Spell Choices

[Shnigda]

Hey guys,
I seem to be posting fairly regularly about my wizard character, so apologies for anyone bored of it.

Anyway, my DM has just asked me to provide him with a default Prepared Spells list for my character should I ever forget to tell him what my prepared spells are for that day.
I would like your thoughts on the spells and what could be changed.

Prepared Spells
Level 0 (4 total):
Prestidigitation, Mage Hand, Ghost Hand, Touch of Fatigue
Level 1 (5 total):
Nerveskitter, Grease, Colour Spray/Benign Transposition, Power Word Pain, Shield
Level 2 (3 total):
Alter Self, Magic Missile (Fell Drain Prepared), Mirror Image, Glitterdust
Level 3 (3 total):
Summon Monster III, Greater Mage Armour, Haste

Just so you know, my character still hasnt been played yet (one session away! :smallbiggrin: ), so any spell changes in my spellbooks are fine.
Feat-wise my character has Collegiate Wizard, Otherworldly, Fell Drain, Easy Metamagic (Fell Drain), Spell Focus (Conjuration) (not sure if this is really necessary or not...), Iron Will (Otyugh Hole), Spontaneous Divination, Persistent Spell.
Class levels are Wizard 5/Incantrix 1.
Race is Grey Elf and has gone through Rite of Rebirth to become Dragonborn.
INT is 23 including a Headband of Intellect +2

Any thoughts, comments and notes are much appreciated!

[Melcar]

Ill menton some spells that depending on campaign and play stile, can be worth your time.

I would take detect magic. Its nice to be able to "scan" for magic items, wards and traps...

Ray of Enfeeblement is always nice. No save. good vs. str dependent encounters

Ray of Stupidity is also very nice good against everything... more or less

Shivering Touch... Devastating, and borderline broken.


Again, they might not fit the theme of the character, but they are pretty good for combat. :)

[Xervous]

Level 0 (4 total):
Prestidigitation, Mage Hand, Ghost Hand, Touch of Fatigue
Level 1 (5 total):
Nerveskitter, Grease, Colour Spray/Benign Transposition, Power Word Pain, Shield
Level 2 (3 total):
Alter Self, Magic Missile (Fell Drain Prepared), Mirror Image, Glitterdust
Level 3 (3 total):
Summon Monster III, Greater Mage Armour, Haste

Seeing that you are level 6 I will note that Color Spray is nearing the end of its shelf life. Depending on your DM you could very well see (or already have seen) monsters with 6+ HD who are of course immune to Color Spray.

Power word pain might end up being too slow for some combats. Sure it adds up to a respectable amount of damage over time but that's just it... over time. You might be better served with something that has a more immediate effect, or something with a longer lasting benefit beyond a ticking death sentence for one mook.

My last note of concern goes towards greater mage armor. You are giving up a 3rd level slot opposed to a 1st level slot to use this Greater version, and all for a measly 2 AC. +2 spell levels for +2 AC is most definitely NOT worth it when you could have some handy battlefield control spell.

[Shnigda]

Regarding the greater mage armour, that makes sense... What would be the best BFC spell to replace it with? Glitterdust seems fairly useful... Or perhaps Web? Not well versed in spells, so unsure what the best BFC spells are at each spell level...

[balegar]

Stinking cloud, would be a good bfc for a 3rd lvl spell. Sleet storm, haste or slow are also good. I'm not familiar with all the feats you listed, but how can you utilize persist spell at lvl 6?

[Shnigda]

I can't currently use persist spell, but I'm just preparing for future stuff with the Incantrix class features :) But I think I can change a feat at every level up, so maybe it would be worth having a different, more useful feat until I can use persist spell consistently and reliably...

[Grooke]

More importantly, how are you picking the feat without the prerequisite Extend Spell?

[Shnigda]

I picked it because I completely forgot about the extend spell prerequisite, thanks for pointing that out.
Time for changes :P
(Maybe switch out the school focus conjuration for Extend Spell?)

[Grooke]

Well as it was pointed out, Persist isn't useful yet. You could just swap it for Extend and get Persist later. If your build doesn't have room for the feat, I would probably drop Collegiate Wizard since it is the easiest feat to replace with gold (unless you DM gives you very little access to other spell sources). SF(conjuration) can be removed, but it is ok (especially if you are a conjurer).

[atemu1234]

Dropping Colour Spray and picking up something else would probably be good

[Grooke]

Also, don't hesitate to pick the same spell multiple times (unless you are playing with the limited preparation and cast whichever ones as long as you have the slots rule).

As an example, here is Treantmonk's lvl 5 Focused Specialist Conjurer memorization example from his guide (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1146876):



5th level: Slots: 0: 6, 1: 7, 2: 5, 3: 4

0: Caltropsx3, Detect Magic, Light, Mage Hand
1: Mage Armor, Wall of Smoke, Grease x2, Expeditious Retreat (swift), Targeting Ray, Silent Image
2: Web, Glitterdust, Cloud of Bewilderment, Rope Trick, Invisibility
3: Stinking Cloud, Glitterdust (Sculpt spell meta), Bands of Steel, Haste

[Xervous]

If the question of feats is up for debate... fell drain isn't all that useful unless you are strongly focused on exploiting it or wish to rely upon it for earlier cheese.

You're giving up two feats to tack a small rider effect onto any damaging spell. A bunch of small penalties don't add up to that much in most cases and a not quite so small subset of enemies is flat out immune. If you were to simply nab sculpt spell that would open up some crazy potential when you just look at the numbers. Glitterdust affects a 10ft radius spread by default. Sculpting it into four 10ft cubes not only gives you a little more total area, but those cubes can be split up to your benefit, potentially affecting more targets.

Add in a second feat alongside Sculpt Spell: Metamagic School Focus, and you now have 3 free sculpted spells per day given they are conjuration. Sculpt grease and suddenly it's quadruple grease. Sculpt stinking cloud to isolate enemies without hindering your allies.