Wizard: Help me make my group believe!

[ExHunterEmerald]

Okay, my local gang is convinced that wizards aren't appreciably more powerful than melee classes. And nothing I tell them changes their minds.
I think it's time to win D&D and teach them otherwise.
So, I come to veterans of the game and ask--
How do I make my wizard so full of epic win, that he outshines the entire damn party?
Most of our games are ECL 4, so I'll start there. From there, where do I take it?

[squishycube]

You take it straight to The Logic Ninja's Guide to Wizards: Being Batman.

[Krellen]

At ECL 4, he doesn't. The Wizard picks up around 7, if I recall all the examples given.

The tricks are saveless and SR-less spells - touch spells like the Orbs from Complete Arcana, Evard's black tentacles, solid fog, and other such spells that pretty much control the battlefield. A lot of it is dependent on 4th level or higher spells.

But I predict Bears With Lasers will be along shortly to correct me where I'm wrong.

[ZekeArgo]

At ECL 4, he doesn't. The Wizard picks up around 7, if I recall all the examples given.

The tricks are saveless and SR-less spells - touch spells like the Orbs from Complete Arcana, Evard's black tentacles, solid fog, and other such spells that pretty much control the battlefield. A lot of it is dependent on 4th level or higher spells.

But I predict Bears With Lasers will be along shortly to correct me where I'm wrong.

Ya hit the nail on the head with that one. At level 4 the wizard isnt going to be devistating entire groups of enemies single-handedly, but one could *easily* take down any other opponent as long as spell selection is done well.

[marjan]

Like people said: read The Logic Ninja's Guide to Wizards: Being Batman, make your group believe that wizards are weaker than most other classes, wait 'till a bit higher levels and then ... BAM!!!!

Revenge is best served cold.

[Emperor Tippy]

First Level Spells:
Sleep
Color Spray
Ray of Enfeeblement
Grease

Second Level Spells:
Glitterdust
Alter Self (if you just want to prove power level)
Hideous Laughter
Mirror Image

You need at least 3rd level spells to really start dominating and at least 5th level spells to make the melee types worthless. Once you get 7th level spells you really win. And at 9th level spells you and your familiar can singlehandedly take out a CR 20 black dragon.

[martyboy74]

You don't. Sane games are more fun.

[ExHunterEmerald]

You don't. Sane games are more fun.

Usually? Yes. Hell, I prefer me my fighter types.
I just want to show them how damn good a wizard is.

[Innis Cabal]

i wouldnt say that wizards are more powerful, they have more written material that gives them better options but no where the uber class. I hate when people say one class is underpowered, they are all balanced, a little under powered but not glaringly so

[Tobrian]

You need at least 3rd level spells to really start dominating and at least 5th level spells to make the melee types worthless. Once you get 7th level spells you really win. And at 9th level spells you and your familiar can singlehandedly take out a CR 20 black dragon.

Of course so can any 18th level fighter, with the right equipment. *shrug*

Really, it amazed me that people seem to think wizards are all-powerful. They seem to start from the delusion that every wizards knows all spells in existance and can cast them all simultanously.

I'm not saying that an 18th level wizard isn't powerful. Time Stop certainly is a game breaking spell IMO. But EVERY 18th level character is perversely powerful when min-maxed and twinked out. Still not epic though... but how many groups routinely play 18th level characters?

A wizard wins when he uses his spells intelligently and has allies who work with him, when he can plan ahead, when he can get info about the enemy's resistances and weaknesses beforehand, and when he actually has enough time to cast buffing spells. If he is ambushed, has memo'ed the wrong selection of spells, loses his spellbook, is blinded, feebleminded or forced to cast spell from the back of a horse in a thunderstorm while being shot at, or faces an enemy with spell/elemental immunities, a mage-hunting PrC and a ring of spell turning or rod of absorption, he's screwed.

[Emperor Tippy]

i wouldnt say that wizards are more powerful, they have more written material that gives them better options but no where the uber class. I hate when people say one class is underpowered, they are all balanced, a little under powered but not glaringly so

I will say this once and it is not meant to be a flame or anything. Merely a statement of fact in line with such things as "The sun is hot".

You have no idea what you are talking about.

At level 17 or above a wizard can single handedly destroy a fairly large army without any problems or take on a dragon on his own and win. He can solo a level 50 pure fighter without a single problem.

The wizard always acts first. A rod of Quicken is used on a Disjunction making a very large portion of the fighters items worthless. Time Stop is then used in conjunction with a Rod of Maximize for 5 rounds of free time. First the wizard uses Dimensional Lock. Next he casts Cloudkill targeted on your square followed by a quickened Forcecage.

The fighter dies. He takes at least 1 con damage per round for 17 minutes or 170 rounds. HE can't get out of the Forcecage without magic items and no one can teleport him out because of the dimensional lock.

