Beginner Q - Wizard

[E Man]

Just starting out the game with an elemental specialist wizard, but I think I'm not doing this right. I get too few spells (number of uses, not variety of spells). I can burn through them too quickly, and then have to resort to using a crossbow. I didn't want an archer. I think Sorcerer may get more spellcasts, but it still seems limited. I could rest after every battle I suppose, but that doesn't seem right.

I imagined a magic character being able to use spells as their primary damage. Does this change as I gain levels or am I just doing it wrong? Thanks for any guidance.

-MrNewb

[Stink Bug]

You’re doing nothing wrong, wizards/sorcs (and all casters really) have few spell slots in early levels; you’re not meant to burn them all in mundane combat, but save them for the tougher encounters. Cantrips might tide you over (Daze is great to use against early game humanoid enemies) until level 5 or so which is when you really start accumulating a pile, and by midgame you’ll have more spells than you know what to do with.

If you can’t wait til level 5, consider restarting as a Kineticist: they have unlimited elemental or physical blasts from the very beginning.

[MjKorz]

Elemental Specialist is a trap. Its main feature is conversion of elemental damage into an element of choice, but the game gives you an item that converts all of your elemental damage into lightning for "free" (at the cost of you having to wear certain bracers). This item is Stormlord's Resolve bracers and you will find it in Blackwater in Chapter 3.

If you want to play an arcane caster that does elemental AoE damage, your best bet is to play a crossblooded sorcerer with a Blue + Bronze bloodline choices. This will give you +2 damage per die rolled for all lightning spells and Stormlord's Resolve will allow you to convert all of your elemental damage into lightning. The Ascendant Element mythic ability will also allow you to bypass all enemy lightning resistances/immunities, but I heard that this ability is bugged in the current patch.

However, keep in mind that direct damage dealing casters are relatively weak in this game. Strongest direct damage caster you can make is a Hellfire Ray caster, but this kind of build lacks any AoE damage and is only good at dealing with single targets. It also locks you into choosing Trickster as your mythic path, because in order to use Hellfire Ray to its maximum potential you need to focus on improving your Ray cirtical multiplier (trickster reaches x4) and also get the ability to inflict critical hits on demand (trickster achieves this via Trick Fate).

There are also two other types of AoE damage dealing casters in the game: Necromancy focused full arcane caster lich that spams Negative Eruption and full divine caster Angel that spams Storm of Justice. Both of these casters are capped at sub 2k AoE damage per round via two casts (for lich it's more like 1300 damage per round total).

The best damage dealing casters in the game are casters that use instant death spells - illusion specialists. These type of casters inflict infinite AoE damage and delete entire screens in a single cast, but they require more knowledge of the game than your typical brain-dead Negative Eruption spammer.

[Astrarium]

As someone who has developed a taste for playing mage-types exclusively (with Wizard being my go to), my first thought is: if you're playing a Wizard, you're not primarily a damage dealer. Sure, as proposed above, there are certain builds that maximize your damage-dealing potential, but I've always found that the true value of a wizard is in their warding/buffing ability. Transmutation & Abjuration are your best friends. Being able to keep your party hasted, stoneskinned, and well protected from spells (esp mind-affecting) and elements will be what makes the difference between hard fights and "this is a breeze". I often wonder if people who complain about the difficulty of fights are simply lacking proper magical protections. To me, there is no good mage companion in the game, so if I don't make one, things don't go as smoothly.

As a Wizard, you'll feel useless at the beginning. You need to be handheld and carried. As you grow, you develop into the one character with the best magical protections (if you don't lock yourself out of the relevant schools), most likely being able to 1 vs. 1 kill any of your other companions. It's a game of keeping account of what spells to bring to which situation, and which of them to employ against which foes. It's not as easy as weapon spec. and hack away until the end, but if you give yourself time to study the elements that make up a Wizard and how magic works, your character can very easily become the single most valuable piece of any party, and not because you're the main mythic.

