Divination Specialist NPC creation.

[Zexionthefirst]

I'm running a homebrew campaign, one in which high level magic is rather rare. Most arcane spell casters are only around level 2 or 3, though there are smatterings of higher level spellcasters here and there. The party is going to be encountering a Divination Specialist in the next session, and this NPC is likely going to be a recurring NPC (or at least an active force in the background).

I plan on him being a focused specialist, with his banned schools being Evocation and Necromancy. He'll be going into the Master Specialist Prestige Class. Human Wizard 3/Master Specialist 7. So, he'll need to spend one feat on Spell Focus (Divination), but aside from that he'll have a bonus feat from Human, a third level feat, a second level feat, and a ninth level feat.

Are there any feats that you guys can think of that would be thematic for a Divination themed wizard? I am open to looking at homebrew and possibly things from Pathfinder.

Thank you so much for your help.

[noob]

Level 5 wizard can you the spontaneous divination alternate class feature(replace the bonus feat at that level).
If there is not enough cool things at level 6 and 7 of master specialist you can use that.
Then for feats unless this wizard is going to fight wblmancy feats and similar stuff is more useful.

[Fizban]

Master Specialist doesn't really diviner that well, the most significant effect being that you can trigger True Seeing and Uncanny Dodge for a few rounds off the innately swift action 1st level attack divinations like Guided Shot (with the duration of Uncanny Dodge being murky since right after the overarching ability says 1 round per spell level the divination ability says for the duration of the spell).

Divine Oracle, now that's some divining, and requires no divine casting. With the Oracle domain you get the missing Augury, Divination, and Commune effects that the arcane list lacks, and then the class ability makes Divination ridiculously accurate (and the +2 cl never hurts either).

[Mike Miller]

I can't think of any feats, but I second Divine Oracle as being a more useful prestige class than master specialist for a Diviner. Check out my signature for a link to the Master Specialist handbook I made. I have some explanations on why it isn't so great.

[Zexionthefirst]

Thank you very much to all three of you! I've found the Divine Oracle PrC. Funny story: at first the only version I could find was the 3.0 version from Defenders of the Faith. Then I realized I was being silly for not looking in Complete Divine (I tend to avoid it, as it's one of my only PDFs without the convention bookmarks).

I have to say, you guys are all correct, it makes more sense to go Wizard 5/Divine Oracle 5 then what I had planned. For feats, I'm thinking:
Wizard: Scribe Scroll
Human: Insightful Divination (Gain bonus on initiative, save when casting divination spell) from Complete Mage
1st Level:Spell Focus (Divination)
3rd Level:Arcane Defense (Divination) (+3 will vs divination) from Complete Arcane
6th Level:Craft Wondrous Item
9th Level:Magic Sensitive (Detect magic instinctively, +1 CL on divination spells) from Complete Mage

I'm not overly attached to Spell Focus, it's only there really to boost the DC of his spells like Detect Thoughts and what not. If you have any better ideas for a 1st level feat, please feel free to throw them at me.

Scribe Scroll and Craft Wondrous Item are fairly important to keep, in my mind, since he would be one of the few Wizards in the world with access to 5th level spells- the ability for him to make scrolls and items from those spells makes his value to the Crown rather absolute, giving him pretty solid job security.

All the other feats are things that I just sorta felt like fit thematically, but I don't have too much attachment to them either.

[Mike Miller]

Thank you very much to all three of you! ...

I'm not overly attached to Spell Focus, it's only there really to boost the DC of his spells like Detect Thoughts and what not. If you have any better ideas for a 1st level feat, please feel free to throw them at me.

...

Metamagic feats are generally useful. It depends on what spells you end up learning, but Extend spell is pretty useful. Still spell or Silent spell can be useful depending on the campaign although I've generally found them less useful. Quicken spell is good to, but if you won't be going much higher in level then you won't see a lot of use from it given its +4 spell slot. Empower spell can be useful if you use damaging spells.

[sleepyphoenixx]

How about the Dreamtelling line of feats from Heroes of Horror?

[Zexionthefirst]

Divine Oracle, now that's some divining, and requires no divine casting. With the Oracle domain you get the missing Augury, Divination, and Commune effects that the arcane list lacks, and then the class ability makes Divination ridiculously accurate (and the +2 cl never hurts either).

Does that Oracle Domain class feature grant domain spell slots? I'm under the impression that it does not, and the line "can choose the spells in that domain as her daily domain spells." merely means that if you are a cleric or such, who already has domain spell slots, you can chose from these as well.

[Fizban]

Its at the beginning of the prestige class chapter. Non-cleric prepared divine casters can prepare up to one spell form a domain at each level in their normal slots, arcanists who use a spellbook must learn the spell from a scroll and afterwards cast it as a normal spell, and spontaneous casters have to choose them as part of their normal spells known then cast them as normal spells. Spirit Shamans aren't properly addressed, since they neither prepare nor learn spells.

Note that basically everything that grants domains in some way is different -this is how it works when a prestige class says you get a domain and you don't happen to be a cleric. The Arcane Disciple feat is different, as is the domain sorcerer ACF, etc.

[Zexionthefirst]

Its at the beginning of the prestige class chapter. Non-cleric prepared divine casters can prepare up to one spell form a domain at each level in their normal slots, arcanists who use a spellbook must learn the spell from a scroll and afterwards cast it as a normal spell, and spontaneous casters have to choose them as part of their normal spells known then cast them as normal spells. Spirit Shamans aren't properly addressed, since they neither prepare nor learn spells.

Note that basically everything that grants domains in some way is different -this is how it works when a prestige class says you get a domain and you don't happen to be a cleric. The Arcane Disciple feat is different, as is the domain sorcerer ACF, etc.

Thank you very much for this information. And thank you for telling me where I can find it.