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let see the questions in order:
-Human would be a great choice for this AP. If you want a little fantasy, you can go Half-Elf.
-Void is technically all the rave nowadays, but well, if you take into account that you might want to focus on protecting your kingdom/land, abjuration might not be a bad choice. Enchantment specialization also works well for trickster.
-Familiars are usually my preferred arcane bond. Their utility is pretty neat.
-Just read guides out there for spells and feats.
-Exploiter Wizard are strong, not much else to say about it. Should be noted tho, if you pick exploiter wizard, you will lose the arcane bond and school specialization.
The Student of Philosophy trait, might help more with your concept without having to pump up charisma too high.
I tend to get overwhelmed when I have too many choices and I'm starting to feel that way.
Welcome to wizards! Easily the highest time-investment class (except for summoners).
I want him to be able to converse with Nobles easily, to come off as a high and mighty Wizard worthy of standing in any noble court. However, I want this to be an act he puts on, upon leaving the company of nobles, etc. he would immediately bad mouth them and their stuffy ways. He would be careful with what he says to avoid constant bluff checks. I want him to be mischievous, a trickster of sorts with a love of gambling and hard drink. Pulling the puppet strings of the nobles to further the goals of the party.
Sounds like you want a decent charisma, possibly going illusion magic.
However, I also want to be mighty, to cast powerful damaging spells.
Ha, scratch illusion.
What would you recommend on Race?
As you say, Elf is probably the best core race for wizard. Not only are their ability modifiers great, their other racial abilities are great (free spell penetration!).
You can never go wrong with human or half elf, both make great wizards. Half orcs are actually just as good, if an unorthodox choice. The darkvision is a nice perk. Any other core race I would avoid. Do you have other options for races?
What would you recommend as far as the school I should go with?
Completely depends on what you want to do. Conjuration is my personal favorite as I am a huge fan of Treantmonk's Wizard Guide. If you want to be better at blasting, go evocation. For trickery, go illusion or enchantment. For battlefield control go conjuration. For buffing go transmutation. For debuffing go necromancy. Keep in mind the school specialization just makes you better at those abilities, you can still do just about anything.
Familiar or bonded object?
Familiar is almost always the better choice. Lose your bonded object and you're completely screwed at low levels.
Any and all spell recommendations based on my Abilities section would be very welcome. Along with interesting combinations of spells.
Refer to Treantmonk's guide above for what is generally seen as the most effective type of wizard, if not the most flashy. Refer to the Blockbuster guide for blowing stuff up.
Feats
Improved initiative and toughness are great for wizards. Consider spell focus in your school of specialization as well. But refer to the guides above for more options.
I'd go with Universalist with no Archetype. This is your first wizard. You don't know what your favorite school is. You don't have to pick one, yet.
Please ignore the lesser Universalist wizard, for he is weak ;)
Spoiler on Kingmaker encounters ahead.
There's is also lots of downtime, get at least Craft Wondrous Items.
Yep definitely taking craft wonderous item.
Also, anyone know about the Drow Noble? Is it an official race? I really want a character that has Intel and Charisma bonuses right off the bat. The Noble Drow would fit that but I can't find anything about them getting the +4 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, +2 Wisdom, +2 Charisma, –2 Constitution. This seems like its meant for the GM and not for players to choose this race type.
I mean, if your GM lets you make a Drow Noble character, more power to you. I don't think they're generally meant to be PCs though.
If by chance your GM is foolish enough willing to allow you to play a Drow Noble character, don't forget that in addition to your +4 Dex/+2 Int/+2 Wis/+2 Cha/-2 Con, you get:
- Detect Magic (constant)
- Dancing Lights (at will)
- Deeper Darkness (at will)
- Faerie Fire (at will)
- Feather Fall (at will)
- Dispel Magic (1/day)
- Divine Favor (1/day)
- Suggestion (1/day)
- Low-Light vision
- Darkvision
- Elven Immunities
- Keen Senses
- Poison Use,
I'd say you might be able to get away with it, but you'd probably want to follow the guidelines for playing monsters as PCs.
In terms of wanting bonuses to Int and Cha right off the bat, you could always use the human alternate racial trait Dual Talent, though you do lose Skilled and the bonus Feat.
If you're playing an Elf and looking for alternate racial traits, Arcane Focus is pretty good for a Wizard.
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- Any experience with the Spellbinder Wizard? Seems like this could be very useful.
This Archetype is one of the only reasons to take Wizard over Sorcerer. To take it you need Elf or Half-Elf (or I guess Human at the cost of a feat). I recommend Half-Elf because you're going to want Skill Focus.
The beauty of this Archetype is that you can read the "God" wizard guide and select all those spells, then go read the "Blaster" wizard guide and pick all those to be your bonded spells. On the surface you look straight utility, but when you need to, you switch out to blast.
