Creating Dragon-themed Leadership Wizard/Sorcerer.. ideas needed!

[JW86]

Hi,

So despite a while playing D&D 3.5, I'm very inexperienced with the big Arcane Casters, the Sorcerer and Wizard.

I have a character concept in mind based partly in Danaerys Targaryen from Song of Ice and Fire, with some added things to make her good at D&D. I only have broad ideas, any ideas to get the ball rolling would be welcome.

Full caster
Leadership
Dragon Leadership of some kind
Spell focus on BFC and Direct Damage, maybe some Charm also. (Mailman Lite?)

This is a broad statement, I know, I'm open to going either Wizard or Sorcerer. I'd appreciate any rough build ideas to look into further.

The ability scores are 18, 17, 15, 14, 12, 11.. the starting Level is 3.. all sources allowed/considered (Dragon Mag will be scrutinized but not automatically disallowed).

The idea is to serve as party face, and to have the mission of abolishing slavery worldwide, by building political influence and eventually winning armies. Of course backed up the surprise "Chain Lightning! Black Tentacles! Orb of Fire!" I figured having some dragons have my back would be cool too. Maybe I could ride one.

Of course, if you have any other ideas for fiery heroine leadership types, I'm all ears (e.g. a Charisma&Strength&"Might makes Right" Crusader gleaming with fullplate, or a DFI Bard, etc..

TLDR; How would you build a D&D 3.5 caster/diplomancer/leadership/dragon leader Danaerys Targaryen?

Thank you
:)

[Honest Tiefling]

I may not be any good at Op-fu, but I gotta ask: What is the rest of the party doing? I would say to be mindful of it, to compliment the party, not overshadow them. Any details on the campaigns or the DM's preferences?

AWhat sort of heroes do you admire, and what do you like playing is probably a good place to start when trying to make a hero.

[Evan Epis]

Dragon familiar feat from Draconomicon gets you a wyrmling familiar at around 9th lvl
Dragon cohort feat from the same book does what it says at 9th lvl as well.
There is also the Dracolyte PrC if you somehow can work around the "Able to cast 2nd-level divine spells" prerequisite as an arcane caster. Alternatively, you can enter it as a Favored of Bahamut/Tiamat. It offers you a wyrmling dragon as well (not as a familiar so you can have 2). It has a bit crappy requirements though.
If you can use Dragon Material (you should be able to :P) I think there is also the Extra Familiar feat.

Drakken familiar ACF from Dragon Magic, IIRC, can give you a dragon-like familiar until you get one of the other feats mentioned.

Uhm...random idea...A warmage entering a reflavored "Rainbow Dragon Servant" could work, if your DM goes by the "text over table" so it's a Full Caster PrC. Although I don't know if you want to go that far.

A dip in Mindbender might be good in order to communicate with all your followers and the Mindsight feat.

Just some random stuff on top of my head...

[BilltheCynic]

Zhentarim Skymage (LoD 102) is a five level prestige class that gives full casting and a special flying mount (HD limit of mount is Zhentarim Skymage class levels + CHA modifier +1). Keep in mind that the mount is keyed off of HD, not ECL, so select a dragon with a lot of nice features 'balanced' by a high LA such as a Tome Dragon.

[Darkweave31]

I love dragon-themed mages. I don't think I've ever built a mage without thinking... hmmm where can I get more dragon.

Dragon magic and races of the dragon will have a lot of relevant material for you to look through. Particularly the dragonblooded races that will open up access to a variety of feats and alternate class features.

Sorcerers generally have more dragon-themed material for them because of their fluff.

I guess the biggest question before I suggest a build would be what is the optimization level of your group? What sorts of character builds are normally at the table? Are you seeing frenzied berserkers and mailmen, or more archer rangers and great cleave fighters?

[JW86]

Great suggestion, guys. Thank you.



I guess the biggest question before I suggest a build would be what is the optimization level of your group? What sorts of character builds are normally at the table? Are you seeing frenzied berserkers and mailmen, or more archer rangers and great cleave fighters?

