Seafaring War Wizard

[Grayson01]

Okay I am trying to see how you play ground would go about making a ships mage. The Wizards role on the ship would be Mystic and battle ship to ship: so protecting the ship from attack and attacking other ships. The crew is pirate hunters/treasuer seakers. The ship will have an artifcer that handles the elemantal wards of the gallion.
So I am looking for what would make the best Ships Wizard.
has to be a +0 LA race, 12 level, Caster level 10-12, must be wizard but any PRC's/Books except No Dragon mag, 3rd Party, or Homebrew, Must be LN, & base ability scores 18,16,10,14,13,12 What Spells would he/she have in their spell book, What tactics would the wizard deploy. Also must have one additional Item Creation Feat (outside of Scribe scroll)

Background The Wizard is one of the Students of the Archmage who employes and funds the Crew.

[FlyingHellfish]

I played in a similar corsair-type campaign awhile back, we had a wizard in the group who used Enlarge Spell+Fireball to great effect to clear off a deck from over a 1/4 mile away. He also eventually picked up the Energy Substitution feat when ships starting showing up with fire resistance.

Disguise Ship (from Storwrack) was useful for setting up traps for would-be pirates.

Gust of Wind provided an extra boost of speed during pursuits.

Defenestrating Sphere (Complete Arcane) was great for tossing low Fort save types overboard.

Craft Wondrous Item is always useful. And there are a bunch of ship-based magic items (enchanted sails and what not) in Stormwrack that can be made with that feat.

[morkendi]

I would go elf generalist into initiate of the seven fold as soon as possible. I think lvl 8 is a soon as you can enter. The veil can cover a huge area of the ship to prevent your boat from damage.

If it was me, I would do conj 5/ malconvoker 5/ initiate of the seven fold 2. The right summons on a ship can do a lot. Air elementals to fill sails, water elementals, so many options. Plus summon you boarding party. Would be fun being creative.

[Maginomicon]

There's a wizard spell that lets you turn a boat into a submersible. Glance through the Stormwrack book for spells in addition to that suggestion.

[Petrocorus]

There's a wizard spell that lets you turn a boat into a submersible. Glance through the Stormwrack book for spells in addition to that suggestion.

"Submerge Ship", can be found in the Spell Compemdium too.

[Fouredged Sword]

Also, there is the War spell metamagic somewhere that lets you hit TONS of targets with a spells. War mage armor lets you buff the whole crew with AC.

[Grayson01]

Oh thank you all so far these are all amazing ideas :)

[morkendi]

If you go elven genaralist and chose grey elf, I believe it gives +2 int. Take collegiate wizard, and you start with all 0lvl and 14 1st lvl spells. You then get 5 spells per lvl to your spell book for free allowing you to get a good amount of the stormwrack spells and still cover all your bases. Enter IotSF at 8, the veil that protects from normal missile would stop most things a ship would toss at you. When you get duel veil, toss up that and the one that stops magic, and your ship is pretty well defended allowing you to cast whatever you want. Summon undead would let you get shadows and allips which are incorperal. The can move across the water and come through the hull. Allips babble would stop tons of pirates that don't make their will save.

[Grayson01]

Thank you all this is a big big help! Where is collegic wizard found?

[morkendi]

Compleat arcane.

[Grayson01]

Compleat arcane. Awesome Thanks!

[Fouredged Sword]

If you are an elf wizard, I would be remiss to not point of Initiate of Fairy Mysteries. It is a feat you can use to replace your Con to HP with Int to HP.

For a wizard with a penalty to con and bonus to int, this has obvious uses.