Lawful Neutral Human Wizard (2nd Level)
Ability Scores:
Strength- 8
Dexterity- 12
Constitution- 12
Intelligence- 17
Wisdom- 15
Charisma- 11
First off, what books are you starting out with beyond the Epic Level Handbook? Just plain Core (aka PH 1, DMG 1, and MM 1), Core + the Completes (aka Complete Arcane, Complete Mage, etc.), Splatbooks (Frostburn, ExPH, Stormwrack, etc.), certain settings (Faerun, Eberron, Dragonlance, etc.), or a custom set of books? Are Dragon Magazine articles allowed? Can you Wizards.com 3.5 archive stuff? In order to help you best, this is something we of the board need to know. As you're just starting out, I seriously recommend you stick with Core plus Completes, if not just Core.
Second, while blowing stuff up is fun, many argue that direct damage doesn't contribute quite as much level by level as you'd think (and that's without getting Spell resistance involved). Now me, I enjoy blowing stuff up (tied with Gish-types, or arcane (or other magic) warrior types, look around the board to see what I mean), but I've had DM's in the past pull fast ones by placing illusion traps on innocent people (is that your enemy just waving at you in the middle of the forest with a bunch of minions at his back? No, it's just an illusion of him with innocent people disguised Joker-style as his minions (my character at the time was trigger happy...)). It might be a better plan to specialize in Divination (meaning you only give up one school of magic, as opposed to 2 with other choices) and have the Spec. slots filled with Div. spells, while filling the normal slots with a three-way tie for second place between Evo.,Conj., and Abj., followed by whatever Trans., Illusion, or Nerco spells you wind up using fairly often. Note that there are 2 types of Necromancy: the "build an army of undead" type and the "master debuffer" type (check out Shivering Touch and its lesser version from Frostburn, it demonstrates my point perfectly and has a reputation as a Dragonslaying spell, provided the target doesn't have the Cold subtype). Give up Enchantment; while there a a few spells that certainly help a blaster or even the party at large, leave the "talking our way out of trouble/diplomacy" role to someone else. Please also note that not all "boom" spells are Evo./Conj. based, the 9th level Spell Maw of Chaos demonstrates this very well.
All told, there are a lot of things you can do with blasting, but how much of it depends what books you're using. It's very easy to get overwhelmed, but start small, and work your way toward where you want to be.
Nice to meet you. My friends and I recently took an online personality survey that matched us with a D&D 3.5 setup, and we got around thinking that we should play a game using the results as our starting "stats". The thing is... While I always really wanted to play D&D when I was young, I really didn't know anyone else who even seemed to know what it was, so I really don't have much in the way of experience. I do, however, know what I have in mind for my build. Here's the results of the survey:Lawful Neutral Human Wizard (2nd Level)
Ability Scores:
Strength- 8
Dexterity- 12
Constitution- 12
Intelligence- 17
Wisdom- 15
Charisma- 11
I left out the further details, since it'd be like explaining what you already know (defining classes etc). Anywho, for the game, I want to build an offensive caster. I'd not focus much on buffs or support, but would be built more to cast strong damage dealing/ailment inducing spells from afar. Of course... this is what I want. I don't know really how to do it or which direction to take.
While I'm aware that learning that is part of the fun, I was interested as to which direction I should take my character in the way of prestige classes. I plan on being a specialist wizard, in either evocation or conjuration, but from there I'd not know where to go. If you have a suggestion of classes that work well together and how to build them, I'd love to hear it. We're planning on going up into epic levels (assuming we get there), so the level cap will be 30. As for what prestige classes are good, anything in the official index would work, so nothing homebrew.
If y'all can give me some decent suggestions, I'd be very appreciative of it. Thank you very much for your time and patience.
I had a huge reponse typed up, but Firefox ate it. And I am angry - but at Firefox, not at you, so I'll be brief instead.
