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View Full Version : Powergaming a wizard in 3.5



Tyndmyr
2009-08-22, 12:36 PM
So, I'm in a campaign that's particularly brutal, having already disposed of two party members by level 2. I'm rerolling a wizard to replace my rogue who was unfortunately sold into slavery by his teammates, and need a relatively rugged build to survive the CR5+ encounters we routinely face and more importantly, my caprious teammates.

It's going to be a L2 wizard(exp half way to three), no LA preferably, since that's pretty brutal early on. Access to magic information and items is reasonably easy in this world, though all costs are book standard. Anything from official DnD books is allowed, and our campaigns are rogue centric, with a great deal of traps, stealth and subterfuge. Stats can be anything, so long as they add up to 85, with no stat lower than 4 or higher than 18(prior to racial modifiers). 1800 starting gold.

My teammates are L3 rogue, L2 sorc(believes he's a rogue-*sigh* kenders..), L2 rogue, L2 cleric. Also a level 2 druid, deceased(unknown replacement yet). Due to round robin DMing, there is a maximum of five of us on any night, 3-4 is typical.

Im thinking maxing dex, con, int and wis at the expense of terrible str and cha, to keep the appropriate skill checks and saves survivable. Plus, I'll have enough ac/hp to hopefully avoid being one shotted. The wis is probably overkill, though...I should already have a better will save than the rest of the party. Weasel is looking good as a familiar too, to boost the reflex save.

Race is more difficult...Im looking at human for the extra feat and skill...though honestly, an int or con bonus might be helpful as well. Gnome is right out, due to party gnome hatred.

As for feats, Nymph's Kiss seems to be the most blatantly powerful for this campaign, giving me an extra skill pt per level, a +2 cha bonus to mitigate that weakness, and as a bonus, +1sv against spells. Alternatively, Persistant Spell(fixed and personal range spells have duration increased to 24hrs) seems quite exploitable, or even retributive spell to dissuade my teammates from pickpocketting/backstabbing me. There's actually a rather decent list of good possible feats, so this is a bit of a tough call.

Anyhow, Im caught in a bit of indecision, so I was wondering if ya'll had any tips.

Milskidasith
2009-08-22, 12:40 PM
A bit of an odd variant on PB, considering it doesn't discriminate from 8 to 9 and 17 to 18. Anyway, I'd suggest maxing out int, getting at least 16 to con, and completely dumping Charisma, with everything else being whatever you can afford. I don't really have any other recommendations, besides the fact that Grease is a really, really amazing spell.

Also, Persistent spell is kind of crappy at level 2... considering that unless you play as a Human (a solid choice), you won't be able to use it... and you'd need to be level 13 before you could persist spells (less if you focused on making persisting spells easy, but still pretty tough).

Adumbration
2009-08-22, 12:48 PM
A fire elf or gray elf would be a fine choice of race, another option being deep imaskari, or human, as you already mentioned. The first can be found in UA, second in MM, and the third in Underdark.

The key to low level wizard powergaming is to prepare Color sprays and carry a huge scythe. Someone gives you trouble? Color spray+coup de grace. Someone looks you funny? Color spray+coup de grace. Rinse and repeat. Sheer damage spells just aren't economical - they rarely drop tough foes in one hit, and so you've wasted a good spell slot, unless you spend another one.

At low levels in general, mind-affecting spells are a good choice. Not many foes have immunity, and with a little bit of optimisation, the saves generally lack way behind the DCs.

sadi
2009-08-22, 12:57 PM
Anything that gives +int for higher save dc and unload colorspray, I'd definately suggest grey elf, and use the generalist wizard racial substitution from races of the wild, free spell slot of highest level, give you 5 1st level spells at level 2 counting a 20 int. The problem with nymphs kiss is it is an exalted feat, and if I remember right, doing anything even closely resembling evil negates it.

Doc Roc
2009-08-22, 01:02 PM
Have you read Logic Ninja's and Treant's Guides?

Tyndmyr
2009-08-22, 01:06 PM
I haven't Tide, digging around on the forum, I saw a few links to a wizard guide, but it appears WOTC has the site down for some time.

Sadi, you're correct...it's an exalted feat. Which would put me with the Kender as the only good characters of the party...could be challenging. Grey and Fire elf both look great, I suspect I'll end up going with one of those. Tiefling also looks interesting, if I can convince them to let me swap some of that stuff for the LA.

What's the downside to a generalist wizard?

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-08-22, 01:17 PM
I haven't Tide, digging around on the forum, I saw a few links to a wizard guide, but it appears WOTC has the site down for some time.

Sadi, you're correct...it's an exalted feat. Which would put me with the Kender as the only good characters of the party...could be challenging. Grey and Fire elf both look great, I suspect I'll end up going with one of those. Tiefling also looks interesting, if I can convince them to let me swap some of that stuff for the LA.

What's the downside to a generalist wizard?Elven Generalist from RotW? None(other than not being able to go Focused Specialist from CMage). Normally, the downside is the lower number of spell slots.

For a Tiefling, track down the Lesser version, it loses Outsider type to get rid of the LA.

sadi
2009-08-22, 01:18 PM
Instead of dropping 2 schools and doing normal specialization, you do generalist instead and just get the 1 extra slot and 1 extra spell free in your spellbook per level. There are no disadvantages really if you're not going to specialize.