Introduction
This article covers the remastered version of the Wizard. For help with the legacy Wizard, see our Legacy Wizard Handbook.
The Wizard’s feats almost exclusively emphasize spellcasting, providing Spellshape feats and options to stretch, recharge, and expand your spell slots. Other options include access to Familiars and Focus Spells, but the emphasis is definitely on spellcasting.
Most of the feat options will be broadly applicable to any wizard regardless of subclass. However, the School of Universal Magic’s ability to use Drain Bonded Item multiple times per day causes some unique interactions with related feats.
Table of Contents
Disclaimer
RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks.
- : Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
- : OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances. Useful sometimes.
- : Good options. Useful often.
- : Fantastic options, often essential to the function of your character. Useful very frequently.
Wizard Class Feats
1st-Level Wizard Feats
-
(PC1): Countering
enemy spells is great, but you need to have that same spell prepared just to
have the opportunity. It’s hard enough when you have a spell repertoire and
can burn an appropriate spell slot, but when you’re a prepared caster your
ability to counter spells drops precipitously as you go through the day
casting spells. This problems get larger every time Paizo publishes a new
source book because your odds of having the right spell get smaller as more
spells are introduced.
If you take this, Recognize Spell, Quick Recognition, and Clever Counterspell, then cram every single Common spell into your spellbook, this gets much more effective. But that’s two Class Feats, two Skill Feats, and won’t work until level 12. If you do want to go that route, pick a different 1st-level feat and retrain into Counterspell later in your career because it’s going to be almost completely useless until then. But even after all of that, remember that you spend a spell slot and make a Counteract check which you still might fail.
- CRB: Familiars are really good, but this only gets you two abilities. If you’re not taking Improved Familiar Attunement, you get a better deal from Familiar Master Dedication or Witch Dedication, though you’ll need to wait for level 2 for either. For help with your familiar, see our Practical Guide to Familiars.
- (PC1): Many low-level spells have poor range, and most Hexes have a range of either Touch or 30 ft., so you can get a lot of use out of this. Your familiar may be able to deliver touch spells for you, which may be sufficient.
-
(PC1): If you like to compulsively
collect spells like I do, Spellbook Prodigy can be a huge quality of life improvement. It makes doing so
cheaper, more reliable, and massively faster. If you’re fine with the spells that you get for free at every level, or if learning additional spells isn’t going to be an option for some reason, skip this.
It normally takes one hour per Spell Rank to learn a spell. Spellbook Prodigy reduces this to 10 minutes. At low levels this might not feel significant, but as you gain levels you’ll find that you’re spending days at a time to learn a few extra spells, and the problem only gets worse as you gain levels.
Ater spending whatever amount of time to Learn a Spell, you make a skill check (Arcana in this case). On a Success, you learn the spell and spend some money. On a Critical Success, the cost is halved. On a failure you can’t try again until you gain a level, and on a Critical Failure you also spend half of the cost. Spellbook Prodigy upgrades your Success rolls to Critical Success, effectively halving the cost to learn new spells. It also upgrades Critical Failure to Failure, so you never spend half the cost when things go very badly. Finally, it changes the retry calldown when you fail so that you can retry after a week.
The final portion of the feat allows you to work down the cost to learn a spell using the Earn an Income rules. This seems straightforward, but it doesn’t specify the level for the task. Earn an Income requires the GM to set a level for available jobs, which then determines how much income players can earn. With no guidance on what level to make the job for Spellbook Prodigy, you can’t predict the benefit. I recommend using the minimum level to learn the spell. This will mean that spells which are near the top of the player’s limits will justify the work, while lower-rank spells may not be worth the time.
Remaster Changes: The time to learn spells was changed from half of the normal time to a fixed 10 minutes regardless of Spell Rank, you now upgrade a Success to a Critical Success, and you can now spend Downtime to work down the cost to learn a spell. Overall, it’s a huge improvement.
- (PC1): Great for Blasters. If this adds one more target to an AOE spell it’s worth the Action.
2nd-Level Wizard Feats
- (PC1): Two more cantrips is a significant expansion to your spellcasting options, especially at low levels when you don’t have a lot of spell slots.
