S.O.S. Save My Spell Caster.

[DjErebus]

Well let me first start off by saying that I have never played a spell caster, and have a vary small amount of 3.5 Dungeons and Dragons experience. I've yet to play a character past level 10, And now I am involved in a gestalt campaign.

And let me continue by saying that the character I am to be playing is a level 5 Half-Elf Wizard / Battle Sorcerer. And that I am to be the groups main caster. (And sexy man, with a charisma of 20, Huzzah for perfect hair.)

Also I am told that the adventures are going to be ridiculously hard.

So having never played a spell caster, I don't know where to start really. I rolled up stats, found a few good choices for future classes such as Shadowcrafter, Incantatrix, and Archmage. (If You can't tell I like me some illusions.) But past that I haven't really gone anywhere. Haven't picked spells yet, haven't picked feats, haven't done skills, haven't bought equipment. I've been looking at this character sheet for over a week now and feel absolutely retarded every time I go to work on it.

The DM has been trying to help me along, giving me class suggestions, reminding me of the basic rules of spell casting, even sending me a few guides such as the guide to 'Being the ****ing Batman.' And that has helped put my thought train on the right tracks, but its just not chuggin' along.

So I was wondering if I could get a little help from the source of most of my information so far, the forums here, because frankly my DM has enough to deal with at the moment, and I don't feel like bugging them.

So any help, at all, in anyway would be appreciated, even if its a run down of all those fancy acronyms I see being thrown around every other post in relation to spell casters.

And some sample characters would be a huge help. I learn a lot from seeing something done.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Gestalting 2 casters rarely works. One of the main limits on gestalt is not resources, but actions. You'd be much better off as a Sorc 5//Paladin2/whatever 3. Is that sort of thing possible, or do you need Wiz//Sorc?

[DjErebus]

As far as I know its open for change, The Battle Sorcerer / Wizard combo was a suggestion I got, and I did what I could to run with it, though with my lack of knowledge concerning both Gestalt and Spell casting, I didn't run vary far.

[UglyPanda]

If you can't play a Paladin for whatever reason (Group dynamics, Player dynamics), there are always the variant Paladins.

So, as usual with these types of threads, what books are allowed for this game?

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Gestalt, you do best with 2 radically different classes based off of the same stats, especially if one gives bonus actions or passive bonuses, while the other requires actions to do it's thing.

What do you want to do with this char, besides cast?

[DjErebus]

Words straight from the DM's mouth: All of the books

Well, I was focusing on casting as you might have been able to tell, but other then cast, I'm really not sure. I'm open to suggestions on that one.

[sonofzeal]

Gestalting 2 casters rarely works. One of the main limits on gestalt is not resources, but actions. You'd be much better off as a Sorc 5//Paladin2/whatever 3. Is that sort of thing possible, or do you need Wiz//Sorc?

For his credit, Battle Sorcerer works a lot better for this than straight Sorc. Full-caster + Gish (even a mediocre gish) works pretty well.



OP: You might want to consider something to boost your defenses. Wizard // Monk is pretty good (especially if you can get AC based off Int, and there's a few feats for this). Factotum goes for this too, to some extent, and gets you extra standard actions at higher level.

[Vizzerdrix]

What books are allowed? does All of them include 3rd party or not?

For your wizard side: Focused specialist can't be beat. You loose 3 schools, but you can use your Sorc side to pick them up.

You'll want Metamagic Specialist Sorc so you can use MMs better, or battle sorc for a bit more HP and easy entry into Abjurant Champion (5 levels of beef up your defense).

[DjErebus]

What books are allowed? does All of them include 3rd party or not?

For your wizard side: Focused specialist can't be beat. You loose 3 schools, but you can use your Sorc side to pick them up.

You'll want Metamagic Specialist Sorc so you can use MMs better, or battle sorc for a bit more HP and easy entry into Abjurant Champion (5 levels of beef up your defense).

I'm assuming it does include third party stuff, but I'm not absolutely certain.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

I wonder, does he allow dual progression classes such as Ultimate Magus? Those are usually frowned upon, but it's worth checking, especially if you're going double arcane caster anyway.

