Wizard
Description
A few unintelligible words and fleeting gestures carry more power than a battleaxe, when they are the words and gestures of a wizard.
These simple acts make magic seem easy, but they only hint at the time the wizard must spend poring over her spellbook preparing each spell for casting, and the years before that spent in apprenticeship to learn the arts of magic.
Wizards depend on intensive study to create their magic. They examine musty old tomes, debate magical theory with their peers, and practice minor magics whenever they can. For a wizard, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art.
Adventures: Wizards conduct their adventures with caution and forethought. When prepared, they can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. They seek knowledge, power, and the resources to conduct their studies. They may also have any of the noble or ignoble motivations that other adventurers have.
Characteristics: The wizard's strength is her spells. Everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards.
In addition to learning new spells, a wizard can, over time, learn to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way.
Some wizards prefer to specialize in a certain type of magic. Specialization makes a wizard more powerful in her chosen field, but it denies her access to some of the spells that lie outside that field. Like a sorcerer, a wizard can call a familiar – a small, magical animal companion that serves her. For some wizards, their familiars are their only true friends.
Alignment: Overall, wizards show a slight tendency toward law over chaos because the study of magic rewards those who are disciplined. Illusionists and transmuters, however, are masters of deception and change, respectively. They favor chaos over law.
Religion: Wizards commonly revere Boccob (god of magic).
Some, especially necromancers or simply more misanthropic wizards, prefer Wee Jas (goddess of death and magic). Evil necromancers are known to worship Nerull (god of death). Wizards in general are more devoted to their studies than to their spiritual sides.
Background: Wizards recognize each other as comrades or rivals.
Even wizards from very different cultures or magical traditions have much in common because they all conform to the same laws of magic. Unlike fighters or rogues, wizards see themselves as members of a distinct, if diverse, group. In civilized lands where wizards study in academies, schools, or guilds, wizards also identify themselves and others according to membership in these formal organizations. But while a guild magician may look down her nose at a rustic wizard who learned his arts from a doddering hermit, she nevertheless can't deny the rustic's identity as a wizard.
Races: Humans take to magic for any of various reasons: curiosity, ambition, lust for power, or just personal inclination. Human wizards tend to be practical innovators, creating new spells or using old spells creatively.
Elves are enthralled by magic, and many of them become wizards for love of the art. Elf wizards see themselves as artists, and they hold magic in high regard as a wondrous mystery, as opposed to the more pragmatic human wizards, who see magic more as a set of tools or tricks.
Illusion magic comes so simply to gnomes that becoming an illusionist is just natural to brighter and more talented ones. Gnome wizards who don't specialize in the school of illusion are rare, but they don't suffer under any special stigma.
Half-elf wizards feel both the elf's attraction to magic and the human's drive to conquer and understand. Some of the most powerful wizards are half-elves.
Dwarf and halfling wizards are rare because their societies don't encourage the study of magic. Half-orc wizards are rare because few half-orcs have the brains necessary for wizardry.
Drow (evil, subterranean elves) often take up wizardry, but wizards are quite rare among the savage humanoids.
Other Classes: Wizards prefer to work with members of other classes. They love to cast their spells from behind strong fighters, to "magic up" rogues and send them out to scout, and to rely on the divine healing of clerics. They may find members of certain classes (such as sorcerers, rogues, and bards) to be not quite serious enough, but they're not judgmental.
Role: The wizard's role depends somewhat on her spell selection, but most wizards share certain similarities in function. They are among the most offensively minded of the spellcasting classes, with a broad range of options available for neutralizing enemies. Some wizards provide great support to their comrades by way of their spells, while others may focus on divination or other facets of wizardry.
Game Rule Information
Wizards have the following game statistics.
Abilities: Intelligence determines how powerful a spell a wizard can cast, how many spells she can cast, and how hard those spells are to resist (see Spells, below). A high Dexterity score is helpful for a wizard, who typically wears little or no armor, because it provides her with a bonus to Armor Class. A good Constitution score gives a wizard extra hit points, a resource that she is otherwise very low on.
Alignment: Any.
Hit Die: d4.
Class Skills: The wizard's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Concentration (Con), Decipher Script (Int), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually) (Int), Profession (Int/Wis), and Spellcraft (Int).
Skill Points at 1st Level: (2 + Int modifier) × 4.
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 2 + Int modifier.
Class Features
All of the following are class features of the wizard.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Wizards are proficient with the club, dagger, heavy crossbow, light crossbow, and quarterstaff, but not with any type of armor or shield. Armor of any type interferes with a wizard's movements, which can cause her spells with somatic components to fail.
Spells: A wizard casts arcane spells (the same type of spells available to sorcerers and bards), which are drawn from the sorcerer/wizard spell list. A wizard must choose and prepare her spells ahead of time (see below).
To learn, prepare, or cast a spell, the wizard must have an Intelligence score equal to at least 10 + the spell level (Int 10 for 0-level spells, Int 11 for 1st-level spells, and so forth). The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a wizard's spell is 10 + the spell level + the wizard's Intelligence modifier.
Like other spellcasters, a wizard can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day.
Her base daily spell allotment is given on the accompanying table. In addition, she receives bonus spells per day if she has a high Intelligence score.
