A wizard in melee?

[jasin]

If you're going to use a staff as and use power attack, you may want to consider wraithstrike if your DM will let you.

I'd be using a longsword, a proficiency which I got from my levels of human paragon. But I'm not sure I want to ask for wraithstrike, because I'm not sure I'd allow it myself.

Still, you'll be a bit of a paper tiger.

True, that.

Also If your going into melee a lot you may want abjurant champion. Full caster progression and full BAB, what's not to like, if you're an elf it doesn't even cost a feat - again if your DM will let you.

Conveniently enough: longsword. But again, I'm not really sure I'd allow abjurant champion if I were the DM.

 

[Thanee]

empowered False Life is good to alleviate that paper tiger aspect.

And don't forget Polymorph (or the newer 'version' Trollshape (...one of them, anyways...)).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Kmart Kommando]

If you're a straight wizard, you have no business even thinking about engaging foes in melee, other than maybe pulling off a touch spell (and then quickly getting away from melee). If you must do so, you're better off casting one of those spells that polymorph you into a golem. Good luck!

Our AoW campaign had a dwarf wizard as the main melee damage dealer, in a group of Bo9S characters, a twinked out Monk1/RangerXX undead-killing machine, even beating out the sorc blaster that had some alternate form that let him do double actions every round. He would be outputting at least half again as much damage each round as the party barbarian had hit points. He wasn't even an optimal build, as he refused to use direct offensive spells to keep his power in check. The same round after being hit with MDJ he outputted 370+ damage into a creature seeing an unarmored and non-buffed dwarf. Buffed up, a full BAB class couldn't hit him reliably, even some dragons had trouble hurting him seriously.

 

[Jondor_Battlehammer]

Get some spells that make you intangible and a ghost touch weapon.

 

[jasin]

empowered False Life is good to alleviate that paper tiger aspect.

Oh, I have false life (occasionally Empowered) on almost all the time anyway.

And don't forget Polymorph (or the newer 'version' Trollshape (...one of them, anyways...)).

Well, another reason I started thinking about this is that the warrior-types in the group finally convinced me to take polymorph. I was avoiding it because it's cheezy, slows the game down and has questionable visuals (the brave and noble knight turns into... a hag?).

So I'm looking for alternatives to polymorph.

 

[jontherev]

Our AoW campaign had a dwarf wizard as the main melee damage dealer, in a group of Bo9S characters, a twinked out Monk1/RangerXX undead-killing machine, even beating out the sorc blaster that had some alternate form that let him do double actions every round. He would be outputting at least half again as much damage each round as the party barbarian had hit points. He wasn't even an optimal build, as he refused to use direct offensive spells to keep his power in check. The same round after being hit with MDJ he outputted 370+ damage into a creature seeing an unarmored and non-buffed dwarf. Buffed up, a full BAB class couldn't hit him reliably, even some dragons had trouble hurting him seriously.

I don't know how your wizard achieved such amazing heights, but if I was DM, I would tip the scale back towards the fighter. My 23rd level dwarven fighter with the ax of the dwarvish lords could BARELY do damage like that, and ONLY if he crit at least once and hit with 4 attacks, which I don't think he ever did. IMO, there's no way a dwarf wizard should be consistently doing more melee damage than a fighter. I think it's an interesting concept, but to me it really underscores a huge problem with your campaign. I would be pretty upset if a wizard was outdamaging me (were I the fighter of the group) with any modicum of consistency. Even with Falselife you should have far fewer hit points than the fighter (lower hit die and con, even w/false life, it should be lower). Also, beware greater dispel magic! Also, what happens when all of your buffs are dispelled and you can't immediately rest to get all of your spells back? Oh, and nothing against your group or this concept...it's just that I don't like the already powerful wizard overtaking a fighter's place, and as DM, I would make as many houserules as needed to prevent that from happening (on a consistent basis). Just my opinion though. I love fighters...always have...and I like to keep them as the masters of melee. I think it's fine situationally to have the wizard beat out the fighter (against the RIGHT foe, with the RIGHT spell buffs)...but if as DM I saw this gap closing too often, I would start giving the fighters more bonus feats or give out less wizardry magic items.

I'm not trying to take away from anyone's enjoyment of playing a melee wizard...I say go for it. It's what I love about 3.5...all of the available options...it's just that sometimes the rules allow for things for which I don't agree, as with the above scenario. I hope you were playing an epic campaign and your dwarf wizard was something like 30th level.

