3.5 Core - Help me Optimize a Build

[HereBeMonsters]

Ok so me and my friends are doing a little one off. We are only using the DMG, MM, and Players Handbook as source material (Because we are doing it old school I guess.)

Using the rolls of 18, 18, 16, 16, 13, 8

Now with only these three books, Level 8, these rolls, and the concept of a very versatile caster who can do more than just sling spells, they can face, they can go into melee if they had too, they are generalist.

[Eldariel]

Well, there are three major options:

Cleric 8: With those stats, you can make a pretty badass Cleric. You're on a level high enough to cast Greater Magic Weapon +2, Magic Vestment +2 (shield and armor) and Divine Power for massive numeric boosts. Magic Circle Against Evil, some Domain spells and such round it out. You can summon, you can cast offensive spells, you can bash face and fight at both, range and melee. Domains allow you to get e.g. teleportation, invisibility, AOE offensive spells and such. Next level you get Righteous Might and Quickened Divine Favor (+3/+3), which is when you have all of your key spells before Trickery-domain's Polymorph Any Object (level 15). Your offensive spell options include Confusion (Trickery-domain), Wall of Stone (next level), Silence (cast on area/object, enemy casters can't cast spells), Shatter (destroy mundane opponents' weapons), etc. You'll soon get Slay Living and Plane Shift (send them to Positive Energy Plane or whatever and have them explode). Cleric can also go into Thaumaturgist [DMG]; lower HP and BAB barely matter at all with Divine Power and you'd get automatic summons with you each fight on level 4 of the class (it's pretty superawesome, to be honest).

Your stats are even good enough to pull off the tripper build:
Human Cleric 8
18 Str
16 Dex
16 Con
13 Int
18 Wis
8 Cha

1. Combat Expertise
H. Improved Trip
3. Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Spiked Chain
6. Combat Reflexes

Then just focus rest of your feats on casting and crafting (Craft Wondrous Items, Quicken Spell, Extend Spell and Craft Magic Arms & Armor are all good) while taking AoOs every turn with your Large-sized 20' reach threatening every square. You can also take Power Attack down the line to kick ass and face. This way, you can passively hit enemies with AoOs when they do anything while actively casting spells.

Actually, go evil while at it and walk around with a bunch of Animated Zombies and Rebuked/Commanded ones (you can Command your previous ones and then animate more dropping them to your Command pool; though you can also Command actual Intelligent Undead you've run across).


Druid 8: Druid doesn't need the stats but fact remains that Druid is one of the strongest classes on any level with any build. Druid Wildshape takes a big turn up with Large shapes (such as Dire Ape (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/direApe.htm), Polar Bear (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/bearPolar.htm), Dire Wolf (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/direWolf.htm) or Tiger (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/tiger.htm)), have a Brown Bear or whatever as an animal companion, buff the whole pack with Greater Magic Fangs (on each weapon), Barkskins and company, cast offensive magic like Entangle, Soften Earth and Stone, Ice Storm, Sleet Storm, Call Lightning, etc. (with Control Winds to create tornadoes with two castings, Slay Living, etc. on the next level) and so on. It's just an awesome do-it-all chassis that buffs itself, its companion and party members while smashing face and casting spells that make the enemies fall down (or make crops improve if he feels like it) with a ton of awesome options and even a good bunch of skill points.


Ranger 1/Wizard 6/Eldritch Knight 1: This is on an awkward level since you just start Eldritch Knight. This means you're stuck with level 3 spells when everyone else is on level 4 spells and you'll be one spell level behind forever. If you never expect to level-up, just take Ranger 1/Wizard 7 instead and be done with it. The good news is that you have a metric ton of skill points (6+Int on Ranger and your Int is gonna be massive), you can use Gray Elf [Monster Manual] for higher Int (though costing you Strength) and so on. You can also Polymorph into monsters and kick ass/face. And you have all the usual arcane goodies: Greater Magic Weapon, Mirror Image, Invisibility, Haste, etc. with Polymorph coming on the next level. You can also use Ranger Wands making you able to act as the party healer and get lots of divine spells effortlessly. And your offensive spells, starting from Grease/Glitterdust/Web/Pyrotechnics/Stinking Cloud/Slow, are second to none. You also have utility like Arcane Sight, See Invisibility, etc. And you can prepare books with Explosive Runes and have your familiar fail to Dispel them to detonate them in enemies' face or Shrink Item and throw boulders/boats/whatever at people, prep with Sepia Snake Sigil and such.


