Character advice: Wizard


Advice


Hello there people of the interwebs. I have a problem I hope you can help with.
I am in a Rise of the Runelords campaign with some friends, and I made a conjurationist wizard. The party consists of a dwarven paladin of Torah, a half-elf archery ranger, a human cleric of Desna, amd my elven conjurationist wizard. The problem is that I've never played a wizard before. Lots of rogues and sorcerers, never a prepared caster.I have read Treatenmonks guide, and tried following it a bit, but my wizard seems to suck. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but he seems useless. Out of combat, he identifies magic items, in combat, he just seems to do nothing. I was going for a battlefield control, tactician kind of feel, and it isn't working out that way.
Any advice would be appreciated!

Valadrel Tessandar
Level 2 elven wizard(conjurationist)
Str: 10
Dex: 15
Con: 10
Int: 17
Wis: 13
Cha: 10
He has Abjuration and necromancy as opposed schools, and his spells are : grease, magic missile, color spray, sleep, charm person, mage armour, enlarge person, summon monster 1.
I want to be a useful party member, but I don't seem to do much. I enlarge the pally, maybe throw down some grease somewhere, and try to use my acid dart and ray of frost or daze on other turns. Help?


help? Don't use spells that does damages... you're not the blaster!
you're the God, set your battlefield, buff, debuff, summon minions... if you play in the right way, you'll be untouched at the end of the battle.

PS: i'm running the same campaign, with almost the same type of wizard (almost XD!) and i'm not an elven..

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qwad?Devil-Summoner-Need-Advice

Shadow Lodge

Check out the elven archtype Spellbinder, might give you more leeway with the spell you memorise when you can take a full round action to change any memorised spell for a favorite spell such as summon monster I.

Grand Lodge

Welcome to the Wizard my friend.

I wouldn't have given up Abjuration and Necromancy. I love the schools too much. I typically give up enchantment and Divination. Enchantment has spells I can do without typically as they are save or suck/die and effect certain HD ect ect. Divination can be used in down time or put on scrolls in your downtime for situations you need them. Identifying Items can be done in downtime or the cleric can Detect magic and spell craft them as well.

Typically a wizard doesn't do anything unless they have to do it. They are reserved Characters tending to Hoard their magic unlike showy Bards and Sorcerers.

You should have chose teleportion sub school as acid dart will fade out very soon. Then take elf Alternate racial for adamixture so your SUPER few blast spells can be what ever element you need them to be. Always good to get around elemental resistances. I'm against blasting but against some mobs it is inevitable.

Your right be be enlarging, Greasing, Color spraying, and mage armor ATM. Remember that you can grease weapons and allies as well =). I like watching them lose their weapons.

In the future your spells will come to you and you can do a lot more but typically you want to not just blow through spells...If 1 will be enough then that is enough. Wizards typically are boring at early levels. Nothing really you can do about it. Early levels is where melee shines...after level 10 you come into great power and Melee types become frustrating to play since everything can fly or do other special things and all they get to do is swing a sword at the air.

Don't worry your time will come...just keep brooding and gathering your power.

A good suggestion for this campaign would be Craft wondrous items if your DM will offer downtime for crafting. When I played my GM said no craft feats beyond Scrolls/potions/wands as anything else will take too long and you will be on a time crunch.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

You have Color Spray and Sleep. Use them.

Watch half or more of the foes go unconscious for the duration of the fight. Back off, take a break, and let the rest of the party finish the job.

Conjuration's main strengths are control and summons. Buffing is fine but it is not your strength, more of a backup plan...


Don't think of your usefulness in terms of pure numbers. Think of it this way: there's a group of 4 reasonable tough baddies coming after you. The pally can hit one with his hammer and take a counterattack to the face. The archer shoots another one but they still keep coming and eventually get up in his/her face which limits their effectiveness. The cleric will probably buff the others helping them do more damage or maybe running into the same problem as the pally or the ranger (I've never fought with a starknife but I think they're ranged.)

You, on the other hand, need cast only one spell to take another person on their side out of the fight. Charm their fighter and suggest he sit out the fight. Grease the enemy barbarian so he slips and can't charge letting others focus on someone else. Or you could grease the enemy ranger's bow so he can't hold it anymore. Summon some eagles to harass the enemy wizard so he can't cast any spells on your guys. Or summon up some flanking buddies. The Cleric's bless gave the +1 to attack rolls and fear saves. Your flanking buddies gave them +2 to hit and does some damage on its own. Only when you've exhausted your control spells should you even think about throwing magic missiles or rays of frost.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Forgot to mention, for me this is a given. You are a wizard. You *know* things about monsters.

You have a fair number of skill points and ideally you spent them on monster knowledges. (Arcane, the Planes, Nature, Religion, Local).

It's a free action to make a check.