-
(PC1): The remaster
rules make it very clear that casting a spell is obvious to observers:
“Spellcasting creates obvious sensory manifestations, such as bright lights,
crackling sounds, and sharp smells from the gathering magic.” The Subtle
trait removes the visual indications of casting a spell, making spells
unobservable unless they have an obvious visual effect. You won’t always
need this, but it works consistently when you do.
However, the feat doesn’t remove the Manipulate trait. This means that you do still need to move and that you still trigger Reactions.
Remaster Changes:: This no longer requires skill checks to hide your spell components. A significant buff.
- (PC1): I love the concept, but the Action cost is too high for the amount of resistance in the vast majority of cases. You’ll also run into situations where enemies have resistance or immunity to whatever type of damage they deal (such as red dragons being immune to fire) so casting a spell to get temporary resistance to that damage type may not affect your enemies. In other situations enemies may simply change the type of damage that they’re dealing (spellcasters, etc.). The best use case for this is enemies dealing damage of one type multiple times in small amounts, but of a type which they’re not resistant to. Enemies using weapons with runes that add elemental damage are a good example, but situations like that are not common.
- (PC1): Familiars are really good, and expanding their limited number of abilities can make them even better. For advice on what to do with the extra abilities, see my Practical Guide to Familiars.
- (PC1): Only situationally useful, and you can usually switch to non-damaging spells to incapacitate enemies rather than non-lethally fireballing a rook.
4th-Level Wizard Feats
- (PC1): You have absolutely no business making Strikes with weapons.
- (PC1): Very situational. You can usually carry these items with your wherever you go without issue.
- (PC1): An extra Focus Point each day in a pinch. Unfortunately, this only works if you Drain Bonded Item to re-cast one of your curriculum spells, which reduces how useful Drain Bonded Item is. If you need more Focus Points, there’s a Familiar Ability for that.
- (PC1): The bonus is decent, but the initial radius makes this borderline unusable, and since this only applies to spells it’s only situationally useful. Allies moving close enough to stay in the area are exposing the whole party to area damage effects.
6th-Level Wizard Feats
- (PC1): A great choice for wizards who favor illusion spells, but the Wizard’s typically poor Charisma may make Deception a difficult option.
- (PC1): Not a ton of damage, but the AOE is decent and there’s no save. Because the effect is an Emanation, it starts at the edge of your summoned creature’s square. This means that if you summon a bigger creature, the area damage effect covers a larger area, potentially hitting additional creatures.
-
(PC1): Only
situationally useful simply because not every creature has a Status bonus to
saves.
Remaster Changes: The feat’s name was previously Spell Penetration.
- (PC1): This can add some helpful versatility, but it’s only for one spell slot, so you have access to exactly one additional spell. Why take this when you could take a multiclass archetype feat?
- (PC1): A 30% chance is not reliable enough to justify.
8th-Level Wizard Feats
- Advanced School Spell (PC1): Varies by spell. See our Wizard Subclasses Breakdown for information on each school spell.
-
(PC1): This allows
you to cast several previously-cast non-cantrip spells per day, but the time
limit requires them to be cast on your next turn, so you need to cast
1-Action or 2-Action spells to keep the chain going. Working your way down
to your lowest-rank spells isn’t always a good option in combat, but if you
don’t need to move, you can easily work your way down through the Spell
Ranks casting progressively weaker offensive spells. Just be mindful of the
Action cost to Sustain (or just avoid Sustained spells), and remember that casting a 3-Action spell won’t
leave you room to activate Bond Conservation.
The biggest danger in this combo is the lack of movement. If possible, start cascading while you’re in cover.
For School of Unified Theory of Magic, this feat is . The ability to perform these cascades numerous times each day is extremely powerful
-
(PC1): If you’re
relying heavily on polymorph spells to adopt a combat form, extending a
single spell’s duration from 1 minute to 10 minutes can help stretch your
spells between multiple encounters. The spell will be less effective (you
cast it 2 ranks lower than the slot spent), but that may be preferable to
casting the same spell twice.
