How to Play a Wizard

[Koumei]

And Fengut. Can't forget Fengut, even if it is from a random noncore book no-one is ever going to buy.

[CatharzGodfoot]

1200973030[/unixtime]]And Fengut. Can't forget Fengut, even if it is from a random noncore book no-one is ever going to buy.

I think it's in one of Wizard's featured articles as well.

[Koumei]

That's how I know about it - I couldn't even say which book, offhand. Marshes & Mudkips? It's muddy outside? I'm only guessing because I recall a bunch of swamp-related spells.

[Fwib]

Dunno what book it might be in, but it is found here on the wizards website. ("Mire and Mud: Spells of the Wetland")

[Aktariel]

That is AFAIK the only place to get Fengut - it's from an old series called "The Far Corners of the World."

Basically the only useful thing that ever came out of that series was this spell.

[Koumei]

Ah, so it isn't actually from a book? Cool.

[Aktariel]

So, a first level wizard can prepare 3 spells of level one at 1st level. I have a 20 Int, which gives me 2 bonus spells of that level, and I am a "focused specialist," which gives me 3 additional slots at every level (one for regular specialization and two for "focused specialization.") So I get to prepare...8 first level spells?

Somebody check my math. I must be dreaming.

(I decided to go the Focused Conjurer drop Evocation Enchantment and Necromancy spells. Though I'm still on the fence about Enchantment... perhaps Abjuration instead.)

[Jacob_Orlove]

You might have been looking at the Sorcerer table. First level Wizards get one spell of first level. 20 Int gives you two bonus spells, normal specialization gives you one. Focused Specialist trades your normal spell AND your specialist slot for three specialist slots.

So, you end up with 3 specialist slots (conjuration only), plus two for int.

A few nice Conjuration spells:
Benign Transposition, every 1st level conjuration spell in the PHB except SMI.

Although you'll want to start scribing stuff like Obscuring Mist onto scrolls once you get a few XPs.

[Aktariel]

So. What should my first level feat be? I get Scribe Scroll for free... I'm thinking a metamagic feat.. but I don't know which one.

Suggestions? And we play on Saturday, so I'll post a thread over in In The Trenches and let folks know how it went.

[Voss]

Well, most metamagic feats aren't actually usable at level one. Maybe Extend Spell, that actually becomes useful. Sculpt Spell can be useful for various spells at level 3.

But if you want something that actually matters at level 1: Improved Initiative.

[Jacob_Orlove]

Improved Initiative is rock-solid at all levels of play, particularly if you're going for a battlefield control/AoE debuff approach (which, between Grease, Glitterdust, and Web, you are).

Extend Spell is likewise really good, though, and would be a good feat for first or third level. It also lets you take Sculpt Spell at third or sixth (which has prereqs of "one metamagic feat").

Or you could take garbage feats like "Skill Focus: Spellcraft" to prepare to enter a PrC. Not as fun, though, and you don't need the power boost at higher levels anyway.

Make sure you prepare Color Spray pretty much every day. You can also leave a slot or two empty, to fill up after 15 minutes of prep. That's generally better than preparing a utility spell like Mount or Alarm at the beginning of the day.

[Username17]

1201147602[/unixtime]]So, a first level wizard can prepare 3 spells of level one at 1st level. I have a 20 Int, which gives me 2 bonus spells of that level, and I am a "focused specialist," which gives me 3 additional slots at every level (one for regular specialization and two for "focused specialization.") So I get to prepare...8 first level spells?

Somebody check my math. I must be dreaming.

(I decided to go the Focused Conjurer drop Evocation Enchantment and Necromancy spells. Though I'm still on the fence about Enchantment... perhaps Abjuration instead.)

Focused Specialist makes you lose one spell per level from your basic list. And the 3/day is already including your 1 from normal specialization and your 1 from Int bonus.

As a 1st level Focused Specialist with an Int of 20 you get 2 spells per dy which can be from any of five different schools. And 3 more which can be from your specialist school only.

So you in total have 5 spells per day at first level.

-Username17

[Aktariel]

Yeah... I realized I was looking at the table entry for 0 level spells.

Anyway. I've got Detect Magic, Read Magic, and Acid Orb x3 prepped in those slots - I'm not sure how 0 level spells interact with specialization. I assumed "normally", which means 3 speciality slots and 2 for anything I want. Any good 0 level conjuration spells out there?

I grabbed Improved Initiative, and will grab Extend Spell at third and Sculpt at 6th I think.

