Wizard Chassis Build: versatility vs. staying-power

[Lactantius]

Every time I generate a new wizard, it is a pain to choose the right chassis.
Assuming that most splatbooks are allowed, I wonder which chassis you prefer (and why).

I'll throw in the most common chassis available. We will also assume that the wizard will prestige out at level 6, maybe already at level 4, if possible.

1.) The core generalist, Wizard 5: core and straight. Apart of the familiar progression and maybe strict core-only-rules, I cannot see any advantage sticking to a generalist alone.

2.) The optional-rules generalist, Domain Wizard 5: since you lose nothing and gain only, this feature smells cheesy. On the other hand, the bonus spell slots are fixed to the respective domain spells.
What I like is the possibility to give a wizard more thematic structure, like an anitmage, a seer, a conjurer and the like.
Compared to a usual specialist, we have the same bonus spell slots each spell level, but they are fixed.
The selling feature is that you lose no school. On the other hand, I find myself seldom in the need of all magic schools.

3.) The core-rules specialist, Abjurer/Conjurer/Necromancer etc 3 or 5:
specialists sound awesome because you give something up which you wouldn't have used in the first place.
A selling feature is that you qualify for master specialist already at level 4. But on the other hand, you lose your wizard5-bonus-feat.

4.) The optional-rules specialist: Focused X
As 3.) but more limited on the paper. You must ban 2 - 3 school, which starts to hurt (albeit all rumors that evocation is easy to drop; it is not).
Some handbooks argue that the extra spell each spell level is no major advantage at higher levels.
I disagree completely. The mere number "+1 each spell level" sounds small, but since all the spell levels increase non-linear, then we must assess that higher level spell slots are more worthy than lower level spell slots.
Especially if you consider that a focused specialist gets around twice as much slots at his highest level.

A major disadvantage lies in the magic schools themselves. Since they vary greatly in usability and number of spells, not all focused specialists get the same strength.
Classic comparion: focused conjurer vs. focused diviner.
If you don't want to play a conjurer or transmuter or maybe illusionist with SCM stuff, you are pretty hosed picking a focused specialist.

So afterall, what is your favorite wizard chassis?
Do you prefer lesser spells per day and just stick to more resting?
Or do you prefer more staying power with a maximum in spell slots?

Personally, I tend to use the latter approach since it seems that having more spellslots gives you more staying power AND more flexibility since you can keep a more absolute number of different spells at hand.

[Flickerdart]

Your average wizard at level 1 with an Int of 18 will have two 1st level spell slots, and so can represent a maximum of two schools. Your average Focused Specialist has 4, and can also represent only two schools (but one has to be his specialist school).

Your average wizard at level 5 with an Int of 20 will have 5 1st level spells, 3 2nd level spells, and 2 3rd level spells. He can represent five schools with level 1 spells, 3 schools with level 2 spells, and 2 schools with level 3 spells. The average Focused Specialist will have 7 1st level spells, 5 2nd level spells, and 4 3rd level spells. He can represent five schools with level 1 spells, three schools with level 2 spells, and two schools with level 3 spells (but one has to be his specialist school at every level).

While a Focused Specialist may lose day-to-day versatility, because he cannot change out his favored school completely, he is actually more versatile during the day, because he has more spells available to pick from, and the same number of schools. If your DM does not change the campaign's monsters to invalidate your chosen school, Focused Specialist is better at low levels. It becomes less valuable as you approach 20 since you get more slots, but "2 more spells of your highest level" is always a very valuable thing to have, and gives you more opportunities to dip other classes without reducing effectiveness compared to a generalist.

[Tvtyrant]

Use the Easy Bake (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10940255#post10940255) wizard. Now you the most versatile.

[Flickerdart]

Use the Easy Bake (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10940255#post10940255) wizard. Now you the most versatile.
Elven Generalist requires you to be a filthy elf though.

[Tvtyrant]

Elven Generalist requires you to be a filthy elf though.

I happen to like elves myself. And some of the sub-races are quite good.

