Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Leehouse 01-28-08, 01:05 AM	So, my character died and because I'd be interested in making a new one rather than reviving my old one my DM has given me the go ahead on making a new character. The books: Complete adventurer, complete arcane, complete warrior, PHB, DMG, Monster manual 1 only. The basic outline of the character is a mercenary type wizard with a slight twist. Rather than focusing on blowing people up he focuses on manipulating the battlefield and protecting or hindering others. As such I'd be focusing on Conjuration, Transmutation, and abjuration for spells to manipulate the battlefield with a side of protective buffing and debuffing. Now the amusing part is that I've been allowed to be any alignment and I was considering Lawful evil. I need a bit more help fleshing this out more for personality and back story but I'm having a bit of trouble. The build: So far I'm considering Wizard 5/mindbender1/XXX 3/ Initiate of the seven fold veil 3. Current level is 12, mindbender is to get telepathy which I feel would be good for battlefield manipulation both in communicating to whoever he is working with, as well as potentially messing with enemies through making them hear his voice. Initiate of the seven fold veil just seemed interesting from the perspective of self protection while focusing on spells for other uses. Current stats(rolled): Str: 10 Dex:11 Con: 16 Int: 20 Wis: 13 Cha: 11 These can't be changed entirely, rolling style is 6 rolls each placed in order with 1 swap allowed and I swapped charisma and intelligence simply so I could play a Wizard. What can be changed about them is the level ability point bonuses which all went into Intelligence. I am relatively certain the race will be human. Thanks for the help. If there is anything else I'm forgetting feel free to tell me.
RobbyPants 01-28-08, 03:54 PM	The basic outline of the character is a mercenary type wizard with a slight twist. Rather than focusing on blowing people up he focuses on manipulating the battlefield and protecting or hindering others. As such I'd be focusing on Conjuration, Transmutation, and abjuration for spells to manipulate the battlefield with a side of protective buffing and debuffing. Now the amusing part is that I've been allowed to be any alignment and I was considering Lawful evil. I need a bit more help fleshing this out more for personality and back story but I'm having a bit of trouble. That's actually a very good way to do it. Crowd control and debuffs will often get you much further than direct damage. Because of this, you might want to consider playing a conjuration specialist as opposed to a wizard. You can give up both Evocation and Enchantment and lose very little. Sadly, it doesn't look like you have access to the PHB2, which has a nice class feature for conjurers. By trading in your familiar, you can make several 10 foot teleports as an immediat action per day. Those are great for getting out of grapples or other tight spots. Still, if you can't use the feature, it's not the end of the world. ;) I'd consider swapping the Wis and Dex around to give you a 13 in your Dex, to help with AC a bit. Even then, you have to figure whether you want your Con or Dex higher. As for feats, Extend Spell, Sculpt Spell, and Empower Spell are all goodies. I take it three levels of your build are still to be determined? Really, any full casting PrC is a good move here. Lastly, I'd like to point you to this thread - The Logic Ninja's Guide to Wizards: Being Batman (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18500). It's full of great advice on spell and feat selection. The author feels pretty strongly about playing wizards the way you're creating yours (little direct damage, lots of crowd control).
Orchomenos 01-29-08, 03:29 PM	Also, if you plan on summoning many monsters, consider using Augment: Summoning to make your minions tougher.