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Tips for Making the Mage

Mages can be fun characters to play. They are easily the most powerful characters; at the high levels they can kill many formidable threats in a single shot. Mage spells deal lots of damage and/or can cover large areas. Mages can take special feats to increase the effectiveness of their spells. Mages can even make powerful magic items for themselves and their companions to further increase their power and effectiveness. A party always needs a mage to serve as the heavy artillery, blasting large targets or taking down scores of smaller targets.

Yes, the mage is destined for power, but mages can also be highly useful. Mages can wield powerful destruction spells, but they can also command highly useful spells for protecting the group, overcoming obstacles or revealing hidden secrets and dangers. There is a mage spell to solve just about every problem there is to face on an adventure, which is why every group needs a mage.

If a mage can be both powerful and useful, and if by playing one you are virtually guaranteed a set at a table, why doesn't everyone want to play a mage? There is one very simple explanation: it's very hard to play a mage. Why, you ask, is it hard to play the most useful and powerful character in the game? There are two reasons that mages are hard to play: 1) it is hard to keep mages alive and 2) playing an effective mage is very difficult.

The key problem with mages is survivability. Mages cannot wear armor and cast spells at the same time, which makes them susceptible to hits and damage in combat. Also, mages don't get very good hit dice so hits and damage in combat has a greater effect on mages. Mages also get poor reflex and fortitude saving throw bonuses, so resisting or avoiding the effects of physical dangers can be difficult. Finally, every intelligent creature can spot a mage from a mile away and identify him or her as the single biggest threat, so mages make great initial targets for the enemy. If your party has ever come across a mage leading a pack of creatures, like kobolds, the first thing the warriors in the group say is "we need to eliminate the mage as fast as possible." In all, the sheer power and utility of being a mage is offset by the vulnerability that also comes with being a mage.

Even if you can keep your mage alive, playing a mage is difficult. Mages have several powerful and useful spells, but these spells are finite. Wizards can learn an infinite number of spells, but these spells must be prepared ahead of time and are limited in their number of daily uses. Knowing the perfect spell for a given situation is great, but if it's not been prepared or has already been expended then it does no good. The sorcerer does not have to prepare spells ahead of time, and has a larger number of daily spells, however, the number of spells the sorcerer can learn is drastically limited compared to the wizard. For all mages, spells must be chosen wisely and cast with extreme care. Being an effective mage is all about strategy.

How do you keep a mage alive and maximize his or her effectiveness? The simple answer is to first seek eliminate or at least minimize the weaknesses that come with playing a mage, and then secondly to maximize your mage's strategic options.

There are a number of options for increasing a mage's survivability. These options however come at a price. The mage's quest for power is always about sacrifice. High-level mages are incredibly powerful and the price for magical power is physical frailty. Conversely, the price for survivability is power. Why would you sacrifice magical power for survivability? Because the only way to become a powerful (high-level) mage is to live long enough to achieve it, and giving away a small measure of power helps to guarantee that life. By making certain trade-offs, your mage can gain some measure of survivability; here are some of those trade-offs:

• Have an above average constitution: A high constitution will add precious hit points as your mage grows in power. Additionally, constitution also helps with concentration checks, which are important for casters when their casting is interrupted.
• Have an above average dexterity: A high dexterity can add to your armor class, which is very important since mages can't wear armor. Also, a high dexterity improves your attack bonus for ranged attacks, including energy bolt and ray spells.
• Avoid close combat whenever possible: One way to avoid injury is to keep a safe distance between you and your enemy. If you must engage in close combat (and you will at some point) be prepared. Having touch attack spells like shocking grasp are good, as is having a close range protection spell like mage armor. Being good with a weapon is also nice, especially if it's a powerful one.
• Take a level or two in a warrior class:This one will take some explaining. Yes, a good way to build a powerful mage is to take a level as fighter, a ranger, or a barbarian. Monks and paladins cannot multiclass, so they are right out, and race can be a consideration when choosing your warrior class. There are major benefits to being a warrior:
  1. hit points:Rangers and fighters roll a d10, and the barbarian rolls a d12. This means that you could triple or possibly quadruple your hit points at 2nd level.
  2. saving throws:Warriors also get good fortitude saving throws, which every mage could use.
  3. shields:While armor is still verboten, a shield might be an option, mithral small shields and buckers carry no chance of spell failure, and a large mithral shield carries a 5% chance of failure.
  4. weapons: Warriors gain access to martial weapons, which can take the edge off of close range combat, and a bow can be of tremendous help for conserving spells.
  5. feats, skills, and special abilities: Rangers can fight two handed and gain a favored enemy. Fighters gain bonus feats that can help spell casters, such as improved unarmed strike (for touch spells), point blank shot (for missiles and rays), weapon focus (for strikes, rays, or missiles). Barbarians gain rage and fast movement, which can be good in close combat when you have run out of spells (you can't cast spells while raging though, so save it for when you really need it). The psychic warrior deserves mention here as well since the inertial armor feat can be of tremendous benefit to a mage.

