New wizard questions on extend, etc feats

[spaarhawk]

Getting ready to start a wizard but had a question about the metamagic feats and proper use thereof. Do these need to be toggled on for each cast, or do most wizzys leave them on all the time?

If left on, do they auto-select by spell (i.e. - extend doesn't get utilized on a magic missle), or do they all apply to every spell cast thus taking a 10 point chunk for each metamagic feat + spell cast?

I could see where the second scenario could eat SP like there's no tomorrow....

Want to be as effective as I can, are there ways to create macros to auto-toggle the correct MM for the spell being cast (i.e. - maximize + repair)?

[Visty]

they are like a stance, means you toggle it on and it is on till you toggle it off

and it only consumes spells which can be enhanced by that feat, so anything without a duration isnt affected by extend for example

hover over your spells in your spellbook to see which metas affect that spell

[spaarhawk]

they are like a stance, means you toggle it on and it is on till you toggle it off

and it only consumes spells which can be enhanced by that feat, so anything without a duration isnt affected by extend for example

hover over your spells in your spellbook to see which metas affect that spell


Thanks, so just leave em on most of the time?

[juniorpfactors]

the only thing i turn off when i buff is, quicken on my cleric, then right back on when done buffing

jrp

[negilum]

I leave heighten and empower on. I turn on maximize for tough fights. At low levels I kept extend on most of the time, at higher levels I usually only extend haste, cloud spells, and for tough fights firewall.

[spaarhawk]

Thanks for the replies, now to find a thread which help me determine which spells are most effective for levels 1-4, as I have no idea which ones to take.

Any thread references for these, as they somewhat tie into the topic?

[xtchizobr]

Thanks for the replies, now to find a thread which help me determine which spells are most effective for levels 1-4, as I have no idea which ones to take.

Any thread references for these, as they somewhat tie into the topic?

as a wizard, you take them all.... the wizards' handbook thread does contain a post about which spells you will not be able to find scrolls of via merchants. that is, while you can learn every arcane spell in the game, you have to find a scroll of that spell in order to inscribe it. and not every arcane scroll in the game is available to be bought from an NPC. those that are not for sale must be found as treasure, or chosen as one of your free two spells-per-level.

blur, resist energy, haste and firewall. get them. take the "rare" spells at level up, but these four should always always always be prepared when you get them eventually.

but your question was about levels 1-4. the first two levels of spells actually do offer an amazing variety of utility effects that you will very often find need for throughout your career. jump and feather fall are often substituted for with equipment, but sometimes a character just couldn't spare the item slot for it and will need help traversing chasms (and the same could be said for you!). detect secret doors is very very handy for those of us who simply don't have every last square millimeter of the game memorized, and the first time you discover a hidden shrine while low on SP, you'll have a wand of this baby on hand forever. merfolk's blessing is a very interesting spell, and very few characters invest any skill points in swimming, which is a shame because when you need to swim you need to be able to actually SWIM. underwater action does not increase the speed of your underwater movement, and there's a particular portion of a certain gianthold quest that can be eased with the simple application of this effect...

shield and nightshield are both also incredibly important spells to remember even if you quickly don't need their main effect. armor soon loses its meaning for a wizard and nightshield does not stack with "of resistance +" items, but having one of these buffs on you will make you immune to both magic missile and its big brother force missiles (a little contrary to letter of the rules, but still in keeping with the spirit). force effects cannot be resisted (as energy attacks like cold and fire can be), and some spell casters can be very mean with force missiles later. kobold shamans also like to cast magic missile, but a few d4 damage isn't so severe at level 3. of the two, shield is very very nice indeed for level 1-4 as it counts as a "shield" bonus and will therefore stack with mage armor and deflection (from "protection" items). a high dex wizard (usually an elf wielding a bow for damage at low levels) can achieve an AC as high or higher than many full plate characters at those levels.