On your turn ID them.

"Oh BTW that's a monster X...what resistances/immunities/DR does it have?"

"Oh I made my check by +5/10/15? Okay...what vulnerabilities? Any special attacks?"

Knowledge is power. Know your enemy. Know yourself. Knowing is half the battle...and you are a wizard so you can supply the red and blue lasers for the other half.


When you get to level 3 take Craft Wondrous Item! In all reality Wizards at mid to low optimization levels start out slow and finish strong. A big part of your usefulness below level 5 is outside of combat. You have to not go all out every fight until higher level, even a specialist or a cleric won't have enough spells to slug it out with maximum force all the time until much higher level.


To echo what others are saying here, wizards start slow. Your party has a high offense it looks like, so just make sure that they're killing the enemies quickly and efficiently to start. You may not feel too special right now, but if you're enlarging the paladin and greasing whoever approaches first so they end up prone and in a threatened square, your party probably loves you. Just make sure that your spells don't negatively affect the party.

If you have an option to rebuild, drop your strength and charisma and get your con a little higher, and maybe get your intelligence higher as well. I tend to always start casters with a 19 or 20 in the casting stat. Might as well be good at it.

The teleportation subschool is the best conjuration specialist school because movement and positioning is the next most important thing you do besides cast.

Personally, I usually take enchantment and necromancy as my opposed schools to conjuration. I find illusion, enchantment, and necromancy all have a lot of will save spells, so I just go with one. At level 10, the wizard feat opposition research allows you to add one back. Divination might also be a good choice since it can be replaced by scrolls and other casters can cast detect magic.

Also, get a familiar if you can, and one with thumbs. Give it a wand later and you have just added another casting action to your turn. Lyriaken Azatas from the improved familiar feat might be the best at this. You can give it a wand of enlarge person so you don't have to do that anymore, a wand of haste for super buffing on round one every fight, or a wind of lightning bolt or scorching ray to allow it to blast for you.

grease, enlarge person, and color spray gives you offense, defense, and control at level 1. acid splash is okay, but even as a touch attack, firing into melee with soft cover makes it weak overall. my favorite 0th level spell is probably daze. shutting down one enemy is a good action. It allows the cleric to conserve their spells by not having to heal whomever the enemy was about to attack. Don't bother with magic missile until you get several of them and aren't using 1st level spells much anymore. Then only use it for mopping up.

At 3rd level you get your second level spells. Glitterdust really can wreck an enemy and rolling around flaming spheres is good for damage and control (and swarms!). Invisibility is a powerful buff, and the create pit spells are good for control. At this point, you will start really feeling like you're contributing heavily to victory.

From there you will really start to take off in power.

Don't be afraid to craft some scrolls. It makes you more flexible.

As you advance, The important skills are spellcraft, perception, use magic device, and several knowledges. I also like linguistics.

Don't worry about armor. Worry about your saves and not getting hit in the first place. I find standing behind enlarged paladins is an excellent defensive strategy.


Basically what everyone else said. Sleep is a death spell for approx 4HD of enemies at low levels. Throw it out against a bunch of fighters or rogues and let your party do the rest. Coup de Grace is borderline undignified for your enemies.

Summon monster is one of those spells that scales ridiculously with level. At level 1 it's useless. At level 5+ it's a game-changer. Even if all you summon is a flanking buddy that's +10% for an ally to hit, as well as enabling sneak attack.


Google Treantmonk's guide to being a god.
Should give you some ideas.
Never has there been a better guide, it is the one most emulated.


Familiars are horribly overrated. Arcane bond gets you 1 spell you know a day and is infinitely useful.

Familiars have there moments but nothing groundbreaking.

Your spell list is awesome outside of Summon Monster 1. The key is get in position. Drop Color spray and then start slinging. Or throw clubs. You have to learn to manage your spellbook until level 6. At that point you should have enough to see you through the day


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Actually familiars can be extraordinarily useful. Even say the lowly raven. They make great scouts. At higher levels (in Society at 7th with Improved Familiar) they can break action economy via wand use.

Unless your GM specifically targets pets in which case yah go with the 1 extra spell a day item.


If I could I would use a bonded item from levels 1-6 and a familiar 7-20. Basically that extra any spell per day is super useful when you have maybe 8 spells total. If you have 40 spells memorized and a haversack with one pocket full of various scrolls, then having the familiar wand-cast several times per combat gets you a lot of extra actions.


Wow thanks for all the responses guys. It's good to know o wasn't doing everything all wrong. I am used to blast master sorcerers, so this wizard is a challenge.


Color Spray is super effective at this level (especially if you have teleportation subschool and can shift a bit out of range). You're well on your way, soon you you'll have create pit and glitterdust, and stinking cloud thereafter. A lot of nasty area effects that control the battlefield. Also SM II is nice for the small elementals. But level 1, I like to throw color sprays around and shoot some cross bows. and mage armor!