  The obvious downside is the lack of forward progress from a spell casting perspective, but the benefits far outweigh this drawback.

Playing a mage is all about strategy and wise decision-making. The limitation placed on mages with regard to their spells must be carefully considered when selecting spells. With hundreds of spells to choose from, making a good choice can be difficult. In general spells come in 3 varieties:

• offensive: offensive spells do damage to or otherwise eliminate or incapacitate opponents. These spells include magic missile, web, fireball, and the various power word spells. Offensive spells can deal damage to a single target or multiple targets, such as in area of effect spells. Offensive spells are great because they help you in a fight, but fighting isn't everything.
• defensive: defensive spells reduce damage, reduce the likelihood of damage, or prevent damage all together. Defensive spells can benefit the caster, or others. Defensive spells include shield, protection from evil, resist elements, and wall of force. Defensive spells can protect you and your companions in combat, but defense only keeps you alive in a fight, it won't help you win.
• utility: utility spells do something useful for the caster or his allies. Utility spells are generally used to solve problems, gather information, or assist some action. These spells include fly, change self, rope trick, and true seeing. While utility spells may not save your life in combat, having the right spells could make or break an adventure. Magic can be a great time or resource saver during an adventure. Be careful not to use it inappropriately.

Choosing spells can be tricky, but maximizing your spell options can make it easier to choose the right spell. Wizards have an infinite number of spells that they can prepare; unfortunately they get a lower number of spells per day. The sorcerer gets a large number of spells per day; unfortunately the number of spells available to a sorcerer is somewhat limited. Wizards and sorcerers can maximize their spell options by taking some tips for one another.

The wizard is the ultimate in magical versatility. Having an unlimited number of known spells makes it possible to have the exact right tool for almost any situation. If you know you will be fighting a lot, then you can load up on offensive and defensive spells and save the day. If you will be exploring a dark dangerous cavern, then you may want a few utility spells to help you and your party make it's way thru. The trick to being an effective wizard is to always have a balance of offensive, defensive, and utility spells that is just right for any particular encounter. Learning a new spell is always useful, since you are not limited in the number that you can know and you will probably need it some day.

Being a wizard is really great, until your party falls into a nest of undead, and you are loaded up with detect spells, or if you are armed to the teeth with combat spels and you need to glean some information from a goblin prisoner. How can you make sure that you are always at least moderately prepared for any situation? Try taking a level or two as a sorcerer. Here are some of the ways that a couple of levels as a sorcerer can help you:

• By gaining a small pool of spells that you don't have to prepare, you don't have to waste wizard slots on spells that you use all the time, especially offensive and defensive spells. Here are some commonly used low level spells:
  • ray of frost
  • detect magic
  • mage armor
  • magic missile
  • burning hands
  • summon monster I
  • shocking grasp
  • protection from evil/good/etc.
  • shield
• Taking a level as a sorcerer still increases your caster level, so while don't gain any new high level wizard spells, your existing wizard spells do become more powerful.
• Sorcerers have access to the same spells as wizards, so you can still make progress in those class skills that are important to mages, such as alchemy, spell craft, knowledge arcana, and concentration.

Unlike the ever-useful wizard, the sorcerer must choose her limited number of spells very wisely. Being able to do something useful is still very important to sorcerers, but if you must use a spell with a very specific use, that use should probably be for combat. Spells that have varied effects, like flame arrow, polymorph, and illusion spells are better suited for sorcerers, as are spells with specific uses in very common situations, such as combat, transportation, or detecting. The trick to being an effective sorcerer is being able to use a limited number of your known spells to deliver consistent usefulness to your party, and the one situation your party will always face, is combat.

