Playing a Wizard - Advice Needed

[Herremann the Wise]

I'll be playing a wizard for the first time in a few weeks. However, I'm not talking about a Magic Missile fiend or a Pyromaniac but someone who tries to play as intelligently as possible. Illusions, Enchantments and Conjurations will be this wizard's mainstay.

However, I realised that I might not be able to do this overly well. Does anyone have any advice, stories of getting real "bang for bucks" out of illusions and spells or general ideas or sources that I could look at to help me in this regard? Any story hours with similar character types would be appreciated too.

Essentially, how do you make a wizard effective in combat without having to resort to damage spells?

Best Regards and Thanks for the Advice,
Herremann the Wise

 

[Nightfall]

Complete Book of Eldritch Might is for you.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Spell Focus (Enchantment), Greater Spell Focus (Enchantment) and use charm early and often. Have it made permanently available to you via Wizard Mastery at the earliest possible opportunity.

And strongly consider being a specialist wizard -- you lose only one school for being a Diviner, and your character concept sounds like you could drop Necromancy effortlessly. If you went the Enchanter route instead, drop Necromancy and probably Evocation in your case. That would force you to not rely on those spells, and would make your charms all the more potent.

 

[nopantsyet]

Complete Book of Eldritch Might is for you.

There is some really good stuff there, I second the recommendation.

But a rules are just tools, and Gandalf wasn't inspired by a ruleset. So my advice is to pick a motif for him. You're on the right track with picking the schools, but take it a step further. So you don't want to be a blaster or a pyromancer, that's a great start. I recommend approaching this from the question of what tactics do you want to use. Will he confuse, frighten, manipulate, weaken, etc? Look through the spell lists and for the schools you like, think about how you might use them tactically. Think about what tactics are most appealing to you, then find all the spells that are useful in those tactics.

From those spells, select a few signature spells of various level. Because of what you've already done, these signature spells will begin to flesh out a motif, and possibly present some personality ideas.

Next, for each signature spell, come up with one or two lower-level spells that can be used in conjunction with the signature spells. Think synergy here--something to soften them up before the signature spell, or to clean up afterwards.

Now, with all of those spells, take any of them that have variable effects (e.g., illusions) and decide on a few favorite ways to use them, preferably centered around the theme that by now should be coalescing.

With all of that prepared, you can play your wizard very intelligent--ready for any situation--plus he'll develop his own flair as you roleplay him and he gains the higher-level signature spells.

Finally, don't forget about meta-magic feats. I have yet for a player to use them in my game, and I cannot figure out why. Pick metamagic feats that are especially helpful for your signature spells and use them!

Good luck!

 

[KingOfChaos]

Well, you NEED damage spells for somethings, like undead and constructs. Many of which are immune to illusions and all which are unaffected by enchantment spells that affect the mind. Otherwise, you'll be powerless against them as they throw off your magic.

I've never used the signature spell feat because it often clues to the DM which spell you're going to be using a lot and they will often change the encounter to where that spell is virtually useless, forcing you to use something else instead. Maybe its just the DM's I have played under, but that is usually the case in my experience.

Also, I suggest you select spells that interact with one another to outstanding effect such as Displacement and Ghostform (provides an effective 75% miss chance or two 50% miss chances). Spell combinations can mean the difference between life and death, especially at lower levels.

 

[Wippit Guud]

Remember, the cool thing about illusions, viewers don't get a save unless they interact with it (assuming your DM remebers that), so pick illusions that people want to avoid. Most people don't want to interact with a 10ft thick illusionary wall of killer bees, so they will think it's there.

 

[Allanon]

When using illusions have a talk with you're DM. Make sure that you both understand the strenghts and weaknesses of illusions. Same goes for Charms and Domination but too a lesser degree.

To my regret I've had to play an ineffective Illusionist for a while since my DM and me disagreed on what can and cannot be done with illusions. My stance was that as long as not interacted with they were in effect completely real, he stated that interaction was more than just touching and had me throwing INT and and concentration checks just so I could mantain a believable experience. This made for a very tiresome character as most of his illusions were easiliy negated.

Also the rules surrounding illusions are vague at best. Can you or can you not make you're party dissappear behind a fake backdrop in a room using still image? How real is Mirage Arcana for the rest of the party, and what happens to the existing structures, are they still there or can you make them disappear. Is it possible to walk up stairs in an illusionary building created by M.A.? Does a illusionary wall you hide behind grant you cover, concealment or nothing?

 

[KingOfChaos]

The trick to a good illusion is to make one that doesn't look out of place. Having a huge wall of killer bees appear in a hallway of the King's Court is going to be harder to believe than if you created one in an orange orchard, etc. In other words, the best illusions are subtle ones that the mundane mind won't question. I learned that by playing a lot of Mage: The Ascension

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

One of my most memorable uses of illusion and conjuration was during a game I played using pre-made characters. It was AD&D and the characters were around 20th level. Our goal was to find a demon in the heart of a dungeon and get rid of him. We would have no opportunity to rest and regain HP and spells, and we had a time limit, so we were not interested in killing everything that came our way.

In one encounter there was a big baddie, can't remember what exactly it was, but we were concerned it would take a lot to kill it. The door to enter the room was on the same wall as the door to exit the room. So under after our thief scouted the room and found the beastie was on the far side of the room, I simply sealed him behind a wall of force and we continued on our way.

Down the next corridor we found that at a U-turn, the floor was gone and a pool of lava was in its place. The thief just scaled the wall and went around the corner, but the rest of us were stuck. So I conjured a wall of stone to replace the floor and we walked around (the DM was sure he was going to make us burn some time trying to figure out a way around). Once the wall of stone was dissipated, we didn't worry about the beastie behind us following.

By the time we found the room with the fire demon, we were all pretty wasted. HP were way down, spells were running out. We tried our best hitting it with every offensive spell and weapon we had, but the fighter and the thief were killed in the fight. The cleric had only a couple of first level spells left and I had some illusion stuff. In a last ditch effort, the cleric and I worked together. I created an illusion of a massive tidal wave coming out of the corridor into the room. A huge wall of water loomed over the demon. At the moment the wave struck the demon, the cleric used one of his last spells, create water, to add realism to the illusion, dumping water over its head. It turns out that the demon made his saves and was not directly affected by the spell, but the DM, laughing at our insane attempt, ruled that it freaked out the demon enough, he returned to his own plane, allowing us to succeed in our quest.

 

[Henry]

Nothing wrecks a DM's careful plot quite like charm person/monstering a key NPC at the right moment. I've played a Bard based on the strengths you mentioned, and Charmed our way into a pirate stronghold, and even (with proper bluff and diplomacy checks) convinced the charmed subject to help us load the loot onto our conveyances home! (we were, after all, "helping him hide the loot better from those nasty guards that were coming.")