Building a pathfinder wizard - stat arrays

[Duny]

Hi.
I'm building an elf wizard conjurer specialist (opposition schools necromancy/divination and enchanting), but I keep getting stuck at the ability scores (everything else is pretty much finished)...
The two options are as follows with racial modifiers (STR/DEX/CON/INT/WIS/CHA):
10/18/10/18/12/7
or
7/16/11/20/13/7

So what i'm asking is: Is +1 to saves and extra skills and spells worth -1 to ac and worse saves?

Also, what would you guys recommend as a 1st lvl feat, toughness or improved init.? (or another for that matter :P )

[Kurald Galain]

May I offer a third option to put more points in con? I find that having 14 con really helps your survivability as any class with 1d6 hit dice.

Anyway, of your two choices, I'd go with 18 dex. This is because a conjurer has plenty of no-save spells, party buffs, and summons on his list that getting +1 on his save DC isn't that important. For a feat, I'd either take Spell Focus so you can get Augment Summoning at level 3, or I'd take a nice +1 metamagic feat and use the Metamagic Master trait to use that from level 1.

[Duny]

Ah, been long since I last played, and never played pathfinder, so didn't think about conjuration having few saves.. Thanks :)

[Kudaku]

It kind of depends on what kind of conjuration specialist you're making - if it's primarily a summoner then I agree with Kurald in that you probably won't need a full 20 INT. However, the conjuration school also has a very good selection of Crowd Control and debuff spells. If you want to dabble in those then I'd go with as high an intelligence as possible.

And yes, you should really consider a bit of extra constitution. 14 is a nice cost/benefit balancepoint.

[Duny]

The main focus i'd say is control with a little debuff and summoning (not primarily) as well as dabbling in transmutation.
The only problem I see with 14 con is having to dump str, cha AND wis, unless doing something like this: 7/16/14/18/13/7, which gives less AC, although that may be less of a problem than HP. (not to familiar with pathfinder rules regarding defence etc yet..)

[Kudaku]

It looks like you're using 20 pointbuy...?

Including the elf racial modifiers, I'd do something like:

Str: 9
Dex: 14
Con: 14
Int: 19
Wis: 10
Cha: 7

You get a +1 ability score bonus on level 4, so you'd be running with 20 int from the get-go.

[andreww]

If you are going down the battlefield control route then you want that starting 20 Int. Grease, Create Pit, Glitterdust, Stinking Cloud, core staple control spells which all involve saves.

As a Wizard you have no real use for Charisma or Strength. Both can easily be 7. With a starting 18 you can go 14, 14, 11 for your remaining three stats. 11 can drop into Wisdom easily enough leaving you with 12 con and 16 dex.

Some people will go on and on about how having a strength of 7 means you die to strength poisons and shadows and you do. But the same thing happens if you have a strength of 10. Charisma 7 is bad for face skills but you can easily compensate for that with either the Clever Wordplay or Scholar of Philosophy traits.

Charisma 7 might be awkward early on if you want to use UMD but frankly as a Wizard you dont need it.

Personally I prefer Human for the extra feat (or 3 with focused study), extra skill point and straight 14/14 dex and con.

[Akolbi]

The main focus i'd say is control with a little debuff and summoning (not primarily) as well as dabbling in transmutation.
The only problem I see with 14 con is having to dump str, cha AND wis, unless doing something like this: 7/16/14/18/13/7, which gives less AC, although that may be less of a problem than HP. (not to familiar with pathfinder rules regarding defence etc yet..)
AC is a lot less important than you think. eventually you'll get to a point where you only get missed on a 1 anyway, as you can't use armor. this means that your usually better off with the higher con, because hit points STAY useful as the game progresses. I would be more worried about ranged touch spells missing than AC, and you seem to have put that fairly low on your priority list.

[Duny]

AC is a lot less important than you think. eventually you'll get to a point where you only get missed on a 1 anyway, as you can't use armor. this means that your usually better off with the higher con, because hit points STAY useful as the game progresses. I would be more worried about ranged touch spells missing than AC, and you seem to have put that fairly low on your priority list.

How would one go ahead and increase touch AC? AFAIK higher dex = higher touch AC

[Duny]

If you are going down the battlefield control route then you want that starting 20 Int. Grease, Create Pit, Glitterdust, Stinking Cloud, core staple control spells which all involve saves.

As a Wizard you have no real use for Charisma or Strength. Both can easily be 7. With a starting 18 you can go 14, 14, 11 for your remaining three stats. 11 can drop into Wisdom easily enough leaving you with 12 con and 16 dex.

Some people will go on and on about how having a strength of 7 means you die to strength poisons and shadows and you do. But the same thing happens if you have a strength of 10. Charisma 7 is bad for face skills but you can easily compensate for that with either the Clever Wordplay or Scholar of Philosophy traits.

Charisma 7 might be awkward early on if you want to use UMD but frankly as a Wizard you dont need it.

Personally I prefer Human for the extra feat (or 3 with focused study), extra skill point and straight 14/14 dex and con.

Yes, although low Charisma won't be that big of a deal. We have a party face, and I'm planning on taking a few ranks in diplomacy ago compensate. Humans don't get 3 feats though, focused study replaces the bonus feat.

[Akolbi]

How would one go ahead and increase touch AC? AFAIK higher dex = higher touch AC

that is goint to be the trade-off, yes. I can see where having a higher touch AC would be nice, but i would still rather a couple extra HP. One of the biggest points I can think of in favor of con is that it scales.the dex boost gives a static bonus to touch AC, whereas the same boost to CON gives a dynamic boost to your HP, as it is bonus HP every level.