[3.5] Advices Needed for a Red Wizard

[Mordrigar]

Hello!

I need some help on my current build.

Here I am, asking for another character build help again. My last GM decided not to come just 1 hour before the game and didn't come so we found another. and sacrificed the old one to Shar. New GM came with new set of rules and I'm building a new character for fresh Forgotten Realms campaign which will start in Calimshan in the year 1373~1374.

I'll be a Red Wizard of Thay who works at Enclave in Calimport. And it seems GM will make me try to sell ****loads of legal and illegal items to Amn, Baldur's Gate. Even Cormyr but I have my own plans. (Everything is better if you put Harpers and Zhents into the play)
Anyway. Besides those boring RP-related details, here is my character plan:


Human Conjurer 5 / Red Wizard 5

Illusion and Enchantment given up. Necromancy given up at level 6 because of Red Wizard class ability. (Note: GM suggest me to have Evocation school. So I'm listening him, for now. But this might change)

HP: 66
STR: 11
DEX: 12
CON: 16
INT: 18 (+2 from level ups, 20 total)
WIS: 12
CHA: 16

(4d6, drop lowest. I can re-arrange scores but this seems best, feel free to comment)

Skills:
Max ranks on Bluff, Concentration, Spellcraft, Knowledge Arcana & Religion. 4 Ranks on cross class Diplomacy, (rest divided to get useful synergies) some ranks on Craft Weapon & Armor

Feats
1: Tattoo Focus
3: Craft Wondrous Item
6: Leadership
9: Elven Spell Lore (This feat will be available at level 11. He let me choose Force as a damage type. Planning to take Chain Lightning at level 11)
Human: Extend Spell
Wizard 5: Quicken Spell
Red Wizard Bonus Feat: Spell Mastery (Teleport, Polymorph, 3 available. Planning to get Greater Dispel and Chain Light at level 11, Time stop at level 17?)

Wealth: 21.000 GP mostly spent on scrolls. +2 spells per level is never enough for me.

My Plans:
1- First, I'll Planar Bind a "Mirror Mephit" and make Simulacrum of myself to fuel my Circle Magic. 5, level 5 Simulacrums (or Simulacri? Sorry my main is not English) will grant me extra 15 caster levels. Thus, 1 hour/level buffs will long a day and damage spells will hit their caps. I don't like blasting but I trust GM opinion. He told me to have some blasting spells.

2- As you can see I don't have much money so I need to earn it. I have 1 Scroll of "Wall of Iron" and Fabricate as a spell. I'll cast them to craft Masterwork Full Plates and Longswords. GM let me create 500 Longswords in 2 hours and 500 Full plates in 4-5 hours. Crafting a MW armor needs DC 20 check (if I'm not wrong) and I've +17 modifier. He let me take 20 but it'll take 16 hours for 500 pieces. I'm planning to sell them at 20% discount on black market and 10% discount on legal sales. (I think Amn, Iron Fist mercaneries, Cormyr, Zhents, Obould and Lords Alliance are potential buyers)

3- Party has Cleric of Kossuth and Thayan Knight. So I may Planar Bind Nightmares for them. Not sure but could try. (Because horses are cool and flaming horses are cooler. Also they are black. We are evil. Evil has something with black and red. Yea, we have both. lol)

Oh, also I need to earn money. I don't know how. (Go and crawl some dungeons is not the answer I'm looking for)


Some House rules to mention:
1- No raise dead, ressurrection, true ressurrection, clone, revivify, etc. Once you're dead. You're dead.
2-Teleport, Greater Teleport, Teleportation circle, Planeshift etc takes 1 hour to cast. (Can't Scry, Port and Fry) No restrictions on Dimension Door-like spells.
3- Even perfect worded "Wish" will have a backslash. Even if you ask for 1 GP via perfect, careful worded sentence, you'll lose 5000 XP and terrible things will happen. Guarenteed. (I hate those kinds of GM's. If they can't handle the spells they should remove them from entire game, anway)

TL;DR
I ask you to
1- Suggest me useful feats and check my current ones.
2- Suggest me useful spells and spell tricks, combos.
3- Suggest me useful items to create or buy.
4- suggest me general tactics to stay alive.

Available Books: PHB 1-2, DMG, MM 1-2, All 3.5 Faerun Books (Not Dragon Magazines) and updated versions of 3.0 Faerun Books. No MiC, no SpC. BUT, it's possible to create a spell or an item that listed on SpC or MiC if I have right feats/spells.

And please, I'm asking tips for level 10 character. Not for a level ideal 20 build. ^^

All comments are welcome.
Thanks!

[Madara]

Red wizard is already a pretty powerful spellcaster, so the question before we go down the rabbit hole is "What's the rest of the party? What is your target power level?"

[noob]

(Note: GM suggest me to have Evocation school. So I'm listening him, for now. But this might change)
in a general way the school to banish is evocation: conjuration do everything better.
Also banishing necromancy is generally not a bad choice.
For yet another school to banish enchantment is a possibility if the GM like to throw immune stuff

"2-Teleport, Greater Teleport, Teleportation circle, Planeshift etc takes 1 hour to cast. (Can't Scry, Port and Fry) No restrictions on Dimension Door-like spells."
that restriction does barely restrict scry port and fry(since the destination is not chosen at the beginning of the casting) and also conjuration stays the best school for nearly everything(blasting,neutralizing, awesoming and etc)

[Mordrigar]

It'll be mostly solo challenges. We have 1 persist user Kossuth cleric and 1 non optimized but heluva rich Thayan Knight. With thosr given I dont think I can use cheesy stuff.

