500,000 gold

[tstewt1921]

We've been given 500,000 gold per character to equip ourselves for the final few sessions which is going to be an epic battle. I'm an evoker wizard stat break down as follows:

Level 15
8 Str
14 Dex
20 Con
26 Int
14 Wis
20 Cha

Feats: Energy Substitution, Practical Metamagic, Metamagic School Focus (Evo) Empower Spell, Maximize Spell, Spell Focus/GSpell Focus (Evo) Force of Personality, Augmented Casting, Widen Spell, Energy Admixture, Explosive Spell.

To our knowledge it's going to be humans, it's a large war created by the Church of "Lathander" against our kingdom. Also airships will be involved.

I do already have an int/con/cha boosters and a vest of resis +5, I need to outfit with more stuff. Probably don't need too much as far as stat boosting wise, but let me know what I should outfit with. No wish items is about our on restriction.

[flappeercraft]

What level are you playing at? What’s the party composition? Or is it going to be infighting between the party? What do you know of whatever you will be fighting? What spells do you know? What feats do you have?

I think the reason you have not gotten any responses yet is because the details arebkind of vague. Yes you say there is a 500k budget, but we don’t know what for.

[MeimuHakurei]

I don't know much about how to optimize gear the best, but you probably want to invest a fair amount into scribing scrolls and new spellbooks, which massively improves your arsenal.

[tstewt1921]

Updated game info/feat selection. I still also need to pick 1 more metamagic feat

[Kelb_Panthera]

Evoker's gotta have a metamagic rod of sculpt spell. Rune staff of a few of your favorite spells doesn't hurt either. Ring of wizardry gives you extra staying power on minor battles. Pearls of power can save your skin once in a while or make your all day buffs less painful.

[flappeercraft]

If thats the case then I would get scrolls, pearls of power, etc. Something that will allow you to cast lots of spells. Mass combat is very draining of resources. Try get a miss chance if possible from an item, considering that most people in the fight will be of the lower levels since armies rarely get many troops past level 6 it would be rather darn useful as most won’t have a way to get around it. Fast Healing would be useful is you have a way of getting it as will be long duration buffs like Mage Armor.

Mobility will also be pretty useful considering its an airship battle. All day flight and mid range teleports will be necessary. I would reccomend an item for flight and preparing some dimension doors for teleporting or getting scrolls of DD.

For getting more spells/recovering them, I have a handbook in my sig. For items that fit the reccomendations I gave, check the List of necessary magic items.

My go to strategy in this kind of case would be getting a spell that lights stuff on a non-magical fire and use invisible spell. Now light their ships on fire and look at the confusion. This fits perfectly as you could easily afford a spell that does that and you can take a metamagic feat right now. I would reccomend the Combust Spell since its an AoE and only second level.

[Falontani]

Strong wind attacks might be able to keep the airship at bay

[tstewt1921]

If thats the case then I would get scrolls, pearls of power, etc. Something that will allow you to cast lots of spells. Mass combat is very draining of resources. Try get a miss chance if possible from an item, considering that most people in the fight will be of the lower levels since armies rarely get many troops past level 6 it would be rather darn useful as most won’t have a way to get around it. Fast Healing would be useful is you have a way of getting it as will be long duration buffs like Mage Armor.

Mobility will also be pretty useful considering its an airship battle. All day flight and mid range teleports will be necessary. I would reccomend an item for flight and preparing some dimension doors for teleporting or getting scrolls of DD.

For getting more spells/recovering them, I have a handbook in my sig. For items that fit the reccomendations I gave, check the List of necessary magic items.

My go to strategy in this kind of case would be getting a spell that lights stuff on a non-magical fire and use invisible spell. Now light their ships on fire and look at the confusion. This fits perfectly as you could easily afford a spell that does that and you can take a metamagic feat right now. I would reccomend the Combust Spell since its an AoE and only second level.

With Invisible Spell, if I attach to things like Fireball and what not, are the defenders still allowed a reflex save and what not?

[JMS]

With Invisible Spell, if I attach to things like Fireball and what not, are the defenders still allowed a reflex save and what not?
Yes, but everyone else thinks the people screaming in pain are insane, so...

[Thurbane]

I do already have an int/con/cha boosters and a vest of resis +5, I need to outfit with more stuff. Probably don't need too much as far as stat boosting wise, but let me know what I should outfit with. No wish items is about our on restriction.

I'd probably ditch the Cha booster in favour of a Dex booster. Does your character rely on Cha for anything in particular?

[flappeercraft]

I'd probably ditch the Cha booster in favour of a Dex booster. Does your character rely on Cha for anything in particular?

His will save due to having Force of Personality. I would assume he would also have Ruin Delver’s Fortune for synergy.

[zlefin]

what optimization/cheese level are you looking for?
do you want to focus on your evocation (and staying alive ofc), or would you branch out if it would be more effective otherwise?
are there any limits on what items you can get or on quantities of them?
what's the expected duration of the battle once it starts, minutes, hours, days?

[Bronk]

How creative can you get? You could buy your own airship, fill it with a couple dozen low level hirelings each with 9th level wands of magic missile or 11th level scorching ray, or 7th level Hurtling Stone spell, turn the ship invisible, then have it be turn up as a surprise...

[schreier]

Good guide:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?187851-3-5-Lists-of-Necessary-Magic-Items

Also ... starmantle cloak!

