Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Classes

The Wizard Class

From the Players Handbook page 30

The wizard class encompasses all spell casters working in the various fields of magic with the exception of the Priest class. Spending most of their time in pursuit of arcane wisdom, wizards have little time for physical endeavors. They tend to be poor fighters with little knowledge of weapons and their uses. While the wizard is weak in the toe-to-toe aspect of fighting, a well prepared wizard can strike down an opponent at a distance. Wizards cannot wear any type of armor for various reasons. Firstly, most spells require complicated gesturing and odd postures by the caster and armor restricts the caster's movements. Secondly, the wizard spent most of his/her youth flipping through old books and never learned how to properly wear armor. For similar reasons, the wizard is restricted in the weapons he/she may choose.

Learning and casting spells require long study, patience, and research. Once his/her adventuring life begins, a wizard is largly resposible for his own education; he/she no longer has a teacher looking over his/her shoulder and telling him/her which spell to learn next. This freedom is not without its price, however. It means that the wizard must find his/her own source for magical and arcane knowledge: libraries, guilds, or captured books and scrolls. Whenever the wizard finds instructions to a new spell, he/she may try to learn the spell which requires the wizard to roll a percentile roll (2d10), if the roll is equal to or less than the percentage chance to learn a new spells thjen the wizard understands the spell and how to cast it. He/She can now enter the spell into his/her spell book (unless the wizard has already learned the maximum amount of spells allowed by his Intelligence.

There are 2 types of wizard, and they are: The Mage and the Specialist.

The Mage: Mages are the most versatile type of wizards, those who choose not to specialize in just one school of magic. The Mage prime requisite is a 9 in Intelligence. A mage who has 16 or better in Intelligence gains a 10% bonus to the experience points he/she gains.

The Specialist Wizard: A wizard who concentrates all of his/her time to the study of one sigle school of magic is called a specialist. There are specialists in all the different schools of magic, although some are extremely rare. Not all specialists are completely suited for adventuring.
There are 9 different schools of magic and they are: Abjuration, Alteration, Conjuration/Summoning, Enchantment/Charm, Greater Divination, Illusion, Invocation/Evocation, Necromancy, and Lesser Divination.

For more info on the Wizard, pick up The Players Handbook.