Just because you can't have a rainbow doesn't mean you can have a pretender with 3 good paths. Which is more than enough to get you where you need to go. IF uses this advantage by being able to forge their own bonus items with a little help.

Common Pretender for IF is a PoD with at least 4D and another magic or two based on desire. It's not easy or simplistic, but certainly not doomed in any sense of the word. I've won a couple of games using base Ulm and IF Ulm with such games and it was because of their forge ability that I did.