"Oh, no, my character is slightly less more powerful than every other class than others of my character's class!"Yeah, but it is my opinion that most players don't really optimize globally. Rather, they locally optimize. That is, they think up a character concept, and get a build for that. Then they see if any slight tweaks (locally optimize) will make the character better.
In other words, they have their ranger. They are willing to make archetype tweaks and/or changes of feats to make the ranger better. If you tell them, "Don't play a ranger at all. Instead play a wizard," then they will just ignore you. They don't want to play a wizard. They want to play a ranger. If you give them suggestions that will make their ranger better, however, then they will listen to you.
In that setting, it is relevant if universalist wizards are worse than specialist ones.
But that doesn't matter too much for a Wizard. They're still using the Wizard spell list, they're still an arcane full caster, they still have basically everything. They're still able to fulfill the same things they would otherwise. A Universalist's gimmick is that it doesn't have a gimmick, anyway, so it's not like it's a really interesting option that is unfortunately sub-par and makes it difficult to play a character of that concept.
I understand optimizing locally instead of globally, but it's not like there's too much being lost here.
"Oh, no, my character is slightly less more powerful than every other class than others of my character's class!"
With slightly less sarcasm, I would concur that going Universalist is an excellent way to put a handicap on your Wizard if you feel that's desirable.
Hand of the apprentice was the big draw for me. At first level, you could start off with a masterwork weapon (arcane bond) and have a decent ranged attack, particularly if you had a good strength and intelligence.
I get the INT, but no decent Wizard should have STR.
You just dump everything into INT, DEX and CON. If you want you could have decent CHA for UMD, so you can do it all!I've been always interested in metamagic, but you aren't always sure when to use it! So, eventually you save it and never use i.,
I know where an Amulet of Magecraft is, alas it being over on the far end of the continent. But I will get to it eventually.
Dasrak
The big thing is you have all explained WHY my GM won't allow specialist wizards. Its all to trim overpowered wizard wings! There are enough other things he allows that keep us from being clones. Now I understand why our serious power gamers weren't interested in wizards as PCs.