Wizard Spells

[Soothing Darkness]

Hi. I am leveling a multiclassed wizard. I will have access to level 6 spells when I finish my build. I notice that some spells don't exist at merchants. I am in a persistant world, so I can get other scrolls from other players... if they ever stop for a second to talk to me. Which seems to be a really big problem where I'm playing.

So it falls on me to make really carefull decisions. I'm going to do wizard 11, rogue 5, assassin 24 with duel wield feats, craft wand and potion. I'm playing it as kind of the assassin class that should have been. With it's own spell list and everything. I have already figured out that I really wish I had picked ultravision, darkness, and that spell that makes my weapon burn. What else should I make sure to get for a build like this?

[Lady MacBeth]

Well without knowing the magic level of the world some things change a bit depending on that. But off the top of my head I guess sugestions would be true strike, flame weapon, bulls strength, cats grace, keen edge, Improved invisibility. I would say those are the must haves. Again without knowing how high the magic level is, hard to say about some of the more situational stuff like stone skin, since by the time you could take it depending on your build it might no longer be effective.

[wendigo211]

You're going to run into trouble with that build. Mostly due to the low BAB, and no real way to generate sneak attacks other than flanking and spells. Darkness and Ultravision are probably your most important spells, as they give you a way to generate sneak attacks, you'll probably also get some use from invisibility, but you won't have a lot of casts of it. Without knowing a lot about the PW, you'll probably want the buff spells (Mage Armor, Shield, Protection from Alignment, Cat's Grace, Bull's Strength, Fox's Cunning, Haste, Flame Weapon, Greater Magic Weapon, Improved Invisibility, Lesser Spell Mantle, Lesser Mind Blank, Freedom). You'll also want the 5th and 6th level Bigby Hand spells, which will work with a low caster level.

[Soothing Darkness]

I've gotten good at paralyzing monsters on a rogue/assassin. So I have a pretty good way of delivering sneak attacks, once my paralysis dc is good. There is a slight delay before badguys notice me, that I can click away from an enemy and rehide with just standard stealth. Enemies I do that to are flat footed, so AB isn't a big concern. I just get in trouble, if I am detected, roll a 1 on attack, they roll a 20 on save, or there is a little bit of lag. In which case, I run behind an object, activate hide, and keep away from them until the eye on the rest icon is no longer red. If they're still folloing me by then, I can paralyse them.
Right now, I am 6 wizard, 1 rogue, 1 assassin. I like to have caster as my fist class, because it is easier to go up and right, then down then left on the radial menu in a hurry. But I wish I had taken my rogue earlier to get assassin earlier. That was I could have had a better idea of what spells where going to be usefull. I took stuff more usefull to a wizard, like fireball, and that kind of stuff. I wanted to get 6 wizard, 4 rogue, 10 assasin by level 20 for the optimal BAB. So it will be a struggle to get to 20 with bad spell choices.
I got to a level on the server where zombies and skeletons are the next enemy to fight. That does make me wonder about crit immune enemies later on. I struggled with crit immune monsters on my rogue/assassin, and kind of had to just use lots of traps to get anywere. Which gets very expensive.
I'm not sure if my build is viable on this server or not, since even at level 8 I'm seeing items with build crippling immunities that people have sold to vendors.
Thank you for the spell suggestions. I may try sticking with this server, or looking for another if the magic items are just too much.

[Toad Squish]

Many PWs in "later levels" have very damage resistant, crit/sneak immune enemies ... even when it doesn't make sense.
How else, you gonna challenge a party of 35-40th level characters?
Maximized flame weapon is going to be your most useful spell I think.
Some bonuses to dex , and defence maybe.
Darkness, Ultravision, truesight ... aid in getting more sneaks. Haste will also benifit some.

[claudius]

What does the rogue 5 do for you? Would Shadowdancer 2 replace that?

