Wizard Adventure Ideas?

[Painted Cheetah]

Hi there!

My wife and I just started this year playing D&D for the first time.
While I am playing a character in the Shaar in Faerun, she will be playing an elven wizard in Silverymoon.

I wanted to ask for help/advice because I am having trouble coming up with ideas for adventures for her character.
What are some classic, common, interesting, uncommon, captivating ideas to lure her in.

She was really excited about the location, but her character idea doesn't sound like she's all about the wilderness and such.
I know there is a mage college in Silverymoon. What could be potential hooks there for stories? What would you actually study there?
Books and scrolls and academics or would it be more hands on in the arcane arts? Field demonstrations? Class trips?

I guess I can't really see it being a Hogwarts like situation for kids if they're mostly adults...Do they live at the college or just in and around Silverymoon?

Any help, ideas, or feedback is welcome!
Thanks for reading

[RNightstalker]

Visiting the Elven homeland of Evermeet could be one thing. Of course the name of the game is D&D...short for Dungeons and Dragons...I'm sure there are plenty of places to stick a few dungeons or dragon lairs. You could also incorporate storyline of the time as well, they could help fight the orc invasion from Obould Manyarrows. There's also being part of the group that helps liberate Myth Drannor.

[aglondier]

While studying under a master, especially if there is more than one, means being the dogsbody/gopher/errand boy.
So very easy to come up with short adventure ideas, such as:
• master 1 requires the freshly shaved armpits of three hobgoblins.
• master 2 wants the liver of a giant lizard.
• master 3 has the pips with master 2 and wants you to get a cow liver instead.
• master 1 made a mistake, it is goblin armpits. Go get some.
• master 2 needs the sudden infestation of giant magic resistant rats in his lab gotten rid of.
• master 3 is happy, and just taught you a necromancy spell, where are you going to practice it?

You could go on forever...

[Kelb_Panthera]

Let's see here.

Wizards are, canonically, scholars that work arcane magic. To that effect, you might:

Explore an ancient ruin of a highly magical society, such as an expedition to where one of the floating mountain-tops of old netheril fell.

Aid in a senior member of the academy's research by fetching rare ingredients from the field, such as phase-spider silk which is famously used in portable holes.

Escort an important sponsor either to the academy itself or to some field location to show off research in progress so as to justify continued patronage.

Seek out and defeat, not necessarily in combat, the members of a rival school.

Participate in a grand magical fair (see Complete Arcane) in one or more of the various events.

Root out a cult of anti-arcanist ludites that want to undermine and/or eliminate the academy.

Negotiate an exchange of research or researchers with another school to help avoid a conflict.

Investigate a magical anomaly.


And, of course, any of the attendant supporting actions necessary to accomplish any of the above.

---

One thing to remember is that arcane academies as they're discussed in the various D&D books and similar fantasy settings are much closer to classic "places that those who wish to further knowledge, both their own and their peers', gather with the like-minded" rather than the modern "high-school 2.0" that universities and colleges have become. No one expects youngsters to join one. They have to not only show talent but intense interest and some ability to justify being sponsored to it rather than simply joining the family business (almost certainly a farm unless it's a merchant's holdings) or apprenticing under a more common artisan like a smith or mason. Except in halruua. In halruua, anyone who shows even the faintest glimmer of arcane ability is immediately toddled off to be taught proper magic in state-sponsored schools. You said silverymoon though so that shouldn't come up except perhaps in an exchange student.

You are, of course, free to tweak or toss that out in your own world-building but it's what is generally meant in the published settings.

[gijoemike]

While studying an older tome have her learn of an older ruin that contains knowledge and perhaps a few magical trinkets. Adventure hook away from town.

Just have the ruin be an old run down chapel for a noble family that had a crypt attached. Have there be a magic cup of refilling water, an everburning torch or 2, a few history books, and a signet ring of the noble family and a spell scroll or two. Wolves in the forest and a few undead in the crypt to fight.

Have that ring lead to the last living member of that family. He was an adventurer back in his youth and he has a tale about a failed excursion into a lair of some mysterious beast. He has never shared this tale as it was his shame, but he is old and wants to settle the score. If you help him uncover the secrets of what that really was he will make a large donation to the school as thanks.

In turn, the beast is a moss covered clockwork beast/golem that was protecting the secluded research outpost of a mage that was expelled from the school 200 years ago. In the trap filled lab have several alchemical items, a few scrolls, a journal, spellbook, and an imp which was his familiar that he trapped in a magic circle in the lab even after his death and has bound to the plane with a series of cold iron and silver bindings to his wrists, feet, and wings.