The builds are.. varied.

We have a Goliath Half-Minotaur Fighter with some 8d6 Greataxe, who hits like a truck but has little else to offer.
We have a Tiefling Warblade with a homebrew legacy demonic fire sword and a book of faustian pact evil.
We have an awakened Raven Druid. An Cloistered Cleric Healbot. A Whispergnome Rogue/Psion. A Ranger who has somehow acquired the air elemental template. A Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian/Totemist. A Kineticist Psion. A Psychic Warrior. A Lesser Aasimar "Saint" template Paladin.. A few others...

To be honest, we each own a couple of characters... each session we pick which we play. They're generally all stationed in a Fort for the start of session.. (We named it Fort Save.)

DM will allow some gentle and moderate multiclassing for the Sorcerer. I am all up for Mid to high level optimisation, as long as it doesn't involve -too many- classes. Perhaps 2 base classes, 1 prc, or 1 base, 2 prc, etc would be okay. Begins Level 3, I believe.

Being a -powerful- Sorcerer is absolutely fine. The character's modus operandi will be diplomacy. Being nigh-invincible and laying down the smack/delivering the mail is just fine by me for when excrement hits the fan. I'm up for Wings of Cover, Vortex of Teeth, Orb of Fire, Acid Fog, Black Tentacles, all that goodness.

So some focus on Diplomacy/Charisma, Draconic Cohorts/Familiars/Allies, Leadership, also being nigh-invincible, BFC, Damage, Buff/Debuff... up for anything :)

[Darkweave31]

Well ok then...

Here's an easy trick to cast any spell you want regardless of the spells you know:
If you don't mind being of good alignment there is a feat called ancestral relic in Book of Exalted Deeds. Take it for a quarterstaff, then you can enchant this quarterstaff to become a runestaff (rules in magic item compendium). This will add several spells known for your sorcerer. Then, so long as you are in a consecrated area you may improve your runestaff with a sacrifice of gold pieces or magic items of equal value to the difference in cost and 1 day of meditation per 1000 gold pieces. If you just change the spells in the runestaff to spells with an equal value, there is a 0 gold piece cost and thus the change is instantaneous. If you can find a way to have continuous or easy access to a consecrated area you'll be able to access any spell on the sorcerer list. Even if you have to go back to Fort Save to do so, this will give you access to any utility spells you'd be missing from your regular list.

If you want to go for the inspiring commander see if you can get heartfire fanner (dragon 314) allowed, then take dragonfire inspiration. Follow up with virtuoso levels to improve the inspire courage bonus. There are plenty of guides to improving inspire courage if you look around.

Here's a quick and dirty homebrew write up of a dragon flavored rainbow servant that Evan Epis suggested... If you were interested. Any arcane class can get quite a bit out of it.
Dragon Servant

Requirements
Skills: Knowledge (arcana) 4 ranks
Spells: Able to cast 3rd-level arcane spells.
Languages: Draconic
Special: Must be trained under the tutelage of a true dragon.

Hit die
d4
Skill points
2 + Int
Class Skills
(as rainbow servant, plus bluff and intimidate)



Level
BAB
Fort
Ref
Will
Special
Spellcasting


1
+0
+0
+0
+2
Keen Senses, Extra domain (dragon)
+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class


2
+1
+0
+0
+3
-
+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class


3
+1
+1
+1
+3
-
+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class


4
+2
+1
+1
+4
Grow Wings, Extra Domain (Air, Earth, Water, or Fire)
+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class


5
+2
+1
+1
+4
-
+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class


6
+3
+2
+2
+5
-
+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class


7
+3
+2
+2
+5
Energy Resistance, Extra Domain (Pride)
+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class


8
+4
+2
+2
+6
-
+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class


9
+4
+3
+3
+6
-
+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class


10
+5
+3
+3
+7
Cleric Spell Access, Enhanced Senses
+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class




Class Features
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Dragon servants gain no proficiency in weapons or armor.
Keen senses (Ex): A dragon servant sees twice as well as a human in shadowy illumination. It also has darkvision out to 60 feet.

