Safety Switch Wizard

[sjeshin]

I am playing in a campaign with someone who is new to dming, and players that arent used to playing high optimization. The last time I had this situation I had all books and flaws and so much cheese allowed. I put together a wizard that with a lot of metamagic abuse could crank out decent damage with scorching ray twice a day, and focused on playing a "god" wizard 99% of the time, only murdering things the one time we almost died. I would like to replicate that, but this game is core only. Phb1, dmg, and monster manual thats it. Anything not printed in those books is out. I can handle the god wizard part some of the best spells are in core... but how can I do a decent amount of direct damage if the fighter takes a nap and the bard is almost dead and the druid decided shes a healer?

[Elkad]

At low-ish levels? Polymorph scroll.

You can't stack up eleventy-two d6 of fire damage, but turning into a hydra is a pretty decent panic button.

Or whatever other form seems appropriate. Have several ideas prepped.

One of many lists here.
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=10479

[Gusmo]

Polymorph is definitely a quick way to wreck many encounters. Remember, you can share spells with your familiar, who gets an additional natural armor bonus on top of the hydra's already high natural armor. If you're packing extended mage armor and cast shield at the start of the combat, your familiar might get to an AC of 30. Plus, your familiar can act right after you cast polymorph (it gets its own actions too, remember). This doesn't reliably come on until 7th level, of course. This even scales nicely as you level up, because a high caster level gets you more hydra heads, which means more attacks and a higher natural armor bonus. Plus if you don't go into a prestige class, your familiar's bonus to the hydra's already high natural armor will continue to rise, as well.