You want:
Preferred Spell at 5th level. I specialized in Fireball because I don't like making attack rolls, but Snowball isn't a bad choice.
Skill Focus: Any knowledge (get from Half-Elf)
Take Magical Knack as a trait, I used Fireball. Will let you add Intensify without increasing the level.
Student of Philosophy or Clever Wordplay aren't bad for a second trait, but you'll want a 13 CHA anyway for:
Eldritch Heritage Arcane - This will get you your familiar back. For your Familiar you want a Lyrikien Azata (look it up AMAZING).
I would also suggest a 1 level dip into Sorcerer, Crossblooded for Orc and Dragon for the +2 per die added to your damage. The Orc darkvision doesn't hurt either. I believe you can also add Tattooed Sorcerer which will add to your Familiar and let you make it a tattoo so it doesn't get in the way.
I went Conjuration(Teleportation). That Shift power was just too good to pass up, and increasing the duration of Summoning helps too. Admixture is also pretty strong choice. +1/2 level to damage and being able to change energy type on the fly is nice.
For Opposition Schools, I went Necromancy and Divination. Divination hurts a bit for Detect Magic, but I went Sorcerer at Level 2 so I just used two slots for Detect Magic at level 1. Read Magic is also divination so you'll want that as a Sorcerer spell too.
Even if, by some chance, the GM let you pick Drow Noble, you would have to invest in a lot of constant disguises and illusions to hide your identity. Any interaction you had with elves or those nobles would almost assuredly lead to extreme distrust and potential combat if they found out.
For a race, I'd recommend (apart from those already discussed): Samsaran or Sylph. They're fairly exotic, but not in a confrontational way, so you shouldn't have any problems with NPC's. They also have some nice racial traits to choose from that would help an aspiring Wizard. If you're sure you want Int and Cha boosts to start with, you could probably convince the GM to allow you to play a female Lashunta. It's not as overpowered as Drow Noble, and doesn't have the social ramifications, but you'll still need a pretty interesting backstory to justify it, as they're not native to Golarion.
If you aren't enamored of the core races (4 of them make very good wizards and 3 are short) Samsaran is probably the strongest for the Mystic Past Life.
Divination gives out an initiative bonus and the subschools are both good for different things.
Evocation (Admixture) is good for making sure you can blast things immune to your favorite spells.
Conjuration (Teleportation) is good for keeping you alive.
Wood and Void are also strong I hear.
Thassilonian Specialist Necromancy (Gluttony) gets the most spells per day while having decent school powers (Command Undead) and acceptable banned schools.
Stinking Cloud and Black Tentacles can create a kill zone because nauseated creatures can't escape grapples and keep taking damage every round. It works against opponents with low fort saves and low CMD which often coincide.
I tend to get overwhelmed when I have too many choices and I'm starting to feel that way.
Wizards have lots of choices -- they are all about having a huge toolbox and picking the right tool for the job. You'll want to think carefully about this. One useful thing is to pre-write some spell lists -- e.g., have one list for when you're out adventuring, one for social situations, one for dungeon delving, etc. Ttry and have some standard packages available for use so you don't have to spend as much game time thinking about the choices you're making.
Personality: I want him to be able to converse with Nobles easily, to come off as a high and mighty Wizard worthy of standing in any noble court. However, I want this to be an act he puts on, upon leaving the company of nobles, etc. he would immediately bad mouth them and their stuffy ways. He would be careful with what he says to avoid constant bluff checks. I want him to be mischievous, a trickster of sorts with a love of gambling and hard drink. Pulling the puppet strings of the nobles to further the goals of the party.
You'll need the appropriate skills for this -- your high Int helps. Consider being n enchanter as their school powers work well with this. Diplomacy, Bluff, and Knowledge (nobility) are all important, but consider how much you want to give up to make this work...
Abilities: I want to be valuable to the party, constantly looked at to solve problems and get us out of dangerous situations, etc. However, I also want to be mighty, to cast powerful damaging spells. I would love to use a lot of spells out of the other books besides the Core book that my play group has maybe never seen before. I also love interesting combinations of spells like casting a damaging area of effect spell with a duration and damage over time on an enemy then dropping a prismatic dome over them to trap them inside. Would love some suggestions here.
There are lots of possibilities. Probably worth another thread.
"Valuable to the party" can mean a lot of things. Find out in advance what's going on, boost your fellow party members, block or reduce enemy effectiveness, deal with enemies yourself... Just don't hog the spotlight so much other players get disgruntled.
How about a blaster with rime and dazing metamagic? Whatever survives your powerful destructive power gets a hefty debuff and you are able to control the battlefield while doing damage.
You can ofcourse get all the important stuff that makes a God wizard like black tentacles, haste, walls and summoning spells, illusions and all the utility. With preferred spell you won't have to prepare your fireballs and can cast them spontaneously allowing you to keep your spell slots for all the good utility and control spells you like.