3 short adventures that all tie together. There are a few fights but its mostly RP and research/study.

[Glimbur]

What is she interested in? Secret passages in the college that only open to certain things (spells she can cast or objects she could find) would be fun for people who like puzzles but dull for people who want combat. In a smaller game like this you can really tailor your content to the player (and character).

[liquidformat]

I guess I can't really see it being a Hogwarts like situation for kids if they're mostly adults...Do they live at the college or just in and around Silverymoon?

To be fair Hogwarts graduates and apparently 'adult' wizards should be level 8+ since you learn to teleport when you are becoming adult in your... 4th year? (been a while since I read the books)

[smasher0404]

Potential Hook Ideas:

One of the Wizard's professors assigns a research assignment that requires a book from the Auxiliary Research Library (or it may come up in the Wizard's own research) (EDIT: You may also choose to use the canonical Vault of the Sages, which is the Conclave of Silverymoon's library but that opens up the potential to stumble into a lot of higher level things such as the Nether Scrolls). However, because the Colleges collection of magical knowledge is so great, not even the librarians know how deep the Auxiliary Research Library goes. Some mages have been known to go mad attempting to catalogue the entire library. Combined with the traps and guardian monsters roaming the stacks to ward off thieves, books with minds of their own, and the occasional prankster; students are advised to be incredibly careful navigating the Library. Some of the more fool-hardy ones have been known to never return.

The Wizard's familiar (or a friend's familiar) has gotten into trouble with a gang of other familiars. Backed by one of the less scrupulous professors, the familiars have taken to 'borrowing' some of their masters' valuables to gamble with. The Wizard's familiar has managed to lose a magical item belonging to somebody else, and if they don't manage to retrieve said magical item, the Familiar Gang might ambush them if the Wizard isn't careful. The Wizard may need to use a more delicate touch, since while a Fireball might deal with the Gang, it just might attract the ire of their masters.

The Wizard has managed to earn the ire of Mr. Pocket, and has been challenged to a Monster Duel. Rather than competing in direct spell combat, the Wizard has to find and tame wild magical beasts to use in gladiatorial combat. To aid in this quest, they've been given "Obedience Spheres", which have a chance tame the monster if attached to their unconscious form. The Wizard has to find the strongest monsters they can and tame them before their time runs out.

[Gruftzwerg]

I would start right before her last "exam" as wizard. This way you have a good role play starting point. The exam will be a few of the spells she knows. Maybe even a riddle where she needs to find out which spell solves the situation (e.g. reduce person to fit through a small hole). After that she gets her first mission to deliver some documents to another caster in a nearby village. Design a few random encounters. And not all should be combat related (e.g. a wandering merchant and his bodyguards who are suspicious about your wife's character due to their job / or 1-2 wolfs that can be scared of with just some fire/magic). Once the documents are delivered, you have a good base to find a reason for the actual adventure from there. Either due to the information in the documents or due to coincidence.

[Painted Cheetah]

Thanks everyone for all the input and feedback/ideas

It is much appreciated! I was also curious to hear of any cool and rad stories or adventures you guys as players or DMs have played or made and how they turned out.
I always enjoy hearing/reading what other adventure were planned and how they turned out or ended up going.

It could even be cool to hear about players experiences playing a wizard but also awesome to hear just how tremendously terrifying a mage can be as a villain or boss character.
I have heard mages are generally the strongest characters later on. Top tier or something

Anyways, thanks again!
cheers

[Kelb_Panthera]

I have heard mages are generally the strongest characters later on. Top tier or something.

Wizard is one of the top 6 most powerful classes in the game at a certain range of optimization. The degree of system mastery required to make that largely indisputable is staggering, like a university minor levels of mastery, and "later" comes a lot faster than you might think. A lot of the people that say "wizard are bestest RAWWR!" tend to seriously overstate their advantages and woefully understate their limitations though.

InB4 that last sentence catches me a metric ton of crap.

At the absolute extremes; a low-end wizard is a fancy commoner with a smart pet while the absolute limit of optimization before hitting insane recursive loops closes the gap between the top classes to the point of negligible and all of the full casting classes are effectively gods compared to NPCs and average PCs. The latter can still be challenged with sufficient understanding of a number of fields and system mastery without having to resort to homebrew but almost nobody even knows how to reach that level in the first place so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Welcome to the ivory tower. The more you put into this system the more it gives you back.

