For starters, I'm aware I'm not the only one, because I've been nudged by a couple of people about the experience of running a transmutation wizard. Here's the bullet points about the conversation surrounding transmutation wizards:
-You're essentially forced to utilize undead if you want to have a decent 1-20 leveling experience solo.
-Your damage'll lag behind any martial class, which is fine, because you're a wizard, not a fighter.
-It's really fun despite this, and the cookies are great.
-Overall, it's sub-optimal, and you should consider playing a generalist instead, or if you really like the idea of a 1-9 SL caster that can fight too, play a cleric or a favored soul, whose spell options are more suited to that playstyle anyways. (Edit: Also spellswords, because duh.)
I'm by no means an expert when it comes to building characters. I will often take concessions for comfortability, I tend to favor roleplay options over peak performance, and I enjoy the experience of seeing how different classes feel to play. Take everything written here with a grain of salt.
Plotting:
When I planned my transmutation specialist wizard, I did a few tests in PGCC. Specifically, what I wanted to play was a wizard that used their magic to make themselves better. There are a couple of things you need to know about wizards that make plotting out what to do hard:
-Firstly, wizards do not get simple weapon proficiency -- they get their own wizard proficiency for a limited number of weapons such as dagger, crossbow, and staff. So picking a race that has racial proficiencies in a weapon that you want to build can make the overall leveling a little less arduous. Because I wanted to make a human wizard, I decided to build around the crossbow, essentially making an arcane -snrk- archer, but worse.
-Secondly, before you get your big gimmick that you get to cast every three minutes -- Tenser's Transformation -- you're going to have to rely on some pretty cheesy tactics to get anything done. You might not be able to play solo if you can't conjure zombies. Because I wanted to make a human wizard that doesn't dabble in animation, I had to get creative.
-Thirdly, wizards get a lot of bonus feats. Not as much as a fighter, but you'd be surprised how much four bonus feats can take the pressure off of you. Obviously, the spell foci I went with were abjuration and transmutation. I also took weapon focus(missile), rapid reload, blind-fight, and point-blank shot all before 20. There's an argument to be made that this is sub-optimal, but after I hit about level 16, I didn't even notice.
-Fourth, being a transmutation wizard means your zoobuffs are insane. Before 20, you get +7 zoobuffs without any roll, allowing you to reliably build your equipment around always having zoobuffs up. This not only affects your spells but every potion you drink, too. (Also you should keep that in mind for any other character with spell focus transmutation.) Essentially, if you keep a stock of zoobuff potions on you, you can buff your party, buff yourself with potions, dust your hands off, and roll hard. If you save yourself an owl's wisdom, you can make up for your terrible wisdom score pretty easily. This makes gearing a lot more forgivable, and my end-game gear is just a bunch of two-stat equipment with unisave.
-Finally, if you dump all of your ability points into intelligence instead of your primary attack stat -- my case, dex -- you'll leave about 5 AB on the table. Because of how Tenser's Transformation works, you -won't- be able to get that back. Hilariously, in my testing and on live, I've found out that my AB is 1 off the soft attack bonus cap, which I can easily make up for by sipping an aid potion. True-strike potions do nothing for me. Consider this a warning, too: If you're planning on trying to use your transmutation specialist in PVP, there are some targets you just won't be able to hit at all.
Essentially, I ended up settling on Wizard 26/Fighter 4 for weapon spec, epic weapon spec to make up for the damage I'd inevitably lag behind on. in my PGCC Testing, this was the best compromise I could make. All melee transmutationist wizard builds I tested left me feeling like I should just play spellsword instead. However, CL 28 against dispels sucks more than you'd think it would, and against any abjuration expert, you're probably going to want to have a strategy for a fast-kill that -doesn't- rely on tensers at all.
How it felt to play:
The first eight or so levels on Skal, my transmutationist wizard was forced to cooperate with other people! Oh no! How terrible! Roleplay! But whoever she cooperated with, she made significantly better. Because of how tight the numbers are on Skal, she could buff up a rogue, and they could essentially act as a rogue and fighter of the same level. +3-4 to all of your ability modifiers'll do that. When she -was- alone, which was more frequent than not as she was often out picking herbs and gathering other materials to make potions so I didn't have to carry healing kits, she relied primarily on her familiar to be a distraction. I went with a pseudodragon because it had high AC, plenty of HP, and comparatively to many of the other familiars, good survivability. When buffed with zoobuffs, it often had more HP than my wizard did, and comparable AC through level 12. I did have to buy barkskin potions from the hermit rather frequently, though.
