FS: Conjurer in progress...Feat selection??

[jha85]

I'm making a conjurer as the topic says and are having a problem picking my last feat.

Race: Strongheart halfling.
Classes: Wiz3/Master Specialist7 (10th level)
Variants: Enhanced Summoning (UA Variant)  AND  Immediate Magic: Abrupt Jaunt (Of course!)
Spells: Handpicked from one of the many Wizard handbooks! (Thanks a lot for some great handbooks!)

Feats
- (B) Spell Focus (Conjuration)
- (1st) Cloudy Conjuration
- (3rd) Obtain Familiar (HummingBird) (Improved Initiative if the hummingbird is not allowed)
- (6th) OPEN
- (9th) Arcane Thesis

I have 6th feat slot open and are unsure as what feat to choose?

What spell would benefit most from the Arcane Thesis feat?

Any tips, hints or comments about the build?

[AndyJames]

It really depends on what you are trying to play. For example, if you are playing a summoner, then you might want Augment Summoning and go into Malconvoker after Master Specialist 2. Also, you'd want to trade your Abrupt Jaunt for the rapid summoning feature in Unearthed Arcana.

Arcane Thesis, IMO, is only good if you have a bunch of metamagic feats to put on it. An Arcane Thesis Enervate is all sorts of nasty when you start tacking on Split Ray, Empower, Twin, etc. Otherwise, it is just a waste.

So, the question is: What are you trying to do, and do you see yourself using a lot of metamagic?

[Smudgy]

Here's an idea if you don't want to focus on summoning so much. Switch out Scribe Scroll for Improved Initiative, so that opens up two feats now. Cloudy Conjuration is good for wizards starting out, and is ok later, but I feel Collegiate Wizard would do better there, because having lots of spells is nice.

So say we switch out Cloudy Conjuration for that, now we have 3rd and 6th opened up. I find it usually better to take Sculpt Spell over Extend, and just buy a Rod of Extend later, because you start off the day casting the spells that need Extending, but you never know when something needs to be sculpted.

For 6th level, Metamagic Focus(Conjuration) would be a great choice, just for the versatility it gives you. Or if you're interested in Cloudy Conjuration still, you could throw it in here.

As for your 9th level spell, I'll agree with AJ here and say it's probably not worth it. You could put it on an Orb spell, those work well, but again, eh, it never worked out for me that great when I used it. Instead, I'd put something nice and juicy here, like Residual Metamagic(CM?). Now there's some fun to be had.

[skydragonknight]

Since you've got Augment Summoning from the Enhanced Summoning Varient and Spell Focus(Conjuration), Imbued Summoning(PHB p 92) is a real nice choice here. Instead of Arcane Thesis I'd pick Metamagic School Focus. Unless you continually retrain Arcane Thesis and are anal about the extra 2 rounds duration, Metamagic School focus can give you some added flexibility.
Of course, if you banned Transmutation for some reason, Imbue Summoning isn't that great. You didn't ban transmutation now did you? Did you?

Summon Elemental Reserve feat is a nice one for if you don't have a rogue(eternal traipbait). And the fly speed of an air elemental or earth glide of an earth elemental can be useful in some situations.

And for completeness sake should you wish to take 5(or more) levels of Malconvoker, you'll eventually want Fiendish Summoning Specialist as a *future* feat, as it lets you improve your summon list for evil outsiders, as Malconvoker 5 lets you get double the fun from them. Just something to keep in mind should that be in your gameplan. MS 10's ability isn't bad so I wouldn't blame you for finishing that first and foremost.

[AndyJames]

MM School Focus doesn't bring it to below +1 adjustment, and can only be used 3/day. Arcane Thesis would bring it all the way back to 0. It is good for the one or two spells which you absolutely want to MM out the wazoo. Things like Ray of Stupid, Shivering Touch, Enervate, etc. Basically turn them into "no save, just die".

[jha85]

Thanks for all the answers!

You didn't ban transmutation now did you? Did you?

Banned schools are:
- Enchantment
- Evocation
- Necromancy

I'm set on having the Enhanced Summoning (UA Variant) and Immediate Magic: Abrupt Jaunt class features. Summoning is just partially what I want my wizard to do, so I chosen the Wall of Stone spell and the cloud ones to so he have some Battlefield control too.

Feats (Updated)
- (B) Spell Focus (Conjuration)
- (1st) Imbued Summoning (??)
- (3rd) Obtain Familiar (HummingBird) (Improved Initiative if the hummingbird is not allowed)
- (6th) Metamagic Focus(Conjuration)
- (9th) Summon Elemental (Reserve) (??)

