Author Topic: Wizard spellselection/strategy challenge.  (Read 6835 times)

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Mixster

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Re: Wizard spellselection/strategy challenge.
« Reply #20 on: October 06, 2010, 03:18:20 PM »
Ok, here's a spellbook of a level 10 transmuter.

Now he isn't just a transmuter, because that would be stupid.

Oh, and I'm actually gonna build a complete wizard with everything but the most important gear, since he has probably spend most of his WBL on hist castle.

LE Transmuter 3/Master Specialist 2/ Incantatrix 5
Prohibited schools: Evocation, Enchantment
Stats:
Int 20 (18 base +2 levels)
Con 14+
Rest of stats don't really matter, but dex is the nextmost important stat, so it depends on how high point buy you are using.

Gear: Headband of Int +6 (so he has 26 Int), Otyugh Hole (Gives feat Ironwill), Wand of Enervation (50 charges, CL7), Wand of Black Tentacles 50 charges CL 7

Feats:
Iron Will (otyugh hole)
1: Spell Focus Transmutation
1human: Eschew Materials
1bonus wizard (with fighter feats instead): Improved Initative
3 Split Ray
4 Bonus Skill focus Spellcraft
6 Knowledge Devotion
6 Bonus Metamagic: Empower Spell
9 Arcane Thesis (Enervation)
9 Bonus Metamagic: still Spell

Spells known (remember a wizard can pay other wizards to copy spells from their book):
All level 0 spells.
Level 1 (9 spells without learning from other wizards + 1 transmutation):
Featherfall, Expeditious retreat, Grease, Alarm, Nerveskitter, Silent Image, Wall of Smoke, benign transposition, Ray of Enfeeblement, summon monster 1.
Level 2 (4 spells without learning from other wizards + 2 transmutation +1 extra transmutation from master specialist)
Arcane Turmoil, Invisibility, Alter Self, Glitterdust, Rope Trick, Command Undead, Levitate.
Level 3 (4 spells without learning from other wizards +2 transmutation)
Haste, Slow, Fly, Sleet Storm, Anticipate Teleportationg, Summon Monster III.
Level 4 (4 spells without learning from other wizards +2 transmutation)
Polymorph, Celerity, Evard's Black Tentacles, Greater Mirror Image, Enervation, Solid Fog.
Level 5 (4 spells without learning from other wizards +2 transmutation)
Draconic Polymorph, Telekinesis, Wall of stone, Lesser Planar Binding, Teleport, Magic Jar

Purchasing even high level spells wouldn't be that expensive, a level 5 scroll costs, 1125g, + 500 in materials to write it, at just about 1600g you can get a new Level 5 spell, that is 5 level 5 spell instead of the fighters +2 sword.

Ok, so since you don't agree on the fact that filling your basement with symbols is a good idea (I sort of agree here though, they are quite expensive), here is the prepared list:
Level 0 spells, 4x caltrops.
level 1 spells, 7 prepped (4 base +2 int +1 transmutation):
2x Benign Transposition, 1x Expeditious retreat, 2x Silent Image, 1x Wall of smoke, 1x Grease.
Level 2 Spells, 7 prepped (4 base +2 int +1 transmutation) (since command undead is days/level and can be extended fairly easily with a low-level rod he only needs one a day to keep a big army of wights around):
2xArcane Turmoil, Invisibility, 2xAlter Self, Glitterdust, Command Undead
Level 3 Spells 6 Prepped (3 Base, +2 int, +1 transmutation)
Haste, Slow, Fly, 2x Sleet Storm, Anticipate Teleportation (cast at morning every day).
Sleet Storm is a nice BC spell, and since the wizard only really cares about one encounter a day, he doesn't need much else, Haste is useful if he has minions, if he doesn't scrap it and grab another slow.
Level 4 Spells 6 Prepped (3 Base, +2 int, +1 transmutation)
Greater Mirror Image, Still Enervation, Evards Black Tentacles, 2xSolid Fog, Celerity.
Level 5 Spells 4 Prepped (2 Base, +1 int, +1 transmutation)
Draconic Polymorph, Split Still Enervation, Wall of stone, Magic Jar.

