[PF] Tips for playing in my first Pathfinder campaign

[TerribleMedic]

Hello playground, I'm going to be playing in my first Pathfinder campaign ever in a week or so and I was hoping to absorb some your collective knowledge. I have played 3.5 in the past but it's been several years since I last played. I will be playing a Wizard for the first time, so to prepare myself for this I read both Treantmonk's and ProfessorQ's wizard guides. So I think I have general idea of good feats and spells I should be taking. I just wanted to know if you all had some other tips so I don't walk into my first encounter and get facerolled by some generic kobold.

[subject42]

Are you starting at level one?

[ngilop]

be very cautious for the first level or two as a wizard try to keep everybody else between you and the bad guys while you whittle away with your damage cantrip.

use your first level spell(s) in either DIRE emrgencies or if its a boss fight.

don't for example cast color spray at the first kobold you see, wait till you get ambushed by 4 or 5 and can color spray all or all but 1 or two of them.

[TerribleMedic]

Yes, we are starting at level 1 and there are three other players. I am not sure what classes they are playing but from what the DM has hinted at they are mostly other casters and/or squishy classes. We used a 15 point buy for stats so I think I ended up with (don't have my character sheet with me) 16 int, 14 con, 12 dex, 10 str, 10 Wis, 8 Cha. I also chose human as my race so I bumped my int up to 18. We rolled for our starting money and I ended up below average with 50g to start. Since there's no frontline I'll need to stay mobile and fire off that acid cantrip from the back. For the first few levels I should be very conservative with my spell use?

[subject42]

You're running a 15pt buy and starting with 50gp? That's rough.

Which school did you choose as your specialization?

Given your constraints, try to avoid using your 1st level spells unless one of the criteria on this list is true:


You can hit at least two (preferably 3 or 4) enemies with one spell.
You can completely remove a strong enemy from the fight (either by disabling or outright killing them).
Not using a spell would cause another party member to die.


As soon as you start getting some more wealth, start using your scribe scroll bonus feat to start making scrolls for your more situational spells. That will help free up slots that you can fill with options that are always useful in an adventuring day.

Don't forget the income rules for craft and profession checks as well. A few SP a day adds up when you're starting on the low end like that.

[mcv]

There's plenty of other stuff to do than just cast spells. Recently my wizard was instrumental in defeating a mummy by throwing marbles in front of him. There's lots of cheap goods that can be used in very tactical ways.

Two easy saves can equal one hard save. Remember that.

If you're an elf, you can use a longbow. Good dex is very useful for a wizard, so you might not even be all that bad with the longbow.

There are some really amazingly good 1st level spells. Grease is a life saver. Silent Image can create a very believable wall.

Of all the tools in your arsenal, fighters are your best weapon. Having an enemy fall over and try to get up within reach of your fighters, means free attacks for them. Maximize the attacks your fighters make, and minimize the attacks they receive (after minimizing the attacks YOU receive, of course!).

[TerribleMedic]

Yeah, we rolled for everything in this campaign pretty much. So my character ended up being freakishly short and quite hefty. I was considering specializing in Conjuration that way I could throw more bodies infront of the enemies. I think the DM wants me to do Evocation instead though, he's hinted strongly that we are low on damage dealers. I'm most likely going to specialize in Conjuration and give up Enchantment & Abjuration. Eventually I'll get Abjuration back with that arcane discovery feat. I wanted to use my gold to get a L. Crossbow as my main weapon for the start but because of my gold constraints I'll have to hold off on that for now. Thank you for the guidelineson when to cast my level 1 spells. I probably would have cast them willy-nilly otherwise. Unfortunately, it is almost a definite that the highest HD among the other PCs is a D8. I will definitely take advantage of scribe scroll. Also I'm not quite up to date on some of the abbreviations, what is SP?

[subject42]

SP: Silver pieces. You can make craft checks every day to earn money (selling or repairing goods) and profession checks every week.