 

[jontherev]

What values would be reasonable for 14th level, IYO?


Presumably, I could use it against the kinds of opponents whose main strength isn't melee.


68. With invisibility, that's nearly as good as the fighter's 130, isn't it?

Let me think back to what my dwarven fighter was doing at that level...let's see, he was probably around +27 to hit and did 1d10+18 or so damage per attack (3 attacks/round on full attack). Just going from memory here...plus power attack and the occasional leap attack.

True, you'd be much better off going into melee with another wizard than an iron golem.

Greater Invisibility is very nice, sure, but tons of monsters have ways around this. Depending on what you're fighting, it could help a lot. Good luck!

 

[Kmart Kommando]

I don't know how your wizard achieved such amazing heights, but if I was DM, I would tip the scale back towards the fighter. My 23rd level dwarven fighter with the ax of the dwarvish lords could BARELY do damage like that, and ONLY if he crit at least once and hit with 4 attacks, which I don't think he ever did. IMO, there's no way a dwarf wizard should be consistently doing more melee damage than a fighter. I think it's an interesting concept, but to me it really underscores a huge problem with your campaign. I would be pretty upset if a wizard was outdamaging me (were I the fighter of the group) with any modicum of consistency. Even with Falselife you should have far fewer hit points than the fighter (lower hit die and con, even w/false life, it should be lower). Also, beware greater dispel magic! Also, what happens when all of your buffs are dispelled and you can't immediately rest to get all of your spells back? Oh, and nothing against your group or this concept...it's just that I don't like the already powerful wizard overtaking a fighter's place, and as DM, I would make as many houserules as needed to prevent that from happening (on a consistent basis). Just my opinion though. I love fighters...always have...and I like to keep them as the masters of melee. I think it's fine situationally to have the wizard beat out the fighter (against the RIGHT foe, with the RIGHT spell buffs)...but if as DM I saw this gap closing too often, I would start giving the fighters more bonus feats or give out less wizardry magic items.

I'm not trying to take away from anyone's enjoyment of playing a melee wizard...I say go for it. It's what I love about 3.5...all of the available options...it's just that sometimes the rules allow for things for which I don't agree, as with the above scenario. I hope you were playing an epic campaign and your dwarf wizard was something like 30th level.

He was 21st level at the end, as were we all, played lvl 1 to lvl 21. Some characters came in later, as there was a high mortality rate. The Wizard was Mr. Melee Blender Set To Liquefy, my character was Mr. You Can't Do That For One Round, and later on evolved into Mr. You Don't Even Want To Attack Me, the Psion was Mr. You Absolutely Can't Kill Me Ever, the Rogue/Barbarian was Mr. Full Attack While Moving. The Healer was Mr. Cure Light Wounds Heals 57 Points Of Damage ( or something like that ). The Monk/Ranger was Mr. I'll Crush You With My 8d6 Hands...7 Times A Round. The enemy was always Mr. I Can Do What The Party Can Do Times Two.

The whole campaign led to new nerfs and house rules to about 20-30% of the spells and abilities used throughout the campaign. It was an arms race for sure.

 

[jasin]

Let me think back to what my dwarven fighter was doing at that level...let's see, he was probably around +27 to hit and did 1d10+18 or so damage per attack (3 attacks/round on full attack). Just going from memory here...plus power attack and the occasional leap attack.

My (theoretical) +25/+20/+15 for 1d8+15 doesn't seem so bad to me, then.

As you said, the wizard is already powerful enough without being able to outdo the fighter in the fighter's area of expertise. So I'm not expecting a wizard to match the fighters +27 with +37.

But if a fighter is at +27/+22/+17 for 1d10+18, I think +25/+20/+15 for 1d8+15 is a decent contribution in situations where otherwise I'd just plink away for ~17 hp from a magic missile wand. It's not as safe, but there's a certain thrill in melee that you just don't get from saying "I do... what I did last round! 5d4+5!"

Another reason I find this interesting is that I prefer spells that give me something to do for the duration of the combat over instantaneous ones. Cone of cold is OK, but that's one round. With telekinesis, I get to do something every round, without spending more spells. And self-buffs for melee are like telekinesis in that regard.

 

[Quartz]

Might Mordenkainen's Sword be a better option for dealing damage?