How would you build a melee wizard?

[Halivar]

I'm sorry for the confusion. By saying no 1st ed. wiz was complete without a longsword, I was referring to the ridiculously easy multi-class rules, where there was no real penalty to being a Ftr/Mu.

In 3rd ed., taking levels of fighter is extremely prohibitive to the wizard. However, taking 1 level has the following benefits:

- You have an extra feat at level 1
- You have 6 more hit-points
- You don't have to spend three feats (or any, for that matter) on heavy armor proficiency

Of course, there's a part of me that's wondering whether it might not be more beneficial to skip the fighter, keep to light armor and go the Dex route. Of course, that introduces a third prime stat for our melee-caster.

I'd bribe my DM into letting me create a weapon with 50 charges of true strike and PA all day long. But then, my DM lets me get away with too much. Is there another, legal, way to store up on true strike spells?

Oh, and cloak of major displacement is a must.

 

[Darklone]

Eldritch Knight perhaps?

 

[Gregor]

Bladesinger?

 

[maddman75]

I was thinking that going the light armor route might be beneficial as well. You could eventually pick up levels in duelist to get the Int bonus to AC. Some decent synergy there. And there's a certain appeal to a spellslinging swashbuckler.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

Warmage.

 

[the Jester]

Correction, a wizard could use a longsword with a -5 non proficiency penalty. The could not take a proficiency in the sword.

Nope, in 1e you could not use a weapon not on your list, at least not by the rules. EGG himself suggested allowing exceptions in extremis in (I believe it was) UA, but he suggested slapping extreme penalties on the character iirc.

 

[Tessarael]

Of course, there's a part of me that's wondering whether it might not be more beneficial to skip the fighter, keep to light armor and go the Dex route. Of course, that introduces a third prime stat for our melee-caster.

The light armor + AC from Dexterity route doesn't produce a better AC than heavier armors. However, it does reduce arcane spell failure. I think there's two routes to handle the arcane spell failure:
- heavy armor + Still Spell and trying to cast spells without somatic components
- light armor + Dex + possibly a couple of levels in Spellsword
In general, I'd go the heavy armor + Still Spell route, Spellsword levels are fairly weak in comparison to Eldritch Knight progression.

I have a Rogue with a level in Wizard, who eventually wants to advance in Wizard further. For that route Dex + Finesse is a must to make Dex as important as Strength. Still, I'm now at the point where Dex bonus to AC is maxed out, unless I find some celestial chainmail ...

 

[Pax]

So, here's the challenge: how tough can you make a wizard for melee combat without multiclassing fighter? I look at spells like true strike, armor, shield (which stacks with armor), enlarge, magic weapon, bull's strength, and of course, Tenser's magic transformation and I have to say that a wizard properly played could make a stand up melee character (not a fighter by any stetch of the imagination, but not a pushover).

So if you HAD to build a straight wizard with a point-buy and a lean towards melee combat, how would you do it?

Wizard(10)/Thorn Knight(10). Thorn Knight is a Prestige Class in the Dragonlance Campaign Setting; you eventually get the ability to reduce all arcane failure chances from armor by 20% (mithril full plate thus imposes only a 5% chance to screw a spell up). Couple other good benefits too -- Weapon Touch (deliver a touch spell through a melee weapon) being chief among them. Main catch is, you have to be evil ...

Eldritch Knight also works, but you MUST multiclass into ONE level of Fighter to qualify, due to one of the prerequisites.

And frankly, a melee wizard that goes Wizard(5)/Fighter(1)/Eldritch Knight(9)/Thorn Knight(10) can be quite a powerful build; I know, I'm running one in my arena, Exodus ... ^_^'

[color=white]PLAYER NAME     : GMPax
CHARACTER NAME  : Sir Mikel Lord Trevayne, TKN
RACE (ECL)      : Human
CLASS (LEVEL)   : Fighter(1)/Wizard(5)/Eldritch Knight(9)/Knight of the Thorn(10)
... NET LEVEL   : 25
ALIGNMENT       : LE[/color]

Optimally, I'd get another level of Eldritch Knight next (for completeness' sake); after that, I'm unsure where this build would go, I'd have to do more research on what'd suit best. ^_^

Still; this build sacrifices only 2 caster levels (easily made up with items and spells), has a Base Attack Bonus of +17 (+20 including Epic Attack Bonus), and of course, lots of touch spells.

 

[Halivar]

Does the Eldritch Knight have +1 caster level/class level? I'm at work so I can't look it up. Others are suggesting duelist, spellsword and bladesinger, but I think anything that keeps you from casting multiple level 9 spells at 20th is too much of a hit for a wizard to take. In the end, I'm not entirely convinced you can't build something just as potent in melee (and more potent in casting) with a Ftr1/Wiz???.

It also seems that since there are a plethora of helpful 1st-level spells (and some obviously nice higher level ones), the wizard's melee prowess should scale well with him.

Another question: if you took the archer route, how does the melee-caster build change? For one thing, I think you could cut back on armor and hit-points and go up a bit on saves and resistances. Change secondary (or primary stat, as the case may be) from Con to Dex. That should fix the low armor problem, and you no longer have to worry about arcane spell-failure. With a ranged attack, you also get the added benefit of not provoking AoO's when casting true strike.

 

[Pax]

Halivar: Eldritch Knight DOES have +1 caster level / class level, except at 1st level. There, it gets a Fighter bonus feat, intead.

So Wizard(10)/Fighter(1)/EldKnight(9) has 18 caster levels -- enough to get to 9th level spells. Heck, with Sorceror instead of Wizard, it's enough.

An Archer-Wizard isn't very attractive in general terms; ignore hte weapons most of the time, and use spells. However, with a better BAB, you can make better use of Touch and Ranged Touch spells.