My usual DM is a dedicated homebrewer, and after a few years of gaming with the Dragonlance setting, he has come up with this homebrew setting. I know that he has spent a very long time preparing this setting for us, so I want to give it a shot and play nice without breaking the game, but as is absolutely ignorant to the concepts of game design I will need to maintain a very high level of optimization in order to survive in the first place. He has told us 6 things that we need to know about the setting, and plans to reveal everything else during play. These things are:
1)
Humans and dwarves are the only playable races. Period. Elves have existed, but went extinct for a so far unknown reason. Humans and dwarves keep to themselves, and racial tensions are likely to occur where the two races are forced to live closely together.
2)
There is no gods, and the only divine magic available are the magic of druids and rangers, that is powered by nature. Humans generally worships the wizard king as a mortal god, and dwarves worship their ancestors. Both societies have banned druids, and hunt them down as witches. I don't know why dwarves hate druids, but the humans hate druids because they are mortal enemies with wizards, because druids view arcane magic as an unnatural force that has to be exterminated at all costs. Furthermore, arcane and divine magic does not mix at all, meaning no Arcane Devotee or anything like it. The DMs idea is that a party would have to choose between having arcane or divine magic on their side.
3)
Because there is no gods to direct the cosmic energy flows, souls are utterly destroyed once they leave their protective bodies. Enough essence remains for undead to be created, but there is no way of ever bring a dead back to life. The elves are rumored to have been able to cast Raise Dead, but they are extinct, so.. Yeah. I need to simply not die.
4)
There is no arcane casting classes but wizards. If you want to learn civilized magic, you go to wizard school. There is no alternatives.
5)
Magical items are very rare, and difficult to come by. Wizards keep magic to themselves, and will only create magic items for other wizards. Druids are outcasts, and not likely to make items for anyone but themselves either. This means that unless you are a druid or a wizard, MW items are likely the best you will ever get.
6)
Metallic dragons does not exist. I don't know why this is important, but I suspect that I will know if I live long enough to ever see a dragon.
To me, these rules makes it impossible to play anything except druids, and I have a strong feeling that the DM will want to discourage us from making a pure druid party.
What CO tricks would you apply in order to survive this campaign world? All books are allowed, unless they are specific to another campaign setting, or the DM vetos them for some reason.
Help!