wizard.....which option would you chose

[bjoern]

If you were trying to build a solid , well rounded , "Batman" or "god" wizard, which route would you go?

Specialize conjuration for abrupt jaunt

Elven generalist domain (conjuration) for a bunch of spells known and spells per day. But no abrupt jaunt :(

Myself I'm torn

[eggynack]

I'm not really sure what differentiation you're claiming between 2 and 3. If you're talking elven generalist, then you can just combine that with domain wizard. As for the correct option, I would go with abrupt jaunt for a game that's hanging out only in early levels, but if I expect to hit level five or seven, I'd probably go with the elven generalist domain wizard.

[bjoern]

I'm not really sure what differentiation you're claiming between 2 and 3. If you're talking elven generalist, then you can just combine that with domain wizard. As for the correct option, I would go with abrupt jaunt for a game that's hanging out only in early levels, but if I expect to hit level five or seven, I'd probably go with the elven generalist domain wizard.

For some reason I thought generalist said you couldn't specialize. When actually it is that you can't have a prohibited school. Normally this wouldn't matter but in the case of domain wizard it does.

[With a box]

Wait, that means elven generalist can't became a incantatrix because they can't ban a school?

[bjoern]

Wait, that means elven generalist can't became a incantatrix because they can't ban a school?

That is true.

Conjurer gets abrupt jaunt and incantatrix

Generalist domain wizard gets lots of spells known and spells per day and a hummingbird familiar.

Anything else significant ?

[eggynack]

Wait, that means elven generalist can't became a incantatrix because they can't ban a school?
No, actually the elven generalist does remove your ability to specialize, rather than your ability to ban a school. Thus, you can still ban schools, as long as it isn't specialization, and obviously incantatrix doesn't feature specialization. Domain wizard and elven generalist work together because domain wizard doesn't actually trade anything away. The only restriction on using it is that you can't be a specialist wizard, and the variant doesn't trade your ability to be a specialist or anything. You just can't be one.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

For some reason I thought generalist said you couldn't specialize. When actually it is that you can't have a prohibited school. Normally this wouldn't matter but in the case of domain wizard it does.


Wait, that means elven generalist can't became a incantatrix because they can't ban a school?

I have no idea where anyone would get this idea. Here's what the Elf Wizard 1 ability Generalist Wizardry actually says:

Generalist Wizardry: A 1st-level elf wizard begins play
with one extra 1st-level spell in her spellbook. At each new
wizard level, she gains one extra spell of any spell level that
she can cast. This represents the additional elven insight and
experience with arcane magic.
The elf wizard may also prepare one additional spell of
her highest spell level each day. Unlike the specialist wizard
ability, this spell may be of any school.
This substitution feature replaces the standard wizard’s
ability to specialize in a school of magic.

Domain Wizard also makes no mention of prohibited schools. There's absolutely nothing stopping an Elf Generalist Domain Wizard from taking Incantatrix.

[bjoern]

No, actually the elven generalist does remove your ability to specialize, rather than your ability to ban a school. Thus, you can still ban schools, as long as it isn't specialization, and obviously incantatrix doesn't feature specialization. Domain wizard and elven generalist work together because domain wizard doesn't actually trade anything away. The only restriction on using it is that you can't be a specialist wizard, and the variant doesn't trade your ability to be a specialist or anything. You just can't be one.

Yeah I just looked that up in RotW. I'm getting all my stuff mixed up today.

So were back to :

A conjurer gets abrupt jaunt

A domain generalist gets the familiar and lots of spells. Something the generalist loses is the bonus feat from being human though.

[eggynack]

Something the generalist loses is the bonus feat from being human though.
Yeah, but they get elf stuff, which usually means gray elf for an intelligence boost, fun proficiencies which can be dark chaos shuffled away if you want, and other things of some interest.

[Werephilosopher]

Generalist domain wizard gets lots of spells known and spells per day and a hummingbird familiar.