[ericgrau]

A scroll or 5 of every low level utility spell. Probably level 1-3 at your level, possibly a handful of level 4-6 spells. Great way to be ready for everything. Try looking at every spell in the PHB and spell compendium. Get wands of utility spells like invisibility. Any spell you can spam dozens of time on the party, often 4+ times at once, so it makes less sense to prepare so many copies (and possibly not hit any opportunity to spam them). Preferably spells that aren't heavily dependent on caster level or saves. But save partial spells like web spamming to slow/stop enemy movement in an entire section of dungeon are a possibility.

Likewise look at magic items sorted by cost, especially wondrous items, for other nice utility.

Similarly look at above linked guide (thanks schreier). Likewise 197 cheap items are better than one expensive item.

Get a staff with high level spammable spells. Similar to wands, except it's fine if they have a save DC or caster level dependency. I recently wrote a good list here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23601041&postcount=25 . At your level you may even want 6th to 8th level spells on your staff. But hopefully that list will help give you an idea of what to look for. Wall of force (even if you also prepare 1 copy for this one), greater dimension door and greater blink should probably top that list for you. Plus anything similar you find for levels 6-8. Besides combat uses, spamming the last two outside of combat should wreck many dungeon challenges.

Get several lesser rods of extend spell to get many party buffs up 24 hours, or at least the length of a dungeon. Similar to other items, other more expensive rods might not be worth it. But there are some good splat metamagic feats so you may see some good options. Especially high power +1 level options, if they aren't too much optimization for your gaming group.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Psychoactive skin of proteus for 84k? Even the regular one is one of the best items in the whole game, and there are ways to boost its effectiveness, basically for free. Make it [Good]-aligned, and craft it via Words of Creation for a free +1 ML. The Inspired Master feat (Dragon #339) would grant you an additional +1 while you wear it.

And if you hire the services of a shapeshifter that can install illithid grafts... (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?177889-Brainstorm-for-Psionic-Tricks-Tactics-and-Combos-Handbook/page11&p=23285432#post23285432)

[skunk3]

Pearls of Power, Cowl of Warding (Magic of Faerun?), a custom magic ring or rings combining properties of various nifty rings, such as a ring of spellbattle, ring of arcane might, ring of counterspelling and so on and so forth... Starmantle Cloak, items that grant useful feats like Ring of Evasion, Tabard of Valor... lots and lots of scrolls and wands... metamagic wand grips.

[schreier]

Runestaff of power is awesome for 38.3k .... lots of combat spell options, plus ac and save luck bonuses

Also, if feats aren't final -- you may want to try and fit in spell mastery and uncanny foresight

[TalonOfAnathrax]

Here are two excellent online equipment guides:
A List of Necessary Magic Items (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?187851-3-5-Lists-of-Necessary-Magic-Items), mostly covering defenses that you really should have at elvel 15. Taking these frees up more spells for killing things, which is good on an Evoker.
A Bargain Basement (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=1002.0), with the best and cheapest items for each gear slot.

IMO the best gear for wizards is defensive gear. You have the spells to kill anything: gear should keep you alive, then give you more spells, and only then think of doing other stuff grant skill bonuses or whatever.

[Yogibear41]

Buy Iron Will for 3k gold, and a +5 inherent tome of Int to boost your casting stat even more.

Do you plan on gaining more levels ever? What is your alignment?

[Torpin]

use gate to hire a bunch of pit fiends 27 pit fiends, or greater dragon ally to hire 18 old gold dragons

[Eldariel]

Scroll of Shapechange would probably have to covered for almost the whole fight. Save your actual spells for when breathing fire/shooting disintegration rays/etc. doesn't cut it.

But yeah, items that improve spells are nice. Metamagic Rod of Quicken to Quicken your 6th- spells would be pretty hot. Metamagic Rod of Twin Spell would be a nice addition to your arsenal. Orange Prism Ioun Stone for that extra caster level and Magic Tattoo for another. If you have Use Magic Device (with that Charisma, seems pretty likely), you could also get Beads of Karma for +4 caster level for 10 minutes. Good for all-day buffs or for some extra oomph in combat. Create Magic Tattoo [Spell Compendium] adds some more. Overall, improve your spells as they take care of everything else. Just don't forget Heart of Water, Polymorph Any Object, Magic Circle Against X, Mind Blank, Energy Immunities, etc. - make them high enough caster level to make dispelling unlikely and you're good to go. Nobody can seriously threaten you if you are immune to all the key things. Then just rain death on enemies until there are none left moving.


use gate to hire a bunch of pit fiends 27 pit fiends, or greater dragon ally to hire 18 old gold dragons

Doesn't even require Gate, he already has Greater Planar Binding.

[Torpin]

50 scrolls of time stop is 179,000 gold and 125 scrolls of delayed blast fire ball are 280,000 and get yourself a hewards handy haversack. last round of every time stop cast time stop
on average every time stop will give you 2.5 casts so that will let you use 124 or so of the scrolls.

[Torpin]

Doesn't even require Gate, he already has Greater Planar Binding.

he could lose the planar binding diplomacy check, where as gate functions like planar ally,which i feel is the stronger of the two spells

[Eldariel]

he could lose the planar binding diplomacy check, where as gate functions like planar ally,which i feel is the stronger of the two spells

He has Moment of Prescience, he literally can't lose the check if he puts some minor effort into it (Pit Fiends are at +8 so all you need is +27 to always win - every point of caster level is +1 and Circlet of Persuasion is +3 and Luckstone is +1 and he already has +5 Cha so even with no buffing/debuffing to speak of, it doesn't take a lot of effort to failproof a flat Charisma-check).