So my DM sprung on us in our 2nd bout of combat that they use a Crit fumble chart. I am adverse to these bloody things since they punish martial characters disproportionately when compared to most casters.

Though I voiced my opinion against this, they're keeping it in the game. Which is fine, it's their game. But it's quite punishing, the effects range from "your attack is so bad it actually crits" to "you hit a random enemy or ally for full crit dmg", it's mostly varying degrees of very high potential dmg on allies in range and LoS.

But if I had known that during Session 0 then my build would have been a *lot* different than it is now, a Battle Smith who will later use Animate Objects. Over 10 attacks in a round, with a crit fumble table? No thanks.

I'm going to ask them if I can switch characters, but until they're available to talk I would like to theorycraft, as one does. I'd rather play this one out, until other players start voicing their concern. (If our first session was any indicator, we had 3 Nat1's 3 turns in a row. XD)

What's a good build that relies mostly one save DCs? I was thinking maybe an Abberant GOO Sorlock tossing around battlefield control, but I'm very open to other ideas.

I'm going to reuse my stats unless otherwise told to reroll, 12/12/13/16/17/17; We get 1000gp, 2 uncommon magic items *or* 1 rare (with the option to purchase additional magic items at cost), and starting gear. We're starting at Lv5 and running Mad Mage.

The rest of the Party consists of:
* Paladin Assassin
* Genie Lock
* Eldritch Knight
* Life Cleric

EDIT: Build is a go and I have till the 3rd Saturday from now. Miscommunication was also identified, they've apparently never played in a game that *didn't* have a crit fumble 'cockup chart', whereas I've never played in a game that used anything other than "you miss regardless of modifiers".

Probably a wizard. Pick utility/buff spells, and attacks that force saves. 

It's pretty hard to go past magic users when it comes to avoiding attack rolls, particularly the wizard and cleric.  But I think you might be on the right track to focus on battlefield control and support rather than direct attack, even with a magic user.

The other option would be to focus on characters that allow re-rolls and/or even re-rolls for other characters such as the halflings with the Lucky racial trait and Luck feat together with it's racial Bountiful Luck feat to assist others.  If you try elf archer then you have the Elven Accuracy racial Feat and an archer might fit well with the rest of the party members you've listed there since the Eldritch Knight and Paladin Assassin can frontline while you and the Genie Lock sit back and range attack.  Make it a Fighter - Arcane Archer and you get Curving Shot at 7th level. If you don't mind using a shortbow or handbow rather than crossbow then you could try archery with the halfling but it might do better as a ranged rogue in that case.  Bracers of archery and a cloak of protection would round that out or cloak of Elvenkind for rogue.

I would say play a halfling and ignore the problem.

I say throw caution to the wind and let the good times roll.

As an artificer you won’t get animate objects until 17th level unless you’re multiclassing. Artificer has some good save spells. And heck, you might actually have fun running the razors edge for a while. 

But if you really want to change characters then I would also recommend wizard. 

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

I would say play a halfling and ignore the problem.

 This is a good call. Take lucky if you really want to avoid the 1’s and go divination wizard to help out your allies.

Wizard or Bard would be my go-to for this. As someone said, a Halfling Divination Wizard with the Lucky feat could make sure that no Nat1's get rolled at all any more in the game lol. 

 Thanks all, I think I'm going forward with a battlefield control build.