# Forum > Gaming > Roleplaying Games > D&D 3e/3.5e/d20 >  Help/opinions on how to progress my wizard

## Cosmar

Hi all,

I'm playing in a Forgotten Realms 3.5 play-by-post game (set in the Silver Marches), and our characters have hit level 11 after the conclusion of the last adventure. 

I'm playing a male sun elf wizard5/Harper Mage 5/Loremaster 1. He's an Elven Generalist (from Races of the Wild). (I debated going Olin Gisir, but I didn't have the Iron Will prereq and didn't feel like retraining anything to accommodate that, and just happened to already have the prereqs for Loremaster).
His feats are: Spellcasting Prodigy, Extend Spell, Spontaneous Divination (ACF replacing 5th level Wizard bonus feat), Sculpt Spell, and Quicken Spell.
So far, I've mostly played him for buffing/debuffing, some BC, and utility/knowledge, with not a lot of blasting/direct-damage.

Some context for this: This game has been going on for over 8 years now, I believe (yay, PbP pacing!), and my DM before has said that he's never had a game of his progress past level 11, and he also said this new adventure will most likely be the game's last, because he's starting to run out of steam. So, there's a real possibility we won't make it past level 11, maybe 12 at the most.

The other party members are a male half-orc paladin of Ilmater, a female human Swashbuckler/Rogue, a female sun elf cleric of Corellon/Seeker of the Misty Isle, and a human male ranger/fighter/Occult Slayer.

The campaign has revolved mostly around fighting/thwarting Demonfey/fey'ri. Fey'ri, demons, various magical creatures.

My questions are: 
1) With Loremaster 1, and my high Int score, I can get a bonus feat from Loremaster. Suggestions for what that feat should be are welcome. 
2) With elven generalist, I get 3 new free level-up spells. I've chosen Greater Dispel Magic and Freezing Glance (From Frostburn) so far, (also with Ruby Ray of Reversal and Greater Anticipate Teleportation learned from a looted spellbook, and True Seeing and Contingency learned from purchased scrolls.) For my last free level-up spell, I kind of want to pick something blasty/damaging, and I'm debating between Boreal Wind (Frostburn) and Vitriolic Sphere.

My initial idea is to pick Elven Spell Lore as my Loremaster bonus feat, and apply the energy-switching component to either Boreal Wind or Vitriolic Sphere, whichever of those I pick. (I kind of love the idea of applying Sonic damage to Boreal Wind and calling it Winds of Pandemonium). 

But basically, just want your opinions on what feat and last spell to pick, given the fact that I most likely won't be leveling up again, or if so, just maybe one more time.

Edit: I've also picked up Bracers of the Entangling Blast, for some added fun with damage spells. (The other hp-damaging spells I have are magic missile, snilloc's snowball, scorching ray, frost breath, scintillating sphere, manyjaws, and orb of electricity. I also have a Runestaff of Fire for burning hands, fireball, and wall of fire).

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## Rebel7284

Otyugh Hole from Complete Scoundrel is a magical location that can give your Iron Will for free (or for 3000GP if you write it into your back story).  Not sure if after playing for 8 years, you can add it easily, but something to look into.

The most powerful feat to take at level 11 is probably Craft Contingent Spell, especially if you have some down time.  Giving everyone in your party a handful of contingencies is VERY powerful.  With that said, with the campaign ending soon, you may not get full use from it.

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## vasilidor

I would go with a reserve feat if possible.

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## Fero

I love the winds of pandemonium idea. Make sure to grab pandemonium silver from CW so it actually functions like wind from pandemonium and drives people insane.

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## Cosmar

Thanks for the suggestions!

My DM and I actually discussed the possibility of Otyugh Hole to get Iron Will as a bonus rather than needing to pick it up or retrain another feat, but if it were to come into play, it would have to happen organically in-game and in-character (he is 100% anti- any kind of metagaming of any kind), and in the context of our campaign, the odds of such a situation ending badly for my character are pretty significant. (Worst case scenario would be death, almost-as-bad-as-death scenario would be being turned into an evil fey'ri via a dark ritual). Also it takes a week or two to (I think). Anyway, it never materialized, and I'm kind of glad it didn't, because that would have meant I'd have been sidelined while in the Otyugh Hole while the rest of the party did other things. And anyway, I ended up going with Loremaster because it was simpler, and mechanically very similar to Olin Gisir, minus the new divine spells Olin Gisir learns, but with more skills. I'm just pretending/fluffing it as Olin Gisir anyway :)

Part of the problem was that my originally planned build didn't pan out. Originally, I had planned on Wizard 7/Spellguard of Silverymoon X, but in-game story revelations and plot progression led to me joining the Harpers and becoming a Harper Mage instead. (Which I'm quite happy with. The class features aren't particularly flashy but still useful, and it adds a lot of cool skills to the wizard that you wouldn't normally get, and I like skills :) ) I was drawn to Olin Gisir because of the fluff mostly, and Loremaster does some things a little better anyway (like no dead levels). Plus it synergizes with Harper Mage's Lore feature, Harper Knowledge (at least my DM is letting Loremaster's Lore stack with Harper Knowledge).

Craft Contingent Spell looks very tempting, but other than our downtime between adventures (spent leveling up/training/learning new spells etc) there really isn't much downtime. I tend to spend most of my between-adventures time learning new spells, since during adventures there is not enough downtime to learn anything. If I knew we would continue after this adventure, I'd definitely consider it.

I didn't even think about picking up a reserve feat. I had the Storm Bolt reserve feat for a while, but retrained it eventually to Spontaneous Divination since we tend to explore ward-filled ruins and face enemies who love to use illusions. But I suppose Acidic Splatter could be useful if I learned Vitriolic Sphere. An at-will 5d6 acid orb with 25-ft range is nothing to sneeze at. 

Now I'm torn between Feat: Acidic Splatter/Spell: Vitriolic Sphere, or Feat: Elven Spell Lore/Spell: Boreal Wind.

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## vasilidor

Take one of them this level and the next the next time you gain a feat.

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## Anthrowhale

This may or may not be appropriate for your campaign, but you plausibly qualify for Versatile Spellcaster and VS plausibly allows you to cast any spell you know spontaneously (at the substantial cost of 2 spell slots).  With something like the spell Spell Enhancer or perhaps appropriate items, you could even potentially cast 7th levels spells in your spellbook. 

The other thing which seems interesting here is that your Int is quite high, implying you can generate some potent save DCs.   Thus, mass debuffs are potentially compelling.  Something like Hiss of Sleep, Wages of Sin, Mass Flesh to Salt, or Freezing Glance.

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## Coeruleum

Incantitrix or Mind Mage (but you probably don't qualify for either of these.) Loremaster is still an upgrade over just Wizard at least.

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