Experienced player needing help breaking away from crappy builds

[Xanola]

Well, as the subject of this thread indicates, I've got a few years of 3.5/Pathfinder (as well as misc other systems) experience under my belt. Unfortunately, all my character builds thus far have been a bit... underwhelming, so I was hoping that people could help me with building a new one which will not perform so poorly.
 Since this is such a broad request, I will narrow it down by saying I was looking at possibly going with initiate of the sevenfold veil, but my heart is in no way set on this (I WOULD ask that if you suggest something else, you explain why). I should also note that, if possible, a step by step of what to take at what lavel would be helpful rather than just the end result, as it were.
I am currently playing in a mixed 3.5/Pathfinder campaign using a 32 Point Buy... Any help would be massively appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Currently allowed in play are all 3.5 WoTC materials, as well as pathfinder material located on the SRD (I'd post a link here, but not sure about the etiquette of cross-site linking in this community) The DM I am looking to build this character for is expecting high powered, optimized characters (Though not quite to the point of 'broken', if that makes any sense)

Editted for extra clarity

[Talore]

If you're playing a full caster, it is hard to go wrong as far as classes are concerned, especially with IotSFV. If you're making martial characters however, the single best thing you can do is educate yourself on the applications of dipping. Dead levels are your enemy, and many classes are front-loaded.

[Xanola]

Well, I was looking for the best synergistic class to go with it... my real life brother gave me an interesting concept though...

Fighter 1/Wiz 12/IotSfV 7 Undead, with alternative tradition to switch wiz casting to charisma based... fighter for the HD/ saves/ ARMOR proficiencies (add that to still spell metamagic). But I was hoping to get other views

[Empirate]

Fighter is the sole reason this build is not awesome. Get rid of it ASAP. Casters don't need armor at all, what with Mage Armor/Mirror Image/Invisibility/Fly. You're basically untouchable once you reach, oh, 5th level or so. After that, it's Greater Invisibility, Greater Mirror Image, Dimension Door... Remember the First Commandment of Optimization: Thou shalt not give up caster levels.

I'd do something like Abjurer 3/Master Specialist 4/IotSV 7/Master Specialist 5-10. Good synergy, good shared feat prereqs, Master Specialist grants Skill Focus (Spellcraft) and Greater Spell Focus (Abjuration)... just a good build.

Alternately, for other strictly good arcane casting builds, you can go:
Transmuter 5/Incantatrix 10/War Weaver 5 (in a different order, probably, mixing in at least some War Weaver ASAP);
Beguiler 1/Wizard (Specialist of your choice) 4/Ultimate Magus 10/whatever 5 (take Practiced Spellcaster for Beguiler at 3rd);
Sorcerer 6/Mage of the Arcane Order 10/Fatespinner 4.

Enjoy your game!

[zook1shoe]

Empirate gave some great advice, plus here's a link to the Wizard handbook on many of the best thing for wizards of any kinds to help further

 http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=394

[brujon]

With wizards, the first thing you need to remind yourself is the necessity of prestiging out of it as soon as possible. There are so many awesome 10/10 casting classes, you're really not gaining anything by staying pure wizard, except if you use some of the substitution levels which can be worth it to be a wizard for longer. It seems you are quite preocuppied with defense, if so, i'd point you towards Abjurant Champion. Full casting and full bab prestige class, very strong, and combined with IoT7FV you will be very well protected. Other things i'd point out is how ACF's and Substitution levels are your friends. Many races have special options for wizards, like the Elf Generalist, Changeling Transmuter, etc... There's also Focused Specialist and the specialist wizards from Unearthed Arcana (Abjurer, Conjurer, Necromancer, etc...) which gain some pretty cool options.

To really get a glimpse of the amount of versatility you have as a wizard, you need to consult the handbooks on the subject. Sky's the limit with wizards, and you can basically build any concept you like with them.

[Alexei]

Well, I was looking for the best synergistic class to go with it... my real life brother gave me an interesting concept though...

Fighter 1/Wiz 12/IotSfV 7 Undead, with alternative tradition to switch wiz casting to charisma based... fighter for the HD/ saves/ ARMOR proficiencies (add that to still spell metamagic). But I was hoping to get other views

That build smells a bit bad, if you like IotSV try something like this:
IotSV is "I won't die. Ever. No, not even then." so don't worry about defenses so much, and you are combining with Incantatrix which is another Abjurer + metamagic specialist
Necropolitan Human Wizard 5/Incantatrix 5/IotSV7/Archmage 1-2-3/whatever you have spare, maybe more Incantatrix?
Even if you get armor proficiency, you still get ASF, which sucks. As an Incantatrix, persist yourself some Mage armor, shield and whatever buff spells you need and call it a day. With Necropolitan you get d12 HD all the time and are undead 

Ideas
Specialist mage, not Focused specialist, because Incantatrix gets rid of a third school, and if you lose four schools... that's not good. Don't ban Transmutation or Conjuration. Know what? read these two, I would quote them in full but  :
http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=2716.0
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=394

[Tshern]

Necropolitan Human Wizard 5/Incantatrix 5/IotSV7/Archmage 1-2-3/whatever you have spare, maybe more Incantatrix?

