# All Wizard Party?  How does it survive early levels?



## RUMBLETiGER (Apr 1, 2012)

Everyone knows that Wizards weild the power to warp reality itself, bend the world and those in it to their will, etc, etc.

Everyone also knows they're really squishy, most especially at level 1.

Any suggestions for how a 4 Wizard party might be built to survive the first few levels without some osrt of Meat Shield class?

I've considered either really pumping Initiative to kill enemies before they get a chance to react, or some form of rapid summoning to gain a meatshield.  Any ideas would be appreciated.


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## Set (Apr 1, 2012)

RUMBLETiGER said:


> Any suggestions for how a 4 Wizard party might be built to survive the first few levels without some osrt of Meat Shield class?




You mention Rapid Summoning, which suggests you might have access to Unearthed Arcana stuff. A conjuror and / or a necromancer (with the bone minion option) can definitely help with some of that. An enchanter moving into a thrallherd or leadership role (and using charm person and diplomacy and a hireling or two, until he's got the good stuff) can also fill that gap.

More than one person stacking up sleep, hypnotism and / or color spray can leave your all-wizard group woefully unprepared for an undead or vermin or swarm-y encounter, 'though, so I'd caution against having both an illusionist *and* an enchanter in the group.

Enchanter (headed for some minion-master-y role), Conjuror (rapid summoning), Necromancer (skeletal minion), Evoker (headed for force missile mage / argent savant?) might be a fun mix.


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## GameDaddy (Apr 1, 2012)

Potions, Scrolls, & Magic Items?... as well as followers and hirelings of course...


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## Crothian (Apr 1, 2012)

They are wizards, so play them smart.  Don't get in over your head.  Don't get cornered.  Always have an escape option.  It would probably help if they avoided serious dungeon crawling for a while.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 1, 2012)

Pick your battles, don't let your battles pick you. By controlling the where and when your party fights, you improve your odds.  Think of The 300...but with a Disney ending.

Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em- running away can be your best option.

Use gear to improve your offense & defense.

Bring your AK-47s to the knife fight.  Moreso than any other party demographic, the adage about offense being your best defense is key for a low-level all wizard party- win quickly, or go home...to Valhalla.


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## RUMBLETiGER (Apr 1, 2012)

How might level 1 Wizards prepare to survive 1 or 2 serious-but-level-appropriate hits in the process of fighting or retreating?


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## Celebrim (Apr 1, 2012)

Hire a few 0th level men at arms as meat shields.  
Use that int to cross class into a few levels of animal handling, and buy a few war dogs.
You're all likely to have good dex.  If you aren't casting a spell, you should be providing fairly effective ranged fire.
Lots of crowd control spells.   Sleep is particularly effective in the all wizard party, at least, so long as you only encounter things that need sleep.  Color spray is also pretty good, though it has a devestatingly short range and in practice can get you into trouble when it randomly doesn't work and now you are in melee.
Consider taking Toughness as a feat.  I'm skeptical of the all wizard concept because at least at my table, pure arcane casters typically don't survive.   If you don't take Toughness, the most success I've seen is burning a level of spellcasting ability start as a 1st level fighter (with attributes of a wizard), and then full wizard from then on out.  The extra hit points have in practiced proved essential to surviving the low levels.
As soon as you have XP, burn it to make scrolls for all of your utility spells so as to maximize your offensive power.
Make sure you have at least one person who can make wonderous items and/or rings because, unless your DM is particularly generous with magic items or has magic marts, you won't have enough defensive items to go around.  

Beyond that, it's more a matter of what rules abuses that your DM allows.  There is a ton of brokenness out there to abuse.


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## Dandu (Apr 1, 2012)

Have good dex, mage armor, throw up an obscuring mist (miss chances affect attacks, not necessarily spells), and cast Grease and Sleep at the enemy until they are disabled enough that you can coup de grace them with a scythe?


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## gwyllgi (Apr 1, 2012)

you'd have to have at least one minionmancer, which without the artificer leaves necromancer, if al of you take the variant class features presented in UA i think you all should be specialized enough that there are a wide variety of things you can do to survive, You don't need omni wizards because if you all work as a group you'll do just as good as one, but with more hit points and the ability to be in four places at once.


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## xigbar (Apr 1, 2012)

Abrupt Jaunt helps. Summoning is preferred at low levels, and creep up behind the summons with an Illusionist to color spray the enemies.


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## NEXxREX (Apr 1, 2012)

one of them could specialize in being a necromancer minionmaster to make shields out of the remains of what you all kill. you protect others, and they do what they do.


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## Empath Negative (Apr 1, 2012)

Remember the heavy crossbow. It can easily murder a level 1 minion type creature. Theres also alxhemy and things of that nature.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 1, 2012)

RUMBLETiGER said:


> How might level 1 Wizards prepare to survive 1 or 2 serious-but-level-appropriate hits in the process of fighting or retreating?




Quoting myself:



> One gnome in particular emphasized alchemical grenade attacks followed by short-sword attacks before using spells, and Adragon Van Basten, the "Mage-Brute" was a standard sorcerer (with the Draconic Breath feat) who wore scale mail, used a maul and almost never cast a spell in combat (for a variety of reasons).




That gnome was a 2Ed Illusionist/Th, and his use of firebombs, glue-bombs, acid-grenades and caltrops made him a fearsome low-level foe.

Adragon had Draconic breath to get around the ASF of wearing armor- not an option for Wizards, just included as an example of thinking outside the box.


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## RUMBLETiGER (Apr 2, 2012)

Excellent ideas guys, thanks.  I don't currently intend to try this, just wanted to see what Wizards could do.  I would want to make a Wizard character that had some survivability, but figured this question would push it.  Awesome.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 2, 2012)

As hinted at by others upthread, if you use specialist Wizards with some of the variant rules, some of those guys might have some nearly at-will abilities that will greatly improve survivability.

