First Wizard Help

[Handsome Goblin]

Hello all, I am making a new 5th level wizard and am kind of new. I will probably take up conjuration and drop evocation and enchantment. I wanted to be a kobold for flavor and take the dragonwrought feat, but I don want to be like super crazy powered. If that option is not really fun, than I will just choose a new race. Than for feats/ class features I have read some guides but have no clue were to start or what to choose. If you guys/gals could give me some simple reccomendations that would be much appreciated! Thanks. (My stats would be focusing int , con, dex, than the rest would be dump.)

[Endarire]

Snuggle up with Treantmonk (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=394.0).

[Ignominia]

When it comes to wizards... Treantmonk is the answer.

[ArcturusV]

Sounds like you did some research already, which is okay. But don't let the research guide everything you do. Going for a Specialist Conjurer it good. But not unless you KNOW why and how to be a Specialist Conjurer. Honestly if you are new, I'd go with a generalist wizard, not any sort of specialist. At level 5, the bonus spells you get from being a specialist aren't that important. Not unless you have something really specific you are thinking of like going into Master Specialist or the like.

There's just a big gap to be aware of between being TOLD something is good, and actually being able to be good with it. It requires a level of game knowledge you may not actually have. So I'd just recommend some guidelines on the most important thing for you to really pick up, Spell Selection. Four categories of spells is generally what I suggest to new players. I don't necessarily tell them what spells are in what category, because that doesn't help. You have to be able to read a spell and figure out what category it is in, before you can use it to its potential.

Category 1: These are spells that entirely bypass or defeat an encounter of some type by itself. Note that not all "encounters" are Battles. This can also include social/political encounters, stealth encounters, trap encounters, etc. There are plenty of spells however which will allow you to bypass encounters at almost any level, so they are out there.

Category 2: These are spells that significantly alter an encounter. You don't "Autowin" an encounter by casting this spell, but you turn a tough or even encounter into a cake walk. These tend to either influence large numbers of adversaries/allies, or significantly alter key features of an encounter.

Category 3: These are spells that handicap or outright defeat a single target. By casting these spells you can basically point at the biggest guy in the room, the highest priority target, and tell them No, sit down, shut up, do as I will. This can be killing a target outright regardless of his status, or handicapping him in such a way he is unable to contribute.

Category 4: These are "put the boot in" spells, which polish off already weakened or partially accomplished encounters. Despite being the lowest ranked category, it's still important to have some of them available. There's times where a battle is turned by the ability to just drop a "suboptimal" 5d6 damage in a 20 foot radius, or autohit a target for 3d4+3 damage. They shouldn't be your primary load out however. Leave "Finishing" targets to the guys with weapons when you can.

Generally the closer to category 1 you can get, the more you want to make sure the spell is in your loadout for the day. Of course the category rankings CAN change based on what you expect for the day. For example Solid Fog might normally rank in Category 2 on a standard dungeon crawl/adventure day. It might go to Category 1 on a day where you're looking to kill a dragon. It might not even be considered as part of one of those four categories (effectively junk) on the day that you're overseeing peace negotiations between Duke Fatass and Gobbo King.

[DR27]

Honestly if you are new, I'd go with a generalist wizard, not any sort of specialist.

*snip*Really good advice all the way through - only specific thing I think I can point the OP towards is the Elven Generalist ACF. Bonus spells of the highest level you can cast are the most important anyway.

[Handsome Goblin]

Thanks for the advice, I have already done some research, but that seems like the way to go I will just go with it and if something is wrong I will optimize/change.

[Drake2009]

Ahh the first wizard i remember that. Advice from me is dont drop the evocation. Its always useful to rain fire on your enemies or electrocute them. Conjurer is good. Summon lots of animals to fight in your name and always throw in a few buffs for the party. Get haste and the rogue will love you forever. A few true strikes for the player with terrible roles is quick and always nice to do. And then they can owe you. My wizard is rather greedy. Loves money but is always ready to help the party. Im like the rogue for the party cause ours is too busy stealing sandwiches and walking on the ceiling. Once you're higher level you can use quicken spells to keep buffing while summoning. Just dont get to trigger happy. I once blew up a room of potions with a fireball. The elves smelled it all the way from the base...and think of all the wasted potions!!!