With stats that good, it's not out of the question to just go Wizard 8 and fight if you feel like it. You can afford 18 Casting Stat, 18 Str, 16 Dex, 16 Con and thus make up for having poor innate HD and BAB. Alter Self is an insanely strong buff if you have good stats; you can get 3 attacks from Trogdolyte form with Stench and all with good bonuses for 10 min/level and 6 Natural Armor to boot. If you went base Outsider (+1 Level Adjustment options include Tiefling and give you martial weapon proficiencies, which are pretty nice), you'd get Ravid for 15 Natural Armor. While your BAB and HD would be low, you don't need either if your numbers are good enough. False Life gives you HP too. If you never expect to level-up, Tiefling is actually a great idea since level 8 offers no new spells anyways. Level 7 Wizard with good stats, martial weapon proficiencies (Outsider-type grants them (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#outsiderType)) and a host of minor benefits is pretty great. Animate Dead is also available so you can walk around with a pack of awesome thingies that kick ass and take names.

Familiars can also carry spells (they can Hold Charge of e.g. Protection from Evil, or any touch spell, indefinitely and just hit you with it at the start of a fight), be target of Polymorph, etc. Arguably, you can cast spells with target "You" on them as Touch-range spells and have them hold the Charge and cast it on you when desired. You could also get some awesome Improved Familiars such as Pseudodragon, Imp or Quasit on this level (they have Dragon and Outsider forms open to them respectively, Quasit/Imp come with good spell-likes and Commune 1/week [an awesome spell], and Pseudodragon comes with complete Telepathy allowing for perfect communication).


Overall, any of the big 3 casters (or the redheaded stepchild Sorcerer, but there's literally no reason to play it over Wizard, especially with these limitations) works great though Wizard is the hardest to pull off. Druid and Cleric do it all really easily, Wizard takes a bit of work but all of them are ultimately fine options. Whatever you do, 18 casting stat, all level-ups to casting stat, items to boost casting stat and then go from there. Spells are the best thing in Core and the game at large - get as many of them as you can and use the spells to be awesome at everything else.

EDIT: Added a mention of Animate Dead getting you Zombies.

[Falontani]

Monk 2/druid 5 and just keep going druid. Unarmed strikes, evasion, unarmored ac, and improved grapple all work perfectly fine while wild shaped. Druid gives good spellcasting, wild shape, diplomacy as a class skill and decent skills to boot. This build will work through to the end, and give you a tankier druid that when in doubt can use unarmed strikes alongside your other natural attacks. Preferably take a form with improved grab (like a bear form) and be a decent grapple build, damage build, spellcaster, skill monkey, and able to do the face role. Eventually you get thousand faces to be anyone at anytime

[Eldariel]

Monk 2/druid 5 and just keep going druid. Unarmed strikes, evasion, unarmored ac, and improved grapple all work perfectly fine while wild shaped. Druid gives good spellcasting, wild shape, diplomacy as a class skill and decent skills to boot. This build will work through to the end, and give you a tankier druid that when in doubt can use unarmed strikes alongside your other natural attacks. Preferably take a form with improved grab (like a bear form) and be a decent grapple build, damage build, spellcaster, skill monkey, and able to do the face role. Eventually you get thousand faces to be anyone at anytime

Eh, standard Druid with a +1 Wild Dragonhide Fullplate will likely be much tankier as it has access to bigger forms and a tougher AC. Same with Druid using Monk's Belt (put it on after Wildshaping; you get Dire forms, large forms, etc. on 8).

[HereBeMonsters]

Eh, standard Druid with a +1 Wild Dragonhide Fullplate will likely be much tankier as it has access to bigger forms and a tougher AC. Same with Druid using Monk's Belt (put it on after Wildshaping; you get Dire forms, large forms, etc. on 8).

A +1 Wild Dragonhide Fullplate is 19,300 GP out of 27,000 GP that is a heck of an investment but doable. Man I wish Agile or Guided was in the core books, would throw that on a weapon fast.

[Eldariel]

A +1 Wild Dragonhide Fullplate is 19,300 GP out of 27,000 GP that is a heck of an investment but doable. Man I wish Agile or Guided was in the core books, would throw that on a weapon fast.

You could just pick Craft Magic Arms & Armor to halve it.

[Falontani]

Didn't know wild was core. Nor Dragonhide. Monk's belt is, but you have to equip it while wild shaped, which is usually fairly difficult.