Extra Domain: A dragon servant gains the granted power and spell access of the Dragon domain at 1st level, their choice of the air, earth, fire, or water domain at 4th level, and the Pride domain at 7th level. The dragon servant generally uses a dragon's scale as her divine focus. For an explanation of how nonclerics receive domain spells, see the Extra Domains section on page 20 of the Complete Divine book.

Spells per Day/Spells Known: When a new dragon servant level is gained, the character gains new spells per day as if she had also gained a level in whatever spellcasting class in which she could cast 3rd-level arcane spells before she added the prestige class. She does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained (improved chance of controlling or rebuking undead, wild shape ability, and so on). This essentially means that she adds the level of dragon servant to the level of whatever other spellcasting class the character has, then determines spells per day accordingly.
If a character had more than one spellcasting class in which she could cast 3rd-level arcane spells before she became a dragon servant, the player must decide which class to assign each level of dragon servant for the purpose of determining spells per day and spells known.

Grow Wings (Su): Starting at 4th level, a dragon servant can grow draconic wings like that of their patrons. The wings, which allow flight at a speed of 60 feet with good maneuverability, have a daily duration of 1 minute per dragon servant level, divided up however the dragon servant wishes. It takes a standard action to grow or eliminate the draconic wings. Restrictive clothing and armor of any kind prevents the wings from growing, and a dragon servant can’t grow wings while grappling.

Energy resistance (Ex): At 7th level, a dragon servant gains energy resistance equal to twice their dragon servant level to a type of energy related to the elemental domain they chose at level 4 (Cold for water, fire for fire, acid for earth, lightning for air).

Cleric Spell Access: A 10th-level dragon servant can learn and cast spells from the cleric list, even if they don’t appear on the lists of any spellcasting class he has. Such spells are cast as divine spells if they don’t appear on the sorcerer/wizard or bard spell lists. This class feature grants access to the spells, but not extra spells per day. The 10th-level dragon servant can likewise read scrolls with cleric spells on them and use wands and staffs that contain cleric spells.

Enhanced senses (Ex): At 10th level, a dragon servant sees four times as well as a human in shadowy illumination and twice as well in normal light. Her darkvision improves to 120 feet and she gains blindsense out to 60 feet.

[sleepyphoenixx]

I dabbled with a build recently that might be suitable (that i haven't gotten to play with yet).
It's a combination of Silver Pyromancer (5N) and War Mage (DL:AoM), focused on heavy fire/sacred damage (~800 sacred damage from a 6th level slot with Energy Sub:Fire, Empower, Twin Dalamar's Lightning Lance under Mark of the Enlightened Soul).
You do get Diplomacy in-class for your Silver Pyro levels, with the standard high charisma of a Sorcerer build. You also add your cha as a morale bonus on AC for up to 3 allies, get access to Paladin spells and some extra bang against undead.
I hadn't planned on Leadership but there are non-essential feats you can switch out for it if you want to.

The build does use flaws and content from several different settings though, so ask your DM if that's ok.

LG Silverbrow Human

8 10 14 14 10 18

1 Sorcerer 1 - Combat Casting, Weapon Focus:Ranged Spell(B), Eschew Materials(F), Empower Spell(F)
2 Sorcerer 2
3 Sorcerer 3 - Extend Spell ;replacable if you don't particularly want Incantatrix persist cheese
4 Sorcerer 4
5 Sorcerer 5
6 Sorcerer 6 - Practical Metamagic:Empower
7 War Mage 1
8 War Mage 2 - Twin Spell(B)
9 War Mage 3 - Arcane Thesis:Dalamar's Lightning Lance ;choose something to taste. Orb of Fire is the standard, but i wanted something different.
10 War Mage 4 - Energy Substitution:Fire(B)
11 War Mage 5
12 Sacred Exorcist 1 - Practical Metamagic:Twin
13 Silver Pyromancer 1
14 Silver Pyromancer 2
15 Silver Pyromancer 3 - Reserves of Strength ; replacable
16 Silver Pyromancer 4
17 Silver Pyromancer 5
18 Incantatrix 1 - Persistent Spell, Ocular Spell(B) ; either feat is replaceable, or both
19 Incantatrix 2
20 Incantatrix 3

