Playing a wizard at low levels

[Vorput]

At low level though, a wizard with a heavy crossbow- or even a light is still a force to be reckoned with- especially with a decent dex. You'll be doing more damage than MM on average too.

 

[Darklone]

Scrolls scrolls scrolls. Either play an elf and use a longbow, get PBS and Rapid Shot... and head later towards some ray slinger... or use the Xbow as mentioned above.

Then use scrolls. Simple rule: You need to have one scroll of every spell that you didn't prepare and two scrolls of every spell that you prepare. Then let's rock.

 

[FreeXenon]

Ranged Weapon: As other have said pick up a crossbow. I lean towards the Light Crossbow so that you can shoot atleast once per round. The damage difference is what 1 point on average when moving to a heavy crossbow and that increase comes at a cost of 1 round of reloading. Not so optimal over the long run. However, once you get to 3rd level you will not need the crossbow so much.

Wand: Pick up a wand of some attack spell: Magic Missle, Scorching Ray, or something else that will replace your Crossbow. You can also pick up craft wand when the time comes so that you can recharge the wand as needed.

Multiclassing: If you choose to muticlass - pretty much any warrior class (Ranger, Fighter, or Barbarian) would be a great addition to obvious reasons (BAB, HP, SAVES, Special abilities).

Depending on the type of wizard you want to play it may pay better over the long run to start out in your non-wizard class and then take wizard at second level. You will want to take the feat Practiced Spell Caster to compensate for the last caster levels. Taking another class such as Ranger or Rogue will net you a lot more skill points especially once you take two levels of it with the associated synergy bonuses.

If your DM allows you to save skill points until the next level this is especially a great idea. You could save enough skill points from your ranger or rogue levels to max out your Spell Craft, Knowledge (Arcana) and Concentration right when you take your first level in Wizard.

Spells: Colorspray is your friend.

Just a few thoughts

 

[Chimera]

The last Wizard I played was extremely effective, but I chose a path just for that purpose.

Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot at 1st level (Human). This allowed me to be effective with my Light Crossbow in melee. I also needed those feats for later because I fully intended to make use of Ray spells.

Heck, at 3rd level I very nearly killed a Giant Wasp all on my own with just the crossbow, because I hit twice in two rounds and crit'd once, while the entire rest of my party managed a serious miss fest and did only 3hp to the creature.

Scrolls. I managed my memorized spells more like a Combat Sorcerer and placed everything else, primarily utilitarian spells, on scrolls. At 3rd-5th level I generally had 15-20 spells on scrolls at any given time. Not to just lob around on a whim, because we weren't getting enough gold to be throwing it away like that, nor did we have the time for that much scribing. But it really helped when the chips were down.

That being said, my GM was at least nice enough to allow me to scribe more than one spell per day. I think it was pretty close to my entire low level complement of spells per day, as long as it was one scroll and they were all the same caster level. A lot of GMs won't do that and unfortunately, a lot of campaigns are so time crunched that you are never given the time for scribing scrolls.

 

[Roger]

it seems like a wizard could become pretty useless if she's out of spells.

This is pretty much true, and remains pretty much true throughout a wizard's entire career, and there's pretty much nothing you can do about it.

If it really bothers you, you probably shouldn't play a wizard.

Unless you are running a very combat intensive campaign. Once you are hitting mid levels (7th-13th) running completely out of spells is pretty rare IME.

Sure. But sniffles is saying "If A, then B, and I don't like that." If A is rare, that doesn't really change anything.

And even then you usually have some scrolls or wands you can use.

A wizard with scrolls and/or wands is hardly "out of spells" in any meaningful way.


Cheers,
Roger

 

[RFisher]

What deters me a bit is the fact that a low-level wizard has so few spells per day, and so few hit points and weapon proficiencies, that it seems like a wizard could become pretty useless if she's out of spells.

Thinking. Strategy. Tactics. (Yes, combat tactics, but also more generally.) Problem solving. These are the real measures of a useful PC. i.e. It's more about the "P" than the "C".

YMMV.

 

[lukelightning]

Tanglefoot bags and alchemist's fire are your friends. Unless you are the target of them, of course.

 

[Sigurd]

Another issue to clear away with a new wizard is party moneys. Wizards have the most expenses of any character in the game. I tell players if they expect to get magic items cheaply when I can make them they have to put aside an extra party share of treasure for expenses and scroll purchasing\scribing. The wizard will make heavy use of the party share of monetary treasure because his own share will not be big enough.

Many DM's don't include scrolls\spellbooks etc... in treasure but they all include magic weapons and other non consumables. No other class is as completely nurfed by a uncooperative DM.

You should expect access to more than 2 new spells a level. Buy what you can, when you find it, and scribe, scribe scribe!

 

[kenobi65]

Lots of good advice already in here. Light crossbow (or longbow if you're an elf), alchemical missiles, scrolls. Even a CL 1 wand of magic missile is your friend.

All I can say is, if you think a low-level wizard in 3.5 is nigh-unto-useless, you should have tried playing a low-level magic-user in 1E. "I cast my one spell today. I'm baggage."

 

[pawsplay]

A wizard with a crossbow and a fistful of scrolls of true strike is never bored.