Low level wizard cursed, how to help in combat? (Carrion Crown)

[Peperono]

Hey GITP, been a lurker for for around 5 years now, but I finally have an actual question to ask.

First of all, spoilers for book 1 of Carrion Crown campaign path ahead, and on the other side of the coin, please no spoilers for things we do not yet know as a party. I will try and say everything that we do know. I'm not looking for information about the curse in question, what's ahead, or anything like that.

Background:
I am one player out of 5 in a group doing Carrion Crown. Our group is:
An evil necromancer cleric (Me)
A conjuration specialist, battlefield control wiz (The cursed Wiz)
A charm/compulsion sorc
A synthesist summoner
An unchained rogue

We have beaten The Piper and The Lopper so far, and are about to head back into the lower level of Harrowstone on our next session (Friday). A few sessions ago, we discovered a secret trove of items, one for each of the ghost bosses. The problem arose last session surrounding the Splatterman's book.

Our wizard added spells to his book from the Splatterman's. Due to a bit of miscommunication, it wasn't until the next session that the DM realised this and began to apply the curse, namely that whenever he tried to cast a spell, he needed to make a DC 14 will save, or fear losing the slot and stop casting. This does not remove the spell, but it does waste his standard action. A bit of hijinks (and a double crit-fail later) and the DC is 16.

Now, last session went fine, there was enough entertaining things going on, namely the discovery of this curse, and some good impromptu improv by the DM, that the game was still fun for the Wizard. The problem is next session.


The Problem
I have been talking to the wizard out of game, and he is really frustrated about this curse. He only has a +3 will save, so he needs a 13+ to cast in combat. While he still has out of combat abilities, including buffs and the like, he is upset that for the next 2-3 sessions, he may as well leave the room during combat. He has already been feeling slightly useless in combat (sleep, and to a large degree grease have been fairly weak with ghosts and incorporeal undead everywhere), and this just sort of added insult to injury on that. At the start of the last session, he went looking for a light crossbow to have something to fill his actions with, hopefully better than acid splash, but there isn't one in town.

We do know that the curse will fade when we finish Harrowstone, so it's only for (probably) another 2 sessions.

So, my question for the playground is... What suggestions can I give him for things to do in combat? He's a fairly mechanical player, so the good ol' "Play up the curse like crazy for a few sessions for fun" won't work.

Already on the list:
Cure Light Wounds wand and all other scrolls and consumables in the party are headed his way. Unfortunately, this is a much depleted list as we needed to use quite a bit on the Lopper, as we were level 2 and already hurting at the time.

We have a few hundred gold to work with for purchasing things in town too.


Thanks!

Peperono

[avr]

Holy water and acid are better than a light crossbow, and if there's only a couple of sessions to go they should be affordable.

[Elder_Basilisk]

1. His acid dart special ability is a spell like ability rather than a spell. It shouldn't be effected by the curse.
2. As a wizard, he can also use and make scrolls. A scroll of enlarge person won't be effected by the curse and it's half the price of a holy water.
3. If you don't mind throwing gold at the problem and he has a decent dex, a tanglefoot bag can be a very useful item.
4. A net is very close to being a re-usable tanglefoot bag that you take a -4 penalty on. But even with a -4 penalty for non-proficiency, touch attacks are relatively easy and entangled is a good condition. Nets are cheap and useful. Get one!
5. If he has mage armor up and a decent dex, he can take his club or quarterstaff, walk into a flank, and attack defensively to Aid Other on the summoner or rogues' attacks. AC 16+dex is not going to be an auto-hit for the monsters (in fact, it might be somewhat difficult) and activating sneak attack, +2 to hit, and a 50% chance or so for another +2 from Aid Other is often going to be better than an acid splash.

[Peperono]

Perfect! I hadn't even thought of actually having a wiz in melee for flanking. Especially with how the combats have went thus far, there isn't really much of a position that is safer than any other.