I'd like some Conjurer assistance

[Souel]

My character is already a NG fire template grey elf on a 15p buy and the character's taken a few concept twists since I started developing it.
He was going to be a straight hardcore Conjuring fanatic. Then I was going to try to Gish him while maintaining super summoning supremacy. Here's what I have so far:

S 6
D 10
C 14
I 23
W 8
C 6

He's presently 3 Wizard(Conjurer) (Unearthed Arcana) with variants Rapid Summoning and Augment Summoning. (No familiar and no scribe scroll.)
1 Master Specialist (Complete Mage)

Feats include Spell Penetration (I had a bad experience with a few Spellstitched.)
Combat Casting - Flaw
Eschew Materials - Flaw
Spell Focus (Conjuration) for Master Specialist.

Here's the plan as it stands today:
My thought was to take a level of Binder (Tome of Magic) @5 for Naberius in conjunction with Sanctified magic.
More or less the plan is 10 levels of Master Specialist and 5 of Abjurant Champion (Complete Mage).

I was thinking at 6 I could do "Skilled Pact Magic," though it wouldn't be necessarily necessary being that Naberius' influence isn't particularly menacing and he's only a 15 DC bind. Being only a level 1 Binder I wouldn't have to don the skin of a madman very long anyway. I'm sure I'll work on my DM to get some "Implements of Binding."
Level 9 is "Summon Elemental Reserve," not negotiable.
I was thinking I'd be a magic item hoarder and @15/18 take "Forge Ring" (prerequisite) and "Extra Rings" for 4 rings. I know that's not a great use of feats, I could take "Arcane Strike" and "Power Attack" or something. I'm just a far cry from a mage aficionado.


I've been delving into my books for a few days now and was looking for something that I could take a single level in that would get me one more BAB and +1 Caster Level while not requiring a load of feats.
For this character about the only things I've found are Bladesinger and Spellsword. Frankly between the two I'd rather spend three feats I'll use with Bladesinger over two feats for Spellsword that I don't intend to use.
The group will play with pretty well any 3.0 or 3.5 book there is, but for the most part we don't include Homebrew material.

I know there are vastly more experienced mages than myself out here, I'd appreciate some help with construction, perhaps even going a different direction with the character as a whole if I like the idea enough.

Footnote: Your forum is crazy hard to register for. My guess is some of the character names are supposed to also include their class title? Because on the occasion I could actually read the image verification I got the character wrong...seriously took me over a half hour (while watching TV) to register.

[Spuddles]

If you are a conjurer, that summons, and later wants to be a gish, why take spell resistance? Grease it, glitterdust it, web it, acid fog it, send summons after it, shoot an orb, call a fiend, but holy pelor man, don't shoot magic missile at it!

And if you are gonna be a gish, why conjurer? Transmutation makes for better in the buff department.

[Darrin]

I've been delving into my books for a few days now and was looking for something that I could take a single level in that would get me one more BAB and +1 Caster Level while not requiring a load of feats.
For this character about the only things I've found are Bladesinger and Spellsword. Frankly between the two I'd rather spend three feats I'll use with Bladesinger over two feats for Spellsword that I don't intend to use.


I'm not sure which two feats you need for Spellsword... Medium/Heavy Armor Proficiency? If you're going to blow two feats, might as well be Dodge + Iron Will (the latter can be obtained via Otyugh Hole from Complete Scoundrel), and then dip a level of Dragonslayer (from the Draconomicon): +1 BAB, +1 CL, and proficiency with all martial weapons, all armor, and all shields. After that, you can dip Spellsword as well.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Why and how do you plan to gish with Str 6 and Dex 10? I would say hop into Malconvoker (CScoundrel I think) which will give you much better summons.

[Souel]

Spuddles and Dusk,
I'm really unfamiliar with mages. I put together the character in about 15 minutes and played a game the next morning. Then acknowledging my own naivity I started searching the internet for as much help as I could find to build a decent, if not powerful character. I discovered a completely new term, "gish," and took a day or two looking into what that entails and how to properly do it. I didn't start the character even with the knowledge of that term existing, let alone how to do it. I was howerver seeing if anyone had thoughs as to how to build said character to summon well and be respectable in melee. (A tall order, I recognize that.)
On that note, thank you Darrin, I'll start looking in that direction when I get home sir.

[eggs]

Eschew Materials saves maybe 30 gp in replacement spell pouches, so unless the campaign has some very unusual assumptions, it's probably not going to do much for you. If you can retrain that to something more useful, you probably should. (Probably metamagic for Anima Mage.)

