Having played on a server for a while I am ready to make my first caster build there.

As everything hits really hard there, I heard a wiz 24/pm 10/dd 6 works really well there (crit immune and more or less sneak immune).

Is it possibble you guys could help me with this?

I reckon it should be:
14 wiz
6 DD
-> epic
16 pm
4 wiz

Could you help me get that attributes and feats right?

Cheers mates! Maybe try something like this:

Deathless Defender

Wizard 23/PM 10/DD 7
(pre-epic Wizard 12/PM 2/DD 6)

Race: Dwarf

Stats

Starting:

Str 8
Dex 16
Con 18
Int 16
Wis 8
Cha 6


Ending:

Str 8
Dex 16
Con 22
Int 22
Wis 8
Cha 6

Note: You get more skil credits if you pump Int first, but you will need at least 21

Con before you can start taking DR feats.

Feats

1 Dodge
3 Toughness
6 Combat Casting
9 Expertise
12 Improved Expertise
15 Spell Penetration
18 Greater Spell Penetration

Wizard: Extend Spell, Empower Spell

21 Improved Combat Casting
24 Craft Wand, Wizard: Maximize Spell
27 Damage Reduction I
30 Damage Reduction II, Wizard: Epic Spell Penetration
33 Damage Reduction III
36 Epic Warding
39 Armor Skin, Wizard: Epic Mage Armor


Epic lvl progression:

21-24 Wizard
25-26 PM
27-30 Wizard
31-35 PM
36 Wizard
37 PM
38-39 Wizard
40 DD

Important Skills:

Concentration
Discipline
Healing
Spellcraft
Tumble

Optional Skills:

Hide
Move Silently
Crafting
Lore
Search
Spot
Listen Thanks man, helpful info.

I also saw I made a mistake in my post, using 16 pm levels. That is not necessary.

I have never played a caster before, so can you help me with some things:
- which school of magic should I take?
- if I 'only' have 24 wizz levels, will my spell penetration be strong enough?
- would it be a good idea to get still spell so i could use armour?

Also (I cant test it myself as my home pc is being fixed):
- what will hp be?
- what will AC be?

Thanks for your help!
Quote: Posted 09/14/04 07:32:44 (GMT) -- tanassi

Thanks man, helpful info.

I also saw I made a mistake in my post, using 16 pm levels. That is not necessary.

I have never played a caster before, so can you help me with some things:
- which school of magic should I take?
- if I 'only' have 24 wizz levels, will my spell penetration be strong enough?
- would it be a good idea to get still spell so i could use armour?

Also (I cant test it myself as my home pc is being fixed):
- what will hp be?
- what will AC be?

Thanks for your help!

As for school of magic, I would go with Illusion, as there don't seem to be many useful Enchantment spells. That is, unless you've got the PRC pack, in which case yo might want to go generalist.

With 24 lvls of Wizard + Epic Spell Pen., you will be able to beat SRs of 31-50 without using breaches. With Mord's, you will be able to lower a creature's SR by 10, so that means you will be able to beat SRs of 41-60. The highest SR of any "stock" monster is 32, so that shouldn't be a problem. Whether or not that will be high enough for the server you play on, I have no idea. If you are playing PvP, the only thing that might give you a problem would be a pure or near-pure Monk with lots of SR feats.

As for auto-still spell, that depends largely on the environment you're playing in. Currently, this build gets a +3 bonus from Dex unbuffed, and a +9 AC bonus from Dex with all buffs. With plate armor and a tower shield, you would only get a +1 bonus from Dex, but you would get +8 from the armor and +3 from the shield. Thus, your AC would only be about 4 points higher than you can buff it up to now, assuming you are using +5 items (the extra +1 if from the shield; the Shield spell will only give you a +4 bonus to AC).

If you are assuming +10 items, then you could get your AC up to 9 points higher than you could with a Dex build wearing robes, so in that environment it might be worth it. If you did decide that you wanted the Auto-Still spell feats, you could easily substitute them for the Damage Reduction feats; just make sure to lower Dex at creation and boost Str a bit so that you won't be encumbered.

HP: ~546 max (assuming +30 from Deathless Vigor)

AC: 10 base
+3 Dex
+4 Tumble
+6 Bone Skin
+1 Dodge
+2 Armor Skin
+10 Improved Expertise
______
36 Naked AC, unbuffed That really is a sweet build. Will give it a go on Aventia. Sick and tired of dying there
Quote: Posted 09/14/04 14:28:25 (GMT) -- CrispyCritter

Quote: Posted 09/14/04 07:32:44 (GMT) -- tanassi

Thanks man, helpful info.

I also saw I made a mistake in my post, using 16 pm levels. That is not necessary.