[smasher0404]

Thanks everyone for all the input and feedback/ideas

It is much appreciated! I was also curious to hear of any cool and rad stories or adventures you guys as players or DMs have played or made and how they turned out.
I always enjoy hearing/reading what other adventure were planned and how they turned out or ended up going.

It could even be cool to hear about players experiences playing a wizard but also awesome to hear just how tremendously terrifying a mage can be as a villain or boss character.
I have heard mages are generally the strongest characters later on. Top tier or something

Anyways, thanks again!
cheers

As someone who had DM'd someone who was both new to D&D and playing a wizard (as well as another newbie who was playing a sorcerer), I find that it is possible for casters to fall into some trap options and end up weaker than the system expects (Martials can to a lesser extent fall into that same trap). Spell selection plays a very important part in how strong/weak a wizard is, and as a DM you have some influence over that. I'd recommend paying some extra attention to what spells your wife is adding to her spellbook. If it looks like she is falling behind the rest of the party, I'd drop a scroll or two that help cover some of her weaknesses. For example, if she has a lot of trouble when there are a lot of enemies on the field, I'd drop a scroll of Fireball or Glitterdust in the next bit of treasure to try and give her some options for that situation. Conversely, if she is crushing encounters, I'd try to reduce the number of scrolls being dropped (which makes it harder for her to gain new options).


Personally, if you are looking to build a very powerful spellcasting villain, I'd take a glance at the Maho Tsukai class from Oriental Adventures.

Spoiler: Mini-Essay about using Maho Tsukai to make a scary spellcasting villain

Show

In terms of running a spellcasting villain, one of my favorite dirty DM tricks is to use the Maho Tsukai class from Oriental Adventures as a cheap way to soup-up my villains. They base their Save DCs off of their Taint score at (which necessitates using the Taint subsystem), which makes it a lot easier to legitimately scale up your DCs without necessarily increasing their ability scores. They also get their own form of metamagic reduction by taking Con damage (which can be healed up via a bunch of different ways), which allows said villain to make use of a bunch of metamagic'd buff spells without necessarily touching their higher level slots. It also converts any spellcasting class into one capable of reaching limited 9th level spells (since Maho Tsukai changes their casting progression to its own), which allows for some nasty tricks (like using Duskblade levels (PHBII) to Arcane Channel level 6 and higher spells into a full attack which otherwise wouldn't be possible outside of Gestalt).

It can also inherit spells from the Sorcerer and Shugenja list if you already have levels in either class (and the Sorc/Wiz list is one of the widest in the game), which allows Sorcerers partially accelerated casting, a higher hit dice, By RAW, Maho Tsukai's only inherit the spells known from Sorcerer and Shugenja but can learn spells from any of their old spellcasting classes (meaning you can still keep most of the flavor of the previous spellcasting class intact).

It is also worth noting, the class requires some house ruling and adjudication before using it at the table. Heroes of Horror updates some but not all of the Maho Tsukai's mechanics on pg. 66, for example, it tells us that the Maho spellcasting increases Depravity while the spells Cloud of Taint and Tainted Aura increase Corruption. However, it does not update the requirements of the class which requires a straight Taint score rather than the now split Depravity and Corruption scores or tells us which of the new Taint scores is used to determine spell DCs (I would personally use Depravity but by RAW no answer exists). Outside of that update, you also need to technically take a look at the trade-in mechanics for Spell Conversion, by RAW, it actually trades away Levels for Spellcasting Ability rather than Spellcasting Ability for Spellcasting Ability. I personally rule that it trades away the spellcasting of the previous class for the spellcasting of Maho Tsukai (which means the class features, HD and skill points of the previous class are kept) since you are supposed to beable to gain >15 levels of Maho Tsukai spellcasting without being able to advance Maho Tsukai past level 15 by the table.

Maho Tsukai is a very powerful class. If you are struggling to challenge your players, it is very easy to soup up a Maho Tsukai's spell DCs to require fairly lucky rolls to pass. I'd use the class very sparingly, but at opportune moments it can make for a very memorable villain just from pure power. I ran a Maho Tsukai Lich, and the party still hesitated to fight him at a 12-1 advantage (they had a bunch of equal level characters for that session that they were also using during combat), it was probably one of the few villains that my players still remember from that campaign.