Wizard spellselection/strategy challenge.

[Endarire]

A level 10 character is heroic, borderline superheroic.  He's about the caster version of Kratos from God of War.  Wizard10 could feasibly do anything not requiring level 6+ spells, and even then he can assumedly get scrolls and staves. 

Planar binding is a level away, and wish farming is in order from a completeliy logical and RAW standpoint.

[ohio_den]

Well just got back home and read some of the recent posts. Thank your everyone for your thoughtful input, I will definitely have to get a copy of the complete arcane and check out the collegiate wizard. And thanks to jameswilliamogle for his PHB version. I enjoyed all of the input and will take note of some of the strategies here in case I decide to run a wizard in upcoming campaigns. Of course what i can get away with will be up to the DM running the game. I personally have never played a mage as a character only designed them as opponents for my gamers so it looks like it could be more fun and thought provoking then i had envisioned it to be. Againg thank you everyone, I dont know if the original questions (Mages are to strong and shouldn't have spontaneous casting) but it seems like that will be a never ending argument of sorts. Even though I have been DMing for over30 yrs I still learned some things today guess that proves you can teach an old dog new tricks

[jameswilliamogle]

Playing a Wizard will be a TOTALLY different experience if you're playing with the PCs, even with just the PHB.  If I were you, though, I would NOT buy Complete Arcane just for more Wizard stuff.  It just isn't worth it; you've got the best bang-for-your-buck w/ the PHB.  Getting advice about it is going to be tough, but there's a handful of us that think in theoretical stuff in the core alone still around.

What level do your games go to, normally?  I don't believe I've ever encountered a DM that just used the 3 core books unless they were trying it as a short-term experiment.

[ohio_den]

usually from 10th to 15th but now all the 3.5 and epic level stuff definitely puts a change on things. Usually by the time the characters made 10th or higher they had there own strongholds and had to start taking care of there own business and we would start a new campaign.

[ohio_den]

If I could I would run a group that relied on the four main classes and thats it. FTR CL WIZ THF and if someone wanted say a paladin well he would just be a ftr cleric or a ranger then a ftr druid or a bard a ftr wiz thf.............My feelings are the only reason we have so many specialized classes is players want all the benefits without paying the price. And now there are so many classes out there its nearly impossible to run just the original 4. Right now I am playing a warblade in our current campaign which is kind of interesting but he seems like nothing more than a monk in armor. With all the maneuvers available to him it takes alot of the challenge out of being creative in attacking your opponent, at least for me. Guess i will always be old school...........

[Endarire]

Our of the four base classes you propose, Clerics and Wizards can do the most.  In Temple of Elemental Evil, I've played a party of all Wizards.  We PWNED, just by spamming fireball.

Getting there was a challenge, but we had enough spells and reloads to handle that.

[Mixster]

Seeing you call the rogue a thief warms my heart.

I know an AD&D player when I see one. And I for one prefer Ad&d over 3.5, it's just impossible to find anyone playing Ad&d these days.

If you are really interested in running such a campaign, Unearthed arcana has a prestige Paladin, a Prestige Ranger and a Prestige bard, they are like the regular guys, but they progress spell-casting of your main class, meaning a cleric/prestige paladin will only lose a few caster levels when he goes prestige paladin, not all of them.

If I were to run a group of just Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, Rogue, I'd ask the most experienced players to play fighter and rogue. That way, the wizard and the cleric wouldn't be all about CoDzilla and battlefield control spells.

We actually have a regular in our group, who was used to playing a barbarian or fighter. Well the party needed a cleric, and we had all agreed, first that dies makes a cleric. Sadly his character dies like 5 minutes before my Sorcadin/Dragon Disciple gish (A terrible concept, but the party really didn't need any Tier 1 classes, our wizard was a blaster, so we were content on all being Tier 3 or 4, although the skill level of the rogue player made that almost a Tier 6 class), he makes a cleric, I make a warblade. The first time we meet his cleric, a non-combat encounter, he uses 3 or 4 spells just to show how awesome he is, the wizard and I just looked at eachother and facepalmed. Now he didn't have any decent spells for the encounters we had just talked about walking into.

However, there are still a lot of good spells that can do nearly anything in the PHB. You'd have to focus more on entire schools of spells, but you would be devastating as well. Magic Jar for example, can stop most adventuring groups, if you are an evil evil DM. And it is quite useful for a player character as well, if you can have another player log your gem around, and your corpse in a bag of holding, you can attempt to take over any mob you meet in the next 10 or so hours. Very useful pre-buff, although the party will be out one wizard until you take over something with arms and a mouth.

