Tier 1 and a well balanced party...?

[Lactantius]

Top priority in our group is having fun with good, solid character builds.
So to speak, we use semi-optimized builds.
That includes powerful prestige classes and good feat choices.
For example, our dwarven fighter dabbles in divine magic to get to the Hammer of Moradin. He is a totally fluffed out dwarf of the silver marches.
Our cleric is part-time rogue (cleric 2/rogue 3 so far), aiming technically for the divine trickster and representing a cleric of Tymora, for which this multiclass fits perfectly.
Well, I am player number 3 and the last character of this party.
As you can see, we are only 3 players.

My concern is:
is it a good balancing approach to use an optimized tier-1-wizard in this small party?
In terms of balance, it seems to me okay to play a powerful wizard (going for Io7V) to equalize the problem of having a small party.
Plus, we have no full-casting-cleric (losing 3 cleric levels).

I'm not the player who would overshadow the others (difficult to do so anyways with only 3 players), so, what do you think:

Is it a good measure to use a powerful wizard build to negate the fact that we are only 3 players?
D&D's CR and balancing is based on the 4-player-party, so I'm curious.
Actually, I would not make use of the real ridicuolus cheese stuff a wizard could theoreticallly do, so if we speak of powerful, I mean powerful in a practical and social way.

[MukkTB]

Well it sounds like both other guys have mixed high tier with lowish-middle tier classes. They're pretty much doing it right for non dedicated casters. Short of Tome of Battle D&D almost demands at least dabbling in magic if you want to even pretend to be competitive.

So you shouldn't go full optimized wizard. I'd assume what they're doing drops them somewhere around tier 3. You could artificially limit yourself. Just don't cast the spells that render them obsolete. You could do some blasting. You could theurge it up. Or roll some gish. I guess you could use the buff spells and battlefield control that lets the other players shine.

Wait- I'm rereading your post. You're not going to be the wizard? Meh. If you're ok with being roughly tier 3 and running with a tier 1 I don't see the problem. They're close enough. Still my recommendation for the wizard would be to keep it toned down rather than kicking it into overdrive.

[D@rK-SePHiRoTH-]

It really depends on the kind of actions you are going to perform.
A good tier 1 wizard can make the party win without even appearing to be the one who's doing so. That's is never a bad idea whatever the party is: as long as other characters can do their own job (and they will do great because of your support) everything works better than expected.

A great wizard is like a great bassist: you notice him when he leaves

[Lactantius]

Well, I am the party wizard, yeah.

The overall theme of the wizard is a bookish, educated wizard, having his origins at an arcane academy - to be more precise, I did choose the Lady's College in Silverymoon (we play in the FR).
This academy is pretty altruisitic and favors good alignment. Silverymoon is known for its tolerance with other races and cultures and for its freedom spirit.

Thematically, the wizard will be an academic with focus on the divination and abjuration school. He will be the loremaster (not the PrC), the sage and the Antimage (some dispelling focus). He will support the other two guys with heavy buff casting.

We have a nice houlerule increasing the duration of ability enhancers such as bull's strength to 10 min/lev.
So, I could buff the dwarf with ability boosts, enlarge person, haste and resist energy while I hang back in combat and check for the real threats (which I would debuff, dispel or blast away).

With all the abjuration and divination going on, my goal is the Io7V seems he hits perfectly for the theme.
My road to this (level 4-9) would be an adaption of a real cool class I found in the Dragonlance Supplement called Tower of High Sorcery.
There, they have a prestige class build around academic wizards which choose the color of their robe (white, black or red) and gain powers connected to the schools. white robes favor abjuration and divination, so he would get some class abilites around that school.

In summary, I would say that this build is pretty strong in what it can do.
But since I use those powers to make the party stronger (and to disable other dangerous casters) and since we are only 3 players and since I don't make use of the real cheese, Iwould say that the build and the character power would fit well.

But more people see more than only 1 player and so I would hear some feedback before I finally use this one.

[Psyren]

A great wizard is like a great bassist: you notice him when he leaves

Really, really want to sig this (it applies to all "God" classes too.)

@ OP: Remember that T1 only represents potential power. In actual play, skill is the true defining factor (though at higher levels, the discrepancies become more and more apparent.)

[eggynack]

It seems like just being a wizard could overshadow the other party members a bit. It won't be too bad if you're just playing a god wizard, but it might cause slight problems. Initiate of the sevenfold veil is extremely powerful though, and has a good chance of completely overwhelming the party's power level. There are lots of good prestige classes to use for a learned wizard that aren't extremely powerful (just very powerful) so it might be a good idea to go with one of those. It might be a good idea to give a better idea of what the dwarven divine fighter is doing to give a better idea of balance. If he's basically just a cleric calling himself a fighter then you don't have much to worry about, but if it's a fighter with a cleric dip then it could cause problems. I also don't know anything about the tower of high sorcery class you're using, so if that significantly lowers a wizard's power somehow it could effect power calculations.

