Looking for ideas for a op wizard different from the usual ones.

[Bard]

And after pestering everyone for some help with a friend's build, here I come with something for myself 

I'll start in a while to play in a new campaign (maybe, I'm not sure I really want to) and need a new character. In the specific case, since noone else (competent) wanted to play the resident wizard, I ended up taking up the role. Issue is, about half of the characters I played since the 3.0 days were wizards of some description... and I'm running really low on variants on the theme, so I'm looking for ideas. Here's some points, starting from the bad news.

The BAD news: limited sources. No setting books, no website, no Dragon, no Unearthed Arcana.

- Party is Neutral/Evil (more evil than neutral)
- 9th level spells from an "unlimited" known spell list (aka: wizard).
- Powerful and Versatile (BFC is ok, I like it, but I've been doing a lot and I want to be able also to make stuff burn into nothingness fast and often)
Ideally something at least on this power level or better: >Link to my good old Shadowcraft Gnome<
- Some strange/unusual/weird mechanic! I want to spice things up a bit.

At this point I'm really close to going into a nerd rage and then giving up, most of the builds I wanted to play and I thought of were not possible without books I couldn't use (something that I find quite frustrating).

For now what I'm looking at is a Binder 1/Wizard 2/Anima Mage but I'm not sure if it's good enough... sure it looks versatile, but I fear it doesn't really delivers on the "killing" side. I could toss maybe Tainted Scholar in, but the limitations on Bloodied Metamagic (namely you can't cast a modified spell of a level higher that you could usually cast AND the Con cost that isn't low enough for Naberius to keep up) make me wonder if it's really worth the hassle.

Any ideas? Both ways to improve on the anima mage or completely different ideas are welcome
I'm not really looking for full builds or anything here, while a reference would be useful, I like making them. I'm just fishing for things I could try to see if they work well enough since I'm a bit out of interesting concepts here 

[Mithril Leaf]

EDIT: Forget it, it used Red Wizard and since Campaign specific material is off the table you can't be from Thay.

[Bard]

EDIT: Forget it, it used Red Wizard and since Campaign specific material is off the table you can't be from Thay.

Yup, the fact that even in the base books lot of the stuff isn't neither generic or for greyhawk doesn't help
I'm really not used to working with a crippled source sigh, I don't know how some people manage to do it  .

Still.. it's technically in one of the allowed books soo... might as well tell me what it was 

[Mithril Leaf]

EDIT: Forget it, it used Red Wizard and since Campaign specific material is off the table you can't be from Thay.

Yup, the fact that even in the base books lot of the stuff isn't neither generic or for greyhawk doesn't help
I'm really not used to working with a crippled source sigh, I don't know how some people manage to do it  .

Still.. it's technically in one of the allowed books soo... might as well tell me what it was 

I was actually going to suggest going Wizard 5/Red Wizard 5 and using improved familiar to pick up a mirror mephit for simulacra.

[TiaC]

Use Anima Mage to persist Thunderlance and Wraithstrike. Bind Paimon. Apply Born of three thunders. Have fun whirlwinding and dazing everyone within 20'.

[Bard]

I was actually going to suggest going Wizard 5/Red Wizard 5 and using improved familiar to pick up a mirror mephit for simulacra.

That trick, I didn't know. It looks the big brother to the greenbound summoning... "Here, your familiar can now cast 9th level cleric spells. That's 8 levels higher than you!"
I do like it, but I fear I'd be the only one in the party

I was also looking at the Soulcaster, but I know nothing about Magic of Incarnum, except the usual tricks to get unlimited PP as a psion... meh.
Is there some way to consistently increase the saves of spells so I can use Save or suck/die/mindcontrol reliably? Ideally keeping binder in... (as in, a good chance to beat a same CR enemy against his high saves)
Last time I tried that, I barely managed to bring it to an acceptable level but I had access to Kalamar and Dragonlance books too so that was easy

[DaCraw]

Well, if you were thinking of going with Tainted Scholar, you could always play as a Necropolitan. As an undead you are immune to the negative effects of taint (arguably including death from massive taint - check with your DM), and Tainted Spellcasting lets you use your taint score as your casting attribute. Every spell you cast gives you a point of taint...

