wizard cohort

[WeaselGuy]

So, I'm trying to build a Wizard to be my Knight/Legendary Leader/Cavalier's cohort, and I've hit a little bit of a wall... I need him to be a human, and so far I want him to go in to the War Mage PrC from Dragonlance: Age of Mortals. It requires Weapon Focus, Combat Casting and Eschew Materials, along with 3rd level spells. That's not a problem. It's easily solved with 5 simple levels of Wizard. My problem, is what the heck do I do with the next 10 levels, as well as what feats should I take?

We're in a relatively low magic setting with low magic item drop rates, so I was thinking about Craft Magic Arms and Armor for my level 5 Wizard Bonus Feat. Beyond that, I'm open to suggestions. Pretty sure we can use all 3.5 books as well as some 3.0 material. The DM is pretty open to ideas, and OP is in our favor.

[Flickerdart]

What do you want him to do? I'm assuming that if you're doing Warmage you're going to be blasting.

[WeaselGuy]

Yeah, some sort of Blastiness would be good... I've also entertained the thought of Loremaster, it's pretty easy to get into, and gives me some more utility without any sacrifice...

[jiriku]

Archamage will net you mastery of shaping, so he can blast around you and other party members without risk. The Shape Spell feat also helps.

For spell selection, consider some movement-inducing spells. If he can use spells like benign transposition, dimension door and greater slide to move you around, and spells like dimension shuffle and telekinesis to put the bad guys where you want them, combat basically becomes a game of cheating at chess -- the placement of everyone will always be stacked in your favor. The war weaver prestige class from Heroes of Battle is a good choice for a support wizard; with it you can quickly set up several buffs on the entire party at the beginning of a fight.

Depending on your commanding auras, you might find it helpful if your wizard concentrates on summoning, to get more creatures out who can benefit from your commands. For a summoning wizard, Augment Summoning and Sudden Maximize are great feat choices.

[WeaselGuy]

I liked the War Weaver idea, and went with it, finishing with Archmage, so pretty much just ended up going wizard 5/war mage 5/war weaver 5/archmage 5... simple, and elegant.

For feats, I went with:
1) Eschew Materials and Combat Casting
3) Weapon Focus (Ranged Spells)
5) Craft Magic Arms and Armor
6) Ranged Spell Specialization
9) Skill Focus (Spellcraft) and Maximize Spell
12) Spell Focus (Evocation)
15) Spell Focus (Conjuration)
18)

I don't really know for sure that I want to take SF(Conj), and I don't know what to take at 18 either. Suggestions?

[Brookshw]

You might want to talk to the dm before investing in crafting. If its low magic items they might not appreciate you trying to bypass that.

[WeaselGuy]

You might want to talk to the dm before investing in crafting. If its low magic items they might not appreciate you trying to bypass that.

That's a fair point, and I'll address it Sunday when we meet. He specifically said that it would be a "low magic item drop rate campaign" and that we couldn't start with any magic items, but he's fine if we play magical characters, just to be wary of enemies targetting the "squishy in the back lobbing fireballs". If he doesn't ok it, is there a wizard bonus feat that you would recommend in it's stead? In any event, we still have a ways to go before I even get Leadership.

[Flickerdart]

The go-to ACF for wizard bonus feats is Martial Wizard, which swaps their bonus feat list with the fighter's. So if you can't think of any metamagic you want, just snap up Improved Initiative or something.

[Brookshw]

That's a fair point, and I'll address it Sunday when we meet. He specifically said that it would be a "low magic item drop rate campaign" and that we couldn't start with any magic items, but he's fine if we play magical characters, just to be wary of enemies targetting the "squishy in the back lobbing fireballs". If he doesn't ok it, is there a wizard bonus feat that you would recommend in it's stead? In any event, we still have a ways to go before I even get Leadership.

Extend was mentioned, yes? Always a decent option for longer buffs. Can't recall offhand if split or twin work for bonus feats.