1) Do not specialize in evocation. If you have to pick, pick Conjuration. It has similar damage dealing effects (except here they tend to bypass enemy defenses), excellent support spells, and good utilityspells.
2) I would STRONGLY suggest switching to a Tier Three or Tier Four class instead of "Wizard". Wizard is a ridiculously complex class to play with a steep learning curve and little, if any, room for error. Although it's not a good class in general, Warmage fits your concept and is much easier to work with, for instance.
3) In general, Direct Damage spells suck, except in... oh, let's say levels 3-5 or so. Outside of that range, damage dealing spells tend to not deal enough damage to actually drop their opponents - enemy HP scales MUCH faster than direct damage spells do. At high levels, without SERIOUS optimization (i.e. the #1 Snoipah or Nuker builds in my signature), blasting can take four or five rounds to drop a target, while a powerful save-or-die spell might take just two, while a battlefield control spell prevents an enemy from acting over many rounds (effectively removing them from combat).
4) That said, if you insist on playing a wizard, with those ability scores, they're just crying out to be used with a Shadowcraft Mage. These guys can spontaneously cast every single Evocation, Conjuration (Creation), and Conjuration (Summoning) spell in existence, even if they don't know the spell, with no components or long casting times, and do it better than a specialized evoker could. Your 15 Wisdom even opens up two optional, but useful, secondary feats for this build: Shadow Weave Magic (gets the DCs up there!) and Arcane Disciple (at high levels, you can now spontanously cast Miracles, without the XP cost). It might require you to be a gnome, though this isn't a bad thing: your constitution is REALLY low for a wizard. (I would never play a wizard with less than 14 there.) Be warned that shadowcrafters are very complex, but if you're armed with a good spell filter (like the one on DNDTools - google it) you should be okay.
I can't provide specific help without knowing your starting level, your teammates, and which books are allowed, but that might be enough to get started on.
1: We're making characters based on our personality test results. I AM LOCKED INTO WIZARD. This is non-negotiable.
2: These are author avatars. To hell with tweaking, we're just having fun. I'm new, though, so I don't know which prestige classes tend to do what. I'm asking for things that support a build of:
Primary: Direct Damage
Secondary: Maledictions
Maybe one buff or two
No healing
This is also non-negotiable. We're here to have fun, not screw the GM.
3: Stats are non-negotiable, even though even I'd like more Con for this setup. Again, the personality test determined this, and I'm not gonna cheat just to have an ubermage.
4: I just want to know the prestige classes to look into, not the actual strategies or anything. Learning that the hard way is part of the fun. The thing is, since this is an author avatar, I was hoping to see a few class setups posted that worked well together. I've played a bit of Neverwinter Nights, so I know some classes don't mesh well because of conflicting/redundant skills, so something that works well for a blaster would be nice. I don't have to be uber, I just have to pic a combo that I, personally, might want to try.
Yeah, I know, it sucks not being able to munchkin, because that's how I'd normally play... but this is about how I would be as a character, not how I'd personally build a character. Gotta find the stuff that fits me personally. That's why I'm just asking for which classes work well for that kind of thing, and not which specific setups to have.
1: We're making characters based on our personality test results. I AM LOCKED INTO WIZARD. This is non-negotiable.
I am willing to bet that the test you took ONLY had "Wizard" to reflect a wide range of character topics which can be expressed with Wizard, but can equally be expressed with other classes - warmage and beguiler both come to mind as classes that are easier to play than Wizard and express virtually exactly the same flavor, but are often left out of tests. Similarly, how could such a test distinguish between druid and spirit shaman, paladin and crusader, fighter or warblade, and binder or warlock?
I am simply saying that the "wizard" concept (what I am CERTAIN that test was measuring) is not uniquely expressed by the "wizard" class, and that the wizard class is ridiculously complex and challenging and not at all conductive to new, inexperienced players, while other classes that express the same concept are better to learn the game with.