Looks good enough, adding Incantatrix is never a bad choice. However, a Cloistered Cleric dip+Practiced spellcaster+Divine defiance! Very good for a IotSV7.

As an Incantatrix, persist yourself some Mage armor, shield and whatever buff spells you need and call it a day. With Necropolitan you get d12 HD all the time and are undead 

You most certainly don't persist Mage armor. The duration is brilliant as it is.

[Unbeliever]

Iot7V is pretty solid.  Although be warned, it doesn't really hum until you get to its 4th level, immediate action veils.  And, it's maximum potential requires you paying attention to what your veils do, which is one more thing for a full wizard to keep track of. 

But, I've seen them be pretty devastating.  In general, a God Wizard, of which Iot7V is a powerful example of, is quite solid and pretty much fool proof.  The guide is quite good.

You don't say what level you're starting at or how far you expect the game to go, which will change the suggestions a bit.  Druid is, of course, quite good and also pretty hardy.  If you're looking for a wizard that will really show off how badassawesomesauce you are, depending on your party, a War Weaver could be really good, too.  Everyone will be pretty impressed when they are all 4 armed war trolls with laser eyes for every encounter.

[dumah87]

I'd go

Focused Conjurer 3 Master specialist 10 Conjurer +2 Paragnostic Apostole 1  Fatespinner 4

or

Abjurer 3 Master Specialist 10 IoSV 7  great sinergy
"donate" AMF to your summoned flying buddy and smile : )

[Kalleo]

I'd do something like Abjurer 3/Master Specialist 4/IotSV 7/Master Specialist 5-10. Good synergy, good shared feat prereqs, Master Specialist grants Skill Focus (Spellcraft) and Greater Spell Focus (Abjuration)... just a good build.

Seconded. Not horribly complicated, but very, very powerful, gains a ton of good abilities, and virtually untouchable. Be sure to read up on Treantmonk's Wizard guide.

[dumah87]

I'd do something like Abjurer 3/Master Specialist 4/IotSV 7/Master Specialist 5-10. Good synergy, good shared feat prereqs, Master Specialist grants Skill Focus (Spellcraft) and Greater Spell Focus (Abjuration)... just a good build.

Seconded. Not horribly complicated, but very, very powerful, gains a ton of good abilities, and virtually untouchable. Be sure to read up on Treantmonk's Wizard guide.

yeah 

[sirpercival]

What do you like about Iot7V?  What is it that you actually want to play?

You can do almost anything with a caster.  Figure out what you want your character to be able to do, then we can help you make that happen.

[Dawnmor]

If you want to go with a Gish type character, Go Dwarf for this.  Crusader 1/Wizard 4/JPM 10/Abj Champ 4/Rune smith (Races of Stone) 1.  Now you can cast spells in Heavy armor while dealing out decent damage.

Make sure you grab that Stance that heals you 2 pts per strike, and your set.  The CL will suck, you may not get 9th level spells but you sure could try it.  Despite the mechanics of the Crusader its got the best funness of all the classes.

However, if you want to go with synergy and you dont care about spells much and want some of the best buff spells to make you a monster in combat.....Dwarf Saint, Swordsage 4 (Unarmed variant if you wish), Fist of the Forest 1, Deepstone Sentinal 2, Swordsage the rest of the way.  You get Wis to AC 2x, Con to AC 2x, (You can drop your need for Dex, because once you get flatfooted your AC drops by 1 of your con mod bonuses), Boost Con, Wis and Str.  Con and Str being priority, You can boost your wis up to squeeze out another point or two of damage.  Grab shadowblade Feat and now you can add your Wis to Damage with all shadowhand weapons.

If you do it right you can get good fun out of it and 9th level maneuvers, not to mention you can get a stance that allows 2pts to AC each miss, (Which means if a bad guy misses you 10x thats 20pts more to AC for one round).  Then theres the 9th level ability for the swordsage maneuver that allows you to do insane ability damage on a successful save, but 15d6 on a failed save.  If I remember that maneuver correctly.

