No one remembers that spell?
Spending a 6th level spell to recast a 5th level spell or below. Not a bad trick, but seems a waste to just not prepare useful 6th level spells.
This seems like a powerful way of increasing your wizard's casting options, but I can see no builds that take advantage of this.
Is there a down side I'm not seeing?
Opportunity cost.
|
But it's not an opportunity cost, its a FEAT TAX.
There is NO lost opportunity. You memorize 6th level spells as normal, but when you run into the situation where you need to re-cast a lower level spell, you can cannibalize a higher level spell to do it.
The whole point is that since you have it as a preferred spell, you never have to actually memorize Mage's Lucubration at all. It's a spell you NEVER memorize, but ALLWAYS can cast.
But it's not an opportunity cost, its a FEAT TAX.
There is NO lost opportunity. You memorize 6th level spells as normal, but when you run into the situation where you need to re-cast a lower level spell, you can cannibalize a higher level spell to do it.
The whole point is that since you have it as a preferred spell, you never have to actually memorize Mage's Lucubration at all. It's a spell you NEVER memorize, but ALLWAYS can cast.
An opportunity cost is the value of the best alternative you didn't pursue with the same resources. In this case, you are spending two feats, and 5 ranks in Spellcraft if you weren't already going to develop that skill.
A feat tax is more often described as a feat necessary for a class to take in order to remain competitive with other classes. Some people consider Raging Vitality to be a feat tax for Barbarians, because of how the bonus HP works during raging.
Your example isn't an entire build, so much as a general trick. I would agree that the reason it is not pursued more often is the opportunity cost at most levels is generally not worth it. Having played a wizard in an AP into 6th level spells, I never found myself so desperate for a specific lower-level spell that I'd be willing to burn a 6th level spell for it. Spells that *would* generally hit that level of utility I made sure I had scrolls of. If I'm not likely to ever prepare Mage's Lubrication at all, the ability to spontaneously cast it isn't enough to justify the 2 feats needed to do that.
I hope that sheds some light (if anecdotal) on why this isn't seen in play more often.
|
|
Very helpful actually, thanks!
So as an experienced wizard player, I could use your insight then.
I'm trying to build a wizard character now (Conjuration, teleportation).
I'm fine with the Treantmonk "summon monster goodness," but I want to have something to look forward to at higher levels.
I was considering making Preferred Spell: Enervation AND Spell Perfection: Enervation as a feature of the build. This would let me spontaneously cast rays of debuff-itude, but I'm dubious.
As someone who has played to mid-high levels, what was your experience? What kind of mo-jo would you build into your wizard if you had it to do over again?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
In broad brushstrokes, I would recommend the following:
1) Determine a character concept first. Everything you read on forums and guides is going to lean heavily on the optimization side, but most of these builds honestly aren't fun. Either they are very time-intensive at the table (running more than 3 summons at once), are one trick ponies (charging mounted barbarian), or most often, their output per round is orders of magnitude higher than other party members (leading to resentment, optimization arms race, etc.). Knowing that, use the guides to avoid pitfalls, but whenever you have to decide between that extra oomph of optimization or a worse choice that fits thematically, take the thematic choice.
Wizards in particular become more and more powerful relative to the rest of the party as you level up. Magic is the currency of Pathfinder, and by level 13-15 you'll be a robber-baron. In particular, this gives you more freedom to take a slightly less optimized path.
2) Treatmonk's guide hits on this pretty effectively before it gets to the crunch, but Wizards really do excel as controllers. It's a playstyle that I find a lot of joy in, where you are basically changing the battle/skill environment to make your party's success inevitable. Everyone loves you as a result, and you know that your well-timed Haste is what allowed the fighter to triumph without stealing the spotlight from that player by casting a quickened, maximized fireball and clearing out a room in one shot. Scouting out a boss with Arcane Eye, making an appropriate knowledge check to realize it's a spellcasting lamia, and devoting yourself to counterspelling (after buffs) so that the boss doesn't get to cast save v. deaths is the sort of thing that only a full spellcaster can do.
With that in mind, the oft-cited comparisons to Batman are accurate. Your weapon is your toolkit of spells, and knowing how to use each one to solve the problem in front of you. It follows that the focus of your feats should be in improving all of your tools, rather than just making one tool amazing. A spell-perfected enervation will be terror against most foes, and then absolutely worthless against creatures immune to its effects. I prefer a bit more gray across the board than that sort of black/white scenario. Specifically, I focused on (not in order):
-Toughness (shore up hp)
-Craft Wondrous Item (only worth it if you don't move instantly from challenge to challenge, but it saves a lot of money and allows you to get the gear you want)
-Fast Study (After which I prepared only the spells I knew I would need each level, leaving the rest of the slots open for the day. Minimum prep time becomes 1 minute, which can be done in a safe environment after battles, greatly expanding your flexibility)
-Spell Penetration, and later Greater SP
If you want to go summoning, I strongly encourage you to take Spell Focus: Conjuration, and Augment Summons. If you use them mainly as meatshields, consider Superior Summons as well. For spells, I chose anything that buffed the party, helped my character thieve, or were major utility spells.