Here's an example. I am currently playing a wild talent in one of my games. She would be a wilder if I were stuck to that one class' fluff. Instead, I viewed her more as intelligent and methodical despite an uncontrollable aspect to her powers and drawing strength from emotion. Thus, I built her using the Psion class and the Overchannel feat - different mechanics, same idea. (In fact, her concept originated before either Overchannel or the Wilder were present mechanically.)
2: These are author avatars. To hell with tweaking, we're just having fun. I'm new, though, so I don't know which prestige classes tend to do what. I'm asking for things that support a build of:
Primary: Direct Damage
Secondary: Maledictions
Maybe one buff or two
No healing
This is also non-negotiable. We're here to have fun, not screw the GM.
Having a character who is more effective than a commoner with a crowbar is not mutually exclusive with having fun, nor does it imply that you are going to screw your DM.
With that out of the way, I did provide help for this idea in my earlier reply. What little I could, given how I didn't know your starting level, your team, or what books to use.
3: Stats are non-negotiable, even though even I'd like more Con for this setup. Again, the personality test determined this, and I'm not gonna cheat just to have an ubermage.
There was NO cheating suggested above: I just didn't notice the word "human". My mistake.
4: I just want to know the prestige classes to look into, not the actual strategies or anything. Learning that the hard way is part of the fun. The thing is, since this is an author avatar, I was hoping to see a few class setups posted that worked well together. I've played a bit of Neverwinter Nights, so I know some classes don't mesh well because of conflicting/redundant skills, so something that works well for a blaster would be nice. I don't have to be uber, I just have to pic a combo that I, personally, might want to try.
Building for NWN is very different for building for pen-and-paper.
Consider the plethora of wizard handbooks as places to start, focusing on the PrC sections. There are countless ones for wizards, and which ones you pick are largely a function of what your concept is - and there's more to that than just "blasting and occasional maledictions", and since I don't know your concept as well as you, you'll have to dig in yourself.
The "generic" wizard PrC setup is something like Wizard 5 (or Wizard 3 / Master Specialist 2) / Incantrix 10 / [Any other PrC to taste] 5. For your case, I'd suggest specializing in Conjuration (the Spell Compendium and PHB2 have a lot of good conjuration blasts), without dropping Illusion, Necromancy, or Enchantment (the three places with the best debuffs), and focusing pretty heavily on metamagic and getting the DCs pretty high.
Yeah, I know, it sucks not being able to munchkin, because that's how I'd normally play... but this is about how I would be as a character, not how I'd personally build a character. Gotta find the stuff that fits me personally. That's why I'm just asking for which classes work well for that kind of thing, and not which specific setups to have.
We still don't know what books to look into, what level you're starting at, and what the rest of your team is. We can't help without that. For basic PrC support, you'd be best off looking through the handbooks I linked above. The specific PrC support is probably best condensed by Dictum Mortuum, and it'd be the first place I'd go when looking for answers to provide. (Note that I can't provide answers at the moment due to the lack of information: I'd just be throwing info at you and hoping some of it was good. But I can point you there and let you, with your specific goals in mind, find exactly what you're looking for.)
Edit: Okay, I think I may have found what I want, but I've got a quick question first...
Does the Archmage's Mastery of Elements count towards the elemental savant class, or am I better off ignoring Elemental Savant and just sticking with Wizard/Master Specialist/Archamge?
I did plan on going with conjuration. We're starting at second level, though the fighter is at third level.
Just so everyone is on the same page, I gathered from your other thread that the party is:
Wizard 2 (you)
Cleric 1 / Sorcerer 1
Sorcerer 2
Spellthief 2
Fighter 3
There's a lot of spellcasting there and not a lot of durability (only the fighter averages more than a d6 HD). To capitalize on this, the fighter should probably emphasize defense - and since you come from NWN, I'd like to point out that defense there is very different from defense in the pen-and-paper games. In NWN, among other things, there's no ability to trip on an attack of opportunity, which fundamentally changes the way defense is played. Here's a guide I wrote on the subject a while back (look in the spoiler block at the end). With that in mind, he can effectively spread his durability across the rest of the party (positioning-dependent, of course), and hold enemies in one place for the spellcasters to do their thing.