1st level spells: Color Spray, Silent Image, Grease, Mage Armor, and undecided. Either Obscuring Mist or Benign Transposition for that last Conj. slot.

[Jacob_Orlove]

Ghost Sound is a pretty solid 0-level. Don't bother with Read Magic; you can always prep it tomorrow, or leave a slot open if you think you might need it today.

0-levels actually don't work the same as anything else, so you don't get bonus slots for specializing or high int.

Acid Splash is a waste of time. You'd get better results shooting them with a crossbow (which is a fine thing to do in rounds when you aren't casting a spell).

[Aktariel]

How exactly does secret page interact with the stricture that a spell takes up a number of pages in a spellbook equal to it's level?


EDIT: Also, on the incantatrix prestige class - do I really have to give up another school? So I'm both a specialist Abjurer and Conjurer (wonder what happens with that whole "giving up the familiar to get a school specific power" bit), who has four banned schools? And I still can't ban divination, nor transmutation.. So it has to be Illusion.

Ouch.

[Quantumboost]

The way I understand it...

Secret page lets you change the contents of a page. So if you want to use secret page to transcribe an nth level spell, you cast it n times. You get a command word which switches between "this secret page is active" and "this secret page is inactive", so you can:

a) Put the same command word on all the pages of this spell, using n different physical pages, which means that the command word activates or inactivates all pages of the same spell simultaneously.

b) Put different command words on all the pages of the spell and put them all on the same physical page. Or different physical pages. Whichever.

Because you're using secret page to duplicate the text and are not writing it, you don't have to pay moneys for scribing it, and may be able to scribe more than one spell per day (depending on how often you can cast secret page).

[Aktariel]

OK. So you still have to use up the same number of pages? (8 for an 8th level spell, say?)

Also, are we speaking of the PGtF or MoF version of the incantatrix? This would matter. I'm assuming PGtF...

EDIT: What's the easiest way to boost Spellcraft checks to make those high Incantatrix DC's? I mean, mine is currently +9 (4 ranks, and +5 int), but I don't see how to make really increase except by adding ranks or skill focus..

[Username17]

Secret Page is stackable. You can put multiple pages on the same page with different command words like "Greater Planar Binding Page 4" and such. You only need one literal piece of paper for any spell. Heck, you only need one literal piece of paper forall your spells. But you do need one casting of Secret Page for each page the spell would normally take up.

---

As written, the extra banned schools from Incantatrix and Red Wizard don't do anything at all. They don't prevent you from preparing spells of that school nor from copying spells into your book. All it does is prevent you from learning spells of the extra school with your 2 free spells per level and activating magic items of spells from that school that you haven't already scribed into your spell book.

It's a very very trivial disadvantage that gets way higher billing than it deserves. It gets talked up so much that many DMs house rule it into doing various other stuff to you, so look out.

-Username17

[Aktariel]

So what's a good school to "ban?"

Thanks for the clarification of secret page.

Also, I was thinking something like Wizard 5/Incantatrix 10/Archmage 2 (Arcane Reach and Mastery of Shaping)/Wizard 3... but something more interesting for those last three levels would be nice.

[Jacob_Orlove]

To be honest, Illusion doesn't offer much at high levels that you can't get just by casting Major Image. Giving it up at level 6 is hardly crippling, since you get almost all the school's utility by then. You may want to buy a scroll of Greater Invisibility and scribe it into your spellbook at level 5, though, depending on how your DM is houseruling the additional banned school, but that's about it.

[Fwib]

Why doesn't 'Combining Magical Effects: Same Effect with Differing Results' prevent Secret Page from piling up a whole book on one piece of paper?

[Quantumboost]

According to the CME:SEDR rule, if you have two secret pages altering the text on the same piece of paper, the last one applied overrides the others. But since you can suppress the text-changing effect of a secret page, you can switch off any text-overwrite effects that you don't want to read in favor of the page you do want to read. So you hide all the pages but the one you want, and then you can read that page at your leisure.

[Fwib]

Even while the underneath-text is revealed, the spell is still going, though. So while the last spell cast is still going, don't the others stay suppressed and inaccessible?

Actually, I wish they'd said suppressed, because we know what that means, what is 'irrelevant' supposed to mean game-mechanically?

[Username17]

It falls under the different results rule as mentioned by Quantumboost. If more than one spell is showing a "fake page," only the most recently cast (or highest level) fake page wins. But all of them are still going regardless. If you shut down all of them except one, then it's the most recent and highest caster level of the spells showing a fake page and that's what is displayed.

-Username17