Wizard[With a taste of Cleric] of Savras - Need build help

[S_McMahon]

Hey all, I've been tossing around ideas in my head for the past week or so attempting to work out a character for my 3-player party that will be starting in about a month. Currently we are lacking an Arcane caster, so I've decided to go down the Wizard route, particularly enjoying the flavor of Divination("Oh. Silly DM, you thought you were going to make that save?"), however it seems that my party will be taking on a divine feeling (Life Cleric and Paladin) so I wanted to have a little twist of divinity in my character. Tying in with the Divination feel, I researched Savras, and decided that I would want my character to be a follower of Savras. And thus I created my background (Oracle/Mystic of Savras) and am now in need of build assistance.

Current Idea:
Cleric 1(Start Cleric for Medium Armor/Shield)
Human Variant
Str - 8
Dex - 15(+1)
Con - 12
Int - 15(+1)
Wis - 14
Cha - 8
Feat: Warcaster(Shield/Holy Symbol + Arcane Staff(Doubles as QStaff, I believe))

After this starting dip in Cleric, I would go the full 19 levels in Divination Wizard. I'm completely open to other ideas, and would love to hear any and all criticism.

Feat: Warcaster

[rhouck]

Have you thought about a domain? Life, Tempest, Nature and War all get you heavy armor instead of medium armor, which would you let you flip your Dex and Con scores (helping with concentration spells as well as hp).

War is pretty useless for a wizard. As is Nature. Light is too duplicative. Trickery is just bad.

Tempest has a neat 1st level ability helping you punish those that get close enough to attack you. And if you ever decide to dip one more level for the channel divinity, you can enjoy a max damage lightning bolt once per short rest.

Life is decent for propping up your healing spells, as healing word would then be 1d4+5 instead of 1d4+2, and a 2nd level dip for channel divinity is a big survivability boost for the party if things get tough.

Knowledge is okay and would mesh well from an RP perspective with Divination.

[CantigThimble]

Which domain are you picking as cleric? Knowledge is the flavorful but not necessarily the best as it's most valuable feature is identify, which is a wizard divination spell. Nature seems like an excellent choice and is completely workable with the theme, make your specialty the natural order or something along those lines. What kind of armor are you planning to wear? Your 16 dex implies you want light armor but your chosen weapon is strength based. (Although I would guess you were planning to mostly use cantrips, weapons are still handy until 5th level) If you swapped your strength and dex (and went nature) you could use heavy armor and the Shillelagh cantrip on your staff.

[S_McMahon]

I was going with the idea of knowledge due to flavor and grabbing medium armor. The quarterstaff was because it is the only weapon that can be an arcane focus assuming an arcane staff works as a quarterstaff. The main damage would come from the usage of spells.

The cleric element itself is optional, I just figured having that medium armor and shield would patch up the main weakness of being a squishy wizard.

I could definitely swap dex and con if that would be more useful with armor heavier than light.

[SharkForce]

knowledge works great, imo.

you'll be even better at knowledge checks, which helps you in being a better wizard (knowing more about your environment and enemies helps you know what spells are best for the situation at hand - thus, it leverages your special wizard abilities).

personally, i'd be inclined to pick up a second level of knowledge cleric at some point for on-demand proficiency in any skill or tool in existence. oddly, it doesn't cover languages though. that will delay your higher level spells a bit more though, so i can certain understand not wanting take that second level.

but it really combines well with spells that let you make things. fabricate in particular.

on a side note, a rod is a specifically mentioned option for arcane focus, and is functionally a fancy-looking club. still strength-based, of course. but the nice thing is that you can presumably also use a shield (which can be a holy symbol for your cleric spells).

[S_McMahon]

If I am indeed going to go knowledge, which would imply taking advantage of that juicy medium armor as well, should I alter the stat allocation a bit? (I am using 27 Point Buy)

Currently the point usage is

Str:8(0)
Dex:15+1(9)
Con:12(4)
Int:15+1(9)
Wis:13(5)
Cha:8(0)

Obviously the 16 int and at least 13 Wis are set in stone. I would assume a minimum of 14 Dex would be important due to making the most out of the medium armor AC bonus and also just because dex is a great stat overall. However, I'm not sure if Warcaster is enough to make up for having the not-so-great 12 con.

[PotatoGolem]

For a completely different path to less-squishy wizards, have you considered a Mountain Dwarf? The Con boost is nice, but the big draw is the medium armor proficiency without needing to multiclass and slow down your spells. It does mean you've got a lower save DC for a while, but Portent lets you land those crucial spells when you need to. I have a Mountain Dwarf Conjurer, and he's loads of fun. Just go something like 10/14/17/15/10/8 at level 1, with +1 int/+1 con at 4th level.

But yes, if you're going medium armor, dump that Dex to 14 total and up your Con. The extra point of Dex mod doesn't do much for you, but better con saves and HP will.

[S_McMahon]

I chuckled at the thought of a Mountain Dwarf Oracle-like character. The visions drove him slightly twisted so he is always drinking. Arcane Focus Tankard.

[SharkForce]

mountain dwarf unfortunately does not get shield proficiency. if you're going to go dwarf, though, you can always go hill dwarf. +2 con and +1 wis are both useful to you, bonus hit points are useful to you, poison resistance and immunity are useful to you, darkvision is always nice, tool proficiency is meh but not totally useless, and you get quasi-expertise in yet another intelligence-based skill, for certain uses only.

but from the sound of it, the character concept is a human, so probably stick with that.

i would let dex sit at 14. push con up to 13, and add another +1 from your floating stat boosts, then throw the other point into something else... strength gives you more carrying capacity, i guess. alternately, if you've got your eye on proficiency in con saves at some point anyways, you could also let con sit at 13, put that floating point into dex, and have another 2 more points to throw into strength (or charisma) if you wanted. but i feel like warcaster offers you more than resilient:con at this point.

[S_McMahon]

I seriously appreciate all the helpful replies! Would it be better to having the first level be Cleric as I have it currently rather than starting Wizard? The only difference I really see is getting that medium armor from starting equipment and switching my Int save from Wizard to Cha with Cleric.

[SharkForce]

either of those are fine. i'd probably start cleric purely because the low levels are the most dangerous time, and having better defensive options at level 1 sounds like a really really good idea.