Help picking 4th level arcane spells

[Iron_Chef]

Thanks everybody.

I get to choose three spells per level (due to a special familiar who teaches me one extra spell every level) and so I picked dimension door, polymorph other and summon monster IV... I also got lesser planar ally as a freebie. I didn't get a chance to use polymorph other or lesser planar ally, but... Dimension door saved my life tonight!

An ogre mage blasted our main dudes (including me) with a 9d6 cone of cold which we all failed our reflex saves on, even the rogue (who took half damage). I lost 42 hit points (out of 45) in the first round (fortunately, I'd cast fly right before since we won initiative). I flew up out of harm's way (I thought), and cast summon monster IV to help out in the battle below, but the damn ogre mage flew up after me and started waving his hands to zap me, so I cast dimension door (after my monster was summoned and teleported way far away (and behind) him... He never found me, LOL. So, thanks to you guys and your sage advice, I didn't die horribly and my 7th level wizard will live to fight another day... and hopefully get to try out that trick with dimension door you mentioned earlier about dropping dudes from 100 ft. up or dropping rocks down, hehehe).

 

[Gaiden]

Andargor,

I ask this with the utmost sincerity - were you smoking crack when you wrote that message?

 

[Gaiden]

Iron Chef,

I have no idea what the rest of the details are on your character. However, I was thinking of a few other things that could prove helpful.

Augment Summoning could be a great boost if you don't already have it - the extra hit points and to hit bonus stack with everything and it is especially useful when you use one spell to get more weaker monsters.

Chain Spell might be useful given the number of buff spells you have. You could chain endurance for example to give a bunch of your summoned creatures some added hit points - of course this won't matter until you hit 9th level (when you get a feat).

There is a PrC called the Summoner from I believe it is R&R (I never HMBWM ). This is a phenominal PrC for any sort of summoner that is arcane or divine. It allows you free use of certain metamagic feats with summon spells only - particularly cool with things like twin spell, or repeat spell as well as gives you access to more powerful summons earlier in your progression.

Another great tactic for use with summoned creatures is to use cleric spells that buff a party, like prayer (or recitation), bless, and/or righteous wrath of the faithful (awesome when used with lantern archons - simply awesome, check out my summoner smack with those baddies). Realizing that you are a wizard, getting access to these priestly spells may be a bit difficult. However, you have a few legit options. First is to take a few levels in Eldrich Master (from Dragon) - it will ultimately cost you your highest level spells but will grant you access to all cleric spells. I am not sure if only bards and sorcerers can qualify though (IDHMBWM - see above). Of course the easier thing would be to use either LPA or the Leadership feat to simply get a cleric to cast the spells. A fifth level cleric should do the trick nicely.

Of course, just realizing now, this may be moot if you already have a cleric in your party .

I believe there are a few higher level summon spells that might also get you creatures that can cast cleric spells (at least some of them).

Anyhoo, glad to see that you survived. Keep us updated on your character's status.