I took people's advice and replaced Spell penetration feat with Silent spell, and took Spell focus (Evoc.) at lvl9.
I may take Spell penetration feats after lvl15, but what feats do people typically take from lvls 1-20? If someone could explain to me the reasons as to which feats to take (and when), then that would give me something to think about.
But occasionally I roll a 1 and equal the DC. Question: Does rolling a 1 automatically result in failure?
For the record, I suggested *not* replacing Spell Penetration as a Wizard since you have four extra feats, cannot easily convert spells into Breaches on the fly, and suffer more than a Sorcerer from having a spell resisted. Most people saying "Don't take Spell Penetration" are assuming level 31+ characters and in environments where the author doesn't bother putting higher spell resistance than 32 on enemies at that point.
On a Sorcerer, I usually get...
Silent/Still
Empower
Maximize
That's guaranteed. I now have four feats left, five if human.
Greater Spell Focus: Evocation
Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy
Note that some environments do not lend themselves well to one or the other -- if everything has super high reflex then they'll make the saves with or without Evocation focus. If everything has super high fort or death immunity then the Necromany focus is also worthless.
If not human, I'm out of feats (unless I skipped one or more of the above foci). If human, I have one left. Options remaining include...
Extend Spell (if resting is more limited)
Toughness (more HP)
Craft Wand/Scribe Scroll (if on a Persistent World or a campaign where XP isn't lost on crafting)
Great Fortitude/Lightning Reflexes (if one or both saving throws would benefit from being shored up)
Yes, by default "Auto Fail on 1" is enabled. I say "enabled" because there's a setting in the nwnplayer.ini file which allows you to change it. Change
Saving Throw Automatic Failure On 1=1
to
Saving Throw Automatic Failure On 1=0
It's a really stupid "feature." "Oh hello, level 40 Mr. Ancient Red Dragon, I'm a level 5 rogue. You don't mind if I spam some scrolls of Finger of Death on you with the plan that you have a 5% chance to instantly die each time, right?" Remove auto-fail on 1 and never look back. Horrid design.
I'll play the devil's advocate and say that Combat Casting is only bad in modules with default expertise behavior or low level range.
If Expertise does not work with spellcasting, then there's really no better combat mode for spellcasters than Defensive casting anyway.
Similarly, if a module encompasses epic levels, Combat Casting is alright just to take Improved Combat Casting.
I don't even see a point in getting Expertise in most modules -- unless you invest in lots of AC boosters then you're generally going to be getting hit a lot even with Expertise (assuming the enemy AB is balanced properly...and if it's not then it's so easy you don't need Expertise in the first place).
The problem with Combat Casting is that it literally just decreases the DC of Defensive Casting by 4. So if you're level 4 with 9 Concentration and casting a level two spell, you'd still fail it 35% of the time Defensively Casting even with Combat Casting (55% without). I'm not going to risk a 35% chance of failing the spell, quite frankly. And if you're, say, a level 13 caster, you could easily have 16 base Concentration, 18+ Constitution (from 14+ base and buffs/gear), at least 1 Concentration from a helmet, and say 6 Concentration from gloves. That's 16 + 4 + 1 + 6 = 27, which means even *without* Combat Casting you'll never fail a Defensive Casting check even with a level 9 spell (which, of course, you can't even cast yet). And getting more Concentration than that is usually pretty easy. Hell, Skill Focus: Concentration is 75% as good as Combat Casting during Defensive Casting and still provides benefits if you get hit.
I don't really usually see a point in ICC either. At that point you can always just defensively cast if you're worried without failing and it doesn't require losing both a pre-epic and epic feat. Main exception is an auto-stilled plate wearing caster in (Improved) Expertise.
As for empower vs maximize, while what you said about damage is true, it should be noted that Empower requires a lower spell slot. So it really depends on preferences/environment. Actually, there's nothing wrong with taking both empower and maximize. This way you could cast IGMS a whole freaking lot of times. 
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I think he was pointing that empower is way better than maximize. For spells like fireball the damage is equal, for spells like negative energy burst the damage from empower is better than maximize.
To quote myself: "Maximize, Empower, and either Silent or Still are all really good." Meaning you get
Maximize, Empower, and Silent
or
Maximize, Empower, and Still
For the default spell system, being able to cast IGMS four times as much is a major reason to take those feats, yes. And while Empower is a spell slot lower, it also usually gives less of a bonus to compensate.
They are in fact not equal on something like Fireball -- Empowered Fireball is 52.5 while Maximized is 60. Fireball, however (and d6 spells in general), are where the relative benefits are closest to their cost. Like Shadow said, something like Negative Energy Burst is a joke Maximized but still good Empowered. On the flip side, Empowering Hammer of the Gods only changes it from 22.5 to 33.75 while Maximizing it gives 40 (Empowered vs Maximized Fireball is a 14% bonus, Empowered vs Maximized HotG is a 19% bonus). And if you were in a situation where a spell used d12s then you'd get 23% more from Maximizing compared to Empowering.