Also level 10-12 range would be good. I'm looking for short term plans. Game will held 1 or 2 times in a month

[noob]

Is early entry cheesy(it depends on the table)?

[Mordrigar]

(Note: GM suggest me to have Evocation school. So I'm listening him, for now. But this might change)
in a general way the school to banish is evocation: conjuration do everything better.
Also banishing necromancy is generally not a bad choice.
For yet another school to banish enchantment is a possibility if the GM like to throw immune stuff

"2-Teleport, Greater Teleport, Teleportation circle, Planeshift etc takes 1 hour to cast. (Can't Scry, Port and Fry) No restrictions on Dimension Door-like spells."
that restriction does barely restrict scry port and fry(since the destination is not chosen at the beginning of the casting) and also conjuration stays the best school for nearly everything(blasting,neutralizing, awesoming and etc)

As a red wizard I have to ban 3 schools instead of 2. And I just realizes illusion is nothing but invisibility on my spell book.

Also, how do you blast with conjuration? As you can see orb spells are not available. Do you mean summons? Because summoning is weak if its not your speciality.

[Mordrigar]

Is early entry cheesy(it depends on the table)?

You have my attention. Early entry on what?

[Madara]

Is early entry cheesy(it depends on the table)?

Usually it is for casters, since they already have enough power.


I'd say you should chose a school that benefits the most from the CL boosts. My vote would actually be necromancy, in part because that might lead to a loop hole in dealing with the "stay dead" thing. Hell, you could even go for Lichdom.

I'd vote against going Evocation though, it's regarded as one of the generally weaker schools.

[noob]

Also, how do you blast with conjuration? As you can see orb spells are not available. Do you mean summons? Because summoning is weak if its not your speciality.
Why that story of specialty? You just need to bind some casters or to summon monster Y casters(And at low level there is acid arrow no SR no save just 2d6 damage)
There is also some nice damaging clouds and the stuff like quickened solid fog chained with deadly fog and other stuff of this kind.

[sleepyphoenixx]

As a red wizard I have to ban 3 schools instead of 2. And I just realizes illusion is nothing but invisibility on my spell book.

Als o, how do you blast with conjuration? As you can see orb spells are not available. Do you mean summons? Because summoning is weak if its not your speciality.

The only general weakness summoning has is the 1 round casting time. You can get around that in a lot of different ways.
Augment Summoning and all those feats are great if you want your monsters to be melee meatshields. That's more the druids thing though.
Summon Monster excels at summoning pseudo-spellcasters with a ton of SLAs and utility monsters, which you don't need any feats for. I suggest a look at The Summoner's Desk Reference (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?255219-The-Summoner-s-Desk-Reference-D-amp-D-3-5) - the list of SLA's you get access to through summons is simply too massive to repeat here entirely.

Instead of wasting your slots on evocation you could for example summon an Energon (PlH). 4 ranged touch attacks for 3d6 damage each, available in any element and positive and negative energy versions. That's up to 12d6 damage per round from a single slot, instead of 9d6 damage once, with the element pickable on the fly. At higher levels you can just summon them in groups.

[Ellowryn]

As a red wizard I have to ban 3 schools instead of 2. And I just realizes illusion is nothing but invisibility on my spell book.

Also, how do you blast with conjuration? As you can see orb spells are not available. Do you mean summons? Because summoning is weak if its not your speciality.

Well, illusion is only as strong as your imagination but yeah its okay to lose. Also, with the almost singular exception of Contingency there is no reason to not ban Evocation. Heck, if you really want Contingency then just grab Greater Shadow Evocation (from the illusion school), that way you have that and invisibility.

As for blasting with ANYTHING, its a VERY BAD IDEA. Like, if you want to kill things with spell damage just ask to play a Warmage. If you absolutely want to blast with conjuration then the Orb spells are in the SpC so while you might not have them right now you can "make them" in the future. Summoning on the other hand is always at least useful at higher levels even without optimization.

Also, why spell mastery?

P.S. You did take the Abjurant Jaunt ACF from PHB2 right? Trade away your weak familiar for 3+Int mod immediate action 10ft teleports per day.

[Mordrigar]

The only general weakness summoning has is the 1 round casting time. You can get around that in a lot of different ways.
Augment Summoning and all those feats are great if you want your monsters to be melee meatshields. That's more the druids thing though.
Summon Monster excels at summoning pseudo-spellcasters with a ton of SLAs and utility monsters, which you don't need any feats for. I suggest a look at The Summoner's Desk Reference (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?255219-The-Summoner-s-Desk-Reference-D-amp-D-3-5) - the list of SLA's you get access to through summons is simply too massive to repeat here entirely.

Instead of wasting your slots on evocation you could for example summon an Energon (PlH). 4 ranged touch attacks for 3d6 damage each, available in any element and positive and negative energy versions. That's up to 12d6 damage per round from a single slot, instead of 9d6 damage once, with the element pickable on the fly. At higher levels you can just summon them in groups.

Books are limited. That monster is unavailable for example. Core Summon monster 1-9 is not that versatile. In terms of damage, 20d6 chain lightning (force) reflex 31 for half damage at level 10, can kill a summoner, his summons and rest of the party as caster level 24. (30 SR is easy to beat as a red wizard)

Also,at level 10+ and in Faerun who does NOT have true seeing? I mean illusion is a good school, generally I dont drop it but it shines on low level or with shadowcraft cheese.

Edit: I never played generalist wizard that can use evocation before. But chain lightning and free empower/maximize and tons of caster levels sounded better than illusions.

Also, yes, I have abrubt jaunt