Thats synergy for ya.  If you really want to get some real good fun out of things , PIXIE!!!!!!!!!! -4 str, +8 dex, +0 con, +4 Int, +8 Wis (I think), +6 Cha.  SR, Tiny size, natural invisibility.  Tag on Swordsage, YEAH!.  Do LA buy off 1pt before twenty but!! you do get 9th level maneuvers quite eeasily, But thats if you dont have a Bastard DM like my group tends to have.  If you got a good and nice DM, you can pull that off easily.

Or just play a Dragonwrought Kobold Metamagic specialist Sorcerer/Dragon heart mage/Abj Champ .  Oh the Sorcerer has to be a Battle Sorcerer to pull off the Abj Champ lol.  But yeah, thats my 10 cent thoughts.

PS: that idea with the Crusader, do it on a Warforged and give him immunity to crits and such at 6th level .  THEN!!!!, get him up to Crusader 16/Warforged Juggernaught 4, grab that stance that heals you per strike.  Now get a Wizard and cleric to buff you up, fly straight up, then roll up into a ball and try to cancel the spell to intentionally fall 200ft to the ground.  That way a Gargantuan (Giant Size Wujen spell will work perfectly), but anyways, drop from 200ft up in the air, take the 20d6 damage.  THEN!! you could argue with the DM that you struck all the goblins and such underneath you with your body instead of the Sword, and hit like 20 guys, in the process.  You could get a average 40-50 damage done to you sure, but you could argue that you struck those 20 guys to heal that 40 damage back .  And then getup and bash the goblins who survived the shrapnel and fear effect of the goblin body parts flinging out underneath you as you bashed into their friends .  Those who dont run away will get killed by you LOL.  Thats just a suggestion mind you and sense you cant be critted more fun.  Get DR from the Feat ROLL WITH IT from Savage species to lessen the damage.

If I could do that to my DMs monsters and argued that! and if I was able to pull it off I would die laughing, im just to shy to argue that point

[Xanola]

You don't say what level you're starting at or how far you expect the game to go, which will change the suggestions a bit.

My apologies... we start at level 1, and go as far as we like.

To all: there are a LOT of suggestions here, it will take me some time to look into them...

[Sevash]

I'd do something like Abjurer 3/Master Specialist 4/IotSV 7/Master Specialist 5-10. Good synergy, good shared feat prereqs, Master Specialist grants Skill Focus (Spellcraft) and Greater Spell Focus (Abjuration)... just a good build.

Seconded. Not horribly complicated, but very, very powerful, gains a ton of good abilities, and virtually untouchable. Be sure to read up on Treantmonk's Wizard guide.

I have to be another one to jump on the bandwagon for this build.  Not only is it strong, but it feels complete, what with going through two complete prestige classes.  There's also a lot of thematic support:  there's a spell that deals with colors/prisms at nearly every level, there's the Seven Veil set of magical items from the MIC, the Prismatic Dragon is the strongest there is when it comes to dragons...be the Rainbow Warrior!

If you're insistent on wearing real armor eventually, my favorite combination is a Mithral Githcraft Shirt with Thistledown padding.  +4 armor bonus with no ACP, no spell failure, and a +1 bonus to Concentration checks is just gravy.  Add Mithral Githcraft Dastana/Buckler/Chahar-Aina for extra cheese, and you've got a +7 armor bonus to AC and an +4 unnamed bonus to Concentration checks.

[Empirate]

I prefer the Luminous Armor spell, myself. Basically +9 to armor class for hours/level. On second thought, actually I like good tactics and miss chance spells like Mirror Image even better, actually. And by the point you can afford Mithral stuff, you can also just fly everywhere invisibly. Who needs to wear armor? Not the wizard!

That Concentration bonus sounds nice, though. How pricey is Githcraft armor?

[imoenofcandlekeep]

I prefer the Luminous Armor spell, myself. Basically +9 to armor class for hours/level. On second thought, actually I like good tactics and miss chance spells like Mirror Image even better, actually. And by the point you can afford Mithral stuff, you can also just fly everywhere invisibly. Who needs to wear armor? Not the wizard!

That Concentration bonus sounds nice, though. How pricey is Githcraft armor?

+600 gp  Cheap.

Feycraft also removes 5% ACF and is 100 gp cheaper, but it gives +1 bluff rather than concentration.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Oversimplifying ... 

Wizard into Iot7V is good enough.
But you do have to know what to do with a Wizard.
That requires the God guide and/or the Batman guide.
You also need a way to find more spells.
Here your DM could gimp you (ugh)
... or you have towns in your campaign
that have npc Wizards, who have spells.

Hello mr Wizard, I'm a wizard too, let's fold scarves !!

[Xanola]

It is unlikely my DM would gimp me,as the campaign I'm playing in has multiple DM's in an open world setting... so even if one DM gives me problems, there are always others who would not. (not that I would intentionally manipulate the system this way, just mentioning that the feasability of restricting spells in such a way is limited)