I'm running into a bit of a challenge: My brother's girlfriend is joining one of our regular 3.5 D&D sessions. She's got experience with tabletop RPGs, and I've been told she's got experience with D&D, but after talking to her it seems fairly limited. She is no optimizer, that much is for sure.
First, some background.
We began this campaign back in late Summer with a new DM, as part of our 2-week interval rotation of games (currently 3 games rotating). This one started at level 1 with the conceit that characters had to be fairly simple. No outrageous classes or races, no shenanigans. It's set in Faerun, and what I've been told since I've been out of town for school is that the group hasn't been getting much gold let alone magic items for rewards, and as such there is limited access to items (standard wealth-by-level might have been thrown out the window).
The current group consists of (to my recollection): Two rogues, a ninja (CAd), a swashbuckler, a monk (formerly a barbarian, now deceased), a Cleric (tanking-oriented), and if I'm not mistaken, a sorcerer (possibly blast-oriented). Oh, and my character, a Druid (though I had to go with Shapeshift variant).
As you can see, this is a fair mess. But it gets worse.
You see, the girlfriend wants to play a Bard. That's not too bad, she can help buff us, so long as she stays out of trouble. A few extra points to-hit is never bad.
However, she also decided she wanted to be an
elf. And that she's working toward the Cloaked Dancer PrC (she's breaking the first commandment of optimization! Heresy!). We're currently at level 5, and her two feats, as chosen, are Dodge and Mobility.
Her final stats are: Str 12, Dex 14, Con 10, Int 14, Wis 10, Cha 16 - The group uses a special custom PB system (75 points from 0, point-for-point), and this is after racial and level modifiers.
My question is, what can I suggest to her to make this a competent character in the future? As it stands, her hit points are atrocious, and her defenses aren't likely to be much better. She's dead-set on Race, class, PrC, feats, etc, as given above. However, if I can help guide her forward, I might be able to help salvage it, in the future at least.
Any suggestions are welcome. Remember, shenanigans are highly discouraged, so I need to be crafty to get anything passed by the DM. Nothing cheesy (if it smells of gouda, probably best to forget it, unless it can be masked by another scent
).
So far, allowable books are Core, most completes, some various splatbooks, though everything ought to be run by the DM. I was able to get a feat passed from Champions of Valor, for instance, though it was a fairly innocent request, and helped more for flavor than anything.