I'm also noticing a low amount of out-of-combat healing in this team. In-combat healing is virtually worthless usually, but given the really low HP of most of your party, I hope your cleric can spontaneously cast them all the same. You'd do well to invest in cheap, effective, out-of-combat healing: if you enter every battle at full HP, you reduce the chances of a stray shot insta-killing one of your team. Here's a basic guide on effective healing in the pen-and-paper environment. Note that if your fighter multiclasses into Crusader soon (ideally after 4th or 6th level, depending on his choices), he can cover for that to some extent - while simultaneously seriously improving his AoO defense.
I suppose that I had a bit of a misconception coming in here that the basic build was enough, but alas it doesn't seem to be the case... I figured there was just a few common setups for me to look up and see which one fit me best. Wasn't looking for anything heavily customized for working with my team or anything... Eh... I guess I'll do some more research first so I actually know how to ask next time. =_=
Part of the difference between NWN and the pen-and-paper environment is that pen-and-paper has many, many more class options than NWN, and lacks NWN's arbitrary 3-class limit. Simply saying "wizard" (or any of the other classes above) isn't enough. The usual way of asking requires the following information on any given character:
0) Concept. This can be pretty broad, but - importantly - is independent of any class name. You can realize the concept of "sneaky spellcaster", for instance, in countless possible configurations, and "sneaky spellcaster" doesn't specify "spellthief" (i.e.).
1) Starting level.
2) Allowed books.
3) Team composition. (See below.)
4) Houserules (including campaign setting if it's well known).
5) Ability scores, or the method used to generate them.
6) Race.
7) Class breakdown, both present and future goals.
8) Feats. (This is VERY important.)
Skills generally aren't discussed here, but are subsumed into class discussions unless noted otherwise. Ditto for equipment. (If you look through the builds in my signature, you'll see I generally don't spend much time on these areas unless they're vital to a build).
Some classes, such as barbarians, tend to be relatively simple (give 'em Power Attack and a two-hander, and they're more or less set), while others are complex but don't involve much complexity when building (druids are the usual example here: They're VERY complex to play, but building them is largely just picking Natural Spell). Others, especially the wizard and the artificer, are very complex, both to play and to build. There simply isn't a One True Way to play a wizard, or even a One True Way to play a conjurer. I linked some of the handbooks above, which should illustrate part of the problem there.
Edit: Okay, I think I may have found what I want, but I've got a quick question first...
Does the Archmage's Mastery of Elements count towards the elemental savant class, or am I better off ignoring Elemental Savant and just sticking with Wizard/Master Specialist/Archamge?
You're better off ignoring elemental savant altogether. Similarly, archmage is very feat-intensive to qualify for, so it's usually bypassed - it isn't a bad class, but the costs of entering it are pretty steep, so it's not always a good tradeoff. And I can say that Mastery of Elements is, quite simply, its worst option altogether (at the level you qualify for archmage, virtually everything has too many HP for energy damage spells to be anywhere near worth using, and that's before you factor in their saving throws. Here's the data; you can't be an archmage unless you're level 14 or higher, and that's right around the point HP start to skyrocket. HP at that level average 180, while most blasting spells will be doing 14d6, which averages just 49 on a failed save. Even if you bypass resistances thanks to Mastery of Elements, that's weaksauce and will give the enemy enough time to kill you.). Inicidentally, a lot of the Conjuration spells do less damage than this (they tend to cap out earlier than Evocation, but in exchange they usually ignore spell resistance), but importantly, many of them also have no saving throw - so the Spell Focus (Conjuration) feat you'd probably want as an archmage isn't anywhere near as nice as it seems. (The best schools for Spell Focus are usually Illusion and Necromancy.)
