Wizard vs Sorcerer
Both classes can theoretically cast the same spells, and sorcerers have more raw spellpoint power and better casting speed. With any given spell, the sorcerer will outcast and outlast a wizard. But wizards have an ace in the hole: their spellbooks.
Unlike a sorcerer, wizards are able to scribe new spells as they adventure directly into their spellbook for later use. Given enough time, money, and scrolls, a successful wizard can accumulate literally every arcane spell in the game into his spellbook, giving him a truly massive reserve of spells to select from when picking his spell list for the day. He can pick and choose the exact spells he feels will suit him best on each individual mission, even changing his spells mid-mission if necessary to help overcome a specific obstacle.
On top of potentially having access to every arcane spell in existence, wizards also get extra bonus feats as they level. This allows them the opportunity to have a wider variety of metamagic feats than other classes to draw upon during a mission. Wizards also gain access to their higher level spells a level earlier than sorcerers (e.g. a fifth level wizard can learn Fireball, but a sorcerer would have to be sixth level to learn that spell).
Wizards are essentially excellent general all-around casters. They can change their daily spell list and tactics on a mission-by-mission basis, allowing them to pick and choose precisely the magical effects they think they’ll need. A given sorcerer might be able to beat them in a particular set of spells and cast more total spells per mission, but the wizard’s flexibility makes them able to fit any magical niche necessary for mission success. They can do it all, and do it reasonably well.
Ability Scores
Wizards learn spells by rote from written instructions, and thus their primary casting ability is Intelligence. A high intelligence will grant you increased spellpoint reserves and makes your spells more difficult for enemies to resist. As a side benefit, high intelligence also significantly increases the number of skill points you’ll receive each level, allowing you to broaden your non-magical abilities a bit compared to other casters. This fits right in with the idea of a wizard as a solid generalist, giving you some decent abilities in side skills that might be occasionally useful, such as Heal, Repair, Concentration, Diplomacy, Balance, Jump, and Swim. It’s vital to have a very high Intelligence; I’d recommend either 16 or 18 Intelligence for all wizards.
Your other abilities are more flexible. My advice is to think about which skills you plan to use and place skill points in the related abilities. For example, if you want to make a stealthy wizard who can Move Silently or fire a crossbow in a pinch, Dexterity is a good secondary. If you’re looking for extra hit points to make up for your wizardly flimsiness, higher Constitution will make you sturdier. Improving Charisma would improve your Diplomacy skill (to keep monsters off you), your Haggle skill (to earn extra money), and your Use Magic Device skill (to use clerical wands now and then). Even Strength can be useful if, for example, you’re looking at a combination melee/caster who uses arcane magic to enhance your combat abilties.
Therefore, when it comes to your abilities other than Intelligence, I’d suggest first deciding which skills are most important to you and what weapons, if any, you’ll be using. Then choose those abilities which enhance the things you plan to frequently use.
Feats
Wizards have a slight bonus in feats compared to most classes. They get an extra feat at character creation and another bonus feat roughly every five levels. Since most of what you’ll be doing in a mission is casting spells, it makes sense to pick feats which enhance your spellcasting abilities.
I’d definitely recommend Mental Toughness as a starting feat to improve your spellpoint reserves. This would help you last longer between rest points and cast a little more often.
There’s also metamagic feats to consider, such as Empower Spell, Extend Spell, and Heighten Spell. You toggle these feats on or off as desired any time you like. While on, they enhance most of the spells you cast, but those spells also cost more spellpoints. Note, though, that while your wizard has enough spellpoints “to get by,” you will probably find that overuse of metamagic quickly drains your mana reserves. Thus you should probably use these feats primarily in large, key battles to give your spells a little extra oomph and not rely on them for extended periods. The main exception to that rule would be Extend Spell, which is generally a pretty spellpoint efficient way of making your buffs like Mage Armor and Shield last much longer.
The good news is, that because of your bonus feats, you have the opportunity to take a pretty wide variety of metamagic to choose from. You can, for example, have Empower Spell handy if you want to up your damage for a battle and have Heighten Spell available when you plan to use save-or-die magic, and also have Extend Spell on hand for your buffs and debuffs.
Another type of feat to consider is Spell Focus in a school. The Spell Focus feats make a particular school of magic, like necromancy, slightly harder to resist against. If you have Spell Focus: Necromancy, for example, the monsters will have a bit of a tougher time making their saves against Chill Touch, Blindness, Cause Fear, and other necromancy spells. Spell Focus is primarily useful if, in your playstyle, you find yourself often using spells from the same school over and over that require saving throws. If you found yourself often using a lot of necromancy spells, then Spell Focus: Necromancy would make those spells that much better.
On the other hand, as a wizard, you may find yourself switching around between lots of different spells and different schools. In that case, Spell Focus isn’t a great choice, because it would only help you part of the time. Thus the Spell Focus feats work best for people who rely mainly on specific schools most of the time, and other casters don’t benefit as much.
Skills
Of all the skills, the main skill that all wizards should max out is Concentration. That will protect you when something decides to take a bite out of your wizardly behind and keep your spells from being interrupted.
