1st-4th level Must Have spells for Wizard

[Crake]

How did you die?

First time was a swarm of 16 shadows.

Second time was a greater shadow.

Dat strength drain

Fun story: We killed the swarm of normal shadows by summoning satyrs and elementals, who we promptly death warded to protect from the shadows, and got them to read some explosive runes when they were surrounded by shadows cause force damage baby.

[Malachei]

Why didn't you protect yourselves instead of your summoned monsters? Sheltered Vitality, for instance, would have likely saved your character's life.

[Crake]

Why didn't you protect yourselves instead of your summoned monsters? Sheltered Vitality, for instance, would have likely saved your character's life.

2 reasons, one was that when we protected our summons, we were at a long and safe distance from the enemies, a while after the first encounter which resulted in our deaths. The other reason being that sheltered vitality is not core, so the druid couldn't have cast it.

There's also the issue that we didn't know we'd be up against shadows, they just kinda popped out of the walls and floor. I'm fairly sure that we actually saved the party from a TPK by me and the druid going off alone, because we certainly weren't prepared to take on 16 shadows and a greater shadow all at once. Our cleric only has 3 levels of turning, he went into church inquisitor after level 3, and the paladin only has 6 levels of paladin followed by fist of raizel, so turning them all was not an option, not to mention that there were 16 of them, all with 5 effective HD after turn resistance.

[Randomguy]

You might want to look into some anti incorporeal spells. Take a look at Force Missiles or Chain Missiles from SpC. You'd need to research them, though.

One of the Summon Undead spells might also be useful, since skeletons can't take ability damage. Again, though, you'd need to research it yourself.

Alternatively, take Transdimensional spell as a metamagic feat and apply it to your fireballs.

[Eldariel]

You might want to look into some anti incorporeal spells. Take a look at Force Missiles or Chain Missiles from SpC. You'd need to research them, though.

One of the Summon Undead spells might also be useful, since skeletons can't take ability damage. Again, though, you'd need to research it yourself.

Alternatively, take Transdimensional spell as a metamagic feat and apply it to your fireballs.

Command Undead is pretty darn good against undead, especially mindless ones.

[Sudain]

Before you go around researching stuff... has this been a consistent problem? Or would the issue of finding the undead be solved by sending a pack mule(an acutal animal) first?

[Crake]

Before you go around researching stuff... has this been a consistent problem? Or would the issue of finding the undead be solved by sending a pack mule(an acutal animal) first?

As much as I absolutely LOVE this idea, there's no way in hell I'd be able to convince the other party members (their characters, not the players themselves, we're pretty roleplay heavy) to go along with it.

Also update: We found a staff of life (good news) with 15 charges (meh news) which we promptly used to resurrect me and the druid's special animal companion. So I'm at level 6, with 75xp to level 7 (despite being less than 1000xp from level 8 when I died, noooo).

Some cool stuff happened with a Lamia today that made me look like less of a chump from last session though. Basically had a wizards duel with it, it was pretty intense. Best part was when it tried to deep slumber me, and I failed my will save horribly, but then when the DM told me I fell asleep I was like "but I'm an elf?"

[ericgrau]

Lesser restoration solves some pretty common problems. Buy the cleric a few scrolls. In general he should carry a few different scrolls for a variety of problems. Potions of invisibility are good for escaping in emergencies. Or in your case use a scroll or a spell. In general it's nice to carry 20 scrolls to handle a variety of random problems.

Magic missile is good for fighting hard to hit foes in general, but especially incorporeal foes. Averages 17 damage vs. a shadow's 19 hp, and hard to hit foes in general tend to have poor hp to compensate for it. At future levels get it empowered if you have empower spell.

The common pattern you may notice here is that I wouldn't dare suggest an anti-shadow spell. You might never fight a shadow again, and hindsight answers are pretty dumb as general solutions. All of the above are meant as general solutions. If you do expect more shadows, then a CL 7 scroll of empowered magic missile will usually 1 shot them. They are 525 gp a pop, but it's cheaper than a ressurection. And you don't actually lose it until you use it so it's not like you'll waste 525 gp on nothing.

[Crake]

Lesser restoration solves some pretty common problems. Buy the cleric a few scrolls. In general he should carry a few different scrolls for a variety of problems. Potions of invisibility are good for escaping in emergencies. Or in your case use a scroll or a spell. In general it's nice to carry 20 scrolls to handle a variety of random problems.

Magic missile is good for fighting hard to hit foes in general, but especially incorporeal foes. Averages 17 damage vs. a shadow's 19 hp, and hard to hit foes in general tend to have poor hp to compensate for it. At future levels get it empowered if you have empower spell.

The common pattern you may notice here is that I wouldn't dare suggest an anti-shadow spell. You might never fight a shadow again, and hindsight answers are pretty dumb as general solutions. All of the above are meant as general solutions. If you do expect more shadows, then a CL 7 scroll of empowered magic missile will usually 1 shot them. They are 525 gp a pop, but it's cheaper than a ressurection. And you don't actually lose it until you use it so it's not like you'll waste 525 gp on nothing.