Arbitrarily high casting scores are fun.

[Bard]

Well, if you were thinking of going with Tainted Scholar, you could always play as a Necropolitan. As an undead you are immune to the negative effects of taint (arguably including death from massive taint - check with your DM), and Tainted Spellcasting lets you use your taint score as your casting attribute. Every spell you cast gives you a point of taint...

Arbitrarily high casting scores are fun.

Not so easy... first of all you'd lose your Constitution score, so you couldn't use Tainted Metamagic, plus according to Taint rules (if I'm not misreading them or missing somethinig), even if the corruption doesn't kill you, depravity should still have effects on undeads, so you'd lose your character to it :\
Evil subtype might work better since you at least get to keep your Con, but it's hard to get

Edit: nope, they're immune to depravity too lol... I just need a bag of holding full of taint absorbing stones and wands of remove curse/disease to keep it from going TOO high. Might be worth looking in some way to get the evil subtype.

* Bard goes to search

[DaCraw]

Losing your con score isn't as bad as it sounds. Losing tainted metamagic is annoying, granted, but you can work around the other effects. Make sure that your Necropolitan is created by a Dread Necromancer with the various corpsecrafter feats in a desecrated area with an altar. You'll get d12 HD, +4 hp/HD, +4 enhancement bonus to STR and Dex, +2 NA, untyped +4 Initiative, untyped +10'/rnd. This should make up for the loss of hp from not having a con score. As for the fort save, undead are immune to anything that requires a fort save unless it also applies to objects. Throw in some ablative defences (Tainted Scholar has a secret which will let you add your corruption score to your fort save once/day, for instance) and you'll actually have a better typical fort save than most wizards.


[Edit: I previously said that you took a hit to your concentration checks. This is wrong. Undead use Cha instead. You'll probably have a decent Cha if you're a Binder, especially since you don't need to worry about pumping int.

Add in the various other immunities (Crits, Mind Affecting, Death effects, Ability Drain, Physical Ability Damage), being healed by negative energy (which means your teammates can throw it around with abandon), and 60' Darkvision and it seems like a decent trade.]

[Bard]

Losing your con score isn't as bad as it sounds. Losing tainted metamagic is annoying, granted, but you can work around the other effects. Make sure that your Necropolitan is created by a Dread Necromancer with the various corpsecrafter feats in a desecrated area with an altar. You'll get d12 HD, +4 hp/HD, +4 enhancement bonus to STR and Dex, +2 NA, untyped +4 Initiative, untyped +10'/rnd. This should make up for the loss of hp from not having a con score. As for the fort save, undead are immune to anything that requires a fort save unless it also applies to objects. Throw in some ablative defences (Tainted Scholar has a secret which will let you add your corruption score to your fort save once/day, for instance) and you'll actually have a better typical fort save than most wizards.

[Edit: I previously said that you took a hit to your concentration checks. This is wrong. Undead use Cha instead. You'll still probably take a hit if Cha is a dump stat, but at least you have the option.

Add in the various other immunities (Crits, Mind Affecting, Death effects, Ability Drain, Physical Ability Damage), being healed by negative energy (which means your teammates can throw it around with abandon), and 60' Darkvision and it seems like a decent trade.]

I could also be rebuked like a used sock by half of the NPCs in this godforsaken campaign. But that might be not that hard to fix. Fact is, while it is still a good option (quite good actually) if I want the "full service" I'll need to find a way to become a Necropolitan "the right way", I doubt I could just put in the background "I found a lvl 20 Dread Necromancer with just the right feats in just the right place that made me nice things" I'll see with the DM if there's a way around that. Meanwhile I'm still open to options, for now Binder/Wiz/Anima Mage/Tainted Scholar Necropoliguy seems to be the best way to go.

[DaCraw]

Rebuking can certainly be a pain, although if you get the 'full service' you should be alright. Necropolitans get an untyped +2 to turn resistance, while there's a feat your Necro can take to give you another untyped +4. There are plenty of other ways to boost it, but that's a start.

