Cheese Wiz (37Wiz/2Ro/1Ranger)

[dodrudon]

Just wanted to toss this one out there. I'm not perfectly satisfied with my current wizard, so I wanted to remake it.

Cheese Wiz
Race: Gnome - Shade (secret)
Starting Stats to After SubRace Adjustments (Gnome: -2Str, +2Con; Shade: -1Str, -1Con, +1Int, +2Cha)
STR 7 to 6
DEX 8 to 8
CON 19 to 18
INT 18 to 19
CHA 8 to 10

Final INT at lvl 40: 29 without Great Intelligence
Final HP: 330 without Toughness
Spell DC: Spell level+25 (without buffed Int)
SR Penetration: 43+d20
Saves: Fort 20, Will 20, Reflex 17
BAB: 19

Levels
Pure Wiz, except:
- Till lvl16, max Concentration, but only take 10 Spellcraft.
- At lvl17, take a level of Rogue and max (to 20) Pick Lock, Disable Device, UMD, TUMBLE, and Set Trap (to 5 for the +2 synergy bonus to Disable). Level 17 was chosen so Tumble would be a multiple of 5. You'll have 2 skillpoints left.
- To lvl38, max Conc, and get at least 35 Spellcraft if you want Epic Warding. Get 40 Spellcraft if you want the bonus to saves.
- At lvl39, take a level of Ranger. Max out Discipline to 42. Rangers get a free Favored Enemy feat at level one, but when taken at epic levels, you can choose from their bonus feats list and take Improved Combat Casting or an Epic Spell Focus. It might be better to take Improved Combat Casting earlier, as that is more useful than +2 DC to Enchantment or Illusion spells. The only reason to take Ranger is for Discipline and the bonus feat. Another level of wizard here would get you the exact same bonus feat, but without Discipline. It's up to you whether you think the skill is necessary.
- At lvl40, take second level of Rogue. This will get you Evasion (yay!!). Max out Disable Device, Open Lock, and UMD. Get +11 Pick Pocket (to 30) and +20 Tumble (to 40). You'll end up with 53 skill points to spend.

Free Feats
Free Magic Feats: SF: Necro (Shade), SF: Illusion (Gnome), Spell Penetration (Shade)
Rogue Free Feats (lvl17): Light Armor (useless), Rogue Weapons (useless)
Rogue Free Feat (lvl40): Evasion (this is what you've been waiting for!!)
Ranger Free Feats (lvl39): Light/Medium Armor (useless), Shields (useless), Martial/Simple Weapons (still useless)

Chosen Feats
14 General Feats, 10 Bonus feats (one from Ranger list)
- SF, GSF, ESF (13 total, 5x3-2=13): Conjuration, Enchantment, Evocation, Necromancy, Illusion, Transmutation (get Conjuration from the book, but NOT Transmutation because you need GSF to keen non-slashing, NOT Enchantment because you want that GMW bonus as high as possible, ASAP, NOT Necro and Illus cuz you get free feats for them, NOT Evo cuz it's important early on)
- Spell Penetration x3 (13+2=15 total, because Spell Penetration is free)
- Silent, Empower, Maximize (15+3=18 total, I've yet to use Maximize, but I've only been on the easier LL runs)
- (Imp) Combat Casting (18+2=20 total)
- Epic Warding (20+1=21 total)
- That leaves 4 feats for Great Intelligence, Toughness, Armor Skin, or feats to increase saves.

Skills
- If you max it out, Set Trap skill will be 42 (43 skills, -1 Dex mod), +2 synergy from Disable Device (total 44), max Dex adds +6 (50), then add the d20 (70), and Guildmaster's Glint amulet (often found in the Auction chest) adds another +15 (85), letting you use some pretty good traps. Not that I've seen anyone use traps before.
- Don't get Lore. For goodness sake, use your Identify spell!!
- Get these skills (base+mods unbuffed): Conc(42to48), Disable Device (43to54), Discipline (42to40), Open Lock (43to42), Pick Pocket (31-30), Set Trap (5to6, 5 points here gives +2 synergy to Disable), Spellcraft (35to44, for Epic Warding), Tumble (40to39), UMD (43to43). After this, you'll still have 53 points over to do whatever you'd like with: invest in Search, get more Spellcraft for saves, maybe try a little Set Trap for fun.... If you get Great Intelligence at level 24, you can get 61 skillpoints to play with, if you get it again at 27, you can get 69.