[Rubik]

I happen to like elves myself. And some of the sub-races are quite good.But elves roll around in animal filth and don't bathe.

At least that's what my dwarf friend told me. I believe him because he told me to.

[Emperor Tippy]

Gray Elf Generalist Domain Wizard with the Elf Generalist Racial Substitution Level and Spontaneous Divination alternate class feature is the best first five levels of the Wizard class.

Leaving that aside, what makes a wizard powerful (and arguably the most powerful tier 1 class) is its sheer versatility.

A specialist gets an additional 9 spell slots (one per spell level) per day, in exchange for giving up two schools of magic. This is not, generally, a good deal.

Frankly, a Focused Specialist is not a tier 1 class. Its a tier 2, that is how much versatility you have given up with the loss of three schools of magic. Sure, there are ways to cheese around the disadvantages (Shapechange abuse, for example) but those tend to be frowned upon. A FS is almost always giving up Necromancy, Enchantment, and Evocation; Illusion is sometimes dumped for one of the others but that still screws you.

Necromancy has the only native resurrection ability of the wizard (Clone), Astral Projection (one of the best defensive spells in a game where rocket tag is the norm), Soul Bind (keeping those enemies actually dead is a good idea), Waves of Exhaustion (no save exhaustion to everyone in a 60 ft. cone, meaning -6 Str and -6 Dex along with half movement speed), Command Undead (essentially a save of die/loose against undead), Magic Jar, Waves of Fatigue, Bestow Curse, Enervation, Blindness/Deafness, and Ray of Enfeeblement. That is just the list of core necromancy spells that are quite good.

Enchantment has Sleep, Hideous Laughter, Touch of Idiocy (Maximize that and screw over a fellow caster with no save, nothing quite like 6 points off their casting stat and a -3 to will saves), Feeblemind (save or be permanently screwed for any Int or Cha based caster, and they even get an additional -4 on their save to resist it), Irresistible Dance, the Dominate line, and a number of other useful spells (especially outside of core). Sure, there are a number of enemy types that Enchantment won't work on but there are also tons of enemies where Enchantment is just filled with "save or be permanently screwed" spells.

Evocation has Force Cage, Contingency, Wall of Force, Sending, Interposing Hand (selective cover is incredibly nice), Resilient Sphere (the best general purpose defensive spell in the game), Tiny Hut (instant total concealment for you and your entire party), Wind Wall, Shatter, and Magic Missile (combine with Fell Drain and laugh). Again the list is expanded outside of core but most of those spells that I listed remain useful throughout your entire adventuring career. Evocation gets a bad reputation mostly because a lot of people operate under the delusion that it is the direct damage school (that would be conjuration).

Illusion has all kinds of incredibly useful spells of pretty much every use.

And those are what you give up when you specialize. Transmutation and Conjuration are never going anywhere if the caster is remotely competent. Divination can not be given up. Abjuration has all of the anti magic magic.

---
The only specialization that was even remotely worth it was Divination (because you only loose out on one school and can usually find a Divination spell of every level that you are going to be casting pretty much every day) but Spontaneous Divination made divination specialization something that pretty much only idiots do if they have a choice.

[Fax Celestis]

Tippy, does that change at all if you take the Item Reprieve/Spell Reprieve/Arcane Transfiguration feat chain in LEoF? (the TL;DR is that it lets you learn and cast spells and use items from one of your banned schools).

EDIT: Going as a Diviner, three feats for basically a free spell slot a level seems pretty good, esp. considering the existence of the Extra Slot feat.

[Psyren]

FS Wizards are still T1. Treantmonk and many others have hashed this out at length before so I won't exhume it yet again, but suffice to say that Illusion, Transmutation and Conjuration have enough versatility between them even without any of the others, and often you get to keep Abjuration too.

In a nutshell, T1 means:
- Large list of powerful options
- The ability to freely reselect those options at least daily.

FS Wizards still meet both those criteria.

[Spuddles]

Elven Generalist requires you to be a filthy elf though.

Nasty longears.

[Emperor Tippy]

Elven Generalist requires you to be a filthy elf though.

