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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 1040490" data-attributes="member: 3146">This wizard of yours doesn't sem like he's getting much milage out of his focus. What's the point of taking spell focus if it won't increase the DC on a significant portion of your spells/day? At that point, you might as well take a metamagic feat. You'll probably use that at least once per day and it'll be more useful on that handful of spells than +1 DC. Your strategy might be reasonable if the wizard expected to face creatures immune to mind-effecting spells. However, if that's the general plan, it means that any kind of focussed enchanter or illusionist is not a viable character. If that wasn't true in 3.0 but is in 3.5 then IMO it's a very bad change. If it is true in both then the spell focus changes are an even stupider idea than I currently think.We obviously have different ideas of what makes a wizard effective. In 3.0 a wizard could prepare Mage armor and two shield spells. He'd most likely have AC 23 and be well-nigh untouchable for two combats. Very safe (or so he thinks). But he does next to nothing for the party and if the ogre kills the fighter, cleric and rogue, AC 23 or AC 53, without any offense the wizard is next.That's obviously overkill but if wizards focus their energy primarily on keeping themselves safe, they only succeed in reducing their usefulness to the team. I think wizards and sorcerors need to learn to live with vulnerability and focus on making sure the battle doesn't last long enough to threaten them.But then he wouldn't be an enchanter would he? Again, if the only kind of viable wizard is the generalist picking and choosing from all schools and never letting anything get more than 1/3 of his prepared spells, they might as well stop kidding themselves and remove the specialist and spell focus options from the game.So let's see if it changes by 9th or 10th level. If sorcerors and wizards are still casting spells against their foes strong saves then it's not an artifact of a 1st level wizards' weakness.I would definitely say you've focussed overly on defense. IME, a wizard who walks around with only a single high level offensive spell is a wizard who is dead weight for most of a party's encounters--heck he's pretty weenie even if the party only has one encounter in the day.IME, it's far better to be good at one thing than to be mediocre at several. Taking two spell focus feats (especially in 3.5 where you need GSF to start making a significant difference) is a path to mediocrity.However, since you obviously think my sample wizard is pathetic, maybe we should take yours.SF: Conjuration and SF: NecromancyLevel 8.Spells prepared (I'm guessing here):1. [Open Slot], Shield, Mage Armor, Magic Missilex22. Blindness, Mirror Image, Glitterdust, Web3. Blink, Fly, Greater Magic Weapon, Vampiric Touch 4. Greater Invis, Fear, Dimension DoorSo, assuming that there is more than  one combat in the day and that he casts at least two offensive spells in both of them, he's still facing the very distinct possibility of casting a spell at the strong save. He has a grand total of three spells with no save, two spells with will saves, one spell with a fort save, and one spell with a reflex save. So, if the two encounters feature creatures with the same weak save, he's almost sure to be out of offensive spells targetted at it. And he's still hosed if he comes up against undead in more than one encounter.</blockquote>

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