I'm copying this over from the WotC site, as every time I click on the link I pray that it hasn't been destroyed. Thanks to Lormador for putting this together. The original thread can be found
here. I haven't seen a copy of this over on this site, and a recent thread on Red Wizards made me think to copy it over.
The Red WizardThe Red Wizard is a Faerun-specific prestige class presented in the DMG. Often used as villains or NPCs in many games, it also suitable for player characters. Evil is not a requirement!
DMs and players will approach the Red Wizard differently, and they will take different things from it. For players, Red Wizard offers a flavorful class with excellent abilities, some of which can be used to great effect if you are up to the challenge of managing your resources carefully. This guide will help you identify what those resources are, and will help you grow an efficient, balanced, and effective wizard.
DMs will be using Red Wizard to make NPCs, in many cases villains. Red Wizard offers the DM excellent tools for challenging entire parties of PCs with a single, powerful arcane spellcaster. Minions are even built into the class. This guide will help you create elegant Red Wizards quickly.
Requirements:Nongood human specialist wizard from Thay
Tattoo Focus, 1st level only feat
Three metamagic or item creation feats
Able to cast 3rd level spells, Spellcraft 8 ranks
Benefits:Spell Power, affects the specialist school only. It doesn't hurt.
Bonus Feat, either item creation, metamagic, or Spell Mastery.
Circle Leader, this is the reason to take levels in Red Wizard. You can achieve tremendous bonuses to your caster level and heighten spells to 20th level!
Great Circle Leader allows even more minions in your circle magic.
Drawbacks:Enhanced SpecializationQualifying For The Class As Soon As PossibleThere are effectively four feats required merely for entry in Red Wizard. At the earliest possible entry point, after Wizard 5, you have Scribe Scroll, one bonus feat at 5th, Tattoo Focus, and two feats as a function of level. Putting your bonus feat into metamagic will leave you with only a single feat to spend. See the many excellent Wizard Handbooks for advice on what to do with it. Don't take Heighten, Empower, or Maximize, since you will gain access to these for free through Circle Magic later.
You wind up with Tattoo Focus, Scribe Scroll, 2 Metamagic or Item Creation feats. Craft Wondrous Item is almost a requirement for a wizard, even if you only ever use the feat to make a Blessed Book. You can be more flexible if your DM has houserules regarding arcane magical writings, and many do.
You have 1 open feat, at either 1st or 3rd level.; or you can trade your 5th level bonus feat for an alternative features there.
There is a Shadow Weave entry for those who are so inclined, which involves taking the Shadow Weave Magic feat and one level of Shadow Adept. The Shadow Weave bonus feats serve the purpose of qualifying for Red Wizard nicely. One metamagic feat is required for Shadow Adept, and both Insidious Magic and Pernicious Magic are also metamagic feats. This variant also allows you to trade your Scribe Scroll out if you desire, and you can trade out your 5th level bonus feat for Spontaneous Divination or a domain, perhaps the Magic Domain for Anyspell, the War domain if you want to play Gish.
You wind up with Tattoo Focus, one Metamagic feat, and the Shadow Magic feats.
You can trade Scribe Scroll, and you can use your 5th level bonus feat for the Metamagic requirement above, freeing your 3rd level feat.
Delayed Entry Has BenefitsPutting off entry has the benefit of allowing you to take Craft Wondrous Item at 5th and scribe a Blessed Book, making it easier and cheaper to get those forbidden spells into your spellbook. Of course it's possible to make a Blessed Book at 5th: but pulling this off in an actual game requires you to spend 6250 of your 9000 gold (according to the wealth by level guidelines) and also obtain access to the high-level spells you want to cast from the school you're about to forbid. A few levels later, this amount of gold isn't so daunting and spell access has improved.
Do not delay for long. The benefits of having Circle Magic and Simulacrum access at the earliest possible time is the most important part of the traditional Red Wizard build.
Delayed Entry Has A Considerable CostHowever, it is advantageous to advance to Red Wizard 5 / Wizard 5, since at 20th level your Simulacra themselves will be capable of leading Circles. Thanks to Circle Leader for his analysis below. This technique requires no supplemental material.
Circle MagicThe reason to take levels in Red Wizard is to access the circle magic ability, a powerful mechanic that allows you to drain power from other characters with the Tattoo Focus feat and use it to increase your own caster level or apply metamagic feats to spells without altering the spell level. While one can only apply Heighten, Maximize, or Empower to the given spell, knowledge of these feats is not required to perform the operation.
Meanwhile,
your caster level can be raised to a maximum of 40th. This increase alone can practically heighten, widen, and enlarge all of your spells, to say nothing of the difficulty another wizard will have in attempting to dispel them. There is no limit to the number of times per day that a caster can use circle magic, but each usage requires 1 uninterrupted hour.
