Hey guys,
it has been a while since I really posted anything of any effort here, but I've been rolling an idea around in my head for a while.
What if a Wizard could be melee focused?
It sounds somewhat absurd, sort of the thing the EK is for, but what if it was a full Wizard?
The build I came up with is
Human (+2 dex, +2 con)
Class: Wizard (Spell Sage)
at 15 point buy I came to (Starting -- lvl 20)
Str 10 -- 10
Dex 18 -- 30 (+2 [permanency reduce person], +6 Belt of Physical Might, +4 [attribute increases from HD])
Con 15 -- 22 (+6 [Belt of Physical Might] + 1 [Attribute increase from HD])
Int 13 -- 19 (+6 [Headband of Vast Intelligence])
Wis 10 -- 10
Cha 09 -- 09
Skills (Acrobatics, at least 3, everything else optional.)
Feats
1st: Toughness
3rd: Skill Focus: Knowledge Whatever.
5th: Weapon Expertise
Wiz 5: Weapon Finesse
7th: Eldritch Heritage: Protector Familiar
9th: Craft Wondrous Items
wiz 10: Craft Arms and Armor
11th: True Name
13th: True Name
15th: True Name
wiz 15: True Name
17th: True Name
19th: True Name
wiz 20: Immortality
Gear:
Ring of Protection +5
Amulet of Natural Armor +5
Belt of Physical Might +6
+5 Silken Ceremonial Armor
+5 Celestial Shield (Starts with +2 included, figure out the increase cost with the GM)
+5 Agile Defending Dagger.
More or less required spell:
Use Spellsage to cast "Spellcasting Contract" on something, probably your familiar or a cohort/other PC to gain a bonus as high as possible. Here is the important line from the spell: "While the contract remains in effect, you gain a profane bonus to your Armor Class, saving throws, and checks equal to the highest- level spell you have imbued."
So this gives you a +5 bonus (at level 20) to your AC, saving throws and checks (I'm guessing skill and attribute checks, but it goes on later to say it also gives a bonus to attack rolls as well).
Use Permanency to make yourself permanently small.
----HEALTH----
Because of the CON, Favored Class and Toughness bonuses your HP should be fairly absurd for a Wizard. Add in that your protector familiar is more or less soaking damage for you and things get more absurd. You, in effect, can become unkillable. If you do start feeling yourself losing, you can just have your familiar cast that imbued teleport spell to get him and you out of there.
Each level you should get around:
(d6 HD + CON + Favored Class + Toughness)
HP 12 (4 + 6 + 1 + 1)
Which at lvl 20 puts us around:
HP 242 (12*20+2 [2 extra HP since you get full HP at lvl 1])
Your familiar would have 121 HP as a result. This basically means that you should be able to soak absurd amounts of damage compared to other "vanilla" wizards.
----DEFENSE----
Your AC isn't a joke. If one of the true names you took was a Succubus, you could increase your AC by 1 by having her increase your Dex by 2 with her pact, but this really boils down to effectively having the dodge feat that also gives +1 atk and +1 dmg.
Your AC will be around:
(Base + Natural Armor + Deflection Mod + Combat Expertise + Shield + Armor + Dex + Defending Dagger + Size + Fighting Defensively + Spellcasting Contract)
AC 60 (10 + 5 + 5 + 3 + 7 + 6 + 10 + 5 + 1 + 3 + 5)
Touch: 32 or 37 (if spellcasting contract increases touch)
Flat: 38
Flat-touch: 16
Add a cloak of displacement on top of that and you're even harder to hit.
Your saves will also be fairly impressive:
(base for lvl 20 + Con mod + Spellcasting Contract)
Fort 17 (6+6+5)
(Base for lvl 20 + Ref mod + Spellcasting Contract)
Ref 21 (6+10+5)
(Base for lvl 20 + Wis mod + Spellcasting Contract)
Will 17 (12+0+5)
----Attack----
Ok, so you're almost invincible in terms of melee (throw in a ring of freedom of movement and you're practically unkillable).
What do your attacks look like?
Well, good and bad. On one hand you can probably outlast your enemy with your absurd defenses (or just blow them up), but when you hit, you are going to hurt.
Your attack bonus looks like this
(lvl 20 BAB + Dex mod + Enhancement bonus + size bonus)
ATK +26 (10 + 10 + 5 + 1)
Your damage will look like this
Base + total (Dex mod [Agile] + Enhancement[+5])
1d3 + 15 (10 + 5)
Crap, I know. On the bright side you don't have to waste magic when fighting trash, and if you run out of magic you are not crippled.
But, what happens if we fight defensively, use weapon expertise and apply the Defending property?
Our ATK drops by 12.
ATK +14
Our damage also plummets to (1d3+10).
Hardly the damage that will make the enemies fear you, but again, you are the one with magic.
Absurd AC, Absurd HP (for a wizard), full wizard casting progression, multiple true-name minions to back you up and spells with terrible save DCs to massacre your enemies with. What could go wrong?
Anti-magic fields? Damn.
You might be able to squeeze a little more out of this build, as it is really just a cursory glance on my part. Giving the Weapon and armor the spellstoring enchantments means you can deal a great deal more damage. If you want to simplify your life even more, use a Cestus instead of a dagger. You are not only always armed, but you also can just cast a spell without switching anything around.
Anyway, what do you guys think?
The big problem is you are not really all that much of a threat. The DC for your saves is too low to be a real threat. Your HP while impressive for a wizard can easily be exceeded by most classes. You AC while decent is also something that most other classes can achieve at a similar level and wealth. Your saves are actually pretty low and make you very vulnerable.
Everything you achieved other than spell casting can be done by a 20th level standard monk. Not an unchained monk, or an archetype just a plain vanilla monk. When a standard monk can beat your stats that hardly qualifies as melee of doom.
Scrollmaster, no. Transmuter, yes.
Haylanar Whart is the penultimate melee wizard, capable of out damaging most martial DPR builds out there while also being infinitely more adaptable/versatile.
Sadly, such a build isn't possible without being mythic. So feel free to try to build a non-mythic melee wizard. Good luck. You're going to need it.