Hummingbird familiars don't get their +4 initiative doubled by natural link - it specifies which bonuses are affected, and initiative isn't one of them.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Focused Conjurer with Abrupt Jaunt, trade your Wizard 5 bonus feat for the Magic domain's granted power so you can still use wands and other items of spells from your prohibited schools.

You can get the Elf Wizard 3 substitution level regardless of which one you pick, just spend a feat on Obtain Familiar and your prestige class levels will still advance it.

[bjoern]

Hummingbird familiars don't get their +4 initiative doubled by natural link - it specifies which bonuses are affected, and initiative isn't one of them.

Right. Which is understandable that would be ridiculous.

[Slipperychicken]

As a matter of personal taste, I'd go elven generalist domain wizard (conjuration) and take it into EZ-bake territory with a focus on spontaneous casting. Eidetic Spellcaster, Uncanny Forethought, Nexus Method, Spontaneous Divination, Eschew Materials, the whole nine yards. When your whole shtick relies on having the right spell at the right time, it pays to *always* have the spell you want at the ready. There's also a lot to be said for "free" spellbook protection: it really takes off a lot of stress to not worry about some grinning teenager's Rogue going through my wizard's bags at night, or about whether the party will wind up in jail with our stuff stolen, or about the GM getting bored and deciding to take the spellbook away for the lulz. I know someone's going to say "well just play a sorcerer if ur so scared hur hur hur", but that means having to feign being personable or gregarious (no-one wants to watch that), and also sucking badly because Sorcerer.

[Threadnaught]

Pretty much what Slippery Chicken said, except Transmutation Domain in place of Conjuration if you're going the Nexus Method. You get two additional Spells.


Would it be at all possible/reasonable for a Gray Elf with the Eidetic Spellcaster ACF to become Necropolitan at a low enough level, while taking Vow of Poverty? Could a Necropolitan become a Saint without losing the bonuses granted by being Necropolitan, or vice versa?

[Ansem]

Read carefully for I will only say this once:
Specialist -> Generalist/whatever, no matter what the scrubs say.
In the end, your Wizard is only as versatile as how many spells it can prepare, not how many it knows.
Elven Generalist sucks because you have to be an Elf, there are better options.
Also, Focused Specialist is a great way to go if you specialize in Transmutation/Conjuration (or go for a full Necromancy build, except that's less optimal than the former two).
For comparison, a Focused Specialist will throw down double the amount of highest level spells at uneven levels, whereas the Generalist (and even Elven Generalist) has to back down sooner, going to his second highest slots, and even if the Generalist is already two or three levels lower casting spells, the Focused Specialist will still throw down the top 2 rows of his assortment.
Why this matters? Because what's the point of having access to 8 schools of magic if you won't have 8 spells to fill them with per level. Be honest, you'll hardly fill up more than 4 schools per level, even with 6+ slots per day per level.
Domain variant grants an extra slot, but without a choice and these spells are usually bad anyway, sure Conjuration and Transmutation domain is good, but I'm sure a focused or specialist alone Transmuter/Conjurer would have a better spell for that slot.
For dropping schools the first two are definitely Illusion and Enchantment, with Necromancy/Abjuration/Evocation being second depending on your build.
Why those two? Because Enchantment is mind-affecting, become obsolete really quickly and Illusion, the entire bloody school can be completely ignored from the game with True-Seeing, which is a damn hard weakness, Evocation at least has some good things to offer for itself, more than Illusion (Simulacrum, yeey, fire damage/true seeing and it's wasted time and spell slots). Abjuration simply has some situational spells you can't do without (AMF, Dispel etc) but if another caster fills this role, it's pretty safe to drop. Necromancy is great to focus on, otherwise can be ditched if not needing the mass debuffs it offers.

Specialist Wizards also get great ACF's, Abrupt Jaunt being near miraculous and if I had the option, I would take it.

So it comes down to the following:
Do you want to be more versatile and effective in game? Then go Specialist/Focused Specialist
Do you want to be more versatile and 'effective' on paper, but lacking this in the game? Go play a Generalist and cry at the Specialist Wizard doing better what you do, no matter his specialization. Because what he does he will do better and he will do it long after you run out of options.

