What is the most fun you've had with a Wizard?

[bendking]

So, Wizard is pretty good, but sometimes being god-like just doesn't cut it.
What would you say is the most entertaining build/trick that you ran with a Wizard?

*Should be mentioned that the OP is also looking for an effective build and wants to incite discussion for his own filthy wizardy needs.

**Some stories about actually having fun in-game are, of course, welcome.

***Sorcerers can get in the party as well, I guess...

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

The most entertaining Wizard build I've run was a Specialist Conjurer whose whole schtick was moving things around. I made a lot use of slide, launch item in combination with shrink item, launch bolt and baleful transposition. Also fun was a terrain-shaping Wizard.

[EdrickVonHaslen]

Ditto the moving things around bit.

Fighter gets grappled by bear or other suitably big bag grabbing beasty. Benign transposition as a standard. Abrupt jaunt away as an immediate reaction to being grappled suddenly and then get out of dodge.

Another way would be to move to a threatening position on the big bad beasty, transposition in and then jaunt behind the fighter who now has a fantastic opportunity to full attack on his turn.

[SimonMoon6]

In 3.0, I did crazy things with Armor Class. I had my Armor Class up into the high 50's. Of course, that was 3.0, where Persistent Shield for all-day +7 shield bonus to AC was a thing. I didn't realize just how crazy high an AC that was getting to be. I just had the notion of trying to get as much AC as I could, since I was thinking back to 1st and 2nd editions, where wizards really didn't get great ACs.

And of course, there are ways around a high AC... but not so much when the DM is just running one module after another.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Ditto the moving things around bit.

Fighter gets grappled by bear or other suitably big bag grabbing beasty. Benign transposition as a standard. Abrupt jaunt away as an immediate reaction to being grappled suddenly and then get out of dodge.

Another way would be to move to a threatening position on the big bad beasty, transposition in and then jaunt behind the fighter who now has a fantastic opportunity to full attack on his turn.

Also using it to set up battlefield control effects. Someone drops marbles and then you slide something onto them. It's a gigantic shame you can't use baleful transposition if both parties aren't on solid ground. Part of the reason I had so much fun with that character is that the DM decided that was dumb.

[Story]

Persisting Bite of the Weretiger and then running around punching everybody to death.

[jiriku]

In a low-epic game, fighting the big bad necromancer in the plane of shadow, i gated in the tarrasque, used prestidigitation to color him hot pink, then mounted up and rode him into battle. Later, when we cornered the big bad, I shapechanged into a beholder, put him straight in the middle of the anti-magic cone, and told my tarrasque doggie "go fetch!" Good times.

It is also tremendous fun using fabricate to just build stuff. Big, ambitious architectural projects, weapons cartels, magical printing presses powering a newspaper company, you name it. Fabricate turns worlds upside down.

[Crake]

What level are we talking? What's fun for a wizard at level 5 is very different from what's fun at level 15

[atemu1234]

Transmuter turning into a Dire Lion and fighting the party Druid (another Dire Lion).

[defiantdan]

I've played several wizards. All of them fun. I like being a swiss army knife to help the party while still having oh **** buttons to win a fight. Though my favorite build is a probably the easy bake wizard. It just has less to deal with in trying to acquire the spells you actually want as not all dm's are so kind to provide you with all the obscure or powerful spells at a moments notice and cheaply. With a few key items you really are prepared for just about any encounter.

[Spore]

Not me but our arcane caster aka Master Troll.

Tripping people with Unseen Servant: a classic and I think the only reason he took the spell.
Situational bizarre comedy with the Hideous Laughter spell: "As his allies fall on the ground bleeding, the gnoll captain starts to laugh maniacally."
Invisibility shenanigans: the spell lasts very long for some uses like checking the next room, and you can throw some rocks at the Paladin from the Rogue's angle.
Charm Person: Nothing says "innocent powerless small bartender" like having three tattooed drunk thugs guard your sides. The images were great.
Grease: THE slapstick spell if you refluff it as a teleporting banana skin.
Disguise Self: "I am who? Nono, I am your grandmother! What do you mean your grandmother isn't human, dwarf?"