[DR27]

For the first wizard, don't drop anything - generalists will let you experiment with everything. Little less power, a lot more learning.

[Darth Stabber]

Ahh the first wizard i remember that. Advice from me is dont drop the evocation. Its always useful to rain fire on your enemies or electrocute them. Conjurer is good. Summon lots of animals to fight in your name and always throw in a few buffs for the party. Get haste and the rogue will love you forever. A few true strikes for the player with terrible roles is quick and always nice to do. And then they can owe you. My wizard is rather greedy. Loves money but is always ready to help the party. Im like the rogue for the party cause ours is too busy stealing sandwiches and walking on the ceiling. Once you're higher level you can use quicken spells to keep buffing while summoning. Just dont get to trigger happy. I once blew up a room of potions with a fireball. The elves smelled it all the way from the base...and think of all the wasted potions!!!

Depending on what books are available, evocation is easily dropable, and conjuration can rain plenty of fire and pain upon one's foes. Evocation offers contingency, windwall, and over 9000 variations of SR: yes reflex for half. Windwall can be obtained via shadow evocation, and contingency via greater shadow evocation, so just don't ban illusion. You can even get "better contingency" via craft contingent spell (which is insane).

Enchantment offers a whole variety of [mind effecting] (immunity to which is common at low levels and nearly omnipresent at higher levels) and, other than heroism and greater heroism, they are all will negates and do roughly the same thing. Illusion allows you to target weak willsaves, and even against strong will enemies they have to interact with them to get a save. So dropping enchantment is the most painless drop. There will be a few things you miss, but you can do better than this.

Illusion is dropable, but it hurts. The image series's power is directly proportional to your imagination. The shadow evocation and conjuration lines offer you a fantastically flexible slot, giving you a whole variety of avaible actions.

Necromancy is the only remaining droppable school, and it hurts really badly to lose. It has a wide variety of very powerful effects, debuffs, minionmancy, a couple of buffs, and a number of weird utilityeffects that are not duplicable.

Abjuration is not really a school to specialize in, but it has far to much in it to justify dropping. All manners of protections and counters.

Divination is not droppable, and if you have access to spell compendium it's pickable for specialty. Even if you could drop it you wouldn't want to, all that intel gathering is just useful.

Conjuration and transmutation are the two most powerful schools. Don't drop them, specialize in them, unless you have spell compendium, then specialize in divination.

[Kristinn]

I have to agree with not specializing. Especially when you have already bypassed the painfully limited first levels, just enjoy the luxury of not having to ban any school. You don't need all those spell slots, many encounters you will just drop a web and haste your allies, and then use your next move action to unfold a lawn chair.

Like others have said, there are situations where SR:Yes and Reflex:Half over a large area is really helpful.

[Handsome Goblin]

I ended up with a generalist our party is pretty laid back, so for my first time wizard it should be fone thanks for the advice !

[Tvtyrant]

My favorite spells are all Evocation, but that doesn't mean you can't drop it. I love the force effect cage abilities (Resilient Sphere, Forcecage, shaped Wall of Force) and my favorite low level debuff is a third level spell from the Spell Compendium called Great Thunderclap (also a 7th level spell from Faerun, since everytime I mention it someone tries to correct me.)

Great Thunderclap forces one of each save over an area, and failure leads to deafen/stun/prone effects. Chances are every opponent who is CR appropos will fail at least one save.

The force effects are basically win spells against mundanes/brutes. Also good for blocking Anti-magic fields and most spells.

[Darth Stabber]

I wasn't suggesting specializing solely for the extra spells (those are more of a nice extra), but for the ACFs replacing familiar, of which conjurer has two amazing choices. The first makes summons into standard actions which is pretty good, and abrupt jaunt which is insane.

If your GM can't stand that sharp cheddar then generalist isn't bad, but disappointing. And there are ways to make it better.

Elven generalist is good, but requires you to be a long eared tree hugger (without sarcasm I can say that it is a horrendous requirement), but the extra highest level spell per day is pretty good. Domain wizard is possibly better than elven generalist, depending on domain (transmutation, conjuration, and storm are good calls, storm even gives you a druid spell). Domain and elven generalist are strictly better than not specializing, you aren't going to specialize, so trading away the ability to specialize is literally getting something for nothing.