He should be able to have an alarm at his gate, allowing him to move to his throne room when he is attacked, since his throne room is the throne room of a castle, keeping 10 or so greatswords in there wouldn't be hard. The first thing he'll do is probably throw down a Solid Fog, then use Magic Jar to take over one adventurer at a time. If anyone fails their will save, he will consider his options from the new body, if he gets a body with good physical attributes, he will immediately use a twinned, empowered enervation spell on the party's fighter or rogue (depending on which of them he didn't possess). If he gets a caster body, things get more interesting, he will throw draconic polymorph on this body, and use it's hit points in the form of a 10 headed hydra, meaning he will probably make some dents in his enemies. If he doesn't get to possess anyone he will return to his own body for round 2.
Round 2 will be him using his wand, his wand can cast empowered splitenervation at the cost of 3 charges. He can go quite crazy with this and since an empowered split enervation deals about 3d4 negative levels of damage on a cast, he should be able to take the adventures down to level 1-3 fairly easily, as soon as he has drained the wizard, he himself can take to the skies (either through Alter self, or through Fly).
If things get though he has in effect three very good walls, 2 silent images can create decent stone walls. If anyone would be as stupid as attempting to grapple him, he will substitute himself for a wight, with benign transposition, and possibly celerity if needed, and as everyone knows, grappling with a wight isn't the best thing you can do (it's all about the negative levels).

Another option would be to drop a few Black tentacles to shove it to the casters, two tentacles should do it, making sure the caster and the rogue doesn't get out on a lucky grapply roll (the tentacles have +15-+18 grapple depending on whether he uses a wand or his own tentacle, a level 8 wizard would probably have a grapple modifier of +4, and a rogue one of +6, they would have to roll good while the antagonist rolls bad to get out, even the fighter at Grapple modifier +15 would struggle.)
Then drop a sleet storm to impair the fighters movement, even through doing it with celerity or simply dropping them from invisibility, or letting the fighter hit a few of your mirror images (greater mirror image has instant casting time).

The wizard really has plenty of options even with those prepared spells, if he could freely mix and match he would be much more all-around, but I don't think you can build any other class that would be able to handle an entire party with as much ease as this guy. Battlefield control and magic Jar can easily make them all suffer, and when they are a bunch of divided level 3 characters, his wights can finish them off.

Why he didn't just kill the baron in the first place is beyond me though, but perhaps he wants to marry his daughter?
Monks are pretty much the best designed class ever.

JaronK

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BeholderSlayer

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Re: Wizard spellselection/strategy challenge.
« Reply #21 on: October 06, 2010, 03:58:14 PM »
For good measure, the wizard may share Magic Jar with his familiar, and try to dominate 2 of the adventurers in the first round.
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ohio_den

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Re: Wizard spellselection/strategy challenge.
« Reply #22 on: October 06, 2010, 04:09:57 PM »
Well Hello everyone I am the OP you have been discussing and since this is a min/max forum I can safely assume little thought has been given to character / storyline/plot development regarding my aforementioned scenario.
By the way, some of us take particular offense to that.  Roleplay and Rollplay are most assuredly different, but they are not opposing forces.  #1 rule of this forum is to not be a douche, so it would be best that you leave ridiculous stigmas like that at the door when you come in.

If anyone took offense to this remark i do apologize it was not intended to belittle your particular style of gameplay, but was necessary to explaining my  ( example isn't realistic. A party of adventurers that would be going after a level 10 wizard won't have reliable methods of obfuscating divination, unless he's stupidly assuming that level 15 adventurers will be hunting level 10 wizards.)  Stupid  unrealistic scenario.

That being cleared up of the general statements being made everyone seems to think I believe the wizard to be a moron. He is not, he does have plans for area domination by starting with the baron. Once he defeats the Barons rescue troops the Baron is then at the mercy of the mage so long as he holds his daughter prisoner. If he kills the daughter he has no bargaining power other then destroying the barony which he needs as part of his plan.