Advice if you end up going Wizard//Battle Sorcerer:
-Don't specialize the wizard side. You don't need the extra spells, and you won't be able (or won't want) to cover your banned schools on your Battle Sorcerer side, given its very few spell slots. Grabbing domain wizard and/or elven generalist sub levels is fine if you can get them, though.
-Use your Battle Sorcerer spells known wisely. Being so few, and being the spells with your highest DC (assuming you stick with the high charisma), they should be spells you're going to use all the time that generally require saves. The wizard side should then be used to prepare rarer-case spells, utility spells (especially 1/day spells like Rope Trick), less-common buffs, no-save spells, etc. Between the two spell lists you should be fine.
-If you're going into Gish-type prestige classes such as Eldritch Knight or Abjurant Champion (CM), swap the Battle Sorcerer out. If you're going into casty-type prestige classes such as Archmage, Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil (CA), or Mage of the Arcane Order (CA), swap out the wizard side unless you want to lose the BaB and higher HD.
-Use that BaB wisely. It's not high enough to be a real monster meleer in such a high powered campaign, but it (with enough dex) is enough to easily hit most ranged touch attacks. This means using spells like Ray of Enfeeblement, Ray of Exhaustion, and Enervation. I know you like illusions, but with such a large set of spells you can have a number of specialties.

If you change your mind about that particular build, but want to retain the same theme, I suggest Wizard//Beguiler for SAD multi-casting, especially since Beguiler is right up the illusionist's alley. In this case you should specialize on the wizard side and ban enchantment and illusion, since it's well-covered on your Beguiler side. Ultimate Magus if you can; otherwise PrC out of Wizard instead of Beguiler, since Beguiler gets better straight-up class features. Though you might want to delay advanced learning by putting a PrC on the beguiler side that level...

If you end up dropping the double caster idea, there are a number of builds people have already shown here; Wizard//Factotum is a board favorite, for the action economy abuse.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

If you want to go Caster//Caster, I would recommend either Focused Specialist Wizard//Archivist (or Psion or Factotum), since they are all Int based.

If you really want mileage out of Illusion, I would recommend going gnome for Shadowcraft mage (Races of Stone) and crank out 160% real illusions for fun and profit. Quicken Spell and Heighten are a most. Extend spell helps for buffs and other goodies, but you may be able to do without.

[Vizzerdrix]

Then Book of Erotic Fantasy has the Metaphysical Spellshaper PrC. Get into it as fast as you can. Only 3 levels long and it lets you get silly with the metamagics, as in: Take some piddly stat damage to apply meta magics on the fly and do it a lot cheaper silly. I've used it to OHK things well outside the groups challenge rating by pimping out a shivering touch.

I can go silly with 3rd party recommendations, but I won't yet, until you get a good base set up on what you wish to have in your character.

[Kylarra]

I'd really recommend Wizard//Psion if you really want to gestalt two "casters", simply for schism action economy abuse.

Alternatively Wizard//Warblade isn't half bad if you want to retain gishiness.

[sonofzeal]

General rules for Gestalt spellcaster....

Pick one full-caster. That's your "active class"; do not sacrifice on its caster level at any cost.

Your other side should be your "passive class". Boosted defenses, qualifying for PrCs that help your Active side, etc. Another spellcaster can work for this, but you should still think in this way and try to think in terms of long-duration buffs. Keying off the same attribute also helps.

[aje8]

Read this, all of it perferably. It will tell you ALOT about the basics of being a Wizard and give you PrC and spell reccomendations. This should help you with optimizing your Wizard side alot.

For the other side, I'd reccomend Factotum from Dungeonscape. It's not too hard to play and it's really pretty powerful with a Wizard on the other side. Oh, and it at level 8, you can get a bunch of extra action EACH ENCOUNTER.

[The Glyphstone]

Then Book of Erotic Fantasy has the Metaphysical Spellshaper PrC. Get into it as fast as you can. Only 3 levels long and it lets you get silly with the metamagics, as in: Take some piddly stat damage to apply meta magics on the fly and do it a lot cheaper silly. I've used it to OHK things well outside the groups challenge rating by pimping out a shivering touch.

I can go silly with 3rd party recommendations, but I won't yet, until you get a good base set up on what you wish to have in your character.

This is such an incredibly bad pun...



I'd pick one type of caster or the other, myself. Either get sky-high Int and go Wizard//Monk 1/Factotum X, or keep the high Cha and go Sorcerer//Paladin. No need for Battle Sorc when your other gestalted half is giving you full BAB and all martial proficiencies.

[Vizzerdrix]

Heh. I honestly didn't intend to make that pun ^_^