Unlike a bard or sorcerer, a wizard may know any number of spells. She must choose and prepare her spells ahead of time by getting a good night's sleep and spending 1 hour studying her spellbook. While studying, the wizard decides which spells to prepare.
Bonus Languages: A wizard may substitute Draconic for one of the bonus languages available to the character because of her race. Many ancient tomes of magic are written in Draconic, and apprentice wizards often learn it as part of their studies.
Familiar: A wizard can obtain a familiar in exactly the same manner as a sorcerer can.
Scribe Scroll: At 1st level, a wizard gains Scribe Scroll as a bonus feat. This feats enables her to create magic scrolls.
Bonus Feats: At 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th level, a wizard gains a bonus feat. At each such opportunity, she can choose a metamagic feat, an item creation feat, or Spell Mastery. The wizard must still meet all prerequisites for a bonus feat, including caster level minimums. These bonus feats are in addition to the feat that a character of any class gets every three levels. The wizard is not limited to the categories of item creation feats, metamagic feats, or Spell Mastery when choosing these feats.
Spellbooks: A wizard must study her spellbook each day to prepare her spells. She cannot prepare any spell not recorded in her spellbook, except for read magic, which all wizards can prepare from memory.
A wizard begins play with a spellbook containing all 0-level wizard spells (except those from her prohibited school or schools, if any) plus three 1st-level spells of your choice. For each point of Intelligence bonus the wizard has, the spellbook holds one additional 1st-level spell of your choice. At each new wizard level, she gains two new spells of any spell level or levels that she can cast (based on her new wizard level) for her spellbook. For example, when a wizard attains 5th level, she can cast 3rd-level spells.
At this point, she can add two new 3rd-level spells to her spellbook, or one 2nd-level spell and one 3rd-level spell, or any combination of two spells between 1st and 3rd level. At any time, a wizard can also add spells found in other wizards' spellbooks to her own.
Level Progression
| Level | Base Attack | Fort Save | Ref Save | Will Save | Special |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | +0 | +0 | +0 | +2 | Summon Familiar |
| 2 | +1 | +0 | +0 | +3 | |
| 3 | +1 | +1 | +1 | +3 | |
| 4 | +2 | +1 | +1 | +4 | |
| 5 | +2 | +1 | +1 | +4 | Bonus Feat |
| 6 | +3 | +2 | +2 | +5 | |
| 7 | +3 | +2 | +2 | +5 | |
| 8 | +4 | +2 | +2 | +6 | |
| 9 | +4 | +3 | +3 | +6 | |
| 10 | +5 | +3 | +3 | +7 | Bonus Feat |
| 11 | +5 | +3 | +3 | +7 | |
| 12 | +6/+1 | +4 | +4 | +8 | |
| 13 | +6/+1 | +4 | +4 | +8 | |
| 14 | +7/+2 | +4 | +4 | +9 | |
| 15 | +7/+2 | +5 | +5 | +9 | Bonus Feat |
| 16 | +8/+3 | +5 | +5 | +10 | |
| 17 | +8/+3 | +5 | +5 | +10 | |
| 18 | +9/+4 | +6 | +6 | +11 | |
| 19 | +9/+4 | +6 | +6 | +11 | |
| 20 | +10/+5 | +6 | +6 | +12 | Bonus Feat |
Spells Per Day
| Level | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 1 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| 2 | 4 | 2 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| 3 | 4 | 2 | 1 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| 4 | 4 | 3 | 2 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| 6 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| 7 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | – | – | – | – | – |
| 8 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | – | – | – | – | – |
| 9 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| 10 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | – | – | – | – |
| 11 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | – | – | – |
| 12 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | – | – | – |
| 13 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | – | – |
| 14 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | – | – |
| 15 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | – |
| 16 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | – |
| 17 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| 18 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| 19 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 |
| 20 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
Starting Packages
Race: Elf.
Armor: None (speed 30 ft.).
Weapons: Quarterstaff (1d6/1d6, crit ×2, 4 lb., two-handed, bludgeoning).
Light crossbow (1d8, crit 19–20/×2, range inc. 80 ft., 4 lb., piercing).
Skill Selection: Pick a number of skills equal to 2 + Int modifier.
| Skill | Ranks | Ability | Armor Check Penalty |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spellcraft | 4 | Int | – |
| Concentration | 4 | Con | – |
| Knowledge (arcana) | 4 | Int | – |
| Decipher Script | 4 | Int | – |
| Hide (cc) | 2 | Dex | 0 |
| Move Silently (cc) | 2 | Dex | 0 |
| Search (cc) | 2 | Int | – |
| Spot (cc) | 2 | Wis | – |
Feat: Toughness.
School Specialization: None.
Spellbook: All 0-level spells; plus charm person, summon monster I, and sleep; plus one of these spells of your choice per point of Intelligence bonus (if any): cause fear, color spray, magic missile, and silent image.
Gear: Backpack with waterskin, one day's trail rations, bedroll, sack, and flint and steel. Ten candles, map case, three pages of parchment, ink, inkpen. Spell component pouch, spellbook. Case with 10 crossbow bolts.
Gold: 3d6 gp.