A special thanks to !-codes and Mixster as they seem to be the first ones to actually answer my questions. Both are well thought out and reasonable though Mixter actually goes into the detail I was looking for. Now this Wizard seems very formidable and would not likely just throw random symbols all over the place or just turn tale and run. I have bee DMing since 1976 and have always used the PHB as my main source, I have noticed a large number of spells and items that come from a variety of sources not familiar to me and thats fine. I have just been using PHB and occasionally  a few specialty books dependent on the players this leaves me at a bit of a loss regarding the makeup of the attacking forces but no matter we will trudge on.

Given Mixters example because it is the most in depth lets assume the party of adventurers would average 8th level say a 9th level cleric an 8th level wizard a 6th level paladin  6th level fighter two 7th level rouges. They also have been adventuring and have acquired a number of items in their travels. Now as a DM and having this wizard as a possible nemesis for the party the hook for the paladin is the rescue of the girl and the defeat of another evil. Knowing also as a DM the party might face this individual some items found in past treasure piles might now become useful provided they have hung on to them. (just off hand A bracelet of friends) that might allow only the thieves to have to actually penetrate and then summon the other members at the right time. (again just an example) Now if you take into account they have just arrived in the barony after the theft of the barons daughter then the wizard having done contact other plane may still not know about them since they weren't a part of the situation at the time of the casting. Hopefully that makes sense. I do not have access to all the additional books websites and places stated in Mixters example as to where those spells and items came from, but using those same resources I find it difficult at best that the said party could not be supplied with enough items to give them an opportunity to defeat this particular wizard. If not then this simple 10th level wizard is going to rule the entire world because he is so powerful. As a DM whether my players are role playing or roll playing it is my job to create a viable storyline to keep all of them interested and entertained. If I were to constantly design Character Killers I would soon be without a game to run. Hope I have been able to clarify some things.

Thanks eve4yone for taking the time to look this over.
« Last Edit: October 06, 2010, 04:12:34 PM by ohio_den »
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BeholderSlayer

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Re: Wizard spellselection/strategy challenge.
« Reply #23 on: October 06, 2010, 04:14:07 PM »
Whether the adventurers were there or not is irrelevant. The wizard would know they were coming, likely a week before they even know they'd be coming.
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GawainBS

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Re: Wizard spellselection/strategy challenge.
« Reply #24 on: October 06, 2010, 04:17:10 PM »
Well, he doesn't dominate the world, because there are other lvl 10 Wizards, lvl 11 Wizard, lvl 12 Druids, and when things get really out of hand, good-aligned Dragons, Celestials, etc. :)
That party can be given enough items, sure, but it's also safe to assume the DM is fair and only gives them their wealth by level, which severely limits the supply.
The sooner you accept that fullcasters are broken, the sooner you'll enjoy the game. ;)

To go with BeholderSlayer's post: spells like Contact Other Plane give correct answers. If you decide to change the truth about those answers, you're cheating. That's the brilliant part of it, game-wise: you are forcing the DM to abide by certain choices.
« Last Edit: October 06, 2010, 04:19:15 PM by GawainBS »

ohio_den

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Re: Wizard spellselection/strategy challenge.
« Reply #25 on: October 06, 2010, 04:25:54 PM »
Whether the adventurers were there or not is irrelevant. The wizard would know they were coming, likely a week before they even know they'd be coming.

Looking over contact other plane description one can only get simple one word answers for questions they would ask, it does not generally give them complete insight and information all of which may be true or not. It is entirely up to the questions asked. So the wiz would have to suspect a random powerful adventuring group to come to the barons aid, yet there is no reason for him to suspect this. Now if he does suspect that then why not suspect a very powerful party of mages all higher then his level and check on that also see there is no reason for that either. unless i am misreading the spell.
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GawainBS

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Re: Wizard spellselection/strategy challenge.
« Reply #26 on: October 06, 2010, 04:28:49 PM »
He can ask several direct question, like: "Will there be a powerful opposition against me before the next year?" Work down through months, weeks, days,... The answers will be correct.