In many parties you’ll need time between encounters to Refocus, to Treat Wounds, and to repair damaged equipment like shields, so the 10-minute duration won’t be a significant improvement. This can still work in parties who can manage back-to-back fights without issue, but even then I wouldn’t use this for every one of your polymorph spells.
- (PC1): A good way to support your entire party, but requiring a Critical Success does make this a gamble. You probably can’t use this with Automatic Knowledge because Automatic Knowledge requires you to use Assurance, and Assurance won’t be good enough to get a Critic
10th-Level Wizard Feats
- (PC1): Helpful for blasters, but why not just switch to a spell that does a different type of damage?
- (PC1): Even though it’s only once per day, this is still really good. Most spells have a 2-Action casting time, so getting two spells out in a single turn means that you’re doing the most important part of two turns in a single turn.
-
(PC1):
At the bare minimum, this is 2 more spell slots every day, and eventually grows to 4. But you can
also give these to allies, allowing them to cast spells without you doing it
for them (though they will need to be Arcana spellcasters unless they take Trick Magic Item). This is especially useful for spells that target the caster but which might be dangerous or unhelpful for you to use.
Remaster Changes: The feat’s name changed from “Scroll Savant” to “Scroll Adept”
12th-Level Wizard Feats
- (PC1): If you want any realistic hope of counterspelling, you absolutely need this. Even then, counterspelling is really hard.
-
(PC1):
For a single character using this on its own, this is a minor damage
boost provided that you can follow your first spell with one or more other
spells which deal the same type of damage. Spells which deal persistent
damage like Acid Arrow are a great choice, as are spells which can
repeatedly deal damage like Flaming Sphere, and you can repeatedly apply
Forcible Enemy by casting cantrips to renew the effect and keep the
Vulnerability in place at minimal cost.
However, 5 or 10 extra damage per turn isn’t amazing on its own. To really get the most out of Forcible Energy, you need to coordinate with your allies. Every ally that can deal damage of the same type will deal additional damage thanks to the Vulnerability, so coordinate with your allies to emphasize acid, electricity, fire, and sonic damage options. Even martial allies can join in thanks to Weapon Property Runes, and dealing as little as 1 damage of the appropriate type is enough to trigger the bonus damage from Vulnerability. If everyone in a party of four can trigger the Vulnerability one time, that’s 20 additional damage at the cost of a single Action, and the more times your party can hit the target, the more powerful Forcible Energy becomes.
- (PC1): Nice, but only situationally useful. Most creatures can’t cast spells and won’t be using magic items.
- (PC1): Neat, but only situationally useful.
14th-Level Wizard Feats
- (PC1): Focusing just once to get back all of your points is nice, but if you have 10 minutes to Refocus you almost certainly have 30 to do it 2 more times.
- (PC1): If you want this to be at all useful, you need Counterpsell, Clever Counterspell, Quick Recognition, and now Reflect Spell. That’s 3 Class Feats and 1 Skill Feat all so that you can have a chance to sometimes reflect a spell at the caster if you’re fortunate enough to have an appropriate spell prepared. This is way too much investment for something that just doesn’t work frequently.
- (PC1): It’s unlikely that you’ll get to deal the damage because it’s so easy for enemies to move out of a 5-foot burst, but forcing one or more enemies to Step or Stride to get out of the area trades 1 of your Actions for at least 1 of your enemies’, and that’s frequently a good trade. If you do want the damage, have an ally Grab the target to keep them from moving
-
(PC1): Combined with
Bond Conservation you can perform two cascading series of spells, though the
second spell does need to be 2 ranks lower than the first spell in your
previous Cascade.
Because School of Unified Magical Theory already allows wizards of that school to use Drain Bonded Item once per Spell Rank each day, you may find that Superior Bond isn’t worth the feat.
16th-Level Wizard Feats
- (PC1):
- (PC1): A great debuff aganist crowds.
-
(PC1): Situationally useful, and whether or not you can use this effectively
depends heavily on what spells you chose to learn and which ones you
generally prepare.