Matamagic master and magical lineage or wayang traits will allow you to pack your fireballs with a lot of metamagic power.
1 level of sorcerer with orc and draconic bloodline will make your blast ridiculous and admixture wizard allows you to transform your blasts to any element when you encounter monsters with immunities. High knowledge skills will let you know these immunities beforehand so you can switch your elements.
I have a build ready with step by step explanation for this build if you find it interesting. It has all the goodies of a god wizard with aoe damage that will make your fighter jealous.
Specialize in Conjuration: Teleportation. This gives a swift action multi-use dimension door supernatural ability that you can use to get out of grapples, escape from jail cells, or just get out of combat reach so you can cast your spell without interruption. As a supernatural ability, it does not provoke attacks of opportunity, and can be used while you are grappled.
For opposed schools, take Abjuration and Necromancy.
Since you will be exploring the wilderness a lot, a familiar that can fly would help you with scouting and seeing whats up ahead. A hawk would be good for scouting during the day. But, I'd probably take an owl to watch over me at night when camping/sleeping outdoors.
Conjuration(Teleportation) specialist should consider Dimensional Agility. Shift might let you escape grapples, but its range leaves a lot to be desired if you don't get to act after using it.
Abjuration is about sixth in the ban queue, after enchantment, necromancy, evocation, divination and illusion.
The Silvanshee's AC's are a bit lower and its additions to knowledge checks aren't QUITE as strong but I feel like it has better spell like abilities, and might be better suited to this Kingmaker AP we're doing. Am I missing something here?
I mean I don't want to try to turn you off if you like the Agathion better, but this is why I think the Lyrakien is better
SA's Constant - know direction, speak with animals
LA's Constant - detect evil, detect magic, freedom of movement
Those constants really sell it for me. That and the fact that the Lyrakien has hands and no issues with Wands. I also like being able to remove Fatigue and Exhaustion. Fighter needs to sleep in his armor? Take care of it.
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I would like to see the build posted here for your wizard Lao
If you want to make your blasting viable, you are kinda forced to dip crossblooded sorcerer with Orc/Draconic as your bloodlines. You need those two arcanas to make your fireballs scary. If you are allowed to double archetype your sorcerer, take also Tattooed as this will give you a free ''Mage's Tattoo'' feat.
str. 10
dex. 14
con. 14
int. 18 + 2 (racial)= 20
wis. 12
cha. 7 (you can switch charisma with str. or lower str also and increase wisdom)
traits:
Magical Lineage: Fireball
Metamagic Master: Fireball
(Those two are essential for this build, at least one of them. If you can't definitely take one)
Feats:
Tattooed Sorcerer: Mage's Tattoo: Evocation
Wizard: Scribe Scroll (if this is society play, you ll switch this with spell focus: evocation)
Human: Spell Focus: Evocation
1) Spell Specialization: Burning Hands (Change it to Fireball later)
3) Heighten Spell (you need this for Preferred spell next level, you could also take Greater Spell Specialization but you need to know 5th lvl spells, so if you start late, it's suggested)
5) Preferred Spell: Fireball (Now you never have to prepare fireballs and you can cast them spontaneously by sacrificing other spells)
6 wizard bonus) Rime Metamagic (Change your fireball element to cold through your admixture wizard skill, and start pissing off the God Wizard) The second choice is: Greater Spell Focus: Evocation
7) Empower Metamagic (it's better than maximize metemagic)
9) Depending on what you chose at 6th lvl, put here the other one
11) Intensify Metamagic (so your fireballs keep scaling)
11 wiz bonus) Spell Penetration
13) Quicken Metamagic
15) Spell Perfection: Fireball (Retrain your Rime metamagic to Dazing metamagic and use it with spell perfection at the start of the combat)
16 wiz bonus) Greater Spell Penetration
Some notes:
- This build focuses on destruction while applying hefty debuffs with rime and dazing metamagic later. (starting from level 6)
- You can cast fireballs spontaneously from lvl 5 onward. Now you can prepare all the utility and control and summoning and whatever spell you like. Who said you can't be a God Wizard.
- Invest in knowledge skills so you scan the monster before you decide your element. You can change elements when you encounter fire immunity monsters. Resistances won't do much for them as your damage is so high that -20 won't matter at high levels.
- Human is better if you start early levels as it allows you access to important feats earlier. Elf is better at later levels with their spell penetration
- All our feats are about making your evocation spells better and stronger. If you want some extra feats like improved initiative (+++), improved familiar, fast study etc. you need to be very careful with what you re going to replace.
Gear:
Two rods: You need Maximize Rod and Selective Rod. The first will give you even more damage, and the second will save your friends bacon.
Headband of vast intellect and the other basic stuff.
Go crazy.