Gray Elf gets you 4 free feats and +2 Int, which works out to 2 extra first level spells which, with Elf Generalist, puts you ahead of an FC at level 1. It also puts you even with an FC in 9th level spell slots (+1 from Elf Generalist, +1 from 36 vs. 34 Int).

And it qualifies you for Faerie Mysteries Initiate which lets you get Int to HP at the cost of a feat.


Tippy, does that change at all if you take the Item Reprieve/Spell Reprieve/Arcane Transfiguration feat chain in LEoF? (the TL;DR is that it lets you learn and cast spells and use items from one of your banned schools).

EDIT: Going as a Diviner, three feats for basically a free spell slot a level seems pretty good, esp. considering the existence of the Extra Slot feat.

Three feats for a school of magic is pretty much always a good trade. Go an Elf Diviner with Chaos Shuffle and you end up with (compared to a human) an additional spell slot of every level at the cost of a few skill points. This is better than a straight Elf Generalist who doesn't Chaos Shuffle but not by a lot and there are a lot of things that could be done with the three feats you spent instead.

Without Chaos Shuffle its better than a specialist wizard without the feats but worse off than an Elf Generalist most of the time.

For an FS I would always take that feat chain.

Part of the problem though is that, at least in my opinion, a large part of the community overvalues spell slots. Especially in higher level and higher op play. Shapechange alone should save you probably 10 spell slots in any given day, that one spell saves you from having to prepare and use three 9th level spells (Wish, Foresight, Astral Projection), teleportation, a whole host of divinations, planar travel spells, and a number of more situational and utility spells. An auto resetting trap of Mage's Lucubration gives you effectively unlimited 5th level and lower spell slots if you store it in a bag of holding and is dirt cheap (I consider it a must have purchase for any high op wizard). Wands, scrolls, and eternal wands also exist.


FS Wizards are still T1. Treantmonk and many others have hashed this out at length before so I won't exhume it yet again, but suffice to say that Illusion, Transmutation and Conjuration have enough versatility between them even without any of the others, and often you get to keep Abjuration too.

In a nutshell, T1 means:
- Large list of powerful options
- The ability to freely reselect those options at least daily.

FS Wizards still meet both those criteria.

And I've explained why I hold a different opinion numerous times in the past.

An FS Wizard is a high tier 2 character (barring high cheese) because there are a number of challenges that they can not solve adequately without a disproportionately large expenditure of resources.

[Lactantius]

I would appreciate it if we exclude obscure and cheesy stuff when we review the specialist, the focused specialist and the generalist.

So let's assume we don't play elves every time (no rac. sub), we don't use that chaos shuffle trick and let's be cautios with open-ended spells like shapechange (I won't use that one myself if I ever reach level 17+).

I find many of your arguments valid, EmperorTippy, especially what you said about those masses of spells being able to cast.
And ironically, at this discipline the FS can shine.
The real problem of generalists is that they maybe have 8 schools, but not at hand since they have not enough slots to fuel them all.
The FS indeed cannot fuel 8 schools, but he can fuel 5-6 schools better than the generalist.
So, the funny thing is that the generalist COULD cast more different spells, but practically, he won't be able to do so.

Do generalists solve that problem by "cancelling" any more casting demand by going to sleep and just restart with a full spell list?
In other words: would the generalist compensate the staying power just by resetting his slots?

Besides that fact, what if we directly compare the FS and the DW?

[Psyren]

Part of the problem though is that, at least in my opinion, a large part of the community overvalues spell slots.

I agree, once you get to high levels then you normally have more spells than you know what to do with, but living long enough to get there can still be an issue. Truenamers are T1 at level 20 too, after all.



And I've explained why I hold a different opinion numerous times in the past.

An FS Wizard is a high tier 2 character (barring high cheese) because there are a number of challenges that they can not solve adequately without a disproportionately large expenditure of resources.

Cool; let's agree to disagree on this then.

[Gavinfoxx]

My version of the Easy Bake Wizard!