The guy was definitely VERY creative with illusion and charm spells.

[noob]

I remember having shown to the gm that the limit of damage a falling giant black hole going at the speed of light was 20d6 then I used a giant net filled with small spiked-ball and released it killing all the lvl 20 guards of a prison because they could be hit by multiple small spiked ball and take like 60d6 damage.

[Elkad]

Keeping a horse from "Mount" spell around.
My familar had a wand of Benign Transposition and would fly over enemies and then trade places with the horse...

[daremetoidareyo]

Randy wizard with charm person. Became pimp.died before second level. Hirelings, guys, getem

[Spore]

Keeping a horse from "Mount" spell around.
My familar had a wand of Benign Transposition and would fly over enemies and then trade places with the horse...

Did your DM include the splatter?

[Sagetim]

I haven't played as many wizards as I'd like, and the only time I've gotten to abuse fabricate was with a psion...who only a session later wound up in a game world where the party wizard had somehow managed to become a lich, enact a doomsday plan, and create a flying castle to ride it all out in. If I recall correctly, the game started with me running an artificer, and the rest of the party dying in the woods shortly into things. So while they were rolling up new characters I went back to town, crafted an item to boost my disable device, used my high diplomacy to talk the king into letting me test his treasury's traps to make sure they were up to snuff....then shot up a few levels as he ate all the xp for each of those traps solo. Which delayed the other players further, because now they had more levels to put on their characters. So the Artificer took his levels and crafted a diplomacy belt and use it convince the mages guild that he was totally the right person to be in charge....and then I retired the character from adventuring and rolled up a level 8 psion.

As a Wizard, though...in pathfinder, I ran/am running a wizard/collegiate arcanist who started out as a noncombat transmuter, then the world ended with demon invasion. And that was the start of the campaign. He is currently the only person in the setting to have died and come back to life (having charged a greater stone golem at level 6 with an adamantine dagger to distract it from the party cleric). His current projects are researching a custom spell for killing evil outsiders, and trying to survive to level 11 so he can pick up tenser's transformation to slap things around with his +1 holy quarterstaff. And getting evil outsider bane on said quarterstaff. For the time being, he makes due with call lightning, fly, burst of radiance, and magic missile and a bunch of level 1 pearls of power.

So my message is: Never underestimate the usefulness of a level 1 pearl of power. It's only 1k gold, and each one can restore your magic missile, spirit worm, or other useful first level spell.

[Amphetryon]

Necromancer. Exploding Fell Weaken cold-bomb minions are fun.

[marphod]

A friend of mine had a lot of fun with a Diviner who gave up Evocation and Necromancy (yes, not required, but he did give up 2 by choice), and stuck to the PHB spell lists. The Campaign was targeting level 10 for the conclusion (started at 2nd). He called it 'playing on hard mode'.

[Sir Chuckles]

Honestly?
Neanderthal Barbarian 2/Wizard 8/Rage Mage 10

Hardly the most powerful or elegant Wizard, but the DM wasn't quite able to figure out how to stop the party from operating on 15 minute work days, even though I directly told him that half the reason I was able to do as well as I was doing and how to prevent it.

And that was the fun of it. Using half of your spells per day to self-buff, rage, and then using a tigerskull club to turn the enemy into electrically charged pudding is surprisingly fun. When combined with Born of Three Thunders...well things quickly get hilarious.

[Psyren]

- Firing Silence and AMF arrows on my AA
- Melting a cyclope's eye with my Spellwarp Sniper

[Flame of Anor]

There's an "Aligned Spellcaster" ACF that allows a wizard to trade his familiar for granting all his spells an alignment subtype (matching his own alignment). So you take this for Good and all your spells have the [Good] subtype.* Then you take the feat Spell Focus: Good, and your [Good]-subtype spells get +2 DC. Which is, of course, all of them!

Also, I like the combination of celerity and benign transposition. Wizard gets ambushed and suddenly finds himself in the front line? Fix it before the enemy has a chance to hit him! Also works with dimension door etc.

*does not apply to spells that already had the [Evil] subtype, but that's not many