I would definitely suggest conjuration over evocation. There's always at least one damage dealing conjuration spell available per spell level, and it wins out in utility as well.

Don't forget that your specialization choice gives you useful features at low-level as well. For example, conjuration gives you a 3+INT/day ranged touch attack for 1d6 + (Wizard Level / 2) acid damage as a spell-like ability. That's better damage than acid splash and gives your character a bit more staying power.

[TerribleMedic]

D'oh, that abbreviation should have been obvious. Yeah, I think I'll go with Conjuration because it increases the duration of my summons. I'll have to remember to do those craft and profession checks each week. I know my DM will strict about when and where I can perform those checks. Our campaign is going to be a custom creation of his, which I hope will be very interesting. Are there any spells besides the ones listed in the guides I should consider adding to my spellbook. We are only allowed to use official Paizo books, no 3rd party, and no 3.X stuff.

[subject42]

If you don't have a healer in your party, Infernal Healing (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/i/infernal-healing) is nice to have, and it has the bonus of being a conjuration spell.

[ngilop]

im hesiatnt to support your wanting of abjuration as an opposition school.

I have a conjurer in a PF/3.5 cross for rise of the ruen lords ( it was orignally for 3.5)

and my banned school are enchantment and necromancy.

the only thing in treantmonk's guide that is completely wrong is his assesment of universailist. I have no idea why he thinks you need to give up schools to be one...

conjuration and Transmutation as the two most powerful schools in the game, so really either of those are good choices.

with conjurer you also have the best battle field control spells, so taking half the enemy out of combat is most times a lot better than putting some extra HP in their faces.

I cna give better advice as soon as I find out what the other classes are, and if one is a summoner.. well they are FAR from squishy.

[Ryulin18]

Conjunction (teleportation) is very strong. 3+int times a day teleports that scale in range and are swifts. Also the elf gets+1 use per level for his favoured class.

[catsora]

As a wizard at level 1, you are squishy and have few spells so maximize your use of them. Bring along a weapon like a crossbow (heavy or light) and use spells like color spray or grease. For the specialist school, conjuration is nice, transmutation is wonderful for party buffing and at later levels polymorphing, abjuration is also really helpful. Enchantment can provide good crowd control, illusion can be really helpful in some situations, neromancy can also be pretty good, divination can be useful (especially on initiative). Evocation though, its mostly damage dice and it can be replicated through the shadow evocation spells.

[StreamOfTheSky]

I will second Conj (Teleportation) for your specialization. Not only is the teleport a swift action, it is also Su. You see, in PF, the concentration DC to cast in a grapple is insanely hard, so dimension door is not very good at getting you out of it any more. Having Su teleporting (which thus does not need concentration to succeed) is nice.

At low levels you will need to conserve spells a bit, but you do get infinite cantrips. If you don't prohibit Enchantment, you should prepare Daze at low levels. Even if you do prohibit enchantment, it might be worth the 2 slots.

On that note, I suggest you prohibit Divination. It has only a few good spells and many of them are ones you cast during downtime, so paying 2x slots is less painful. Especially if there are multiple casters in the party, they can handle the detect magic. Depending on what they do, you may also want to prohibit Abjuration. It has about half a dozen spells you really really want, and then the rest of the school is crap. And those ~ 6 spells (dispel / greater dispel, resist energy, dim anchor/lock) are on both wizard and cleric spell lists, so another caster will probably be able to handle them. Evocation and Enchantment are also always prime candidates to prohibit, if you prefer.

[mcv]

I believe having Divination as an opposition school means you start without Detect Magic, which is by far the most useful cantrip. You can still learn it from a scroll of course, but you'll still need two spell slots to prepare it.

Though admittedly Detect Magic is really the only downside to taking Divination as opposition school. Personally I suggest Necromancy. The only real downside there are spells like Enervation, but you can always get those later through Opposition Research.