I have both the Sculpting, Lesser (Rod) and Extend one. Liked to Imbued Summoning feat but fear that it will eat up my spells pretty quickly, and I have currently only chosen Haste and Invisibility as buff spells...

[AndyJames]

There is no point getting Metamagic Focus if you don't have Metamagic feats.

If summoning is not your main focus, drop Imbue Summoning also.

I would do the following if you want to go the metamagic route:

B- Obtain Familiar
1- Spell Focus (Conjuration)
3- Metamagic feat
6- Metamagic Focus (Conjuration)
9- Metamagic feat

[jha85]

Okay. Thought I could use the Imbue Summoning with Metamagic Focus.

What Metamagic feats works well together with Battlefield control spells like grease, web, stinking cloud, solid cloud and cloudkill? I have an 22 Int score with gives me an +6 modifier and +2 from spell focus, so I have a total of +8 on the DC's for conjuration spells. Is there a Metamagic feat that increases the DC of a spell?

This is my first attempt to play and make a caster character of the arcane type, so thanks in advance for you patience

[RobbyPants]

I'm running an 8th level conjurer right now, and I've made decent use of both Extend Spell and Sculpt Spell.  Sculpt works very well with a lot of conjurations, and Extend can work well for some of your transmutations.  Get lesser metamagic rods for both of these spells to preserve your higher level spell slots.  It should only cost you a little over 8,000 gp for both of these.

Once you get to about 9th level, you might strongly consider Quicken Spell.  Being able to whip out two spells in one round is made of all kinds of win.  This is espescially true for some of those conjuration spells that don't really depend on a saving throw.  Once you're 11th level, you can whip out a Black Tenticles and a quickened Web in the same round.  That alone can be pretty hard for things to escape if they can't teleport.  Plus, next round you can put another one or two hampering spells on top of them.

[woodenbandman]

Quicken Color Spray/Grease/Keeps them busy for one round -> Summon Monster 5. your allies get free attacks, for at least 7 attacks on completely defenseless enemies.

And Good JESUS I'm playing a Rogue1/Wizard2 in a 2.0 game and they are broken as SHIT. In my first level spellbook (from which I get 14 at first level), I can get grease, sleep, color spray, mage armor, shield, charm person, "friendship" (which potentially gives me epic charisma for a couple minutes), all kinds of evil illusion spells that I can use in a variety of nasty ways, and the awesome CANTRIP, which is so overpowered it's not even funny. Seriously, you can use it to distract people, keep yourself from dying due to cold weather exposure, you can produce any number of "minor" effects at will for hours at a time from a single casting. And of course, the ever-powerful MAGIC MISSILE111.

I also got 20 skill proficiencies at first level, which I spread around so that I can trap-find almost as well (and maybe better) than a normal rogue, as well as backstab for x2 damage... the only thing I'm missing is hp (only got 9, but that won't matter).

[pfooti]

I've run two conjurers lately, one with Abrupt Jaunt, and one with Enhanced Summoning and Rapid Summoning. Let me say this: if you can summon monsters as a standard action, you are doing VERY WELL. A straight-up malconvoker build is hugely powerful in this regard. There's a lot of paperwork (since you have to look up the Tiger, apply the Fiendish Template, then modify for Augment Summoning AND the malconvoker ability. It's hugely powerful, though, especially once you get fiendish legion (double the summons!)

My malconvoker, however, met an untimely death. He was invisible, and I thought protected from harm by some crocodiles, but in the end he was done in by a bunch of beads of force. The bad guys tossed beads at someone else, my guy just happened to be too close. A number of 5d6 - no save at all - splash damages will do people in eventually. The ironic thing is, since he was invisible, he was the only guy not actually encapsulated by the bead, meaning everybody else was eventually protected from all that splash damage by the sphere itself.

My abrupt jaunter (he's a beguiler/conjurer/ultimate magus) is nigh impossible to kill. Between improved initiative (I did the fighter-feat swap for scribe scroll) and nerveskitter (transferred to the beguiler list via the Ultimate Magus's ability), I always go first. Abrupt Jaunt makes him REALLY hard to hit more than one or two times per combat (have to center an AoE on him, usually), and there's always lots of interesting things to do with the ability. It's GREAT, but you can't be a monster-summoner type of conjurer with abrupt jaunt. On the down-side, this character does a lot less damage overall. He is still pretty effective, but the debuffing / battlefield controlling types of spells are starting to become harder and harder to pull off as challenge rating goes up. More and more bad guys have teleports, flight speed, freedom of movement, huge grapple scores, and excellent saving throws. I actually find myself doing more and more of the conjuration direct damage spells (blast of flame, Orb of Foo, etc).