[TempusCCK]

I happen to think that the wizard is totally overpowered at higher levels, but that's the breaks.

The best you as a fighter can do is ask for some antimagic armor and hope to God that the DM delivers.

Or, you could set up a system of lingering spell effects having a substantial effect on the wizard himself. Example: Forcecage. No save, no spell resistance, but if you as a fighter are stuck inside, and you start pushing and hammering on the cage, it's structural integrity is weakened, and the wizard who cast it, maybe now hundreds of miles away, needs to make a Concentration check, adding his caster level, to a DC of D20+ 1/2 Fighter Level + STR Mod to keep the effect up.

But then again, this is all up to your DM, being a houserule that I've found works particularly well.

[Emperor Tippy]

Of course so can any 18th level fighter, with the right equipment. *shrug*

Make up a fighter that can do it. He has to solo a Black Wrym wholly on his own and without leadership cheese or exceeding his WBL.

Really, it amazed me that people seem to think wizards are all-powerful. They seem to start from the delusion that every wizards knows all spells in existance and can cast them all simultanously.

I can get 9 spells cast in a round at level 20. And know every core spell that is worth knowing. It just requires a bit of gold to stuff one in my spellbook.

I'm not saying that an 18th level wizard isn't powerful. Time Stop certainly is a game breaking spell IMO. But EVERY 18th level character is perversely powerful when min-maxed and twinked out. Still not epic though... but how many groups routinely play 18th level characters?

Min/Maxed? Twinked? Please. I'm talking a standard level 20 wizard here. One that BWL or I could run if we felt so inclined. And they would decimate an epic melee character.

Yeah, timestop is overpowered but it is core. And this is based on the core RAW. Which is broken and it has wizards dominating every non caster at high levels.

A wizard wins when he uses his spells intelligently

Correct.

and has allies who work with him,

Not needed at all. Ever.

when he can plan ahead, when he can get info about the enemy's resistances and weaknesses beforehand, and when he actually has enough time to cast buffing spells.

None of those matter. At all. With a standard generic spell list I can make a wizard who can survive any fight (not involving deities) and win most fights. And the ones that he doesn't win he comes back the next day and wins.

If he is ambushed,

Any intelligent wizard Can't be ambushed. It is an impossibility.

has memo'ed the wrong selection of spells,

I'm talking a generic everyday list of spell here.

loses his spellbook,

Any intelligent wizard has backups and stealing a wizards spellbook requires what amounts ot DM fiat in the first place.

is blinded, feebleminded or forced to cast spell from the back of a horse in a thunderstorm while being shot at,

How was this wizard blinded, and feebleminded? You can't assume conditions that can't actually arise without DM fiat.

or faces an enemy with spell/elemental immunities,

Elemental immunities? Why woudl those matter at all? And a golem? You can disintegrate the floor out from under one and then cast wall of force on top of the hole to keep him in there.

a mage-hunting PrC and a ring of spell turning or rod of absorption, he's screwed.

Rigns of spell turning don't do much and neither do RoA's once the disjunction starts flying.

[PaladinBoy]

I will say this once and it is not meant to be a flame or anything. Merely a statement of fact in line with such things as "The sun is hot".

You have no idea what you are talking about.

At level 17 or above a wizard can single handedly destroy a fairly large army without any problems or take on a dragon on his own and win. He can solo a level 50 pure fighter without a single problem.

The wizard always acts first. A rod of Quicken is used on a Disjunction making a very large portion of the fighters items worthless. Time Stop is then used in conjunction with a Rod of Maximize for 5 rounds of free time. First the wizard uses Dimensional Lock. Next he casts Cloudkill targeted on your square followed by a quickened Forcecage.

The fighter dies. He takes at least 1 con damage per round for 17 minutes or 170 rounds. HE can't get out of the Forcecage without magic items and no one can teleport him out because of the dimensional lock.

Keep in mind, the disjunction allows a will save, and the fighter's items get to use his will save bonus. A level 50 fighter has a base/epic will bonus of +21. That's not counting the epic magic items he could use to drive that even higher. Does this level 17 wizard have a DC high enough that that fighter even has a chance at failing, with +31 or higher?

This also doesn't count any artifacts that the fighter may have picked up, or his epic magic items, which I believe have a chance to survive even if the will save fails.

With the fighter's magic items surviving, the fighter has a pretty long list of solutions to choose from...... anything from powerful SR armor to an item that allows him to use greater dispel magic. Maybe disintegrate arrows?

Does any of this count as a problem?

I can get 9 spells cast in a round at level 20. And know every core spell that is worth knowing. It just requires a bit of gold to stuff one in my spellbook.

How?

Not saying you can't do it, just curious.

Not needed at all. Ever.