Azrael

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Re: Wizard spellselection/strategy challenge.
« Reply #27 on: October 06, 2010, 04:29:35 PM »
How about we try and optimize without using CoP...seriously, can there be one freaking wizard challenge without it resorting to a CoP discussion?

ohio_den

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Re: Wizard spellselection/strategy challenge.
« Reply #28 on: October 06, 2010, 04:31:39 PM »
Well, he doesn't dominate the world, because there are other lvl 10 Wizards, lvl 11 Wizard, lvl 12 Druids, and when things get really out of hand, good-aligned Dragons, Celestials, etc. :)
That party can be given enough items, sure, but it's also safe to assume the DM is fair and only gives them their wealth by level, which severely limits the supply.
The sooner you accept that fullcasters are broken, the sooner you'll enjoy the game. ;)

To go with BeholderSlayer's post: spells like Contact Other Plane give correct answers. If you decide to change the truth about those answers, you're cheating. That's the brilliant part of it, game-wise: you are forcing the DM to abide by certain choices.

actually I enjoy the game very much, I do see your viewpoint just dont agree so I guess its and impasse as neither of us seems to be able to convince the other, that ok as long as we all are enjoying the game. i have found alot of interesting things here that I may take into consideration for use in my game so that in itself is a bonus. Thank you for showing me this forum.
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PhaedrusXY

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Re: Wizard spellselection/strategy challenge.
« Reply #29 on: October 06, 2010, 04:32:21 PM »
He can ask several direct question, like: "Will there be a powerful opposition against me before the next year?" Work down through months, weeks, days,... The answers will be correct.
I thought CoP could only provide answers up to a week in advance?
[spoiler]
A couple of water benders, a dike, a flaming arrow, and a few barrels of blasting jelly?

Sounds like the makings of a gay porn film.
...thanks
[/spoiler]

GawainBS

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Re: Wizard spellselection/strategy challenge.
« Reply #30 on: October 06, 2010, 04:34:43 PM »
He can ask several direct question, like: "Will there be a powerful opposition against me before the next year?" Work down through months, weeks, days,... The answers will be correct.
I thought CoP could only provide answers up to a week in advance?

Fine, cast it weekly.  :P

Anyway, it's not actually about convincing anyone, the facts lay out there. Convincing you of that is like convincing you of gravity.

I was more than happy to show you BG, though, as you get at least to discuss things.

ohio_den

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Re: Wizard spellselection/strategy challenge.
« Reply #31 on: October 06, 2010, 04:35:08 PM »
He can ask several direct question, like: "Will there be a powerful opposition against me before the next year?" Work down through months, weeks, days,... The answers will be correct.

Remember the answer is a percentage chance to be true and a yes answer could mean powerful mages ARE coming or even deity intervention, if that were the case and he readied himself against this party then the real power source showed up he would be caught offguard. Remember the answers are not specific.
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GawainBS

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Re: Wizard spellselection/strategy challenge.
« Reply #32 on: October 06, 2010, 04:38:22 PM »
He can ask several direct question, like: "Will there be a powerful opposition against me before the next year?" Work down through months, weeks, days,... The answers will be correct.

Remember the answer is a percentage chance to be true and a yes answer could mean powerful mages ARE coming or even deity intervention, if that were the case and he readied himself against this party then the real power source showed up he would be caught offguard. Remember the answers are not specific.

He has plenty of INT to phrase the question in such a way as too make the answer specific. Even then: guidelines to the coming thread provide a lot of useful information.

Apart from all this: look at the suggested battle strategies. They work pretty good against the proposed party, I'd say.

BTW, nobody is trying to convince you to only field party-killers. On the whole, it's considered bad DMing to field partykillers. We are trying to make it clear the option exists and is entirely valid within the rules.
« Last Edit: October 06, 2010, 04:42:24 PM by GawainBS »

BeholderSlayer

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Re: Wizard spellselection/strategy challenge.
« Reply #33 on: October 06, 2010, 04:41:41 PM »
How about we try and optimize without using CoP...seriously, can there be one freaking wizard challenge without it resorting to a CoP discussion?

True, let's leave CoP out of it, then. He is at least aware that they are coming, according to ohio_den.

The above wizard posted by Mixster has wasted a lot of money buying scrolls for learning spells, as he can learn them for 50 gp X Spell Level from other wizards. He can afford spells such as Symbol of Pain and Simulacrum as well. These are permanent fixtures of his "castle," or whatever it is.

