Magic Items for Wizard [3.5]

[Runeclaw]

My wife's character (Wizard 9/Sorcer 1 heading into Ultimate Magus - I realize its not optimal) just came into 50k of gold. She has only a few minor magic items to this point.

She wants to be a utility wizard but the game is a bit on the monty haul side, so she ends up blasting more than anything else. She doesn't have or particularly care to develop a very comprehensive understanding of rules mechanics.

What are some magic items that you'd reccomend? We have a arms/armor and a wonderous items crafter in the party, and she can craft staffs. Items are generally not available except by crafting (or finding them on adventures).

I know enough to buy some stat-boosters and AC boosters - but what else?

[Runeclaw]

Forgot to say - pretty much any book is okay, but we are playing Pathfinder, so I'm looking mostly at Pathfinder and MIC.

[Eldariel]

Does she have Use Magic Device? Either way, I suggest:
- Circlet of Rapid Casting [Magic Item Compendium]
- Int/Cha-boosters [DMG/Magic Item Compendium]
- Metamagic Rods, e.g. Extend Spell and Chain Spell (Lessers are handy) for buffing and such.
- Scrolls of spells she'd like around for when needed but doesn't prepare (and divine scrolls if she has UMD, of course)
- Backup Wand like Wand of Orb of Force for when she runs out of spells.

[jiriku]

For someone who doesn't care to really learn the game, items than grant passive benefits are best, since they don't add to bookkeeping or require additional decisions. An item that adds to Int or Con is good. Also, look at generic items to improve AC and saves. Items that grant blanket immunity to disease, poison, fear, and death effects are also helpful. Items that grant a spell effect on an at-will basis are also pretty handy, like a ring of invisibility or a hat of disguise.

For real power, the circlet of rapid casting and the lesser rod of quicken are best, but both require additional bookkeeping and preparation that she may not be interested in.

[taltamir]

i think a lot of small items are better than a few big items, since cost rises exponentially while benefit increases linearly.

Thus id get:
+1 dodge AC item
+1 deflect AC item (ring of deflection)
+1 AC bracers
+1 natural AC
+2 int
+2 con
+2 dex
... and upgrade those when appropriate... crafting explicitly allows you to upgrade items by paying the difference... so if a +1 item is 1000gp and a +2 is 4000gp, you can upgrade a +1 item to a +2 for 3000gp. (naturally half cost for crafting it yourself, cost in XP, etc etc all still apply).

It is not that UTILITY is better than direct damage... utility is out of combat... its that for in combat there are better things to do...
First off, there is flight, (and phantom steed), at those level they should not even be able to hit you, because you are flying high above the battle.

The best spells are "save or lose" or just "lose without save".
Why? because save or die spell (make a fort save, if you fail you die) have more difficult saves, and direct damage is just not all that good.

Haste is a battle winner, blind is a battle winner, sleep is a battle winner, anything that has anything to do with polymorph... summoning certain monsters (especially casters) is definitely easy winning.

[Korivan]

Belt of Battle is always nice. A small boost to initiative, some extra actions per day. Theres a ring, and a pair of gauntlets that you can spend charges out of and deal extra damage with. Also not powerhouse, but hey, if your gonna blast, might as well pump it up as much as you can.

[deuxhero]

Does she have Use Magic Device? Either way, I suggest:
- Circlet of Rapid Casting [Magic Item Compendium]
- Int/Cha-boosters [DMG/Magic Item Compendium]
- Metamagic Rods, e.g. Extend Spell and Chain Spell (Lessers are handy) for buffing and such.
- Scrolls of spells she'd like around for when needed but doesn't prepare (and divine scrolls if she has UMD, of course)
- Backup Wand like Wand of Orb of Force for when she runs out of spells.

Aside from the last, if you run out of spells by level 10 you are doing something wrong and using wands for blasting is also wrong, the rest of them are good.

I would suggest wands of spells you will sometimes need in good supply, like endure elements.
I also suggust an eternal wand of rope trick if you can get one with a caster level of 8.

