Most of the time I GM. However, I decided recently to take a break and let one of my friends GM Legacy of Fire. I made a character knowing that my friends like power gaming. I looked online on all the guides and made a power channeling build. Then I show up and I feel kind of useless. For example, we go through an encounter with some spiders. The GM replaced the spiders with 4 CR 8 spiders for level 4 characters! I feel useless and the party powers through the encounter: no problem. I am the only person who gets hurt, I am the only person who sweats.
An example of my frustration is the summoner. At level 6 the Summoner's eidolon has 145 hp! A barbarian rolling max hp with an insane constitution has fewer hp than that. The eidolon's AC of 34 doesn't help either.
When I point out the cheating, they rudely tell me to stop being a GM and play. I am sorry, but am I the ONLY person who thinks the rules should be followed? I do not like walking through encounters and the GM stubbornly refused to step on their characters by calling for universal character checks. I am more effective to the party by standing back and not wasting resources because their ACs ensure they don't get hurt. Can someone tell me what I should do?
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Find another group.
This group plays the game they want to play and how they want to play it, which is inimical to what and how you want to play. They aren't necessarily 'wrong' to play that way; Pathfinder can be played in whatever way the party agrees. However, it isn't what you want to do and they dislike your method as much as you dislike their method.
The problem is this: this is the only group I can find, I really like playing Pathfinder, and the GM stubbornly refuses to do anything to change the difficulty significantly.
I believe you can actually find groups and players online for Pathfinder campaigns, though that might be less than stellar depending on your set up at home. As for the current group, if the GM is stubbornly refusing to check character sheets to make sure they are actually created well, and if the players are flat out trying to break the game, you might just have to find another group because it sounds like the want to play DND 4th edition rather than play Pathfinder. (By 4th edition I mean combat oriented style, no idea how balanced/unbalanced the actual game is)
You really like playing Pathfinder. Your group is not playing Pathfinder; they are playing some kind of superhero game. I understand the suckiness of the situation, but you can't make them change any more than they can make you change.
I agree with Murphy's Paradox, your best bet is to try and find another group to join that follows the rules more like you desire.
You other options is, If you can't beat them, join them. Cheat as well. If they ask why the change in your character tell them you recalculated things and realized you were in error. If they want to closely inspect your character, demand all characters be scrutinized equally.
What kind of builid is the power channeling cleric? i haven't heard of this particular build.
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I fully agree with MurphysParadox. There is no wrong way to play. If they are having fun, that is the important thing. Next you need to decide what you need to have fun. I think you should "cheat" to bring your character in line with their characters.
Have you tried Meetup.com?? to find another grp?
An eidolon with 145hp at level 6? That's theoretically possible if he included his own hp using life link. At 18 con for the summoner, having rolled max at every level and having used his favored class bonus on hp, he'd get 78 from there. Then take an eidolon, at level 6 it has 5 HD (d10) and can have 18 con (13 base + two ability increase evolutions + ability increase from 4+ HD), that's max 70hp (note that this assumes the hp was rolled. normally half hp should always be used, maxing it out at 45 instead of 70. I once played a summoner and the DM houseruled it so I had to roll for hp, which went greatly in my favor..). Add in toughness on both for another 6 and 5 hp and we're at 159 hp. Add diehard so they can keep that up for longer. If he's a race with +2 con then that's another 6 hp he could have, 165 hp then.
Still, he'd need to have specialized quite heavily on constitution, rolled incredibly well on hp and possibly needs the Diehard feat. The rolled incredibly well part sounds really fishy, but the two characters I made have two 18s (without racials) which I rolled in front of everybody, so with dice you never know.
34 AC also isn't impossible for the eidolon. Assuming a level 6 quadruped, base AC is 19 with shield ally included. Add two improved natural armor evolutions and we're at 23. Add barkskin and we're at 26, Mage armor gets you to 30, Shield gets you to 32. A ring of deflection +2 and you're at 34. Evolutions for increased dex can also get it up further, as could taking the improved natural armor feat on the eidolon.
So it doesn't have to be cheating, but it's still very suspicious and the fact that the DM doesn't want to audit the characters is even more suspicious.
I think in this case you've only got 3 options.
Find another group.
Or make it absolutely clear to them that you are not enjoying the game, including why you aren't enjoying it (use the difficulty as your main reason, don't accuse them of cheating), then say you are taking a break until they return to playing a game with a more proper difficulty or until you are GM again.
Or join them in cheating as Claxon mentioned, maybe kill off your current character on purpose and then make something completely ridiculous, or say you spotted some errors in your current character and that you have fixed them.
Where they playing like this when you where running the game ?
Try playing online with roll20.net. Either that or just make up your own stats like they do.
First you need to decide what you want, and what you are willing to live with.
If you were equally effective as the other players would you have fun? Or would you only have fun if the other players were weaker? Or is it that you feel that rules being broken/changed ruins the experience for you?
If you can identify what you want, you can probably better identify what you want. Now, most likely unless it is the first one, you won't achieve an ideal situation for you with this group. You will then have to decide if not playing with them, or playing in a game that isn't exactly what you enjoy is a better option.
Regardless, it is a game, they are all having fun and seem to be in agreement at how the game should go. Accusing them of cheating, demanding the GM audit (or take any action,) and similar behavior isn't a good way to keep friends. The point is to have fun. They all seem to be, and I expect would make some reasonable adjustments to allow you to have fun as well, but you probably need to make greater concessions, since you appear to be the minority.
At the end of the day, if you can't enjoy playing this game with them, then don't. Don't make it dramatic or just stop playing that game and keep your friends.