A wizard in melee?

[Thanee]

So I'm looking for alternatives to polymorph.

Stone Giant is always good.

Bye
Thanee

 

[milo]

I would say you are forgetting about the ever important stoneskin, and don't forget that you can weaken opponents before you charge into combat. One of my favorite spells is ray of enfeeblement. At that level even if you roll low you are looking at 6 points of strength gone. Cast greater mage armor in the morning, same with stoneskin. This helps a little with the defense. What feats and items do you have so far? This is important to know if you want help.

 

[shilsen]

Cast greater mage armor in the morning, same with stoneskin.

Stoneskin lasts 10 mins/lvl, so casting it in the morning as you can Greater Mage Armor is not really an option.

 

[milo]

There are plenty of decent buffs with long durations though. I would try to find as many as I could and cast those on myself. If you have extend spell it helps quite a bit on spells also.

 

[jasin]

Stone Giant is always good.

Alternatives to polymorph, not alternatives to polymorph into!

 

[jasin]

One of my favorite spells is ray of enfeeblement. At that level even if you roll low you are looking at 6 points of strength gone.

Yeah, ray of enfeeblement is great. It hasn't seen much use lately since we've been facing lots of undead, but it's been a real life-saver more than once.

Cast greater mage armor in the morning,

I forgot about greater mage armour! I should probably get that even if I'm not going to go into melee.

same with stoneskin. This helps a little with the defense. What feats and items do you have so far? This is important to know if you want help.

Not much worth mentioning as far as melee goes.

So far I've been doing the typical generalist wizard thing. I have Quick Draw, Spell Penetration, Greater Spell Penetration, Craft Wand, Skill Focus (knowledge [arcana]), Scribe Scroll, Empower Spell, Improved Initiative, Great Fortitude, Practiced Spellcaster (wizard). I have a hat of Int +6, a lesser Empower rod, and a bunch of cheaper lesser items. I rely on spells for defense: I have superior resistance, dragonskin, alter self, mage armour up almost all the time, and mass conviction from the cleric.

The only thing where I'm better than your average wizard is that I'm proficient with all simple weapons and longswords, and light armour, thanks to levels of human paragon.

This is not a dedicated fighter/wizard type by any stretch. I'm just thinking about options to achieve what Tenser's transformation tries to: turn a wizard quickly into a decent melee character as an alternate tactic.

 

[jasin]

Stoneskin lasts 10 mins/lvl, so casting it in the morning as you can Greater Mage Armor is not really an option.

Actually, I've been using alter self and dragonskin (both 10 mins/level) a lot, and most of the time we need to fall back and rest before the 2 hours are up anyway.

The bigger problem with stoneskin is that I'm not sure I want to be burning 250 gp/day just because I'm doing melee on a whim.

But then, 250 gp/day is better than 25,000 gp even once...

 

[Jhaelen]

Stoneskin lasts 10 mins/lvl, so casting it in the morning as you can Greater Mage Armor is not really an option.

IIRC, in Complete Mage there's four spells that interact to create very nice defensive powers and last for 1/hour level. I think they're called 'Heart of Fire/Earth/Water/Air'.

 

[milo]

Heart of stone is a level 8 spell. You replace your heart with a stone heart for 1 year. It costs 500xp and 5000gp. Gives you DR 5/- and resistance 5 to I think electricity, fire, and cold. Slows your natural healing to 1 pt per day. Balor nimbus is an option for grappling. 2nd level spell that deals 6D6 in a grapple.

 

[was]

..just polymorph into something nasty and have at it