If you focus on damage, figure out a way to deal with creatures that are immune to those damage types (ability to swap damage types on spells, or somehow bypass resistance). If you focus on energy drain, find a way to deal with creatures immune.
But again, keep a weather eye on whether it all fits thematically. My character was a thief who became the unwitting pupil of a devil. He never bothered to learn the underlying theory about spellcasting, just the minimum needed to cast the spell. I never took metamagic feats (though I did get a Rod of Quicken), and bought or stole access to spellbooks in any town we entered. To focus on his vagrant background, I took Spell Mastery multiple times. A terrible feat you'll almost never need, but that combined with the Spellbinder archetype allowed him to cast at least 2 spells per spell level without his spellbook and only a few minutes of prep time. The core concept was "how would I design a wizard who could escape as many jail cells as possible?"
With the amount of spells known and available slots (transmutation focus, thassilon specialist), I had enough tools in the toolkit that his power level stayed balanced/just ahead of the party for the entire campaign. It was one of the most fun campaigns any of us had been part of. Looking back, I wouldn't change a single thing.
|
|
Ok, so it sounds like a generalist mage is actually pretty powerful.
I tend to like to build around a concept too.
My character is a naturalist named Darwin (OK, so he's a SUPER-naturalist).
I really like the teleportation school/theme, and wanted to build off of that.
I figure, the shift power is a good thing to build off of, so "cast spell, poof out and hide" is the basic shtick of the build.
I'm just trying to figure out what to load him out with. I played a couple of wizard characters back in 3.5, and found that I like the extend spell feat very much (Casting spells the day before combat is a good way to bank power).
Other than that, it always seemed to me that Metamagic mostly sucks, unless you REALLY FOCUS your build on a really good trick or two.
So I've been playing around with the idea of "poof in, fire an enervation, poof out" but it seems kind of weak-sauce to he honest, and so I'm looking for a better shtick. The build works off of preferred spell & Spell perfection, to make a spontaneous ray caster at high levels.
Exploring alternatives, I do want Augment summoning, but now I'm committed to Spell Focus conjuration, and there are so few direct damage conjuration spells to build off of. To make matters worse, my GM only allows CRB and APG, so that means the good direct-damage acid spells in UM are out.
Maybe I should stop worrying about it so much, and just take the feats I like as I go.
The best perfected spell is probably fireball with dazing and heighten or persistent, and -- if not an admixture evoker -- elemental spell.
I respect your two cents, but politely disagree with the emboldened portion. I'd swap that out for Quicken or Bouncing personally, seeing dazed is a really unimpressive condition to throw at someone. However, we've really gotten off topic.
To the OP: It would be a nice trick with the Quickened/Silent/Still suite of metamagics, even though most will say to buy rods of them instead so you can personalize your wizard a bit more. But, I really wouldn't try to push for Perfected Lucubration with a Conjuration-based build. You won't be swapping high-level summons out for lower-leveled ones unless you need a specific SLA (and are willing to get it a reduced caster level to boot). Most of your other spells just aren't worth swapping out 9 times out of 10 (the exceptions that jump out to me being Cloudkill, Teleport, and Wall of Stone for while you still have few 5th Level slots).
As a Conjuration-Teleporter, you've got everything on your side to make your opponents walk into a lose-lose situation. Lay traps, cut off their escape routes, buff your party, and disappear if they start harassing you: just so you can summon some creatures to attack them from the rear. You'll get the most mileage through a bit of foresight, planning, and creativity.
Dazing is the one that denies them all actions. There aren't many conditions that are better.The best perfected spell is probably fireball with dazing and heighten or persistent, and -- if not an admixture evoker -- elemental spell.I respect your two cents, but politely disagree with the emboldened portion. I'd swap that out for Quicken or Bouncing personally, seeing dazed is a really unimpressive condition to throw at someone. However, we've really gotten off topic.
Looked it up--you're right. I was thinking dazzled. I'll... uhh, I'll just leave, now.
If teleportation is going to be your thing, you might consider picking up Dimensional Agility.
Being able to Dimension Door with your entire melee crew, dump them next to the BBEG behind enemy lines, then Quickened Dimension Door back to a nearby hillside = Priceless.