He softens up the party with the Symbol of Pain, as it remains until discharged. Perhaps multiples. Let's be lenient, and say he has only cast Simulacrum 10 times since he gained the spell. He has 10 level 5 mages at his beck and call, which he sends out to meet the party and soften them up a bit and burn their resources. Next he sends his small army of wights, burning more resources and softening them up even further. Then he pops in for his opportunity to clean up the mess, taking advantage of invisibility for surprise. He uses sleet storm or solid fog to lock them down, then peppers them with enervation from the wand. Then he casts Greater Mirror Image followed by Polymorph while the PC's fail relentlessly to get out of his Sleet Storm or Solid Fog, whichever he chose. He shares the Mirror Image and Polymorph with his familiar, and wades in and destroys the PC's that now face 2 10 headed hydras with Greater Mirror Image.

This is only one option he has, he has many more.

If we were to give this wizard SPONTANEOUS casting, he could have even more options. Choices from a dozen spells per level. There would be virtually no limit to the different ways he could rain death on his opponents.

There is a reason the Beholder Mage is considered one of the most broken published classes/PrC's. One huge reason is the fact that they learn spells as a wizard, and spontaneously cast them as sorcerers. They choose from huge numbers of spells and may cast them at any given time. Giving this to just ANY wizard makes the sorcerer class's existence completely irrelevant. Of course, the ability to cast one spell of every level available per round as a free action is also a major factor to BM's brokenness, but the first ability is more than enough to make it broken.
« Last Edit: October 06, 2010, 04:45:30 PM by BeholderSlayer »
Hi Welcome
[spoiler]
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ohio_den

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Re: Wizard spellselection/strategy challenge.
« Reply #34 on: October 06, 2010, 04:43:55 PM »
Will be logging out soon to go to VA will check back on the board later, and yes this sample battle strategy is quite good, as good or batter then any I might have come up with but as we all know working up a strategy and having things actually go that wy are two different things especially when playing with creative gamers. They often throw a chink into the best of plans.
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PhaedrusXY

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Re: Wizard spellselection/strategy challenge.
« Reply #35 on: October 06, 2010, 05:01:48 PM »
This kind of "wizard vs. the world" scenario/argument comes up all the time. Contact Other Plane is always brought into it because it is potentially game-breakingly overpowered, and it doesn't even take that much optimization to do so. Here is an example from one such discussion thread (linked below):

Once a week: He casts several Contact Other Plane spells, which will be used to determine what enemies he will face, and how to customize his prepared spells for the coming week to defeat them. Examples of the questions he asks:

1) What is the first name of the enemy that will be the biggest threat to me in the coming week? (Let's say the answer is Bob)
2) What is the last name of the enemy that will be the biggest threat to me in the coming week? (Let's say the answer is Smith)
3) What is Bob Smith's biggest vulnerability?
4) Which of Bob Smith's capabilities poses the biggest threat to me?
5) What is the best way to counter Bob Smith's biggest threat to me?
6) What day will I face Bob Smith on?
7-12) repeat 1-6 for the second biggest threat of the week.
[spoiler]
A couple of water benders, a dike, a flaming arrow, and a few barrels of blasting jelly?

Sounds like the makings of a gay porn film.
...thanks
[/spoiler]

Mixster

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Re: Wizard spellselection/strategy challenge.
« Reply #36 on: October 06, 2010, 05:04:33 PM »
My example was not a post about how the wizard was overpowered at all. You may have misread it there.

My wizard doesn't use CoP and doesn't really need it, with his scouts and alarms, or the simple guards and wards, and proper positioning of his castle he should be able to discern someone is arriving.
Assuming he doesn't get surprise attacked by 7 characters that suddenly happen to be in his castle, this pretty ordinary built, pretty ordinarily memorised 10th level wizard would have a fairly decent chance doing what he is supposed to. Pose a noteworthy challenge to the players.

Oh, and also, I never assume a party of 5 players with a difference in level of up to 3. Being a relatively experienced DM, I can often tell that in a game as complex as D&D balancing encounters against such a party is rather hard, also I find it hard to DM games were one player is weaker than anothers cohort (although, as one of my house-rules I never allow leadership).