Bad stats don't preclude gishing, but they do kind of rule it out until you can get Polymorph and similar abilities online, which is not going to be for a while.

It sounds like you're trying to spread the build in too many directions - summoning, gishing, binding, crafting. It will generally be easier for you to pick one or two of those to get good at, and to maybe throw a couple spells around to dabble in the others.

In this case, since you've already committed resources to summoning, you could work on that and throw either two feats or a feat and a level at learning spirit binding, then go into Anima Mage. Its metamagic abilities will effectively improve your character at anything else you want to do (summoning or gishing or whatever), and its levels will give you some nifty pact magic abilities to throw around.

And if you want to play the gish, just drop a polymorph and a couple wraithstrikes in a fight, and it will hardly matter that you're sitting on d4 HD and 1/2 BAB.

[Spuddles]

And if you want to play the gish, just drop a polymorph and a couple wraithstrikes in a fight, and it will hardly matter that you're sitting on d4 HD and 1/2 BAB.

The d4 HD will still definitely matter.

[eggs]

The d4 HD will still definitely matter.
If False Life/Greater Mirror Image/Heart of Stone/[Lesser/Greater] Celerity aren't enough to feel secure in the dude's survivability, add Minor Shapeshift to the feats list.

[Keld Denar]

Oh Minor Shapeshift...what did we ever do without you...

Such an awesome feat, gish or no gish.

[Spuddles]

If False Life/Greater Mirror Image/Heart of Stone/[Lesser/Greater] Celerity aren't enough to feel secure in the dude's survivability, add Minor Shapeshift to the feats list.

Include them in the list then, eh?

Too often I see advice to noobs as:
Use a polymorph effect
???
Profit

Where ??? is a half dozen spells (most that need putting up every fight) and careful selection of monstrous forms. These things should be pointed out for OPs that are "really unfamiliar with mages."

[eggs]

These things should be pointed out for OPs that are "really unfamiliar with mages."
Honest question, not trying to push a point or anything:

I think it would be tiresome to rewrite the guides on things like surviving with wizards or preparing spells that keep a Wizard from being killed any time a new poster asks questions. It also seems frustrating to people who've already read the guides to be barraged by handbook links in place of content-carrying responses.

Do you think it would be appropriate to throw a pile of guide links for very specific tactics and builds like the Summoner's Handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=11186), How to Stick it to Beatsticks (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=331), the Completer Polymorph Thread (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=519.0), Anima Mage Handbook (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19866226/Anima_Mage_Handbook) etc., along with the first mention of a suggestion, before the OP expresses interest?

And in the same vein, do you think standard practice should include dropping a reference to existing class or concept play guides like the Conjurer's handbook (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19863086/The_Conjurers_Handbook) or one of treantmonk's (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1570) or lognicninja's (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=2716) general wizard play guides?

I usually look for less coddly build option-rundowns like Dictum Mortuum's (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19869222/The_Wizards_Handbook) to browse when I build my own characters, but they aren't as friendly for new players, so I'd think those would be better omitted, just as a waste of time digging up/linking.

(Links added for input maybe relevant to the OP. And maybe appropriate? <_<)

[Spuddles]

It depends on the context. A pixie in the playground showing up with a terrible build probably deserves to have things spelled out a little better.

Polymorph is generally touted as great; so is wildshape. And they are. They're ****ing amazing. But wading into melee with that single buff and d4 HD will get you killed. It should be acknowledged, in general, that gishing requires a fair resource investment in the form of spells known and spell slots, and often in actions used to buff.

[hex0]

Take Nar Demonbinder (unapproachable east) or online article. Then take Ultimate Magus. This works well, indeed.

[Randomguy]

At higher levels, tell the party druid to prepare Last Breath at least once a day. That way, if you die, you can be reincarnated as something without a penalty to strength, and maybe even with a bonus, which should really help. Also, no level loss! Just try not to die on the same day as someone else.

As already mentioned, the Minor Shapeshift reserve feat is pure gold.

The Bite of X spells can also really boost your stats, but you might be better off casting them on the local fighter until you get access to polymorph.

Some good gish classes are eldritch knight, Abjurant champion, swiftblade and knight phantom (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20050706a&page=4) (which is like Eldritch knight only better).

Some possible builds are: Caster 6/Swiftblade 9/Abjurant Champion 5.
Caster 5/Fighter 1/Knight Phantom 10/Abjurant Champion 4. (or KP 9/Ab Champ 5)
Caster 5/Fighter 1/EK 9/Abjurant Champion 5.