Oh? Really? I have a hard time believing that your level 17 wizard could make it through an adventure balanced for a party of 4 level 17 characters all by himself. Did you mean something else, or could he actually do that? If that is what you meant, how would he do it?

[Krellen]

How?

Not saying you can't do it, just curious.

A wizard "can" cast 12 spells in one "round" at level 20:
1. Quickened Something.
2. Time Stop - roll a 4, for 5 "rounds".
3. Quickened Something.
4. Something.
5. Quickened Something.
6. Something.
7. Quickened Something.
8. Something.
9. Quickened Something.
10. Something.
11. Quickened Something.
12. Something.
Wizard's "round" is done.

[Solo]

How to kill a melee character:

1. Rod of Quicken + Disjunction. (Good luck making the save, if the wizard is built properly.)
2. Timestop + Rod of Maximizing (5 rounds, although you only really need three)
3. Reverse Gravity
4. Prismatic Wall
5. Prismatic Wall
6. Anything, such as another Prismatic Wall
7. See above.
8. End Reverse Gravity, have fighter fall through 2-4 Prismatic Walls.
9. Obtain lewts and EXP.

(If you want to, you could do a whole lot more by using the Rod of Quicken Spell, but I think subjecting the fighter to more than that is overdoing it.)

[Bears With Lasers]

Time Stop doesn't really count. A wizard can use Imbue Familiar with Spell Ability and then have both himself and the familiar each unleash a regular and a quickened spell in the first round, though.

Tippy's exaggerating with the "level 50 fighter" thing, because a level 50 character's wealth can buy him so very many items of such power, up to and including epic spells.

A level 17 wizard could take on CR 20 challenges by himself, something that just plain couldnt be said of even a level 20 fighter. If it was an entire adventure, he's use a different spell setup (more damage and summons), expend a lot more spells/encounter, dominate himself some enemies, and teleport off to rest a lot.

Facing "an enemy with spell/elemental immunities, a mage-hunting PrC and a ring of spell turning or rod of absorption, he's screwed" certainly won't make him blink twice (or leave a tip).

Sorry, Innis. Some classes--like, say, the monk--ARE underpowered. Very significantly. The fighter is one of those, once you pass the mid-levels.


Back to the issue of low levels: a level four wizard isn't ruling anything. He can, however, be very useful--spells/day are still an issue, so don't cast every round unless it's necessary. Glitterdust is your best friend, here; it can turn a tough encounter into an easy. Grease lasts four rounds and likewise makes the melee guys' job much easier. Ray of Enfeeblement is a godsend against beefy melee monsters and has no save.
Web is difficult to move through even if you make your save, at this level; Web + archery = tough encounter goes down, no sweat.
If you want to be nigh-untouchable, use Alter Self to turn into some humanoid with wings (like an Avariel) and fly; having flight at this level means you're totally safe from 90% of potential enemies.

Once you hit level 5, you can unleash the Ray of Enfeeblement + Ray of Exhaustion combo, Deep Slumber, Haste, Slow...


Edit: for those of you who want to avoid Disjunction and aren't core-only, a Chained (Greater) Dispel Magic will suppress items for 1d4 rounds. You could then use Chained Shatter to destroy them, or just kill while the items are down.
Even without chain, dispel + shatter on a critical item (Ring of Freedom of Movement, Wings of Flying, etc) can essentially ensure victory.

[Cruiser1]

How to kill a melee character:
3. Reverse Gravity
4. Prismatic Wall
5. Prismatic Wall
8. End Reverse Gravity, have fighter fall through 2-4 Prismatic Walls.

This won't work. The Prismatic Wall spell must be cast to form vertical wall. A Prismatic Sphere would work, although since the Sphere is always centered on you, it's a bit harder to set up. Note going through a Prismatic Wall or Sphere isn't certain death, if you make all 7 saving throws or spell resistance checks.

[Solo]

The wall’s maximum proportions are 4 feet wide per caster level and 2 feet high per caster level. A prismatic wall spell cast to materialize in a space occupied by a creature is disrupted, and the spell is wasted.

Could you have several prismatic walls stacked on one another?

Cast one, then cast another above it and etc?

[Emperor Tippy]

Nothing stops a person from falling through a prismatic wall vertically. In fact you coudl cram an arbitrarily large number of them in 1 square and have them fall through an arbitrarily large number of them.

()
\|/
/ \
||||

---------

Like that where the |'s are prismatic walls.

[axraelshelm]

time stop+sudden maximise you have now got 4 rounds to do all you want pick up sudden empower to make it 6 rounds. Now how many spell are you going to cast?

[marjan]

Now how many spell are you going to cast?

Don't know. Haven't got that many fingers to count.

[Bears With Lasers]

Alter self.
Now you do!

[marjan]

Oh, right. Of the topic: Which humanoid has most fingers?

