Give me the most brokenly powerful Wizard build possible

[Whiplord]

My DM fails to understand the power of a Wizard, and wants me to prove that they're more powerful than all else. As an example, he's convinced my warmage is brokenly powerful.

Try to stick to core if possible.

[Douglas]

The Logic Ninja's Guide to Wizards: Being Batman

[Morty]

TLN's guide is hardly broken. It describes how to play an effective wizard, and it's not TLN's fault that wizard is broken. Though you don't have to try hard to break a game with wizard, so you may just use this guide and use spells described in "too broken to use".
Warmage broken? Whoa. What arguments did he use(Warmage is a fine class, if you ask me, maybe a bit weak)?

[Whiplord]

d6 hit die, ability to use armor, immediate spell list, warmage edge (ooooh three damage!) and the fact he fails at compensating for slightly more powerful characters.

And he claims my taking sudden metamagic feats is me trying to exploit the system and powergame.

[The_Werebear]

1- Phantom Steed, stay out of reach.
2- Forcecage your foe.
3- Cloudkill the cage.
4- Con damage kills your enemy

[Emperor Tippy]

Well most broken core build possible or most broken build possible?

And what level?

[Morty]

d6 hit die, ability to use armor, immediate spell list, warmage edge (ooooh three damage!) and the fact he fails at compensating for slightly more powerful characters.

And he claims my taking sudden metamagic feats is me trying to exploit the system and powergame.

Seriously, it look like your DM skimmed through the books and screamed "it's broken!" before noticing that Warmage's list is extremely limited.
Sudden metamagic powergaming? Now that's ridiculous. Sudden metamagic is perfectly fine. Sudden Maximize is useful for Magic Missle and Ray of Enfeeblement

[Douglas]

It describes how to play an effective wizard

Exactly. When the competition is a Warmage, that's all you need. Going the Xtreme Broken route would be overkill and would probably convince this DM of nothing more than that a few particular things are ridiculously broken rather than the desired goal of demonstrating that wizards are inherently powerful if played well.

[Indon]

Well, rather than address your question, I'm going to point out that it looks like you're basically trying to ruin your friend's D&D game, which is a pretty mean thing to do.

Rather than intentionally trying to ruin the fun of the people you're playing with, perhaps you could simply point out a few Wizard spells and discuss about what you could theoretically do with them, without actually needing to have rocks fall on your head and kill you for your friend to save the evening.

Of course, if you don't plan on actually using this wizard, my advice is nonapplicable and retracted when appropriate.

Just an FYI.

[Solo]

Start out wizard, go Incanatrix, then Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil, then Archmage.

Have fun pressing the win button.

[EvilElitest]

My DM fails to understand the power of a Wizard, and wants me to prove that they're more powerful than all else. As an example, he's convinced my warmage is brokenly powerful.

Try to stick to core if possible.

Wait, he thinks a warmage is to powerful but a wizard is not?

Right.........
from,
EE

[Telonius]

Logic Ninja's guide is the basis of the argument. There are certain situations whereby a Wizard's weaknesses can be exploited - throw bunches of encounters a day at them, for example. But even then, a Wizard with Plane Shift prepared can get away, to a safe location where time doesn't pass as fast; then come back fully rested and ready. (Dimensional Anchor? Sorry, quickened Dispel Magic then plane shift).

The Wizard doesn't lose because he's Batman. If Batman has sufficient time to prepare to fight you, you're hosed; and a sufficiently high-level Wizard has enough Divinations to draw from to find out who's threatening him. He can know who you are, what your strengths are, and prepare for you accordingly. A high-Dex wizard with Improved Initiative will likely go before anybody but a Rogue or a dex-based Fighter. Time Stop lets you take that Initiative and win. Fly lets you get away from those pesky fighter types, and Windwall lets you laugh at their pathetic attempts to shoot you down. If some smart fighter has Boots of Flying, Targeted Dispel, fighter goes splat.

As an aside, the Wizard might not be more powerful than all else. There are still the Artificer and CoDzilla to contend with, and I'm not sure if there's a consensus yet as to which is most powerful.

[Morty]

Wait, he thinks a warmage is to powerful but a wizard is not?

Right.........
from,
EE

Well, I can totally understand his point. One can think that Warmage is more powerful than wizard, unless he thinks about that for more than a minute

[EvilElitest]

Well, I can totally understand his point. One can think that Warmage is more powerful than wizard, unless he thinks about that for more than a minute

how so might i ask?
from,
EE

[KIDS]

I'd say a wizard can easily be the most powerful and "I win" combo class among all others (druid might be versatile, endurant and doing big damage, but I don't recall any "you lose instantly" combos with it). Of course, most people, when played with some measure of sanity, won't resort to it. Even a Core wizard can simply gate in Infinite Wishes, and Forcecage and Cloudkill combo is also Core. When you go Incatatrix or Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil, the brokeness just adds up.

