The Wizard Handbook: Pathfinder Class Guide

Introduction

The Wizard sits at the top of the class tier list. With many of the best spells in the game and a practically limitless list of spells known, you can be and do most anything in the game. On top of your spells, you get several potent class features and a few bonus feats which can expand you’re already stunning capabilities.

Disclaimer

We support a limited subset of Pathfinder’s rules content. If you would like help with Pathfinder options not covered here, please email me and I may be able to provide additional assistance.

RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks. Also note that many colored items are also links to the Paizo SRD.

Red: Bad, useless options, or options whichare extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
Orange: OK options, or useful optionsthat only apply in rare circ*mstances. Useful sometimes.
Green: Good options. Useful often.
Blue: Fantastic options, often essentialto the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

Wizard Class Features

Hit Points: d6 hit points leaves you prettysquishy, but you have a laundry list of defensive options to put in front ofyour hit points.

Base Attack Bonus: Fortunately, you’ll almostnever need to make an actual attack. Touch AC scales very little from level 1to level 20, going from anaverage of 11.6 on CR 1 monsters to 12.7 on CR 20 monsters.

Saves: Your only good save is Will, butbecause Wizards only “need” one ability, you can afford to invest some of yourability score points in Dexterity and Constitution.

Proficiencies: Wizards get very little in theway of proficiencies, but beyond very early levels you won’t need them. Alight crossbow is an excellent backup weapon for a Wizard, but you’ll be morereliable relying on touch attack cantrips. No armor, either, but a mithralbuckler and a haramaki will be plenty alongside your magical defenses.

Skills: Wizards only get 2+ skills, but youget every knowledge skill as a class skill, and your absurdintelligence will give you plenty of skill points to throw around. Rememberthat permanently increasing your intelligence will give you additional skillpoints retroactively, which will be nice when you hit levels 8 and 16.

Arcane Bond (Ex or Sp): You have the optionof a familiar or a bonded item, and both options have their merits.

Familiar: Always a solid choice, thefamiliar is an ever-present and ever-useful companion. Familiars can serveas scouts, assassins, couriers, assistants, and even meat shields in apinch. Their passive bonuses to the wizard are roughly equal to a feat, andthe provide the benefits of Alertness when they are adjacent. Effectively, afamiliar gives you two feats and a cool pet. For help with familiars, see myPractical Guide to Familiars.
amulet: Jewelry is nice an safe. Itdoesn’t take up a hand, it’s hard to take from you in combat, and it’s agood option for enchanting.
ring: The ring is really the gold standardof bonded items. It’s incredibly small, it’s easy to hide under a glove oron your person, it’s a very difficult target for sundering, and you canenchant is as per Enchant Ring without the feat. Magic rings have a lot ofgreat options, but Enchant Ring is rarely worth the feat, so this gives yousome options to save some money.
staff: If you like to use magic Staves,staff might be a good option. If you only want one magic staff, this willsave you a feat. If you don’t enjoy magic staves, you have a big, obviousstick which people can either take from you or destroy.
wand: Wands are generally only good for lowlevel spells which you plan to cast frequently, like Cure Light Wounds.Wizards have very few options which can justify being on a wand, and a wandis very easy to disarm/steal/sunder.
weapon: A wizard should know better. Youshould never be using a weapon enough to justify actually carrying itaround.

Arcane School: Arcane School really defineshow your wizard will be played, and every option has something great to offer.For information on specific schools, see theWizard School Breakdown.

Cantrips: Fantastic and versatile.

Scribe Scroll: Scrolls are great forwizards, and giving you the feat for free is nice. Use it to prepare scrollsof spells that you need infrequently so that you can cover all of yourbases.

Abilities

Intelligence is everything. Saves are a secondary concern.

Str: Dump to 7. Make the Fighter do thelifting.

Dex: Important for saves, and for theoccasional touch attack.

Con: Your hit points are garbage, andFortitude saves will be a problem for you.

Int: You get magic, skills, and a bonus toknowledge skills (which you will have a ton of). Max at start, boost early,boost often.

Wis: You get high Will saves, but with noother real ability dependencies, bumping Wisdom to at least 12 for additionalsaves is wise.

Cha: dump to 7 and keep your mouth shut untilits time to throw some spells around or spout some knowledge..

In addition to normal ability considerations, Wizards can also make excellent use of the aging rules. Being middle-aged gives you a -1 penalty to your physical abilities, but gets you a pleasant +1 to your mental ability scores. However, this can be a problem for your already low reflex and fortitude saves.