After I could cast Tenser's Transformation, the nature of the experience started to change. Suddenly, I had a button I could click to deal with encounters I previously struggled with. The bonus HP alone was a pretty significant boon. I rushed to get an assembly template as fast as I could so that my damage output could keep up, knowing that after I obtained one, said damage output would more or less plateau until I got more APR at level 16, and then after level 16, continue to plateau until level 27. I gotta say, being able to shred anything I came across in Skal was pretty nice, though. She still couldn't solo much content, but everyone on Skal was so thirsty for writs anyways, it was hardly ever a problem, and when it was, I'd just go out hunting for herbs with -adventure on to supplement my EXP.
Additionally, I noticed something -odd-. Specifically, premonition started to feel like a wasted spell slot in -most- instances. Not all, but most. Because the temp HP from Tenser's Transformation was so reliable every three minutes and most things would die before they could -get through- that temp HP, premonition began to feel like an unnecessary buffer in almost every situation where I wasn't planning on lightning-shield tanking something. Against some bosses and some enemies I was worried could stun me for a bit, premonition was still a pretty vital buffer, however.
Mordenkainen's Sword took a lot of pressure off of me, and was surprisingly more useful than it had any right to be. After being buffed with zoobuffs, I more or less had a mordenkanien's sword that was comparable to an evocationist's before zoobuffs -- which was good enough to deal with most content as its heavy DR and spell immunity meant that I only needed to babysit it around difficult enemies. Its turns/level duration did mean that I had to push to finish things faster than not, but with extend spell, I could comfortably deal with most threats. This continued to be true even into orclands where the sword started to slow down. The damage output from my tenser's wizard was high enough that most packs of orcs would be dead before the sword was at any risk.
About four levels of my spellbook were near dedicated to haste, extended haste, mass haste, and extended mass haste. It. It was just really practical for me to stay in haste as often as possible, and groups really appreciate when you mass haste all the time.
Once I got Epic Mage Armor at 23, and then Planar Conduit at level 24, I had a pretty comfortable combination that would allow me to deal with most PVE content. Essentially, a lot of the damage I -didn't- have on my crossbow was on the summons now. Clearing content was still fast, but bosses were still dangerous. Because I didn't think this particular wizard would abandon her familiar for a fairy to deal with chests and traps, I never changed over to a fairy once her pseudodragon started to lose purpose. I CC'd lockpicking and disable device one point each.
Against harder content that's FOIG, I found encounters solo to slow down significantly. Because so much of her damage output depended on 17-20x2 crits, enemies that were harder to hit, she'd crit against less than average. Because my AB is essentially capped at 52, that meant against some bosses, attempting to attack them down was a futile exercise. (That's what you save things like IGMS and Incendiary cloud for.) Survivability began to become dependent on whether or not enemies wanted to pick a fight with my wizard specifically over her summons, as her AC caps out, satisfyingly, at 52 as well. (However, I will explain that in a bit.) Essentially, in PVE, this build really begins to struggle at the more difficult stuff. That's just the nature of building around a gimmick like Tenser's Transformation.
PVP:
Admittedly, despite designing this character to have a built-in reason to PVP on Arelith -- she has a whole thing and you can find that out in game too -- she hasn't gotten into any PVP. People keep saving her from herself >_>. Anyways, I have done some PVP in PGCC with her. There are some disappointing things that I learned, and some unsurprising things that I learned:
-Against anyone with EDR 3, her crossbow's damage output falls off sharply. EDR 3 and an energy buffer, and her damage is basically negligible. Barbarians, some palemasters, and earthkin defenders will probably win any given matchup against her.
-However, in PVP, tenser's transformation becomes an afterthought anyways. Because it takes at least 3 seconds to cast -- which is a bigger span of time than I'd like it to be in the middle of a fight -- and prevents you from casting spells after it's active, it's almost entirely ineffectual in PVP. By the time you've finished the transformation, someone's already chugged a healpot and shirked off all of the damage from the spells you just cast, and the crossbow damage -- while being 26-35 @ 5 APR under optimal circumstances -- isn't anything to laugh at for low HP builds, against anything with more than 300 HP, it's not going to be enough to do anything of worth.
-In most fights I won, tenser's transformation was never utilized.