for the first few levels, you should not hope to be constant source of nukes. you don't have the SP for it now, and in most dungeons never will. keep a nuke on hand for when it will do good, but don't spray all your SP thinking that burning hands is doing anything. of the low level nukes, shocking grasp and acid spray are my preferred darlings for a few reasons. shocking grasp is unresistable, and the lightning rod is cheap and common and a perfect gift to an alt. if your account is new, don't worry about any of that. unresistable damage = great damage. niac's cold ray can saved against for NONE. on top of costing a material component (the greatest cost of which is the annoyance of keeping track of them). acid spray will not destroy the Web spell. burning hands does. otherwise, they're practically identical spells, though it is worth mentioning that grey oozes are immune to fire... chill touch is functionally the same as shocking grasp, but it won't heal undead -- it causes fear in them instead. a great source of crowd control against a creature type that is immune to almighty hypnosis. nothing wrong with chill touch itself, but negative energy damage is a more exotic energy type, and, aside from this one spell, you don't get any other negative energy damage sources. which means that when looking for gear that will boost your damage, you should find an item that will boost more than one single spell.

as mentioned, hypnosis is almighty for korthos and the sewers. it is a mind-affecting effect, so it won't work on undead or constructs (iron defenders), but then, nothing will until you get web anyway. it is an aoe (perfect for its job) and will based (which doesn't mean that much since at this level saves are only +1 or 2 no matter what kind of monster it is. though casters will have their wisdom bonus if any, so they save more often) so all those kobold sneaks and warriors are least likely to make their saves, allowing your swordarms to target their casters first (as they should be doing anyway). charm person works against kobolds and orcs and hobgoblins, and can be a nifty way to get rid of an archer up on a ledge. creatures so controlled do not follow you around until you get the "dominate" spells, so charmed creatures are only useful for one encounter, pretty much. don't forget that you can "release" them by using the "feat".

as for buffs, these low level ones can be very nice or useless depending on a lot of things. protection from evil, for instance, is only effective if the enemy is actually evil. it does stack with just about everything we know of, though, which may not be exactly what the spell's description would lead us to expect. mage armor should never be wasted on characters who are actually WEARING armor. mage armor provides a +4 armor type bonus to the subject's AC, but does NOT stack with any other "armor" type bonuses such as ..... armor. it does allow full dex bonus, though, and monks don't wear armor -- they'll love you for it! don't forget you can cast it on yourself, and it does stack with the shield spell. the black widow bracers (which are a +4 armor item from the waterworks quest chain) will make this spell obsolete for you once you get them, freeing up a spell slot.

when you get level 2 spells, the first two slots will invariably be taken up by blur and resist energy first thing. it is important to note that displacement effects work no matter what your AC is. that is, for us wizards who pretty much can't get high enough AC to matter anyway, blur is a flat 20% miss chance no matter how high their BAB or how low your AC. does not affect ray spells, but then, nothing does. (just move out of the way of a ray attack.) this spell alone will save your healer so much SP it's worth every bit to cast an extended blur on everyone in the party. at low levels, will only last a few minutes even extended, but extending it will save you 5 SP instead of casting it twice when it runs out... blur has a far longer duration than Displacement, so this is the "everyday" buff. when you get displacement later, you might get keep them both prepared, and only cast Displacement in a pinch (they don't stack, but Displacement won't harm your blur spell at all). it is a lot of SP to cast this on everyone, so if you think your backliners won't be getting hit, you don't have to cast it on them, but it does do more good on the lower AC members of a group (because the high AC people shouldn't be getting hit too often in the low levels regardless of whether they have blur, but it helps a lot more than a few points of AC buff on a character if they still won't have high enough AC to matter... like wizards). resist energy is another spell that will save buckets of SP, but you don't need to have it up all the time unless you know you'll be taking energy damage frequently. high energy resistances can make you completely immune to all the damage from a source (scorching ray and lava come to mind...), or at least cause you to take that amount less damage each time you are affected. kobold shamans casting lightning bolts on elite difficulty settings can very easily tax a healer's SP or just outright kill a less healthy party member (like a wizard) including your brutes on the front line if they get caught in a moment while lower on HP in the fight. spells aren't the only thing to cause energy damage, of course, and resist energy affects them all. traps spring to mind. kobold throwers use little fire pots that deal a small amount of fire damage easily prevented with even a low level fire resistance. most oozes deal a little acid damage to you as well, also easily prevented. an elemental dungeon is an obvious scenario.

web has its fanatical followers, but i admit that i'm not really wild about the spell. it works on everything, but its short duration and saves allowed make it very weak in my opinion. if it allowed only the reflex, or had some unavoidable movement-slow effect, i would like it a lot more. it has a small aoe, and allows strength checks every 2 seconds (ogres and orcs are practically immune). fire will destroy it, so don't go using burning hands near it (hence, acid spray... incidentally, acid spray is one of those spells that you can't buy a scroll of).

