Rolling a wizard for the first time.

[Chickenzilla225]

A little backstory first.

So, I've been in a campaign from level 1-12. I just killed off my barbarian/eye of Gruumsh after he drew from the deck of many things, had his alignment changed to chaotic evil to lawful good and lost all of the benefits of barbarian and eye of gruumsh. He then charged two basilisks and a greater abyssal basilisk thinking his +20 to fort save would save him. It didn't.

We are a party of 6.
A knight who can use fighter feats as his bonus feats.
Standard rogue elf
Stormlord
Dread Pirate/ Legendary captain/ Swashbuckler/ Bard (He owns an airship)
Dragon Disciple/ Sorceress

Now I want to build a wizard that can help out the party as much as possible but not be a blaster. More utility.

We roll for stats, standard level 12 starting GP.

Can anyone help me out with how to do this, and what would be some of the better spells to have prepared? Do you get spells for free or have to buy them? I really have no idea how a wizard is run. Any help at all is appreciated!

EDIT: We can use any book that isn't Lords of Madness

[Geigan]

Many good guides around for wizards.

Treantmonk's (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19873034/Treantmonks_guide_to_Wizards:_Being_a_God) may sound megalomaniacal, but you'll find that most of his suggestions are geared toward utility and facilitating your party. Also it's overall very good advice for wizard building.

Logic ninja's guide (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=104002) is good for suggesting good spell use and especially utility.

There are more but those are 2 of the best.

edit: I may have skipped ahead to some more advanced advice so here are some more basic tips if you don't feel like reading large quantities of optimization advice.
So basics, here's a link to the base class on the srd (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/sorcererWizard.htm#wizard) for easy reference.
-This class requires lots of book keeping, so be aware. Spellbook, spells prepared, the costs of new spells and scribing them, you get to keep track of it all. I would advise you work on it out of session because it will take you a good bit of time to write it all out.
-You are a prepared caster. That means you prepare your spells ahead of time, typically at the beginning of the day and once you use them their gone until you prepare again the next day. You don't have to prepare them all at once, and it is possible to leave some slots open to fill later though that does take time and would typically be out of combat.
-You prepare out of a spellbook:
This passage should tell you all you need to know except how to buy new spells
Spellbooks

A wizard must study her spellbook each day to prepare her spells. She cannot prepare any spell not recorded in her spellbook, except for read magic, which all wizards can prepare from memory.

A wizard begins play with a spellbook containing all 0-level wizard spells (except those from her prohibited school or schools, if any; see School Specialization, below) plus three 1st-level spells of your choice. For each point of Intelligence bonus the wizard has, the spellbook holds one additional 1st-level spell of your choice. At each new wizard level, she gains two new spells of any spell level or levels that she can cast (based on her new wizard level) for her spellbook. At any time, a wizard can also add spells found in other wizards’ spellbooks to her own.
-You can buy new spells at a cost of 150 per spell level. That's 50 gp(as per the standard fee of buying from another wizard, unless your DM has slightly different restrictions) and 100 for the cost of copying it in to your spellbook. A blessed book (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#blessedBook) reduces this cost to just the cost of 50 per spell level and generally is just plain convenient. For your level it is certainly affordable.
-The familiar is essentially a little companion. If this is your first time you may want to try for one of the ACFs suggested in the guides to trade it out for something simpler to use. If you feel interested anyway, try the familiar handbook (http://dictummortuum.blogspot.com/2011/08/familiars-handbook.html).

[Snowbluff]

When I cast, I am rather partial to the Recaster PrC. Also, Incantatrix is also very powerful, and good for blasters. It can be used to applied metamagic to just about anything, so if you have a Buff or utility that you would like persistent, a spellcraft check, the feat, and no extra spell levels are needed.

[Eldariel]

The post above covers the basics far as Wizard goes. Now, down to spell selection. What book sources are you running with? That affects things. But still, just out of Core:
- Conjuration and Transmutation are the most important schools.
- Divination, Illusion & Abjuration have few important abilities.
- Evocation is mostly replaceable.
- Necromancy has some really solid debuffs and buffs but is weaker than many other options.
- Enchantment is rather unnecessary.

Basically, you'd probably want to be a Conjurer banning Evocation/Necromancy and Enchantment. Spells you really, really want on these levels:
1. Grease, Enlarge Person, Ray of Enfeeblement, Silent Image
2. Alter Self (you can peruse this thread (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19871862/3.5Forms_for_Alter_Self) for few ideas on what you can do with this; remember, your animal companion is a magical beast), Invisibility, Glitterdust, Web, Pyrotechnics, Fog Cloud
3. Slow, Haste, Fly, Stinking Cloud

Once you get there, level 4 spells include:
Polymorph, Evard's Black Tentacles, Solid Fog, Dimension Door, Enervation, etc.

You obviously want to super-maximize your Int. That is, get a race with bonus to Int (e.g. Gray Elf (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/elf.htm#grayElf) from the Monster Manual), put highest stat you can in Int and put all level-up points into Int. And get items boosting Int.

A key tip: You can leave spell slots open while preparing spells in the morning. This allows you to prepare a spell in that slot with 15 minutes at any point during the day. This is especially useful if you find out about some opponent type you're running into (e.g. lots of Undead = prepare Command Undead) or need an extra casting of a spell you had prepared and cast already.

A second key tip: Mindless creatures are pretty screwed by illusions (since they have no way of telling them apart from reality). Do make use of that fact.

A third key tip: Later on you can use Divinations to get some idea of what you're about to face in the future. Especially Contact Other Plane (level 5 spell) and Commune are useful for this. You can't cast Commune but if you get Improved Familiar (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#improvedFamiliar) (the feat is in the DMG) there are some options on the list that can cast Commune (Imp and Quasit, for instance).

A fourth key tip: A Wizard should have Scrolls and Wands in addition to his spell allotment. Try to especially Scroll/Wand spells that don't have saving throws or care about caster level. E.g. Ray of Enfeeblement, Enlarge Person, Invisibility, Alter Self, Command Undead, Wind Wall & Solid Fog are great examples of spells to have on scrolls/wands.

[graeylin]

I am not an optimizer at all, so my advice is probably less than stellar for sheer power. But, I have to say, the summon monster line of spells is very useful for a party mage.

Summoning a monster to fight in melee typically means that fewer hitpoints are going to damage YOUR party. A summoned monster can also bring in tons of spells you don't normally carry, by level 12, there's some decent choices on the list. There's typically a monster that can help you out in most any situation, if you can think of it in time... earth elementals for spying through walls and under castles, avoral for... healing/dispelling/spotting/flying, etc..

I have never been disappointed in summoning help.

[Chickenzilla225]

Thank you for this, I'm reading into these guides now.