Now waiting to laugh at the poor unsupported arguments against this. :smallbiggrin:

[bjoern]

Read carefully for I will only say this once:
Specialist -> Generalist/whatever, no matter what the scrubs say.
In the end, your Wizard is only as versatile as how many spells it can prepare, not how many it knows.
Elven Generalist sucks because you have to be an Elf, there are better options.
Also, Focused Specialist is a great way to go if you specialize in Transmutation/Conjuration (or go for a full Necromancy build, except that's less optimal than the former two).
For comparison, a Focused Specialist will throw down double the amount of highest level spells at uneven levels, whereas the Generalist (and even Elven Generalist) has to back down sooner, going to his second highest slots, and even if the Generalist is already two or three levels lower casting spells, the Focused Specialist will still throw down the top 2 rows of his assortment.
Why this matters? Because what's the point of having access to 8 schools of magic if you won't have 8 spells to fill them with per level. Be honest, you'll hardly fill up more than 4 schools per level, even with 6+ slots per day per level.
Domain variant grants an extra slot, but without a choice and these spells are usually bad anyway, sure Conjuration and Transmutation domain is good, but I'm sure a focused or specialist alone Transmuter/Conjurer would have a better spell for that slot.
For dropping schools the first two are definitely Illusion and Enchantment, with Necromancy/Abjuration/Evocation being second depending on your build.
Why those two? Because Enchantment is mind-affecting, become obsolete really quickly and Illusion, the entire bloody school can be completely ignored from the game with True-Seeing, which is a damn hard weakness, Evocation at least has some good things to offer for itself, more than Illusion (Simulacrum, yeey, fire damage/true seeing and it's wasted time and spell slots). Abjuration simply has some situational spells you can't do without (AMF, Dispel etc) but if another caster fills this role, it's pretty safe to drop. Necromancy is great to focus on, otherwise can be ditched if not needing the mass debuffs it offers.

Specialist Wizards also get great ACF's, Abrupt Jaunt being near miraculous and if I had the option, I would take it.

So it comes down to the following:
Do you want to be more versatile and effective in game? Then go Specialist/Focused Specialist
Do you want to be more versatile and 'effective' on paper, but lacking this in the game? Go play a Generalist and cry at the Specialist Wizard doing better what you do, no matter his specialization. Because what he does he will do better and he will do it long after you run out of options.

Now waiting to laugh at the poor unsupported arguments against this. :smallbiggrin:

The only significant difference of opinion I have is I would ban enchantment and evocation. And then reluctantly ban necromancy if necessary. Reason is that I really like shadow conjuration/evocation for sidestepping casting costs and time for no save type spells (and that would probably be the only thing I use from evocation anyway)

Next is a toss up between illusion and necromancy. All I would really miss from necro would be shivering touch and enervation. But the versatility of shadow conj/evoc and later shades, make it just too useful to ditch for the sake of having a cool toy (shivering and enerv)

I don't think I could go focused specialist because I always seem to wind up at least dipping incanatrix . But if I did I'd probably ban evoc, ench, and necro and just have to abstain from incantatrix because I can't bring myself to ban illusion or transmutation.

[eggynack]

Elven Generalist sucks because you have to be an Elf, there are better options.
Not significantly, no. Intelligence is a great stat to boost for a wizard, obviously, and elf is one of the better races for boosting that stat, especially if you're hitting high optimization and use something to change all of those proficiencies to something awesome.


For comparison, a Focused Specialist will throw down double the amount of highest level spells at uneven levels, whereas the Generalist (and even Elven Generalist) has to back down sooner, going to his second highest slots, and even if the Generalist is already two or three levels lower casting spells, the Focused Specialist will still throw down the top 2 rows of his assortment.
Not if you're also a domain wizard. Running both gives you the same number of highest level spells as a focused specialist, and the same number of other leveled spells as a normal specialist. That's ridiculously comparable in my book.