[ericgrau]

Ok so me and my friends are doing a little one off. We are only using the DMG, MM, and Players Handbook as source material (Because we are doing it old school I guess.)

Using the rolls of 18, 18, 16, 16, 13, 8

Now with only these three books, Level 8, these rolls, and the concept of a very versatile caster who can do more than just sling spells, they can face, they can go into melee if they had too, they are generalist.

It's difficult to do everything, especially in core. You need to focus on your main focus (slinging spells), but add just enough of face and melee. Otherwise you'll be bad at your focus.

So I'm going to say sorcerer 8, with some tricks on the side for versatility. Con 18+2(levels)=20, str 18, cha 16, dex 16, int 13, wis 8. Int and wis may be swapped. Wis 13 is better, but for roleplay reasons this guy needs to be at least a little clever because he does a lot. Plus skill points, and you have a good will save anyway. Since melee is far behind casting in importance you might be wondering why it isn't cha 18, str 16. Really you don't need a high cha to cast well, and your stats are so high that 16 is plenty. If anything you might put your +2 from levels in str instead of con. You shouldn't be picking save negates spells anyway, and a bonus spell per day won't make much difference to a sorcerer. Plus I'm going to include some melee spells and so on to synergize it. Melee survivability and back line ambushes are a problem for every caster, and tackling that is nice to have anyway. Short of a wizard who researches every challenge a week in advance and takes up all your real life free time, a sorcerer will be a strong caster and the most versatile with limited work put in, And we can handle side goals in simpler ways than meticulous spell swapping after scouting every single enemy days in advance.

What's most important for your main focus are your spells:
0: message (poor man's telepathic bond), whatever
1 (5): mage armor, unseen servant, shocking grasp, magic missile, ray of enfeeblement
2 (3): false life, invisibility, bull's strength
3 (2): haste, vampiric touch
4 (1): solid fog
Future spells: Other hour/levels like GMW. GMW mostly for allies, but maybe yourself too. Swap out your lower level spells for them. Levitate. On allies/NPCs/objects/macguffins more often than yourself. It's the rescue the ally/plot button. Other BFC like wall of force, black tentacles or sleet storm (not all). Other ranged touch no save disabless like enervation, ray of exhaustion (no save if cast twice). Or melee touch like irresistible dance. Possibly fireball if you tend to face groups.

Feats: empower spell, point blank shot, precise shot, whatever

Race: Human, dwarf, gnome, halfling. Yeah dwarves, gnomes and halflings have minor drawbacks to casting and melee, but the con, ranged touch attack bonus, AC bonus, etc. are wonderful.

Scrolls:
level 1: 1-4 of every single first level utility spell. This is how you'll be ready for almost everything. Tenser's floating disk and summon monster I should be CL 3.
level 2: spider climb. Any/every other utility you might like if you can afford it. See invisibility maybe, or later, because invisible foes might be soon.

Other equipment:

+1 spell storing longspear (for reach). Charge up with empowered magic missile or another 3rd level "Target: " spell. Note that even though a longspear is a two handed weapon, you may hold (but not wield) it in only 1 hand while you cast. Let go with one hand as a free action, cast, put hand back for attacks of opportunity.
2+ lesser rods of extend spell: Get hour/level buffs to 24 hours.
Look at the wondrous items sorted by cost and pick some cheap ones. Marvelous pigments (plus enough skill ranks to take a 10) is one of my favorites. Feather token (tree) is great. 3-6 whip feather tokens are great for BFC against medium or smaller foes with their +15 grapple. Note that grappled foes lose dex to AC, for your rogue buddy. Pick any other cheap utility items you might like.
Handy haversack
Use your high str to carry random useful items. Like a hammer and many pitons. To wedge doors shut, climb walls, plug trap holes, etc.
I left a lot of gold open. +2 con & str are nice. +1 amulet of natural armor, +1 ring of protection. Level 1 pearls of power. Dust of disappearance is a 3,500 gp "I win button" for the BBEG/LBEG fight. Whole party greater invis that thwarts true seeing. Etc. Look around and pick random useful stuff.



Skills: Max concentration, at least 1 cross class rank in diplomacy, preferably 1+ rank in gather information too. Spellcraft is nice. Knowledge(arcana) is ok. Bluff is ok. But those three aren't essential.

Familiar: Any, but probably bat for flight with hover (from (good)).