After that you buy a hat of disguise/cast disguise self and invest some ranks in disguise and bluff. The best way to avoid being turned is to convince the clerics that you are a regular human...

As for the background, the rite of cruximigration is not performed by any old cleric in a temple. Given the nature of the ritual and the process of petitioning needed to be granted permission to undertake it, it makes sense that it would be performed by a specialist. Or at least, that's how you justify it to your DM...

[Prime32]

Would a Master of Glyphs be unusual enough?

I could also be rebuked like a used sock by half of the NPCs in this godforsaken campaign. But that might be not that hard to fix.

Human Heritage feat? It makes your type Humanoid (augmented undead, human).

[Bard]

Would a Master of Glyphs be unusual enough?

I could also be rebuked like a used sock by half of the NPCs in this godforsaken campaign. But that might be not that hard to fix.

Human Heritage feat? It makes your type Humanoid (augmented undead, human).

How does that even work lol? How does a Necropolitan even qualify? Where are the rules that would make me an augmented undead? Isn't undead a type and not a subtype? I'm confused. From what I read, I could not even take it :V

But especially, even if it worked, wouldn't it also remove the immunity to taint?

[Azrael]

I was actually going to suggest going Wizard 5/Red Wizard 5 and using improved familiar to pick up a mirror mephit for simulacra.

Doesn't work. In the conjuration summoning section of the PHB it states that summoned creatures cannot use a SLA if the spell would require an xp cost when normally cast.

........

As for my suggestion, try something like this...

Wiz(Abj) 3, Master Specialist (Abj) 10, Initiate of the Seven Fold Veil 7.

Not only are you a defensive powerhouse, but you can take reach spell and use the master specialist's major esoterica to put antimagic fields on your enemies with No Save, No SR!

You get an AMF! And you get an AMF! Everyone gets an AMF!!!

[TuggyNE]

I was actually going to suggest going Wizard 5/Red Wizard 5 and using improved familiar to pick up a mirror mephit for simulacra.

Doesn't work. In the conjuration summoning section of the PHB it states that summoned creatures cannot use a SLA if the spell would require an xp cost when normally cast.

What does that have to do with a familiar? Familiars, while notionally "summoned to service" in some sense, are not summoned with a Conjuration (summoning) spell. (Nor can they be banished or dispelled.)

[Jackinthegreen]

I was actually going to suggest going Wizard 5/Red Wizard 5 and using improved familiar to pick up a mirror mephit for simulacra.

Doesn't work. In the conjuration summoning section of the PHB it states that summoned creatures cannot use a SLA if the spell would require an xp cost when normally cast.

What does that have to do with a familiar? Familiars, while notionally "summoned to service" in some sense, are not summoned with a Conjuration (summoning) spell. (Nor can they be banished or dispelled.)

That rule has nothing to do with summoning the familiar and everything to do with the familiar itself using (or in this case, not using) its Simulacrum ability.

[Keldar]

EDIT: Forget it, it used Red Wizard and since Campaign specific material is off the table you can't be from Thay.

*gasp*  But its in the DMG!  The DMG!!!!   

[TuggyNE]

I was actually going to suggest going Wizard 5/Red Wizard 5 and using improved familiar to pick up a mirror mephit for simulacra.

Doesn't work. In the conjuration summoning section of the PHB it states that summoned creatures cannot use a SLA if the spell would require an xp cost when normally cast.

What does that have to do with a familiar? Familiars, while notionally "summoned to service" in some sense, are not summoned with a Conjuration (summoning) spell. (Nor can they be banished or dispelled.)

That rule has nothing to do with summoning the familiar and everything to do with the familiar itself using (or in this case, not using) its Simulacrum ability.

As far as I can tell, the rule has nothing to do with familiars at all. It applies to a subschool of spells, and to no other effects. As such, there should be no particular reason to forbid the use of simulacrum as an SLA.

[Azrael]

No, it doesn't I didn't see the part that it was a familiar, sorry.

Though how do you get a mirror mephit as a familiar? It's not on the improved familiar list.