Why this matters? Because what's the point of having access to 8 schools of magic if you won't have 8 spells to fill them with per level. Be honest, you'll hardly fill up more than 4 schools per level, even with 6+ slots per day per level.
There's a good number of powerful out of combat spells (relevant ones from your suggested banned schools include animate dead, dominate person, simulacrum, and magic circle (for planar binding)), and just because you don't have that many slots in that one level, that doesn't mean you don't have that many slots overall. You could easily make use of relevant spells from every school of magic in a given day.

Domain variant grants an extra slot, but without a choice and these spells are usually bad anyway, sure Conjuration and Transmutation domain is good, but I'm sure a focused or specialist alone Transmuter/Conjurer would have a better spell for that slot.
Obviously somewhat better, but not to the degree that it makes up for the loss of schools. This is doubly true when you consider the fact that focused specialist constrains your standard slots in a way that domain wizard does not. Really, as long as you'd be reasonably likely to prepare these spells in a given day, and you absolutely would for those two domains, you do just fine.

For dropping schools the first two are definitely Illusion and Enchantment, with Necromancy/Abjuration/Evocation being second depending on your build.
Why those two? Because Enchantment is mind-affecting, become obsolete really quickly and Illusion, the entire bloody school can be completely ignored from the game with True-Seeing, which is a damn hard weakness
True seeing is a 5th to 7th level spell, depending on the caster, which lasts minutes/level and costs 250 GP per casting. Really not the biggest deal.

Evocation at least has some good things to offer for itself, more than Illusion (Simulacrum, yeey, fire damage/true seeing and it's wasted time and spell slots).
Simulacrum is weak to neither fire nor true seeing. This is also an issue with your above argument. There's a decent quantity of illusion spells that work fine against true seeing.


Specialist Wizards also get great ACF's, Abrupt Jaunt being near miraculous and if I had the option, I would take it.

This, and one more spell at each non-highest spell level if you're a focused specialist, are really the only advantages of focused specialization. Relevant early on, but much less so when other defenses come into play, and when the advantages of access to every school pop up.

[Chronos]

There is no limit on how many spells a wizard can prepare. If you know a thousand spells, you can prepare a thousand spells. If instead you only know 800 spells because you've banned a couple if schools, then you can only prepare 800 spells. You can't prepare them all on the same day, but that doesn't matter, because you don't need to cast them all on the same day.

For instance, suppose you're just starting on a quest. You don't yet know exactly who or what the villain is, or exactly what he's planning, or how you can best stop him... so you prepare a bunch of divinations to find out. Once you've gotten a few days of the divinations out of the way, you know those things, and so can switch to almost no divinations (just enough to find out if the situation changes), but can free up your slots for other spells. Which spells? Well, that depends on just what you learned from the divinations. If you find out you're going to be fighting large masses of weak things, you'll focus on spells with big areas of effect. If you find out that you're fighting mostly undead, you'll stock up on spells like Sunbeam and Disintegrate. If your enemies are extraplanar, you'll want a bunch of spells like Dismissal and Magic Circle. You aren't restricted to always preparing the same spells every day. Meanwhile, while you're between adventures, you'll be preparing a different set yet of spells: Spells with long or permanent durations, for instance, or if you have a crafting feat or two, whichever spells are necessary for the item you're making.

[Werephilosopher]

You don't even need to prepare all your spells if you go with Spontaneous Divination and Versatile Spellcaster. And Generalists also get Abrupt Jaunt; they just call it "Celerity+Dimension Door" or "Contingent Spell." :smalltongue:

[bjoern]

You don't even need to prepare all your spells if you go with Spontaneous Divination and Versatile Spellcaster. And Generalists also get Abrupt Jaunt; they just call it "Celerity+Dimension Door" or "Contingent Spell." :smalltongue:

True, it has the same effect (plus daze usually) but you burn two spells. Whereas abrupt jaunt isn't dazed and hasn't used anyspells.

[Chronos]

Quoth Werephilosopher:

You don't even need to prepare all your spells if you go with Spontaneous Divination and Versatile Spellcaster.
And even a straight out-of-the-box wizard with just what's in the Players' Handbook can leave a few slots unfilled, to be prepared at 15 minutes' notice. No, you won't always have 15 minutes to spare, but that's why you don't do that with all your slots.

