New player, Wizard feats?

[craig234]

I'm starting a new, non-specialized wizard, and it's hard to tell what feats are good. Metamagic ones SOUND good.

[reidj062]

Even if you're a non-specialist, you'll want to specialize somewhat, since you only have so many feats and spell slots. Minmaxing is the name of the game.

Many metamagic feats can be obtained later on in the game through rods. Heightened and selective ware worth grabbing, as they are not available through rods, last I checked. Be aware that certain spells that aren't damage dealing and deal effects lasting longer than one round may not be able to be made selective (ie- pit spells.)

if you're doing elemental damage, you'll want to combine elemental ascendance with a 1 level dip in one crossblooded sorcerer, allowing you to convert all elemental damage to a single type provided by an elemental bloodline. Either that, or never prepare spells that don't have your elemental ascendance.

Dodge is always great, as is toughness. In terms of teamwork feats, allied spellcaster and spell chain. Point blank shot and precise shot for ray casters. Ray casters are great because they can deal with guys with improved invasion and high reflex saves. They also make up for tanks not being able to hit certain high AC enemies.

Spell feats that specialize in a school and raise DC are great. Max them out. Be aware that dispeller focus builds are very powerful but unlikely to do much unless you take a ton of feats and know what you are doing. Also, many higher level opponents in the end game are immune to things like fear, mind-affecting, and death spells. So keep that in mind for enchantment or necro builds.

Phantasmal killer is a joke because an enemy will almost always make at least one of the saves. Same with baleful polymorph.

Mythic feats and abilities are favorite school: selective, mythic dodge, all the improved spellcasting abiltiies, and the enhanced mage armor mythic ability.

[Deo]

Why not specialize? Divination specialization is most broken thing in this game.

Usually Wizards are picking Spell Focus: Conjuration, Greater Spell Focus: Conjuration and Metamagic (Selective) to be useful to party at least in some way - by casting Selective Grease and Selective Web spells.

Other good feats to have in order are - Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration, then Improved Initiative.

One might argue that having Point Blank Shot and Precise shot is useful, but I found it a waste of priceless feats. By the time you will be shooting Scorching Ray, Battering Blast, Enervation or Hellfire Ray on regular basis - those (-4) to ranged attack rolls already do not matter, with all the buffs to hit your team can provide to your Wizard.

Rest of the feats depending on your chosen style of play.
Metamagic (Bolster) is great at increasing spell damage.
Spell Focus: Evocation and then Spell Specialization in Scorching Ray/Battering Blast/Hellfire Ray can increase damage too - and later will not become a waste if you will add Metamagic (Intensified) to such spells.

[IlluminaZero]

One thing that tends to be underestimated about metamagic feats is that; while its true that you can use rods to get ONE of the metamagic feats, to consistently stack metamagic abilities requires feats.

Example: A trickster can do: Normal, Bolster, Intensified, selective, and empowered at +0 spell slot levels (Addendum: Requires Mythic metamagic feats). Then you add a maximized metamagic rod and things go boom. Selective + Persistent is likely another obvious combo someone might want to do that cannot be done via Metamagic rods.

[Soul]

honestly if your interested in metamagic and non specialization..... I'd say just go sorcerer to experience it better....

I mean sure wizards can use metamagic and all.... but sorcerers just excel at it and can take more advantage of it than a wizard can....

not to mention you still get Nenio pretty early if you still want a wizard in your party..... good way to compare the 2 to see which fits you better.....

but basically sorcerers only know a few spells per level... which with the help of metamagic you can make those small spells known per level a lot more useful.....

like for me I can learn snowball as a level 1 spell.... with bolster metamagic I can raise it by 1 level to a level 2 spell.... with empower metamagic I can raise it to level 3 spell.... with bolster and empower I can raise it to level 4 spell.... so with the help of just 2 metamagic feats I always have an attack spell slotted for levels 1-4... meaning even as an evocation type of build I dont have to pick damaging spells every level just to be useful.... so im free to make my sorcerer as versatile as I want basically without having to sacrifice anything...

similar with haste and heighten..... haste is a level 3 spell.... but with heighten I can put it in 4th through 9th spell slots ensuring I will always have the ability to cast haste as long as I have at least 1 spell per day available from spell level 3 and up...

[IlluminaZero]

Wizard vs Sorceror is really a Q of tradeoffs. Basically - While Metamagic also gives remarkable magical flexibility that Metamagic turns Spontaneous magic (IE Sorceror magic) into Full Round actions is a pretty big con. It basically means that it takes double the time in real time and further disallows move -> cast.

In general I think this is really more a malus for buffing with metamagic (particularly Extend and Normal) though. Doubling your casting time on individual buffs gets old fast.

"Sorcerous reflex" is a great mythic feat in general (for the first round swift action) and largely mitigates this metamagic con for spontaneous casters.

Part of the reason why I think metamagic feats are underrated is actually that I almost never hear anyone ever talk about Mythic Metamagic abilities (IE -1). For characters like... Ember... Whoms hexes can lead to extreme magic economy going all in with metamagic feats and ignoring abundant casting isn't a big deal. Doubly so since she will get 6+CHA slots compared to the 4+(STAT) slots that prepared casters have.

Snowballs are hilariously awesome as Cantrips (Trickster...)

[craig234]

Thanks for a lot of info. Most of it is hard to make sense of as a new player.

When I said not specialized, I meant the sub-classes. I wouldn't mind a type of magic.