The three levels of Incantatrix are tacked on because i couldn't come up with something better (and you can never go wrong with 3 levels of Incantatrix :smalltongue:). Replace as you wish.



Otyugh Hole: Iron Will (before 15)

[JW86]

Thank you.

The elements I would like are:

Sorcerer
Silver Pyromancer (with 1 level dip Sacred Exorcist)
Zhentarim Skymage

I will dedicate more time to this in a few days, but if anybody could offer any basic build advice it would be appreciated.

Going Silverbrow Human or Lesser Aasimar, to be decided... but taking the Ancestral Relic feat at 1st, Leadership at 6th, and Dragon Cohort at 9th, I'd expect.

DM has homebrewed me some Half-Dvati Dragons so with Leadership I get two tiny dragons sharing the same soul, so if one dies the other dies, too. So they can grow up with me, then with Zhentarim Skymage I'll get the third, more powerful dragon mount.

Combined with Sorcerer casting a Holy Fire Silver Pyromancer shenanigans, it should be quite the Targaryen adventure..

[sleepyphoenixx]

The War Mage is entirely replacable of course. You're pretty much following the same basic build except taking Mounted Combat instead of Weapon Focus and getting the Otyugh Hole earlier.

One problem i do see is the feat timing though. You'd lose both the bonus damage (+3 per die) and 2 metamagic feats from War Mage, with no room to replace them until later in the build.
Either would be a hard hit on your damage, but both leave your blasting abilities pretty underwhelming for a big part of your career until you can at least get Empower + Practical Empower (though you can probably get by with your mount doing damage while you focus more on BFC).

Ancestral Relic needs level 3 btw, and you get fluff conflicts because the Skymage needs Zhentarim Membership (who are typically evil) while the Pyromancer is pretty much Paladin-lite.

That aside there is the possible balance problem of having (at least) 5 characters to play (You, Dragon Cohort, Skymage Mount, pseudo-Dvati cohorts), which looks cool on paper but can be a big problem in practice.

[The Viscount]

Warmage isn't that much of a loss. The bonus damage is per spell, not per die.

Dracolexi has some pretty good effects, though it sacrifices a casting level.

[JW86]

Wouldn't the Sorcerer casting suffer quite a bit from taking levels in War Mage? Is the build more about metamagic'ing low level spells? Forgive my newbie-ness with arcane..

Hm, could anything be done with Sorcerer, Sacred Exorcist 1/Silver Pyromancer (even 2 level dip), and Incantatrix?

Prereqs might be a bit stiff, especially with Sorcerer only having one Knowledge skill.

Sacred Exorcist req: Kn (the planes) 7 ranks, kn (religion) 10 ranks), ability to cast dismissal or dispel evil
Silver Pyro req: Knowledge Religion 4 ranks, ability to cast 3rd-level arcane spells, ability to turn undead
Incantatrix req: Concentration 4 ranks, Kn Arcana 8 ranks, Kn Planes 8 ranks, Spellcraft 4 ranks, Iron Will Feat, Any metamagic feat, ability to cast 3rd-level arcane spells

Can it be done? I'd be surprised and impressed.
Needs to be good at diplomacy, but aside from that good BFC and damage is important.
Leadership and Dragon Cohort non-negotiable, Arcane Relic almost non-negotiable..
Bonus points for getting Skymage in there too! :smallcool:


No flaws allowed.
Silverbrow Human or Lesser Aasimar

Would be amaze

[sleepyphoenixx]

You can get all the knowledge skills as class skills with Education (ECS), but you'll need to invest in Int to get enough skill points.

