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View Full Version : An advice on my wizard please!



Rad
2007-10-04, 08:15 AM
I read all the wonder on the power of the Initiate of the sevenfold veil and, having the luck of being currently playing a wizard, was seriously considering to give it a try. What turn me off are the feat requirements and the fact that the inherent brokenness of the class somewhat escapes me. I'll bet a dollar to a penny that we'll never even get close to level 20, and the first couple IotSV levels don't look that great... after all, what CR10 melee fighter cannot afford to take 20 fire damage to reach me through my red ward? And if I am safe and wind-walled on my phantom steed, what do I need the red ward for?

I'm currently a Silvanesti Elf Wiz5/WoHS 1; feats are:
Spell Focus (Abjuration)
Scribe Scroll
Craft Wondrous Items
Sudden Silent Spell
Skill Focus (Knowledge[History])
Trying to change any of those involves a hard struggle with my DM with zero chances of being allowed to change them in the end. So, taking this for granted, my next level is going to be Wiz 6 (no really better options open). Then it'll be Loremaster 1 and 2 on which I'll be able to pick 2 feats that can either be Greater spell Focus (Abjuration) and Skill Focus (Spellcraft) for the IotSV or any two feats (I'd take Adaptive learning and Sculpt Spell) if I go on with Loremaster.

Is getting to play 1 or 2 levels of IotSV worth missing those 2 feats until much later?
Thank you for the advice :smallsmile:

Yuki Akuma
2007-10-04, 09:07 AM
Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil is definitely worth the feats. Considering that it's a full spellcasting PrC, with very useful abilities, and the feats aren't that bad (Skill Focus has its uses)...

Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil is better than Loremaster. :smalltongue: As long as your DM doesn't mind you progressing in a second PrC before finishing Loremaster, I'd say go for it.

Rad
2007-10-04, 09:18 AM
Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil is definitely worth the feats. Considering that it's a full spellcasting PrC, with very useful abilities, and the feats aren't that bad (Skill Focus has its uses)...

Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil is better than Loremaster. :smalltongue: As long as your DM doesn't mind you progressing in a second PrC before finishing Loremaster, I'd say go for it.

Thank you for the reply! :smallsmile: I still have to make a spellcraft roll that is not an automatic success, so skill focus there is a waste; and spell focus (Abjuration)... I'd be very glad if somebody tells me some good Abj spells with a ST.
I know that IotSV is full spellcasting, but loremaster is full spellcasting too, so that's not an issue. I'm sure I'd take IotSV if I started from scratch, bus as things are I already have most feats expended for PrC requirements, so spending more is beginning to hurt.
I still wonder if lower wardings are actually as useful as they are cool :smallfrown: are the red and orange wards better than they look?

mostlyharmful
2007-10-04, 09:35 AM
personally if it's a choice between Loremaster and Wizard of High Sorcery i'd prefer to stay with Wiz of HS, the fluff is good and fits with any Dragonlance campaign better than any other PC short of archmage. The extra abilities it hands out rock aswell, and not just the order secrets.

Edit: The major sucky thing about WofHS is having to drop an extra spell school to get into it, but they fixed that in later books and you've already got a level so it's all shiney.

Keld Denar
2007-10-04, 10:40 AM
Check also what the wards block out. I'm away from books atm, but I know that each layer of a prismatic wall blocks something (non-magical arrows, breath weapons, spells, etc). Some of the wards could then replace standard spells you mem each day (windwall for example). Immediate warding (4th level, I think) is the golden ability there. If you can make it to that, thats where the wards really start earning their upkeep.

On another note, I don't think you can take various Loremaster secrets more than once. Therefore, you can only gain one bonus feat from Loremaster, regardless of your int mod or how many levels in it you take. Sorry if that messes up your build.

EDIT: I just noticed you have sudden silence metamagic. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the sudden metamagic feats require knowledge of at least one other metamagic feat, of which you have none? If this is true, you can bring it to your DMs attention, say you made an invalid choice, and see if he'll let you change it to something you need to meet the prereq (ala greater spell focusL abj).

Rad
2007-10-04, 11:20 AM
Check also what the wards block out. I'm away from books atm, but I know that each layer of a prismatic wall blocks something (non-magical arrows, breath weapons, spells, etc). Some of the wards could then replace standard spells you mem each day (windwall for example). Immediate warding (4th level, I think) is the golden ability there. If you can make it to that, thats where the wards really start earning their upkeep.