25 Point Buy	20 Point Buy	15 Point Buy	Elite Array
Str: 7 Dex: 14 Con: 14 Int: 18 Wis: 14 Cha: 7	Str: 7 Dex: 14 Con: 14 Int: 18 Wis: 11 Cha: 7	Str: 7 Dex: 12 Con: 12 Int: 18 Wis: 12 Cha: 7	Str: 8 Dex: 14 Con: 13 Int: 15 Wis: 12 Cha: 10

Races

Bonuses to Intelligence are key, and other bonuses to spellcasting are nice.

Dwarf: Dwarves are an interesting choicefor wizards. Bonus Constitution and Wisdom make them very durable, a +2 onsaves against spells is fantastic, and Darkvision is always helpful until youcast the spell. However, they don’t bring anything specifically useful toWizards offensively.

Traits

Deft Dodger (Combat): +1 to a weaksave.
Reactionary (Combat): +2 initiative ishuge. Combined with Improved Initiative you’ll go first much morefrequently.
Resilient (Combat): +1 to a weaksave.
Arcane Temper (Magic): A bonus toinitiative and a bonus to Concentration checks. If you already took a combattrait and didn’t take Reactionary, this is a good option.
Hedge Magician (Magic): 5% may not seemlike a lot, but it adds up very quickly. 5% of the crafting cost of a +1weapon is enough to buy a 1st-level potion or two 1st-level scrolls.
Pragmatic Activator (Magic): UsingIntelligence for Use Magic Device will get you a bigger bonus than magic ita class skill. Wizards have the best spell list in the game, but you don’tget access to some useful options, especially divine spells.
Resilient Caster (Magic): Toosituational.
Shrouded Casting (Magic): Buy a spellcomponent pouch.
Volatile Conduit (Magic): 1d4 damage onceper day is nothing.
Life of Toil (Social): +1 to a weaksave.
Warrior of Old (Elf Racial): Identical toReactionary.
Elven Reflexes (Half-Elf Racial):Identical to Reactionary.

Skills

Appraise (Int): Too situational.
Fly (Dex): One rank is plenty.
Knowledge (Arcana) (Int): Identifyconstructs, dragons, and magical beats. Fairly few classes get access tothis, so you need to step up here.
Knowledge (Dungeoneering) (Int): Identifyaberrations and oozes. If you spend any time underground or in dungeons,this is worth maxing. Otherwise, spend one rank and ride your intelligencebonus.
Knowledge (Engineering) (Int): One rankmaybe.
Knowledge (Geography) (Int): One rankmaybe.
Knowledge (History) (Int): Situational,and very dependent on the campaign.
Knowledge (Local) (Int): Definitely wortha rank, maybe more if you don’t have a rogue putting ranks in this.
Knowledge (Nature) (Int): Identifyanimals. Unless you have a druid or ranger, you may be the only one in theparty with this skill.
Knowledge (Nobility) (Int): Situational,and very dependent on the campaign.
Knowledge (Planes) (Int): Identifyoutsiders. Outsiders are diverse and strange, and knowing stuff about themwill help your survival greatly.
Knowledge (Religion) (Int): Identifyundead. More easily available than Knowledge (Arcana), but still veryuseful, especially since your cleric probably dumped intelligence.
Linguistics (Int): Cast Tongues.
Spellcraft (Int): Craft items and identifyspells and magic effects. Max this every time.

Feats

Wizards certainly aren’t feat starved, which leaves a lot of room for dipping into metamagic, item crafting, and other fun things. This section does not cover metamagic feats or item creation feats. For help with metamagic feats, see my Practical Guide to Metamagic.

Combat Casting: A +4 bonus to yourconcentration checks when casting defensively is tempting, but you shouldnot be casting defensively often enough to justify spending a feat on it.Optimizing Concentration is very easy, and you can do it with traits anditems instead of wasting a feat.
Eschew Materials: Not a lot of spellshave material components which are covered by this feat, and you can buy aspell component pouch for the rest.
Improved Familiar: If you take afamiliar, Improved Familiar can get you some interesting options. For helpwith familairs, see myPractical Guide to Familiars.
Improved Initiative: Go first, and getcontrol of the combat early.
Spell Focus: If you picked a specificschool, this is essential. If you’re a Universalist, you may want to takethis more than once or not at all.
- Greater Spell Focus: Another +1 toyour DCs means you are 5% better at every spell you cast from thatschool.
Spell Penetration: Late in the game a lotof monsters will have Spell Resistance. You will need this feat at somepoint.
- Greater Spell Penetration: SpellPenetration is likely plenty, but another +2 never hurts if you have afree feat.
Spell Perfection: Fantastically powerful,but it tends to make you pigeon-hole yourself.

