Your legacy grants you great destructive power. When you Cast a Spell from your spell slots, if the spell deals damage and doesn’t have a duration, you gain a status bonus to that spell’s damage equal to the spell’s level.
You can extend the range of your spells. If the next action you use is to Cast a Spell that has a range, increase that spell’s range by 30 feet. As is standard for increasing spell ranges, if the spell normally has a range of touch, you extend its range to 30 feet.
You manipulate the energy of your spell, causing it to affect a wider area. If the next action you use is to Cast a Spell that has an area of a burst, cone, or line and does not have a duration, increase the area of that spell. Add 5 feet to the radius of a burst that normally has a radius of at least 10 feet (a burst with a smaller radius is not affected). Add 5 feet to the length of a cone or line that is normally 15 feet long or smaller, and add 10 feet to the length of a larger cone or line.
In addition to the abilities provided by your class at 1st
level, you have the benefits of your selected ancestry and
background, as described in Chapter 2.
Through dedicated study and practice, you can harness
arcane power to cast spells. You can cast arcane spells
using the Cast a Spell activity, and you can supply
material, somatic, and verbal components when casting
spells (see Casting Spells on page 302).
At 1st level, you can prepare up to two 1st-level spells
and five cantrips each morning from the spells in your
spellbook (see below), plus one extra cantrip and spell of
your chosen school of each level you can cast if you are
a specialist wizard. Prepared spells remain available to
you until you cast them or until you prepare your spells
again. The number of spells you can prepare is called
your spell slots.
As you increase in level as a wizard, your number of
spell slots and the highest level of spells you can cast from
spell slots increase, shown in Table 3–19: Wizard Spells
per Day on page 205.
Some of your spells require you to attempt a spell attack
roll to see how effective they are, or have your enemies roll
against your spell DC (typically by attempting a saving
throw). Since your key ability is Intelligence, your spell
attack rolls and spell DCs use your Intelligence modifier.
Details on calculating these statistics appear on page 447.
Heightening Spells
When you get spell slots of 2nd level and higher, you can
fill those slots with stronger versions of lower-level spells.
This increases the spell’s level, heightening it to match the
spell slot. Many spells have specific improvements when
they are heightened to certain levels.
Cantrips
A cantrip is a special type of spell that doesn’t use spell
slots. You can cast a cantrip at will, any number of times
per day. A cantrip is always automatically heightened to
half your level rounded up—this is usually equal to the
highest level of spell you can cast as a wizard. For example,
as a 1st-level wizard, your cantrips are 1st-level spells, and
as a 5th-level wizard, your cantrips are 3rd-level spells.
Spellbook
Every arcane spell has a written version, usually recorded
in a spellbook. You start with a spellbook worth 10 sp
or less (as detailed on page 291), which you receive for
free and must study to prepare your spells each day. The
spellbook contains your choice of 10 arcane cantrips and
five 1st-level arcane spells. You choose these from the
common spells on the arcane spell list from this book
(page 307) or from other arcane spells you gain access to.
Your spellbook’s form and name are up to you. It might
be a musty, leather-bound tome or an assortment of thin
metal disks connected to a brass ring; its name might be
esoteric, like The Crimson Libram, or something more
academic, like A Field Study in Practical Transmutation.
Each time you gain a level, you add two more arcane
spells to your spellbook, of any level of spell you can cast.
You can also use the Arcana skill to add other spells that
you find in your adventures, as described on page 241.
Many arcane spellcasters delve deeply into a single school
of magic in an attempt to master its secrets. If you want to
be a specialist wizard, choose a school in which to specialize.
You gain additional spells and spell slots for spells of your
school. Arcane schools are described in detail on page 207.
If you don’t choose a school, you’re a universalist, a
wizard who believes that the path to true knowledge of
magic requires a multidisciplinary understanding of all
eight schools working together. Though a universalist lacks
the focus of a specialist wizard, they have greater flexibility.
Universalist wizards are described on page 209.
You place some of your magical power in a bonded item.
Each day when you prepare your spells, you can designate
a single item you own as your bonded item. This is typically
an item associated with spellcasting, such as a wand, ring,
or staff, but you are free to designate a weapon or other
item. You gain the Drain Bonded Item free action.
During your studies to become a full-fledged wizard, you
produced a thesis of unique magical research on one of a
variety of topics. You gain a special benefit depending on
the topic of your thesis research. The arcane thesis topics
presented in this book are below; your specific thesis
probably has a much longer and more technical title like
“On the Methods of Spell Interpolation and the Genesis
of a New Understanding of the Building Blocks of Magic.”
Improved Familiar Attunement
You’ve long held that fine-tuning the magic that bonds
wizard and familiar can improve the mystic connection,
compared to the safe yet generic bond most wizards
currently use. You’ve formed such a pact with your familiar,
gaining more advantages from it than most wizards. You
gain the Familiar wizard feat as a bonus feat. Your familiar
gains an extra ability, and it gains an additional extra
ability when you reach 6th, 12th, and 18th levels.
Your connection with your familiar alters your arcane
bond class feature so that you store your magical energy
in your familiar, rather than an item you own; you also
gain the Drain Familiar free action instead of Drain
Bonded Item. Drain Familiar can be used any time an
ability would allow you to use Drain Bonded Item and
functions identically, except that you draw magic from
your familiar instead of an item.
Metamagical Experimentation
You’ve realized that the practice known as metamagic is a
holdover from a time long ago, when wizards had to work
out their own spells and variations rather than rely on spells
recorded by others and passed down over the years. This
allows you efficient access to various metamagic effects.