[Ansem]

The only significant difference of opinion I have is I would ban enchantment and evocation. And then reluctantly ban necromancy if necessary. Reason is that I really like shadow conjuration/evocation for sidestepping casting costs and time for no save type spells (and that would probably be the only thing I use from evocation anyway)

Next is a toss up between illusion and necromancy. All I would really miss from necro would be shivering touch and enervation. But the versatility of shadow conj/evoc and later shades, make it just too useful to ditch for the sake of having a cool toy (shivering and enerv)

I don't think I could go focused specialist because I always seem to wind up at least dipping incanatrix . But if I did I'd probably ban evoc, ench, and necro and just have to abstain from incantatrix because I can't bring myself to ban illusion or transmutation.

Currently playing a Focused Specialist with Incantatrix, not missing the schools at all, although I do miss Enervation, having enough buffs, debuffs and control ready to help even the unexpected encounters is sweetass.

[bjoern]

Currently playing a Focused Specialist with Incantatrix, not missing the schools at all, although I do miss Enervation, having enough buffs, debuffs and control ready to help even the unexpected encounters is sweetass.

I'm sure that once I did it I would be fine. Its just the waters really cold and I'm scared to jump in. Lol

[gorfnab]

Check my signature for the Easy Bake Wizard handbook. Besides the massive amounts of spells known, easy bake also has the options for spontaneous casting.

[eggynack]

Currently playing a Focused Specialist with Incantatrix, not missing the schools at all, although I do miss Enervation, having enough buffs, debuffs and control ready to help even the unexpected encounters is sweetass.
It's entirely your prerogative to ban that many schools, and you'll still be a perfectly competent wizard by the end of the process (probably above average, given incantatrix), but all evidence I can see supports the idea that you would be better off with the domain wizard elven generalist. The fact that your argument against illusion relies on false information supports this notion, as surely the ability to use simulacrum without it melting against a fireball or true seeing makes the use of that spell more than worth it.

[Ansem]

It's entirely your prerogative to ban that many schools, and you'll still be a perfectly competent wizard by the end of the process (probably above average, given incantatrix), but all evidence I can see supports the idea that you would be better off with the domain wizard elven generalist. The fact that your argument against illusion relies on false information supports this notion, as surely the ability to use simulacrum without it melting against a fireball or true seeing makes the use of that spell more than worth it.

Just waste a feat on it then...

[eggynack]

Just waste a feat on it then...
There's other spells that you're losing besides simulacrum in banning four schools, and also, if you're spending a feat to make up for what you lose to specialization, then you're likely losing any of that cited racial advantage. Finally, I'm not even sure that you can waste a feat to pick up the ability to cast a spell of a school you've banned. It's possible that you just don't have the capacity to cast those spells, whether you've learned them or not.

[Slipperychicken]

I'm sure that once I did it I would be fine. Its just the waters really cold and I'm scared to jump in. Lol

2 extra spells per level on a Tier 1 is hardly "cold water". If you really want to be a macho hardcore gamer and earn forum cred, play a Truenamer.

[Fax Celestis]

2 extra spells per level on a Tier 1 is hardly "cold water". If you really want to be a macho hardcore gamer and earn forum cred, play a Truenamer.

Like that Zaq guy.

Didn't he lose the ability to taste ice cream from doing that?

[eggynack]

2 extra spells per level on a Tier 1 is hardly "cold water". If you really want to be a macho hardcore gamer and earn forum cred, play a Truenamer.
I dunno. Truenamers are bad, but they're also pretty rote if you know what you're doing. CW samurai is pretty hardcore, as these things go.

[Urpriest]

For a god wizard, go with the conjurer. Heck, go Focused Specialist Conjurer. There are viable god wizards of every specialization and none, but conjurer is probably the best.

For a batman wizard, only go conjurer for a low level game, otherwise go generalist. A god wizard can rely on party members to fill in missing capabilities, a batman wizard cannot.