[Righteous Doggy]

You shouldn't overpower them at all if your a buffer. Battlefield control and buffs are exetremely powerful, but can be hard to blame directly on the wizard. They might even forget you took place in battle somedays. You encounters might be kind of weak if you overbuff at worst I think, but you can always adjust by tweaking your spells or how you use them a little differently.

[Togo]

It seems like you're a little conflicted. You say you're going to be careful, and tone things down, but you're also saying you're going to play an optimised wizard with a powerful prestige class.

Which is it?

Having only three characters doesn't really help. The problem with mixed tiers is one character overshadows the others. It's nothing to do with the overall power level of the party. The way to solve it not to 'optimise' your wizard - avoid tricks and rules exploits that will make the powers and actions of other characters unimportant, and focus on more balanced or mechnical choices.

It's entirely possible to play a wizard in a balanced game with lower Tier characters, because the Tier system is about maximum possible rules exploitation. It's also possible to play an extremely powerful wizard, provided your DM is fairly tolerant, but then the other players and the DM may have less fun, even if you pretend not to be really powerful until it becomes important.

As a previous poster said, you can look at it in terms of skill. If you're really good at the game, you can avoid the most powerful and exploitative options and still play an effective character that controbutes well, and can save the party's bacon. If you're not, then you need to use the more powerful rules options, and the more questionable mechanics.

The two peices of advice I'd give are to play the character you want to play, and try to play a character that's roughly as powerful as the rest of the party. If they contradict eachother, it comes down to which is more important to you. If you're determined to play a character that is very powerful, then try and choose options that don't conflict with the other two players, and make sure there is a generous selection of things that, for reasons of your build choices, you can't do particularly well, and are relying on the others to provide.

[eggynack]

You shouldn't overpower them at all if your a buffer. Battlefield control and buffs are exetremely powerful, but can be hard to blame directly on the wizard. They might even forget you took place in battle somedays. You encounters might be kind of weak if you overbuff at worst I think, but you can always adjust by tweaking your spells or how you use them a little differently.

This might be accurate for a wizard buffing efficiently, but an initiate of the sevenfold veil is a whole other story. They have abilities that invalidate whole encounters just as a consequence of their existence. The only wizard prestige class that has a comparable power level is the incantrix, though that class has slightly more visible effects on power. There's a thin line that exists between a wizard subtly effecting things from the shadows while having an effect on combat that is massive while apparently being minimal, and one that stands in the shadows destroying everything with crazy wizard powers. I think initiate is crossing that line in anything but the most optimal of parties.

[Righteous Doggy]

This might be accurate for a wizard buffing efficiently, but an initiate of the sevenfold veil is a whole other story. They have abilities that invalidate whole encounters just as a consequence of their existence. The only wizard prestige class that has a comparable power level is the incantrix, though that class has slightly more visible effects on power. There's a thin line that exists between a wizard subtly effecting things from the shadows while having an effect on combat that is massive while apparently being minimal, and one that stands in the shadows destroying everything with crazy wizard powers. I think initiate is crossing that line in anything but the most optimal of parties.

Again though, it depends on how you use those powers. You could use it to errect a wall and stave of foes, or you could use it to destroy a whole encounter or to solo big bads with powerful save or die immidiate actions everytime they come close to you.

Do you protect your friends with a wall? or do you protect yourself with that moving aura of seven colored death...

[eggynack]

Again though, it depends on how you use those powers. You could use it to errect a wall and stave of foes, or you could use it to destroy a whole encounter or to solo big bads with powerful save or die immidiate actions everytime they come close to you.

Do you protect your friends with a wall? or do you protect yourself with that moving aura of seven colored death...

That's true to an extent, but that arguement can justify anything. You could play Pun-Pun and just use that infinite power for buffing your team. My point is that wizard on its own is plenty in terms of power level compared to the party, and adding initiate makes that problem worse. Even just using the class to erect crazy death walls is a significant boost in power that the character doesn't need. There are likely classes out there that offer similar flavor without being as crazy, so I'd recommend finding one of those.

[Cor1]

Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil, do it. It's the "don't die, ever" PrC. It'll save the party members' lives all the time. It's just that good.

No, you won't be overshadowing the party. You're what will keep them alive. The Veils are made to stop one type of effect each, so Dragon blows on you? Veil. Big monster attacks? Veil. Magical ranged touch attack? Veil. Spell heading your way? Veil.

It's the class with the NO buttons. I love it. That, Incantatrix and Spellguard. I've played a Wizard with four prohibited schools who did all that. Best character I ever played... just after one Savage Species Astral Deva with VoP. Worse than a Monk. Then right afterwards, Ultimate Arcane Power. Persistent Selective Sculpted AMF all day erry day, just to prevent dispelling of my other immunities : yes please.

[Mnemnosyne]

I'd say since you're going Io7V, you're not going to offensively overshadow them (well, you can if you want to, because you're still a wizard with a full spell progression, but you could do that being a generalist wizard and nothing else). Io7V will keep you from dying, and you, in turn, can keep them from dying.