Avoiding strict caster gear, the decanter of endless water is always fun.

[Eldariel]

Aside from the last, if you run out of spells by level 10 you are doing something wrong and using wands for blasting is also wrong, the rest of them are good.

Well, Wands meant to be used on opponents cannot have saves. Orbs & al. are the safest bet to ensure that if need be, you can at least deal some minimal damage. Though e.g. Solid Fog is a solid (heh) choice too, and probably more powerful.

And if you run out of spells...well, it's always possible, if unlikely. Maybe you get hit by a curse that stops you from resting or maybe your spellbook is stolen or whatever.

[deuxhero]

If your spellboook is stolen but your wands aren't, somethings wrong,


Also, see if the character in question can be retbuilt so they start Ultimate Magus as soon as it can be entered.

[Eldariel]

If your spellboook is stolen but your wands aren't, somethings wrong,

Depends on the thief's goals. But enough with the off-topicness; generally, I find that if you don't have to invest terribly much into it, having tools to be prepared for even unlikely occurences is worthwhile.

[Roland St. Jude]

...Also, see if the character in question can be retbuilt so they start Ultimate Magus as soon as it can be entered.

This strikes me as the kind of way over the top suggestion, given what the OP was asking for, that gives optimizers a bad name. The OP is looking for what items would be helpful, not what his gf did "wrong" in building her character or how it could be reworked to squeeze every advantage out of the build.

[deuxhero]

What kind of optomizerer are you talking about? Any decent one tells you to run away from a dual progression class as fast as you can.

Sorc 1 at level 10 is almost a dead level and the "almost" is almost entirely made null by wizard. I don't think most people find playing a character with a dead level fun.

[Roland St. Jude]

What kind of optomizerer are you talking about? Any decent one tells you to run away from a dual progression class as fast as you can.

When I said "optimizers," I meant all optimizers. Optimizers, as a group, take a lot of crap for being pushy proselytizers of a build-focused approach. I think one cause of that perception is when people suggest optimization well-beyond what others have asked for. This happens too often, in my opinion, and I wish people would stop doing that. Avoiding this one particular thing would make optimization advice much more moderate and much more broadly accepted, I think.

I'm not saying it wasn't good, or even obvious, advice from an optimization point of view. I was saying that optimizers as a group get a bad rap, in part because some try to optimize others' characters well-beyond what others' request. I think people would be more willing to see optimization as something everyone does, if they could ask for advice about beneficial options without being told their earlier decisions were wrong or that they should optimize in ways other than what their asking. Sometimes it's unclear what kind of optimization or how much optimization someone is looking for, but other times it's a bit more clear.

Maybe it's my penchant for trying to answer the question asked or my excessive care about not telling others they're doing it wrong when gaming, but your response seemed to me to go well beyond what the OP asked for and into how the OPs gf erred and should see if she can change her character to be more optimized. That was just how it struck me. This happens very often here and on other forums, but this particular iteration seemed glaring enough to comment on. The OP asked a question about items and got advice to rewrite the character. He even acknowledged that he knew it wasn't optimal, which suggests he wasn't looking for how to fix that part.

[deuxhero]

Well it was an aside comment anyways.


I still have to say that no character with the least ammount of creativity can go wrong with a decanter of endless water.

[Tyndmyr]

Get the +6 int item. Headband of Int, IIRC. $35kish. Definitely worth the money, and it's nice having an item slot maxed, so you won't need to worry about rebuying later. The boost to DCs is great, and the extra spells is the icing on the cake.

Grab a ring of clumsiness. It's a whopping 500gold, so it won't even dent the wealth. When worn, it hurts your dex, sure...but it acts as a ring of feather fall. When falling to your death, your dex is mostly irrelevant compared to getting a feather fall. Just don't wear it all the time. The only time this is weaker than an actual ring of feather fall is if you can't don the ring for some reason(falling and unconscious, for example).