(Note: I use Caster instead of Wizard since there could be room for a few levels of Master Specialist in there).

Although what you have planned would work well, too: with your current build you're sort of a gish-lite, and you end up better at casting than most of the builds I mentioned (less caster levels lost), but not as good in combat. You'd probably get badly hurt in melee without the right buffs.

A few things that haven't been mentioned yet:

Draconic Polymorph (from draconomicon) replaces polymorph when you hit level 5 spells.
Arcane disciple (competition domain) gets you both Divine Power and Righteous Might, which are great cleric buffs.
Pile on the all day buffs at higher levels. Things like Heart of X, Elemental body, magic weapon, so on. Even spells that last 10 min/level can be made to last all day with a peral of power and a rod of extend, at higher levels. Spuddles has a point: Polymorph is great for combat but with just polymorph and nothing else you're still really vulnerable.

[Souel]

Oh wow...
There's a lot here that I haven't seen or done before. I'mma do some (a lot of) reading. It'll take me a little bit with mild dyslexia, but there's a lot of great help and some direction for this and future mage builds. Thanks to everyone who's helped especially Eggs. I'll read a bunch and PM you later this weekend if I have more questions and that's alright with you.

[Spuddles]

Sorry Souel, I didn't mean to call your build terrible. It's actually fine, just unfocused. The great thing about wizards is that if they don't die on day one due to poor spell selection, they get a new spell selection on day two.

Summons are highly adaptable. Summoned Monsters tend to be poor melee combatant, but great utility. Which is nice. It's like the swiss army knife of spells. But swiss army knives aren't combat knives, or chainsaws, or wrenches, or, well, you get the picture.

Your biggest problem will be actions in combat. Summoning things that cast spells or grapple is a great way to start breaking the action economy. Beigna competent gish requires buffs, buffs have durations and take time to put up. There's some great advice here- just be careful of trying to put up every buff spell. As a wizard, you can prep a couple duplicates of good gish stuff- make sure you're using up your swift actions. Use those specialist slots to hold summons (which will be utility) and some battlefield control.

That way you can get the most out of your character while still doing what you want to do. Personally, I find buffing up and making full attacks kind of boring, compared to what you COULD be doing. Most fights resolve in 3 to 7 rounds. Spending 2 or 3 rounds to buff so you can trade full attacks tends to be wasteful with HP (you will run out in combat, it happens) and actions. It can ultimately be spell slot efficient, though.

If you don't mind, I think posting responses here would be best. We all come from different playgrounds and playstyles, and the discussions that are provoke tend to be enlightening for all involved. Or me at least.

[Souel]

I'm rather familiar with the generalization of mages. In melee they can squish fairly easily without the proper tools and for wizards they have about 66% of the daily spell capacity of a sorcerer so while wizard spells aren't "more valuable" per say they are in shorter supply. Your approach to my request for guidance as a whole has in truth until now been overwhelmingly negative and condissending of my attempt to discover and discuss new (to me) and powerful mage builds. To site a few examples: "terrible build" and suggestions that I'd cast a single spell with my 10 AC and -1 to-hit and believe I'm as solid as a fighter without so much as a subtle glance at my statistics and siting that I just joined this quite well established forum yesterday as an excuse to belittle my effort.

If you'd believe it, I'm one of the two rotating DMs in my group of five. I can make a pack of damaging, crippling, sneaky, deceptive, or informative rogues all day long. My monsters are great, can be unstoppable if I want. That's my forte. Fighters and clerics I'm mediocre. My mages I generate are borderline pathetic.
Aside from making my own mage, the idea was to also strengthen my repitore for my DMing.
As I develop the character concept more I may or may not choose to openly discuss it, I'm as undecided as the character was yesterday. One bad apple in the bunch concept.

But there's one thing we seem to agree on.


Summons are highly adaptable. Summoned Monsters tend to be poor melee combatant, but great utility. Which is nice. It's like the swiss army knife of spells.

First day of this character's career:
We're level 3-4 and the DM puts us in a small room with a 3 rogue Drow. He drops darkness on theinitial/surprise round, no one has darkvision. Rogue begins laying into the party. (I could point out that with the partial concealment from his own darkness he doesn't get SA, but I was focused on what I could do and forgot.) I summon two celestial spiders in the next few rounds. With darkvision and tremorsense they handle the rogue handily, and without that pesky miss chance.