Defending a wizard

[Dann]

A recent D&D adventure put me and one companion up against 5 white dragons. I'm not sure exactly what age they were because 4 were large, could cast gust of wind, and had no SR and one was huge and did have SR, so I think they may have been ported from 3.0 or something. There were originally 4 of us but 2 players dropped out leaving me, a level 11 wizard/master specialist/shadowcraft mage and a level 11 druid (who died and made a warlock). Fortunately the DM arranged for us to fight them in groups of 2 or 3 since we were only half the party he planned for.

In the first fight vs 1 huge and 1 large, the druid died and I survived. We killed the large dragon.
In the second fight vs 3 large, we killed 2 of them and escaped with 2 HP (me) and 0 HP (him)
In the third fight vs the remaining 1 huge and 1 large, I died and he lived with minimal HP.

I've read all the guides on wizards, and optimized a good bit, but I feel like with only the two of us I'm having trouble surviving with things actually targeting me - I used to not be targeted because frankly everyone else was easy to hit. For these fights, I had the following buffs up:
Improved Invis (on both of us)
Mirror Image
Heart of Air/Earth/Water
Displacement (on him only)
My 40% miss chance cloak of shadows from being a shadowcraft mage
Fly
Magic circle against Law (its the only one I have, so I figured why not)
Resist Energy (Cold)

Several of these were incredibly useful - they definitely started trying to grapple us so my Heart of Water was invaluable, and the other ones actually prevented a crit during the battle I died in. The problem is, all these awesome defensive buffs seem like they're pretty redundant - if you're invisible, your cloak of shadows/displacement isn't helping you. They all had feats that let them pinpoint us and reroll miss chances so that it was actually only a 25% miss chance instead of 50%. The Mirror Images weren't too helpful once they realized I was invisible. So the question is, in a battle where my wizard *is* going to be targeted because there are only 2 choices, what else can I do to keep him alive?

The one thing I have figured out is that I should have summoned a couple of monsters to teleport in with us and take the hits, though what I could summon that would survive a couple hits from a dragon is less clear.

Like I said, I've read all the guides and what I'm really looking for is a specific list of defensive buffs that actually work well together. I've banned evocation, enchantment and necromancy.

[Spuddles]

Welcome to actually playing a wizard vs. theorycrafting.

One thing you could do would be to layer battlefield control. Black Tentacles & Solid Fog, for instance, to keep one trapped while your druid friend beats on the other. A summoned fiendish giant croc has improved grab and a grapple mod of +21; your tentacles would have +19. Not stellar, but solid fog with a black tentacles on it means the dragon has to resist grapple at least 3 times.

A big part of not being targeted isnt defensive buffs but offensively removing your opponents ability to target you.

[JeminiZero]

The one thing I have figured out is that I should have summoned a couple of monsters to teleport in with us and take the hits, though what I could summon that would survive a couple hits from a dragon is less clear.
Be that as it may, remember: Every hit the summon is taking, is one hit that is not being directed at party members who are far less disposable.

Also, did you have Minor Shapeshift reserve feat? That tends to help a bit as well.

[ericgrau]

Greater mage armor gives you the equivalent of a 21% miss chance against the smaller ones. If you spent a couple thousand gp on an amulet of natural armor and wield a +1 mithral buckler it increases to 37%. Against the bigger one it's 5% and 21%. And you can still keep all your other buffs on top of this because you can make it last 24 hours. Or if the druid barkskinned you then it's 53% against the smaller ones and 37% against the larger one. The druid can do far better with wild dragonscale full plate. People who say AC is useless say that because they despise numbers and math.

It doesn't stack well with actual miss chance though and all of the above combined with your 25% miss chance you only get 66% against the smaller ones and 55% against the larger one; 13% & 18% more. Not 78% and 62% total. EDIT: Oh large and huge but SR only on huge? That is weird. Who knows what their attack bonus really is. Above is give or take 10%. Given their CR, maybe 10% lower rather than higher.

That's with around 4,000-5,000 gp invested out of your huge WBL. Throwing in about 8,000-13,000 gp more gives you almost as much as all your miss chance would add, without blowing an action. Meaning you can cast something else too.

I'd also use protection from energy(cold) rather than resist energy if you can afford the spell slot. I mean did he breath on you even twice, let alone 4 times? It's more than a little better, it's way way better.

Against multiple foes crowd control is also amazing for reducing their damage. You can slow them down a great deal with wall of force (evocation banned), wall of stone (area too small and can rapidly smash), solid fog (area too small), evard's black tentacles (strength too high), instantly take a smaller one out of the fight with empowered ray of enfeeblement (necromancy banned), take a smaller one out with only a couple tries on resilient sphere! (oh ya evocation banned). Darn. Guides be damned, you really shouldn't ban evocation and necromancy. They have the best crowd control. It's just that the guides don't think of using them for crowd control. Well, solid fog could delay a smaller one for a couple rounds with solid fog while only costing you 1 round. Hopefully that's enough for the druid to take out the other one while you support him next round. That's your best bet I think.

Summons can help if you can pull off scry and die tactics. Your summons are going to get 1 shotted regardless and will have little effect on the dragons. So the main thing is to position them between you and the dragons so they take longer to walk around them, or else blow hits going through them.