Before the Handbook
Here I want to present a handbook for wizard. Wizard is the Tier 1 class in D&D 3.5. The reason in my opinion is mainly that almost every supplemental book contains more or less resources of wizard. I will try my best to discuss all resources that I have impression or think useful in this thesis.
That I want to put this guide here is because I plan to run a game soon. In process of advancing my NPCs, I was enlightened by many brilliant ideas and discussion in this forum. Besides I myself had some ideas and found most of them were based on some certain spells/feats/class features/etc. acquired or accessed only from wizard or wizard-related prestige classes. It is the origin of such a guide.
In this article, many of ideas has been discussed in other excellent wizard handbooks. That's why it is called half-complied. However I will give some new points of view of old ideas and some new discussions which at least I have never seen from other handbooks. At last, I will as much as possible cover all aspects of wizard including
general concepts,
class features,
races,
templates,
feats,
items,
spells,
prestige classes,
builds,
tricks and etc., though it might take months to furnish up. So called Everything-included is this handbook.
About the Handbook
As is written above, this handbook will discuss wizard by eleven parts. First is the general concepts of wizard, mainly about the roles played in a team. Second comes the class features of wizard, including alternative class features in different resources. In the three to six parts, I will try to numerate and discuss most LA+0 and some LA+1/+2 races and templates, and most of commonly useful feats and items. Spells, as the most important component of wizard, will be discussed in the seventh part. Not only wizard/sorcerer spells, spells from other classes will also be considered. In the eighth part, I will list and discuss all prestige classes I think powerful or interesting. Diverse wizard builds will come along with prestige classes in the ninth part. Some of them are mature or powerful, while some of them are just situationally useful or merely considered in my mind not practically tested. Some tricks will be included in the second last part. I won't focus very much on dirty or questionable tricks, since most of them are DM-dependence. Instead useful or smart tips will be discussed in this part. In the last part, some of my immature ideas and miscellanies will be contained to end this handbook.
-ChecklistAttributes finished on 02/21/2013
LA +0 Templates finished on 02/22/2013
Core Race Rating finished on 02/22/2013
LA +0 Race Rating finished on 02/25/2013
Glossary of Terms and AbbreviationsBoED = Book of Exalted Deeds
City = Cityscape
CAd = Complete Adventurer
CAr = Complete Arcane
CC = Complete Champion
CD = Complete Divine
CM = Complete Mage
Core = SRD materials, i.e. DMG, PHB, and MM1.
CP = Complete Psionic
CS = Complete Scoundrel
CW = Complete Warrior
DMG = Dungeon Masters Guide
DMG2 = Dungeon Masters Guide II
Drac = Draconomicon
DotU = Drow of the Underdark
DrM = Dragon Magic
Dun = Dungeonscape
EE = Elder Evils
EoE = Examplars of Evil
FC1 = Fiendish Codex I
FC2 = Fiendish Codex II
Frost = Frostburn
HoB = Heroes of Battle
HoH = Heroes of Horror
LM = Libris Mortis
LoM = Lords of Madness
MH = Miniatures Handbook
MM1 = Monster Manual 1
MM3 = Monster Manual 3
MM4 = Monster Manual 4
MM5 = Monster Manual 5
MIC = Magic Item Compendium
MoI = Magic of Incarnum
PHB = Players Handbook
PHB2 = Players Handbook II
PrC = Prestige Class
RC = Rules of Compendium
RoD = Races of Destiny
RoS = Races of Stone
RotD = Races of the Dragon
RotW = Races of the Wild
Sand = Sandstorm
SPC = Spell Compendium
SRD = Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 Edition System Reference Document
Storm = Stormwrack
ToB = Tome of Battle
ToM = Tome of Magic
UA = Unearthed Arcana
XPH = Expanded Psionics Handbook
-Faerun Campaign Series:
CoR = Champions of Ruin
CoV = Champions of Valor
LEoF = Lost Empires of Faerun
PGtF = Player's Guide to Faerun
RoF = Races of Faerun
SK = Serpent Kingdoms
UE = Unapproachable East
Und = Underdark
-Eberron Campaign Series:
CoS = City of Stormreach
Dmar = Dragonmarked
DoE = Dragon of Eberron
E'sH = Explorer's Handbook
ECS = Eberron Campaign Setting
FiveN = Five Nations
FoE = Faiths of Eberron
FoW = the Forge of War
MoE = Magic of Eberron
PGtE = Player's Guide to Eberron
RoE = Races of Eberron
SoS = Secrets of Sarlona
SoT = Sharn-City of Towers
SoX = Secrets of Xen'drik
Ratings Key
Purple: Excellent/my favorite choice.
Blue: Good choice.
Green: Decent choice.
Black: Average choice.
Orange: Below-average choice.
Red: Poor choice.
Acknowledgements