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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 1639309" data-attributes="member: 3146">Contingency and Greater Dispelling. Everything else is optional.Contingency is key for any wizard because it enables him to always be prepared. Wizards go down quickly if surprised and having a way to prepare for the unexpected is incredibly useful. It's even more useful for NPC wizards who aren't usually in conflict since they can afford to use broader contingencies. An adventuring wizard probably doesn't want to trigger his contingency for "when I am attacked" because he gets into battles on a regular basis and doesn't want to waste a contingency on a random brigand encounter unless it turns serious. A non-adventuring wizard can afford to trigger a contingency on a trivial encounter because he doesn't have many of them.Greater Dispelling is also useful because wizards are inevitably faced with the challenge of bringing down magical protections, dispelling charms, etc and Dispel Magic runs out of steam by the time you're 14th level or so.The rest are gravy.Planar Binding is probably the closest to a must have but a lot of wizards do just fine without bound servitors.Disintegrate. It's nice, but there are other ways to deal damage. (Quickened Scorching Ray does 1/2 as much damage but doesn't have a save and doesn't take an action).Acid Fog is a great way to control the battlefield but Solid Fog is nearly as good and a lot of foes are immune to the acid (which doesn't amount to much anyway).Chain Lightning is nice for its targetability but it's pretty weak damage except to the primary target--a maximized lightning bolt is often better.True Seeing is pretty handy too but it only comes up infrequently and the material component is an important deterent to using it. (Summon Monster VII for an Avoral Guardinal who can use True Seeing at will is also a good (cheap) substitute for a lot of its uses).</blockquote>

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