Strategy: Get mage armor, unseen servant and false life up 24 hours. False life and mage armor your familiar too. Charge him up with a held touch spell. Round 1 of each fight your familiar pops the touch spell so you can cast. Empowered shocking grasp is good general purpose damage. Vampiric touch is better if you're certain foes won't be immune. False life and vampiric touch HP will help him survive the attack of opportunity (tiny creatures must enter the targets square and provoke). And to survive any retaliation before he withdraws round 2. Also it helps to take out a minor foe who can't hit back hard and may drop the first round. Bull's strength is good for buffing allies, and often better general purpose than shocking grasp if you have a good ally target. Round 1 usually you want to solid fog important foe(s) to take them out of the fight while you focus on the other ones. If you see a major LBEG brute then empowered ray of enfeeble him instead to turn him into a wimp and either win outright or focus on his weak minions. Or if there's nothing super great to do to the enemy, you can always haste the party. Move to a good spot to get a possible attack of opportunity with your longspear, or help the melee flank or etc. Usually you only cast spells, but you can poke when needed, exactly what you wanted. Round 2 take out more foe(s) with solid fog or empowered ray of enfeeblement. You can also melee well with vampiric touch if you have nothing better to do. Or your longspear if you didn't blow the stored spell on an attack of opportunity. Note that if you are hasted and a melee touch attack misses, you hold the charge and next turn you can use your two attacks to touch + 5' step away + longspear stab. Empowered magic missile can reliably finish off heavily damaged foes. There's a lot of synergy going on here, so when a fight starts feel out the situation and make a 2-3 round plan that puts it together. Don't forget your items and unseen servant for special situations too.

Also notice how with good planning, your familiar and your weapon you might get 5 spells off within 3 rounds. That'll get nutso. And you survive well. And between scrolls, wondrous items and skills you have a million utility options in fights and between fights. And you can melee quite well for at least 1 hit, and ok after that. This is a core beast. Not merely doing everything ok like a druid or bard, but some things very well and everything else ok.

Spam invisibility on the party to bypass many encounters. You can also tag objects such as doors, corpses or toss-able objects, as part of some strategy.

Unseen servant has a variety of out of combat uses. Or pick up random objects, open doors, drag a 100 lb. object over traps, etc.

Future: Besides the spells I mentioned, you might want to go into eldritch knight. Paladin 2 entry will give you wonderful saves plus diplomacy as a class skill. I didn't stop sorc at 6 because 4th level spells are really important. You might even get sorcerer 9 first for more spells known, but you can start paladins right away. If your one off is short, then skip paladin/EK altogether.

[Eldariel]

Didn't know wild was core. Nor Dragonhide. Monk's belt is, but you have to equip it while wild shaped, which is usually fairly difficult.

Dragonhide (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialMaterials.htm#dragonhide) and Wild (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicArmor.htm#wild) are indeed both in the DMG and the SRD.

[Particle_Man]

The bard is the traditional generalist. You can face, you have spells, you have skills, you can swing a blade if you have to.

Before you go over the top with the other builds maybe check the power level of the other pcs and the expectation of the dm. You don’t “win the game” if others are not having fun.

[ericgrau]

Before you go over the top with the other builds maybe check the power level of the other pcs and the expectation of the dm. You don’t “win the game” if others are not having fun.
+1. See what others are making too. You can always tone back the builds to keep things even too. Or fill holes to do well without stepping on toes. Or support others. At the same time it can be hard to do well with bard or sometimes druid in core, unless you put a lot of thought and skill into it. So if others are doing strong specialty builds then a general purpose versatile build may need more to keep up. Or you can help others and/or coordinate with them. But not a lot of help, it's their character, and more coordinate than help. Don't do too much or too little. Keep it roughly even and cooperative so everyone can have fun.

Potential power issues in my build: empowered ray of enfeeblement + precise shot, familiar holding touch spells. ERoE can no save, just lose many major foes your DM expected to be a big fight. The vanilla spell is fair, but optimizing it too much with the 3 feats can nearly break fights. Familiar touch spells are less offensive if you buff an ally this way instead of attacking or buffing yourself. Also saves on familiar defensive buffs. Optional house rule/DM interpretation from one of the game designers: You can't hold a touch spell for more than an hour, because that's too hard to keep up or some such explanation. These are good things to nix if you want to tone it down.

