You won't take Epic Dodge no matter your Dex score because you won't have the prereqs of improved evasion and defensive roll.
Your damage is going to be severely lacking - you'll have 8d6 once per round from sneak dice assuming you use something like invisible needle to apply them. This will make two weapon fighting kind of unnecessary since you won't really have the AB to be landing hits on stuff in melee as it is.
You're also going to end up with CL26 from what it looks like assuming you go 8 assassin to get HIPS - which isn't necessarily a problem but something to make note of and keep in mind.
I'd skip pumping too heavily into Dex if you do go this way - assassin doesn't have the 19 Dex requirement that Shadowdancer has.
Nathan Goldenmane - Guardian of Ilmater's Sanctuary, Mercy's Blade
First: Without hide/ms as a class skill, you cannot take assassin until you have 13 levels, so you would have to do something like 6wizard/8RW/9Assassin/8AT. That build layout is for maximum AB, you could do 5wizard/8RW/8Assassin/9AT, losing 1d6 SA and 1 AB but getting one CL.
Second: You have to choose between Dex or Int. You mentioned TWF, meaning you probably would want to pump dex as high as you can. However, the main value of RW is that it gets you higher DCs, which you will not get unless you go full int. As a kicker, you can have a fun high death DC with pumped int.
Starting Int Statblock : Str:10 Dex:15 Con:14 Int:18 Wis:8 Cha:8
Ending Int Statblock : Str:14 Dex:18 Con:18 Int:32 Wis:12 Cha:10
Your base attack bonus is going to be around 17.
Level 30 Dex Attack Block [36/31/26][21/36/31][26/21/36] :17+10(dex)+4(GH)+5(GMW)+1(Haste)-2(PTWF)
Level 30 Int Attack Block [29/24][19/14][29/29] :17+4(dex)+4(GH)+5(GMW)+1(Haste)-2(TWF)
AB obviously goes down by 6 with ICE.
Level 30 Dex AC 46:10+6(IMA)+4(Shield)+10(Dex)+3(tumble)+4(dodge)+4(Deflection)+5(Spiderskin/Shadow Shield)
Level 30 Int AC 40:10+6(IMA)+4(Shield)+4(Dex)+3(tumble)+4(dodge)+4(Deflection)+5(Spiderskin/Shadow Shield)
ICE would bump both the ACs up by +6.
Both builds will have CL 25, which people tell me is the minimum CL you need to not keep getting dispelled. You'll have 29 CL with your illusions.
Weird spell DC on Dex 28:10+5(int)+1(RW)+9(Spell Level)+3(Epic CL)
Weird spell DC on Int 38:10+12(Int with Spell Casting Prodigy)+3(Epic Spell Focus)+1(RW)+9(Spell Level)+3(Epic CL)
Death Attack DC on Dex 24:10+5(int)+9(Assassin)
Death Attack DC on Int 30:10+11(int)+9(Assassin)
Damage on dagger sneak attack 42:35(1d6 blade and 9d6 sneak attack)+5(GMW)+2(Str)
Damage on polar ray sneak attack 119:(25d6 spell + 9d6 sneak attack)
(there are spells that shoot multiple rays, like scorching ray, and I do not know how they work with sneak attack. If sneak attack is applied to all three rays it would do more damage than polar ray as a second level spell (39d6), if not it would do a lot less (21d6). If multi-touch spells all apply sneak attack, grabbing empower/maximize will also help you out. There are also a lot of custom damage spells I do not know as my wizard is all about utility, rather than damage.)
Conclusion: With the above examples, either way you are going to be jack of all trades, rather than a master of any one thing. Your AB on the dex build is high, but your spells will only be used for utility, and you will want to avoid Mords casting bosses. Your AB on the int build is too low for melee, but as the previous poster mentioned, you can rely on touch spells and touch cantrips to blast people.
Either way your damage will be passable. Wont be reaching epic damage builds, but it will do more than enough to kill most monsters.
Khali - "Magic is supreme, in both its wonder and its terror. Cower before your superiors, or suffer."
