3.5 New to Wizard could use some insight

[Lost Schizo]

First off I am new to the forums so greeting.

Second, I used the search and searched both wizard and conjurer helped a little but I could still use a little help, mostly because most people were working on higher level characters. I have also read being a god and the batman guide.

And on top of all that this board seems to be more into helping people and are more knowledgable than others I frequent. And best yet it has its own comic :smallbiggrin:

My Conjurer is coming in at level 5.

Currently I look as such.

Wiz 3 / master specialist 2
Whisper gnome CN
Str - 8 (10-2)
Dex - 16 (14+2)
Con - 16 (14+2)
int - 18
wis - 12 (11 + 1)
Cha - 8 (10-2)
(35 point buy)

Immediate magic variant
Banned schools: Evocation and Enchantment

Feats:
Spell focus (conj)
Metamagic extend
Scribe scroll (bonus)
Skill focus (spellcraft) (Bonus)

Current party - Knight, Rogue, favored soul, duskblade, Monk (apparently the duskblade and monk died last night so I do not know what will fill those slots). The DM of this group rotates, it rotates between the favored soul, knight, and the monk, and currently the favored soul is the DM.

Books allowed:
PH
PH2
SpC
dungeonscape
All Races of books
Miniatures HB
And 1 other suppliment of my choice (current CM)

My initial thought with this character before reading anything was Full run of Master specialist followed by Archmage for a lvl or two. And that seems to be a regular loadout.

I don't intend to do allot of summoning just some summon undead 2&3. I intend to be more battfield control. We have never had a wizard in this group who tried to be anything more than a glass cannon. For that matter we have never really had a player try to be anything more than a glass cannon, except myself I never saw the point.

Up untill now I have been stuck as a cleric for a little over 5 years. So I am excited to get to step out and try to be something more.

I have what seems to be some of the basic control spells, Grease, web, walls, clouds, as well as ray of enfeeblement and clumsiness.

I guess my question is is there anything about this you would change at this point, before my character gets introduced. Are there any pitfalls I should avoid, Things that look awsome but end up being not so. Spells that should not be, or just cant be left out? Or just any pointers in general?

I appreciate any and all input and thanks just for taking the time to read this.

Your friendly angry Lost Schizo

[Lateral]

Well, first of all, are you allowed to use the whole SRD? Because if so, then I recommend taking the Abrupt Jaunt ACF- trade in your familiar for 10 foot teleportation as an immediate action INT modifier/day.

[Eldariel]

Well, first of all, are you allowed to use the whole SRD? Because if so, then I recommend taking the Abrupt Jaunt ACF- trade in your familiar for 10 foot teleportation as an immediate action INT modifier/day.

Whuh? That's from PHBII.

[NNescio]

Well, first of all, are you allowed to use the whole SRD? Because if so, then I recommend taking the Abrupt Jaunt ACF- trade in your familiar for 10 foot teleportation as an immediate action INT modifier/day.

He already has the Immediate Magic ACF.

[mootoall]

I'd recommend putting your level up point into Int instead. You want it as high as possible, which means full level up points in it, the highest +Int item you can afford, AND a +5 Tome ASAP. Since the Tome is +5, you want an odd score when you use it. Other than that, pick up the Orb spells for blasting, and one of those alone, prepped a few times, covers the "Blaster" roll. Battlefield Control comes naturally to you, as a lot of Conjuration spells do that, so there's not much really to say vis a vis specifics.

[begooler]

1) Abrubt Jaunt, is a good choice.
2) Even if you want to focus on battlefield control, the best way you can do that sometimes is to summon. Look at the lists of SLA's available to summons of your level. You prep Summon Monster XYZ, in your level XYZ spell slot, and you have all the spell like abilities that those monsters have available. Somewhere there's a list of SLA's that summonable monsters have. If I can find it, I'll link it.
Also, Master Specialist gives you many things that buff your summons... so why not use them?
3) There is another ACF somewhere that changes the casting time of summons to a standard action. (It is normally a full round.) If you get this, then when you get your major school esoterica, you can summon as a swift action. Fun! Bad news is you would have to give up abrupt jaunt, because you trade out your familiar.
4) Make sure your plans for messing up the battlefield don't also hinder your teammates, who seem to be heavy on melee. You should also prep some spells to help them, like fly for example.

Edit: Question. Why Skill Focus: Spellcraft instead of a metamagic feat?