On another note, I don't think you can take various Loremaster secrets more than once. Therefore, you can only gain one bonus feat from Loremaster, regardless of your int mod or how many levels in it you take. Sorry if that messes up your build.

EDIT: I just noticed you have sudden silence metamagic. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the sudden metamagic feats require knowledge of at least one other metamagic feat, of which you have none? If this is true, you can bring it to your DMs attention, say you made an invalid choice, and see if he'll let you change it to something you need to meet the prereq (ala greater spell focusL abj).

Thank you, the 4th level ability makes it have a lot more sense and I admit I neglected to take the blocking of the wards into account there. :smallredface: I still have to guess whether we'll make it to level 13 tho...

I know that Loremaster only gives the same secret once (and it has been a bitter realization :smallfrown: ); the two feats come from a secret (yes, crazy Int, lucky roll) and the standard 9th level feat. Sudden Still, like sudden silent has no prerequisites and those became favorites of mine since they can be applied on the fly at need (the main point on the regular versions is that the odds that you prepared those spells with the metamagic is too low). Add to that that my character likes to spend time invisible and you understand why he liked the trick. Plus, I need three metamagic/item creation feats for both LM and WoHS.

WoHS... I keep missing the point of the class; since the forums have been so enlightening with IotSV maybe you'll make me understand this too (mostlyharmful? :smallwink: ).
The only good reasons I took WoHS for were:
1- not becoming a renegade
2- Moon Magic (not useful, but colorful)
3- the connection to the conclave (shouldn't be some class' feature, but alright)
As you see, none of them are mechanically significant (but are for my character's social status in the world) the rest of the class (even the revised version)... kind of loses with Loremaster. The secrets are not great, expanding the spellbook is easy and more bonuses on spellcraft and knowledge... as I said I still have to make an actual roll on them! I guess it would be great for epic spellcasting, but we're not getting that far anyway.
Also note the sinergy between Loremaster having UMD as class skill and the Craft Wondrous Item feat: with scrolls I can make items that require the use of divine spells :smallbiggrin:

Kaelaroth
2007-10-04, 11:24 AM
Sevenfold Veil is awesome. i would take them over Loremaster myself, as full spellcasting and a set of entirely new, powerful abilities is too hard to resist. I mean seriously, at the end you have a force-field which disintegrates nearly everything the DM can throw at it, and teleports living beings off to other planes, while you throw fireballs out of it. Easily worth it.

The Mormegil
2007-10-04, 11:41 AM
Are you specializing in Abj?
If you are, then you can enter it in two level: take the MASTER SPECIALIST PrC in Complete Mage. It requires 2nd level spells, Spell Focus (X), Specialization in X school and 5 ranks in both Spellcraft and Knowledge (arcana). It has full casting progression and gives you Skill Focus (Spellcraft) at 1st and Greater Spell Focus at 3rd (or you just make a 1 level dip and then get one level in Loremaster).


Oh and one thing: TAKE IT IT'S AWESOME!!!!!!

Keld Denar
2007-10-04, 11:44 AM
Another thing of note, the absolute earliest you can get into Io7V is 10th level (9th level to meet the 12 ranks req), which does kind of balance some of it out. You get immediate warding then at 13 (Wiz9/Io7V4). At that level, if things aren't being churned to bits under the might of your arcane war machine, you might want to reconsider your spell selection. Io7V veils are just gravy on top of that, in all honesty. Even the capstone ability, Kalidiscopic Doom seem kind of pointless when you get it (earliest 16) because you already have just as efficient ways of gettin stuff dead. Wizards are made of win, this pclass just lets you win in a way that involves rainbows and sunshine and all that other stuff you find on the Bravo network at night.

PS, you are a wizard, I highly recommend the spell "anticipate teleport" from SC for any wiz above level 8. It's good, it's only 3rd level, it has a 24 hour duration, and did I mention that it's good? Look it up.

mostlyharmful
2007-10-04, 01:06 PM
WoHS... I keep missing the point of the class; since the forums have been so enlightening with IotSV maybe you'll make me understand this too (mostlyharmful? :smallwink: ).
The only good reasons I took WoHS for were:
1- not becoming a renegade
2- Moon Magic (not useful, but colorful)
3- the connection to the conclave (shouldn't be some class' feature, but alright)
As you see, none of them are mechanically significant (but are for my character's social status in the world) the rest of the class (even the revised version)... kind of loses with Loremaster. The secrets are not great, expanding the spellbook is easy and more bonuses on spellcraft and knowledge... as I said I still have to make an actual roll on them!