I would suggest mostly using the personal wardings though, rather than area or walls. If you use area or wall wardings too much, it might feel to your party members as though they're essentially hiding behind your skirt (especially since having walls around will restrict them from being able to melee the enemy).

[Myth]

Top priority in our group is having fun with good, solid character builds.
So to speak, we use semi-optimized builds.
That includes powerful prestige classes and good feat choices.
For example, our dwarven fighter dabbles in divine magic to get to the Hammer of Moradin. He is a totally fluffed out dwarf of the silver marches.
Our cleric is part-time rogue (cleric 2/rogue 3 so far), aiming technically for the divine trickster and representing a cleric of Tymora, for which this multiclass fits perfectly.
Well, I am player number 3 and the last character of this party.
As you can see, we are only 3 players.

My concern is:
is it a good balancing approach to use an optimized tier-1-wizard in this small party?
In terms of balance, it seems to me okay to play a powerful wizard (going for Io7V) to equalize the problem of having a small party.
Plus, we have no full-casting-cleric (losing 3 cleric levels).

I'm not the player who would overshadow the others (difficult to do so anyways with only 3 players), so, what do you think:

Is it a good measure to use a powerful wizard build to negate the fact that we are only 3 players?
D&D's CR and balancing is based on the 4-player-party, so I'm curious.
Actually, I would not make use of the real ridicuolus cheese stuff a wizard could theoreticallly do, so if we speak of powerful, I mean powerful in a practical and social way.

It's like asking if it's OK to drive a 600 hp car when you and your two buddies planned a road trip across the USA, and they're driving this (http://laskas.com/ufiles/2010-06/lada-2111-1-3-sedan-vtora-upotreba-benzinov-rychna-4-5-oranjev-chastno-lice-avtomobili-djipove-pikapi-gr-plovdiv.jpg) and this (http://biskvitka.net/uploads/posts/thumbs/1295450756_408.jpg).

[Lactantius]

Okay, nice feeback so far, thanks!

Regarding my companions:

The cleric/rogue will go for the Divine Trickster, so he fulfills 2 roles in one character (skill monkey, face, cleric).
He loses out 3 levels, but honestly, I think cleric can do well with lesser spell progression. The real good stuff comes already at spell level 4-6; 7-9 is the icing on the cake, but not THAT mandatory like 7-9 for wizards.
He took some good feats without getting into the real cheese (aka DMM persist). He took protection devotion which will help the party again to survive. Besides, he took touch of healing to increase out-of-combat-usefulness of healing. At last, he took spontaenous restorations instead of spontaenous cure. Should work well since he only memorize some cure spells to fuel touch of healing and can be more versatile in dealing with attribute damage or drains.

The dwarven fighter is a optimized too (a bit). He uses (as i recommended him) a cleric / ordained champion chassis to get into the Hammer of Moradin PrC (PGtF). The PrC s pretty goo and comes with a nice fluff (typical hammer-throwing dwarf).
He will have mild spellcasting power (level 2 or 3), coming from the clr/ord champion- chassis.
We ill take some decent feats like power throw to increase his battlefield versatility (melee + some ranged throwing skills).
So to speak, I think he is a pretty good fighter class, maybe ranging around tier 3.

My idea behind the Io7V is to protect, disenchant and undo. It's like keeping the staus quo online.
Since the qualities are pretty defensive only and since I dont know how far the campaign will reach, the Io7V should work pretty well for my job to buff, protect and undo.

As you can see, our group does not play D&D "up-to-the-roof." We optimize a bit, but we waive on stuff which sounds to ridicuolus for us.
All in all, we like to keep it like a world simulation with self-set-limits.

For example, I would never use gate for the real cheese. Or abuse polymorph. If I use polymorph, then for some classic and useful stuff like changing into a mouse. Or transformating a ba guy into a toad.
I will try draconic polymorph though. Could be a bit strong, but we will playtest it.

[Gavinfoxx]

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=292794

You know you don't NEED Divine Trickster to be the cleric/rogue type? You can do it with Just Cleric.

[Invader]

I understand where you're coming from. In my current campaign we have a straight ranger, straight fighter, straight cleric (all first time players and the cleric doesn't really use spells in combat because he likes melee) wizard (first time this player has ever played a caster) and a straight bard.

Since we had so many new players I went druid with all appropriate optimization Ashbound, greenbound summoning and I'm taking planar shepherd (although I'm not using any of the super cheese with free wishes or time manipulation).

If I hadn't taken greenbound summoning we would have lost at least 2 people for each encounter we've had so far. I feel kind of bad about playing such an optimized class but our DM (who didn't think druids were powerful at all) is throwing ridiculous CR's at us which we couldn't compete with.

TLDR;

I think it's ok to play a powerful class as long as you don't abuse it and ruin the experience for the other players.