You could try something like the linked build... Dropping W to 5 in favor of a level of AT only gets you another Pilfer Magic and Impromptu Sneak Attack (which doesn't help you). Also dropped Two Weapon Fighting as it's not really beneficial to the build. Instead I focused on being able to cast RTA spells at any level by using Silent, Empower, Maximize and Quicken. You could of course drop one of these for a Reserve Feat (Invisible Needle), but the damage from that is so low that it's really pointless to do so.
So, will the build work? Certainly! It's CL26 with HiPS, it will work just fine! Personally I would prefer W5/AS7/A8/AT10 which would get you Practical Metamagic for both Extend and Empower (though not quicken) and 1d6 more sneak dice. Red Wizard really lends itself to building a 'standard' DC Caster whereas your focus is on RTA spells. That said, it will still work and can do some pretty interesting things. Empowered Ice Darts and Orbs will be your bread and butter, but there are enough RTA's to fill up your spellbook. You will want to avoid over memorizing buffs/defense and instead try your best to use HiPS and positioning. At epic levels you'll be able to kill caster mobs with about 2 empowered Ice Darts out of HiPS. For grinding purposes standard caster technique's still apply. Conserve spells via the gather and cloud process if you want to be efficient. Other options are polymorph/shapechange or summoning, but you won't be great since you haven't taken any feats for it. Remember Empower/Maximize works with cloud spells too so you should be fine handling mobs with Wall of Fire, Cloudkill, Acid Cloud and Incendiary Cloud spells.
You could try something like the linked build... Dropping W to 5 in favor of a level of AT only gets you another Pilfer Magic and Impromptu Sneak Attack (which doesn't help you). Also dropped Two Weapon Fighting as it's not really beneficial to the build. Instead I focused on being able to cast RTA spells at any level by using Silent, Empower, Maximize and Quicken. You could of course drop one of these for a Reserve Feat (Invisible Needle), but the damage from that is so low that it's really pointless to do so.
So, will the build work? Certainly! It's CL26 with HiPS, it will work just fine! Personally I would prefer W5/AS7/A8/AT10 which would get you Practical Metamagic for both Extend and Empower (though not quicken) and 1d6 more sneak dice. Red Wizard really lends itself to building a 'standard' DC Caster whereas your focus is on RTA spells. That said, it will still work and can do some pretty interesting things. Empowered Ice Darts and Orbs will be your bread and butter, but there are enough RTA's to fill up your spellbook. You will want to avoid over memorizing buffs/defense and instead try your best to use HiPS and positioning. At epic levels you'll be able to kill caster mobs with about 2 empowered Ice Darts out of HiPS. For grinding purposes standard caster technique's still apply. Conserve spells via the gather and cloud process if you want to be efficient. Other options are polymorph/shapechange or summoning, but you won't be great since you haven't taken any feats for it. Remember Empower/Maximize works with cloud spells too so you should be fine handling mobs with Wall of Fire, Cloudkill, Acid Cloud and Incendiary Cloud spells.
Disregarding lore because I think gish RW applications used to be banned,
It gets Hips at lvl 24 and 9th level spells at level 28.
It's going to be a pain in the arse to level.
Dnaera Ozkam - Red Wizard of Thay
Kiren 'Pearl' Myrlow - Golden Wheel Vieice Jhala'tlar - Priestess of Eilistraee
Wildsheep wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2019 11:17 pm
Disregarding lore because I think gish RW applications used to be banned,
I don't think you know what a gish is... this build is an alternative RTA blaster while a gish focuses on buff and bash.
Wildsheep wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2019 11:17 pm
t gets Hips at lvl 24 and 9th level spells at level 28.
It's going to be a pain in the arse to level.
I responded to the ask in the thread... that said I leveled a R16/M3/A8/NWN3 to 30 which gets hips at 30... THAT was a pain... My drow W5/EK9/A8/AT8 which got hips at 24 was a cake walk. You don't need 9th level spells to level. Cloud spells come at all levels. Knowing how to level a wizard makes the build irrelevant. You either know how to level efficiently and can grind xp as fast (or faster) than other classes or you don't know how (or refuse to do the most efficient approaches). In any case the build is easy to level (no hips mage gets hips before 18), you just have a different play style without hips.
