Gearing a wizard or any other powerful spellcaster.

[TheCrowing1432]

I dont play spellcasters, or at least the really powerful ones very often. But when I do, I run into the problem of not knowing how to properly outfit them due to their spells usually being able do the things the magic items can.

Does anyone have any general advice when gearing a wizard or a cleric?

[eggynack]

Indeed, your items should far less typically be things which provide a relatively static amount of utility, like, say, an item that grants flight capability, or something that allows some quantity of uses of a spell. Such items have roughly equal value on a wizard and fighter alike, and that means a much lower value for a wizard relative to what they already have. Instead, you want items that boost your abilities, mostly spellcasting. So, you want metamagic rods, pearls of power, items that boost CL, a belt of battle, main ability score boosters, nightsticks on a cleric, or any other item that makes you more efficient at your core competency. Even an initiative booster can be worth more to a caster, because your individual actions are so potent. And, of course, some items with static value are still worth picking up on a caster, because the item is efficient or because the utility is hard to duplicate. These include, for example, a handy haversack, save boosters (though casters do eventually get easy ways to do that natively), items that grant hard to access immunities, secondary ability score boosters, and so on. Casters are, to some extent, actually at an advantage in the item game, because their class features are more worth boosting.

Additionally, while it's not either of the classes you named, my sigged handbook has some good stuff on druid itemization in particular. They're a bit different from wizards and clerics, because wild shape and summoning act as other things worth boosting on top of standard casting, but plenty of casting stuff pops up in there, along with explanations and such. Some of that information might carry over, and all of it is intrinsically valuable if you also want to know how to work a druid.

[TheCrowing1432]

Never miss a chance to plug your guide, eh eggynack? ;)

Ha ha, yeah your Druid guide is amazing and ive used it a few times, so thats one of the classes I dont need help with.

Wizards/Sorcerors/Clerics and the like with 9th level casting, however, I do.

What items boost CL?

[eggynack]

Never miss a chance to plug your guide, eh eggynack? ;)
Well, y'know, one of the reasons I wrote the thing was so I could have a big ol' pile of text to point at when someone had druid issues. That way I wouldn't always need huge multi-paragraph posts. Turns out I still sometimes do that anyway, but at least now I have a pile of reference material for the end of said posts.



What items boost CL?

The Orange ioun stone, the prayer bead of karma, and the ankh of ascension from the magic item compendium are three of the big ones. Also, the ring of enduring arcana from the MIC specifically boosts your CL for when opponents try to dispel or counterspell your stuff.

[Eldariel]

There are some specific ones that make some spells better. E.g. you can have a bunch of huge Insert Weapon Here in a Bag of Holding, have pre-cast Greater Magic Weapon on them and then use them with Telekinesis (or summon something that uses them with Telekinesis). In general, extradimensional spaces are of particular value to casters (you can even have a craft workshop in e.g. Portable Hole with a Dedicated Wright; or if you use living things, you might want to use Bottle of Air).

Or you might need some way to generate plants in an area to use Entangle or you might want a Pandemonium Steel [Complete Warrior] weapon to go with your wind-creating spells or perhaps a Thinaun weapon to supply yourself with souls for whatever purposes (and easier self-resurrection should you accidentally get yourself killed). You might also want a Golem or three. For example, Greater Stone Golems (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/golem.htm#greaterStoneGolem) have nice stats and are affordable on a level where they still have definite combat utility, not to mention they make decent host bodies for yourself as their Magic Immunity can be lowered with a spell to take over - True Mind Switch or Magic Jar are the easiest ways - then there are Tippy's favorites, Shadesteel Golems [MMIII] which is a flying, stealthy, solid combatant with some useful abilities, various Homunculi (Eberron-books have most of the useful ones) such as Dedicated Wright [Eberron Campaign Settings] to craft you stuff during the adventure.

You also need the various spell foci, costly spell components, extra spell components (Complete Champion and Complete Mage in particular have some good ones; Book of Vile Darkness has some too), etc. that your various spells require.


Aside from that, like Eggynack said, mostly stuff that enhances your spells. Casting Stat Bonus, perhaps Con/Dex/Cha boosters if you lack those (Circlet of Persuasion can be nice for e.g. Planar Binding), Metamagic Rods, Caster Level Boosters (additionally there's at least that Band of Spell Enhancement in Expedition to Castle Ravenloft), things to gain extra actions and particularly anti-magic items (Ring of Spellbattle [MiC], Ring of Counterspells, Spellblade [PGtF], Rod of Absorption, etc. - help vs. enemy casters and protect you from Dispels), spell trigger/completion items for non-class spells you might need (if you have Use Magic Device in particular), Contingent Spells, Magical Locations, Grafts, etc.

Checking some old optimization challenges or Test of Spite builds can give you great ideas. Here's for instance the old 100^10 Challenge (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=6590.0); while many rely on consumables and custom items, you can find some gems in the item builds.

[Fuzzy McCoy]

While not as important for clerics, the headband of conscious effort/novice ring of the diamond mind have incredibly high cost/benefit ratios for wizards and sorcerers. Even a casting cleric might make use of it if they focus more on prestige classes that do not boost Fort.

[Flickerdart]

Does anyone have any general advice when gearing a wizard or a cleric?

Your fighter friends need weapons to whack things with, but you don't. Perhaps because of this, you may believe you do not need a weapon. Foolishness! A weapon is just an extra magic item slot. Carry a quarterstaff. Enchant both sides of the quarterstaff with things like Eager (bonus to initiative) or Defending (convert enhancement bonus into AC).

Strap a mithral buckler to your other hand, and enchant that too. No ACP means no penalties for being non-proficient.