The problem with feats is that you need metamagic and a way to reduce the spell level increase from it to make blasting an effective tactic, which will cost you at least 2 (Empower + Practical Metamagic) and more likely 3 (Arcane Thesis) feats. Most serious blaster builds want Twin Spell + Practical too.
That's a pretty unique problem with blasting because most other caster tactics (BFC, buffing, summoning) function pretty well without it.

Combine that with the PrC requirements and the other feats you want and you'll see that it just doesn't fit, especially without flaws. You'll have to drop something from the build, because you don't even have room to qualify for everything you want even without adding feats to improve blasting.


Warmage isn't that much of a loss. The bonus damage is per spell, not per die.

The one i'm talking about is the War Mage PrC from the Dragonlance book Age of Mortals.
It's a 5 level class that adds +3 damage/die to your blasting spells, lets you give up to 3 allies your charisma mod as a morale bonus to AC and gives you 2 bonus metamagic feats.

It has nothing in common with the Warmage base class besides the name and being focused on blasting (except that it's actually reasonably good at that).

[jiriku]

Strongly consider draconic aura feats, either on your familiar/mount/pets or on yourself. If chosen right they'll improve your combat leadership and your draconic flavor both at once. Definitely pick up polymorph. At 10th level, you can polymorph your draconic familiar into a 10-HD red dragon, which is Large-sized and thus usable as a mount. Plus you can polymorph yourself into a dragon. The least, lesser and vanilla dragonshape spells are also worth a look. They're not hugely powerful but they do fit the theme.

[JW86]

Sleepyphoenix, I didn't realise War Mage was distinct to Warmage.. the whole build seems more appealing now.

I think I am willing to give up a couple of the blasting feats to allow Ancestral Relic, Leadership and perhaps Dragon Cohort. I don't need 800 damage a round, 200 is more than enough for this party..! More important is playability at low-mid levels.

I also noticed Sanctified One of Kord would get Holy Fire with a 1 level dip, possibly replacing Silver Pyromancer...

How would that work best? I'm not allowed any flaws, unfortunately. I can go Silverbrow Human for the extra feat, or Lesser Aasimar for the tasty Cha and Wis bonuses.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Well how about this? You get all the feats you wanted, decent damage by mid-levels, and Sanctified One instead of Silver Pyromancer lets us fit in Zhentarim Skymage.
You lose Turn Undead and the Silver Pyro's access to paladin spells, but that's not too harsh. You lose and/or delay some blasting potential, but it should still be enough to contribute (War Mage 5 + Empower is probably enough for most games).
Feat timing is a little tight so Ancestral Relic had to wait until level 15, but you should be able to get by until then.

LG Silverbrow Human

8 10 14 14 10 18

1 Sorcerer 1 - Combat Casting, Weapon Focus:Ranged Spell(B)
2 Sorcerer 2
3 Sorcerer 3 - Eschew Materials
4 Sorcerer 4
5 Sorcerer 5
6 Sorcerer 6 - Leadership
7 War Mage 1
8 War Mage 2 - Empower Spell(B)
9 War Mage 3 - Dragon Cohort
10 War Mage 4 - Practical Metamagic:Empower(B)
11 War Mage 5
12 Sanctified One 1 - Mounted Combat
13 Zhentarim Skymage 1
14 Zhentarim Skymage 2
15 Zhentarim Skymage 3 - Ancestral Relic
16 Zhentarim Skymage 4
17 Zhentarim Skymage 5
18 Incantatrix 1 - Practical Metamagic:Twin, Twin Spell(B)
19 Incantatrix 2
20 Incantatrix 3

Again with Otyugh Hole for Iron Will, before level 13.

[JW86]

Beautiful, thanks!

I appreciate the time you took to help.