-In PVP, I relied heavily on maximized darkbolts to chip away at the health of my opponent, wait for them to flounder, then mords, timestop, and max IGMS them to death. It worked more often than it really should against a variety of builds, but once the trick was discovered, it became a lot harder to do.
-I specifically pick up SF(Discipline), and my ending discipline is in the low 60s. Not enough to get me out of the danger zone against a variety of builds, but perhaps enough to help me avoid a knockdown every once and awhile and turn the tide.
-Essentially, the way transmutation specialists function in PVP is as a generalist wizard with less options, because your DCs are going to be garbage so you have to rely on spells that don't have DCs, or in which the DC doesn't matter.
How it felt to Roleplay:
Well. Tons of fun
![Razz :P](./images/smilies/icon_razz.gif)
Additional Notes:
-Your AB is pretty gruesomely capped with tensers. A considerable amount more than a cleric's with divine favor. Let me explain: At level thirty, your BAB is 15 if you don't take any dips before 20. (And you really shouldn't.) Adding to that your primary attack stat, in my wizard's case, dex, that'd be 15+13, or 28. I took Weapon Focus, Epic Weapon Focus, and Epic Prowess, for an additional +4. An ashwood crossbow gives you +4 AB. That puts her at 36 before Tenser's. Tenser's acts like Divine Power on Arelith, essentially adding onto your BAB to bring it up to a fighter's of a comparable level. At 30, that's +15. However, because we take 4 levels of fighter, that's only +13. HOWEVER specialist transmutationists get +1 AB per 10 wizard levels. So it's actually just +15 again. That puts your BAB at 51. So here's the thing. All of that counts towards your soft cap. And your weapon enhancement bonus counts towards your soft cap. Meaning you have +19 soft AB. Which means chugging a truestrike pot would net you ...+1 AB. Just chug a bless or aid potion instead and call it a day. 52 AB is pretty dang good and see below what I could've done to get it a little higher, but it does mean that anyone with roughly 69+ AC is going to be damn near impossible for you to hit. Ever. This is a consideration for both PVP and PVE. Soft AB cap is also an issue with spellswords, but spellswords have a -little- more wiggleroom thanks to how their EMA works.
-My ending DEX is 36 rather than 40. I invested some points into constitution and strength to make the build a little more comfortable. This means that I left 2 AB and 2 AC on the table. However, more importantly, I didn't take a tumble dip. So that 2 AC becomes 5 AC. I also didn't take armor skin. So that 5 AC becomes 7 AC. Additionally, with a large greensteel shield, which gets rid of most arcane spell failure, and a sling, you could have an additional 5 AC. So that 7 AC becomes 12 AC. Meaning, you -could-, if you wanted to be a little more uncomfortable and deal less damage, get up to at least 54 AB and 64 AC. That might prove to be a lot more of a cumbersome threat for some builds, and it might make you a little safer in PVE. However, since wizards don't have weapon proficiency with slings or proficiency with shields by default, you wouldn't see most of that AC until you took your dip.
-I had considered figuring out a strength transmutationist build since some of the hurdles with tensers' might be overcome with raw damage output. The temp HP + Premo + greater stoneskin + 2hand could be a pretty gruesome combo if implemented effectively, (56 AB is nothing to sneeze at!) and while it'd be easily breached, against anyone unprepared for it, you'd be in a pretty advantageous position.
-This build was -really- fun to level. The challenges I had to overcome felt unique to the setup, and that meant that even doing normal stuff felt pretty fresh. The roleplay aspect also meant that my transmutationist wizard had some interesting opportunities that some other characters might just not get.
-The main disappointment I had was that in some situations, it felt less like I was playing a transmuter and more like I was playing a wizard with less options. As a friend told me, 'man, this build is cool, but I'm going to be honest, it feels like the crossbow is an afterthought a lot of the time.'
-Wizards are powerful on their own. Being able cast spells like gsanc, incendiary cloud, timestop, IGMS, and mords with low investment is always going to be a consideration.
I'm aware that specialists are currently being looked at right now because of some recent changes. Additionally, I don't know everything there is to know about the meta on arelith, or even in NWN, but I hope my experience with the transmutation specialist can provide perspective for anyone who wants to take up the specialization as a wizard, and the team working on tweaking values.
I hope this helps and thank you for reading! If you disagree with anything I've written here feel free to voice your opinion, or if I got some of my math wrong, feel free to correct me.