[wendigo211]

The Rogue levels provide Hide and Move Silently as class skills, otherwise he'd have to go Wizard 13 before he could take that first Assassin level. I suppose you could do something like Wizard 14/SD 2/Assassin 24. Right now he's getting a 13 BAB, if he went Wizard 14/SD 2/Assassin 4 pre-epic he'd lose 2 more BAB; even with HiPS, an 11 is low. Sure the flat-footed bonus removes some AC, but as you get a higher level most dexers have uncanny dodge (which lets them keep the dex bonus) and Tumble AC isn't lost from being flat-footed, that mostly leaves the Dodge enhancement bonus, which probably isn't going to be enough to make up for an 11 BAB.

Wizard/Assassin is a tough combo, they have the int synergy, but that's about it.

[Lady MacBeth]

The biggest issue I see with it is probably taking much if any of the wizard pre epic. Could get a better bab by doing 8 Rogue, 8 Assassin, and 4 wizard pre epic. Honestly I don't see the point of you as a melee character in getting anything beyond 4th lvls spells. 5th and 6th are junk for melee, the only benefit I could see of getting those spell slots is if you plan on taking meta magic feats to extend or empower a few of the spells.

[Soothing Darkness]

I still want to feel like a wizard. Not just the buff spells like you would have on a ranger, paladin, or bard. So spell lesser mantle and stuff. So kind of a hybrid of magic fighting and stealth fighting. On a practical point though, I have encountered wizard towers in persistant worlds with minimal class investment to enter.
I'm level 10 now, and it's looking more and more like two weapon fighting feats were a bad idea. I am finding that a heavy crossbow +3 with no feat investment at all is far better than my rapier +1 and shortsword with ambidexterity and weapon finesse. It's not only loosing the two weapon ab penalties, but it's easier to do sneak attacks from range. The downside is that I can't actually do anything to a ranged weapon to buff it.

[wendigo211]

The extra attack won't actually benefit your character unless it gives you 4 or 7 attacks per round and puts another attack in your first flurry.

[Johndoe101]

For spells when it come to multi-classing in wizard. Generally as a rule i do not multi-class a full caster except with prestege classes due to improve a full caster to keep paste to cast higher level spells.. With the amount of levels in assasin even if put them in to wizard . 18 wizard , 5 rogue , 17 assasin by level 40 . You can have a very competent build still while doing good sneak attack damage and damage from spells base on the feat's to make both form of combat viable still for your build. The only issue with this build alot of creatures after level 20 to 40 have alot of DR, damage immunity or have a high spell resistance .Alot of these can be countered by knowing the enemy, choose the right spell and use the right tactic to survive the fight.

Base on your play style and what would be your max level of spell caster level.
If your build have a decent INT mod , choosing spell focus and greater spell focus is not a bad way to make sure spells like fire ball ,lighting bolt or other damaging evocations up to level 6 slot see some use still after level 20+ when combine with the spell penetration feat's vs enemy spell resistance.

If spell dc's are not that importent then going self buff spells or spells that improve your build as a whole. Such as the spell shield , haste , keen weapon, magical weapon greater , invisibility ,darkness,darkvision and etc. Base on the amount of gold you have as you level if DC spells vs enemy saves are not vital for your build. buy and learn spells only that you can buff your self/party members.

With out seeing how you actually play your build out beside what you mention in forum so far. I can't give much more advice. As a person who like to multi-class playing D&D table top version of it. Base on class you are multi-classing in to for a build. Not all classes are multi-class friendly so knowing what you want from the class when multi-classing is importent in terms of game mastery to have a combat viable build after level 20+. So for a current build to improve a wizard tank build i am playing currently in the infinite dungeon module soloing it to test this build out. So far i have a level 20 wizard, leve 1 fighter that focus on summon spell's and damaging evocation spells. The other 19 level to reach level 40 i be leveling up as pale master and wizard. Wizard's base on their build from level 20+ with the epic feat's and spells they get they are alot of fun to play from a quick level up play test seeing how viable wizard's are after level 20 to 40 in the infinit dungeon .