A level 10 wizard would, even with having to memorize his spell be able to handle most threats that could come at him in a day, he could actually go plain wizard 10, but not multi-classing is not optimizing.
If the wizard attempted to fireball his way out of situations like that, he would off course be in terrible condition.
Contact other plane is also not that useful on level 10, mainly because you use your highest level slots, for knowing what is going to happen, when you could simply prepare something that deal with some situations and something else that deal with other situations, and a lot of battlefield control spells.

In a straight up fight where everybody can see everybody, a 10th level wizard and his perhaps 6 wights would be eaten alive if they tried to out-damage 4 properly played player characters of about 8th level, which is why wizards that deal damage often have problems.

If he however starts by throwing down a solid fog and some black tentacles, he is much better off, since the dispellers of the other party will have trouble doing their job, and the fighters will have trouble getting out of the fog, and when they do, he can have gone invisible or even just fly and laugh at the fighters, until one of them procures a bow, to which he can simply blind the fighter or level drain that particular guy so he wont be able to do anything in that encounter.
The problem is, this doesn't just work well against a group of player characters, it works better against a lot of monsters, since monsters don't have all that dispelling goodness, so a battlefield controlling wizard can handle a lot of monsters if needed, however a wizard in a party has a lot of other options, which might be why his selection seems spread thin, but a true optimizer will usually go for spells that either can be used in a lot of different ways (such as Alter self, Silent Image, or Summon monster), or spells that can either be used against lots of opponents or few opponents (Sleet Storm, Grease, Glitterdust, Black Tentacles, Magic Jar, Solid Fog or Wall of Stone), and then a few spells that are good against single targets (Enervation is a cornerstone here, but ray of stupidity, or ray of exhaustion can be used as well) oh and then just a single memorisation for something to defend the party while sleeping, rope trick or alarm works here. If a wizard thinks like this, and he doesn't get into more than 3-4 encounters a day, he is usually going to help the party a lot.

I do like you idea of giving the wizard spontaneous casting, and would probably offer it as a DM if I thought the wizard player was new at D&D, since knowing what to memorize can be quite hard, especially if I saw him memorise less optimal spells, like fireball or that kind of Jazz.

By the way to clarify about contact other plane, it is usually used at higher levels, where you ask a series of questions, most often like this:
1. Will anyone or anything threaten my life severely during the next week? (With Int of 20+ you can ask this question without getting the obvious answers of, not breathing and stuff like that).
If you get a no, you cast the spell asking the same question again, if you get a yes, proceed to question 2.
2. What is the first name of the most dangerous person or thing threatening me during the next week? Proceed until you know a lot about this person, then research them through mundane means, or simply scry on them. Then you can keep on going asking whether there will be a threat to your life on each specific day, and you can do this many days in advance, since the deity you contact can technically see 10 years into the future, any day you wont be threatened you can ask a lot of questions again, and any day you will be threatened you can have asked the specifics of that party ahead of time, you can then ready yourself for meeting, Tom the Barbarian, Ruthgar the Cleric, John the Rogue, and Alvador the wizard on the 25th of september, and a few weeks in advance have captured their relatives, checked where they have been the last few years and also what magic lewts they will bring to your castle. All fairly easily with one level 5 spell.

I hope this clarifies why a Wizard isn't really limited by having to memorise, since simply buying more spells, he can have much more flexibility on a day to day basis than the sorcerer, the sorcerer however, with only 2 spells per level, needs to be sure not to pick spells that do roughly the same, which is actually extremely hard.
Oh, and sticking to just 6 spells per level was extremely hard for me, I usually grab the Collegiate Wizard from Complete Arcane that gives me twice as many spells per level. But it is still Surmountable.

But, if I may suggest something to you, the next time you are a PC in a campaign, try going with a Battlefield Control, secondary buff/de-buff wizard. You will suddenly find that you have a lot of power because while everyone else is just using their actions to hurt the monsters HP, you are using your actions to make monster lose actions, or make the monsters actions less effective. The problem with hit points damage is that it is either, you win or you don't dealing 90% hit point damage doesn't really do much, but draining just 50% of a monsters' levels will make it very easy to kill.

