I'm about to start in a game as 17th level wizard. It's an evil campaign too, if that helps anyone. But to be honest, I'm a little overwhelmed. I've never even gotten a character past 10. My friends' games tend to fizzle out by then.
I like golems and golem armies, unless someone can suggest a better path for me? Does anyone have have any suggestions about how to build/buy or even where to begin?
Thank you!
One place to start for ideas is the wizard section of the NPC Codex. They are all "elite array" (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8) and NPC wealth by level, as well as vanilla (Core Rulebook), but they can definitely be used as a starting point. Tweak the race, ability scores, and/or level as desired, possibly add an archetype, then change any skills, feats, or spells to suit, and select appropriate gear.
You can also look at some of the prestige class entries if you want something other than straight wizard.
My suggestion is to go straight wizard, and for the sake of simplicity there are some easy to play builds that come from some specific schools.
School choice is important, as it determines how you play the character, the subschools in particular are where a lot of players really like to play.
The two most commonly played schools are the Admixture subschool of Evocation, and the Teleportation subschool of Conjuration.
These schools work just like the regular schools, except they switch out certain powers of the original school in favor of a different power.
Evocation specialists are often called Blasters, since most of what they do involves damage spells. Most often you will see builds specializing in the Fireball Spell, and applying a lot of different metamagic effects to it to gain benefits of multiple battlefield conditions. The Admixture school linked above allows you to change the energy type of your evocation spells (for instance fireball) a limited number of times in a day. In addition to that, being an Evocation specialist automatically adds a flat bonus to the damage you deal for casting an evocation spell. Builds like this often take the feats Spell Focus (Evocation), Greater Spell Focus (Evocation), Spell Penetration, Greater Spell Penetration, Heighten Spell, Preferred Spell (Fireball), Dazing Spell, Quicken Spell, Empower Spell, Intensified Spell, and Spell Perfection (Fireball). This build is a lot of fun, but uses up a lot of his resources quickly, which makes Scribe Scroll a very valuable feat that thankfully you get for free at 1st level. Preferred Spell allows you to cast that Fireball spontaneously using any spell slot of appropriate level. If you want I can post a sample build beyond this explanation.
Conjuration specialists are called God Wizards because they spend most of their time manipulating the battlefield to their personal liking, and mroe importantly to the liking of their party. The Teleportation subschool allows you to warp around the battlefield in order to avoid trouble and is really great for beginners and often used by veteran wizard players because of how good it is. Conjuration spells are all potent based on duration, as a result improving your CL is important at low levels, since durations are often based on Caster Level. These builds often go into Summoning niches, and doing so is a very powerful and useful battle strategy, but it can get confusing if you aren't very experienced at controlling 5+ characters on the board at any one time. If you want to go that route, my advice would be to come up with cheat lists of what your favorite things are to summon and have lists of their abilities and stats set aside for easy and quick access in game. Aside from the Summon Monster line of spells, other popular spells are Grease, Create Pit, Spike Pit, Acid Pit, Black Tentacles, Dimension Door, Teleport, and many others that function similarly. Good feats to look at are Extend Spell, Quicken Spell, Widen Spell, Spell Focus (Conjuration), Augment Summoning, Superior Summoning, Varsian Tattoo (Conjuration), and I always recommend Spell Specialization. Spell Perfection is a great feat, but the Conjurer doesn't really have a go to spell that he specializes in making the choice a bit harder and it makes this build a lot more complex if you don't already have experience with one.
In both cases you will need to select opposition schools, and for both of them I recommend Enchantment and Necromancy. Basically, don't expect to use spells from those schools. You will also need to select traits and an Arcane Bond. Most people select a trait that functions similarly to Reactionary, which adds +2 to your Initiative modifier. Fireball builds also take Magical Lineage (Fireball). As for your Arcane Bond, the most helpful familiar you can get is a Compsognathus, Dodo, or Greensting Scorpion. All three of them have the same effect which adds +4 to your Initiative modifier, which is really important. Pretty much all wizard builds I see take Improved Initiative as their first level feat.
Some spells to keep an eye out for are Magic Missle, Color Spray, Scorching Ray, Rope Trick, Dispel Magic, Greater Dispel Magic, Fly, Dimension Door, Teleport, and Haste. Your party is basically always going to want you to go 1st in combat so you can set up the battlefield for them before they get out there, and they will also usually want you to hit them with a Haste spell before they walk away from you, so talk to your team about making sure you have your strategy down, since it usually falls on the wizard to have everyone Hasted and the battlefield ready to go into combat.
The big thing to remember is that it is NOT your job to kill things. Never waste an area spell to take out one bad guy, your area spells should be focused on hitting as many enemies as possible, and locking them down so they are easy targets for the martial characters. Essentially it's your job to make everyone else's job easier, without actually doing the work yourself, which is why wizards are often referred to as gods.
Golem army IS expensive. But badass. What would good alternatives be?
Also, I'm looking to get 'true name' for my Lv 15 arcane discovery- and get a 18HD or less outsider at my beck and call (a celestial is a better choice- the Planetar Angel is 17HD, and CL16, with 8th level divine magic prepared. But I'm going to be evil aligned, so I need to find a good demon probably.
I'm going to have at least a couple great demiplanes. Yay Lv 9 spells! But I'm not entirely sure how to utilize to any sort of potential.
Immolation devil; 18 HD and CR 19.
If you're going to be evil, then go with NE and take Improved Familiar to bond a cacodaemon; soul gems make an "easily replenished" resource to pay evil outsiders called by planar binding. Perhaps conjurer would fit the concept best; adapting the level 15 "cruel conjurer" from the NPC Index is a relatively straightforward process.