Hello there!
I plan to play a diviner wizard in RotR soon and I want him to specialize in battering blast and battlefield control while providing a lot of utility to the party. I dont want to be a primary damage dealer, the battering blast will be pretty effective as non-evoker option - in the long run I want to be the schroedinger kind of wizard, at least to the degree my party approves.
He will start as a historian, human, 20 int, opposed schools: necromancy and enchantment.
Feats I want to have are: improved initiative, craft woundrous items, improved familiar, persistent spell, dazing spell (but not sure about this one yet, I'm kinda afraid it might be too strong) and quicken spell, later spell perfection.
For traits I picked additional traits feat so I have four of them: lore seeker (+1 to CL and DC of 3 spells), searcher (perception as class skill), magical lineage and one of the traits in the players guide.
I wanted to use magical lineage and one of the lore seeker spells with battering blast. I dont know yet which other spells to pick for loreseeker. As I dont want to blast much, I can't think of spells that would profit from both - increased CL and DC. Right now I consider create pit as I love the spell and maybe color spray. But in case someone has a good idea what I might pick for the trait, please let me know!
The next thing is (greater) spell specializing OR preferred spell. Both is appealing. Spell specialization would increase the CL for battering blast by two - wonderful - but it needs more feats (and I didnt really want to take spell focus as I am starving for feats) and applying metamagic to my specialized spell would increase the casting time - a real bummer…
Preferred spell would be easier to fit in but I dont really know whether I could somehow utilize heightened spell… and I'd really miss the increase in CL for battering blast. Standard action metamagic sounds sweet though…
Another consideration would be to ignore both of the latter and just pick other feats instead (craft wands for my familiar, opposition research for necromancy and so on).
Can you maybe help me decide in this case? Is there other stuff I should or could consider? I'd really appreciate every single idea you guys have - thanks in advance!
Wasum :)
You are only allowed 1 trait of Each type.
Outlander: Lore Seeker- Campaign
Magical Lineage- Magic
Searcher- (Do you mean Seeker?) - Social
I played this Campaign as a gluttony Wizard and did very well. I would say Enchantment wizards would do very well taking enemies and making them minions in the late game.
But as for a Diviner that is fine as well. I recommend spell focus on your main spells you will be using and to target Reflex or Will saves mostly. Most enemies (especially late game) will have a good Fort save.
What I did as a wizard was I used Command undead to nab up all the undead smattered throughout the APs and turned them on the DM. Later I used Magic Jar to grab enemies, force them to kill each other, then Animated them and used them more on the dungeons. Ended up being very effective in this AP. I did enjoy grabbing a boss with Magic Jar and terrorizing the Mooks with him. I won't give spoilers but I did enjoy the AP a lot.
If you don't mind a little metagaming, the title of the 4th module is Fortress of the Stone Giants. Your giant opponents will have ridiculously high CMDs to resist the bull rush of Battering Blast.
Your character will gain some clues about future enemies before encountering most of them, so it will be better to plan his tactics after he has those clues.
I ran the D&D 3.5 Rise of the Runelords, which had a reputation as a combat grind. But the party had a wizard historian, a lyrakien bard scout, and a rogue who could charm information out of anyone, so I shifted the emphasis. The parry gathered information before an encounter to always have an advantage or to avoid battles they could not win. If your GM is like me, don't be surprised that Knowledge(history) becames one of your wizard's most valuable assets.
Thanks for sharing your experiences- especial the advice about CMD and fort-saves is really helpful! Towards spells targeting CMD I plan to use prescience from the foresight subscool to know when to land them!
Now I just still need advice on coordinating my feats and trait.... especially whether to take preferred spell, spell specialization (greater) or none of these. This is something I'd like to know before as it might have impact on the traits I pick.
Not a fan of Spell Special (Greater)
Preferred spell is a nice thing to have. You can use Heighten to Have more uses of your spell per day. If you run out of X level spells Heighten it to Y level spell. This would allow you to have less pressure on preparing around your Battering Blasts. There are a few other things you can use Heighten for. Heighten a Continual flame up to 5th level and it will beat back the darkness of any type. The meta Magic also does increase the DC of a spell so you can ride Heightened Glitterdust as it is an effective spell.
Can you tell me, why you prefer (hehe) preferred spell over greater spell spec? For the reasons I mentioned earlier?
And do you think those feats are worth it at all?
Also, I'd love to read some more suggestions :)