[Eldariel]

Alright, a couple of pointers:
- Why level up increase Wisdom? I know it's not pretty to have odd numbers in stats, but frankly, in point buy 11-12 Wis costs 1 single point while 18-19 Intelligence is priceless. You should most definitely ramp up to 19 Intelligence instead and just make do with the 11 Wis (or better yet, assign your scores so it isn't wasted). Generally you care about your Intelligence above all else so you want to focus on it first and foremost; level-ups break all limitations and you only get 5 so use them well (that is, on Int).

You could also consider 7 Strength (since odd numbers in Strength do something and you're unlike to need actual strength checks making the importance of odd numbers there lower), 10 Wis, 10 Cha (that'd unlock the minor Spell-Likes). This is, provided, these changes are still on the table. With 35pb Whisper Gnome Wizard I'd go 7/16/16/18/10/10. Charisma is quite useful for a Conjurer on higher levels anyways.

- You most definitely have an exceedingly solid setup, overall. Full Master Specialist isn't a gamebreaker or anything but it's more than strong enough. Gnomes lend themselves well to Illusionists (Gnomish Shadowcraft Mage is exceedingly strong) but that doesn't seem to be the direction you're going, and it'd have a worse early game anyways.

- You could consider Focused Specialization ACF since you have Complete Mage. You'd give up Necromancy for more Conjuration-slots (the only big loss is False Life). Since your school is Conjuration, this can be worth it on low levels especially since Conjuration has a massive number of wonderful spells throughout all levels.

- Your spell setup sounds fine. I'd add some God-tools in there. Moving people around is another form of battlefield control. Especially Benign and Baleful Transposition are wonderful; for allies and enemies respectively. You might also wish to invoke Mage Armor since your level 1 slots are relatively expendable (note that you can also cast it on others so if someone else has under +4 Armor-bonus, see if you could help them). Also, Enlarge Person is solid in such a melee heavy team, and Haste is a gamechanger. Slow comes out on the other end of the spectrum, and Pyrotechnics is a good Glitterdust-variant. You'll also want to know at least Silent Image; it's a wonderful spell against mindless creatures (and a wonderful spell in general) and a low opportunity cost to prepare in a 1st level slot. Heroics is another good buff on these levels. Also, don't forget to prepare at least one Nerveskitter to act first when need really be.

- Your feat setup is decent; of course, you don't even have many open feats to start with. But yeah, you'll lack familiar which of course sucks (since Obtain Familiar is not in your allowed sources - Abrupt Jaunt of course does more to keep you alive though) but aside from that, you've got all the feat paths open to you. Extend Spell is most certainly a reasonable option on these levels (Extended Rope Tricks ahoy!). Alacritous Cogitation and Cloudy Conjuration are both very solid, from Complete Mage (Alacritous Cogitation is an ultimate Oh ****-button with some room for abuse [don't] and Cloudy Conjuration adds some kick to your already potent Conjurations). If you got Flaws you would have a bit more leeway here. Don't forget to consider Craft Wondrous Items; there's a bunch of goodies Wizards appreciate. Heward's Fortifying Bedroll [Complete Mage] in particular is of great interest to you, and obviously Int- and Con-boosters (and obviously Heward's Handy Haversack) and Lesser Metamagic Rods (Extend in particular; obviously not a Wondrous Item tho). If you can have pre-crafted these before the adventure, I'd strongly consider spending your level 3 feat on Craft Wondrous Items instead of Extend Spell and taking Extend on 6.

- You have scribe scroll. I suggest packing some scrolls. Level 1s are dirt cheap and e.g. True Strike, Magic Weapon & Enlarge Person have no effects that'd be reduced for casting them from scroll and they can make a huge difference. Also, some higher level scrolls like Fly, Invisibility and Knock may be worth carrying for when you happen to need them. Scrolls in general are your backup plan and should be made of spells that aren't diminished as scrolls (you generally don't want super short duration spells, or spells that offer Save, or spells that have huge caster level dependent variables in Scrolls).

EDIT: Oh, don't forget. On these levels, your Hide and Move Silently are competitive even cross-class, without any magical enhancement (nevermind the fact that you can cast racial Silence and you know Invisibility). You can sneak quite well alongside the Rogue (or help the Rogue do his thing). The big 3 buffs you prolly want are Enlarge Person, Haste & Invisibility. If your party needs someone to hassle with divine Wands in case your Favored Soul gets wounded (Wand of Lesser Vigor for healing comes to mind), you could also invest in Use Magic Device crossclass and eventually take Skill Focus: Knowledge, one level in Loremaster (use the Secret to regain the spent feat; you need 24 Int to pull that off IIRC) and max out Use Magic Device (it's in class for Loremaster). But even just a couple of points would allow you to help heal between combats if your team lacks someone else to use the Healsticks.


