Drow wizard build help 3.5

[Phan7om]

Alright here is the deal.

My buddies and I are returning to an old campaign that my dad and great uncle used to run in AD&D. We are essentially rewriting all of our old chars and updating them to 3.5. Now the character I am working on right now was my oldest character which is roughly ten+ years old. He was a drow wizard. However do to some very unfortunate events (my dad hated the drow) he was made super über powerful, more so then a god, so therefore it would be unfair to play him, therefore I couldnt. (my dad was cruel like that).

So my buddies and I have been reworking our old campaign for awhile now, because neither my uncle or dad are with us anymore. We finally made it to the characters and now I am stuck. I am virtually remaking him altogether however I would like to branch out past a straight up wizard. However, I haven't played a wizard in 3.5 and I am very very unfamiliar with how everything works and which classes mix with them well. That aside I am planning on using him and he will start at about lvl 15 and we will be getting the chars to 20 again just to refamiliarize ourselves with them, then going into an epic campaign.

Hard part is I have no clue on how I plan to build him. I know I want him to be a wizard just not sure what I will go into past that. Suggestions are very much appreciated.

Character personality- Alright this character kinda has a funny little back story. I originally decided to make him because of R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt character. I essentially wanted to make a wizard version of Drizzt. Even named him Drizzt, later renamed to Darktalon. Anyways, I was having a lot of fun with him, back then. I loved to mess around and played him as naturally very very curious. Well something happened where I became very unhappy using him as a character, think it was my uncle making me write out every spell in my spell book word for word (description included). At that point I was like screw this wizard (mind you I was young...er) and from there on tried to kill him off. Being a wizard obsessed with magic carpets I would willingly fly into any portal we came across at full speed hoping to kill him off. I was very unsuccessful in all my attempts. Even tried to down a random potion hoping for I'll effects which actually sent me to the future. After that is when the character was dramatically changed. Small background aside he is a curious wizard that enjoys to have fun and explore these things, unlike most wizards who are studious beyond hope. I still have a magic carpet. Hope you guys and gals are able to help.


All 3.5 books available....oh and the character is chaotic good.

[Phan7om]

Just reposting to bump this up again

[Randomguy]

The criteria you've given are kind of vague. What did your wizard tend to do, in combat? (I don't even know what wizards could do in AD&D).

Here's a good guide to playing a wizard in general: http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=394. If you want to go back to being stronger than a god, this would be a good place to start. It also has links to guides for every school of spells.

Some good books to look through for ideas are the Spell Compedium and the magic item compedium. Complete Mage also has Reserve Feats, which basically let you give up a spell slot for a weaker effect that you can use at will.

Drow of the Underdark probably has something that you can use, as well.
Unearthed Arcana has something called LA buyoff, which lets you spend XP to get rid off Level Adjustment, which will be helpful since Drow have +2 LA. (I think).

The standard wizard prestige classes are Archmage and Master Specialist, but anything that doesn't give up caster levels (like wild mage in complete arcane) makes you a bit stronger, since almost any prestige class has class features that are better than a couple of bonus feats and familiar progression.

If you don't want to give up any schools, look into the Elven Generalist Alternate Class feature, in... Races of the wild, I think?

[ericgrau]

At your option (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/classes.htm) you can make a rogue wizard (arcane trickster or spellwarp sniper), a fighter wizard (eldritch knight or abjurant champion), a cleric wizard (mystic theurge) or a psion wizard (cerebremancer (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/prestigeClasses/cerebremancer.htm)) in 3.5 pretty easily. The drawback is you're less strong at being a pure wizard. And in 3.5 drow are already 2 levels behind to make up for their drow abilities. It's also possible to be a straight wizard but carry a few magic items or spells that help you do other things. Take your pick and people will be able to help you from there.

As mentioned archmage and master specialist are nice for pure wizards who want to focus even more on something wizardy.

Next thing to be wary of is that 3.5 has rules for everything. That doesn't mean you have to use them, nor does the DM have to allow everything. They can bog you down a bit. The DM should feel free to continue to make things up like having potions that might do anything. You can use existing rules as rough guidelines for what's fair, but the only real limits should be your imagination. OTOH you can also find some great items or abilities that you might not have thought of on your own.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

First of all, in 3.5 Drow (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/elf.htm#drow) have a +2 level adjustment, which means under normal conditions you'll be starting at level 13 instead of 15. There are ways around this, though. The easiest would be either to say you bought off (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/reducingLevelAdjustments.htm) that level adjustment at a cost of 16,000 xp (which would make you gain more xp per encounter and eventually catch you back up to the party level), or use the Lesser Drow detailed in the back of Player's Guide to Faerun. Lesser Drow basically gets normal Elf traits and ability adjustments but with different racial weapon proficiencies and three 0-level spell-like abilities, plus the light blindness drawback, for no level adjustment at all.

