Looking For Suggestions About Characters to Play At a Table of Unpredictable Optimizers
I'm not an inexperienced player, so I know the basics (don't dump your main stat, don't multiclass just for vibes, you probably can't go wrong with a full caster) but I tend to favour characters that are good enough to not be a burden, then put points into "fun" skills (e.g. Dropping DEX for INT so I could take History and Arcana on a Sorcerer). This has created a problem. My "good enough" characters have ended up feeling useless compared to the min-maxed characters.
This table is also unpredictable (lots of random role tables that end up assigning penalties and a "crunchy crit" table that could result in you losing a limb or dying instantly) so trying to chase unfilled niches doesn't work - being the only WIS caster today doesn't guarantee that someone won't show up with a fully optimized cleric tomorrow, with whatever the best new feats and gear are from the latest splat book. It also makes RP a never-ending cycle of "ask new character about themselves > character monologues > character dies" so that pillar is also less fun that it would be in a more narrative-based game.
What I'm looking for are suggestions about characters that are self-sufficient enough in combat to stay alive even if no one is willing to sacrifice a bonus action for healing word for the sake of "their build" while also having enough complexity to be interesting in their own right. (I've tried a barbarian and a rogue but found their turns too predictable to be interesting, and I'm assuming I'd have the same problem with most martials). The optimizers are strong enough that buffs never really come into play either, so I'm not really looking for something like Life Cleric or Lore Bard either.
Edit: I see a lot of people saying Artillerist Artificer. Perhaps not surprisingly, the only character who's almost certainly not going to die any time soon is playing an Artificer. I can confirm that they're very good at not getting hit, and if they use all of their Flash of Geniuses on themselves they basically never fail a check/save. I'm also realizing that he's totally cheesing Find Familiar now that I look up the spell since he's been casting Shocking Grasp through it and making some kind of melee attack every turn so that actually explains a lot.