Do note that TLN's guide mentions a special section of "stinky cheese" spells, which no one should use for good of the game. Yup, wizards are the most brokenly powerful thing, but they don't have to be.

[Emperor Tippy]

Your better off with the 5th level substitution feature from Complete Champion that allows you to cast all spells from the divine school spontaneously.

This qualifies you for Ultimate Magnus.

At ECL 15 you are casting as a level 22 wizard. Pick up a level or 2 of Archmage and finish off with IotSV, Incantatrix, or just some more Archmage.

[Morty]

how so might i ask?
from,
EE

Well, you think "OMG he can cast various damage spells so much better than wizard or sorcerer", but when you think about it for a minute, you realize that:
1) There are many spells Warmage will never cast
2) Damage spells aren't the best wizard can do.

Do note that TLN's guide mentions a special section of "stinky cheese" spells, which no one should use for good of the game.

That list is too short, if you ask me.

[JaronK]

It's pretty easy to think the Warmage is more powerful if you glace at it and don't notice the spell list. It's a lot better in every way except for that tiny problem of not having any of the good spells, and in fact having a specific concentration of all the worst sort of spells (the blast spells).

So, you want a strong Wizard build? Try this: Wizard 4/Binder 1/Anima Mage 10/Shadowcraft Mage 5. SCM is from Races of Stone, Anima Mage and Binder are from Tome of Magic. With Arcane Disciple: Luck and Residual Metamagic, you can cast something like 7 9th level spells per day by level 20, all of which are Miracles that don't use Exp and are totally unrestricted, allowing you to literally cast "I win." Also, you can bind 5th level vestiges, which is fun... so now you can heal all day long if you like, or walk around ethereal all day, or whatever.

But seriously, here's what your DM is missing: the power of an arcane caster is their ability to have the right spell for the job, and some of those spells are incredibly powerful. Shivering Touch: 1 hit TKO on a dragon (use Spectral Hand so you don't have to get close). Polymorph Any Object to turn the rogue into a 12 headed pyrohydra. Celerity to be gaurenteed to go first. Persistant Shapechange (yes, the build above can do that) to be able to cast any kind of spells and at will turn into rediculous creatures. Alter Self to gain +8 Natural AC with a 2nd level spell (or flight, or burrowing, or claw attacks and +6 Natural AC, whatever). Rope Trick to refresh all your spells. The true power of arcane casters is not their blast spells. Anyone can deal a little damage once in a while. Even fighters can do that. Their power is to use one spell to completely solve any problem in front of them... maybe two on a bad day. Blast spells are the least efficient way to do that.

And blast spells is pretty much all a Warmage gets. So yes, they've got lots of shiney abilities, allowing them to modify the heck out of their nearly worthless spell list.

JaronK

[Morty]

And blast spells is pretty much all a Warmage gets. So yes, they've got lots of shiney abilities, allowing them to modify the heck out of their nearly worthless spell list.

Their spell list isn't worthless. It's worse that Wizard's all the way, but everything is weaker than wizard.

[ArmorArmadillo]

TLN's guide is hardly broken. It describes how to play an effective wizard, and it's not TLN's fault that wizard is broken. Though you don't have to try hard to break a game with wizard, so you may just use this guide and use spells described in "too broken to use".
Warmage broken? Whoa. What arguments did he use(Warmage is a fine class, if you ask me, maybe a bit weak)?

The problem with TLN's guide is that you don't have to minmax a wizard to break it; just playing an "effective" wizard will be inherently better than other classes.

[JaronK]

Their spell list isn't worthless. It's worse that Wizard's all the way, but everything is weaker than wizard.

Worthless by comparison to Wizards was what I meant. You're right though, they're fine as psuedo-archers.

JaronK

[Telonius]

d6 hit die, ability to use armor, immediate spell list, warmage edge (ooooh three damage!) and the fact he fails at compensating for slightly more powerful characters.

And he claims my taking sudden metamagic feats is me trying to exploit the system and powergame.

So, Warmage gets an average 10hp difference by 20th level between Wizard and Warmage, and more spells per day. Ability to cast in armor, when Bracers are often better for high-dex characters (and Wizards can use mithral chain shirts anyway wtih low spell failure). He gets a bunch of ready-made Metamagic feats chosen for him that only function once a day, as opposed to a Wizard's metamagic spells, which can be applied to any number of spells per day (as long as he has enough spell slots), and which the wizard can use to get the exact same feats that the Warmage has, if he wants. Warmage gets a bunch of damage-dealing spells, which are not optimal spells, that the Wizard can also get if he wants.

So basically, there are only a couple things that the Warmage gets that the wizard doesn't: slightly higher hp, +int to damage, more spells per day, and casting in armor.

