Help buffing as a wizard

[Dugong]

Hi everyone,

I'm about to start a new campaign this week at lvl 6, we have myself (Diviner 5(banned enchantment) /divine oracle 1), a druid, a fighter (sword and shield) and ranger (longbow). The fighter and ranger are new to d&d so they're not optimised and I hope to buff them up to a level where they can do some real damage.

I have access to 3rd level spells at lvl 6 and the campaign is likely to go up to lvl 10-11 ish. We have access to probably everything outside of dragon magaziene and 3rd party stuff.

Can you recommend some good buffing spells for the ranger and fighter? Haste and Targeting ray leaps to mind but I can't think of many other good spells to buff them with, especially for the ranger using a bow (Compound Longbow iirc).

[Phelix-Mu]

Hunter's mercy and sniper's shot come to mind, but I think at least one of these is self-only (working off the top of my head). Actually, a lot of the good archery stuff is self-buffs. Hmm.

Other good archery spells:

- Windtunnel
- Hawkeye
- Blessed Aim
- Arrow Mind

But not all (or maybe any of these) are on the wizard list. Really, targeting ray and haste were the two best ones that I immediately thought of, too. Do you have access to UMD?

Benign transposition and baleful transposition bear mentioning. Although not strictly buffs, they reposition melee/ranged combatants without sucking up those party members' movement actions, which is awesomely useful.

Heroics is a world of fun (SC). Keep in mind that RAW says that that material component is in the spell component pouch so...yeah.

EDIT: Snake's swiftness, also Spell Compendium, is also full of win.

[Spore]

Grease the enemies to make them flat footed. Buff their weapons using magic weapon. Buff them with Darkvision or invisibility. Make the archer levitate, give the fighter more strength. Enlarge your Fighter. Reduce your archer. Protection from Evil for both is also good.

[JeminiZero]

Some buff spells:
(1) Enlarge Person: Better reach, more damage for the fighter.

(2) Kuo-toa Skin [Stormwrack]: Escape Artist bonus and Immunity to webs. Also a ranger spell. Put this on the front-liners, and then drop Web on top of them.

(2) Sonic Weapon [SpC]: +1d6 sonic damage per hit

(3) Elation [BoED]: Morale bonus to Str/Dex that stacks with enhancement bonus from Bull Strength/Items.

(3) Dimension Step [PHB2]: Move everyone into postion faster!

(3) Magic Circle / (3) Disobedience [CSc]: In the event you face mind control.

[Zirconia]

Heroics, as Phelix-Mu mentioned, is excellent, with a nice long duration too, multiple fights. At low levels, they probably don't have all the feats that would be handy yet; adding Power Attack, Cleave, etc. for the fighter is nice, Rapid Shot for the archer, and so on.

Definitely look at the 2nd level stat buff spells, Bull's Strength and such. Those can help make up for tohit penalties from multiple attacks or power attack, since tohit isn't great yet at low levels.

Heroism is a good buff, though kind of pricy at 3rd level.

The other thing that works well is to use crowd control spells, so the fighty types get to actually kill the monsters. That lets them feel like they are contributing, as well as almost always being a more efficient use of your resources than direct damage, other than some AoE situations.

[Khedrac]

Greater Invisibility - so what no sneak attack, if your opponents cannot see you it really cuts down the damage taken, and gives a small to-hit boost.

Fly / Mass Fly - speed mainly, plus the obvious.

Protection From Alignment - just in case something tries mind control.

I used to play a War Weaver who's standard load for the weave was Prot. Evil, Fly, Greater Invis. and Haste. It usually worked a treat.

[Ifni]

If you could persuade the fighter to use a bludgeoning weapon rather than a sword, Greater Mighty Wallop (Races of the Dragon) is very good. Although it might overpower him relative to the ranger - I don't think there are any comparable buff spells for bows.

[Dugong]

Thanks for all the suggestions,

Sadly I banned Enchantment so Heroism is out, Greater Invisibility would be good when I get 4th level spells. I guess Wizard spells aren’t quick as well catered to buffing as say the Cleric or Druid spell lists are, but at least I’ll have some good ones and can control the battlefield nicely.

For reference my build is Human Diviner 5 (Banned enchantment)/ Divine Oracle 1, I later hope to get levels in Loremaster giving me UMD. I’m also torn between getting a Raven familiar (and saying it’s a crow named Russell :smallcool:) or a Hawk (for amazing spot and listen, although I haven’t thought of any good pun names yet, suggestions?)

