the mood, and just try to optimize it the best you have given the materials. In the end though, what makes those characters powerful is effective use of their spellcasting - you can have an awesomely built wizards but if you spend your actions casting fireball, thats unoptimized.
The more that is restricted, the more powerful spellcasters get relative to physical damage.
Theres a reason druid 20 remains a viable build no matter the splatbooks allowed.
Spellcasting is the name of the game. No DMM? Clerics are still great, but you may decide to go with an arcane caster. Wizard 20 is an extremely powerful build from levels 10-20. The only reason you never see such a build is that a Wizard 3/Master Specialist 4/IoTSV 7/Paragnostic Apostle 3/Archmage 3 is an absurdly powerful build. Go with whatever spellcaster you feel in the mood, and just try to optimize it the best you have given the materials. In the end though, what makes those characters powerful is effective use of their spellcasting - you can have an awesomely built wizards but if you spend your actions casting fireball, thats unoptimized.
That's a really well put summary of the basic idea of optimization in core and restricted campaigns. +1...to put it lightly.
Indeed, duskblade 4 gets you very close to ur-priest requirements. One mention though. It also needs "bluff 6" so that "something 1" should be a class with bluff as a class skill, and you must damp evey point of it in bluff [cross class max ranks at lvl 5 is 4].
Spellthief and Thug Fighter spring to mind.
All mindcrimes aside, Frenzied Berserker comes to mind. TPK, including anything he sends up against you, and then force him to rethink banning things in the midst of a temper tantrum, and if he's [u]STUPID[/u] enough to try and limit it to core only, Druidzilla 20 :D It sounds like he's too lazy to figure out what he doesn't like, so is outright nerfbatting everything he sees as even remotely powerful/optimized/not a commoner.
EDIT : Or, really get under his skin and play a warlock. Those type seem to be scared to DEATH of anything with no spells/day.
This kind of tactics being employed at lower levels (7 through 12) will only mean their use also in the future. Frenzied Berserker, although awesome, would only be good as use as a cohort, or him as the character plus a wizard cohort to follow him arround [leadership banned also by the way
)]Keeping a Frenzied Berserker style character up and running (I mean alive
) ) would be very cost intensive, like potions of gaseous form, Cloak of Mountebank, and the like.Warlock is a very good choice, given the added bonus of infinite dispelling machine.
PS. Now that I recalled a bit the DM's style of play, Sudden Silent is a must.