That's been my strategy so far, send in Daelen and then blast everyone with fireball/burning hands. Once I realized you could get a companion, it got a bit easier, haha
Thanks man, I definitely need to try out ghostly visage. The best strategy I've got so far is just to get Daelen to tank while I just blast all the enemies with AoE spells.
I think i just hit lvl 5 so I'm hoping I'll start to beef up a bit more.

Good to hear!

In the mid-levels (5 or 6 to, say, 12 or 14) wizards become more and more powerful, as your damage potential scales up dramatically and fireballing every enemy to ashes becomes viable. (if you don't mind resting a lot.)

Key spells are:
* Fireball. Duh. Scintillating Sphere also works.
* Empowered Fireball/sphere. (When you hit level 9.) Meta-magic like Empower and Extend spell starts to become viable in these levels.
* Evard's Black Tentacles. (at level 7) Easy to underestimate, but this spell is the real killer. Not only does it do lots of damage over time, but it paralyses enemies. Doesn't work on everything, but when it does it's great. Just watch for friendly fire. Oh, and Empower is very effective on it (once you hit level 11) because it increases both the number of tentacles and their damage.
* Firebrand. Not as damaging as Empowered Fireballs when you get it (level 9) but eventually catches up, and has the benefit of not burning friendlies.

* Haste. Cast two spells per round! Amazingly strong, but only really viable once you hit level 7 and can Extend it.
* Stoneskin. (level 7.) From this point on, melee enemies can mostly be ignored. Upgraded to Greater Stoneskin etc. when possible.
* Improved Invisibility. (level 7) The other half of the ignore-melee enemies combo. Makes half the attacks against you miss.

At high/epic levels, wizard damage starts to drop off again in comparison to enemy hitpoints. (High level NWN enemies have just. so. many. hitpoints.) So around that time you'll want to start relying more on instant-kill or save-or-disable spells, as well as a select few damage spells that still work. (Isaac's Greater Missile Storm, the aforementioned tentacles) Plus damage shields (Melf's Acid Sheath, Elemental Shield) to take out magic-immune foes. (that start to become annoyingly more common.) These spells let your (protected) wizard stand there whilst the supposedly-magic immune enemy beats himself to death.

But you won't have to worry about that stuff for a long, long time yet.

One further note: a lot of great wizard spells (like Firebrand, Acid Sheath, Missile Storm, etc, etc) were only added in the expansions and are NOT for sale in shops in the OC. It is very, very important to select these when you level up, since there is no other way to get them without mods or cheats.

It's very good practice to A] buy all the spellscrolls you can, even if you can't memorise them yet and B] make a note of those you can't afford yet but will buy later, and then ONLY select spells on levelup that you can't buy. It's a bit of a hassle, but the payoff is immense.

I don't know what level you're talking about. I played a wizard and sorc through the OC and HotU (i.e. up to lvl 25 or so) and I don't remember any enemy surviving more than a few rounds when going full out damage-wise. If you're talking lvl 30+, there's no real reason to play at those levels anyway.

Empowered and maximized greater missile storm kills any single target, even the HotU end boss, in less than 3 casts. Wail of the banshee and horrid wilting or empowered firebrand easily take care of any crowd.
In my experience, arcane casters do far more damage with high level spells and metamagics than any other class.

Specifically, most enemies in the third chapter of HotU seem to soak up an annoyingly large amount of damage. And it gets worse in user-modules designed for level 30+, though those are rare.

Also, in the OC you'll encounter huge mobs of high-hitpoints giants and whatnot in the later chapters. You indeed CAN blow them up in a few rounds of all-out casting, but that soaks up most of your good spells in one or two encounters, and they just keep coming. So you'll end up resting all the time. It's possible, but more annoying than mid-game, I find. (It's similar to how wizards struggle in early game, but there at least you won't need to cast a bunch of buffs after resting.)

This is particularly annoying for wizards. Sorcerers can indeed use meta-magic and their huge reserve of spells to pretty much blast through everything, but wizards lack that flexibility at high levels and tend to have to rest much more often. Their greater variety of spells becomes less of an advantage. It's a shame.

By the way, you'll note I specifically listed Isaac's Greater Missile storm as an exception to this. That spell indeed kills everything. In situations where it hasn't been nerfed/enemies haven't specifically been made immune, that is. And Wail of the Banshee is one of those save-or-die spells I mentioned as being important. Those kinds of spells become very important.

Another factor is that the effectiveness of spells is heavily dependent on enemy design, particularly at high levels.

At low levels, most spells work on most enemies. At high levels, one module-maker might give everyone you face spell resistance, or improved evasion, or immunity to mind spells/death magic, etc, etc. Wizards are usually very effective when the designers use default monsters, but can also end up being an exercise in frustration to play when monsters seem designed to thwart them. Melee characters, meanwhile, tend to always perform about the same. There's no monster that's immune to a Red Dragon Disciple's 40 strength.

But that point is moot when you play the OC and expansions, I'll admit.

I didnt like using summons while using a wizard because they decrease the exp you get by a small margin. Use a henchman + summon + familiar and you get a little less experience. There was a formula to calculate how much exp you get depending your group size. I wanted to level up fast while doing a wizard so that didnt suit me. Plus, with the AI mod, you give items to your henchman which makes them uber powerful.

Yeah, that is very annoying.

The exact details can be found here. The page claims that the party XP penalty typically results in being one level lower at the end of the OC.

Of course, there's also the experience bonus wizards (and some other classes) get in some older modules (such as the OC.) And the extra creatures that spawn if you have a henchman, summon, and/or familiar.

NWN's experience system is quite wonky, to say the least.

Wow. That is a lot more than I remember. With one henchman you earn 80 exp. With henchman + familiar + summon you receive 57 exp. That is 30% less experience. Now I remember why I hated using it.

Tnx for the link.

To be honest, a level lower at the end of the campaign is not that much of a difference.

That would describe me. I actually prefer controlling just one character and like that that most NWN modules aim at solo, or solo + henchman who does his own thing.

I don't want to micromanage a party at all.

NWN1 does have the best PnP feel if you grew up playing 1st edition AD&D like I did.

How about soloing the OC with a sorcerer and no familiar/companion? Would that count? Because I've done that (and so have many others).

NWN is geared so that melee is most powerful at lower levels: Wizards are not exempt from this, even if they are squishy.

I'm assuming that you're playing a Wizard with the extra spells available from SoU and HoTU? Because if you are, there are quite a suite of spells and familiars available that can turn a wizard into a scary tank. Granted this is not exactly the spirit of playing a wizard, but it is possible in NWN expansions.