I have never played a caster before, so can you help me with some things:
- which school of magic should I take?
- if I 'only' have 24 wizz levels, will my spell penetration be strong enough?
- would it be a good idea to get still spell so i could use armour?

Also (I cant test it myself as my home pc is being fixed):
- what will hp be?
- what will AC be?

Thanks for your help!

As for school of magic, I would go with Illusion, as there don't seem to be many useful Enchantment spells. That is, unless you've got the PRC pack, in which case yo might want to go generalist.

With 24 lvls of Wizard + Epic Spell Pen., you will be able to beat SRs of 31-50 without using breaches. With Mord's, you will be able to lower a creature's SR by 10, so that means you will be able to beat SRs of 41-60. The highest SR of any "stock" monster is 32, so that shouldn't be a problem. Whether or not that will be high enough for the server you play on, I have no idea. If you are playing PvP, the only thing that might give you a problem would be a pure or near-pure Monk with lots of SR feats.

As for auto-still spell, that depends largely on the environment you're playing in. Currently, this build gets a +3 bonus from Dex unbuffed, and a +9 AC bonus from Dex with all buffs. With plate armor and a tower shield, you would only get a +1 bonus from Dex, but you would get +8 from the armor and +3 from the shield. Thus, your AC would only be about 4 points higher than you can buff it up to now, assuming you are using +5 items (the extra +1 if from the shield; the Shield spell will only give you a +4 bonus to AC).

If you are assuming +10 items, then you could get your AC up to 9 points higher than you could with a Dex build wearing robes, so in that environment it might be worth it. If you did decide that you wanted the Auto-Still spell feats, you could easily substitute them for the Damage Reduction feats; just make sure to lower Dex at creation and boost Str a bit so that you won't be encumbered.

HP: ~546 max (assuming +30 from Deathless Vigor)

AC: 10 base
+3 Dex
+4 Tumble
+6 Bone Skin
+1 Dodge
+2 Armor Skin
+10 Improved Expertise
______
36 Naked AC, unbuffed

Why go with illusion when you can go with Evocation instead?

Anuis Nice page-long quote there Anuis
Evocation will lose you conjuration, which is considerably more useful than Enchantment. Choosing a spell school doesn't (to my understanding) make you any better at it, just gives you one more spell slot/spell level, so might as well take illusion and use a useless school.
_________________
Have I mentioned I hate IGMS?
Quote: Posted 09/16/04 20:27:47 (GMT) -- yrtsns

Nice page-long quote there Anuis
Evocation will lose you conjuration, which is considerably more useful than Enchantment. Choosing a spell school doesn't (to my understanding) make you any better at it, just gives you one more spell slot/spell level, so might as well take illusion and use a useless school.

Heh... I was in hurry, didn't think about it at that time.

But if you did evocation instead, you would be able to use it more and especially since there are some powerful spells in that school.

But if they just give you one extra slot... might as well go generalist. Then do a spell focus(and up to epic) in Evocation, Necromacy, or Illusion or do combination of two. You will have higher DC saves for the spells in that school. But the way this build is built, you might only can do one type of school spell focus. So either it is Evocation or Illusion, I would go for Evocation since you can use powerful spells. But if you don't want to do that, do Abjuration, they give you nice defenses and spells that can strip caster of their defenses especially monks with SR(Mordenkainen's Disjunction). But again, if you don't want to do any of those, use Illusion since they have both combination of defensive and offensive spells.

Anuis Just came up with some more questions:

- if I have 24 wiz levels, how long will my buffs last?
- and how much does a round last in minutes?
- how do I make sure my buffs dont get dispelled?
- i have acces to -/20 resistance items for damage, are the damage resitance feats worth it knowing this?
- just to make sure: this is like the ultimate heal tanker right?
- i will play this build on Aventia, will it 'shine' there?

Cheers for you help! This is to Anuis' post:
With generalist you dont get the extra spell slot per level. With evocation or illusion you would get the exact same bonus: an extra spell slot per level (for any spell from any spell school: "A wizard who chooses to specialize in a school of magic gains one additional prepared spell per level but loses the ability to cast spells from one other school"), with different drawbacks.
The drawback from illusion is insignificant, whereas with evocation you'd lose your conjuration spells, some of which are quite useful. Enchantment spells... aren't (arguably, I guess). Choosing a school of magic isn't the same as choosing a spell focus. It doesn't affect anything other than that it gives you a free spell slot and you lose access to another school.
With wizard an extra spell slot/level is invaluable.
_________________
Have I mentioned I hate IGMS? Ok I screwed that one up then. I took generalist.

But anyway, can anyone help me out with my other questions? Anyone? Help appreciated how do you become a rdd as a wiz when the requirements or sorc/bard and 8 points in lore?