Here's the recipe for one of my favorite ways of playing D&D, an Easy Bake Wizard. Put the Sorcerer to shame (well, at anything except metamagic-heavy blasting...sorcerer has a ton of ACF's for that, which you don't get...)!

Easy Bake No "Worries" Wizard

Ingredients:
1 Gray Elf (SRD, MM1, but see substitutes)
1 Wizard Class (PHB, SRD)
1 Elf Wizard Racial Substitution Level (Races of the Wild)
1 Eidetic Spellcaster Alternative Class Feature (Dragon Magazine #357 -- the core of the build!)
1 Spontaneous Divination Alternative Class Feature (Complete Champion, be sure to check out the errata online!)
1 Collegiate Wizard Feat (Complete Arcane)
1 Greyhawk Method (Dragon Magazine #315, optional, requires DM adjudication)
1 Aerenal Arcanist feat (Player's Guide to Eberron, optional)
1 Eschew Materials feat (PHB, SRD)
1 Domain Wizard variant, Transmutation or Conjuration domain (SRD, Unearthed Arcana, optional)
Flaws, to taste (SRD, Unearthed Arcana, optional, but necessary if you want all those feats by level 3)
Extra bits, optional, see later instructions!

Mix in bowl, and be sure to top with any one of these feats:
Acidic Splatter, Winter's Blast, or Fiery Burst (all from Complete Mage)

Notes: if it doesn't turn out right when playing it in a zero wealth game, you picked bad spells. You have lots of spells to choose, so you are less likely to only pick bad spells, but it is still possible. Be sure to look at the various wizard handbooks for how to pick solid, powerful, versatile spells. And it is very thematic that you can do stuff like leave a slot open to spend 15 minutes preparing the correct spell you need in it, or take Uncanny Forethought or Alacritous Cogitation, or Nexus Method, consider taking those later. And you automatically just 'get' spells like a sorcerer... no need for scrolls or anything. This Wizard idea relies on exactly zero found scrolls and zero need for items to scribe things into his spellbook, and with Eschew Materials and the right spells chosen, doesn't even need a Spell Component Pouch (just don't take any spells with focuses or components more than 5 gp)! Also, some people might think that this trading out the ability to specialize three times, but that isn't what is going on. Due to differing language between the various options, that isn't what's happening. Some of the stuff says that 'if you don't specialize, you can do this', some of the stuff says 'by removing the ability to specialize entirely, you gain this ability.' Order in which the abilities are taken matters.

Further, some more possible ingredients to take include:

-Alacritous Cogitation feat at level 6 (Complete Mage)
-Another Great option for race is a Lesser Fey'ri (Players Guide to Faerun and Races of Faerun) with LA Bought off (the LA buyoff option is in the SRD and Unearthed Arcana; choose the powers to get the minimum LA for that race). This lets you make use of that Alter Self at will; read the handbook on the uses of Alter Self, it's fantastic.
-Get the Nexus Method feat from Dragon Magazine #319! This lets you spontaneously cast the summon monster line, and apparently adds all the spells to your spellbook! If you do this, you probably want the Transmutation Domain rather than the Conjuration Domain, to maximize spells known.
-Another option is Lesser Celadrin. You combine the rules in Player's Guide to Faerun and the rules in Dragon Magazine #350 to get Lesser Celadrin, they work fine.
-Also, Fire Elf (UA/SRD) works well too.

-If you ask for houserules, consider these two:
-Permission to house rule that you can take Uncanny Forethought (Exemplars of Evil) at level 9, with the Alacritous Cogitation (Complete Mage) and the Eidetic Spellacster ACF taking place of the Spell Mastery prerequisite, without access to the 'spell mastery' capability from that feat
-Hopefully permission to house rule for the character to count Autohypnosis (XPH, SRD) as a class skill, to describe the character's eidetic memory being useful for things other than spellcasting (assuming the GM uses Autohypnosis in his game! Or get it's abilities shunted into Concentration, or whatever)

Some numbers:

Basic Wizard: Start with 3+Int mod L1 spells, +2 each level as baseline
Elf Generalist Wizard: +1 wizard spell at start, +1 each level beyond baseline
Collegiate Wizard (this is superior to Greyhawk Method, due to more spells when starting the game): Instead of 3+int and +2 each level, baseline is set at 6+int and +4 each level
If Greyhawk Method & Collegiate Wizard Stack: +2 spells per level
Aerenal Arcanist: +1 each level beyond baseline, including L1 if you take it then
Domain Wizard (Transmutation or Conjuration): One specific extra spell of each spell levels; +9 spells over career (cantrip is already known)
Nexus Method: Apparently automatically gets you the entire Summon Monster line!