Legendary Levels
- 7 Feats (get Legendary Spell Penetration, which leaves 6 feats, for which you can max Great Int, or lose a couple of those for Legendary SFs) (note that you're Int started as an odd number, so you'll want to end up with an odd number of Great Int feats as well)
- +10 to Int
- +160HP to 490, +480 from +12 Con for a 970HP
- +5 to saves
- 57 total levels of Wizard
-

[hiryuu]

An interesting variation on this is 38 Wiz/1 Monk/1 Ranger. That gives you both the Wiz 38 feat and the Ranger feat. Monk still gets you Evasion and Tumble, plus a small AC bonus from Wisdom. The Rogue skills look tempting, but you won't have the Rogue gear or the Dex bonus to deal with much more than your Pixie can handle, anyway.

[dodrudon]

Disable Trap is really nice because it's int-based. For unlick, with an ammy and pick, i can get +27, and 4 more from a store-bought glove, with 6 more from dex, to somewhere about 101 on my current wiz. So far I can only open a single chest in the Maze vault, but I'm hoping I can get more UMDable rogue gear to up it even further. Are there better gloves out there? I've yet to find any....

[Balduvard]

As far as I know, the maximum bonus to Open lock you can get from equipment without being an actual rogue is 29 (more if you have enough UMD to use low level rogue items), and the maximum without having rogue as your control class is 46. The discussion of open lock has popped up rather frequently, so I'll post this here for your information:

balduvard said:

If your character's control class is rogue or assassin, you also get another possible +20 from LL

The maximum any lock will ever be is 159...this arises from the maximum field limit of 127 + 12 toolkit + 20 from take 20. Anything over 127 rolls over the limit and resets it...which is why you will see people with less than 127 open lock failling what appear to be DC 2 locks in the immortal areas.

Off the top of my head this is what adds to open lock:
Base - 63 if maxed to 60 as a class skill
+20 - Take 20
+50 - items (not entirely sure if there are enough items to reach, but I think there is)
+13 - skill/epic skill focii
+12 - +12 Toolkit
+X - dexterity bonus

So for your Wiz/Rogue/Ranger, the maximum open lock you will get with that build is (43 + 5) + 46 + 20 + 12 = 126, which will open a good number of things--but next to nothing in the higher end areas as mentioned in the above quote. Since your focus is not in dex and you do not have rogue as your control class, this build is a bit underqualified to open all locks (though it can open many...but we tend to live in a world of absolutes). On the trap-disabling part, there actually aren't a lot of high DC traps (120+) out there to my knowledge, but I'm sure they're coming, and for your information this build could get (45 + ~20) + 44 + 20 = 129. So you're in the same boat for disable trap as open lock.

To summarize: yes, you will be proficient at opening locks and disabling traps, but you won't be able to do it as well as an actual rogue could. Therefore, I would recommend what Hiryuu suggested, and let the rogues handle the devices

[dodrudon]

I guess CheeseWiz is doomed.... I suppose it's only logical, otherwise what would you need rogues for if a wizard could do it just as well....

Thanks for the numbers!

[dodrudon]

What if I lost two Int feats or Armor Skin and Epic Warding, and went for Skill Focus and Epic Skill Focus Open Lock? That'd give 142 open lock, which rolls over to DC12, that should be enough open those last few chests on that one run right?

[cathedralmaster]

dodrudon said:

What if I lost two Int feats or Armor Skin and Epic Warding, and went for Skill Focus and Epic Skill Focus Open Lock? That'd give 142 open lock, which rolls over to DC12, that should be enough open those last few chests on that one run right?

Nope. You need to hit 150 to open them.

[tempus]

Would bard song get him the 150 ?

Amicus