Beyond that, due to your high Intelligence, you’ll probably have lots of skill points to play with. The key is to look over the skills and decide which ones you think you’ll use most frequently, then max those skills out. Repair and Heal would help you revive unconscious teammates and give everyone in the party extra healing at rest shrines. Use Magic Device would help you use cleric wands now and then. Diplomacy will allow you to sometimes keep intelligent monsters from attacking you. And skills like Swimming, Jump, and Balance all can come in handy in various parts of certain missions.
Spells
Spells are the bread and butter of the wizard class. Unlike sorcerers, you’ll have the ability to eventually scribe all the arcane spells into your spellbook.
Of course, even though you can have access to all the spells, you can only actually set aside a limited number of spells to memorize for use at any given time. You can rearrange which spells are memorized at taverns and rest shrines by clicking and dragging the spell icons on your Spells tab in the character selection screen. Just drag the spell you want to memorize onto one of the empty spell slots at the bottom of that window. For example, if you want to be able to cast Fireball, open the spells window and click on the Level 3 spell tab to see all your level 3 wizard spells. Then click and drag the Fireball spell icon from your master spell list onto one of the slots at the bottom of that window. Once you have placed Fireball in that memorized spell slot, you can drag that icon directly onto one of your hotkey bars and simply use that hotkey to cast the spell.
The key advantage to remember is that you can change those spells any time you are at a rest point. That means you can adjust which spells you’re using based on the opponents you’re about to meet. For example, if you are about to fight a horde of undead creatures, you probably should swap out any spells that have no effect on the undead (eg Charm Person) and replace them with spells that work against the undead (eg Shocking Grasp or Command Undead). Later, if you did another mission with a lot of humanoids, you could swap Command Undead back out for Charm Person. Another example would be if you know you are going to encounter a lot of fire traps, it might be a good idea to set aside a spell slot for Resist Energy: Fire.
Thus the best wizards aren’t fixated on a particular, specific set of spells. Rather, they adjust their list to best suit each mission, sometimes even adjusting their spells mid-mission at rest points to meet a new threat, such as putting in Resist Energy: Acid to handle an unexpected acid trap. As a wizard, you should feel free to experiment with new spells, find out how they work, and decide in what situations you like to use any particular type of magic. Different people have different tastes for their “favorite” spells, but all good wizards understand that virtually all spells work well in certain specific circumstances, and almost no spell works in literally every encounter.
Play Tips
As with most characters, wizards work best in a party. Just as you can adjust your spells for a mission, you also can adjust your spells based on your party’s composition. If you have a warforged or two in the party, it might be a good idea to have a Repair spell memorized, just in case they need some emergency healing. If your party is short on up-front melee characters, placing a Summon Monster spell in your line up would provide some decoys to distract monsters off the ranged attackers and casters. And if your party has a lot of robe wearing casters, a spell like Mage Armor might prove useful, or something like Fox’s Cunning or Eagle’s Splendor to make your party’s magic harder to resist.
When picking your spells for a mission, ask yourself if there’s one spell in particular you’d like to use over and over again. If you want to cause damage, for example, pick your favorite damaging spell and place it on the list. If you’re looking to do crowd control, look at the spells that charm or trip or hold or otherwise disable opponents in the mission you’re about to do. It’s very important to have a plan and pick one or two spells you KNOW you’ll be using repeatedly throughout the mission. The rest of your spells will be there to fill in the gaps that your main spell(s) don’t handle.
Try and avoid overlapping, duplicated effects on your memorized spell list. For example, you probably don’t need to memorize both Sleep and Hypnosis, since in 90% of the encounters the spells are effectively doing the same sort of effect (i.e. taking monsters temporarily out of a fight until they are attacked). Likewise, you don’t usually need to take both Shocking Grasp and Chill Touch, since they pretty much do the same thing (damage opponents in melee range). Spread out the types of effects you do, so regardless of what opponent you meet, and what situation, you’ll have a spell you can cast that will do something useful.
And, finally, remember to pace yourself and conserve your spellpoints. Don’t waste spellpoints on little one- or two-monster fights that up-front fighters can easily handle. Why lob a spell against a lone kobold? Instead, use your spells in the big fights, with either multiple opponents or when there’s a REALLY tough boss-type monster around. If you try and cast spells on literally every creature you encounter, you’ll run out of spellpoints too quickly and have nothing left for the fights that your spellpoints actually can make a big difference.
The key to success with a wizard is flexibility. Be flexible in what spells you use, and plan ahead before each mission, swapping out the spells you won’t be using for spells you think will come in handy. Pace yourself for the big fights, and be prepared to adjust your tactics and spells based on who is in your current party and how they are performing. You are the Swiss army knife of arcane magic, so don’t try to solve your problems like the 20 pound sledgehammer sorcerers. Most of all, have fun experimenting with lots of different spells; in the end, trial and testing are an excellent way to see which spells you’ll want to use in any given place.
Andyy98's Blog 
Posted on August 12, 2010
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