8th Level Wizard Career Path Advice

We are in the middle of a Forgotten Realms campaign set up in Waterdeep. Our 8th level party consists of a Warblade, Rogue, Cleric, Monk and my Wizard. So far we are doing well in terms of tactic combat. I am playing a battlefield controller/summoner who, in my opinion, is pretty good. In almost all combats I manage to rearrange the battlefield as I want it to be, hindering enemies while providing my fellow adventurers with the opportunity to shine. I often summon some kind of monster to either deal damage, aid the others as a flanker or just take damage. Sometimes I deal direct damage with orbs or area of effect spells.

Right now we are searching for a missing noble’s daughter in Skullport. Our main quest is to find out why she’s become evil and where she’s gone. The antagonists are a mind flayer who has managed to escape us a couple of times and Trobriand the Metal Mage who is constantly harassing us with metal constructs.

So far we’ve fought all kinds of monsters but at some point we will have to confront the mind flayer and later on one of Trobriand’s more important helpers.

My character looks like this:
Norwald - human conjurer 3, master specialist 5
Stats: int 18, con 16, dex 14, wis 10, str 8, cha 8
ACFs: Rapid Summoning, Enhanced Summoning
Feats (in no particular order): Augment Summoning, Spell Focus Conjuration, Greater Spell Focus Conjuration, Metamagic School Focus Conjuration , Skill Focus Spellcraft, Extend Spell, Sculpt Spell.

I plan to take all 10 levels of Master Specialist. Although some might disagree on this, I think it is a nice prestige class and what it offers fits nicely with my concept for a conjurer. Later on I may take a couple of levels in Fate Spinner (my wizard is already a hooked up gambling statistician) but I am not dead set on this.

I’ve already read Dictum Mortuum’ Wizard Handbook, Logic Ninja’s Guide to Being Batman, Treantmonk's guide to Wizards and The Conjurer's Handbook by Echodork so I have a good idea about optimization.

What is missing me is what to do with my wizard from level 9 onward. What feats should I take to make him viable later on with respect to our major enemies while keeping the conjurer/summoner flavor?

I was thinking about Cloudy Conjuration at level 9 and Craft Contingent Spell at level 12. However Cloudy Conjuration seems to have limited long-term use.

I would appreciate your comments and suggestions about feats, prestige classes and spells/feats combinations suitable for our game setting.

I apologize if I’ve missed some important details but the post has turned out to be longer than I expected.

Alacritous Cogitation

Your build and tactics seem really well thought out, and I'd hazard the statement that you already have all the feats you'll ever "need". I.e., standby options that are always nice for a Conjurer are there already (Augment Summoning, Sculpt Spell), strengthening your focus by that much.

Feat choices should therefore be geared towards flexibility from now on. Dandu's suggestion of Alacritous Cogitation is a great one in this regard. Obtain Familiar is extremely useful, too, and can be followed up with Improved Familiar (Beguiler? Mephit of some sort? Imp? All great options!), directly expanding your options and strengthening your action economy. For your level 15 feat at the latest, you want Quicken Spell (you can even use it with your summons, thanks to Rapid Summoning!), for when you really need to DimDoor around quickly etc. Extra actions are just that important at higher level.

Summon Elemental might work for you. Having an at-will bodyguard has its uses and the caster level boost is nice.

You are 1 feat short of Archmage already (needs Spell Focus in one other school...I'd suggest Necromancy if you haven't banned it, otherwise Transmutation or Illusion are great). Master Specialist seems tailor made to drop you DIRECTLY into Archmage. You can become one right after 13th level, which consequently is 3+10, and MS gives you Skill Focus (Spellcraft) as a bonus feat to avoid taking it as a regular feat tax.

I'm also a fan of nabbing Skill Focus (Knowledge: Religion) and jumping into 2 levels of Divine Oracle for the Prescience Sense...AKA Evasion, then using that Skill Focus AGAIN as a prereq for 1-3 levels of Loremaster (you need 1 more Metamagic or Crafting feat though). Loremaster gives you, among other things, a bonus feat to replace the one you lit on fire for Skill Focus Knowledge, which you've already double used as a prereq for both DO and LM. If you want to be REALLY awesome, see if you can pick up the Skill Focus Knowledge feat from visiting the Frog God's Fane in Complete Scoundrel, which grants you the feat for free (well, for a 2000g WBL value, a real steal). That just ends up netting you a free feat period.

Otherwise, have you looked at Malconvoker from Complete Scoundrel? It's a fiend-binder class that fights fire with fire. Goodly aligned casters who bend evil fiends and devils against their kin for the greater good. Its delicious AND nutritious. It does lose a single CL at 1st level, but the general concensus of the community seems to be that it is one of the better reasons to lose a CL, if you have to lose one, since the rewards are well worth the price of admission. I think you could handle the prereqs easily enough with your current build, as well.

Thanks.

Both Archmage and Malconvoker seem quite good and fit well with my character. Most probably I'll pick one of them when the time comes based on where our campaign is going.

As for the other suggestions (Divine Oracle, Loremaster) our DM doesn't like taking multiple prestige classes for a few levels just for optimization sake.

Thank everyone for your comments.

As we recently started playing again, I am wondering which one is better: Alacritous Cogitation OR Spell Master + Uncanny Forethough?

Picking Alacritous Cogitation allows spontaneous casting on only one spell per day but with no caster level penalty and leaves a feat slot open for, say, SF Transmutation. Spell Master + Uncanny Forethought makes it possible to cast spontaneously int modifier per day spells, but at -2 caster level if they are not in the Spell Mastery list.

Important note: we are currently at level 8/9 and I envisage our party will go as far as level 12, max 15.

If your GM will allow the downtime for crafting, grab yourself the Craft Wondrous Item and later Craft Staff feats. Spectacles of Gaze Reflection, Belt of Heroism, etc. Or, if you want to be immediately more aggressive, try Craft Wand aka Fireballs Are Fun. but you could equally have a Wand of Grease.