All that said, I also STRONGLY suggest you look at the Summon Elemental reserve feat. It's astoundingly good. Learn the languages so you can talk to them, and they're super-handy. Get them to trigger the traps your rogue doesn't want to fiddle with, scout around and report back (earth glide is GREAT), or just spend a standard action to summon up a flanker for your rogue.

[RobbyPants]

I've run two conjurers lately, one with Abrupt Jaunt, and one with Enhanced Summoning and Rapid Summoning. Let me say this: if you can summon monsters as a standard action, you are doing VERY WELL. A straight-up malconvoker build is hugely powerful in this regard. There's a lot of paperwork (since you have to look up the Tiger, apply the Fiendish Template, then modify for Augment Summoning AND the malconvoker ability. It's hugely powerful, though, especially once you get fiendish legion (double the summons!)

The conjurer I'm running occasionally makes use of Summon Monster, but not to the extend of a dedicated summoner.  Still, to cut down on the paperwork, I pick my favorite three monsters from each list, apply the necessary template (if any) and Augment Summoning stats, and stat them up on paper.  I keep this with my character sheet, and it's a huge time saver.  It's a bit of a pain in the ass when you first write it up, but it's wonderful in gameplay.

Plus, I don't really mind it, because half of my joy comes from actually leveling my character.  I sit on my livingroom floor with half a dozen books sitting open around me, as I search for the best spells and monsters.  So I actually revel in this amount of preperation.

[pfooti]

Yeah, that's what I did too. Actually, I made a few word documents, with things like the statblock for a Fiendish Crocodile printed in a 3" x 3" square. That way I could cut it out and use it on the tactical mat as the monster itself, with the stats printed right on it. Fairly handy, since then you can track HP and everything right on the figure. Less pretty, though, if your group goes in for nice sculpted and painted models.

All that said, remember my mistake: I focused heavily on offense, with only invisibility as defense. If I had some more defensive spells (heart of earth, heart of water, empowered false life, celerity->dimension door, etc) readied or cast, I'd have survived. I kept looking at the spells known list, thinking about prepping those spells and thinking, "nah, I'll just go with MORE CROCODILES!" It was my downfall.

[skydragonknight]

MM School Focus doesn't bring it to below +1 adjustment

Who told you that? Not the book and not errata. I'm calling you as making that up.

[AndyJames]

I'll double check when I get home. I was pretty sure only Arcane Thesis allowed a +0 adjustment or less.

[Ubernoob]

Once you get to about 9th level, you might strongly consider Quicken Spell.  Being able to whip out two spells in one round is made of all kinds of win.  This is espescially true for some of those conjuration spells that don't really depend on a saving throw.  Once you're 11th level, you can whip out a Black Tenticles and a quickened Web in the same round.  That alone can be pretty hard for things to escape if they can't teleport.  Plus, next round you can put another one or two hampering spells on top of them.

Quickened benign transposition is really hawt IMO.  Get more mileage out of your move action.

[RobbyPants]

Oh yeah.  I was only skimming the surface there.  Quicken spell is great!

[jha85]

Thanks for all the answers.

I thought about entering the Malconvoker prestige class, but in this game it would have been too powerful and made the fighters cry a little   My feat selection now looks like this after reading your posts.

Feats (Updated2)
- (B) Spell Focus (Conjuration)
- (1st) Obtain Familiar (HummingBird) (Improved Initiative if the hummingbird is not allowed)
- (3rd) Metamagic Focus(Conjuration)
- (6th) Quicken Spell
- (9th) Summon Elemental

Is there a way to further decreasing the Quicken Spell to a +2 adjustment (Combined with the MetaMagic Focus feat)?

[AndyJames]

Practical Metamagic lowers the cost of one particular metamagic by 1. Unfortunately, it required 3rd level spontaneous spells, so your wizard won't qualify.

10 levels in Incantatrix or Dweomerkeeper will lower the cost of all metamagic by 1.

[pfooti]

Another cheesy way to do quickening only is to get the 6th-level spell Imbue Familiar with Spell. It's pretty handy, and is functionally equivalent to quickening.