Sage Sorcerer Build Advice?

[Marthkus]

Human with expanded arcana for every feet

Spell selection:
1lvl: 0th:Prestidigitation,Detect-Magic,Read-Magic,Ghost-Sound,Daze|1st:Grease,Co lor-Spray,Silent-Image,Protection-from-Evil|

2lvl: 0th:Dancing-Lights,Light|

3lvl: 0th:Mage-Hand|1st:Mage-Armor,Obscuring-Mist|

4lvl: 0th:Message|1st:Charm-Person|2nd:Glitterdust|

5lvl: 1st:Mount,Enlarge-Person,Feather-Fall,Magic-Missle|2nd:Web|

6lvl: 0th:Mending|2nd:Levitate|3rd:SMIII|

7lvl: 1st:Unseen-Servant|2nd:Hideous-Laughter,Resist-Energy,Mirror-Image,Rope-Tri ck|3rd:Sleet-Storm|

8lvl: 0th:Detect-Poison|3rd:Fly|4th:SMIV|

9lvl: 2nd:Pyrotechnics|3rd:Stinking-Cloud,Haste,Slow,Phantom-Steed|4th:Black-Tent acles,Confusion|

10lvl: 0th:Open/Close|4th:Wall-of-Ice|5th:Telekinesis|

11lvl: 2nd:Flaming-Sphere|3rd:Wind-Wall|4th:Enervation,Fear,Stone-Shape,Arcane-Eye |5th:Wall-of-Stone|

12lvl: 5th:Magic-Jar|6th:SMVI|

Arcane bloodline gives: identify,invisibility,dispel-magic,dimension-door,overland-flight

Would you suggest different spells or a different order?

The build concept is to essentially be a spontaneous wizard

[Marthkus]

bump*

[SoulGambit]

You need to focus your concept a bit. "Wizard" is usually not a narrow enough concept for the Wizard class. What does "Being a Wizard" mean for you and the character? For instance, if you want versatility, you can get more as a Gnome Illusionist / Summoner. Also, by taking Expanded Arcana at every opportunity, you are really denying yourself a lot of good feats--particularly metamagic feats, which the Sage bloodline is adept at.

That said, you have a pretty solid starting point.
- Get (Greater) Shadow Evocation/Conjuration.
- Stay away from spells you will only cast once per day (Rope Trick, Mage Armor, etc).
- Get Communal Mount A.K.A Wall of Horses.
- Nix highly situational spells like Feather fall--use a scroll instead.
- Have Sleep from level 1. Trade it out when its no longer useful.
- Have Stinking Cloud from level 6.
- Have Haste from level 7 unless someone else has it covered.
- Unless your build is different from the norm, stay away from offensive touch spells like hideous laughter.
- Look into Blood Money and costly material components. I haven't done the research yet but it looks promising.
- You have a lot of summoning spells, and early. Make sure you're a player who can responsibly use them without dragging the game down.
- Trade out spells, like Summon Monster, as they become obsolete. You generally only want two levels of Summon Monster.

Remember that there are items to expand your spells known now.

[Benly]

SoulGambit wrote:

- Nix highly situational spells like Feather fall--use a scroll instead.
- Have Sleep from level 1. Trade it out when its no longer useful.

I agree with most of your advice except for these. Feather Fall is one of the very few situational spells which can be worth using a spell-known slot for, because it's an immediate action and the situation where it comes up is one where you often have less than a round to act. When you've been dropped through a trap door or thrown off a cliff you don't have time to dig for a scroll before you hit bottom. If you don't see the situation coming up, that's one thing, but if Feather Fall's worth having at all it's worth having on short notice.

As for Sleep, its HD limit is painful even at low levels and he's got both Grease and Color Spray. That's plenty of level 1 battlefield control; Sleep would be redundant.

[Marthkus]

"Wizard" is Treantmonk's God Wizard, except this one is spontaneous.

So should I worry about the lack of augmented summoning in my build, if I am grabbing summons early?

[Jubal Breakbottle]

If you want to summon a bunch, augmented is nice. It's the difference between your summons being more than positional speed bumps. It also helps the DC of Grease, Glitterdust, and Acid Arrow, which are must-have for my casters. Acid Arrow ignores spell resistance and provides constant damage which is nice for casters forcing concentration checks.

Did you abandon the rogue skill monkey?

[Marthkus]

Oh yeah I posted that I did in the other thread several times, but if someone can make it work that's cool and I would give it another look. Many people suggested a bard for knowledge skills and spellcasting. So I thought to myself, "Why go half-way?" and proposed this concept.

This was my back-up idea if skill-monkey rogue didn't pan out.