Its not so much shadows specifically, but incorporeal creatures that surprise us. I tend to scout ahead with arcane eye before we go anywhere, but incorporeal creatures aren't necessarily going to be *in* the room for me to see. The other issue has been Illusions, since arcane eye has no way of interacting with them, so I have no chance at a save. If there was some way that I could let the inquisitor look through the arcane eye, he would get saves against them just by seeing them.

[ericgrau]

Examining counts as interacting, so if you take your time and study each feature of the room you can get a save vs. the illusions.

If you constantly face incorporeal creatures then the empowered magic missile scrolls or maybe even a wand are probably a good idea. Or pick up empower and prepare the spell yourself. Empower is also great on ray of enfeeblement, fireball, scorching ray, enervation and false life. It worked quite well on a character of mine who used a lot of evocation and necromancy. And he had conjuration crowd control too which combines nicely with those for other reasons.

You might suggest ghost touch weapons to the party as well and then haste them. Again, all this assumes incorporeal foes are very common otherwise you switch to more general answers. If the party has an archer he can get a few ghost touch arrows which he only uses on incorporeal, so unlike the melee he isn't at a drawback against other foes. Or if he can afford them better yet get ghost touch undead bane arrows. Low incorporeal hp and rapid shot will let him mow them down.

[Melcar]

You need:

Level 3: Shivering Touch (Frostburn p. 104)

Level 4: Chains of Vengenge (Book of Eldritch might 1 p. 16)

These are epically powerful, some might even say broken. I say an absolut need!!! Hope this helps!

[Crake]

Examining counts as interacting, so if you take your time and study each feature of the room you can get a save vs. the illusions.

Can you direct me to where exactly in the rules it says that? My DM would want to see.

You need:

Level 3: Shivering Touch (Frostburn p. 104)

Level 4: Chains of Vengenge (Book of Eldritch might 1 p. 16)

These are epically powerful, some might even say broken. I say an absolut need!!! Hope this helps!

Neither of which are core, so they require DM approval, followed by research (which is required *before* the DM says if its allowed or not, ie successful or failed research). If they're as overpowered as you say, he'll probably say no.

[Annos]

Eberron has some pretty sweat ARTIFACT SPELLS, that might be of use to you

[Melcar]

That is ofc your choice. We use what we can find. But every spell in our game need research, so nothing special there. Further, since my wizard uses 50% of his waking hour in any library, tempel, acadamy, and so forth, that he can find. It means that whatever I read IRL in the scource books(about lore and spells and such), my wizard have stupled upon ingame. With some few exceptions...

It works in our game!

[ericgrau]

Can you direct me to where exactly in the rules it says that? My DM would want to see.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverv...s.htm#illusion

Creatures encountering an illusion usually do not receive saving throws to recognize it as illusory until they study it carefully or interact with it in some fashion.

This rule is also found in the Player's Handbook in the Magic Overview in the Illusion section. The magic overview is right before the list of spells at the end.

IMO that involves at least a round on looking at an object to note its details, but in the end defining "study it carefully" is up to your DM. The only interpretation that would really bother me would be one where it's impractical to ever do it.

[Crake]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverv...s.htm#illusion

This rule is also found in the Player's Handbook in the Magic Overview in the Illusion section. The magic overview is right before the list of spells at the end.

IMO that involves at least a round on looking at an object to note its details, but in the end defining "study it carefully" is up to your DM. The only interpretation that would really bother me would be one where it's impractical to ever do it.

Hmm, it's good to note, I usually say I take a minute or so to inspect a room with my arcane eye whenever the DM reads out an elaborate description. The one time we ran into an illusion the illusion made the situation seem somewhat dire and the paladin broke my concentration and made us all hurry to its aid, so I never got a chance to study the room carefully.

[ericgrau]

Well do note I mean a round for each object, and that's just IMO. An entire room might have 20 squares and perhaps more than 1 item in a square. To carefully an examine an entire room from top to bottom might take 5 to 20 minutes. Up to him, but a minute is a little quick unless there's only 1 major object in the room to look at and that object is the illusion (rather than a more subtle illusion off to the side).

[Crake]

Well do note I mean a round for each object, and that's just IMO. An entire room might have 20 squares and perhaps more than 1 item in a square. To carefully an examine an entire room from top to bottom might take 5 to 20 minutes. Up to him, but a minute is a little quick unless there's only 1 major object in the room to look at and that object is the illusion (rather than a more subtle illusion off to the side).

Well, in this case, it was pretty much the entire room. To be fair, I'm pretty sure I should have gotten a save from the simple fact that there was reasonable reason to doubt the room's authenticity considering it had a "sky". But in the paladin's haste, I suppose I never really got a chance.