Get a Brooch of Shielding. Only 1500 gold, and absorbs a rather good supply of magic missiles targeted at you. Very handy, since this is one of those spells that tend to get busted out a lot, especially when the DM gets frustrated at rolls.

Sovereign Glue. Only a coupla thousand, and comes in handy in the weirdest of situations.

Dust of dryness. Another cheap item that is ridiculously useful in the right situation. Being able to bend the laws of reality with the quickness is always useful.

Handy haversack. Lighter than bags of holding, and solves any encumbrance issues. Just a great all round item.

Ioun stones of choice are always good. Grab whatever seems handy for your campaign.

If spell slots are always running dry, pearls of power for a slight bit of extra oompf. Note that boosting int is a strictly better option, you should only get pearls if you've already got the +6 int headband.

The above are all standard, I believe.

MiC has some great items too. Belt of Healing is good, albeit probably too low level for your game. The metamagic rods are awesome. Some good items too, the arcanists set, IIRC. They let you convert spells to blaster spells, as well as providing nifty boosts. Allows you to prepare for more unusual situations, and resort to simply blasting things to rubble if need be.



I'm also a big fan of the tomes/manuals to get inherent boosts to your stats, but of course, the cost level for those is significantly higher than the item boosts...so get those first.

[Tyndmyr]

Oh, the decanter of endless water is a must.

Also, immovable rods. With those and sovereign glue, you can do nearly anything.

[herrhauptmann]

Dust of sneezing and choking, dust of disappearance. Hewards handy haversack.
Runestaves from MiC could be thematically appropriate, but they're powered off of your own spell slots rather than use/day or charges; so might be a bad idea if you're always running out of spells.
+1 on metamagic rods.
Stonefire ring part ofa set item in MiC. Faerie fire 5/day, Also deals out 1d6 electric each round. So if your DM allows, delay until enemy wizards turn, hit him with the rings faerie fire. Now for the duration, he has to make a concentration check to cast on his turn. Even if he delays to negate that, that delay could be enough to put him after the party warriors in initiative.

Ring that grants UMD bonus. Or spellcraft bonus. Or UMD+Spellcraft (stacking items :) )

[Runeclaw]

Thanks, guys, some good stuff here. Some I'd figured out (circlet was already on my list, as well as the ability, AC, and save boosts - and even at our level, I've found the Healing Belt to be a bargain). We don't have access to rods (no magic items in our town, maybe not in our world - we have what we find or what we can build).

Roland, I appreciate the support. I knew I couldn't mention build without drawing some comment from the optimizers (who are, after all, the ones I'm asking for advice). Hoped to head it off at the pass, but oh well. Actually advise to just start ultimate magus early was pretty tame, I was expecting to be told I was crazy for even considering losing wizard caster levels at all. I'm convinced sometimes that if you ask here for advice on your monk build you'll be told to play a wizard instead. Anyhow, she was a little frustrated by being locked into her prepared spells, so we thought we'd give the ultimate magus a try. At the end of the day, as long as you're contributing to the party and having fun, raw power is kind of irrelevant.

She's trying to do more battlefield control, but I think it relies on understanding movement and AoOs and such to really know why and how one would want to control the battlefield. And save-or-die/suck is good I suppose, but in the past she's not enjoyed it when the target saved, as it feels like using your turn (and spell) for nothing. At least with damage you always accomplish something. Not arguing from an efficiency point of view but just what's fun for an individual player. None of which is really important, I just included the info in the first place in case it suggested different items (like the hellcat gauntlets (which I think someone alluded to) and vest of the master evoker, which I've got on my tentative list).

[Pharaoh's Fist]

I'm convinced sometimes that if you ask here for advice on your monk build you'll be told to play a wizard instead.

Usually it's Swordsage.

[sadi]

Metamagic rods are a must have. Something like even an amulet of tears is cheap and if things look ugly 24 temp hps could give you a little more time to get out of harms way. Otherwise + casting abiiity items, more spells better dcs for the spells. Formless vest if you don't have any body items is yet again cheap, the 1/day half damage from a crit or sneak attack could easily save your life.