Just for fun: What;s youyr favorite Wiz build

[Dannyalcatraz]

Don't really have a favorite wizard build, but I do have tendencies.

1) I usually multiclass my characters.

2) I almost always play specialists, usually Transmuters, but I've played them all. Plenty of giggles. Diviners were usually spies or truth-seekers of some kind- the last was a multiclassed Indiana Jones inspired PC. I modeled a multiclassed gnome illusionist after Ulysses and Cogline, but the campaign imploded before he could really get going. My last multiclassed Abjurer was a warrior-caster somewhat based on Icelandic myth, and as a caster was more of a party buffer than anything else. A Necromancer/Cleric of Death (redone as a Necromancer/OA Shaman) was based on concepts of being a voodoo houngan who knew capoeira.

3) When I play eleven or halfling arcanists, odds are good they'll be high Dex & work hard to get a quiver of ehlonna, not just as a repository for rods, staves or wands, but also for arrows (elves) or spears & javelins (halfling). This gives them additional ranged attack options that don't require spells.

4) I probably played slightly more sorcerers than wizards, mainly because certain concepts revolved around casting a few select spells many times, or having large numbers of spell slots available. This was starting to change after the Focused Specialist option was introduced, but I rarely got the opportunity to use them.

 

[Grogg of the North]

I don't know if I have a favorite wizard build. What I really like is necromancy but core D&D doesn't do that too well, especially for wizards. Probably too many hours playing Diablo 2 growing up. But I'd like to throw my 2 coppers in anyway.

LN Human Wizard (Generalist), follower of Wee Jas
Str 9
Dex 14 (Bump to 16 with gloves)
Con 14
Int 17 (Bump to 18 at 4th; Bump to 20 with headband)
Wis 12
Cha 10

I've actually never played with point buy! This took me a long time to do!

Feats:
1 Skill Focus: Concentration
H Eschew Materials
W1 Scribe Scroll (Bonus)
3 Craft Wondrous
W5 Craft Arms & Armor (Bonus)
6 Spell Penetration (Thrice damned SR!)

Skills maxed:
Concentration
Arcana
Nature
Planes
Religion
Spellcraft

At 4th level, I'd start putting ranks into Dungeoneering. Maybe not put points into the other knowledges so Dungeoneering can catch up? Depending on setting, different skill may be chosen.

Gear Budget 19,000
Handy Haversack (2,000)
Headband of Intellect +2 (4,000)
Gloves of Dexterity +2 (4,000)
Ring of Protection +1 (2,000)
Wand of Magic Missles (CL 5) (3,750) (For extra adventuring time during the day)
Potion of CMW (300)
Potion of Remove Curse (750)
Potion of Remove Disease (750)
Potion of Remove Blindness/Deafness (750)
Potion of Remove Paralysis (300)
Dagger (2)
Everburning Torch (110)
Explorer's Outfit (Worn; Free)
Spellbook(s?)
288 GP of "walking around" money. Scribe a few scrolls maybe?

For familiar, I'd pick probably a raven since it can talk and can be used as a scout in an outdoor environment. Maybe even as a spy in town by sitting outside the window. However, I'm always afraid that the familiar basically has a giant bulls eye on its chest so I rarely use it like that. Know your DM.

Even though the magic gear is paid for at full price, D&D is a team effort. Use your crafting feats to help the party. Potions are there for when something bad happens and you need to make sure you can deal with it.

Generalist since I don't know what the party has and it would be bad to ban a school of magic that isn't being supplied elsewhere. Plus, when I run themed arcanists, I tend to go sorcerer.

Sorry for the meandering post. But if you came to me and said "Grogg, show up at noon with a 7th level character." I'd probably bring this.

 

[Greenfield]

I've always played my Wiz types pretty plain vanilla. I don't recall ever specializing one. I like enjoy variety too much.

Crafting mages tend to get powerful because they tend to get more gizmos (of their own manufacture) as personal treasure, and D&D is a game where what you have is at least as important as what you are.

