A look at a semi traditional young wizard who uses a book and material components to get her spells to work.
My thoughts here are, using Eclipse, to create a wizard that still uses a book but is otherwise a ‘spontaneous’ caster. This is done quite cleverly thanks to the smarts of Thoth 🙂
Well lets get started:
We have 48 character points at level 1 and 6 for level 1 feat and 6 for human. Yes this is a human build. Plus Fast Learner which is specialised in skills.
That totals 60cp +1sp per level (4 at level 1)
The Basics
Hit Dice: d4, 0cp.
Saves: Will +2, 6cp
Skills: 8cp (represents the base of 2 skill points wizards get) + 4sp
Profs: Simple weapons (3cp)
BAB: 0cp
This Totals 17cp
Magic & Specials
Wizard Progression: 14cp. Limitations of Components and Studies (Spontaneous)
Further more we specialise this to require a Focus (Spell Book) on hand for reading the spell and casting it. This does not affect casting times etc but without her book she is helpless. This is also done for effect to have more known spells.(GM’s may wish to limit this further and in roleplaying she will will use more materials / reagents than normal and even describe casting of spells from her book)
Spell List: I was thinking of a sort of merge between Druid and Bard Spell list with some strictly wizard spells on the side. Won’t go into detail here but that is the thinking behind the character.
This character also uses Intelligence as her primary casting ability score.
Fast Learner: Specialised for Spells. 6cp. She gets to add 1 new spell to her spell book at each level.
Spell Pool 6cp. Makes her more versatile. Max spells of any single level equals (Intelligence/2)-SL.
Spell Flow: 6cp. Adds up all levels of spells she gains and can use these ‘points’ to learn any spell of any level she cast.
This totals 32cp. 24cp as per Adventurer Frame Work, and 6cp from Level 1 Feat and Bonus Feat from Human.
Total cost so far is only 49cp. Leaving lots of room for more skills, a few extra spells and perhaps some Meta Magic
Putting it Together
At level 1, as a wizard.
She Knows 16 level 0 (or 8 levels) + 12 level 1 (or 12 levels) or a Total of 20 levels of spells and can cast up to level 1. Easy heh.
She also gains a single bonus spell of any level she can cast. (Fast Learner)
Her Spells per day are only 2.5 spell pool points. (Plus 1 or max 2 from Intelligence). Essentially she knows a lot of tricks but can only cast a few which is what I was aiming for.
May want to add Spell Storing (Scribe Scroll) as a level 1 feat perhaps or something to gain in the future.
I think she could be quite fun to play 🙂
An Alternative
Edit: 1/11/2011
Just thought of an alternative. Create the character as more or less a standard wizard per d20, but, she has the ability to read unprepared spells and cast them – by way of mana.
I recall doing this in 2nd Edition, allowing a mage to cast spells from their books as a full turn action.
The only way I can see this working is by taking Spell Mastery and its upgrades to allow for double Intelligence Modifier of spells to be prepared without the book and to make them spontaneous. This costs a full 18cp. (a bit out of the Adventurer Framework here but technically do able even if you stagger it over a few levels).
You specialise it all to require Mana to use at a rate of 1 Mana Point per spell (not level). Later you would have to get Rite of Chi and Bonus Uses for Mana or just a whole lot of Mana in the first place.
In this way the character will probably prepare the most useful or common spells used and know some more uncommon or specific use spells with which she can cast by using mana.
Interesting times 🙂
Edit 2: Alternative #2
Again, thought of another alternative. Essentially make a standard wizard again, but buy Mana.
Mana is 6cp. for 1d6 Mana Points and you take Unskilled Magic. You corrupt this for effect to gain 50% more mana points. Corruption is you can only create spell effects of spells you know. Secondly you corrupt this again to require your spell book on hand to ‘read’ the spells. The corruption here is to lower side effects. Basically reducing any side effects by 1/3 the intensity.
This is useful at lower levels unless the character has a High Wisdom to allow for higher level effects.
One can also change around the corruptions though to reduce the cost to power the spells instead or to increase his relative Wisdom score for this calculation etc.
All in all, a good alternative choice here.