Remedial Character Building 101...

Charwoman Gene

Adventurer
Okay... I have a confession to make.

I've been playing D&D for 16 years, DMing for most of that... been DMing 3.x since it came out.

I just played my first Living Greyhawk game, and I realized... my character sucked. I have no idea about how to build an effective PC.

So... I'd like some pointers on creating a human wizard out of the PHB with 28 point point-buy.
 

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From a min/max point of view or just general pointers?

Always put at least a 15 in your prime stat - in your case intelligence. Higher numbers are great, but cost more. Plus, you get to see a marked increase in ability come 4th level and that first ability increase. Which is why I recommend odd numbers somewhere during point buy.

After that, decide if you want someone who is hard to hit or can take damage, then put your next highest score into Dexterity or Constitution, accordingly.

Mix and match the other stats according to concept, and don't be afraid of having 8 in one or two scores, most likely Strength and/or Charisma.

Remember that a wizard's high intelligence results in lots of skill points to play with. This makes crossclass skills quite useful. Aside from the ubiquitous Spot and Listen, you might consider Escape Artist, Sense Motive, Hide, or Move Silently - depending on what you see the wizard doing with his/her life. Try to capitalize on your stats' bonuses when picking skills.
 


Well, as a wizard you want a high Int naturally, and after that, Con and Dex are most important.

Dex 14 Con 14 Int 16 for example.

The other stats can be set as you see fit with what is left over.

During the first levels, your spells won't suffice to get you through, so packing a light crossbow is a good idea.

Bye
Thanee
 

Feats mostly depend on what you want to do later (Heading for any PrC maybe? Specializing (not necessarily via wizard school specilaization, more in the sense of using those spells often) in a certain school of magic, which happens to have a great number of spells with saves (esp. Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Transmutation), then Spell Focus makes sense.)

Here's a list of some generally good feats for wizards:

Able Learner (human only; for getting some mileage out of your decent skill points/level)
Spell Focus / Greater Spell Focus (unless you specialize on spells without a save)
Augment Summoning (if you want to use summon spells a lot)
Empower Spell (for Ray of Enfeeblement, False Life, Scorching Ray, etc)
Sudden Silent (for those tight situations, like being grappled in Silence)
Sudden Maximize
Quicken Spell (for the higher levels, to get your buffs up quickly)
Craft Wondrous Item
Craft Wand
Spell Penetration / Greater Spell Penetration (for the higher levels)
Improved Initiative (for the higher levels)

And some excellent spell choices from the PHB:

1st - Mage Armor, Shield, Magic Missile, Ray of Enfeeblement, Identify, Color Spray, Sleep, Charm Person, Enlarge Person, Reduce Person;
2nd - Glitterdust, Web, Invisibility, See Invisibility, Scorching Ray, Rope Trick;
3rd - Fly, Dispel Magic, Fireball, Haste, Slow, Suggestion;
4th - Polymorph, Dimension Door, Greater Invisibility.

Bye
Thanee
 

The advice that's been given so far is good advice, but it leaves out one important aspect:

1. Decide what you want your character to do.

So you're playing a wizard. Do you want to shape the battlefield, buff the party, control people's mind, kill foes with a word, or blow stuff up? As a wizard, you're going to have to do more than just your specialty, but you need to pick something to be good at. After you've made your character good at that, then you consider what else he can do.

For instance, let's say you want to blow stuff up in big areas. You'll be casting spells like fireball, flaming sphere, etc, most of which have saves, so you'll want at least a 16 int. You'll also want to think about feats like spell focus, greater spell focus, and empower spell. After you've done that, you can look at your capabilities and figure out that you can use area control spells like solid fog and wall of force and your high int makes your save or die/control spells pretty effective too.

On the other hand, let's say you want to control the battlefield. You'll be casting spells like web, solid fog, sleet storm, wall of force, etc, most of which either have no saves, or work almost as well even if the enemy saves. (Web is one of the latter). You don't need spell focus, and only need int for bonus spells, so you can afford to leave it at 15 if you want. However, the best time to effect the battlefield is before anyone's had a chance to move, so initiative will be a priority for you. Improved Initiative is a good feat for a character like this and Sculpt Spell (Complete Arcane, so you'd need to wait until level 3 to take it in Living Greyhawk) is very good too. If you have a mediocre or poor int, you won't be too good at save or die spells or blasting spells, but a good dex means that you can make ranged touch attacks quite effectively and buffing your party members works just as well as it does for anyone.

