Wizards strive for power -- power through their spells, and power through their mastery of magic.

Some masters of magic, however, develop powers far beyond the norm --- embracing the powers of nature completely. Becoming one with the elements, and one with the animals in the wild, these mages become Masters of all Shapes.

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Human
STR 14
DEX 15
CON 14
INT 16
WIS 08
CHA 08
**raise all INT

Skills: Lore and Spellcraft primarily. Whatever else you want. May take animal empathy to fool around occasionally.

Wizard 1 - Spell Focus: Evocation, Greater Spell Focus: Evocation
Wizard 3 - Skill Focus: Spellcraft
Wizard 5 - Empower Spell
Wizard 6 - Endurance
Wizard 9 - Alertness
Wizard 10 - Spell Penetration
Wizard 11 / Shifter 1 - Practised Spellcaster (Wizard)
Wizard 13 / Shifter 1 / Archmage 1 - Greater Spell Penetration, Mastery of Shapes
Wizard 13 / Shifter 1 / Archmage 2 - Mastery of Elements
Wizard 14 / Shifter 2 / Archmage 2 - Knockdown or another Spell Focus
Wizard 14 / Shifter 4 / Archmage 2 **lvl 20

Pre-Epic Saves:
Fort: 8. +4 from Shifter, +4 from Wizard, +0 from Archmage.
Reflex: 8. +4 from Shifter, +4 from Wizard, +0 from Archmage.
Will: 13. +9 from Wizard, +1 from Shifter, +3 from Archmage.

Pre-Epic BAB:
11. 7 from wizard, 1 from Archmage, 3 from Shifter. This means 3 attacks, w00t!

Now for epic!

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Wizard 14 / Shifter 4 / Archmage 3 - Spell Power I, Epic Spell Focus: Evocation
Wizard 14 / Shifter 4 / Archmage 4 - Spell Power II
Wizard 14 / Shifter 4 / Archmage 5 - Spell Power III
Wizard 15 / Shifter 4 / Archmage 5 - Great Intelligence I, Epic Spell Penetration
Wizard 17 / Shifter 5 / Archmage 5 *max spell slots - Epic Skill Focus: Lore
Wizard 17 / Shifter 8 / Archmage 5 - Epic Skill Focus: Spellcraft
Wizard 17 / Shifter 11 / Archmage 5 - Great Intelligence II
Wizard 20 / Shifter 11 / Archmage 5 - Great Intelligence III, Great Intelligence IV
Wizard 23 / Shifter 11 / Archmage 5 - Great Intelligence V, Great Intelligence VI
Wizard 24 / Shifter 11 / Archmage 5.

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End INT: 32.

End Result: A pretty unstoppable wizard. Casts as a level 24 + 5 (archmage) + 4 (practised) + 3 (spell power) = 36 wizard; only 4 less than a normal wizard.

In return for those 4 lost levels, however, you can assume the shape of any creature with HD 35 (i think its 35 anyway) or less. This will enable to you get several immunities, and several powers (since you can use epic wild shape to get some SLAs from creatures). You also can change the elements of your spells.

Basically you're a high AC high HP high caster lvl wizard with access to epic spells (unfortunately shifter with epic spells is broken in 2.1, but will be fixed in 2.2 hopefully).

This is a fun build, really. I play it on a PW and its a blast.

~ Lock.
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"Life builds you up just to tear you down." - 3rd Strike This one does look like a ton of fun. I'll definately give it a whirl. How does it handle epic spells? I saw you are putting your skills there. A couple things I noticed when testing this build. First you took epic spell focus, and it isn't available in archmage's selection. Wasn't a big deal as I swapped it for great int I.

Also what would happen if you brought this character into HotU official campaign? Would you just be fairly shapeless until the end of chapter one?
Quote: Posted 08/18/04 01:05:59 (GMT) -- Emrill
Also what would happen if you brought this character into HotU official campaign? Would you just be fairly shapeless until the end of chapter one?

Yea, pretty much. Though one of the ogre forms would probably be pretty good, I'd imagine.

~ Lock.
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"Life builds you up just to tear you down." - 3rd Strike