Edit: Question. Why Skill Focus: Spellcraft instead of a metamagic feat?

It's a Master Specialist class feature.

[erikun]

Isn't Summon Undead a necromancy spell?

Your best offensive spells at the moment are likely Web (hard to get out of), Summon Swarm (hard to kill), Sleet Storm (blocks sight/prevents most movement), and Stinking Cloud (prevents attacks). Illusions might be good too, both because you get a bonus to DCs and because a believable Silent Image will keep enemies from checking your camouflaged place to begin with.

You also have access to good buffs like Fly, Spider Climb, Invisibility (great on scouts), Expeditious Retreat, Haste (for meleers), and Enlarge Person (for meleers again). I would recommend against assuming you can just float around under Fly/Protection from Arrows all day with perfect immunity, just to prevent getting jumped (literally) from an ambush from above. DMs seem to like that one.

Is this before or after racial bonuses? Because having a 6 strength is going to suck at inconvienent times.

[Eldariel]

Isn't Summon Undead a necromancy spell?

Nope, Summon Undead is still a summon and thus Conjuration (Summoning). Only actual creation of Undead is Necromancy. So amusingly enough you could still prepare Summon Undead as a Focused Specialist: Conjurer.

Summon Swarm is kinda bothersome so it's probably better to just keep a scroll for when you need the effect (lots of enemies that can't damage it and a safe place to attack from). Spider Climb doesn't really do enough for a spell slot (Alter Self does the same job so much better but granted, it's a bit too good - there's also Fly too tho). And Protection from Arrows only applies to non-magical arrows and can be overcome by just shooting at it for while; it's decidedly mediocre (Wind Wall is generally the best anti-archery effect; while it's just a wall, there's precious few ways for archers to overcome it beyond "moving past it" - of course, it's Evocation so meh but Invisibility frankly works just as well).


Is this before or after racial bonuses? Because having a 6 strength is going to suck at inconvienent times.

After. Also, it's not so bad. I've played a Medium character (so everything weights more) with 4 Strength before and done just fine.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Summon Undead are Conjuration (Summoning) [Evil], so they may not go over so well with the rest of the party. However, ogre zombies make for some of the best meat shields, and owlbear skeletons make some decent damage dealers if opponents don't have a high AC. Plus the set 1/2/4 creatures summoned is far better than the 1/1d3/1d4+1 of the Summon Monster/Nature's Ally line.

Rapid Summoning (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/specialistWizardVariants.htm#conjurerVariants) is from UA, and it typically cannot be gained if you've got Abrupt Jaunt as both require you to sacrifice your familiar. Some DMs would allow you to take the feat Obtain Familiar from CA so that it can be traded as well and one character can have both Abrupt Jaunt and Rapid Summoning. Also at that link is Enhanced Summoning, which you should get if possible as it replaces Scribe Scroll with Augmented Summoning.

Web and Glitterdust are the mainstays of crowd control. Stinking Cloud is a good Fort-save attack to round out the set. Grease and Wall of Smoke (across a creature's space so it has to save every round, great if it's having trouble with grease or otherwise tripped) are great 1st level spells, Benign Transposition is also great for tactics or to get someone out of trouble. Bands of Steel is a strong choice to automatically screw a single powerful (winged) opponent. Solid Fog and Evard's Black Tentacles are going to be your top choices for 4th level spells, along with Enervation and using Polymorph to turn one of the party's melee combatants into an Annis Hag or similar. For 5th level spells, Transmute Rock to Mud can be a strong choice, and Summon Monster starts getting good at that level. Arc of Lightning and Disintegrate are some good non-evocation spells for dealing damage. Once you get 6th level spells definitely pick up Freezing Fog.

[Lost Schizo]

Thanks for the input everybody.

I have no problems leaving my wisdom odd and increasing my int. I was just rounding it up for that +1 more to will saves. However with already having the best wiill save I can see where that could be a waste.

I guess I should have put more into my spell selection write up. I have all the spells that were listed up untill this point.

