Author Topic: A quasi-New, half-Compiled and trying-Everything-included v3.5 Wizard Handbook  (Read 14176 times)

Offline Girniverse

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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.

-Checklist
(click to show/hide)


Glossary of Terms and Abbreviations
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Ratings Key
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Acknowledgements
(click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: February 25, 2013, 10:26:46 PM by Girniverse »

Offline Girniverse

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General Concepts

-Attributes
(click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: February 25, 2013, 03:14:22 AM by Girniverse »

Offline Girniverse

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Class Features

BAB - Bad BAB, but wizards normally won't get themselves into melees. You can ranged attack, control battlefields, summon alliance and so on. Even if you want to be a melee-oriented wizards, there are many ways to get spells like Divine Power to nullify your BAB weakness.

Bonus Feats - You get Scribe Scroll at level 1, and bonus feats at 5th, 10th, 15th and 20th levels. Bonus feats are great, but in many cases you only take 5 levels on wizards.

Hit Die -  D4 die means you are fragile in the early of games. You need a high constitution scores, to make you sturdy. Later on many protective spells will help you become the toughest role in battlefields. In sum, D4 die is bad, but not a problem at all for an experienced wizard.

Familiars
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Saves
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Skills
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Spells - The reason that wizard is in Tier 1 classes. I will discuss it by a huge paragraph

Alternative Class Features
(click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: April 09, 2013, 02:37:10 PM by Girniverse »

Offline Girniverse

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Races

The criteria to pick up a race for wizards is mainly as follows:

-LA +0 races
-any race granting bonus feat, since a powerful wizard need tons of feats
-any race boosting intelligence or constitution
-some sporadic races which has special traits or can access good prestige class

First, wizards' spellcasting abilities depends on its class levels, so any race with LA is in general a bad choice. Almost no any racial traits could beat spellcasting progression.

Secondly, Intelligence is the most important stat for wizards, while constitution is crucial to any classes. It's unquestionable that any race boosting these two stats will be a decent choice.

Besides stats, you will see in the Feats and Builds parts, number of feats is even more important than stats. Although wizards get bonus feats every 5 class levels, powerful wizard builds rarely take too many levels in basic class, therefore wizard is actually a feat-starving class.

At last, in the discussion below, some of races with special traits or accessible to powerful prestige classes will be highly recommended as well.

In sum, based on what mentioned above, any no LA race granting bonus feat will be rated at least a blue choice; any no LA race boosting Intelligence or constitution will be considered as a green choice. If your DM further allows LA buy-off rule in UA, then for sure there would be some other LA races need to consider. I will briefly discuss them as well.


-LA +0
(click to show/hide)

-LA +1
(click to show/hide)

-LA +2
(click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: April 06, 2013, 03:09:12 PM by Girniverse »

Offline Girniverse

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Templates

If your DM doesn't allow LA buyoff, there is only a few templates to select.

-LA +0
(click to show/hide)

-LA +1
(click to show/hide)

-LA +2
(click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: February 26, 2013, 08:46:39 PM by Girniverse »

Offline Girniverse

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Feats

-General Feats
(click to show/hide)

-Spellcasting related Feats
(click to show/hide)

-Metamagic & related Feats
(click to show/hide)

-Racial Feats
(click to show/hide)

-Item Creation Feats
(click to show/hide)






« Last Edit: February 22, 2013, 03:01:01 PM by Girniverse »

Offline Girniverse

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Items

I. Equipments:

-Head
(click to show/hide)

-Face
(click to show/hide)

-Throeat
(click to show/hide)

-Rings
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-Body
(click to show/hide)

-Torso
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-Arm
(click to show/hide)

-Hand
(click to show/hide)

-Shoulder
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-Waist
(click to show/hide)

-Feet
(click to show/hide)

-Slotless
(click to show/hide)


« Last Edit: February 23, 2013, 04:39:02 PM by Girniverse »

Offline Girniverse

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Spells
« Last Edit: February 21, 2013, 02:29:28 PM by Girniverse »

Offline Girniverse

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Prestige Classes

-Spellcasting Prestige Classes
(click to show/hide)

-Dual Spellcasting Progression Prestige Class
(click to show/hide)

-Dipping Basic/Prestige Classes
(click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: February 26, 2013, 01:25:56 PM by Girniverse »

Offline Girniverse

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Builds
« Last Edit: February 21, 2013, 02:30:06 PM by Girniverse »

Offline Girniverse

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Tricks
« Last Edit: February 21, 2013, 02:30:24 PM by Girniverse »

Offline Girniverse

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Miscellanies

-Uses of Familiars
(click to show/hide)

-Ways of Boosting Caster Level
(click to show/hide)

-How to Stack Skills
(click to show/hide)

-The Art of Dipping Classes and Build Optimization
(click to show/hide)

-Efficiently Use Metamagica
(click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: February 26, 2013, 04:04:52 PM by Girniverse »