I've also played them in a way many around here would consider, shall we say, less than optimum. Kaboom mages play up evocations and make large scale slaughter an easy thing, when dealing with minion type at least.

I know that evokers are just doing what every fighter can do, and do all day. Buffing mages and summoners are often far more effective.

Buff types work better with larget parties. Like the Bard, the more people you can buff the more you end up contributing.

My problem with Summoners is probably that I don't play them well. Once you're out of the lower levels the critters you can Summon Monster with are 1/2 the CR of the opponent, which can quickly develop into them being unable to hit anything you really need them to. Summoning Swarms of things works, but they damage everything in the area, friend and foe alike.

And, of course, anyone who can throw a simple Protection from Evil/Good/Law/Chaos is effectively immune to Summon Monster spells, unless they decide to engage the critter directly.

So my build strongly resembles Dandu's first offering. I like Humans for the skills and feats. When I go non-human Wiz types I'll go Gray Elf.

 

[Grogg of the North]

My wife recently played a high level summoner. Dropping a pair of fiendish t-rexes can certainly have a huge impact on the battle. Add in things like Rapid Spell or Time Stop and it gets even crazier.

I have found the best way to control a wizard is not through monsters or trying to beat them at their own game. Use the clock. You want to scribe that spell into your spellbook? That takes time. Master that spellbook you found in the dungeon? That takes even more time. Crafting? Hah! I hope you have a month to yourself! Meanwhile, the bad guys are still up to their nefarious plots.

There's nothing wrong with playing a blaster. One of my favorite characters was a warmage. His best friend was the party diviner. We used to joke that he handled the "thinking" magic and I set everything else on fire for him.

 

[Greenfield]

I was reading an online comic, PS238. It's a super-hero spoof from the Nodwick author. Pretty funny over all.

In it, a fire-based super explained that his job was to be a flamboyant distraction. Other than that "Any problem that can't be solved by lighting it on fire isn't my problem."

That's what Warmages make me think of. We had one in our last campaign, and the question that was constantly on his lips was, "This person is annoying. Tell me again, why isn't he on fire?"

No there's nothing wrong with blaster mages. And the "It all takes time" tool, while a nice way to shut crafters down, is all based on the idea that it's the DM's job to shut PCs down. Not a universally held point of view.

Fiendish T-Rex sounds like a lot of fun at parties, but you're using an 8th level spell to summon a creature with an AC 14, which has "Power attack" written all over it. His main attack at +20 to hit sounds impressive at first glance, and can hit opponents of your level (15 minimum) probably half the time, he only gets one attack per round, and will probably be gone in two, less if more than one opponent faces off with him.

All he has going for him is that he's a big sack of hit points that does reasonable (not great) damage, and that sack is going to leak a lot. That AC can be hit by a 2nd level fighter half the time. Yeah it has DR 10, but all it takes to bypass it is a magic weapon, and by level 15 or so my horse probably has one. It can smite Good once per day (from Fiendish), but that's useless 2/3rds of the time on average, even less in actual play (we aren't usually facing Good opponents.)

Over all it's approximately half the challenge rating of whoever you're sending it against, and while its size and reputation are impressive, it's still little more than a speed bump, a distraction.

I like to get more for my 8th level spells than distractions.

Not trying to belittle conjuration/summoning enthusiasts, but the Summon Monster approach seems less than optimal, and gets even less optimal as the levels go up. (Half the CR of a 4th level opponent is still a challenge. Half the CR of a 10th? Not so much.)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

And the "It all takes time" tool, while a nice way to shut crafters down, is all based on the idea that it's the DM's job to shut PCs down. Not a universally held point of view.

That's not how we* view it. We see it as paying the cost of acquiring a resource as described in the game.

Everything has a cost. If you zero out all or even just part of an item's cost, you make it easier for that thing to be acquired. That could lead to an imbalance in the game.

The time it takes to craft/acquire something isn't trivial, especially if you as the GM keep the campaign world moving instead of hitting pause when the PCs want to take a break.