DM may allow me to take 1 bonus feat for 2 flaws, so I may be able to get Eschew Material at Level 1, allowing me to take Ancestral Relic at Level 3. I may replace the Weapon Focus with Able Learner for Diplomacy etc. (unless that is a Prereq for War Mage, I really need to get that book!) If so, then I will use Level 15 for either Reserves of Strength or Arcane Thesis. Otherwise, I'll leave it as is. Great stuff.

Next to consider are spells.

Iconic spells that appeal include Wings of Cover, Wings of Flurry, Vortex of Teeth, Fireball (will suck less with +3dmg/die, Empower, and the option to have it deal divine damage).. Black Tentacles, a few others.. will supplement with recommended spells for a nice combination of Damage, BFC, buffing and debuffing.

Having an Ancestral Relic Runestaff will help, but I can't always be in a consecrated area to rechoose spells. I'll take a look into this all and post later.

Thanks again sleepyphoenixx

[Ellowryn]

I would recommend looking more at buffing/debuffing and BFC. You are already going to have multiple allies mixing it up in melee and dropping damaging spells on the is kinda counterproductive, however buffing them while debuffing their enemies is VERY productive. And BFC helps to protect against Oh-S*&^ moments by controlling how people move about the area, and makes sure your allies have the greatest advantage in a fight.

[True believer]

Since you will have dragons as your allies/servant/familiriers whatever , i dont think that the casting is necessary. You have a dragon to do all the casting :P

I would recommend a more RP based char like fighter6/dragon shaman6/dragon rider8 or something like that

[Blackhawk748]

If you want "MOAR DRAGON" i recommend making a Dragon Pact. Its from Dragon Magic and you give up some money and a single spell slot (and your a Sorc so you have lots of those) and you get a bunch of SLAs, theres even a PrC, Pact Bound Adept, that lets you make a second pact for more SLAs. Now the SLA lists arent amazing, but they arent total crap either, and depending on the strenght of the pact you get little draconic changes to yourself (all cosmetic). Personally i love the Pacts, ive just never gotten to use them in actual gameplay.

[sleepyphoenixx]

I would recommend looking more at buffing/debuffing and BFC. You are already going to have multiple allies mixing it up in melee and dropping damaging spells on the is kinda counterproductive, however buffing them while debuffing their enemies is VERY productive. And BFC helps to protect against Oh-S*&^ moments by controlling how people move about the area, and makes sure your allies have the greatest advantage in a fight.

You're missing the point. It's common knowledge that BFC and buffing is more efficient than blasting, but you don't spend levels and feats on making blasting viable only to not do it.
God-wizarding isn't for everyone. And while blasting may take some effort to turn it into a useful combat tactic it is an iconic playstyle that many people like.

Mostly because PURGING YOUR ENEMIES WITH FIRE is a whole lot of fun. :smallbiggrin:


DM may allow me to take 1 bonus feat for 2 flaws, so I may be able to get Eschew Material at Level 1, allowing me to take Ancestral Relic at Level 3. I may replace the Weapon Focus with Able Learner for Diplomacy etc. (unless that is a Prereq for War Mage, I really need to get that book!) If so, then I will use Level 15 for either Reserves of Strength or Arcane Thesis. Otherwise, I'll leave it as is. Great stuff.

Next to consider are spells.

Iconic spells that appeal include Wings of Cover, Wings of Flurry, Vortex of Teeth, Fireball (will suck less with +3dmg/die, Empower, and the option to have it deal divine damage).. Black Tentacles, a few others.. will supplement with recommended spells for a nice combination of Damage, BFC, buffing and debuffing.

Having an Ancestral Relic Runestaff will help, but I can't always be in a consecrated area to rechoose spells. I'll take a look into this all and post later.