Wizard, on the other hand, has two huge advantages over him: versatility and battlefield control. The Wizard can cast everything the Warmage can, plus about a billion spells more. Nowhere on the Warmage list do I see such spells as Grease, Ray of Enfeeblement, Fly, Haste, Slow, Forcecage, Contingency, Sleep, or Dispel Magic. These are the kinds of spells that makes the Wizard win, not Magic Missile and Fireball. Wizard has Scribe Scroll, for saving good spells until you need them. (For that matter, Wizard can cast Read Magic, while Warmage can't).

[the_tick_rules]

i've fought warmages maybe properly managed before, they're far from weak.

[Whiplord]

To the person who suggested I would be ruining my friend's game, I won't be using this in our main game. If I use it at all, it will be a 1 on 1 duel where he can use what ever base class he thinks is more powerful, and I use a wizard. And promptly win.

I really like the ideas, but his so called knowledge of the rules are horrible. He also happens to call the Monk horridly broken because of "all the special abilities"

I swear he never even bothers to read details.

[PinkysBrain]

At ECL 15 you are casting as a level 22 wizard.

Just because your character happens to be a wizard who can cast some spells spontaneously doesn't make the wizard a spontaneous casting class IMO (there is a feat which allows you to do the same thing BTW). You can qualify for the PrC, but applying an increase in spellcasting for spontaneous spellcasting classes to your wizard spellcasting requires some very questionable rules lawyering.

[Quincunx]

Whupping the DM's character, while satisfying, won't educate him. Proving that wizard will rule the duel is easy; proving that your warmage isn't. . .well, make your DM play your warmage against you in the duel(s, you might want to hold melee vs. warmage, partial caster vs. warmage, divine vs. warmage, etc.). You'll be feeding him tactics to make your life miserable, possibly to kill off your character if he doesn't take the lesson, but that would give a chance for him to see that your character, specifically, isn't invulnerable.

[Arbitrarity]

Simple builds mostly are things like:

Wizard 5/Incantatrix10/IOTSOV 5
Wizard 5/Incantatrix10/Archmage 2/Abjurant Champion 3
Wizard 5/Incantatrix4/IOTSOV 7/Incantatrix 4.

If no PGTOF, get Wizard 9/IOTSOV 7/Fatespinner 4.

Or something like that. And he can't really disallow IOTSOV, as it's in complete arcane.

Really, Incantatrix and Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil are the two most mighty PrC's, unless you use the uber cheese Tippy's recommending.

C'mon Tippy, even you were shocked at how broken that was

Maybe he thinks warlocks own?

Oooh! For minmaxing intelligence (to the power of 3), do the following.

1: Be a grey elf.
2: Put 18 in intelligence.
3: Be venerable
4: Take spellcasting prodigy.
5: Put all but possibly last stat boost in intelligence.
6: Get a fiendish familiar. (Fiend Folio)
7: Get a headband of intellect.
8: Get a tome on clear thought.
9: ????
10: Profit, with 40 intelligence for DC's, 42 for bonus spells, and 38 for other purposes!

Ummm... Core only means you have junk PrC's. Get loremaster and archmage, perhaps.

Spell compendium! Spell compendium!

Now, if he palys core only, and you play core only, what does he think can beat a wizard. Overland flight, phantom steed make you immune to all melee, wind wall is excellent... now what?

If he plays a cleric or druid, then you may have an interesting time.

[Cyborg Pirate]

Alternatively, play straight Wizard. Show the raw power of a straight Wizard as compared to a Warmage. That ought to shut your DM up more then any prc-heavy build.


[edit] Whiplord, if you're going to have a character showdown with the DM, first make sure you know the rules Really well make sure that whoever is DM that match knows the rules Really well. If he knows the rules as bad as you say, you might be in for a frustrating game.

[Draz74]

... And he can't really disallow IOTSOV, as it's in complete arcane.

That's what you think. A smart DM with a spine will certainly nerf or ban IOTSOV no matter what source it comes from, unless he's aiming for his whole campaign to generally be a high-power one.

Core only means you have junk PrC's. Get loremaster and archmage, perhaps.

Meh, if I were trying to make the most optimized Core-only Wizard, I wouldn't even bother with Loremaster. Its abilities are less impressive, IMHO, than the prereqs you waste, the Bonus Feats you miss, and the abilities your puny little familiar is missing. Stick with Archmage.

TO THE OP: If you actually want a build, we (or Tippy) will make you one. But we need more info. What sources are allowed? (Just Core is fine, as long as you tell us that clearly!) What system is used to buy abilities (e.g. 28-point buy)? Are Custom Items allowed? Monstrous Manual Races allowed?

[Arbitrarity]

But IOTSOV and Incantatrix are so broken! How can you possibly show ***-kicking without revealing your true and awe inspiring might?

And remember. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Because some people steal spellbooks, and others might try and assasinate you. Trap everything.

IOTSOV being disallowed, but warmage allowed, is kind of odd.
But hey, it is IOTSOV. Bokedness is an intrinsic aspect of the abilities.

Meh. Wizard 20 works pretty well. Get all the handy spells you can.