If Magic Item X is the perfect countermeasure to the BBEG's plan to conquer the world in the next 8 days, but the PCs don't have one and it takes a month to make one from scratch, that's a solid indicator that they need a Plan B. (While hoping they find one in the interim.)









* as in, most of the people in our group who GM, including myself

 

[Greenfield]

Fair enough. But you're warping the rules to get there.

Per the rules crafting can be done in 8 hour chunks, so the "hope you have a month to yourself" thing looks like a DM intentionally shutting down a PC.

I have played with a DM who doesn't like the crafting rules at all. Even scroll paper is near impossible to find in his campaigns. He rations it and he doubles the price, as a minimum.

The Craft Alchemy rules are also different in his game: You can't make diddly-squat unless you have a permanently established alchemy lab some place. The 400 gp portable alchemy lab isn't an option, it's required, and it isn't portable. And raw materials are, again, rationed and over priced.

He lets people take the crafting feats, but raises prices on everything and makes them almost impossible to use.

He's a bit of a control freak, to be honest. He considers it "cheating" for the Players to make a plan outside of his presence. He got visibly upset when, on one occasion, the players split into two groups to plan, so he could only follow one of them. Whoever he didn't follow? That's the plan they went with. (His monsters tend to enjoy "Telepathy with DM' )

I hope you're not him, or I'm never going to be allowed in his shop again.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Fair enough. But you're warping the rules to get there.

Per the rules crafting can be done in 8 hour chunks, so the "hope you have a month to yourself" thing looks like a DM intentionally shutting down a PC.

No, we're not warping the rules. We have no problem with the 8 hour chunks: those who take crafting feats typically DO break up their workdays in that way. We even let some stuff get completely outsourced- crafter wizards don't need to learn glassblowing, woodcarving, metalsmithing, etc. just to be able to make magic items. Employing master craftsmen is what gold is for, after all,

But there are still only 24 hours in a day. Even mages have to eat, sleep and make enough GP to pay bills. If the party has to go on a mission for a week in a remote location, and you're the party's main Arcanist, unless you can teleport back and forth, that's a week you can't spend crafting. Time is just another resource to be managed, ESPECIALLY if adventuring is how you acquire- directly (big diamonds, dragon blood, lich dust, etc.) or indirectly (GP to buy materials and labor)- the resources to support your crafting.

And to be clear, time resource management applies to all PCs in any campaign. Exotic poisons take time and gold for thieves & assassins to gain...assuming they're available where and when the PCs are.

Ditto exotic weapons. My first PC in RttToEE (a multiclassed Martial Arcanist) was unable to get the Dire Pick he really wanted- nobody in the small town they used as their base of operations could make one, and he didn't have time to go back to a bigger city to buy one.*









* I retired that character, not out of frustration, but to fill a gap when 2 of the 3 players running full casters had to move away. PC#2 was a Geomancer who took Brew Potion.

 

[Grogg of the North]

That's what Warmages make me think of. We had one in our last campaign, and the question that was constantly on his lips was, "This person is annoying. Tell me again, why isn't he on fire?"

As my warmage said in game, "I can cast Earthquake; we know where he lives; why are we debating this!?"

For summoning, the thing is to look at what each monster can do. Can it grapple, trip, swallow? Plus, every round that the BBEG spends killing the summoned critter is damage your cleric doesn't have to heal on your fighter.

For time management, I think something to point out is that is that the DMG says you can't speed up the process by working extra hours each day. You can also only work on one item at a time. I've allowed crafters to work on items during down time while traveling/adventuring. But I've required a little role playing and it still took a day to "complete" when the party returned to town.

Time, and resource management, is something that I feel a lot of optimization / theory craft builds don't consider. Yes, you're super awesome if you get to nova and go rest. But what if killing the BBEG releases his demonic dragon? Are you going to deal with it tomorrow?

 

[nijineko]

I take eschew materials on wizard (or anything using the horrid vancian magic system) and play a psion instead. ^^