Being able to cast the same spells over and over again is great, until you are faced with a challenge that only one spell will fix, if only you had it. Being a combat mage is easy, unless you are fully outfitted with every fire effect and you face a fireproof monster such as a red dragon. How do you get around your limited number of spells to achieve greatness as a sorcerer? First, try taking two meta-magic feats from tome and blood: energy substitution and energy add-mixture. These spells don't increase your spell levels, and they let you substitute or add an energy type (such as fire, sonic, etc.) to your spells. Sound is a good choice since there aren't many things that are immune to it. Fire is a bad choice since there are plenty of fire spells in existence, and there are lots of critters that are immune to it. Second, you should try adding a level or two as a wizard to gain more versatility in your magic. Here are a few reasons why you should:

• Having an unlimited number of low level utility spells can save you from wasting precious sorcerer spells to learn obscure utility spells that you may not often use. If you aren't casting a spell on a daily basis, you should probably only prepare it, and if you prepare a spell on a daily basis, you should probably learn it as a sorcerer.
• Just like with the wizard, your caster level has increased and you are able to support skills like alchemy and knowledge arcana.
• You get the Scribe Scroll feat for free as a first level wizard. Scrolls are great, especially if it's for a spell that you didn't prepare and are unable to cast it spontaneously.
• You have the option of taking the spell mastery feat, which lets you prepare spells from memory without your spell book, which can come in very handy. This feat is based on your intelligence modifier, so it you don't have a modifier of 3 or better you may not want to bother.

Adding a level as either a sorcerer or a wizard does make you a more powerful mage, since you gain a large number of low level spells in either situation. For combat oriented mages, this increases the ammunition available for use in fights, and for utility oriented mages, this means not wasting useful spells on stuff to save your skin. Having lots of lower level spells at your disposal is good, since sacrificing a higher level slot for a lower one doesn't give you a greater number of spells, and if you are concerned about damage in combat, well if you need to do lots of damage to a single target, you can always hit it again. Here are some other level substitutions that may appeal to both sorcerers and wizards:

• Rogue: the rogue has access to many abilities that can appeal to the mage in both offense and defense:
  1. Reflex saves rogues have great reflex saves, which mages are normally lacking.
  2. Tumbling: tumbling is a dexterity based skill that can give you a bonus to your armor class when you choose either the fight defensively or the total defense options.
  3. Evasion: what mage wouldn't love to be able to sidestep a fireball? This handy ability can quickly turn the tide in a battle against another, more powerful mage.
  4. Uncanny Dodge: if you rely heavily on your dexterity modifier to keep you out of trouble, then you may want to guarantee that you never lose it.
  5. skills: rogues have the largest number of class skills and gain the most skill points to buy skills with. If you are lacking in intelligence or charisma based skills, becoming a rogue can help you round your character out. If you wait until you are a relatively high character level, you can pour more points into a single skill rather than spreading them out over more than one skill. Wizards with high intelligence scores will gain even more skills thanks to their higher modifiers. Rogues also gain weapon proficiencies that sorcerers and wizards do not, such as the rapier, short bow, sap, and the hand crossbow.
• Mage of the Arcane Order: The arch mage from the Tome and Blood supplement is a good prestige class to take since it can add versatility to your mage by gaining access to a pool of spells that you may not know or have prepared. It also lets you add levels to your existing spell casting classes, which is another bonus and can grant you a few extra meta-magic feats if you take enough levels.
• Monk: Yes, the monk can't multiclass in the usual sense, but you can add a couple of monk levels to your mage, but it's complicated. Here are some of the restrictions that monks face:
  1. Monks are required to be lawful
  2. Monks benefit from wisdom, dexterity, and strength, so you may not be able to max out your charisma or intelligence if you are buying points.
  3. The monk is not a favored class for for any of the standard races in the PHB, so race may bew a concern unless you are human or half-elven.
  4. You getonly one shot at taking monk levels, so you have to take all your monk levels in one shot and then stop for good.
  And now for the benefits of being a monk:
  • Monks can add their wisdom modifier to their armor class in addition to their dexterity bonus. Improving your AC without using armor is always good.
  • Monks have great unarmed combat bonuses, which can apply to touch attacks.
  • Monks gain other cool abilites like evasion and deflect arrows that can protect you in the wild.
  • Monks have the best saving throws of any character class, gaining favorable bonuses to fortitude, reflex, and will.
  • The skill list for the monk includes tumble and hide, which are good skills for keeping mages safe.

  For the mage, the path to power is paved with sacrifice. You may sacrifice levels or feats to gain an advantage, but it is usually worth it in terms of added versatility and survivability. Multi-classing can be tricky business, since your additional classes need to be managed carefully, but a little planning can put you on the path to great power in no time.