The most optimal thing to do with Circle Magic is probably to just raise your caster level as high as it will go, since this affects all of your spells, making your Black Tentacles, Telekinesis, and Mental Pinnacle far more dangerous than those of your weakling brethren. If you have the opportunity to extract more circle levels, say because you are using your Simulacra as fuel, consider applying as much metamagic as you can to your most powerful attack spell. This spell will remain in your mind until you cast it, so by being conservative you can over the course of a few days build up a suite of several immensely powerful spells.
The difficulty in using Circle Magic is simply one of finding appropriate and willing participants to donate their spells for your greater glory. There are several ways to accomplish this.
LeadershipLeadership is available early and can supply a minion with the correct feat. It shouldn't be too difficult to convince them to participate in the ancient traditions of their homeland and donate their spells to you. Unfortunately, this method leaves much to be desired, as your control over your apprentice is not absolute. Although followers can also donate spells, they won't be high enough in level to really help much and will furthermore be extremely fragile, possibly not worth the trouble of transporting.
SimulacrumIt is imperative, if you are going to forbid Illusion, to scribe Simulacrum in your spellbook before doing so. Even if it was accidentally forbidden, the Spell Reprieve (Simulacrum) feat is worth it once you are able to use Circle Magic. In the Simulacrum spell, you have an endless source of reasonably powerful minions that will not have any problems donating every single one of their best spells to the cause. Notice that the Delayed Entry method with Master Specialist acquires the ability to cast Simulacrum and the Circle Magic ability at the same level.
Necrotic Spells, UPD: Psychic Reformation, Dominate Person, Modify Memory, Diplomacy checks, etc.There are other methods of acquiring appropriate subjects for Circle Magic. See the appropriate slave-making threads for advice.
Arcane Conversion, Heighten Spell, and Circle MagicOne especially advantageous use of Circle Magic involves the spell Rary's Arcane Conversion from Complete Mage. Casting this spell allows the user to exchange a "prepared wizard spell" for "another spell of equal or lower level." The replacement spell must be one already scribed in your spellbook. The advantage lies in being able to Heighten a 1st level spell with Circle Magic, and Arcane Conversion it over to a 9th level spell. Hence a 6th level slot and the 1st level are exchanged for a 9th level slot.
Thanks to Red Wizard Circle Leader Phoenix00 for this technique.
Spell Engine, Energy Transformation Field, Arcane Manipulation, Absorption, Arcane Manipulation and Ring of WizardrySpell Engine, Energy Transformation Field, and Absorption are from Spell Compendium.
The Ring of Wizardry is from the Dungeon Master Guide.
Arcane Manipulation is a feat from Lost Empires of Faerun.
Set up the Energy Transformation Field to cast Absorption, and place in the field a creature able to use limitless spell-like abilities. Instruct it to do so. Place a Simulacrum (or other minion) in the center of the field. The Simulacrum will receive an Absorption spell when sufficient power has collected in the field. Repeat until all Simulacra have Absorptions. Utilize a creature with an at-will ranged 1st level spell-like ability to fill the Absoption spells.
Use Arcane Manipulation on your three highest level spell slots, reducing them to as many first level spells as possible. These will be doubled via your Ring of Wizardry.
Now, initiate Circle Magic. Instruct your minions to use the spell energy contained in the Absorptions to fuel the Circle. Your minions, the Absorptions, and the Transformation Field have now served to channel the specific and probably quite useless magical energy of your (probably enslaved) creature, into the superior form of Circle bonus levels.
Apply these bonus levels to Heighten your now quite numerous 1st level slots to the level of spells you wish to cast for the day. They may all be 9th level spells, if that is your desire. Cast Spell Engine, and exchange your Heightened 1st level spells for the target spells from your spellbook. You may want to leave one slot, somewhere, now unprepared, in order to keep the Spell Engine turning.
This functions at a low level if you can acquire scrolls of the above spells or pay someone to cast them for you.
Reserve FeatsYou might find reserve feats that function off of the level of a currently memorized spell worth having, once you can use Circle Magic to prepare a 20th level spell via Heighten. Dimensional Jaunt will get you 100' per use, and the the attack feats will give you 20 dice of damage.
However, 20 dice of damage may not be a relevant attack (even at will) in a game where you've got access to 20th level spell DCs at caster level 40. I suppose it might be fun to take down an army of trolls using only a Fly spell and Fiery Burst.
Cutoff Points for Red WizardThese are 5th level and 10th level. At 5th level your Circle Magic can hold five extra participants, which is probably enough, and Red Wizard 5 also grants a bonus feat. If you want nine participants, take it all the way to 10th level.