For what it's worth, here's a good selection of spells which combine your basic ideas and work quite well. They're designed to kill or remove targets from battle with minimal fuss and minimal wasted time. (Note that Frank hates the environment book titles so he substitutes his own: Frostburn is "It's Cold Outside", Sandstorm is "It's Hot Outside", Stormwrack is "It's Wet Outside" and Cityscape is "It's Not Outside". Also note that he gives a few examples of other very useful spells in the preamble that don't remove enemies from combat - and those are spells you should pay attention to, since they tend to do things that you wouldn't expect, but are nonetheless extremely useful with a bit of creativity. In your case, observe that only 40% of those he lists are in NWN, and those that are almost always operate differently.)
Well, you guys keep saying to ignore various things, but... well, I'd like to point something out - you've found out why. Likely the hard way. I still am quite ignorant about D&D, which should be rather obvious from my posts. However, I hope to learn this stuff myself, and thus that way I can not only know what works and what doesn't, but why they do and don't work. I know, it's probably stupid, but... you don't learn if you don't make mistakes, and I also don't want to have an unfair advantage compared to the rest of my friends because I've got a coach to help me out.
The only real thing I was interested in was "What prestige classes are good for a blaster, and which ones work together well". That's pretty much it, no strategies, no advice on what spells to get and which ones to ditch - I want to discover all of that myself. I just want to know what's out there, really.
The only real thing I was interested in was "What prestige classes are good for a blaster, and which ones work together well". That's pretty much it, no strategies, no advice on what spells to get and which ones to ditch - I want to discover all of that myself. I just want to know what's out there, really.
Force Missile Mage, though I forget where it can be found. Other than that... suit to taste.
We're here to have fun, not screw the GM.
...
I don't have to be uber, I just have to pic a combo that I, personally, might want to try.
Well, you guys keep saying to ignore various things, but... well, I'd like to point something out - you've found out why. Likely the hard way. I still am quite ignorant about D&D, which should be rather obvious from my posts. However, I hope to learn this stuff myself, and thus that way I can not only know what works and what doesn't, but why they do and don't work.
This is all fair enough, but bear in mind that you did post this in the optimisation forum. You have to be quite specific if you don't want people to start pimping your Wizard out with 24-inch subwoofers and seven TVs.
Regardless, the point on books is the big thing. There's no point in anyone suggesting anything if it turns out your options are actually really limited. Of course, in NWN you have a fairly fixed list of classes available (the books are the expansions, I guess), but here the DM's restrictions tend to be the limiting factor. The other major differences between NWN and PnP, as far as a Wizard is concerned (manoeuvres on AoOs is a big one for Fighters) are probably all the non-combat things that a DM might throw at you (in most NWN modules there would be 0 point in Create Food and Water or Prestigidation) and the resting (all the NWN campaigns made resting fairly easy, even in the later expansions which added wandering monsters, so rationing spells was not a big deal - though there are some great community-made ones which deal with that).
As far as recommending PrCs go, something like the Master Specialist (Complete Mage?) is a simple one which can be entered early. There's also the Argent Savant, IIRC, which is a Force specialist. Things like Elemental Savant spring to mind, but aside from being blasting classes they kind of suck anyway. Depending on what sort of theme you're going with, though, there are plenty of less mainstream oddities (like the Stormcaster, which I do like the look of - adds stunning to lightning spells, making them far more useful).
Anywho, thanks for the advice, guys. I'll be sure to use it.
So, if you're making something typically seen as sub-par... well, it's possible to make that thing significantly less sub-par, but often people will try to tell you how sub-par it is anyway.
The main key to remember with caster PrCs is just not to lose casting levels. Wizards don't get much beyond them anyway (feats every 5 levels is nice, but not ground-breaking) so anything you add on top of that is pretty much a bonus.