Lesser offenders in my build: spell storing weapon, solid fog. And, besides solid fog, the best BFC in general. Later that mostly means wall of force. Spell storing weapon for action economy. At minimum it's attack (with good str)+cast ok spell in 1 turn. Sometimes you release it with an attack of opportunity. Or if your DM metagames (since most foes should charge the squishy mage), the mere threat makes your sorc immune to charging melee. The BFC, especially the two mentioned spells, are semi no-save just lose. Except terrain means foes can often get out after a painful delay.

[Eldariel]

+1. See what others are making too. You can always tone back the builds to keep things even too. Or fill holes to do well without stepping on toes. Or support others. At the same time it can be hard to do well with bard or sometimes druid in core, unless you put a lot of thought and skill into it. So if others are doing strong specialty builds then a general purpose versatile build may need more to keep up. Or you can help others and/or coordinate with them. But not a lot of help, it's their character, and more coordinate than help. Don't do too much or too little. Keep it roughly even and cooperative so everyone can have fun.

Casters are nice in that it's pretty easy to play to any given level though. Just prepare spells appropriate for the level and play accordingly. That said, 1-shot with these stats suggests rather high general power level so I wouldn't worry overtly much; I doubt there'll be any Fighter or Monk 8s in the group.


Potential power issues in my build: empowered ray of enfeeblement + precise shot, familiar holding touch spells. ERoE can no save, just lose many major foes your DM expected to be a big fight. The vanilla spell is fair, but optimizing it too much with the 3 feats can nearly break fights. Familiar touch spells are less offensive if you buff an ally this way instead of attacking or buffing yourself. Also saves on familiar defensive buffs. Optional house rule/DM interpretation from one of the game designers: You can't hold a touch spell for more than an hour, because that's too hard to keep up or some such explanation. These are good things to nix if you want to tone it down.

Well, there's always the option of just not using them if not necessary; Empowered False Life is pretty nice too, but definitely not broken. It certainly does make the feat worse though.


Lesser offenders in my build: spell storing weapon, solid fog. And, besides solid fog, the best BFC in general. Later that mostly means wall of force. Spell storing weapon for action economy. At minimum it's attack (with good str)+cast ok spell in 1 turn. Sometimes you release it with an attack of opportunity. Or if your DM metagames (since most foes should charge the squishy mage), the mere threat makes your sorc immune to charging melee. The BFC, especially the two mentioned spells, are semi no-save just lose. Except terrain means foes can often get out after a painful delay.

This is actually where I would strongly suggest a reach weapon; much higher chance of getting the AoO and thus getting a non-action spell off. I'd definitely get Spell-storing on the Cleric too (or having enemies lose entire turns trying to skirt around your reach, either way win/win). Though I do disagree about the Con/Cha split of yours - the spells that give saving throws are just such a massive power boost that I'd rather that far above +1 to hit and damage (specially if you're hitting people with spells á la Spell-storing). You could easily fit Grease and Glitterdust in the mix, after all; rarely do they make a build worse especially since you already have a hundred and one ways to damage the enemy.

I do think even here a Wizard build would be stronger but a Sorc isn't at least as horribly disadvantaged (all the spells are good and Empower Spell here is nice even with the full-round cast time). Still, having access to Polymorph when needed would probably push the envelope further, and particularly if you specialise you can easily afford the slots (given you only have spells from 6 schools that's not really that painful either).

[Anthrowhale]

I think Rogue 1/Wizard 7 is also a classic generalist. Something like:

Human Rogue 1/Wizard 7 or possibly Human Rogue 1/Wizard 6/Loremaster 1
Str 13
Dex 16
Con 18
Int 18+2
Wis 8
Cha 16

Rogue 1 gives you trapfinding, sneak attack 1d6, some martial weapons, and access to full ranks in most skills.

Skills-wise, you have all the classics like Hide/Move Silently, Search/Disable Device, Diplomacy/Sense Motive, Spot/Listen, Tumble, Use Magic Device. In the initial level you can take 13 skills to rank 4 so 3 more. The wizard levels only grant 7 or 8 skill points and you'll want to invest in Concentrate/Spellcraft, but that still leaves room to keep 2-3 skills at full rank with cross-class purchase, enough to function well as a party face for example.

Spellwise, you can use Polymorph[Hydra] to melee, you can get access to great strength via Polymorph[Annis Hag] and you have access to the toolkit of wizard spells.

You also have Scribe Scroll + 5 more feats.

Shifting to Loremaster costs 1 feat or more, but if it fits the character concept you get a few more skill points and a number of minor benefits.