So at level one, with a 20 int (cause Grey Elf or whatever, or 21 if you start at middle aged...), without flaws, assuming Greyhawk Method and Collegiate Wizard don't stack you know:
13 level one spells, plus mage armor or expeditious retreat automatically
At level 2, you gain six new L1 spells
At level 3, you gain 6 spells of up to spell level 2, and levitate or web, depending...

With flaws, if Greyhawk Method and Collegiate Wizard DO stack, you get:

15 level one spells, plus mage armor or expeditious retreat automatically
At level 2, you gain 8 new L1 spells
At level 3, you gain 8 spells of up to spell level 2, and levitate or web, depending...


Essentially, you end up with a more versatile Sorcerer, who has access to a TON of spells, and can always get the right spell for the job... even with no gear whatsoever. And no Vow of Poverty (ewww, exalted! And not able to gather even useful cheap equipment!) needed to be useful without wealth!

[Emperor Tippy]

I would appreciate it if we exclude obscure and cheesy stuff when we review the specialist, the focused specialist and the generalist.
And what qualifies varies between tables and individuals.


So let's assume we don't play elves every time (no rac. sub), we don't use that chaos shuffle trick and let's be cautios with open-ended spells like shapechange (I won't use that one myself if I ever reach level 17+).
So let's remove a core race that is purpose made for wizards, lets remove a racial feature that is in a book that is pretty much as common as Complete Mage, and lets ignore core spells and then we can talk about what makes a better wizard. Gotcha.


I find many of your arguments valid, EmperorTippy, especially what you said about those masses of spells being able to cast.
And ironically, at this discipline the FS can shine.
The real problem of generalists is that they maybe have 8 schools, but not at hand since they have not enough slots to fuel them all.
The FS indeed cannot fuel 8 schools, but he can fuel 5-6 schools better than the generalist.
So, the funny thing is that the generalist COULD cast more different spells, but practically, he won't be able to do so.
I can't remember the last time I ran out of spell slots as a wizard unintentionally. If you are consistently running low on spell slots then either you are facing more than 4-5 equal CR challenges per day or you are playing a wizard in a poor manner. An equal CR fight at pretty much any level between 5 and 20 should see a wizard casting between one and three spells. At three spells that is 12 per day, or a third of your spell allotment at level 20, another 12 or so should cover your buffing needs, and the last 12 should cover utility and more situational magic.


Do generalists solve that problem by "cancelling" any more casting demand by going to sleep and just restart with a full spell list?
In other words: would the generalist compensate the staying power just by resetting his slots?
A generalist needs fewer slots because he tends to have a far more versatile spell selection. A specialist will face a challenge that he needs two or more spells to solve while the generalist needs only one spell. Both can solve the problem but a generalist is generally more efficient at doing so.


Besides that fact, what if we directly compare the FS and the DW?

Domain Wizard is better. An FS is giving up two schools of magic for a gain of 9 spells slots over 17 levels, of which a third are 3rd level or lower and thus can be easily and trivially replaced with scrolls or wands.

Hell, buying a pearl of power of each type costs you 291,000 GP. That is the GP value of specializing. Would you dump 300K for 2-3 schools of magic?

[Snowbluff]

I'm agreeing with Tippy. T1 isn't about your versatility during combat or even during the day. It's about versatility in the game.

[Lactantius]

Sounds reasonable.

Btw, I have excluded elves because personally, my race pick depends on background and mood (what I want to play) and lesser so because of optimization.