Hell- its not optimization in general- but taking the Toad familiar and the Toughness feat could make one of them the virtual "bruiser" in the party, at least in terms of HP.


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## StreamOfTheSky (Apr 2, 2012)

We had a party once, Final Fantasy I-themed.  Ended up being two black mages, a red mage, a white mage, and a fighter.  Yeah...  Low levels were tough.  We survived, and later thrived, because of battlefield control.  When everyone has powerful ranged options, locking up foes with nasty area effects is extremely potent, and having multiple casters means you can very quickly escalate and multiply the effects.  Remember, difficult terrain's penalties to movement multiply using real world math, not that x2 and x2 combined = x3 crap.   Of course, you need some blasting abilities in the party to actually kill things off.  But a party that can throw grease, web, and entangle and still have one or two others to start shooting, all in one round w/o quicken or familiars with scrolls/wands (but they can certainly help!) ... pretty good stuff.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 2, 2012)

Race could matter, too.

An Elf in this case could supplement his spells with arrows from his longbow.  A halfling who used achemical grenades would get a bonus to his attack rolls.  Dwarven weapons, human extra feats, etc.


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## Empirate (Apr 2, 2012)

First level is special in any campaign, because _everybody _in the party is easily one-shot'ed, not only the Wizard/Sorcerer. At that level, even the discrepancy in attack bonuses isn't consistent enough to make a difference in the face of the mighty d20 with its huge variance. Every party composition must come to grips with the fact that, very likely indeed, one of them will bite the dust at 1st level, before ever reaching the relative safety of 2nd or even 3rd level (where suddenly almost _nobody _is easily one-shot'ed).

Therefore, I'm of the opinion that at 1st level, most party compositions will work equally badly. 2nd level and higher, a broader spread in ability will be useful (such as 2 frontliners, a utility guy (caster or skillmonkey), a BC guy/buffer, and one of them should be able to heal somewhat).

I believe that from 4th level onwards a pure arcane caster party can be very feasible, maybe even optimal, as long as some form of healing is available (such as one of them being a Bard, or taking Arcane Disciple: Healing, and packs a Wand of CLW). Before that, the casters lack, not power, but durability - both in HP and spells/day.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 2, 2012)

Specialization & Focused Specialist help with the spells/day thing.


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## Empirate (Apr 2, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Specialization & Focused Specialist help with the spells/day thing.




Specialisation, yes. Focused, may help with spells/day, but seriously cramps your style where versatility is concerned IMO. I'd be having a hard time banning a third school. After banning one mostly unneeded school and one that'd be nice to have, but not critical, banning a third really causes major headaches for me.


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## StreamOfTheSky (Apr 2, 2012)

In a party with all mages, two banning Abjuration should be fine, maybe even 3.  One can be a diviner (and should NOT do focused specialist) and have just one banned school.  The focused specialist illusionist is presumably going shadowcraft mage and will have plenty of versatility in return for the 3 banned schools.  One guy may want to go Abjuror / Master Specialist / Initiate of the 7-fold Veil...he also would not want to focused specialist.  The conjurors (may be ideal to actually have 2, it's so strong) should absolutely be focused specialists with abrupt jaunt.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 2, 2012)

With a party comprised of all Wizards- even Focused specialists- you won't have to worry as much about individual flexibility as long as the party as a whole covers all the bases.  And of course, an all FSWiz party will have more spells and better odds of succeeding with each casting.

As for which school to get rid of...I can always figure out one that seems thematically appropriate to the PC in question.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 2, 2012)

> One can be a diviner (and should NOT do focused specialist)




I dunno.  I've run 2 FC Diviners*- one Human and one Elf.  They did alright as ranged combatants.  In an all Wiz party, their ranged accuracy might be a key factor.









* FWIW, Diviners are my second favorite specialists; Transmuters are my #1.


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## Ashtagon (Apr 2, 2012)

Dandu said:


> Have good dex, mage armor, throw up an obscuring mist (miss chances affect attacks, not necessarily spells), and cast Grease and Sleep at the enemy until they are disabled enough that you can coup de grace them with a scythe?




Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think 1st level wizards usually have access to four 1st level spells per day, let alone per encounter.


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## Empirate (Apr 2, 2012)

A party of four 1st level Wizards does have a lot of 1st level slots to throw around. Especially if they're, well... Focused Specialists, as has been discussed in the posts immediately prior to yours? That's four slots per guy per day, equalling almost exactly four slots/encounter overall (almost due to long-term buffs costing a slot). Five slots per day each if they have Int 20, which is manageable even at 1st level: play a Grey Elf or Sun Elf.​


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 2, 2012)

Reading Dandu's mind, he's probably assuming a high INT and possibly Specialization or Focused specialization.

He may also not have meant that all the spells wer cast by the same caster in a given encounter.


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## Dandu (Apr 3, 2012)

Also, scrolls.


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## Drowbane (Apr 3, 2012)

Color Spray, Sleep... 

Battlefield Control + Summons.

Try to avoid losing initiative. I think the spell is called Nerveskitter.


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## Trance-Zg (Apr 3, 2012)

Elves are your best shot at this. Longbow and longsword go a long way in comparison to crossbow and a dagger.
Bonus dex for armor and initiative and bow attack.
Sleep immunity for sleep carpet bombing when enemies close to melee.
Low-light vision at clear night sky is superior to darkvision in the open.

Caltrops best cantrip for battle.

Shield,mage armor, grease, sleep, cause fear, color spray, shock and awe, guiding light, net of shadows, backbitter, all great 1st level spells.


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## Janaxstrus (Apr 4, 2012)

4 warforged wizards with repair spells.

THEN go with colorsprays and the like


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