[ericgrau]

This is actually where I would strongly suggest a reach weapon; much higher chance of getting the AoO and thus getting a non-action spell off. I'd definitely get Spell-storing on the Cleric too (or having enemies lose entire turns trying to skirt around your reach, either way win/win). Though I do disagree about the Con/Cha split of yours - the spells that give saving throws are just such a massive power boost that I'd rather that far above +1 to hit and damage (specially if you're hitting people with spells á la Spell-storing). You could easily fit Grease and Glitterdust in the mix, after all; rarely do they make a build worse especially since you already have a hundred and one ways to damage the enemy.
Longspear is reach and sorcerers are proficient, that's the idea. Even if you don't get the AoO, the mere threat of a devastating AoO keeps you and possibly allies safe. So you often may not get the AoO, but it works out well even then. You still have the option of a regular attack if you have nothing better to cast. Though usually casting is better.

I picked the spells I did because they were the best for the concept, not specifically to try to avoid saving throws. As luck would have it not a single one has a save. A lot of that is because many are based on attack rolls, including melee attack rolls due to a decent strength. If you did include such a spell then having the save DC 1-2 lower isn't the end of the world; you don't need an 18-20 cha just for 1 spell. Just like the ranged attack roll manages fine with a 16 dex. The spells could be shuffled and then you have to re-evaluate which stats gets used more often and then redo the array. Con, false life and mage armor was an easy way to make close fighting survivable on a d4 HD, while simultaneously soaking ambushes against the squishy. Plus con is nice for the familiar HP to more safely soak an attack of opportunity so it can attack. It's used for both spells and melee. Spells are the build's main shtick by far, yes, yet they don't use cha that much. While the longspear uses a lot of str, it doesn't poke with it often, and melee touch spells don't need high str as much. So it's more like cha & str are even less used than con. But like I said, +1/-1 isn't the end of the world and you could change the top 3 ability scores around without affecting much.

I avoided low level attack spells in general, besides what he can empower, because the sorcerer has way too many spells per day for that. Better to blow them on hour/level spells and then use your high level spells to attack. Even his nova 4th level spell is 3 times a day. Most days he could solid fog until win and do nothing else. Round 4+ is usually cleanup. It's not always ideal, but point is even being that crazy-power-spammy usually works. Nice part of being a sorc is he can mix and match metamagic or duplicate spells on the fly, based on the moment he sees the enemy. Not maybe or maybe not divining what the fight will be with 3 hours of IRL time, and maybe or maybe not preparing the right combo of spells. If there's a super rare emergency from a crazy long adventuring day then magic missile or get creative with utility scrolls. Or, heck, keep poking foes with the longspear.

Something similar could be done with wizard too, except he has no reach weapon proficiency. And a lower modifier on cha skills. Likewise while you couldn't spam as many morning buffs nor take advantage of having more options from metamagic, you could shuffle the spells a bit and make up for it with a couple lower level attack spells. OTOH you get 5th level spells sooner and if you get/obtain forewarning of a challenge you can swap spells. And then perhaps feats to match. You'd change some things but it'd be similar.

[Eldariel]

Something similar could be done with wizard too, except he has no reach weapon proficiency. And a lower modifier on cha skills. Likewise while you couldn't spam as many morning buffs nor take advantage of having more options from metamagic, you could shuffle the spells a bit and make up for it with a couple lower level attack spells. OTOH you get 5th level spells sooner and if you get/obtain forewarning of a challenge you can swap spells. And then perhaps feats to match. You'd change some things but it'd be similar.

Aye, Wizard lacks the innate Reach Weapon proficiency but has a bonus feat which enables just picking up EWP or MWP as desired. EWP is probably superior since they're more or less strictly better. And yeah, Cha-mod is way lower to be sure but the Int will be so high that all Int-skills will be pretty much autosuccess-level, and he can afford a good bunch of skill points in whatever else too (7 points per level with Human or Gray Elf). With these stats we can be looking at as high as 24 Int (20 start, 2 level-ups, 2 item), which would give a 7/6/6/4 array of spells - a fairly good split especially since every one of them can be different (Solid Fog, Black Tentacles, Polymorph probably in 4th level slots, mebbe Haste, Phantom Steed, GMW, Stinking Cloud, Dispel Magic in 3rd, False Life, Invisibility, Glitterdust, Alter Self, Resist Energy, Rope Trick in 2nd, and the usual in 1st with Scrolls of e.g. Mirror Image, Fly, Alter Self, Arcane Sight and company as a backup).