[Jairoe03]

Originally posted by Astrahalora:

As someone who has developed a taste for playing mage-types exclusively (with Wizard being my go to), my first thought is: if you're playing a Wizard, you're not primarily a damage dealer. Sure, as proposed above, there are certain builds that maximize your damage-dealing potential, but I've always found that the true value of a wizard is in their warding/buffing ability. Transmutation & Abjuration are your best friends. Being able to keep your party hasted, stoneskinned, and well protected from spells (esp mind-affecting) and elements will be what makes the difference between hard fights and "this is a breeze". I often wonder if people who complain about the difficulty of fights are simply lacking proper magical protections. To me, there is no good mage companion in the game, so if I don't make one, things don't go as smoothly.

As a Wizard, you'll feel useless at the beginning. You need to be handheld and carried. As you grow, you develop into the one character with the best magical protections (if you don't lock yourself out of the relevant schools), most likely being able to 1 vs. 1 kill any of your other companions. It's a game of keeping account of what spells to bring to which situation, and which of them to employ against which foes. It's not as easy as weapon spec. and hack away until the end, but if you give yourself time to study the elements that make up a Wizard and how magic works, your character can very easily become the single most valuable piece of any party, and not because you're the main mythic.

I partially agree with this but really should look at Wizards as a support/utility class. Basically, if you need to do something you normally can't do in the game, a Wizard can probably get you there or close to whatever you need. I wouldn't limit this to just buffing and transmuting but also crowd control and debuffing enemies as well as AoE damage.

Would like to caveat the AoE damage aspect of it, this does not mean they should be used as primary damage dealers but should be viewed as a way to soften up a group of enemies for your archers and melee'ers to take down easier. AoE damage isn't really a thing that martial classes can do that well relative to casters. So, I am viewing AoE damage more as a utility than a way to deliver damage if that makes sense.

Wizards being utility can also mean you might spend some turns not doing anything with Wizard particularly during trash encounters (usually to preserve spell slots) and this is okay. Once you wrap your head around the idea that Wizard = utility, they become much funner to play.

Also side note, if you ever read fantasy novels or watch fantasy movies, Wizards are usually the guys that end up doing nothing most of the time and then do something extremely impactful at a crucial moment in a battle. This can help give an idea on how to view Wizards in these types of games as well.

[IRuleAll]

i dont see any point in a wizard in this game, because there are not enough useful spells for them to utilize. in tabletop where you got a bunch of books and tons of spells, that is where a wizard easily outshines a sorc. in a video game where the spell choices are pretty limited, and the fact that half the spells arent really good, theres no reason to not be a sorc. you get access to all the spells you would ever want/need, you get more casts per day, you dont have to prepare metamagic and can cast whatever you want whenever you want. and the bloodlines are pretty good. sylvan sorc gives you an animal companion, its great to ride around on your animal companion while blasting spells(which completely negates the downside of being a spontaneous caster using metamagic, since your animal companion can still move).

[Baldurs_Gate_2]

Wizard gets their spell tiers one level earlier than Sorcerer. They get more skill points, because INT is their base attribute instead of Charisma.

Sorcerer is better for Lich path, because your Lord of the Grave + Storyteller Cloak does not provide INT. And you get your charisma bonus as CON in chapter 5. And your DC level is +5 higher than with a INT based Sorc (Sage) or Wizard.

You get some equipment, which whom your Sorcerer gets additional spells throughout the game.

Besides the skill points and earlier tier 2, 3 etc. spells, there is not much reason for a Wizard instead of an Sorcerer.

Either go Sylvan Sorcerer if you like the pet, that can buffed pretty high with the right companions or default with arcane bloodline in my opinion. More extra spells through that.

[EDIT] Ok it seems, they changed / fixed Lord beyond the grave. So they now have basically the same DC in the end.