Alacritous Cogitation is something I had not looked at. It looks interesting in the ability to be a little more spntaneous. 2 questions on it though. 1) it says leave a slot open to cast any spell you know, so is that any spell written in your spellbook or any spell you have memorized for the day. 2) In what ways can it be abused? I have no intention of using it in such ways just for future reference because I unfortunatly cannot see it atm with my limited insight into the class.

Is crossclassing necessarily worth the loss of knowledge to the things you know well? I am getting 24 skill points per lvl and that is just enought to cover the basics plus 2 knowledges. I am not doubting the wisdom behind the advice I am just trying to get a good grasp of everything here.

I like Craft Wondrous Items. And I have all the time in the world before I meet the party to do pretty much anything I want. I just have a budget of 9,000gp to spend and technically no item costing more than 1800gp. However If I meet the requirements to make it I am allowed to. So I may switch extend for craft.

A question on craft, does this ever put the wizard at a disadvantage by giving up XP? Do you ever fall behind or am I missing something?

I appreciate all the help so far I am learning a great deal from all of this.

Thanks

Your friendly angry Lost Schizo

[Eldariel]

Alacritous Cogitation is something I had not looked at. It looks interesting in the ability to be a little more spntaneous. 2 questions on it though. 1) it says leave a slot open to cast any spell you know, so is that any spell written in your spellbook or any spell you have memorized for the day.

Any spell you know, so any in your spell book. Wizard's spells known are defined by that.


2) In what ways can it be abused? I have no intention of using it in such ways just for future reference because I unfortunatly cannot see it atm with my limited insight into the class.

Well, the primary thing was corrected by errata; it used to be able to cast any spell regardless of casting time as a full round action. Now it's only 1 round at most (still gets by the 1 round casting time on e.g. Summon Monster-line tho; a full round means you don't need to wait there chanting on enemies' turn).


Is crossclassing necessarily worth the loss of knowledge to the things you know well? I am getting 24 skill points per lvl and that is just enought to cover the basics plus 2 knowledges. I am not doubting the wisdom behind the advice I am just trying to get a good grasp of everything here.

You mean buying skill ranks cross-class? You need to max Concentration, Spellcraft and Knowledge: Arcana, and other Knowledges are good too. So you definitely have no trouble using all your skill points efficiently. However, being a Whisper Gnome does offer you quite the natural boons for stealth so it may just be worth it to invest in those skills cross-class and use them while they still work. Remember that thanks to your Int a mere 1 point in each Knowledge gets you far.


I like Craft Wondrous Items. And I have all the time in the world before I meet the party to do pretty much anything I want. I just have a budget of 9,000gp to spend and technically no item costing more than 1800gp. However If I meet the requirements to make it I am allowed to. So I may switch extend for craft.

Yeah, technically you might be able to get twice the priced items since you pay half for each. Heward's Fortifying Bedroll is 3k, for example, and Haversack 2k. There's a very fair chance of you being able to craft both. Unfortunately Headband of Intellect +2/Belt of Constitution +2 falls to 2k even crafted so that may be a problem.


A question on craft, does this ever put the wizard at a disadvantage by giving up XP? Do you ever fall behind or am I missing something?

You can be behind a level in some encounters but this means you get increased experience from those for being lower leveled so it tends to even out eventually.


Also, I'd give Focused Specialization a strong consideration. Without it, you have:
1st Level: 3 Base + 1 Specialization + 1 Bonus
2nd Level: 2 Base + 1 Specialization + 1 Bonus
3rd Level: 1 Base + 1 Specialization + 1 Bonus

With it you have:
1st Level: 2 Base + 3 Specialization + 1 Bonus
2nd Level: 1 Base + 3 Specialization + 1 Bonus
3rd Level: 0 Base + 3 Specialization + 1 Bonus

In other words, an extra spell each level (though need to prepare more Conjurations, but those are good anyways - also, you can freely Alacritous the specialist slots if you do pick that feat up eventually).

[Retech]

Agree with the others about intelligence. Put as much into intelligence as possible, and then branch out into dex and constitution.

Not sure about which books this comes from, but dragonwrought loredrake venerable kobold?

I'm pretty sure that if you're stacking on the cheese there to get lots of extra caster levels, you can go into mystic theurge to give you at-level wizard and cleric casting (so say level 5, then you'd have level 5 wizard and level 5 cleric).

Then you could truly be the master of versatility.

[Eldariel]

Not sure about which books this comes from, but dragonwrought loredrake venerable kobold?

That requires Dragons of Eberron for the sovereign archetype which is needed to make it all work, and a source he doesn't have access to.