Feats are Collegiate Wizard, Sculpt spell, extend spell, Skill focus (Knowledge religion), School focus (conjuration)

At the moment my spell list is (at lvl 6 with 17 int):

Lvl 0:
Detect magic
Dancing lights
Mage hand
Prestigination
Launch bolt

Lvl 1:
Mage armour
Benign transposition
Grease
Shocking Grasp
Enlarge Person
Targeting Ray (Divination specialist spell)
Identify (Oracle Domain)

Lvl 2:
Glitterdust
Mirror image
Invisibility
Sonic weapon
Belkar claws
Chain of eyes (Divination specialist spell)
Augury (Oracle Domain)


Lvl 3:
Haste
Lightning bolt
extended rope trick
Unluck (Divination specialist spell)
Divination (Oracle Domain)


How does this look?

[JeminiZero]

Since you are PrCing out ASAP, you might want to consider the Spontaneous Divination (Complete Champion pg 52) in lieu of your level 5 feat. This lets you spontaneously cast Divinations you know. For example, it means you never need to prepare Targeting Ray / Chain of Eyes / Unluck etc. When you need them, simply convert some other spell into them.

If you really want a familiar, pick up Familiar Pocket (SpC) to keep it safe.

[ericgrau]

The best buffs are hour/level so you can stack them. Before dungeons you get 10 min/level spells. There aren't many of those yet. You only have time for 1-3 round/level or min/level spells, and I wouldn't even waste all 3 rounds on lousy options. Right now only haste is worth the time.

For now I'd look into other forms of support instead. Mainly web and sleet storm to delay foes without damaging them. You might also want to look into magic item crafting to get them nice gear. You might get more out of that than anything.

Buffs as you get to higher level:
3: phantom steed, greater magic weapon, Hamatula Barbs^ (SpC), heroics^ (SpC), keen edge^, weapon of impact^ (SpC), flame arrow^, mass snake swiftness*, haste*
4: stoneskin^, greater invisibility*, polymorph*
5: greater enlarge person (SpC)
* rnd/lev or min/lev, choose only a couple
^ 10 min/lev or 1 hour, use at dungeon entrances and prepare only when such are expected

I think you'll get the most mileage out of flame arrow later, but as you get more spells per day piling on the hour/levels will be better. At level 8 get GMW right away. For your in-combat buffs I'd do haste+polymorph or haste+greater invisibility. I forget if mass snake's swiftness stacks with haste but if it does you could do it in the 3rd round. Or in a round when both allies have not full attacked.

[Dugong]

Great suggestions! Do you have a reccomendation for polymorph? Ideally something that can use either a bow or sword & shield (giant monkey of some sort or troll?)

Stoneskin is good but expensive, although it might be worthwhile if I coax the fighter into paying the material cost since it's keeping him alive.

I didn't realise greater enlarge person existed, that looks great!

Sadly Snakes swiftness states it won't work with haste or other sources of additional attacks :(

[ericgrau]

I think you should spam stoneskin. Frequently. And pay the material cost yourself. D&D challenges are incredibly brief, so even going to town on 250 gp on all 3 of you every time you enter a dungeon it might only happen 3-4 times in a campaign. Or at least until you've moved on to a much greater budget. You will not find another piece of gear so crazy amazing for only 3,000 gp. And every gp you spend contributes to the party one way or the other. Really it doesn't matter who spends the gp. The only time you might not spam it is if you didn't see the dungeon coming and so didn't prepare 3 copies. Or when you first get 4th level spells you might need to reserve one for polymorph or greater invisibility.

In case I wasn't clear already you try to get the hour/levels up 24 hours. Lesser rods of extend spell are helpful.

For polymorph I'd find a medium creature with the greatest total of str (score not mod) + con + natural armor to quickly ballpark the best form for the SABer. If you find a large creature it works too but subtract the SABer's lost armor AC from that total. Flight is a plus for both of them. So are secondary natural attacks that don't use the hands. Figure out their new stats on paper, possibly on another character sheet, before the game session begins to avoid a lot of game delays and headaches.

I found this for polymorph with google: http://community.wizards.com/comment/20726691#comment-20726691 . But there is a typo: girallons are large. That only leaves Rhek (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20031004d) from Book of Exalted Deeds for a strong medium form to keep things from getting complicated. Relevant details: physical ability scores, natural armor, extra gore attack in each full attack at a -5 to hit, Mighty Charge (Ex), looks like a rhino man. For large forms you could also shrink item a backup large sword for him. Since shrink item last days you don't even lose a spell slot most days. 24 hour mage armor helps too for when his full plate melds into him. I'm wary about splatbook polymorph form cheese but Rhek doesn't seem any stronger than a large creature with mage armor and it lets your ally keep his theme. But watch out for 90% of the other non-MM forms on that list though before you get polymorph banned. War troll especially is the famously broken one and if you use my str+con+NA-full plate AC formula as a ballpark you'll notice it has nearly double the score of MM1 forms.

While he doesn't get much from polymorph I think flame arrow will do amazing things for the archer. A non-action in combat from you - not even a swift - for maybe 12d6 total fire damage on average. You need to wait for dungeon entrances though due to its duration.