Arcane Discoveries

Wizards can take an Arcane Discovery in place of a regular feat or Wizard bonus feat.

Arcane Builder: Crafting high level itemstakes an insanely long amount of time. If this is a problem, grab thisdiscovery.

Fast Study: If time to prepare your spells isfrequently a problem, something is very seriously wrong in your campaign.

Feral Speech (Su): Why would a wizard everwant to talk to an animal when he can summon demons?

Golem Constructor: Why have golems when youcan just Dominate people?

Immortality (Ex): Live forever. Not really a gameeffect, but very cool flavor-wise.

Multimorph (Su): Great if you depend onpolymorph spells.

Opposition Research: By level 9, spendingtwo slots to cast an opposition school spell isn’t going to cripple you. Ifyou really need a spell from an opposition school, two spell slots is likelyworth less than a feat slot.

Split Slot: Since so many of enchantmentspells are going to be save-or suck, your high level spell slots are likelymore productive. However, don’t underestimate the value of low levelsbuffs.

True Name (Sp): Planar Binding is a goodspell, and this effectively lets you use it at will as a move action.

Staff-Like Wand: If you like wands, thisis a worthwhile discovery. However, you can’t get it until level 11 when youare casting 6th level spells, and wands only go up to 4th level spells. If youlack combat options, this can really improve the usefulness of casterlevel-dependant spells like Magic Missile or Scorching Ray.

Weapons

Stop. Put that down. You’re going to hurt yourself.

Dagger: Carry one or two for utilitypurposes, but don’t plan to pull them out in combat.
Light Crossbow: A decent backup weapon atlow levels when you run low on spells, but you will be more reliable withcantrips because your attack rolls will be so low.

Armor

If you need AC, you’re doing something wrong. Still, it doesn’t hurt to get some cheap protection. Keep in mind that Mage Armor is generally your best bet when you need AC, but Mage Armor isn’t always on.

Haramaki: +1 AC, no arcane spell failure,and at 5 gp you can afford it at first level.
Mithral Buckler: +1 AC, no arcane spellfailure, and cheap to enhance.
Silken Ceremonial: +1 AC, 4 pounds, noACP or spell failure. Plus, it’s a sweet ceremonial robe. Haramaki isstrictly better, but it’s not a super cool robe.

Magic Items

Rods

Metamagic, Any: Metamagic rods, especiallylesser rods, are a bargain. 3 users per day and you can apply them toprepared spells as you cast them. Extend Spell is a personal favorite,especially for hours/level duration buffs like mage armor so that you canstretch their duration all day or even overnight once you’re high enoughlevel.

Staffs

It’s difficult to recommend specific staffs without knowing your individual character, so instead I want to make a general endorsem*nt of the concept of magic staffs in Pathfinder. If you are a 3.5 native, go read Pathfinder’s rules for staffs because they have improved dramatically.

Staffs are a reliable, rechargeable source of extra spellcasting that can give spellcasters easy and reliable access to spells from their spell list which they might not want to learn, or which they might like to use so frequently that they can’t prepare the spell enough times in a given day. On days when you’re not adventuring (traveling, resting, etc.) you can easily recharge any staff even if you can only cast one of the spells which the staff contains.

Wondrous Items

Cloak of Resistance: Too crucial toforego.
Headband of Vast Intelligence: Get itearly, enhance it often.

Permanent Spells

Reduce Person: Reducing your size offersseveral useful benefits. Dexterity improves your poor Reflex saves, you geta size bonus to AC, and you get a net +2 to your ranged touch attacks forgreat spells like Disintegrate. The Strength penalty doesn’t matter. Youcould reduce your size to tiny if your race is normally small, and it stillwon’t have a significant negative effect. Even if you like to use polymorphspells, this won’t handicap you since most of your polymorph forms aren’thumanoid and thus won’t be affected by Reduce Person.

Multiclassing and Prestige Classes

Don’t, unless you have a specific concept in mind. If you must multiclass, try very hard to not give up spellcaster levels. Also keep in mind that classes which give you spellcasting do not allow you to learn spells for free when you gain levels.

The Wizard Handbook: Pathfinder Class Guide – RPGBOT (2024)