EDIT: Well I was ninjaed by 10 or so posts, so some of these answers might be a little old.
EDIT2: The beholder mage is also considered to be one of the best classes out there because it is a fast progressing arcane class you can get into by level 5. Which is IMO quite awesome, since there is no reason not to PrC out of it ASAP and have wickedly powerful spells, wickedly fast.
« Last Edit: October 06, 2010, 05:08:53 PM by Mixster »
Monks are pretty much the best designed class ever.

JaronK

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X-Codes

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Re: Wizard spellselection/strategy challenge.
« Reply #37 on: October 06, 2010, 05:08:15 PM »
Upon personal inspection of CoP, I don't see how it's a very good spell to rely on at all for anything outside of a TO discussion (where the DM element is removed).  If you ask an entity a question that there's no reasonable expectation for it to know, like asking a deity without Time in it's portfolio what happens a week from now, then I don't see how the DM ever gives you a correct answer.  Even if asking the appropriate entity an appropriate question, you've got a better than 1 in 10 chance that you get plain bad information, and no reasonable expectation of ever learning the truth.

Unlike symbol spells, Glyph of Warding is completely cost free.  It's like Explosive Runes, but way more versatile and way more effective.  If you don't want to take levels of Geometer, then you can probably work out a Domain Wizard variant that adds it to your class list.

Mixster

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Re: Wizard spellselection/strategy challenge.
« Reply #38 on: October 06, 2010, 05:11:13 PM »
Most deities that are described in the deities & demigods usually see up to 5 years both ways. Or you could just ask Boccob, since he knows 10 weeks before and after anyone casting a spell, which should be rather easy as you would cast spells if your are attacked.
Monks are pretty much the best designed class ever.

JaronK

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jameswilliamogle

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Re: Wizard spellselection/strategy challenge.
« Reply #39 on: October 06, 2010, 07:27:46 PM »
It is purely a TO way to beat stuff.  But unless both players are PCs, the answers can be true, since one side is completely controlled by the DM.

Lets limit it to 1 question answered completely correctly: the Wizard knows what day the people will arrive.  Its totally reasonable, given that there's a million other ways (spies, etc) to know that information.  Furthermore, the caster is L 10, and the DM only has the PHB.  So, lets limit it to that.  Also, the caster only has a week to truly prepare (because, why not?)

What spells would you have during the encounter?
0
1 Ray of Enfeeblement x 2, Shield, Grease x 2, Charm Person x 2
2 Rope Trick (because if its going bad, screw it, take off, prepare all your spells again), False Life, See Invisibility, Mirror Image, Fog Cloud
3 Dispel Magic x2, Sleet Storm,
4 Polymorph, Enervation, Black Tentacles, Greater Invisibility
5 Magic Jar, Cloudkill, Teleport

What spells would you have cast up to the encounter (7 days)?
1 nothing worthwhile (extended alarm, maybe, on the last day)
2 Magic Mouth (just to mess with them)
3 21 explosive runes (say, 7 per room in 7 rooms / halls).  Thats 122d6 damage.  not bad.
4 Illusary Wall (make false walls, traps, and pitfalls along with the labyrinth), Fire Trap (fire trap everything that can possibly open)
5 Mage's Private Sanctum (extended via metamagic rod, 4 days), Wall of Stone + Fabricate (this makes a lot of walls, labyrinthine passageways, and other traps, pitfalls, and hinderances... all pointing uphill to your tower), 2 days Lesser Planar Binding (to get allies; not to break the game), 1 day Persistant Image (make the second to the top room appear like the top room, and with no wizard present)

Scrolls beyond that:
2 Glitterdust
6 Guards and Wards x3 (awesome, awesome spell)
7 Mage's Magnificent Mansion (you cast it just as they think they've got you... then ditch them there), Project Image (Simulacrum is awesome, but is expensive, too.  This built in duplicate is much cheaper)

Use the Planar Bound creatures to do all the major end-game fighting after you've softened them up (a lot) via traps, cloudkills, and mind control, and other tricks and wardings.

This is all assuming that there is no leadership.  Leadership should be necessary; trap / ward / protect your tower of power, and then make sure to have minions around to combat the trapped enemy.