Wizard campaign trait...balanced?

Well, taking some inspiration from a 3.5 feat, I thought it could make a nice trait:

I more or less cleaved it in half and called it a trait:

Collegiate Wizard

Prerequisites: Wizard level 1

Benefit: You begin play with knowledge of four 1st-level spells, plus 1
per point of Intelligence bonus. Each time you gain a wizard level, you
may add three spells to your spellbook. You gain a +1 bonus on all
Knowledge (arcana) checks.

Normal: 1st-level wizards begin play with knowledge of three 1st-level
spells, and add two spells per level to their spellbook.

Special: You can take this trait only as a 1st-level character.

...

There's other flavor involved, but that's the gist of it. What do you think?

Unless the wizard is under serious time pressure (where he doesn't have the time to scribe extra spells in his book) mechanically this 'trait' is just excess gold. (Probably much less gold than could be saved via the hedgewizard trait.) And as the trait is back-loaded in its dispersal pattern it gives out so I don't see any real balance problems with it.

From a GM perspective I think I could get a lot of mileage out of it for indroducing NPCs/Plot hooks as well. So I'd probably approve this.

Hmmm....

Seems slightly too powerful, but as Maezer points out, the power is really backloaded, with the really valuable stuff coming much later in the campaign.

Considering that the DM has some control over the Wizard's access to spells, and could make finding new spells that the wizard doesn't already have difficult, I think this would be OK as a trait.

I think the original feat is a little overpowered, but not game-breakingly so. It might just be the games my group tends to play. We lean towards "hurry-up and save the world", so it's not just the gold you save scribing the extra spells into your book, but the time. Also, for whatever reason, we tend not to see wizards as BBEGs, so capture very few spellbooks. Our table is just not very wizard friendly in game play, so this feat helps make up for that (and thus, feels very powerful.)

In a more "stock" game, with plenty of downtime, easy access to magic shops and scrolls, and a more normal chance of capturing spellbooks, I think there is no problem with the feat (or the trait you proposed)

On a semi-related note, I think this trait should be given for free to universalist wizards to give them an edge in spells known vs. spells per day of the specialists.

Get rid of the bonus to Knowledge(Arcana) and it should be okay.

I think even at 1 more spell per level it is the level of a feat.

I think even at 1 more spell per level it is the level of a feat.

I think it is quite good, since that is what the human favored class bonus to wizard gives. Then again, it's not as good as the same thing for sorcerers or oracles...

I'd say it is good. Quite good, certainly, but imo not broken. Is there a witch equivalent - like coven correspondent, or some such :) ?