Toning down a wizard, and optimizing at the same time!

[Frostthehero]

1. How do I tone down a wizard? My current build is too much for my DM, and he has threatened to stop playing as a result. The thing is, I was playing LOW OP (some blasting, transmutation heavy). How do I bring it down enough that it doesn't suck, but also isn't too much for this poor guy.

2. Is there a way to get by SR without spell penetration?

3. Assuming a serious restriction on divination (i.e. no way to find out what is being faced), how do I prepare for / get by great save bonuses?

I play several campaigns, so these questions are unrelated.

[Jeff the Green]

1. How do I tone down a wizard? My current build is too much for my DM, and he has threatened to stop playing as a result. The thing is, I was playing LOW OP (some blasting, transmutation heavy). How do I bring it down enough that it doesn't suck, but also isn't too much for this poor guy.

Be God. That is, use debuffs, battlefield control, and buffs to make the battles easier for the chumps fighter and rogue. Avoid direct damage and save-or-lose effects. Get lots of utility effects, though maybe avoid rope trick.

Alternatively, pick a single non-optimal strategy and optimize it. For example I'm playing a Wizard in an upcoming game that has three things it's optimized toward: familiar bonuses, skills, and single-target debuffs. Thus, she's a changeling with the 3rd-level elf wizard substitution level (double familiar bonuses) and the 5th-level changeling wizard substitution level (familiar can change to any other available type, which also changes the bonus), has PrCed into an otherwise non-optimal PrC (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/prc/20061121a) that has 6+Int skill points (and some interesting but not particularly powerful abilities) and feats (Apprentice, Collegiate Wizard, Jack of All Trades, Trivial Knowledge) that improve her ability to use skills but that aren't all that great on a Wizard, and has ethical objections to AoE and summoning.


2. Is there a way to get by SR without spell penetration?

SR: No spells. There are quite a few good ones. Also true casting and assay spell resistance.


3. Assuming a serious restriction on divination (i.e. no way to find out what is being faced), how do I prepare for / get by great save bonuses?

No-save spells, spells with an effect even on a successful save, and preparing spells with a variety of save types. Also the various ways to make a Wizard able to cast spontaneously.

[eggynack]

1. How do I tone down a wizard? My current build is too much for my DM, and he has threatened to stop playing as a result. The thing is, I was playing LOW OP (some blasting, transmutation heavy). How do I bring it down enough that it doesn't suck, but also isn't too much for this poor guy.
Simple enough. Just tone your wizard up. Blasting and beating people up tend to be rather low optimization, though the latter has its moments, but they lead to you taking a central role in the game. You are the one dealing the damage, and you are the one stomping all over everything. Focus your role more on stuff like battlefield control, like grease and solid fog, party oriented buffs, like haste, and maybe some debuffs, like color spray, and you'll increase your optimization level while reducing your apparent impact on game states. Such is the core ideal of treantmonk's god wizard (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1570.0).


2. Is there a way to get by SR without spell penetration?

3. Assuming a serious restriction on divination (i.e. no way to find out what is being faced), how do I prepare for / get by great save bonuses?
Again, reasonably simple. Just use spells that don't target those things. Plenty of spells, which just so happen to often be alike to those listed before, like many BFC's and all party buffs, couldn't care less about SR or saves. You can even run something like orb of fire, which cares about saves for its rider effect, but which bypasses both SR and saves for its main damage part.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Transmutation heavy doesn't really scream "low-op" to me. Could you be a little more specific about what your DM is having difficulty with?

[Frostthehero]

Transmutation heavy doesn't really scream "low-op" to me. Could you be a little more specific about what your DM is having difficulty with?

Polymorphing into a 12 headed hydra and dealing 36d6 damage. Still technically blasting. Occasionally I combine it with the archmage ability to shape spells and an antimagic field, and then he really freaks out.

[eggynack]

Polymorphing into a 12 headed hydra and dealing 36d6 damage. Still technically blasting. Occasionally I combine it with the archmage ability to shape spells and an antimagic field, and then he really freaks out.
See, that right there, just the kinda thing that takes up large quantities of spotlight while not being that high powered. Also, the archmage AMF thing doesn't work any better now than the last time you brought it up. You might want to tell your DM that he's perfectly free to hit you with whatever spells he wants even with the AMF up.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Polymorphing into a 12 headed hydra and dealing 36d6 damage. Still technically blasting. Occasionally I combine it with the archmage ability to shape spells and an antimagic field, and then he really freaks out.

That's about where I figured.

That's not even close to low-op. Put down the polymorph and back away slowly. Blasting D6's numbering more than twice your level, much less three~ish, is high-op blasting. Shaping AMF as a defense is a pretty strong move too.

Show this (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nx-o8VAjhUwh3nnfzDQT-JA5eFLnN_BZJiBitGjBMDg/mobilebasic) to your DM if you think he'll be receptive. In any case, switch to something more subtle. Battlefield control, buffing, debuffing, and utility casting are all things that only a caster can do well and you're stealing the mundanes' thunder doing their schtick; hitting stuff really hard. Do those things instead.