[Cruiser1]

A wizard "can" cast 12 spells in one "round" at level 20:
1. Quickened Something.
2. Time Stop - roll a 4, for 5 "rounds".
...
11. Quickened Something.
12. Something.
Wizard's "round" is done.

A Wizard can easily get off 100 spells a round before anybody else has a chance to do anything!

Start with an Extended Maximized Time Stop. Use a Greater Maximize Rod, and the Extend Spell Feat combined with Arcane Thesis (Time Stop) so the Time Stop still fits in a 9th level spell slot. This gives you up to 10 rounds to do whatever you want, i.e. cast a spell + a quickened spell, for 20 spells total. Have your familiar (which is Time Stopped with you via the Share Spells ability) do the same, for up to another 20 spells.

You can cast Time Stop again before the first one runs out. That gives you another 40 spells. Keep this up until you run out of 9th level spell slots. If you're willing to spend money or XP beforehand, you continue this with as many scrolls of Time Stop as you can afford.

With the Leadership feat you can have a Cohort who can also cast spells and have their familiar cast spells on your turn. You can also get or craft an intelligent item that can also cast spells on your turn.

You can have another spell go off during all this if you cast Contingency earlier, with a condition such as "when I cast Time Stop, cast this". For extra cheese, if you have the Craft Contingent Spell feat, there's no limit to the number of contingent spells you can have in effect, which can all be set to go off at once!

Once you turn does end, before the next player in the initiative order gets a chance to do anything, cast Celerity to interrupt their turn, and you have another standard action to cast another spell + a quickened spell.

[Jack Mann]

Extend doesn't work for time stop. It's been errata'd to have an effectively instantaneous duration. Otherwise, with things like divine metamagic, it could be made persistent.

[Hallavast]

Any intelligent wizard Can't be ambushed. It is an impossibility.

Why not?

Any intelligent wizard has backups and stealing a wizards spellbook requires what amounts ot DM fiat in the first place.

What do you mean? Aren't there means in dnd to releive people of their possessions? What if, for example, the party is staying at a fancy inn and are attacked while the wizard is preparing spells from his book? The wizard likely has multiple books spread out before him on a desk or something. If he has to flee in a hurry he might lose some/all of his books.

How was this wizard blinded, and feebleminded? You can't assume conditions that can't actually arise without DM fiat.

Is it possible for the wizard to be targeted by a blindness or feeblemind spell from a monster or enemy caster? Or are they just immune to these things because they're wizards?

Elemental immunities? Why woudl those matter at all? And a golem? You can disintegrate the floor out from under one and then cast wall of force on top of the hole to keep him in there.

Yep. But the wall will only last for a minute or two.

Wizards aren't omniscient, you know. Bad things happen to everybody. And I'm curious to see the "standard generic spell list" that you refer to (maybe in a different thread).

[Emperor Tippy]

Yeah, but it can still be empowered. For the same net effect.

[Emperor Tippy]

Why not?

Contingency, Anticipate Teleport, Foresight, MoP, Detect Thoughts. All of these and more.

What do you mean? Aren't there means in dnd to releive people of their possessions? What if, for example, the party is staying at a fancy inn and are attacked while the wizard is preparing spells from his book? The wizard likely has multiple books spread out before him on a desk or something. If he has to flee in a hurry he might lose some/all of his books.

No high level wizard ever sleeps in an inn. Magnificent Mansion FTW. And to keep the book safe you stick it in a possum pouch, or shrink it, or keep it in a glove of storing. And you always keep a backup in a very safe place that only you know about. Combine that with Spell Mastery for Greater Teleport, Plane Shift, Timestop, and any other spells that you can't do without and your golden.

Is it possible for the wizard to be targeted by a blindness or feeblemind spell from a monster or enemy caster? Or are they just immune to these things because they're wizards?

The point is that the wizard acts and wins the battle before anyoen else ever gets a turn. And Feebleminded is a mind affecting compulsion. No high level wizard is outside his MM without Mindblank up.

If he manages to fail his save against Blindness then the wizard just uses a timestop and a dispel to get rid of it.

Yep. But the wall will only last for a minute or two.

20 Rounds. More than enough time to use transmute rock to mud and then mud to rock once its around the golem. If you get out of core then a lot more things become possible.

Wizards aren't omniscient, you know. Bad things happen to everybody. And I'm curious to see the "standard generic spell list" that you refer to (maybe in a different thread).

With the proper application of scrying spells a wizard is almost omniscient and for the few times they don't see something coming the just teleport away and come back the next day prepared. Or if you allow Arcane Genesis then they come back 1 round later prepared.

As for the spell list. What level of cheese do you want? Anything Core is allowed? No Shapechange/Polymorph? No Disjunction? Or are other sources allowed?

[Bears With Lasers]

Incidentally, you can trap your spellbook without any feats.