My advice would be to play a normal Drow with the LA bought off. If you were a specialist Wizard before, then you should still be a specialist but the schools of magic in 3e are quite different from 2e. If you weren't a specialist, then there's a substitution level for Wizard 1 in Races of the Wild that's available to any Elf that gains bonuses for not specializing. If you want to specialize, pick Conjuration because it gets the best crowd control spells, the best damage dealing spells, every teleportation effect, and every spell that creates objects or summons monsters. It's the most versatile and useful school in the game, plus there's an alternate class feature in PHB2 exclusive to Conjurers that replaces your familiar and allows you to automatically avoid attacks, among other things.

You shouldn't be a single-classed Wizard, but you also should not multiclass in a way that loses even a single level of Wizard spellcasting. Pick prestige classes that grant "+1 level of existing spellcasting class" at every level, there are plenty to choose from. For example, you could go Wizard 5/ Incantatrix 10, and your character would be extremely powerful because Incantatrix gets many overpowered abilities in addition to increasing your spellcasting ability at every level. Your next five levels could be in Paragnostic Apostle, because it's extremely easy to qualify for and it gives some really nice abilities. In the epic levels you should take Epic Incantatrix, and pick up Epic Spellcasting first thing. Check one of these lists (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/lists) if you need to know what book a given feat or class is found in. Incantatrix has Iron Will as a prerequisite, and you can actually gain that feat for only 3,000 gp instead of spending a feat on it by saying you visited the Otyugh Hole, detailed on pages 151-152 of Complete Scoundrel.

Prestige classes don't advance your familiar's benefits, so your best choice is to trade out your familiar for an alternate class feature if possible, such as Abrupt Jaunt in PH2. If you still want a familiar, there's the feat Obtain Familiar in Complete Arcane which actually counts your prestige class levels toward its benefits. Alternate class features that replace a familiar are often unique and worth far more than a feat, so spending a feat to get a familiar despite having traded your original one for such a good alternate ability should be considered a net gain. You can use the Elf Wizard 3 substitution level in Races of the Wild to double the passive benefit your familiar grants you, so for example if you pick a Rat it will give you +4 to Fort saves instead of the normal +2. You could get a Hummingbird, listed in Dragon magazine issue 323, which uses the stats of a Thrush found in the DMG and normally grants +4 initiative, which would be increased to a +8 bonus with that substitution level.

You're going to need to do a lot of reading if you want to play a successful level 15 Wizard but aren't very familiar with 3.5 yet. Check out the linked guides, google-up and read even more guides, and remember that a Wizard's job is to make opponents completely ineffective in combat without necessarily killing or even harming them. Don't worry as much about your AC/HP as your buffs that make it so you completely avoid getting hit (Greater Invisibility, Mirror Image, flight). With Incantatrix you can use its 2nd and 3rd level abilities to add Persistent Spell to your fixed/personal-range buffs to make them last all day (Ray Deflection, Shield, Displacement, Superior Invisibility, Foresight, etc.) so opponents won't even bother attacking you. You can even use Project Image to make it so your spells appear to be coming from a completely different source. Playing a Wizard in the higher levels is an extremely tactical game, check out this post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=252333#5) I recently made, take Knowledge skills (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/knowledge.htm) that are useful for identifying monsters of each creature type (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#types), and make a cheat sheet for each type's poor saves and general strengths/weaknesses. A Wizard of such a high level, with an inhumanly high intelligence, would know far more about these things than you do, so this will allow you to make choices in combat based on what your character would know.

[Phan7om]

Thank you guys been very helpful despite lack of info. Anyways reading the links and found a couple more online that I am reading so essentially going to be doing a lot of catching up. Thanks again!!

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Thank you guys been very helpful despite lack of info. Anyways reading the links and found a couple more online that I am reading so essentially going to be doing a lot of catching up. Think I am going to go an Archmage route but not sure yet anyways thanks again!!

Just Wizard/Archmage is a pretty bad choice, because you can't qualify for it until Wizard 12. You're better of with something like Wizard 5/ Divine Oracle 4/ Paragnostic Apostle 3/ Archmage, at least then you'll get some class features. You can even qualify for Divine Oracle without spending any feats by paying 2,000 gp and saying you visited the Frog God's Fane detailed in Complete Scoundrel.