Helping build a Diviner wizard

[TheTwitchyRat]

I am building a caster for the first time I am Only allowed to use spells and feats from SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/index.htm) and 3.5 players handbook. I intend to use this variant

Sorcerer/Wizard
A sorcerer or wizard might desire a more durable companion to accompany him on excursions into the wilderness.

Gain
Animal companion (as druid; treat sorcerer or wizard as a druid of half his class level).

Lose
Familiar.

as it is a short campaign where my back story is that I am a personal hand to the king and my services including being able to find anything, living or not. Any help would be appreciated.

[Eonir]

Take a look at the Wild Cohort (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a) feat. It basically lets you have a ranger animal companion, which isn't so bad (I used this one a sorcerer once and had a bull who was my tank). This would also let you keep your familiar (yay lot's of critters).

EDIT: Fixed my link

[Lightlawbliss]

you posted the thread twice.

requesting mod merge threads.

[BrokenChord]

I recommend either human or gray elf as the race, first of all; gray elves make nice wizards even without the Dragonborn part that many people tack on (you don't have access to that anyway) if your DM will let you use that elf variant (technically, part of the SRD and a MM variant of a standard race, so if that's cool...). Int bonuses are harder to come by in Core, and while the Con hit hurts, it's at least partially offset by the Dex bonus. Wizards don't care about Strength, so that's a nonissue.

Obviously, specialize in Divination. I'd say ban Enchantment, hands-down, and use that Dex bonus to your advantage with Evocation and Necromancy ray spells. Some of them are pretty nice, and you can't just do NOTHING but Divination. It is certainly helpful that Divination was considered weak by the designers, so you only have to give up one school to specialize in it.

Heighten Spell will probably be a pretty decent feat to have, since Divination spells tend to be pretty CL-dependent in how powerful they are, especially if you're trying to find something with magical properties or abilities of its own. The Spell Focus line is also pretty much ONLY useful with Divination. Outside of that, good wizard feats will continue to serve you; Quicken Spell, Improved Initiative, and Extend Spell all come to mind.

I'll leave it to more experienced players to tell you what good spells are, though Identify, Locate Object, Locate Creature, and Scrying all work towards what you have in mind at lower levels.

[TheTwitchyRat]

Take a look at the Wild Cohort (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a) feat. It basically lets you have a ranger animal companion, which isn't so bad (I used this one a sorcerer once and had a bull who was my tank). This would also let you keep your familiar (yay lot's of critters).

EDIT: Fixed my link

Online feats are not allowed Only sources from the SRD and phb 3.5 are allowed


I recommend either human or gray elf as the race, first of all; gray elves make nice wizards even without the Dragonborn part that many people tack on (you don't have access to that anyway) if your DM will let you use that elf variant (technically, part of the SRD and a MM variant of a standard race, so if that's cool...). Int bonuses are harder to come by in Core, and while the Con hit hurts, it's at least partially offset by the Dex bonus. Wizards don't care about Strength, so that's a nonissue.

Obviously, specialize in Divination. I'd say ban Enchantment, hands-down, and use that Dex bonus to your advantage with Evocation and Necromancy ray spells. Some of them are pretty nice, and you can't just do NOTHING but Divination. It is certainly helpful that Divination was considered weak by the designers, so you only have to give up one school to specialize in it.

Heighten Spell will probably be a pretty decent feat to have, since Divination spells tend to be pretty CL-dependent in how powerful they are, especially if you're trying to find something with magical properties or abilities of its own. The Spell Focus line is also pretty much ONLY useful with Divination. Outside of that, good wizard feats will continue to serve you; Quicken Spell, Improved Initiative, and Extend Spell all come to mind.

I'll leave it to more experienced players to tell you what good spells are, though Identify, Locate Object, Locate Creature, and Scrying all work towards what you have in mind at lower levels.

I think suggesting grey elves made him want to stab me xD he thinks they are redic as **** apparently :P

[Crake]

I posted this in the other thread, not realizing there was a duplicate one:


I am building a caster for the first time I am Only allowed to use spells and feats from SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/index.htm) and 3.5 players handbook. I intend to use this variant

Sorcerer/Wizard
A sorcerer or wizard might desire a more durable companion to accompany him on excursions into the wilderness.

Gain
Animal companion (as druid; treat sorcerer or wizard as a druid of half his class level).

Lose
Familiar.

as it is a short campaign where my back story is that I am a personal hand to the king and my services including being able to find anything, living or not. Any help would be appreciated.

See if you can get spontaneous divination from Complete Champion, for a diviner, hell, even for a normal wizard, it's a must have in my opinion. I couldn't imagine a wizard without it personally.

Edit: Also, since you can convert specialist slots using spontaneous divination, that means you don't really need to go a diviner, opening up other options, like going conjurer, getting abrupt jaunt instead of a familiar, and then picking up an animal companion with wild cohort instead

But that would require you also getting abrupt jaunt (PHB2) and wild cohort (Online (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a)) approved

[TheTwitchyRat]

It seems this hasn't turned up much yet. I'm starting to wonder if I level 10 diviner would actually be able to provide that much to a party in search of a lost person.

[BrokenChord]

It seems this hasn't turned up much yet. I'm starting to wonder if I level 10 diviner would actually be able to provide that much to a party in search of a lost person.

... Have you LOOKED at the Divination spells of 2nd-5th level? Where is the trouble in doing this?