[Soul]

Originally posted by IlluminaZero:

Wizard vs Sorceror is really a Q of tradeoffs. Basically - While Metamagic also gives remarkable magical flexibility that Metamagic turns Spontaneous magic (IE Sorceror magic) into Full Round actions is a pretty big con. It basically means that it takes double the time in real time and further disallows move -> cast.

In general I think this is really more a malus for buffing with metamagic (particularly Extend and Normal) though. Doubling your casting time on individual buffs gets old fast.

"Sorcerous reflex" is a great mythic feat in general (for the first round swift action) and largely mitigates this metamagic con for spontaneous casters.

Part of the reason why I think metamagic feats are underrated is actually that I almost never hear anyone ever talk about Mythic Metamagic abilities (IE -1). For characters like... Ember... Whoms hexes can lead to extreme magic economy going all in with metamagic feats and ignoring abundant casting isn't a big deal. Doubly so since she will get 6+CHA slots compared to the 4+(STAT) slots that prepared casters have.

Snowballs are hilariously awesome as Cantrips (Trickster...)

the whole full round action tradeoff isnt so bad.....

I mean as long as your good with positioning its not really that big of a tradeoff..... my sorcerer is usually near the front lines right behind the tank with offtanks flanking my sorcerer.... so close to frontline with a shield wall....

and you can take a 5 foot step and cast a metamagic spell.... AND cast another metamagic spell with a quicken metamagic....

or if you wanna get creative you could always learn dimension door as a sorcerer..... just cast a quicken dimension door mass closer to the enemy tossing your party closer too and then use a metamagic spell... like hideous laughter with best jokes mythic feat....

I only use quicken rods though.... dont take the actual quicken metamagic feat... way too high of a spell cost for me.... +4.... ouch....

[FunkyMonkey]

Originally posted by Soul:

Originally posted by IlluminaZero:

Wizard vs Sorceror is really a Q of tradeoffs. Basically - While Metamagic also gives remarkable magical flexibility that Metamagic turns Spontaneous magic (IE Sorceror magic) into Full Round actions is a pretty big con. It basically means that it takes double the time in real time and further disallows move -> cast.

In general I think this is really more a malus for buffing with metamagic (particularly Extend and Normal) though. Doubling your casting time on individual buffs gets old fast.

"Sorcerous reflex" is a great mythic feat in general (for the first round swift action) and largely mitigates this metamagic con for spontaneous casters.

Part of the reason why I think metamagic feats are underrated is actually that I almost never hear anyone ever talk about Mythic Metamagic abilities (IE -1). For characters like... Ember... Whoms hexes can lead to extreme magic economy going all in with metamagic feats and ignoring abundant casting isn't a big deal. Doubly so since she will get 6+CHA slots compared to the 4+(STAT) slots that prepared casters have.

Snowballs are hilariously awesome as Cantrips (Trickster...)

the whole full round action tradeoff isnt so bad.....

I mean as long as your good with positioning its not really that big of a tradeoff..... my sorcerer is usually near the front lines right behind the tank with offtanks flanking my sorcerer.... so close to frontline with a shield wall....

and you can take a 5 foot step and cast a metamagic spell.... AND cast another metamagic spell with a quicken metamagic....

or if you wanna get creative you could always learn dimension door as a sorcerer..... just cast a quicken dimension door mass closer to the enemy tossing your party closer too and then use a metamagic spell... like hideous laughter with best jokes mythic feat....

I only use quicken rods though.... dont take the actual quicken metamagic feat... way too high of a spell cost for me.... +4.... ouch....

I never play Sorcrers exactly because of the full-round metamagic spells. I can't stand it :D I'm sure its' really not that big of a deal, but I just can't stand it.

[Soul]

Originally posted by FunkyMonkey:

Originally posted by Soul:

the whole full round action tradeoff isnt so bad.....

I mean as long as your good with positioning its not really that big of a tradeoff..... my sorcerer is usually near the front lines right behind the tank with offtanks flanking my sorcerer.... so close to frontline with a shield wall....

and you can take a 5 foot step and cast a metamagic spell.... AND cast another metamagic spell with a quicken metamagic....

or if you wanna get creative you could always learn dimension door as a sorcerer..... just cast a quicken dimension door mass closer to the enemy tossing your party closer too and then use a metamagic spell... like hideous laughter with best jokes mythic feat....

I only use quicken rods though.... dont take the actual quicken metamagic feat... way too high of a spell cost for me.... +4.... ouch....

I never play Sorcrers exactly because of the full-round metamagic spells. I can't stand it :D I'm sure its' really not that big of a deal, but I just can't stand it.

im similar with wizards....

the whole preparing spells I dont like....

not to mention you have 2 less spells per day as a wizard than a sorcerer....

but take hellfire ray for instance... as a wizard you have to pick and choose how many you want to prepare and with what metamagic feats..... with metamagic you can slot hellfire ray for every spell slot from 6th level to 9th level but you'd have that spell only to use....

with a sorcerer while the spells are limited and its a full round action.... I can still cast any spell I know for my spell level.... I dont have to pick and choose what I wanna cast beforehand... their always at my disposal...

like a wizard may be able to learn every spell.... but they are limited by what they slot in their spellbook.... a sorcerer is limited in the amount of spells they learn.... but they can use any spell they know as long as they have the spells per day...

[Razer]

If you're new not specializing is the way to go. Let's you utilize everything and learn. Don't listen to people with the perspective of having completed the game 100 times.

You can always respec later when you know more.

Try things out, its the best way to learn. Pathfinder is overwhelming for new players and some things are better than others.