[Soothing Darkness]

Here is some gameplay of me fighting a very difficult boss. I deleted my character and started over with some more delay in wizard levels. That way I can get my spells as I figure out what would be useful. Instead of just getting all my levels in wizard, and wishing I had some spell. Please pardon the sound quality. I didn't know my microphone was on at the time.

https://youtu.be/D8CaWT-lpNA

[Lady MacBeth]

Originally posted by Soothing Darkness:

Here is some gameplay of me fighting a very difficult boss. I deleted my character and started over with some more delay in wizard levels. That way I can get my spells as I figure out what would be useful. Instead of just getting all my levels in wizard, and wishing I had some spell. Please pardon the sound quality. I didn't know my microphone was on at the time.

https://youtu.be/D8CaWT-lpNA

You're playing on blackstone keep? I take it back, your build is going to have a VERY VERY hard life ahead of it. That guy isn't even difficult. Blackstone keep is very unfriendly to casters, and to stealth builds. There is so much true seeing and detect life on that server as to negate alot of what you are doing. Not to mention at higher lvls you will run into lots of death attacks, and sneak attacks from monsters that can hit an 80+ AC with ease.

On my shifter I can get to 90+ ac in dragon form there and still get torn up (in certain areas). The server favors damage mitigation over all else. Now don't get me wrong I enjoy the server, but its very biased towards builds that negate sneak attacks, and/or have extreme damage mitigation.

*now that we know what server it is though, a bit more specific advice can help if you plan on persueing the build still. Typically on this server the things with true seeing are going to be the dragons, and mages of the world, so your stealth is useless there. All undead on the server have detect living, so they will find you no matter what. The best items on server are +7, but with no other benefits, you will need a crafter to help you with them. Typically no item will have anything better then a +4 to a given stat on it. Crafters with at least 81 skill in craft armor and weapon are able craft the best gear on server, and to use forge gems to maximum value.

[Soothing Darkness]

I used to play on Krynn's New Begining back before Gamespy stopped supporting the game. My build was really good there. The rules where on the too many side, but a lot of effort was put into making room for more imaginative builds and character concepts. Some really good changes where these:

Minimal out of character chat, led to more role playing.

True seeing was altered into a combination of ultravision, see invisibility, and more powerfull kind of clarvoyance/claraudiance. You would actually have listen, spot, and wisdom be important if you wanted to do the whole stealth/detection game.

1's and 20's were not guaranteed failure/success. Instant death effects where replaced with different effects that matched the theme of what they were. You wouldn't see people spamming the same spell over and over again just to get a 1 vs saving throw.

AC was capped at 65 with an exception for bardsong. You wouldn't just be rolling 10 attacks per round to get 20's to happen. AB and discipline were actually usefull for and against active feats and crits.

There was also a 1 point per skill, beyond character creation. So class skills on multiclass characters would be influenced by how many levels in a class you had.

Max items where +8, but were limited to one per god. Think of something like a holy artifact. There were just a handfull of +7 items to, with a unique special significance. Meaning there were only like 30 of them among the entire server population. The highest you could find were +6 with vulnerabilities on them. Or a +5 without vulnerabilities on them. Damage resistance was limited to slashing and bludgeoning 20/-, and nothing else that buffs and feats wouldn't handle. I thought replacing damage resist items with small immunity values would have been a more elegant solution to allow underpowered builds to do something, but I guess it kind of worked.

I would love to play on a heavily role played server that has similar changes to diversity builds. I still want to play my wizard rogue assassin. I guess I just need to find a server to play it on.

[Lady MacBeth]

Well bear in mind my comments are also purely based on solo play. I'm the same Ming from the Blackstone Keep forums. If you are into RP and party play, then your build will be fine. I am a 99% solo player and I don't like RP, so I look at all builds from a power gaming stand point. In a group of even just one other person, the build you are aiming for changes drastically as you have a distration to let you use your skills to their best ability.

[Soothing Darkness]

Ah sorry. I was still editing that post when you commented. It may look different than when you read it. I didn't expect such a fast reply.