Owner - October Country Comics, LLC.

You can even mix some pseudo control with a side of blasting with Flaming Sphere. Create pit and Aqueous Orb is nice. But as others have said, the Wizard is a waiting game. Don't be rash and try to survive. Help where and when you can and don't you worry, the power will come.

I myself have felt this way. I'm playing my second Wizard and we just finished book 1 of RotRL. My first ever was a Elf Conjuration(Teleportation) Wizard who died fighting a big baddy with a bunch of melee types who couldn't get out of their own way. My second ever Wizard is the one who replaced that one. He is a 5th level human Conjuration specialist who is going to go into the Magaambyian Arcanist Prestige Class.

Good luck and don't lose hope. Your time to shine will come.

Grand Lodge

There is forms of "blast" control if you build another wizard sometime. Toppling spell + Magic Missiles/ means Trip attempt for each missile. Or Dazing Spell + Fire Wall/Ball is pretty funny combo.

I will be honest The God Wizard is much better at control then the Blast control Wizard.

I still recommend Improved Familiar at level 7. He uses your skill ranks so if you Have UMD he does as well. The action economy will be very welcomed. Best wands to hand him will be: Enervation and Haste as typically First round you either want to haste or hit them with some negative levels to lower their saves by -1-4. Another thing to do with familiars is share spell. Poly-morphs, Form of the dragon, ext ext will add another combatant and some forms offer special breath weapons and abilities that the familiar can take advantage of along side your army of Summoned Creatures.

Scarab Sages

Fruian Thistlefoot wrote:

Welcome to the Wizard my friend....

...Then take elf Alternate racial for adamixture so your SUPER few blast spells can be what ever element you need them to be. Always good to get around elemental resistances. I'm against blasting but against some mobs it is inevitable.

OK, Fruian, what are you talking about here? Alternate racial for admixture? Is that a trait? I've never heard of such a thing.

What rule are you referring to?

Grand Lodge

Favored class*

Quote:
Select one arcane school power at 1st level that is normally usable a number of times per day equal to 3 + the wizard's Intelligence modifier. The wizard adds +1/2 to the number of uses per day of that arcane school power.

Adamixture/Evocation school

Quote:
Versatile Evocation (Su): When you cast an evocation spell that does acid, cold, electricity, or fire damage, you may change the damage dealt to one of the other four energy types. This changes the descriptor of the spell to match the new energy type. Any non-damaging effects remain unchanged unless the new energy type invalidates them (an ice storm that deals fire damage might still provide a penalty on Perception checks due to smoke, but it would not create difficult terrain). Such effects are subject to GM discretion. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Intelligence modifier.


It may be that the battlefield control / debuffer / buffer playstyle just doesn't appeal to you. It's definitely a more subtle way to play than tossing out save / die or nukes, and does not appeal to all players (myself largely included).

MichaelCullen wrote:

Google Treantmonk's guide to being a god.

Should give you some ideas.
Never has there been a better guide, it is the one most emulated.

Come on man. Fourth line of the OPs post.

PSusac wrote:
Fruian Thistlefoot wrote:

Welcome to the Wizard my friend....

...Then take elf Alternate racial for adamixture so your SUPER few blast spells can be what ever element you need them to be. Always good to get around elemental resistances. I'm against blasting but against some mobs it is inevitable.

OK, Fruian, what are you talking about here? Alternate racial for admixture? Is that a trait? I've never heard of such a thing.

What rule are you referring to?

I think there are some that read into the elf favorite class option as letting you snag the 1st level school powers from other schools. I've never read it that way, but I've seen it referenced before. I'm pretty sure the intention is for you to be able to get extra uses out of your own rather than giving you a bunch of 1-2 per day uses of every school power, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong with a Dev response on the issue.

As it stands I think it falls into the same sort of questionable rules space as metamagic rods and metamgic'ed spells did for a while.

Scarab Sages

Yeah, that's not how I read it. If you can get it by your GM, then I hope you enjoy the Monty Hall show.

But ok.


Pretty much what others have said. Once you get level 3 spells, things start picking up quickly. Slow and Haste are both great spells, as is Aqueous Orb.

Summons don't get too useful until SM3 in my opinion. At that point the duration is actually useful as well.

If you want to summon a lot, definitely grab augmented summons. It keeps their power closer to the baddies. You can get superior summons after that, if you like, though I passed as I rarely found myself dropping down the summon lists for multiple monsters.

edit: and Create Pit at 3rd level. Great spell!! Spiked pit can be good once you have an abundance of spells for the room.

Grand Lodge

The way our group does it is at 1st level you choose 1 other school. You can learn to use that ability as the favored class suggests. But you only get to pick 1 other school.

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