[MjKorz]

Originally posted by IRuleAll:

i dont see any point in a wizard in this game

That's because you do not understand how wizards work.

Originally posted by IRuleAll:

because there are not enough useful spells for them to utilize.

The main strength of Wizards in this game does not come from a wider selection of spells compared to a sorcerer, though this is definitely an advantage, although a minor one. Main strength of Wizard class is highest initiative out of any caster class and better use of metamagic.

Originally posted by IRuleAll:

theres no reason to not be a sorc. you get access to all the spells you would ever want/need, you get more casts per day, you dont have to prepare metamagic and can cast whatever you want whenever you want.

Any metamagicked spell a sorcerer casts except for a quickened spell is treated as a full round action. A Wizard can cast 3 metamagicked spells per round: one as a swift action, one as a move action and one as a standard action. A sorcerer can only cast two: one as a swift action and one as a full round action. You do not understand how metamagic works.

Originally posted by IRuleAll:

and the bloodlines are pretty good. sylvan sorc gives you an animal companion, its great to ride around on your animal companion while blasting spells.

Divination school powers outshine any bloodline and grant the Wizard a decisive advantage over a Sorcerer - the ability to stack Initiative to such values that the Wizard wins any and all initiative rolls in the game starting from chapter 3.

All in all, sorcerers are outright inferior to wizards in this game, ESPECIALLY now when Lord Beyond the Grave has been nerfed and a pure caster Lich no longer gets any charisma bonuses.

[MjKorz]

Originally posted by Baldurs_Gate_2:

Sorcerer is better for Lich path, because your Lord of the Grave + Storyteller Cloak does not provide INT. And you get your charisma bonus as CON in chapter 5. And your DC level is +5 higher than with a INT based Sorc (Sage) or Wizard.

This has been nerfed. Lich no longer affects himself with Lord Beyond the Grave. HP is irrelevant for a pure caster, because a good pure caster wins initiative and ends encounters with a quickened spell before they even start.

Originally posted by Baldurs_Gate_2:

Besides the skill points and earlier tier 2, 3 etc. spells, there is not much reason for a Wizard instead of an Sorcerer.

Initiative and metamagic. There is no reason to play a sorcerer unless you want to gimp yourself.

[Jairoe03]

Would also add to the fact that # of spell slots starts becoming negligible the further in the game you go when you start having to rest more often before you exhaust the # of spell slots.

[Johndoe101]

Early game you need to manage what spells you use. As you have a finite amount of prepared spells to use per day as a wizard. Early game use cantrips and spells you know sparingly . As let say you prepared as a wizard by lv3 for 1st level spell: shield , mage armor ,magic missle and protection from chaos. Depending on situation you can go through them quickly if you have a single caster in the party as a wizard. Wizard are great if you know what to prepared as they can be more useful then a sorceror early game if you pick the correct spells and switch them out when you prepare the next day spells .

By early to mid game you will have more spells . As it be less of a issue if you know what spells to prep and know when to use them . One advantage a properly made and play wizard if the player know what to prepare . They can have enough spells to use in the day with out spending all of the spells in a single encounter unless it is a boss fight or you know you can rest in a safe area afterward. It is a matter of knowing when or not cast a spell sparingly as not to waste all spells quickly .

Sorceror are great if you have a build for them . Such as a pure damage spells or debuff build in mind. As they can excel in this role early to end game. While a wizard is better as they can switch out spells for the next day when they prepared spells know. Such as knowing you will fight agaist alot of foes who have a bad ref save . In that situation you pick spells that target that saving role if you know to prep them . A properly made wizard by mid to end game can be very good as they can prepared for most encounter's due to the amount of spells they know.

As for the TTRPG side of the game for a PF1E game i played in . For a lv20 wizard i played due the gm allowing me to use all paizo books for spells .I knew over 1000 spells so i was mostly prepared for most encounter's due to my character knowledge for what to prepare for most adventure or non-adventure days.