First off yes, the class is mostly about world specific fluff but the random goodies are well worth while.

The best bit is that the two best abilities are given out at 1st level, with the tower resources you have access (provided Wayreth is currently available to Mages) to the perfect wizards tower, all the spells available to copy, all items required materials, all spells available for hire, a perfect market for off loading magical junk, a perfect market for loading up on magical junk, etc.... on Krynn the flavour is that for most of history this is the only reliable large scale magical store and the ONLY one for wizards. It also gives you a safe bolt hole should it all go pearshaped where no-one can hurt you. Woot.

Moon magic is anything but irrelivant for a wizard, a bonus to both caster level and save dcs which stacks with any other source....... As a wizard you should be picking and choosing when you fight and so there is no excuse for facing down big nasties without a hefty bonus for all your magic.

the order secrets can be juicey as well if you pick an order that supports your characters profile, since you're a silvanesti with a spell focus (Abjuration) we can focus on the White robes, where you can turn yourself into a kickass defensive wizard with +1 per two class levels on dispels (note class level not WoHS level) and the free metamagics for divination and abjuration which you don't need to pick ahead of time are all about win, banishment, trueseeing, etc...

The WoHS is a one level dip class with no arduous feat or skill requirements that can be extended without losing anything. best of all it can be taken at 5th level so it almost never cuts into build progressions unless they're feat heavy.

Edit: My experiance of Krynn was just the one campaign and the DM limited us to only one PresClass (something I agreed with since builds with eight different classes in ten levels always seem to miss out on the explanation of how their character got that way) so that may have shaped my opinion of the WoHS, plus if your DM doesn't ask your wiz to make knowledge or spellcraft roles then it would be a lot less useful. Essentially knowing everything about magic is bound to undermine the use of the Arcane research bonuses :smallamused:

Rad
2007-10-04, 04:03 PM
Thank you all for the replies...

I am a generalist mage and the character concept was the classical bookworm so LM is really the right thing that I want the character to do; I want to implement this concept in the better way possible but I'd like to stay true to it.
I'm beginning to consider specializing, also because most of my group will be astonished at me choosing evocation as a barred school :smallbiggrin: the problema are that it would be slightly out of my eclectic character.
Specializing would require a retroactive change and I'm not sure my DM'll be cooperative. :smallfrown: plus I'd be changing my character concept, which I'm not that prone to. Moreover I could only get 1 feat with the dip but taking 3 levels of MSpec to get the other bonus feat would make me lose the one from Wiz 5, so I'd only be taking 1 level in MSpec anyway. Asking to change something major such as my specialization just to make a 1-lev dip into a PrC makes me think "come on, you're a wizard, it's not like you're going to suck otherwise"

Probably the best route to IotSV in Dragonlance would be Abjurer 3/MSpec 1/WotHS 1/MSpec +2/Abjurer +2/IotsV x with even the room to get another spell focus for archmage at the end of it. Probably the problem is that I want to enter two PrC with some feat requirements and I wonder if that's a sane choice or if I should rather stick with the original plan... after all, as LogicNinja said, Loremaster is still a full caster: It's surely not going to be weak anyway. Not to mention that this group might dissipate well before ECL 13. Any advice?

As for the WoHS topic... I do not have any great use for the metamagic that the secrets of the white robes give. Improved counterspell seems nice, but wizards do not counterspell often so it's meh. Access to Wayreth and the library is priceless, but it's more of a status thing than a special ability: it's useful but should not be a class feature IMHO. And the bonus... well, class level in a PrC description refers to the levels you have in that PrC, not your character level or caster level, so that's keyed to your WoHS levels only.
So alright, I'd take it, but it still is a 1-level dip class for me.

My DM does call for spellcraft rolls, only the DCs are too low to require an actual roll or to make it meaningful. The party rogue is having a similar "problem" with some of her skills that are maxed out and just guarantee an auto success in most cases.
Moon Magic would be cool, but we're on a tight schedule and I cannot pick the right sanction to act in. :smallfrown: the DM is making sure that I get both the good and the bad of it.

Thanks for the spell suggestion: I'm glad the teleport-in tricks have a countermeasure but I don't see my DM pulling anything like that on me, so I'll probably not mention to her that (better not to give her ideas). Please keep going with cool spells, I know none of the "classicals"; so far I'm relying on glitterdust,grease and the like but ther's bound to be more. What should I take at level 4?

Thank you again :smallsmile: