Building my first 3rd-edition wizard. What are the essentials?

[stonegod]

Mindful creatures would do the following (I've had it done to me; its ugly):
- Enemy wizard: dispel
- Enemy wizard-killer: Delayed until after wizard. Smash the now un-mirrored mage

Its a strong spell, no doubt about it. I just don't want it painted as a must have.

 

[Felon]

OK, looking at the description for Boccob's Blessed Book, I'm a little confused. It says "a wizard can fill the 1,000 pages of a blessed book with spells without paying the 25 gp per page material cost. "

But it's 100 gp per page, not 25. Is it saying you get a 25 gp price reduction?

 

[castro3nw]

If you play with mirror image, find out your DM's opinion on the interaction of it and magic missile first...
Either:
a)The missiles all fly at you... Roll to see if they hit an image

or

b)I'll target one missile at each image and bring them all down at once

It's pretty important, since everyone packs magic missile.

 

[Someone]

OK, looking at the description for Boccob's Blessed Book, I'm a little confused. It says "a wizard can fill the 1,000 pages of a blessed book with spells without paying the 25 gp per page material cost. "

But it's 100 gp per page, not 25. Is it saying you get a 25 gp price reduction?

That's errata. The right cost is 100 gp/page.

 

[dirkformica]

Another trick for the penny pinching wizard is a 2 level dip into Geometer from Complete Arcane in conjunction with Boccob's Blessed Book. It's Book of Geometry ability makes every spell inscribed into your spellbook only take up 1 page. With Boccob's book that only costs you the 24 hours per each spell.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

1) Try to solidify your PC's concept before deciding on things like feats. Sometimes, your concept will completely determine your feat selections.

2) Personally, of the feats, I like Energy Substitution (for flexibility), Still Spell (for armored mage builds), and Reach Spell (for flexibility & the surprise factor).

3) If it fits your concept, specialize. The extra spell may just save your party. And while I'm not a big fan of the PHB2, I must confess I like the alternative class feature of Focused Specialist- +2 more specialist school spells (in addition to the ones you already get) in exchange for another barred school. What wizard doesn't want +3 spells per level? (And for Diviners, this is a steal!)

4) Look into other alternative class features- you'll find them in Dragon Magazine, Unearthed Arcana, Complete Arcane and other sources. Dragon Magazine recently published one called Eidetic Spellcaster- you no longer need spellbooks to prepare spells- instead of Scribe Scroll and a Familiar. I really like that one, partly because most of my current DMs' hostility towards pets- familiars, animal companions, special mounts, etc. tend to die pretty quickly. At least with the Eidetic Spellcaster alternative feature, my Wizards have something that is always useful.

It's pretty important, since everyone packs magic missile.

Not quite everyone- in 30 years of gaming, I've never run a mage who even has it in his spellbook.

 

[Felon]

1) Try to solidify your PC's concept before deciding on things like feats. Sometimes, your concept will completely determine your feat selections.

Done and done. Feat selections posted above.

2) Personally, of the feats, I like Energy Substitution (for flexibility), Still Spell (for armored mage builds), and Reach Spell (for flexibility & the surprise factor).

Actually, with both the Metamagic Vigor and Residual Magic tactical feats, Energy Substitution becomes a really good choice of a feat. Wish I had a feat to burn. I may have to go Evoker5/MasterSpecialist3 instead of Evoker3/MasterSpecialist5 so I can get the bonus metamagic feat.

3) If it fits your concept, specialize. The extra spell may just save your party. And while I'm not a big fan of the PHB2, I must confess I like the alternative class feature of Focused Specialist- +2 more specialist school spells (in addition to the ones you already get) in exchange for another barred school. What wizard doesn't want +3 spells per level? (And for Diviners, this is a steal!)

Focused Specialist is in Complete Mage. It actually costs you one of your regular spell slots each level in addition to adding another banned school. But I'm doing it.

 

[Felon]

Another trick for the penny pinching wizard is a 2 level dip into Geometer from Complete Arcane in conjunction with Boccob's Blessed Book. It's Book of Geometry ability makes every spell inscribed into your spellbook only take up 1 page. With Boccob's book that only costs you the 24 hours per each spell.

Wait, back to being confused. If the blessed book lets you scribe spells for free (free of the 100 gp cost anyway), the geometer isn't saving you anything but page count, right?

 

[hong]

First, you need a d4.

 

[Slaved]

Ok, lots of evoking but you want other spells as well.

I would suggest warmage. I know it has been suggested before but it is pretty much the way to go for what you want.

After that, find a race with a bonus to at least one mental stat with no penalties to any mental stats.

Next up, grow old. Put yourself in at least the second age category if not the third.

You will need some stat boosting. Particularly con and all of your mental stats. If you can swing it a belt of magnificence might work out perfectly.

After all of that, feat choices. Grab the feat Arcane Disciple and pick all of the domains with those various spells you could not get otherwise. Now you get to cast them whenever you like, although only once per day each. Get some wands of the more utility ones and you are all set.

At this point your hp will be about the same as that of a normal wizard, you will be able to wear armor, you have all of the evoking you could ever possibly want, you have a ton of other spells to take advantage of besides, and you have so many slots that you can look good doing it all day long!

No worrying about a spellbook, so many backgrounds that practically write themselves, and your damage potential is extreme.