[ohio_den]

well said mixter, actually in my current campaign which will be restarting in a few months (we switch campaigns between dms to get a break and avoid cranial meltdown) The party is i the Dark Tower of Set module and is currently split up. 1 in hte manor 1in the tower of mitra 2 in the village and 2 still in the tower of set. They have not run into Haffrung Helleyes yet and he magic jars all over the place  and has 4 or 5 different bodies he posesses from time to time. The party is currently 10th level and has just now acquired some serious attention from both the wizard and the town Mayor. They do have a way out of the mess but they all need to be together which they are not at this moment so its going to be a search and avoid hopefully or it might turn into a stumble and slaughter. Its one of Judges Guilds best modules.

[Axator]

Sorry for off-topic but..

Why is it CO players always assume their COP is successful? Am I missing some ingenious way of auto-succssing the DC16 Greater Deity Intelligence check? I mean, even if the level 10 Wizard bad guy has INT 26 the check would still fail 7 out of 20 times. That's hardly reliable and should he fail that check he's at Int/Cha 'stoopid' for 5(!!) weeks. Am I missing something here?

[Garryl]

Sorry for off-topic but..

Why is it CO players always assume their COP is successful? Am I missing some ingenious way of auto-succssing the DC16 Greater Deity Intelligence check? I mean, even if the level 10 Wizard bad guy has INT 26 the check would still fail 7 out of 20 times. That's hardly reliable and should he fail that check he's at Int/Cha 'stoopid' for 5(!!) weeks. Am I missing something here?

It's assumed that you're taking 10 on the ability check. A DC 16 Int check would therefore only need a 22 Int to always be successful (instead of 40).

[Axator]

Sorry for off-topic but..

Why is it CO players always assume their COP is successful? Am I missing some ingenious way of auto-succssing the DC16 Greater Deity Intelligence check? I mean, even if the level 10 Wizard bad guy has INT 26 the check would still fail 7 out of 20 times. That's hardly reliable and should he fail that check he's at Int/Cha 'stoopid' for 5(!!) weeks. Am I missing something here?

It's assumed that you're taking 10 on the ability check. A DC 16 Int check would therefore only need a 22 Int to always be successful (instead of 40).

I didn't know you were allowed to take 10 on ability checks, well that simplifies things..

[PhaedrusXY]

Sorry for off-topic but..

Why is it CO players always assume their COP is successful? Am I missing some ingenious way of auto-succssing the DC16 Greater Deity Intelligence check? I mean, even if the level 10 Wizard bad guy has INT 26 the check would still fail 7 out of 20 times. That's hardly reliable and should he fail that check he's at Int/Cha 'stoopid' for 5(!!) weeks. Am I missing something here?

It's assumed that you're taking 10 on the ability check. A DC 16 Int check would therefore only need a 22 Int to always be successful (instead of 40).

You can also cast another COP to ask if the answers to your first one were correct. It's basically like the error checking that people do in computer programing. It is possible to get nearly 100% true answers with just a few castings.

[ohio_den]

It's assumed that you're taking 10 on the ability check. A DC 16 Int check would therefore only need a 22 Int to always be successful (instead of 40).
[/quote]


having just gone over the description for taking 10 or 20 it applies only to skill checks after re-checking COP the reason you have to make a DC check is because you are trying to mind link with a vastly superior intellect thus the check is against your intelligence which is an ablility therefore disallowing any take 10 or twenty.

Axator i believe you are correct.

[Bozwevial]

Where are you looking?

The normal take 10 and take 20 rules apply for ability checks. Neither rule applies to caster level checks.

[ohio_den]

thank you for questioning me on this I just reviewed my PHb on page 65 and at the very end it said it does apply to ability checks but not caster level so my apologies for rushing my answer.

[Endarire]

I believe we've concluded that a well-prepared Wizard10 (or something with Wizard10 casting at ECL10) is a threat capable of reasonably annihilating a group of intruders who are not specifically built to counter him.

I'm stayin' away from Wizards' Towers from now on.

[Lycanthromancer]

I believe we've concluded that a well-prepared Wizard10 (or something with Wizard10 casting at ECL10) is a threat capable of reasonably annihilating a group of intruders who are not specifically built to counter him.

I'm stayin' away from Wizards' Towers from now on.

Ah men.

Stay away from those 1st level wizards too. All those wishes and the infinite wealth and armies of tarrasques and dragons and genies and solars can kill you quick.

[ohio_den]

I believe we've concluded that a well-prepared Wizard10 (or something with Wizard10 casting at ECL10) is a threat capable of reasonably annihilating a group of intruders who are not specifically built to counter him.

I'm stayin' away from Wizards' Towers from now on.

As much as I would like to deny this I am forced to accept it as rule rather then the exception. Perhaps I have been designing my Wizards to weak I will have to look into that and give it more thought without actually making Killer Wizards so my plot line will continue. Hard to DM a game when no one shows up. Thanks everyone.