Wizard Thaumaturge - complementary Prestige Classes?

[Vermilion]

I'm currently plotting out some RP for a neutral wizard conjurer eventually taking Thaumaturge5.

This PC will be True Neutral, human and have prohibited school Necromancy, but I'd like to look into other prestige classes rather than just taking Wiz25.

Idea is to make a classic D&D Mage, so no gishing and no HiPS, and I'd prefer to stay relatively "respectable" so things like Blood Mage, Shadow Adept are out.

Also, the cohort choices for neutral Thaumaturges won't have angry mobs pursuing me, will they?

[Kiran]

Arch mage is good.

Can also go frost mage, there is a feat where you add +1d6 cold damage to your pets, could specialise at summons frost like creatures. Not to mention is a decent PRC overall anyway.

[Hawke]

For being a "classic" wizard that would solely depend on the type of classic wizard you wanted to be.

If you want to be a "stuffy" mage, you can just do Wizard/Archmage... but the fact you are throwing in Thaumaturge... that shows you are savvy at making deals (either legit ones or being nefarious about them) and having the willpower in imposing your will on the creatures you summon from the outer planes and keeping them under control.

So you could think about the following classes....

1. ASOC - mastering spells in how they are used on this plane.
2. Arcane Trickster- (you do have to take 3 levels of rogue or equivalent so probably not this one)
3. Archmage
4. Blood Magus - No....
5. Daggerspell Mage - Can't do this one either
6. DragonSlayer - Dragon Brawler? Nope
7. Eldrich Knight - Gish... nope
8. Frost Mage - Possible, but RP pigeonhole possibility
9. Harper Agent - Could do this to max out all the lore and leave the spy stuff alone
10. Master of Alchemy - Takes study, attention to detail and discipline, much like Thaumaturge
11. Palemaster - Doesn't have to be evil.... mwahahaha!
12. Techsmith of Gond - Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy.
13. Thaumaturge - You want, what you want.

Mmmm Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

Wizard, Techsmith, DragonSlayer(or EK) and Harper Agent... mmmm Interesting.


Anyways, back to your thing. You are going to have some feat issues. There is one build that synergizes as well as can be expected.

Wizard, Thaumaturge, ASOC, Archmage.

By taking Thaumaturge, you take Spell Focus Conjuration.
ASOC needs Skill Focus Spellcrafting.

With the two combined, you only need Spell Focus Transmutation (or whatever) for Archmage. It is still feat intensive though... You need to take Six Feats to make this build work... that doesn't include Spellcast Prodigy and if you want, Extend. For a total of 8 feats. Thaumaturge and ASOC have a couple of nice skills if you want, like Sense Motive and Appraise so you may want to look at getting Able Learner for 7 feats.

Hope some of this helps.

[Hawke]

Arch mage is good.

Can also go frost mage, there is a feat where you add +1d6 cold damage to your pets, could specialise at summons frost like creatures. Not to mention is a decent PRC overall anyway.

Beckon the Frozen.

+ d6 cold attack and makes all summons (even fire elemental) Ice based creatures. So they have immunity to Ice but Vulnerability to fire.

Even works on Planar summons now.

[chad878262]

Archmage is a solid addition, as is Frost Mage (grant summons immunity to cold, bonus cold damage, but with weakness to fire). Most of the other PRC's are not going to help you much. Palemaster gets it's own summon which is stronger than the Thaumaturge so it kind of takes away from your desired RP IMO. None of the other classes add much to make it worthwhile to lose whatever feat requirements they have in addition to loosing 2 epic feats (W20 and W25).

Nothing wrong with straight W25/T5 so unless another PRC matches up with the RP you are going for I would probably go that route.

[Vermilion]

Nothing wrong with straight W25/T5 so unless another PRC matches up with the RP you are going for I would probably go that route.

This seems like very solid advice.

The idea I had was an older wizard who wanted to get younger mages interested in "Respectable Magic" to change the public perception of wizards, for the better. To that end he'd probably benefit from a bit of diplomatic talent - to that end I was thinking I might get some Arcane Scholar levels as the class skills granted would support my character concept but there isn't that much mechanical synergy there.

Archmage seems appealing but the feats and spell substitution issue with wizards put me off a little bit.

I don't think Frost Mage feels right. Harder to win hearts and minds when you look like a corpse chipped from a Pleistocene glacier.

[Planehopper]

My main is a Wiz/Archmage/Thaum/ASoC. Classic wizard type. I doubt he is mechanically perfect, but he holds his own and is very fun to play. While the last few sessions that I've been able to play have mostly been him hiring parties for various missions, he was made as the sort of 'guild wizard'/classic archmage from paper and pencil DnD of my youth.

Look forward to seeing yours, but since we play opposite times, I am very much look forward to reading your bio.

[chad878262]

yeah, oddly enough Arcane Scholar has more synergy with a Sorcerer... That said, you should take Planehoppers comments in to consideration and if you like the ASOC PRC then go for it. It's not like practical metamagic will ever hurt, casting empowered and maximized spells at only a 1/2 increased spell level cost is always nice. Quicken is exceedingly useful so having that cost reduced if you choose to go all 10 levels is also nice... I may go W20/ASoC5/TM5 for the extra feat, but you can probably go W15/AS10/T5 as well, you just need to try and get your PRC's ASAP so that you can hit W10 and 15 in epics and your feat selections are going to be minimal so you will probably have some tough choices.

[K'yon Oblodra]

To me just flavorwise ASoC AND Archmage combined are like THE Master of the arcane