Since you mentioned Living Greyhawk, there's a second thing to consider:

2. You won't always play with the same group, so you'll need to have a reasonably flexible character. If your character is set up so that you do nothing but Bull's Strength, and Enlarge Person, you'll be up a creek when you're in a party with a bunch of weapon-finesse using rogues. If you're all about the battlefield control spells and you're in a party full of other controllers without any real damage dealers, you'll be in for a rough time. In a home campaign, you could develop your strategy around specific party members: "I take sonic weapon for the archer with rapid shot and mage armor for the monk." In Living Greyhawk (or any other living campaign), you can't develop your strategy around a specific group member--you have to flexible enough to be effective with whatever group you fall in with.
 

Definitely echo Elder-Basilisk, deciding what kind of magic you wish to focus on is something that needs to be done early on.

Another thing to consider is specialisation... From a min max point of view, divination is the 'best' specialisation. IMO, it has many useful spells to fill your extra free slot, but the main upside is you have only a single opposed school. I've seen a lot of people dump necromancy, you lose a few interesting spells, but much of the list is not that great.

Also prestige classes. If you are intending to take one, it's worth considering early on. Not sure what kind of selection is available in living greyhawk... But, from the DMG, I like the Loremaster and Archmage - both have full spellcasting progression and some interesting side abilities. Diviner/Loremaster works well and all it really 'costs' you is a Skill Focus in a knowledge skill.
 

The biggest strength of a wizard is adaptability.

You can (within a day, or even within 15 minutes, if you leave some spell slots open during the daily preparation) adapt to a given situation and use the spells that are best in this situation... if you have them, of course. If not, you will have to live with a compromise, but still you will be able to pick the best from those you have in your book.

To actually be able to utilize this strength, you will need a good, broad selection of spells for various situations. I would try to keep that in mind, when selecting spells. For example, even if you focus more on combat spells, there is really no reason not to pick up a bunch of other useful spells as well.

Also, with 28 PB there really is absolutely no reason to put Int below 16, unless you plan to multiclass (not counting wizard PrC there). Sure, you could focus on spells without a save, but in the end, that just limits your options and therefore your adaptability. Therefore I wouldn't even consider going lower than that. Quite the opposite, if you plan on making heavy use of spells with a negating save, I would even consider to go higher with your Int, like 17 or even 18, if you can live with the points you have left over then for your remaining attributes.

It's definitely a good idea to pick one field of expertise, in which to "specialise" (again, not school specialization meant here), in which you will be good. Depends a lot on the campaign, what that might be, focussing on combat or information gathering, or whatever else comes to mind.

A good thing to do is probably starting with the spells. Look into the spell list and decide, which spells you think you want to use most. Then look at these spells and see, what you might need to make them more effective (raise the save DC, metamagic them, go first in combat, high Dex for ranged touch attacks, etc). Pick your abilities and feats with that in mind.

Bye
Thanee
 

OK, some LG specific suggestions now:

1. Prestige classes from the Complete Books are pretty accessible. If you want power, Divine Oracle and Fatespinner are good ones to work into your concept. Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil is incredibly powerful, but if you're starting now, you wouldn't see the benefits of it for years, so I wouldn't bother going down that path.

2. Stats: Take at least a 14 con and at least a 15 int. Everything else is up for grabs.

3. Skills: Max concentration (casting defensively and maintaining concentration while damaged) and spellcraft (for identifying unusual effects). Take at least one point in every knowledge skill so you can at least attempt. Often, just your int bonus will be enough to make you as good as a near max-rank cleric

4. Items:
a. Do buy: a potion of cure light wounds, a scroll or two of enlarge person, a scroll of comprehend languages, a tanglefoot bag, and a scroll of protection from evil. Web is a nice higher level scroll to have in a pinch if things are going poorly for your party. But don't forget mundane equipment too. A torch or lantern, rations, a waterskin, etc. can be important too. I've run games for a number of low level parties who nearly starved in the wilderness because they forgot to buy food. (Just because it refills after each adventure and you're assumed to have rooms and meals in town if you pay upkeep doesn't mean that you have food on your fourth day in the wilderness. You only have that if you have it on your character sheet).
b. As soon as you can afford it, buy a headband of intellect.
c. Don't just buy things that are useful for yourself. Buy scrolls of cure light wounds at low level, and later buy a wand of cure light wounds. Even if you can't use it, you'll be able to give them to the cleric for emergencies.
 

For a wizard, the most important things are the spells. I have certain players who are way into the role-playing end of things, pick "cool" wierd spells, and are then a bit baffled as to why they're not terribly effective.

Consider the following polls on what people consider to be the best wizard spells:
1) http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=103904
2) http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=92760
3) http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=104412
4) http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=93139
5) http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=105079
6) http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=93468
7) http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=106587
8) http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=93953
9) http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=106907
 

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