the animal buff spells (fox's cunning, bull's strength, etc.) are extremely situational, and very quickly replaced with gear (which it does not stack with). a rogue would benefit greatly from having fox cast on him before he attempts a trap, and bear will give an extra +2hp/level and +2 fort saves, but most characters should have a +2 item for their primary ability by the time they're level 3 or 4, and so the benefit of these temporary buffs is halved. fox will affect your max SP and spell save DCs (as well as skills of course), but it is purged by resting at a shrine, so you can't buff with it and then have more SP after your rest... eagle deserves a special mention -- it affects the use magic device skill, and few rogues (or other, exotic builds) will have a charisma item always on. an extra +10% success rate on wands or scrolls can help that 2rogue/2wizard get your cleric back up from incapacitated (a level 2 wizard doesn't have access to level 2 spells yet...) because the DC on a heal check is 21 and UMD is a more commonly taken skill than heal, in my experience. ironic, and a shame, but true. monks would gain benefit to their AC from both cat and owl, totalling +4 AC which would stack with mage armor and shield for +12 AC! holy ****! maybe not worth the spell slots, but... it can be done.

until level 5, your level 1 nukes are doing just as many dice of damage as your level 2 spells, and they cost 5 fewer SP. also -1DC, but who cares about that at this low level? i wouldn't prepare a nuke in a level 2 slot because there are better things to put there in the low levels. electric loop and snowball swarm are two more spells that you can't just buy from a merchant, but between the two, electric loop is the only really worthwhile one. it's like a wizard's sound burst, but with a few more dice for good measure. still not really worth the SP, but if you see the cleric casting sound burst, politely tell him to stop being such an imbecile and use his SP for something that will actually do something. hypnosis is cheaper and accomplishes the effect of crowd control for longer. melf's and scorching ray aren't worth it right now, but keep an eye on them for later because they become monsters around level 12.

knock is there, yes it works, it's up to you if it's worth a slot. rogues can be so hard to find sometimes... if you tell him you'll blind his targets, he'll be more likely to show up because a blinded creature is vulnerable to sneak attacks no matter who he's targetting (and he takes penalties in combat besides!). most people prefer glitterdust because it's an aoe and drops creatures out of sneak (-40 hide...), but the spell "blindess" is permanent... just in case you ever need it to be, for some reason.

invisibility and see invisibility are this level, and yes they also work. it's just really sad that stealth mechanics in DDO need an overhaul. one very important BUT: there is a certain quest in the harbor that requires a degree of stealth, and even rogues can use a little help from the arcane. see invisibility is pretty... i'll just use the word "underwhelming". i haven't personally seen (if you'll pardon the expression) a single invisible creature in the game between level 1-6, and there is a certain item set from threnal and delera's that provides permanent True Sight eventually.

command undead is pretty much just like charm person, but -- for undead! hypnotic pattern is very similar to hypnosis, but perhaps more useful for siege situations (kobold assault). it seems a little flaky to me, though, just know that it only affects targets if they are passing through the barrier, not periodically while they're inside it. for some reason, hypnosis seems to succeed more often though. don't take my word for it, this is just my gut anecdote. otto's resistable dance is, of course, resistable, but it's pretty useful for immobilizing something while you beat on it. unlike the "hold" spells, though, subjects are not considered "helpless" so they are not automatically crit by incomming attacks. daze monster sucks the way it's implemented.

as a review of the leftovers, master's touch is temporary and you will take penaties for non-proficiency if you're wielding a martial weapon when it wears off (provided that you don't have the feat for it, obviously. but then, why would you be casting this spell? =P). false life stacks with, and is more efficient than greater heroism for pure HP, it also stacks with aid, i believe. not a really stellar spell, but it is there and does stack with equipment "of false life" because it's not really the same kind of thing. for the life of me, i can't think of a reason for the tumble spell. sleep, summon monster and the fear spells are all also underwhelming. sleep because it only affects a total number of hit dice (which monsters very very quickly have too many of) and similarly for the low level fears. fear can be dangerous because monsters will run away deeper into the dungeon usually. the summoned monsters are just worthless, and do not scale with the difficulty of the dungeon you're in. i.e., a celestial dog in an elite dungeon is a waste of SP. they never do any significant damage either. you can have only one summoned creature at a time, but they are not the same thing as hirelings.