The limitation on the effects of a choice persisting are frustratingly vague. Spells like Resist Energy are called out as examples, but also you can’t change the spell if prior effects would persist in any way. Does dealing damage qualify? Does preventing damage qualify? I think the intent is to prevent abuse cases such as infinite healing, but the result is frustrating and the text leaves your GM to clean up the mess.
18th-Level Wizard Feats
- (PC1): That’s a massive amount of versatility, but I don’t know if it’s worth such a high-level class feat. At this level you can afford cart loads of scrolls to cover all of those situational spells that you would use this to cast.
- CRB: Limiting the spell to spells without a duration means that blast spells like Fireball are usually your best options. Sure, recharging a spell slot is always great, but by this level you have 9th-level spells and your 4th-level spells probably stopped being a go-to offensive option a very long time ago, so you’re most likely to look for low-level utility options. But at that point, why not buy some scrolls?
- (PC1): Great for rescuing your high-level save-or-suck spells. Save-or-suck spells frequently have no effect if the target succeeds on the save, so you’re often gambling a spell slot to cast them. This makes that gamble considerably safer.
20th-Level Wizard Feats
- (PC1): 10th-level spells are the coolest thing that you can do. Do it twice per day.
- (PC1): Complicated, but potentially very powerful.
- (PC1): Realistically this means preparing 4 additional 9th-level spells.
-
(PC1): Excellent if
you rely heavily on Spellshape feats. This notably allows you to use
Spellshape feats with 3-Action spells.
Remaster Changes: The feat was previously named “Metamagic Mastery”.
Legacy Wizard Class Feats
These feats have not been reprinted in the Remastered rules. A such, they are available for you to use as they are currently written. However, you may need to adapt things to match the updated rules.
1st-Level Legacy Wizard Feats
- Eschew Materials (CRB): No longer has an effect.
- Hand of the Apprentice (): The Remastered Wizard doesn’t qualify, but even if you could, the School of Universal Magical Theory gets it for free.
4th-Level Legacy Wizard Feats
- Irezoko Tattoo (A:CLO) (Uncommon): One extra Focus Point per day, but the 3 Actions to use this make it too slow to justify in combat, and the remastered rules for Refocus mean that this is nearly never useful outside of combat.
- Silent Spell (CRB): No longer has an effect. Use Subtle Spell instead.
- Undying Conviction (BotD): Very situational. This might matter in a campaign where the protagonists are primarily undead or undead adjacent, but in a typically campaign this will probably never matter.
6th-Level Legacy Wizard Feats
- Detonating Spell (KoL) (Uncommon): Not worth the additional action cost. If you want area damage, cast an area damage spell instead of trying to turn a single-target damage spell into an AOE.
8th-Level Legacy Wizard Feats
- Chaotic Spell (WtD #3): The effects are good for the most part, and avoiding damage resistances/immunities is great, but the random nature of the feat makes it unpredictable, and unpredictability means that it’s not consistently useful.
- Helt’s Spelldance (Fb) (uncommon): A good option to get yourself out of melee, and it also imposes a save penalty. Of course, it requires you to invest in Performance, which is otherwise nearly useless. This isn’t an easy choice for the Wizard. Consider teleporting.
- Universal Versitility (CRB): No longer has an effect.
12th-Level Legacy Wizard Feats
- Necromancer’s Vissage (BotD): Only useful in a campaign which features undead almost constantly.
14th-Level Legacy Wizard Feats
- Sepulchral Sublimation (BotD): If you have a minion which is on its last legs, this can turn that minion into fuel for a nearly-free necromancy spell. I wouldn’t use this on permanent minions, but you could use this on summoned undead minions before their duration expires, then u
- Shift Spell (PF #167) (uncommon): Not always useful, but this can be a great way to reposition area control effects so that their effects aren’t negated by enemies moving out of them.
20th-Level Legacy Wizard Feats
- Reclaim Spell (PF #156) (Uncommon): This grants you the ability to Dismiss some spells of 4th rank or lower which otherwise could not be dismissed. Situations where that is useful are exceptionally rare, and can usually be handled by dispelling them.
- Worldsphere Gravity (PF #168) (Uncommon): Both effects are good, but won’t be as consistently useful as other 20th-level feats.