[Spuddles]

You can get a school of magic back with 3 feats.

I think FS is great on theurge builds. More spell slots also really help in 1 to 20 play, as a FS has like 100% more of his best spells at odd levels for 17 levels of the game.

Banning evocation, necromancy, and enchantment loses out on some of the beat mind control spells available, for instance. And that could be considerd to put you into tier 2 territory. But that's not nearly such a big deal if you're a cerebremancer.

Also, if druids are t1, I think focused specialist conjurers have enough trciks that the loss of zombies and mindrape isnt enough to bring you to T1. And if you really want mindrape fun, three feats gets it back.

[ArcturusV]

I'm a lower level player/DM myself, so I'll take a lower level view of this, and mention my thoughts.

At levels 1-5, it SEEMS like Specialist, or Focused Specialist, is really worth going for. At least to most players as they look at the spells per day chart, see "1", and think about how that can instantly be made into a "2", and thus they are 100% more powerful. Again they get into that trap of Spell Slots versus Versatility. The spell slots are a better deal and the specialist ACFs... on one condition. That you're in a brutal ironman sort of situation.

And the thing about the brutal ironman situation (Constantly fighting/problem solving, no real downtime or rest), is that even then, having that Specialist Illusionist Blur, or Abrupt Jaunt, or +1-3 spells for focusing isn't really going to help out all that much. It won't HURT you compared to the generalist. But any illusions about how it makes you 100% more powerful are just that... illusions. Your days are typically still filled with Crossbowing for Luck and being carried by others who have more skill points or more HP/Armor. Particularly towards the low level end of the spectrum. You really haven't gained anything for specializing. Except maybe for the rarer specialist type ACFs like the Skeletal Minion of the Necromancer.

The generalist, meanwhile? He doesn't really fare all that worse in the brutal ironman low level adventure. He's still going to be luck crossbowing, and being carried until they get to the higher end around level 5. That's not where he shines in this comparison. Where he shines is when you're NOT doing the brutal ironman adventuring.

When suddenly your wizard has downtime? Being that generalist becomes so much more attractive. You mentioned in the OP about how you have access to 8 schools but less max level spell slots than that to use? That's where the Generalist shines. He becomes the Crafter, rather than the Battlemage. He prepares, and uses his versatility to really be "batman", an item for every contingency. Even scribe scroll, usually traded away for an ACF without a second thought, just illustrates how powerful the Generalist is at low level compared to the specialist. For the pittance of 1 XP and 12 GP, you start packing the magic bullets you need not only to give your adventuring more Legs (In terms of spells you can use per day) but also raw solutions to problems. Rather than have to cast a full round conjuration to summon a creature that uses an ability next round to do whatever niche thing you want (Burning slots AND actions), just pull out the right scroll, standard action and go, still keeping your slots ready.

That's where I see the balance of versatility versus raw power. The Specialist types may have the raw power in "Look, I can blur 1/day" or "I can teleport away from melee!" "And I can summon an extra celestial weasel per day!" and such... and yeah that's a straight power buff to the chassis. But it's nowhere near the power buff of "I can research any type of spell I want, use it every day, or if it is too niche to be worth a slot, leave it in item form for when I need it. I have preparations for contingencies that you haven't even imagined, and the ability to act in any manner I choose, anytime I choose."

This of course, is talking low level. Of course I recognize some players don't play lower levels. As well I realize that some, due to house rules on XP or general inexperience undervalue crafting or overvalue it's XP costs and think it's not worth seriously pursuing unless they have a trick to bypass it.

But this is my generalist (ha!) view on the subject.

[Story]

The way I see it, the only reason not to go generalist is if you need to be a specialist for a Prc you want, Domain Wizard is banned, or you're starting at low level and Abrupt Jaunt is on the table. Domain Wizard is just superior to specializing in most cases.

Anyway, the advantage of being a generalist actually increases at higher levels once stuff like Forcecage and Contingency come into play.


In my current campaign, I'm playing a Conjuration specialist, and I already miss being able to cast spells like Heroism and Heroics.