Thanks again sleepyphoenixx
Weapon Focus is indeed a requirement for War Mage (Weapon Focus, Eschew Materials, Combat Casting). The damage increase is very nice though and you get back 2 bonus metamagic feats. In this case it also partially overlaps with the requirements for Zhentarim Skymage, so i'd say you come out ahead in the end.
Granting your mount and allies your massive charisma as an AC bonus (one of the War Mage's abilities) is also pretty nice.

You can get Diplomacy as a class skill by trading in your familiar for Draconic Heritage (Amethyst, Crystal, Pan Lung, Prismatic or T'ien Lung) with the Dragonblood Sorcerer substitution levels from RoTD.

For blasting spells i suggest getting Raging Flame, Firebrand, Caustic Mire, Combust and Orb of Fire in addition to something that does force damage, like Chain Missile.
That should take care of your damage-dealing needs without impacting too much on your spell selection.

If you invest in a metamagic Rod of Energy Substitution:Fire your choices expand considerably.
Some gems from non-fire elements include Dalamar's Lightning Lance (39d6 damage before metamagic, DLCS), Electrical Storm (damage + daze aoe for rounds/level, DLCS), Acid Sheath (SpC)

Other than that there's the staples. (Greater) Arcane Fusion, Greater Dispel Magic or some other dispel, Arcane Spellsurge, True Casting, Glitterdust, Celerity, Teleport, Dimensional Anchor, Contingency, Wall of Force... just cover your bases, and use a Runestaff (Ancestral Relic or not), wands and scrolls to take care of the less often used ones and those that don't need a high CL/DC.

Another spell i've gotten good use out of is Mark of the Enlightened Soul. It's basically a free stacking Empower against evil enemies, which is the majority in most campaigns.

[JW86]

Great advice again.

Draconic Heritage is great - it suits the character's story well, and grants the diplomacy necessary to start building a new kingdom. Dragon Pact will be worth a good look, too.

I've knocked up a preliminary list of nice spells..

Which I put in the post below.. :)

[JW86]

So another look at spells. I think this is an ok mix of damage, BFC, a little bit of utility/buffing, and a touch of social spell (My character is the sole surviving heir to THE old empire of the campaign world, I need to reunite everyone under my banner)

1- Charm Person (Social), Grease (BFC), Sleep (BFC), True Strike (DMG), Lesser Orb of Fire (DMG)

2- Web (BFC), Glitterdust (BFC), Mirror Image (Def), Scorching Ray (DMG), Wings of Cover (Def)

3 - Dispel Magic (BFC), Fly (Utility), Haste (Buff), Chain Missile (DMG),

4 - Black Tentacles (BFC), Solid Fog (BFC), Dalamar's Lightning Lance (DMG), Wings of Flurry (DMG/BFC)

5 - Arcane Fusion (w00t), Cloudkill (DMG/BFC), Wall of Stone (BFC/Utility), Firebrand (DMG)

6 - Greater Dispel Magic (BFC), Superior Resistance(Def/Buff), ??Geas/Greater Heroism/Contingency/Disintegrate

7 - Electrical Storm (DMG/BFC), Spell Turning (Muaha), Arcane Spellsurge (Muahahaha)

8 - Greater Arcane Fusion (Muahaha), Prismatic Wall (Prismatic Dragon Heritage, makes sense, plus fun)



Runestaff for some of the following:
Mage Armor (1) Wall of Smoke (1)
Flaming Sphere,(2), Pyrotechnics (2)
Explosive Runes (3)
Orb of Fire (4) Polymorph (4) Dimension Door (4) Enervation (4)
Draconic Polymorph (5)
Geas (6), Greater Heroism (6), Contingency (6), Disintegrate (6)

Does it seem like a decent enough set of starting spells?

Also, Stats:

18, 17, 15, 14, 12, 11

Str 11
Int 15 (+1 for 16 at level 4) need the skill points for (I have Diplomacy, Bluff, UMD, Concentration, Spellcraft, Kn. Arcana, all very useful).
Cha 18
Wis 12

That just leaves Dex and Con. 17 and 14. Which to put where, I wonder? Sincerely would like advice.